De Gaulles Tanks

Stealing Hawaii
Passchendaele
Mindanao Moros
Wartime WASPs
Bosworth Field
HistoryNet.com

JERSE Y BRAWL BRITAIN CAME TO

178 1 FR A NC E AND NNEL ISLAND
IN ER A TINY CHA
BLOWS O V

British troops rush to

aid mortally wounded
Major Francis Peirson
during the Battle of Jersey

NOVEMBER 2017
 A LANDMARK DOCUMENTARY EVENT

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 NOVEMBER 2017 Letters 6 News 8

Features
30
When France
Deed Hitlers
Panzers
Charles de Gaulle championed
his nations armored forces
By John Koster

22
The French
Are Coming!
The American Revolutionary
War sparked a French-British
ght for a tiny European island
By David T. Zabecki

Departments 14 16
Interview Valor
Jane Doyle The Fighting
Parson

2 MILITARY HISTORY NOVEMBER 2017

 Reviews 70 War Games 78 Captured! 80

62
Queens Ransom
Hawaiis indebted last queen
lost her throne to avaricious
sugar barons and Americas
headlong rush to empire
By Paul X. Rutz

38 48
Forlorn Victory Hearts and
The costly 1917 Battle of Minds in
Passchendaele was a three-
month slog through hell
Mindanao
By Ron Soodalter John J. Pershing honed his skills
defeating a Muslim insurgency
By Paul Maggioni

56
The Peril
of War
Renowned American
artist Thomas Hart Benton
depicted the U.S. Navy
during both world wars

18 20 76
What We Hardware Hallowed Ground
Learned From... Char B1 bis Bosworth Field,
Nagashino, 1575 England

On the cover: Despite urging from his troops to assume a less conspicuous position, Major Francis Peirson took a fatal musket ball
to the chest in the Battle of Jersey, as depicted in John Singleton Copleys 1783 painting. PHOTO: Jersey Museum and Art Gallery
3
 Join the discussion at
militaryhistory.com
Camelback
Colonialism
The Somaliland Camel Corps
mopped up a Mad Mullah and
policed the British protectorate
through both world wars
By Nicholas Smith
I N T H E ARCHIVES:
Pershing Makes
an Army
General John J. Black Jack Pershing
established an Army that would ght
under its own commanders in Europe
By Edward G. Lengel
Interview U.S. Army medevac pilot Major
Mary Jennings Hegar received the DFC and
Hollywood notice for her actions in Afghanistan
Tools Its speed, agility and destructive
potential made the tracked, multigun M50 Ontos
an ideal infantry support weapon in Vietnam
Reviews In Grunt Mary Roach takes a
fascinating, witty look at the R&D process
behind cutting-edge military technology
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 Letters
Tokyo Bay
Great article by Michael D.
Hull [Payoff in Tokyo Bay,
September 2017]. However,
the last sentence, in which
he states that visitors to Mis-
souri can stand on the same
teak-covered quarterdeck
where World War II ended,
is somewhat misleading.
The original planking from
the deck where the surren-
der of Japan took place was
cut from Missouri and is
displayed on the wall at the
MacArthur Memorial in
Norfolk, Va.
James R. Recker
INDIANAPOLIS, IND.
Editor responds: In 1999
USS Missouri opened as a
museum ship [ussmissouri.
org] at Ford Island, Pearl
Harbor, Hawaii, within sight
of the USS Arizona Memo-
rial. A plaque marks the spot
on the surrender deck atop
which Allied and Japanese
representatives signed the
surrender documents, ending
World War II. While the Mac-
Arthur Memorial [macarthur
memorial.org] proudly dis-
plays a replica of the plaque
6 MILITARY HISTORY NOVEMBER 2017
and planking, Missouri re-
tains the same teak-covered
quarterdeck from that his-
toric Sunday, Sept. 2, 1945.
American Sieges
Interesting article on sieges
in American history [On
the Inside Under Fire, by
Ron Soodalter, July 2017].
Putting the cannons from
Fort Ticonderoga on dis-
play around the port of Bos-
ton was a brilliant maneuver,
but the author failed to dis-
close there was absolutely
no shot or powder avail-
able for those cannons. In
other words, it was a gar-
gantuan bluff.
Richard Gearon
TUCSON, ARIZ.
Editor responds: Youre abso-
lutely right about the gun-
powder shortage in Boston,
a crisis precipitated in part
by British Lt. Gen. Thomas
Gages confiscation of sup-
plies from a powder house in
Charlestown prior to the out-
break of hostilities. But part
of the brilliance of Colonel
Henry Knoxs retrieval of can-
nons from Ticonderoga was
his simultaneous transport of
the powder and shot to arm
the guns. Thus a very willing
George Washington was fi-
nally able to threaten the
British with actual action,
albeit limited to the supplies
he had on hand.
Khomeini
[Re. 444 Days in Hell,
March 2017:] Ron Soodalter
describes Ayatollah Kho-
meini as a scholarly, char-
ismatic individual who
combined an appreciation of
ancient Persian poetry with
a thorough knowledge of,
and devotion to, the Quran.
Quoting writer Eugene Sol-
omon, he continues the de-
scription of Khomeinis
personality as exuding a
captivating moral urgency
and prophetic power.
This is quite a benign
description for an indi-
vidual who imposed an 8th
century theocracy on a mod-
ern nation. The entire world
now sees the morality of
his vision.
Oren Johnson
DECATUR, GA.
Yank in the SS
When I picked up the Jan-
uary 2017 issue and read
the article A Yank in the
SS, by Ron Soodalter, it
literally sent a cold shiver
down my spine. It is the rst
time I had ever seen a pub-
lic acknowledgement of my
fathers World War II outt,
the U.S. Army Air Forces
354th Air Service Squadron,
a small and very specified
unit of 385 men. Any men-
tion of the organization
typically eludes most com-
mon web searches. Your ar-
ticle helped me understand
more clearly the 354ths role
in the war.
Its unfortunate, how-
ever, the information re-
ceived comes in the context
of a person (Martin Monti
does not deserve the word
American, soldier or man)
defecting to the Nazis. Hav-
ing met a number of the
354th servicemen through
multiple war reunions, I
am positive each and every
one of them would have
stopped this perpetrator
through whatever means
possible had they known
his intentions.
That said, my father once
shared a story about lack
of security: He had suffered
a broken bone in an air
raid in North Africa. Be-
fore rejoining his unit, he
was well enough to walk
with crutches and attended
the Casablanca Conference.
Needless to say, an enlisted
mans presence shows a cer-
tain laxness, but he recalled
that at least one local man
with camel in tow pretty
much walked right up to
the high-ranking partici-
pants. I remember him say-
ing, Now if that guy was a
German, history would have
been changed.
Douglas Holste
GREENDALE, WIS.
NAVAL HISTORY AND HERITAGE COMMAND
Send letters to
Editor, Military History
HistoryNet
1919 Gallows Road, Suite 400
Vienna, VA 22182-4038
or via e-mail to
militaryhistory@historynet.com
Please include name, address
and phone number
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 News By Brendan Manley
ASSOCIATED PRESS ADMITS
WARTIME DEAL WITH NAZIS
The Associated Press [ap.org] acknowledges having struck
a deal with a Nazi-run picture agency during World War II
to distribute images taken by German photographers to
American newspapers and in turn provide its photos to
German media. At the time U.S. counterintelligence agents
explored the arrangement as a possible violation of the
1917 Trading With the Enemy Act, but their Washington
superiors closed the case.
The revelation comes months after German historian
Norman Domeier discovered a letter detailing the sharing
agreement, which began in 1942 and was authorized by
U.S. Ofce of Censorship Director Byron Price, a former
AP editor hired by and reporting to President Franklin D.
Roosevelt. Among other images, AP shared photos of U.S.
wartime operations and Allied advances, copies of which
Adolf Hitler and SS ofcials reviewed. Joseph Goebbels
propaganda ministry compelled German publications to
run the images with pro-Nazi captions.
Wed be in a pretty mess if suddenly we had difculties
with the propaganda ministry
Louis Lochner, APs prewar Berlin bureau chief
8 MILITARY HISTORY NOVEMBER 2017
Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, at left, has a
prewar chat with APs Berlin bureau chief Louis Lochner.
John Daniszewski, APs current vice president and editor
at large for standards, defends its use of Nazi-supplied images,
insisting they were newsworthy, the agency had conducted
business through neutral countries, and APs captions clearly
stated their origin. An internal review of published wartime
images, however, reveals AP often concealed their origin,
identifying them only as wirephotos or radiophotos.
Domeier turned up the incriminating letter at the Wis-
consin Historical Society [wisconsinhistory.org], which
houses the papers of Louis P. Lochner, Pulitzer Prize
winning prewar chief of APs Berlin bureau, who twice
interviewed Hitler. Lochner approved the arrangement
with photographer and Waffen SS 2nd Lt. Helmut Laux,
who ran the Nazi-conscated AP picture service in Ger-
many as the private Bureau Laux. AP and Bureau Laux
swapped some 10,000 photos via diplomatic pouch, rst
through Lisbon and later Sweden. Lochner himself per-
sonally met with Laux and shared AP contacts with him.
WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY
 Series Reveals
WWII Secrets WAR
RECORD
October 1903
Datu Hassan, Muslim chief-
tain on the Philippine island
of Jolo, leads followers in
an uprising amid the Moro
Rebellion (see P. 48).
Troops under U.S. Army
Brig. Gen. Leonard Wood
The Hidden Side of quash Hassans revolt in
WW2 [vimeo.com/ March 1904, killing him in
ondemand/hiddensides
ofworldwar2], a ve-part NATIONAL WWII battle at Bud Bagsak.

Oct. 7, 1944
documentary exploring
lesser-known facts, g-
ures, people and events
MUSEUM EXPANDS Led by General Charles
de Gaulle, the Free French
of the European The- The National WWII Museum [nationalww2museum.org] in New Forces re-form the 13th
ater, is now available Orleans has opened its long-anticipated permanent exhibition The Dragoon Regiment as an
via Vimeo on Demand Arsenal of Democracy, conveying the realities of life on the home front armored unit, including a
(download per episode: company of 19 Char B1
through personal narratives, period artifacts, multimedia and inter-
$3.99; 48-hour rental: bis tanks (see PP. 20 and
$1.49). The Vivendi En- active displays. The space features nine immersive galleries: Gathering 30) used in the siege of
tertainment series com- Storm, exploring prewar tensions; A House Divided, relating the La Rochelle at wars end.
prises ve chronological isolationist/interventionist divide; America Besieged, which pro-
segments: The Rise of jects the chaotic Pearl Harbor attack on a 50-foot wraparound screen; Oct. 12, 1943
Hitler, The Holocaust, America Responds, presenting wartime propaganda; War Affects Weeks after serving as the
D-Day, The French subject of a series of paint-
Every Home, immersing visitors in a 1942-style home; United but
Liberation and Last ings by Thomas Hart Ben-
Secrets of the Nazis. Unequal, shedding light on issues of national loyalty and race; Citi- ton (see P. 56), the 312-foot
zens to Warriors, spotlighting efforts to train and mobilize troops; Gato-class submarine USS
CMP to Sell Manufacturing Victory, focusing on industrial efforts; and Manhattan Dorado sinks off Panama
Project, bringing visitors into the Atomic Age. with all hands, possibly after
M1 Garands striking a German mine.
CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS; THE NATIONAL WWII MUSEUM; STAFF SGT. KEN SCAR/US ARMY

The Civilian Marksman-

Nov. 10, 1917
ship Program [thecmp.
org] will soon take de-
livery of 86,000 vintage
MARCH RECALLS BATAAN In the nal action of
the costly Third Battle
A record 7,200 retired
M1 Garand rieswork- of Ypres, aka Battle of
and active-duty military Passchendaele (see
horse of U.S. infantry-
men during World War II personnel and civilians P. 38), the Canadian
and the Korean War. recently turned out for Corps captures the nal
Originally loaned to the the annual 26.2-mile German-held ridge north
Philippine government Bataan Memorial Death of the namesake village.
through a U.S. military
assistance program,
March [bataanmarch.
com] through the high
Nov. 3, 1896
these ries will be avail- Expansionist-minded
able for purchase by desert of White Sands Republican candidate
eligible U.S. citizens Missile Range, N.M. This William McKinley is
age 19 or older who be- year marks the 75th anniversary of the brutal forced march of some elected 25th president
long to a CMP-afliated 60,000 Filipino and 15,000 U.S. prisoners of war in the Philippines. of the United States, pav-
marksmanship club. ing the way for the 1898
After the April 9, 1942, Allied surrender, Japanese guards forced the
Buyers must also dem- annexation of Hawaii
onstrate familiarity POWs to walk more than 65 miles across the steamy Bataan Peninsula, (see P. 62) and control
with rearm safety denying them food or water, torturing many and wantonly killing scores. of the coveted strategic
and range procedures. An estimated 9,000 Filipinos and 1,000 Americans died. port of Pearl Harbor.

9
 News
Explore WWI
Philly Online
NAVY MARKS 75TH
ANNIVERSARY OF PIVOTAL
BATTLE OF MIDWAY

The Library Co. of Phila-

delphia has launched an
online version of its exhi-
bition Together We Win:
The Philadelphia Home
Front During the First
World War [together
wewin.librarycompany.
org], which merges rich
Six months after Pearl Harbor historical information
the U.S. Navy turned the with period photos,
tide of the Pacic War. posters, music and reci-
pes. The virtual exhibit
covers such wartime
topics as food conserva-
On June 5 veterans, relatives and representatives of the U.S. Navy and U.S. Fish and Wildlife tion, rationing and war
Service gathered on Midway Atoll to mark the 75th anniversary of the June 47, 1942, naval clash bonds and highlights
that turned the tide of the Pacic War. Naval History and Heritage Command [history.navy.mil] homegrown groups
like the National League
Director Sam Cox and Fish and Wildlife Service Acting Director Jim Kurth each gave remarks,
for Womans Service.
as the atoll is both a national memorial and wildlife refuge [fws.gov/refuge/midway_atoll].
Just six months after the 1941 Japanese attack on Hawaii an outnumbered and outgunned
Pershing Home

PHOTOGRAPHER 2ND CLASS WILLIAM G. ROY/NAVAL HISTORY AND HERITAGE COMMAND; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
U.S. Navy eetforewarned by Allied cryptanalysts able to decode enemy radio trafcdeci-
sively defeated an attacking Japanese eet off Midway, sinking four carriers and a heavy cruiser, Opens Museum
destroying 248 aircraft and killing 3,057 Japanese in the battle, which cost the Americans one Missouri State Parks is
set to open a museum
carrier, one destroyer, 150 aircraft and 307 dead. The victory paved the way for the landings on
[pershingmuseum.com]
Guadalcanal, the rst large-scale offensive in the island-hopping campaign aimed at Japan. at the General John J.
Midway veterans laid wreaths for the fallen as a bugler played Taps, followed by a moment Pershing Boyhood Home
of silence and a rendition of the rst stanza of the maritime service hymn Eternal Father, State Historic Site in
which ends with the apt verses, Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee / For those in peril on the sea! Laclede, Mo., which
Broadcast live, the event was incorporated into ceremonies held at the World War II Valor in the centers on the child-
hood house of the famed
Pacic Park [nps.gov/valr] in Honolulu and Mokupapapa Discovery Center [papahanaumokuakea.
commander of the Amer-
gov/education/center.html] in Hilo; the USS Midway Museum [midway.org] in San Diego; ican Expeditionary Force
the U.S. Navy Memorial [navymemorial.org] in Washington, D.C.; the National WWII Museum in World War I. The 7,800-
[nationalww2museum.org] in New Orleans; and the National Navy Aviation Museum [naval square-foot museum
aviationmuseum.org] in Pensacola, Fla. features archives, an
exhibit gallery and inter-
active displays, while
Our citizens can now rejoice that a momentous victory poppies out front grow in
is in the making soil donated by the eight
World War I American
Admiral Chester Nimitz cemeteries in Europe.

10 MILITARY HISTORY NOVEMBER 2017

 
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 News
Calendar
Depicts CIA THE KING
Spec Ops IS DEAD
In this age of remote
drone warfare its easy to
forget a time when even
kings put their lives on the
line. Monarchs who gave
their last full measure
of devotion include:
The 2018 Secret Ops
of the CIA calendar,
depicting events from
Last Anglo-Saxon
During the Oct. 14, 1066,
World War II through
Battle of Hastings Anglo-
Operation Enduring
Saxon King Harold II is
Freedom, is now avail-
brutally slain by invading
able. The project stems
Norman knights under Wil-
from a gallery of paint-
liam the Conqueror. Period
ings Erik Kirzinger, the
accounts say Harold took
nephew of a CIA con-
an arrow to the eye and
tract pilot killed in ac-
was then dismembered.
tion, commissioned for
the agency headquar-
ters in Langley, Va. The
Bards Bunch-back
calendar is available at
the International Spy VIETNAM MEDIC RECEIVES MOH In a moment immortalized
by Shakespeare, a knight
under Welsh claimant to the
Museum [spymuseum.
Nearly a half-century after the fact Jim McCloughan, 71, a former throne Henry Tudor bashes
org] in Washington,
U.S. Army combat medic with Company C, 3rd Battalion, 21st Infantry in Richard IIIs skull during
D.C., or from Kirzingers
the Aug. 22, 1485, Battle of
website [cia-art.com]. Regiment, has received the Medal of Honor for his selfless actions
Bosworth Field (see P. 76).
during the May 1315, 1969, Battle of Nui Yon Hill, Vietnam. During He is the last English king

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: INTERNATIONAL SPY MUSEUM; JAMES C. MCCLOUGHAN/US ARMY; NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION
Bragg Honors the two-day battle McCloughan repeatedly braved enemy small arms slain on home soil.
and RPG fire to rescue 10 wounded fellow soldiers, in the process
Green Berets sustaining his own serious wounds. McCloughan was originally By His Own Gun
The Special Forces As- During the Aug. 3, 1460,
awarded a Bronze Star to wear alongside his Purple Hearts. But in
sociation [specialforces siege of Roxburgh Castle,
association.org] will 2009 his former platoon leader revived a Distinguished Service Cross as he sought to retake
honor the U.S. Army nomination, which the DOD saw t to upgrade to the MOH. Scotlands keeps from Eng-
Special Forces, aka land, James II was nearing
Green Berets, with
a granite and bronze
memorial at Fort Bragg,
NATIONAL ARCHIVES EXHIBIT victory when a cannon ex-
ploded and killed the Scot-
tish monarch. The castle
N.C. [bragg.army.mil],
headquarters of the
HONORS VIETNAM VETERANS still fell, and James widow,
Queen Consort Mary of
U.S. Army Special Op- In time for Veterans Day, on November 10 the Guelders, had it destroyed.
erations Command and National Archives [archives.gov] in Washing-
home of the 1st Special ton, D.C., is opening Remembering Vietnam: African King
Forces Command (Air- During the March 910,
Twelve Critical Episodes in the Vietnam War,
borne). Designed by 1889, Battle of Galla-
Dallas-based artist an exhibition of period documents, artifacts bat defending Mahdist
Rebecca Clark, the and lm footage that explore the policies and Sudanese riemen mor-
National Green Beret decisions behind the war. It runs through tally wound Ethiopian
Memorial will feature ac- Jan. 6, 2019. In conjunction with Remem- Emperor Yohannes IV.
tion scenes in relief and bering Vietnam the archives will provide His dispirited men melt
more than two-dozen away, while the victorious
honor ights to bring veterans to D.C. and will
heroic-scale bronze Mahdists parade the
gures. Unveiling will host events nationwide, including a traveling emperors head on a pike.
begin in 2019 with com- gallery of Vietnam War images, a virtual reality It was the last time a mon-
pletion slated for 2024. exhibition and other events. arch was killed in battle.

12 MILITARY HISTORY NOVEMBER 2017

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 Interview Jane Doyle
y
Recognizing WASPs
Little more than 1,000 of the more
than 25,000 women who volunteered
for the Women Airforce Service Pilots
(WASP) organization during World
War II made the cut. Jane Doyle was
one of the lucky few. Almost all of those
chosen were already qualied civilian
pilots, and their mission was to oper-
ate U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF)
aircraft in noncombat roles, thus
freeing male pilots for frontline duty.
Born in Grand Rapids, Mich., in
1921, Doyle had earned her pilots
license while in college and entered
the WASP program with more ying
experience than many male cadets
at the time. WASPs logged more than
60 million miles before the USAAF
disbanded the program in December
1944. Despite having own U.S.
military aircraft during wartime,
the female pilots were not granted
veteran status until 1977. In 2009
Congress collectively awarded the
WASPs a Congressional Gold Medal.
14 MILITARY HISTORY NOVEMBER 2017
What drew you to ying?
When Charles Lindbergh came to
Grand Rapids, my mother took me out
to the airport to see him, and we saw
the Spirit of St. Louis. I was 6 years old,
but I remember it really well.
While in junior college I was taking
an engineering drafting course. The
instructor said they were going to start
the Civilian Pilot Training Program,
and theyd let one woman in for every
10 men. I thought that sounded inter-
esting. I was the only girl in that engi-
neering drawing class, so I sat back
in the corner, but after class I went up
to the instructor and said, Can I apply
for that? He said, Sure, but you have
to take the physical. He said, You
have to be 5 feet 4 inches. I was 5 feet
2 inches5 feet 2 if I stretched. I
thought, Well, I guess that takes care
of that. However, later he said, No,
they changed it for women, its 5 feet
2 inches. So I took the physical,
passed and got accepted that summer.
You were 18 at the time?
Yes. I got my private license then. They
had started the Civilian Pilot Training
Program at the end of 1938, because
Germany was building up its air force,
and we only had a few planes.
I got into the Civil Air Patrol so
I could keep up my license. In 1942
the famous female aviator Jacque-
line Cochran had gone through the
records and found every woman pilot
in the United States. I got a telegram
asking if I was interested in joining
the WASP program, and I replied that
I was. On November 1 I got a notice
that Id been accepted into the class
of 1943.
Was there any pushback from
male pilots?
At that time there wasnt, but it started
to develop when pilots were coming
back from overseas, and they wanted
the flying jobs. General [Henry H.]
Arnold [USAAF commander] wanted
us to be part of the military, and Coch-
ran did too, but if we werent accepted
as members of the military, they would
have to disband the program. Con-
gress rejected the bill twice. They were
getting too much pressure from male
pilots, so the program was disbanded
in 1944.
Did you want to y in combat?
Not reallyI just liked ying. Though
I felt, If men can do it, women can do it,
too, I had reservations about women
ying in combat. I think its harder for
a family to lose a mother than a father,
really. We made a big advancement,
but sometimes things go too far.
Did you have a favorite aircraft?
Yes, the AT-6. That was a nice one to y
I loved that little plane. (I had own
a little Piper Cub before that.) I got
down in that cockpit with the helmet
and the goggles, and I said, Oh, boy!
This is it.
What was your most
challenging ight?
There was one particular cross-country
tripa 2,000-mile journey from Texas
to Oklahoma to Louisiana to Arkan-
sas and then all the way over to Ala-
RANDY GLASS STUDIOS
bama and then back. At that time there
was no radio communication for navi-
gation. They had beams across the
country, and you ew on one side or

other of the beam and got a Morse
code signal. If you were right on
course, you got a solid signal. That
was our navigation.
How dangerous was it
for WASPs?
Well, 38 got killed during their ser-
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT GREENSBORO
vice. Two weeks before graduation
from WASP training one girl was com-
ing in for a landing, and one of the
new students who had just arrived
came in from the opposite direction
which she shouldnt haveand
they had a midair collision that killed
both of them. We werent authorized
funeral expenses. If someone was
killed, we took up a collection, then
someone went home with the body.
But those who died werent allowed
a military funeral.
Why did you decide to leave
the program?
I was sent to a base for twin-engine
training, because I was supposed to
y B-26 Marauder medium bombers
in the target-towing role. I got the
notice the program was being dis-
banded, and two weeks later I got
notice that I was to be transferred to
Panama City, Fla. I thought Id just get
Doyle received her private pilots
license at 18 and by 1943 was
ying military aircraft as a WASP.
down there and have to turn around
and come home again, so I resigned.
How did it feel to nally be
classied as military veterans
in 1977?
I hadnt thought about it for years.
We had reunions every ve years, and
I went to most of thembut it was
just to get together. It wasnt until an
article came out in the paper about
the rst woman to graduate from the
U.S. Air Force Academy and y mili-
tary planes. That stirred things up,
and we started circulating petitions
then asking for recognition. Senator
Barry Goldwater and General Arnolds
son [Colonel Bruce Arnold, U.S. Air
Force, Ret.] were very active in sup-
porting that effort.
What do you want people to
remember about your service
and the WASP program?
I want them to know we existed and
were there to help during the war when
needed. When we werent needed any-
more, they just sent us home. The way
the situation was handled wasnt really
fair. We were hired as civilians, and
we knew it when we went in. But when
we went in, we were more or less prom-
ised we would be taken into the mili-
tary. It left a bitter taste.
During a recent talk I said, When
you say the word wasp, people think
of an insect. Now Id like to get the
word out in small groups, to let them
know we did exist. We werent combat
heroes or anything, but we were part
of the war effort.
How do you feel about women
serving in the military?
I think theres a place for them in
the military, and I think they should
be treated with respect for the job
that theyre doing. And I am glad
they are accepted now as much as
they are. MH
15
 Valor The Fighting Parson
By Frank Jastrzembski

tried to hoist the man atop his own

horse, but the charger bolted, leaving
both men afoot. Stumbling toward the
rear, Adams supported the lancer until
delivering him to friendly troopers.
Amid the chaos Adams spotted two
more lancers trapped beneath their
dead horses in a water-filled ditch.
Without a thought for his own safety,
the unarmed chaplain plunged into
the water. He struggled to free the rst
man he reached, grabbing hold of his
uniform or whatever he could. All the
time fanatical Afghans with unsheathed
knives, curved talwars and Snider and
Eneld ries rode by within yards of
the conspicuous trio, so close to the
ditch, Roberts recalled, that I thought
my friend the padre could not possibly
escape. But through brute strength and
a refusal to give up, Adams managed to
yank both men from beneath their dead
mounts and haul their exhausted frames
The Rev. James Adams The Rev. James Adams is the only clergyman and the up the slippery ditch out of harms way.
British Army last of just ve civilians to have received the Victoria In the wake of the battle Roberts ap-
Victoria Cross CrossBritains highest award for gallantry in the propriately dubbed Adams the Fight-
Afghanistan face of the enemy. It was a singular honor for a man ing Parson, noting his faithful aide
Dec. 11, 1879 who spent his life serving others in the name of God. had behaved in this particular place
James William Adams was born on Nov. 24, 1839, with conspicuous gallantry. The gen-
in County Cork, Ireland, attended Trinity College, Dublin, and was ordained an eral also granted the civilian chaplain
Anglican minister in 1863. Three years later he joined the Indian Ecclesiastical the rare honor of a recommendation
Establishment as a military chaplain, a post he retained for the next 20 years. for the VC. On Dec. 1, 1881, Queen Vic-
Described as a muscular, fresh-complexioned gentleman and a keen sports- toria herself presented Adams with the
man, the padre was said to be one of the most deservedly popular chaplains medal at Windsor Castle.
that ever accompanied a British force into action. Adams traveled with a por- The Fighting Parson continued
table altar to conduct services for men in the eld and won acclaim for his self- to serve in India and Burma until re-
less work treating victims of smallpox and an 1868 cholera outbreak in Peshawar. tiring in 1886. Returning to England,
In 1879 the 40-year-old chaplain accompanied Maj. Gen. Sir Frederick he served as a rector and later as a chap-
Roberts as part of the British and Indian army column dispatched to avenge lain to King Edward VII. Adams died
the assassination of military envoy Sir Louis Cavagnari and his staff in Kabul, on Oct. 20, 1903, at age 64, one lancer
THE ROYAL MINT MUSEUM/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES (2)

Afghanistan. At Kila Kazi on December 11 an army of 10,000 Afghans ambushed memorializing him as a great and good
an advance detachment of the 9th (Queens Royal) Lancers. Roberts arrived on man grown old with other peoples sor-
sceneaccompanied by Adamsand gave the rash order to 170 men of both rows. His widow presented his porta-
the 9th Lancers and 14th Bengal Lancers to charge the overwhelming foe. As ble altar to the civilian congregation he
the move only briey checked the Afghans, Roberts ordered a second charge. had served until his death. In 2007 his
Nine ofcers and 55 rank and le fell dead or wounded in the desperate actions. gravestone was restored and a bronze
As the lancers fought to escape annihilation following the shattered charges, plaque erected to commemorate the
Adams encountered a wounded trooper and leaped from his horse to assist. He deeds of the great and good man. MH

16 MILITARY HISTORY NOVEMBER 2017

 What We Learned From...
Nagashino, 1575
By Chuck Lyons

Odas matchlock gunnerswho had

kept their powder dryheld their re
as the Takeda cavalry charged across
the plain. When the horsemen closed
within 150 feet and slowed to cross the
Rengogawa, Odas gunners fired in
ranks, one shooting for every two re-
loading. His spearmen stabbed through
the loose palisade at any enemy cav-
alry that made it past the initial volleys.
Finally, Odas samurai fought man to
man with any surviving Takeda war-
riors who penetrated the line. Concen-
trated forces at the ends of the palisade
prevented any anking.

O
The battle settled into an eight-
n June 28, 1575, in central Honshu, Japan, war- Cavalrymen of hour grind before the Takeda force
lord Nobunaga Oda led a force of 38,000 Oda and Katsuyori Takedas broke and ed with Odas men in pur-
Tokugawa clan troops to break Katsuyori Takedas force fall victim suit. When it was over, Takeda had
siege of Nagashino Castle, defended by Tokugawa to matchlock rie lost 10,000 menfully one-third of
warrior Sadamasa Okudaira. With his tactics re at the Battle the force hed brought to the eld.
Oda changed the face of Japanese warfare. of Nagashino. Odas defeat of the formidable Ta-
Head of the Takeda clan, known for its mounted samurai and keda cavalry marked a sea change in
erce cavalry charges, Takeda had besieged the castle with 15,000 troops, one- Japanese warfare, in which rivals es-
third of whom were cavalrymen. The rest were lower-ranking foot soldiers (ashi- chewed traditional cavalry matchups
garu), mostly armed with long spears, though some bore crude matchlock guns. and melee infantry charges in favor
(Portuguese traders had introduced rearms to Japan a few decades earlier.) Of of disciplined combat with firearms
the 38,000 men Oda elded, about 3,000 were ashigaru armed with matchlocks. discharged from behind cover.
When a scout alerted Takeda to the approaching relief force, his generals
counseled the warlord to either withdraw or launch one last all-out attack on the
castle. Were such an attack successful, they argued, the Takeda troops could
Lessons:
then meet the larger relief force from behind the castle walls. Takeda instead Overcondence kills. Had Katsu-
sided with his younger generals, who urged him to meet Oda in open battle. yori Takeda heeded his experienced
Oda, who had endured Takeda cavalry charges in the past, positioned his generals and withdrawn before the
men across a plain from the castle, just behind the Rengogawa, a stream whose far larger enemy force, his army
high banks would break up a cavalry charge. He also ordered construction of would have lived to ght another day.
a wooden palisade, behind which he placed his matchlock gunners, given their Never assumeverify. Takeda
vulnerability during long loading times. By dividing them into ranks, Oda had assumed rain had fouled Nobu-
ensured a steady volume of re. He placed the 3,000 gunners under disciplined naga Odas matchlockswith dis-
MCLA COLLECTION/ALAM Y STOCK PHOTO

samurai ofcersa revolutionary command decision, as high-ranking samurai astrous results.

seldom interacted with the lowly ashigaru. He also ordered gaps left in the Its not so much what you use
palisade through which to mount counterattacks. as how you use it. Both sides
Takeda sent 12,000 of his 15,000-man force to face Odas force, retaining the had matchlock rearms, but Odas
remaining 3,000 to keep the castle garrison from sallying out in relief. innovative use of a palisade and reli-
Believing an overnight rain had rendered Odas guns ineffective, Takeda quickly ance on disciplined samurai ofcers
launched the anticipated cavalry charge. Restrained by their samurai ofcers, made the difference. MH

18 MILITARY HISTORY NOVEMBER 2017

 THE Q
QUARTERLY JOURNAL
OF MILITARY HISTORY

Miracle on
the Vistula
The Two
Horsemen of
the Revolution
The Kaisers
Grim Reaper

DUNKIRK
In 1940 more than 300,000 British
soldiers were trapped in France.
This man got them out.
AUTUMN 2017

...the latest issue of Military

History Quarterly features Bertram
Ramsays Dunkirk miracle, the
Battle of Warsaw, and much more!
Now available at
SHOP.HISTORYNET.COM
and newsstands everywhere

HistoryNet.com
 Hardware Char B1 bis
By Jon Guttman
Illustration by Ian Palmer

A
fter World War I France Length: 20 feet 11 inches
continued development of Width: 8 feet 1 inch
its proven light and heavy Height: 9 feet 2 inches
tanks to serve as armored Weight: 34 tons
cavalry and infantry sup- Crew: Four
port, but in 1920 it also be- Armament: One 75 mm
gan conceiving a battle tank SA35 ABS howitzer (74 3
with the armament, armor and mobility rounds); one 47 mm SA35
to engage the enemy independently. L/32 gun (6272 rounds);
The revolutionary weapon underwent two 7.5 mm Chtellerault
protracted development before nally M1931 machine guns 2
1
entering service in 1936 as the Char B1, Armor: Front and turret,
with an armor-piercing 47 mm cannon 60 mm; sides, 55 mm
mounted in a one-man turret and a Power: Renault inline six-cylinder,
75 mm howitzer in the hull. As the B1s 16.5-liter engine (307 hp)
40 mm armor proved inadequate against Suspension: Bogies with a mix
Germanys 37 mm Pak 36 anti-tank of vertical coil and leaf springs
gun, designers thickened the armor to Maximum speed (road): 17 mph
60 mm in the Char B1 bis. They also Range: 112 miles
tted the new variant with a second
carburetor to raise the horsepower from
272 to 307, though the increased weight
reduced its range and running time. By
the time of the German invasion of the
Low Countries and France in May 1940,
Renault and associated manufacturers
had delivered nearly 400 Char B1 bis 1. Engine transmission
heavy tanks to eight battalions, includ- 2. Mufer
ing those attached to Colonel Charles 3. Naeder steering system
de Gaulles 4th Armored Division. 4. Insulated radio antenna
Although the most powerful tank 5. Engine radiator
of its day, the Char B1 bis had been 6. Guard to prevent 47 mm
designed around an obsolete tactical gun from striking rear
doctrine. The layout put extraordinary 7. 47 mm ammunition stowage
responsibilities on two of its four-man 8. Commanders vision cupola
crewthe commander also having to 9. Turret traverse
load, aim and re the 47 mm turret gun, 10. Drivers station
the driver having to deliberately steer 11. 47 mm SA35 gun
the tank to line up and re the xed 12. Drivers controls
75 mm cannon. (The Char B1 ter vari- 13. 75 mm SA35 gun
ant, with improved armor and limited 14. Mud chute
traverse for the 75, was in the proto- 15. 75 mm gun breech
type stage when the German offensive 16. Slide access door
began.) The Char B1 bis also suffered 17. Engine rewall/bulkhead
disproportionately from mechanical 18. Renault engine
breakdowns, which accounted for more 19. Attachment for jack extension
than half its losses. Nothing, however, for track repair
could slow the German juggernaut. MH 20. Drive sprocket

20 MILITARY HISTORY NOVEMBER 2017 NEW VANGUARD 209: FRENCH TANKS OF WORLD WAR II (1): INFANTRY AND BATTLE TANKS/OSPREY PUBLISHING LTD.
 9

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 Though the 1781 French landing
on Jersey isolated the British
garrison manning Elizabeth
Castle (subject of this 1905
postcard), the fortress did
not surrender to the invaders.

22 MILITARY HISTORY NOVEMBER 2017

DETROIT PUBLISHING CO./LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
23
 ust before midnight on Jan. 5, 1781, a otilla of French warships arrived off La Rocque, a
craggy point on the southeast tip of the Channel Island of Jersey. Though only 14 miles off
the Normandy coast of France, the island and its neighborsGuernsey, Alderney, Sark and
several smaller isleshad come under English rule in 1066. On this cold and fog-shrouded
night seven centuries later a Flemish soldier of fortune named Philippe-Charles-Flix Macquart,
the self-styled Baron de Rullecourt, would lead several hundred French troops ashore, intending
to wrest control of Jersey from the British.
Rullecourts invasion was not simply an act of territorial reclamation, however. The French landing
was part of a larger international conict that had grown out of an April 19, 1775, skirmish between
British troops and colonial militiamen on Lexington Green in the New England Province of Massa-
chusetts Bay. After the edgling Continental Armys decisive defeat of the British at Saratoga, New York,
on Oct. 7, 1777, France and then Spain and the Dutch Republic had entered the war, looking to settle
old scores. The British soon found themselves ghting not only in North America, but also in the West
Indies, India, Gibraltar, the Mediterranean and the English Channel.
The Battle of Jersey held a singular distinction as the only land battle of the American Revolutionary
War fought on British soil.

Once part of the Duchy of Normandy, the Channel the hours ticked by, units of the Royal Jersey Artillery
Islands fell under Anglo-Norman rule in 1066 when
William, Duke of Normandy, became king of England.
In 1204 King John lost Normandy to Philip II of France,
but England retained possession of the islands.
Though Jersey comprises just 46 square miles, its
proximity to the maritime approaches to Brestlong a
key French naval baseensured it remained strategically
important to both London and Paris. As soon as France
joined the American Rebellion, the British govern-
ment authorized Jersey-based privateers to prey on French
shippingwhich they did, even raiding along the Ameri-
can coast. It was a threat France could not ignore.
The rst wartime attempt to invade Jersey was a 1779
operation led by French fortune-seeker and second-rate
naval commander Charles-Henry, putative Prince of
Nassau-Siegen. On April 30 Nassau-Siegen and some
5,000 troops under Rullecourt sailed from Saint-Malo in
nearly 50 at-bottomed boats, supported by ve French
Though vastly outnumbered by
brought up their guns (each of the islands 12 parishes was
responsible for maintaining and manning two eld pieces)
and emplaced them on the beach. When Rullecourt nally
tried to land his troops around 3 p.m., the Jersey gunners
opened up with grapeshot. Few transports were willing
to brave the hailstorm. Some 18 French troops drowned
in the attempt. Twenty others reached the beachwhere
they promptly surrendered. The only British casualty was
gunner Thomas Picot, who was mortally wounded when
his cannon burst. As the invasion force limped back
to Saint-Malo, a Royal Navy task force surprised them,
destroying one French warship and capturing another.
By 1781 an awakened Jersey had become a heavily armed
fortress, with guardhouses and round towers command-
ing most of its coastline. More than 2,500 inhabitants were
organized into ve militia regiments, spread around the
island. Five companies of the 78th Foot were garrisoned
at the General Hospital barracks, just north of St. Helier,
Jerseys capital and main port. Protecting the harbor were
the guns of Elizabeth Castle, a fortress on an islet front-

the British, Rullecourt thought
he could bluff his way through
warships and a 20-gun privateer. Their objective was St.
Ouens Bay, on Jerseys west coast. But torrential rain and
stiff headwinds stalled the eet in view of land at dawn,
giving the islands lieutenant governor, Major Moses Cor-
bet, plenty of forewarning to call out the Jersey Militia and
the regular 78th Regiment of Foot (Seaforth Highlanders).
Deploying along the dunes anking the bay, the British
forces tracked the snails progress of the French eet. As
ing the southwest entrance to the anchorage. More guns
covered St. Helier from Mont Patibulaire, a half-mile north
of town. Additional regular troops on Jersey included ve
companies of the 83rd Regiment of Foot (Royal Glasgow
Volunteers), based at Fort Conway, overlooking the Bay
of Grouville on the east coast; and all 10 companies of
the newly raised 95th Regiment of Foot (Reids), garri-
soned at La Hougue in St. Peters Parish, on the west side.
Determined to eliminate the operating base for the
Jersey privateers, the French decided to try again and
authorized Rullecourt to organize a second invasion force.
By then the Flemish mercenary held a commission as a
French lieutenant colonel, and King Louis XVI promised

24 MILITARY HISTORY NOVEMBER 2017

 him a promotion to general as soon as he had control
of St. Helier. Rullecourt selected La Rocque, 4 miles east
of town, for the landing.
On Dec. 27, 1780, the presumptive baron and his
1,200-plus handpicked troops sailed from the port of
Granville. Learning from his prior misadventure, Rulle-
court sat out bad weather a week at Chausey, an island
group south of the Channel Islands. On January 5 the
transports, supported by several warships, set out for
Jersey, leaving at 3 p.m. and arriving off La Rocque by
11 p.m. This time Rullecourt also maintained the element
of surprise. Almost every senior ofcer from the three
regular British regiments on the island was back home on
Christmas leave, and most of the troops in the fortresses
and towers were celebrating the Christian festival of
Twelfth Night. A French advance party came ashore about
1:30 a.m. on January 6 and quickly captured the guard-
house and battery at La Rocque without resistance.
The main landing force comprised four echelons.
Rullecourt and the first echelon of about 500 troops
started coming ashore at 2 a.m., though the operation
CLASSIC IMAGE/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
immediately ran into trouble. While attempting to cover
the landing, the warship Renard grounded on the rocks
off the treacherous coast and broke up. The winds and
strong currents then defeated the second and third land-
ing echelons, sweeping them back out to sea with all
of Rullecourts cannons, shot and extra ammunition.
Taking advantage of low tide, French troops advance across St. Aubins
Bay toward Elizabeth Castle. When presented with the order to surrender,
the castles British commander tersely replied he did not speak French.
The fourth echelon of 200 troops made it ashore, but
that left the French commander only about 700 troops,
fewer than half of those hed set out with.
Though vastly outnumbered by the British forces on
Jersey, Rullecourt thought he could bluff his way through.
Leaving a rear guard of 100 men at La Rocque, he set out
with the main body of his troops around 4 a.m., marching
east toward St. Helier. Sticking to back roads to avoid de-
tection, the French reached St. Heliers Royal Square a little
after 6 a.m., surprising and overpowering all but one of
the British sentries. The lone escapee made his way to the
General Hospital Barracks of the 78th Foot and raised the
alarm. By 7 a.m. peeling church bells and warning shots
from British cannons had cued islanders to the invasion.
Rullecourts forces, meanwhile, stormed the main
government buildings on the southern side of the square.
Just ahead of them, two alert British captains made their
way to Government House to warn Corbet, the senior
commander on the island. Seemingly prepared for just
such an eventuality, the lieutenant governor immediately
dispatched one of the captains by horseback west to alert
the 78th and 95th Foot, the other east to alert the 83rd
25
 Foot at Fort Conway in Grouville, scarcely 2 miles north
of the French landing site at La Rocque. They rode off just
as enemy troops converged on the house.
The French escorted Corbet back to the Court House
at Royal Square, where Rullecourt demanded the lieu-
tenant governor sign a prepared capitulation order,

PHILIP JOHN OULESS/ANNE S.K. BROWN MILITARY COLLECTION, BROWN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY;
ceding control of all military installations and requiring
islanders to surrender all small arms and ammunition
LA ROCQUE at the Court House. When Corbet resisted, the French MAP: JACQUES NICOLAS BELLIN/DAVID RUMSEY HISTORICAL MAP COLLECTION

ST. HELIER commander threatened to start pillaging the town.

Playing his bluff to the hilt, Rullecourt told Corbet he
already had 4,000 troops on island and another 10,000
preparing to land. Setting his pocket watch on the table,
NORTH
he gave Corbet 30 minutes to sign.
SEA ALDERNEY At about 8 a.m., while Rullecourt was pressuring Cor-
B R I TA I N GUERNSEY bet, a French ofcer arrived to report that French sentries
LONDON
SARK FRANCE
posted in the tower of the Town Church could see Brit-
ish troops mustering atop Mont Patibulaire. These were
JERSEY
the men of the 78th Foot, who had moved up into their
ENLARGED AREA PARIS assembly areas. Rullecourt accused Corbet of stalling for
time and insisted that unless he signed the surrender
FRANCE
order immediately, the French would put St. Helier to

26 MILITARY HISTORY NOVEMBER 2017

Captain William Campbells British grenadiers converge on
the retreating French as the invaders scramble to reach a
boat sent to transport them to the eet waiting offshore.
the torch. Corbet nally signed, and a messenger carried
a copy of the order to the 78ths headquarters.
Meanwhile, alerted by one the captains sent by Corbet,
the 83rd Foot at Fort Conway and militia units on the east
end of the island prepared to move against the French rear
guard at La Rocque. Having heard the alarm bells and
cannons, the Rev. Franois Le Couteur, rector of St. Martin
Parish, had escorted the parish guns to Fort Conway.
Captain William Campbell, commander of the 83rds
grenadiers, was the senior ofcer present. After refusing
a French demand to surrender, he sent a scout to recon-
noiter Rullecourts rear guard, then advanced his men
and Le Couteurs guns toward La Rocque. Arriving around
10 a.m., Campbell deployed his force in two elements to
catch the French in a crossre. Moving one element in
front of the French to form an anvil, he sent the second
element under Lieutenant James Robertson to hammer
the French from the ank. Once in position Robertson
advanced his men within hailing distance and demanded
the French surrender. They refused and opened re. Rob-
ertsons men returned re and then charged with bayo-
nets. During the brief action 20 French soldiers and seven
Playing his bluff to the hilt,
Rullecourt told Corbet he had
4,000 troops on the island
British grenadiers were killed. The British took some 30
prisoners. Others ed down to the rocks in the surf, but
as a French boat came in to attempt a rescue, Le Couteurs
guns opened up, driving them off.
Earlier that morning back in St. Helier, after cowing
Corbet, Rullecourt had sent a copy of the capitulation
order out to Elizabeth Castle under a ag of truce. Cap-
tain Frederick Mulcaster, the engineer ofcer then in
command of the fortification, stuffed the order in a
pocket and tersely informed the emissary he did not read
French. Rullecourt then sent a body of French troops out
across the sands at low tide to take the castle by force, only
to be driven back by cannon re. By then it was approach-
ing 11 a.m. Certain a British counterattack was imminent,
Rullecourt pulled in his forces to fortify Royal Square.
27
 When Corbets capitulation order reached the 78th Foot,
its officers were divided on what to do. Some thought
their duty lay in obeying the lieutenant governors direc-
tive, while others believed they should resist the invasion.
The senior captain nally resolved to take up position on
Mont Patibulaire and sent a rider to inform the 95th Foot.
Alerted by Corbets rider, Major Francis Peirson, the
senior ofcer of the 95th, had already started marching
toward St. Helier and linked up with the 78th at Mont
Patibulaire around 10 a.m. Though barely 24 years old,
Peirson was the second-highest ranking ofcer on Jersey
that morning. When he learned of Corbets capture, he
promptly assumed overall command.
Peirson had no doubt about where his duty lay and
issued orders to prepare for attack. From
his vantage he could see the French
commander had committed a major
blunder by failing to secure Mont de
la Ville, which commanded St. Helier
from the south. The major immedi-
ately put Captain Hugh Fraser of the
78th Foot over the North Militia Regi-
ment and the light companies of both
Baron de the 78th and 95th and ordered him to take
Rullecourt the high ground and be ready to support
the attack into St. Helier. Peirson then
led the remaining British forces down
from Mont Patibulaire toward town.
At the base of the hill Peirson was
met by a French ofcer carrying a
ag of truce and the surrender order
signed by Corbet. Reading the direc-
tive, the major reportedly replied, Yes,
Francis we will carry our arms to the Court House,
Peirson
but with the bayonet at the end of the mus-
ket. When the French ofcer requested
an hour to report back, Peirson con-
sented. He also had two of his own
ofcers accompany the Frenchman
to demand Corbets release.
Rullecourt was present when the
message was delivered. Placing Corbet
under parole, he sent the lieutenant
Moses governor and the two British ofcers back
Corbet to Peirson with the French envoy. When the
senior-most British ofcers met, Corbet, who remained
convinced the French boasted overwhelming superiority,
urged Peirson to surrender. Peirson asked Corbet what
proof he had of the French numbers. Putting his hand
to his breast, Corbet replied, I have the French generals
word and honor that it is so. Peirson knew better. In-
forming the lieutenant general that neither the regulars
nor the militiamen had any intention of surrendering, he
told Corbet to return and tell Rullecourt the British attack
would start in 10 minutes. The major kept to schedule.
28 MILITARY HISTORY NOVEMBER 2017
When Peirson reached a fork in the road a few blocks
west of Royal Square (present-day Charing Cross), he split
his force into two columns. The rst, commanded by the
78ths Captain Robert Lumsdaine, marched straight down
La Grande Rue (Broad Street) toward the square, while
from horseback Peirson led the 95th along La Rue de
Derrire (King Street) and then down the small Avenue du
March to hit the French from the ank. At noon Lums-
daines column caught sight of the square and came under
immediate re from a captured eld piece Rullecourt had
positioned in the approach. But the French gunners were
inexperienced, and the round went high. British gunners
returned re with their own six-pounder, tearing holes in
the French lines with grape. Following up with a musket
volley, Lumsdaines men then charged with xed bayonets.
As Peirsons column closed on the French, subordi-
nates pleaded with him to assume a less exposed posi-
tion. Brushing them off, the young ofcer emerged in
the square and promptly took a musket ball to the chest.
He died instantly. Rullecourt fared no betteras the
French commander escorted Corbet from the Court
House, likely to surrender, he fell mortally wounded by
four shots. The lieutenant governor was uninjured.
As soon as the shooting started, Fraser left the militia
units atop Mont de la Ville and led the regular light com-
panies down into town. Meanwhile, with both Peirson
and Rullecourt down, the surviving French ofcers with-
FROM TOP: FRENCH SCHOOL/THE JERSEY MUSEUM AND ART GALLERY; ANNE S.K. BROWN MILITARY COLLECTION, BROWN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY; WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
drew inside the Court House and pleaded with Corbet to
resume command of the British forces and stop the ght-
ing. The lieutenant governor had difcultly reasserting
his authority, but he nally managed to stop the shooting
about 15 minutes after it started.
As the ring ceased in Royal Square, the British rounded
up some 400 French prisoners, capturing several dozen
stragglers over the next few days. Guards ultimately
loaded 456 French ofcers and men onto a prison ship
bound for Britain.
While Corbet had ostensibly resumed command,
Jerseys other British ofcers were openly critical of his
actions, some even alleging he was a French collaborator.
The tensions proved poisonous, and on January 25 the
Crown sent orders to place the lieutenant governor under
arrest. Recalled to London, Corbet stood court-martial
at the Horse Guards in Whitehall, starting on May 1.
The trial lasted ve days. Corbet was charged not with
treason but dereliction of duty for signing and seeking to
enforce the capitulation order. Prosecutors pointed out
he had surrendered to the French when they held only
the central section of St. Helier, while all major military
installations on Jersey remained under British control.
In his defense Corbet argued he had signed the order
to spare the town, knowing the other ofcers on Jersey
would ignore it. By signing the order, Corbet argued, he
also had given Peirson time to mount a counterattack.
 As Major Peirson drops with a mortal
wound at left, Rullecourt (with sword)
and fellow French ofcers at right
prepare to release Lt. Gov. Corbet
(in sash). Moments later Rullecourt
himself falls mortally wounded.

Though Jersey Governor General Sir Henry Conway

who, ironically, had been absent from the island during Escorting Corbet from the
the battledid not testify, Corbet entered into evidence
an effusive personal letter from Conway stating his un-
Court House, Rullecourt fell
equivocal approval of the lieutenant governors actions.
The support of Conway, who within a year would
mortally wounded by four shots
become Britains military commander in chief, likely
tipped the balance in Corbets favor. Although summar- on Jersey launched their naland ultimately futile
EDWARD FRANCIS BURNEY/THE JERSEY MUSEUM AND ART GALLERY

ily removed from his post as lieutenant governor, he was
not convicted of any wrongdoing or punished in any
other way. Indeed, he was allowed to retire from the
army with 32 years of service and granted the rather
generous annual pension of 250.
While 1781 marked the last time France tried to in-
vade Jersey, it was not the last time the island was used
as a staging ground from which to attack France. Ger-
man forces occupied the Channel Islands in 1940 and
held them until May 9, 1945, the day after the formal
Nazi surrender. On the night of March 89 the Germans
raid of World War II against Allied shipping in France.
Their objective was the small logistics base at Granville,
the same port from which Rullecourt had launched his
abortive invasion 164 years before. MH
Retired U.S. Army Maj. Gen. David T. Zabecki is History-
Nets chief military historian. For further reading he recom-
mends Balleines History of Jersey, by Marguerite Syvret
and Joan Stevens, and History of the Channel Islands, by
Raoul Lemprire. For more on the storied history of the
Channel Islands visit theislandwiki.org.

29
30 MILITARY HISTORY NOVEMBER 2017
 WHEN
FRANCE
DEFIED
HITLERS
PANZERS
Its Char B1 tanks proved too much
for the Wehrmachts armorbut
even they couldnt withstand
irresolute Allied leadership
By John Koster

Though in many ways superior

to Germanys vaunted panzers,
the French Char B1 tank achieved
only a glimmer of glory in 1940.

ULLSTEIN BILD VIA GETTY IMAGES

31
W
e are on the edge of the abyss, a desper-
ate Brig. Gen. Charles de Gaulle wrote
to French Prime Minister Paul Reynaud
on June 3, 1940. Our rst defeat stems
from the application by the enemy of my
conceptions and the refusal of our com-
mand to apply the same conceptions.
De Gaulles plea to Reynaud had come
too late to stave off the debacle of May 1940, when Ger-
man armored units raced across France to the English
Channel within three weeks. The British put a bright face
on an awful month by couching the June 4 evacuation
Caught up as they ed by the enemys mechanized
detachments, they had been ordered to throw away their
arms and make off to the south so as not to clutter up the
roads, de Gaulle recalled in his war memoirs. We havent
time, [the Germans] cried, to make you prisoners!
French troops relished a brief moment of glory before
the countrys total collapse, when three armored divi-
sions, notably those units equipped with relatively capa-
ble Char B1 tanks, thwartedand in places even routed
Adolf Hitlers panzers during a decisive week of intense
ghting along the French-Belgian border.
FROM TOP: ULLSTEIN BILD VIA GETTY IMAGES; ROGER VIOLLET/GETTY IMAGES

at Dunkirk as a moral victory, while leaving their dis-

gusted French allies to ght the Germans (and Italians
after June 10) for two more weeks.
The British and French commanders had quietly
hoped to avoid another Western Front. Diffuse strategies
suggested attacks via the German-allied Soviet Union,
through Finland and Norway, or into the Soviet oil elds
at Baku, Azerbaijan, through French-occupied Syria. But
the Germans struck first, conquered the Netherlands
in ve days and swung around Frances vaunted Magi-
not Line into the Ardennes forests. While the line held,
third-rate French troops deployed in the impassable
Ardennes broke and ran.

32 MILITARY HISTORY NOVEMBER 2017

 As de Gaulle recalled in his war memoirs,
We havent time, [the Germans] cried,
to make you prisoners!
At the outbreak of World War II the weapon of choice
among French armored divisions was the Char B1 bis,
the heaviest standard tank of its time. Designed by
committee over the better part of two decades and
manufactured by Renault and other rms, the vehicle
carried a 75 mm howitzer and a 7.5 mm machine gun
mounted in the hull, both aimed largely by steering the
vehicle, as well as a 47 mm anti-tank cannon and second
7.5 mm machine gun in a one-man turret. The Char B1
bis boasted armor 60 mm thick on its front and turret,
55 mm on its sides. Each tank bore the name of either
a French region or national hero. By June 1940 French
factories had rolled out nearly 400 of them.
Char B1 bis crews first proved themselves during
the German advance into Belgium, as British and French
divisions covered the unprotected ank of the Magi-
not Line. On May 15, 1940, Captain Pierre Gilbert in
Adour attacked a German armored formation north
of Flavion and knocked out three enemy vehicles with
his turret gun. Incoming tank rounds soon disabled
Adour, leaving three of its six-man crew injured. The
wounded Gilbert sent crewman Daniel Legac to in-
NATIONAL ARCHIVES
form Lieutenant Louis Bounaix, the commander of
Guynemer, that he was now in charge of the three-
tank formation.
Germans inspect an abandoned Char B1 bis (opposite, top). Though
less formidable than the Char B1, German light tanks (above) were
able to move rapidly across France. De Gaulle explains mechanized
warfare to President Albert Franois Lebrun in 1939 (opposite, bottom).
Soon after seeking concealment in a thicket, Gilbert
and Chief Sgt. Joseph Baur were killed by enemy re.
The surviving crewmen surrendered. Smoke billowed
up from Adour, and through its open side hatch approach-
ing Germans could just make out a painted message
bestowed by actress and later resistance agent Jeanne
Boitel on the day the tank was christened: M Y WISHES
ACCOMPANY THE ADOUR, CAPTAIN GILBERT AND HIS MEN.
Meanwhile, Lieutenant Bounaix and crew in Guynemer
and Lieutenant Pierre Lelong and crew in Gard fought on.
Bounaix left a particularly vivid account of the ghting:
I looked over the terrain and spotted an immobile
Char B. I was a little annoyed, as I thought the 28th
BCC [Battalion de Chars de Combat] held the ridge,
the rst phase of combat was already over, and that
we, the second wave, would have nothing to do.
At that moment we took a blow to our left side armor.
I looked down the road, and a red ash lit up from a
hedge at about 800 meters. Another blow to our armor!
33
 NORTH
SEA
BELGIUM
DUNKIRK
MONTCORNET
LAON
STONNE
PARIS
F R A N C E
Pierre Billotte M I L E S
0 40
I hesitated to withdraw, as I thought a friend had made
an error. I refused to believe the Boches could have ar-
rived. Corporal Le Bris, the assistant driver, announced:
Popped armor bolts, left side. I then turned my turret
toward the intermittent ashes and expended four of ve
explosive shells from the 47 mm. The enemy re contin-
ued. I checked the range and asked Millard for explo-
sive shells. Two projectiles, and the enemy re ceased.
I resumed my course and accelerated to catch up
with Adour and Gard, which had never slowed down.
A hundred meters farther there was another red ash
on my left. We red the 75 this time, and the
enemy re stopped. Resuming course, I ar-
rived at the woods between the second ridge
and the edge of the plateau. These wooden
tongues determined the re corridors, and
hits soon rang on the left side armor. Having
steered the tank east and looked southeast,
at rst I couldnt spot the enemy. Then the
driver cried out, A tank in front of us!
It was, indeed, a Bochea Panzerkampf-
wagen IV. I felt great joy, mixed with a bit
of anxiety, as when a hunter spots game,
but what formidable game.
I adjusted the re of the 75. Range 450
short! Range 500short! Range
550 I can still hear the cry of the driver:
I got it! Two or three men jumped from the
Tank Busters Boche tank, as an enormous red glow burst
Though heavily armored, from the front of the enemy machine. I then
French Char B1 tanks noticed that our left ank was lined with
were susceptible to the large German tanks.They were camou-
7.5 cm (75 mm) high- aged and immobile, but red ashes lit up,
explosive (left) and
armor-piercing (right) and we took hits. The word hail is far too
rounds red by German weak to describe the noise inside the turret
Panzerkampfwagenn IVs. from all the projectiles. We took a hit on
34 MILITARY HISTORY NOVEMBER 2017
GERMANY
ARDENNES
MAGINOT
LINE
the bottom of the side door, which unhinged it, leaving
it half open. Millard jumped up, grabbed it and held it
shut for the duration of the ght.
Edging up a bit, I noticed at the edge of the woods
Gard, its turret open. At the side door was Sergeant
Waslet, the radioman, pistol in hand. We could only
guess what had happened. The door may have been
smashed in, wounding tank commander Lieutenant
Lelong. Was that it? Looking around, I spotted Ourcq
and Isre, all that remained of our rst section. Theyd
done wonders, struggling, shooting. With them at my
side we formed a section.
Hits on the right increased in intensity, as our right
flank was filled with Boche tanks, lined up as if on
parade and ring at us. But their hits sounded weak,
and they barely accepted combat, withdrawing into
the woods as soon as taken to task.I had the conso-
lation of demolishing one.
At that point my right tread was snarling in a dis-
quieting manner, my 47 had red too much, and my
brake fluid was leaking at the cylinder head. Only
the 47 of Ourcq was still speaking. Radio orders came
FROM TOP: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS; OSPREY PUBLISHING LTD.; MAP BY BRIAN WALKER
throughRally! Ourcq and Isre obeyed by forging
a path. I followed and in passing saw Hrault in
ames. Arriving at our starting point, the three tanks
were out of steam. Its motor ravaged, Ourcq stopped
cold. Guynemers right track broke, and Isre experi-
enced the same accident a hundred meters farther on.
Exiting the tank, I made a tour of Guynemer.
Its hull had absorbed more than 50 hits. Yet on the
front, miraculously intact, the banner of Sacr-Coeur
still uttered. I retrieved it.
Guynemer was credited with destroying three Panzer-
kampfwagen IVs and one Panzerkampfwagen III. Ourcq
had destroyed four enemy tanks, Isre three. Gard, on the
 other hand, had been destroyed with the loss of five
crewmen, while Hrault had taken a disabling shell hit
to its track drive sprocket, forcing the crew to scuttle it.
While the clash in Belgium proved the French Char B1s
could give much better than they got, it also suggested
their mechanical issues might negate at least a measure
of their crews ghting ability.
Captain Pierre Billotte, the 34-year-old son of French
1st Army commander General Gaston-Henri Billotte, was
a standout commander in the May 16 seesaw tank battle
between French and German forces over the tiny village
of Stonne in northeast France. Colonel Michel Malaguti
commanded the 41st BCC from the Char B1 bis Vienne,
while Billotte represented the tip of the spear in Eure.
Leading the French attack, Billotte had taken a sharp turn
in the village when he came face to face with a column of
tanks and other armored vehicles of the 10th Panzer Divi-
sion. Billotte immediately ordered his driver, Sergeant Du-
rupt, to re Eures 75 mm hull gun at the lead tank in the
German column, while he himself used the 47 mm turret
gun to take out the trailing tank. With both enemy tanks
disabled and ablaze, the others were trapped. Billotte and
Durupt then rumbled through the village at will in their
WORLDWARPHOTOS.INFO; KEYSTONE/HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES
heavy tank, systematically knocking out 11 other German
tanks and two anti-tank guns. The tanker and his crew-
men later counted some 140 enemy hits on Eures hull.
The ability of the Char B1 bis to absorb punishment
made a daunting impression on Wehrmacht tankers yet to
be convinced of their own invincibility. When two French
crewmen from Lieutenant Jacques Hachets Vertus roamed
the forest at Stonne looking for spare parts after the tank
suffered an engine failure, they routed a nervous German
patrol, captured a prisoner and discovered hundreds of
enemy graves and discarded packs. They also recovered
an abandoned, intact Panzerkampfwagen III.
Highly maneuverable despite its size and weight, the Char B1 bis was also
able to withstand repeated punishment, though shell damage to its tracks
(as in the photo above left) could stop it cold. Once French armor had been
neutralized, German infantrymen (above) moved in to secure any gains.
Over three days of bitter ghting Stonne changed hands
17 times. The French deployed 130 tanks and lost 33,
mostly to mechanical failure, while the Germans de-
ployed 300 tanks and lost 24, primarily to battle damage.
The Germans, however, suffered some 26,500 casualties
to 7,500 for the French. Germans who fought both at
Stonne and later at Stalingrad insisted Stonne was worse.
When the Germans ultimately secured Stonne, de Gaulle
moved his forces east to the village of Montcornet, the
target of General Heinz Guderians next armored thrust.
De Gaulle ordered his tanks to deploy on either side of the
road between Montcornet and Laon, which ran through
the forest of Samossy, thus providing the tanks cover from
the air. Colonel Aim Sudres armored half-brigade, in-
cluding a battalion with a number of Char B1s, came up
as reinforcements for de Gaulles 4th Armored Division,
which was still forming. Major Jean-Yves-Marie Bescond,
a foremost expert on big tanks, led the Char B1 battalion.
You are the champion of the Char B, de Gaulle told
Bescond. Show what it is worth.
Bescond returned to his tank crews and made a dour
prediction: This will be my Reichshoffen. It was a refer-
ence to the Aug. 6, 1870, clash during the Franco-Prussian
War in which some 700 of Napolon IIIs elite mounted
cuirassiers became bottlenecked near the Alsatian village
of Reichshoffen and were cut to pieces by Prussian infan-
try ring from cover.
At 4:30 a.m. on May 19 de Gaulles 4th Armored Divi-
sion attacked with more than 100 tanks. Leading the
charge from his Char B1 bis Berry-au-Bac was Bescond.
35

Adolf Hitler (at far left) listens as General Wilhelm Keitel reads surrender
terms to French emissaries in a railway car at Compigne on June 22, 1940.
Much to the Germans astonishment, the Char B1s
turrets and frontal armor proved impenetrable to standard
anti-tank gunsa fact that enabled the French tanks to
cross the Serre, capture Montcornet and threaten Gude-
rians lines of communication. The German commander
later admitted the Char B1s had given him some very bad
moments. But the French assault ultimately faltered under
withering re from emplaced German 88 mm guns.
Bescond, as he had feared, was among the casualties.
Berry-au-Bac had broken down, and Bescond had trans-
ferred to Sampiero Corso. As he followed orders to with-
draw, panzers semi-concealed in the forest opened re,
and an incoming round bounced harmlessly off Sam-
piero Corsos hull. Then a shell from a German 88 pene-
trated the Char B1s side door and detonated inside, kill-
ing Bescond and his crew. Sampiero Corso remained
Despite stubborn resistance and
the magnicent stand at Stonne,
the French cause was doomed
largely intact, and the Germans set up a marker so the
French could later identify the bodies for proper burial.
During the ght for Montcornet 6-foot-5 de Gaulle
strode around upright, ignoring bullets and shell bursts to
inspire his men, who remained tenacious. Regardless, the
French high command unilaterally halted the attack. The
division managed to pull back in good order, suffering just
25 casualties, though it lost 23 of 85 tanks engaged to land
mines and Ju 87 Stuka dive bombers. Still, though Mont-
cornet went down as a tactical German victory, de Gaulle
36 MILITARY HISTORY NOVEMBER 2017
had captured 130 enemy soldiers and inicted four times
as many casualties on the Germans.
Despite continuing stubborn resistance and the mag-
nicent stand at Stonnehouse-to-house ghting con-
tinued until May 25the French cause was doomed.
The French, still in command of 100 divisions and some
6 million men in late May, had expected the 200,000 men
of 10 British divisions then on the Continent to advance
on Arras. The British instead opted to escape and evade.
The French themselves were appalled when thousands
of their reserve infantrymen broke under German air
attack and tried to surrender without much of a ght
and without much interest from the onrushing Germans.
Britain and France blamed one another for their mutu-
al collapse. Tanker Pierre Billottes father, the decorated
World War I veteran General Gaston-Henri Billotte, was
written off as a hopeless coward by British General
Edmund Ironside, chief of the Imperial General Staff.
The elder Billotte did not long have to suffer the oppro-
brium of his British counterparts, howeverhe was
fatally injured on May 21 when his car struck a military
truck during a wild midnight ride to organize another
counterattack. Ironside assumed command of the British,
French and Belgian forces in the Battle of Belgiumand
lost. Ironside also wrote off General Georges-Maurice-Jean
Blanchard as another hopeless coward, though Blanchard
was later decorated for his valorous rearguard action that
enabled the British withdrawal from Dunkirk.
While the Char B1 bises acquitted themselves well,
they continued to suffer mechanical problems, and when
MONDADORI PORTFOLIO VIA GETTY IMAGES; OPPOSITE FROM TOP: CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES; SERGE DE SAZO/GAMMA-RAPHO VIA GETTY IMAGES
the French and British fought side by side at Abbeville
starting on May 27, poor coordination led to needless
losses. On June 4 a late-arriving column of Char B1s
approaching town from the south stumbled into a mine-
eld zeroed in by German artillery and anti-tank guns
and took heavy losses. Of the 30 Char B1s engaged in
combat that same day at Dunkirkin the closing hours
of the evacuationonly seven made it back to their
jump-off positions. Some French units fought better after
the British left, but the Char B1s could not compensate
for poor communication and morale in second-echelon
units elsewhere.
We were the bosses, and we lost the battle, and this
gave a good excuse for the British to be selsh, French
strategist and General Andr Beaufre later observed in
an episode of the popular British documentary series
The World at War. Anyway, they were very selsh. MH
A frequent contributor to Military History, John Koster
is the author of Custer Survivor and the forthcoming
Hitlers Nemesis: Hermann Ehrhardt. For further read-
ing he recommends The General: Charles de Gaulle
and the France He Saved, by Jonathan Fenby, and
De Gaulle: The Rebel, 18901944, by Jean Lacouture.
German tanks roll through a city in northern France following the
surrender. De Gaulle (below) escaped to England, spearheaded the
Free French government and was later elected president of France.

37
 The 1917 Battle of Passchendaele was a three-month
slog through mud, blood, guts, rats and raining death
By Ron Soodalter

38 MILITARY HISTORY NOVEMBER 2017

 Fred Leists Attack in Polygon Wood
depicts the moment in September 1917
when Australian troops assaulted a
line of German pillboxesone of many
small clashes that comprised the
drawn-out Battle of Passchendaele.

FRED LEIST/AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL

39

T
he history of warfare is rife with accounts
of battles that took a terrible human toll
and others fought to no viable end. A stu-
dent of military history would have to go
to great lengths, however, to nd a conict
that accomplished less at such a staggering
cost in life than did the three-month 1917
engagement known ofcially as the Third Battle of
Ypres but to history as Passchendaele, the name of the
small Flemish village around which the battle raged.
During the war British soldiers phonetically translated
Passchendaele as Passion Dalea reference to Christs coastal cities that harbored the German submarines.
suffering on the cross. A later chronicler dubbed it the
Valley Where God Died. Either sets the proper mood,
for the battle has come to epitomize the suffering, futility
and mindless slaughter that characterized World War I.
By the spring of 1917 the war to end war, as H.G. Wells
termed it, was going badly for the Allies. Tens of thou-
sands of French soldiers on the Western Front had muti-
nied or deserted in the wake of a failed offensive, the
Russians attention was consumed by the communist
revolution riving their nation, and the United States
would not land troops in Europe until summer. In the
interim Britain bore much of the military burden.
Allied troops had been bogged
down in the trenches for years,
unable to dislodge the enemy
Further exacerbating the situation, Germany had re-
sumed unrestricted submarine warfare. Sailing out of
captured Belgian ports along the English Channel, its
U-boats again systematically stalked and sank merchant
vessels in international waters. The toll on Allied shipping
proved devastating, and on June 19 Field Marshal Sir
Douglas Haig, commander of the British Expeditionary
Force, presented the War Cabinet in London a plan to
eliminate the threat.
Haigs plan centered on a long-contested salient
a bulge in the Allied front lines roughly the size of Man-
40 MILITARY HISTORY NOVEMBER 2017
The identity discs of Canadian
Field Artillery Driver George
Ransom, one of a quarter-million
Allied casualties at Passchendaele.
hattanbacked by the small town
of Ypres, within 25 miles of the coast
in the Flanders region of Belgium. British forces had
recently won two victories within the salient, at Vimy in
April and Messines in early June. In the mistaken belief
the German army was on the brink of collapse, Haig
reasoned signs were propitious for a major campaign.
As he saw it, by launching a massive offensive against
the Germans from Ypres, combined with an amphibious
attack along the coast, he could drive his forces through
the salient, liberate northern Belgium and seize the
British Prime Minister David Lloyd George had seri-
ous misgivings about Haigs plan. First and foremost,
CANADIAN WAR MUSEUM; OPPOSITE: CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: POWER H. SEPTIMUS/AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL; NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY (U.K.); CANADIAN WAR MUSEUM (2)
Allied troops had been bogged down in the trenches
of the salient for years, unable to dislodge the enemy.
The Allies maintained only a slim advantage over the
Germans in manpower (perhaps 15 percent) and no
advantage in firepower. The British could not count
on full French support. Finally, even if Haig were able
to reach the coast, there was no certainty of captur-
ing the ports. All that was guaranteed was a massive
loss of life.
Ultimately, however, advised by First Sea Lord Admi-
ral of the Fleet Sir John Rushworth Jellicoe that Britain
could not survive another year of unchecked U-boat
warfare, Lloyd George reluctantly gave his approval.
Haig could hardly have chosen less hospitable ground
for a major offensive. The opposing armies had hotly
disputed the Ypres salient since 1914, and by the summer
of 1917 it had been degraded beyond the realm of imag-
ination. The battles in 1914 and 1915 had reduced the
once quaint medieval market town of Ypres to rubble.
On its outskirts shellre had rendered apocalyptic what
had once been lush elds of crops bounded by gentle,
tree-lined slopes. In their place was a barren expanse of
water-lled craters and blackened, wraithlike stumps.
From a tactical perspective, the Germans retained the
high ground, and their artillery and machine gun nests
commanded the no-mans-land between the opposing
trenches. The dominant elevation was the ridge on which
stood the remnants of Passchendaele, largely pulverized
to dust and broken bricks by the earlier ghting.

Sir Douglas Haig Sir Arthur William Currie
For nearly three years the armies had alternately ad-
vanced and withdrawn over the same ground, their gains
and losses measured in yards. Interlaced elds of heavy
fire made the salient a literal deathtrap, what author
Winston Groom has termed a giant corpse factory,
on which such innovative tools of war as tanks, ame-
throwers and biplane bombers wreaked havoc on the
landscape and men.
Yet Haig saw an opportunity to turn stalemate and
attrition into victory.
Australian artillerymen struggle to move their
18-pounder gun through the morass of mud and
shell craters that constituted the battleeld.
David Lloyd George
The British general launched his offensive on July 31.
The Allied force comprised more than a half-million
men in 30 British and Commonwealth divisions, six
Belgian divisions and, belatedly, six French divisions,
all supported by 168 tanks and more than 3,000 artillery
pieces. It was by any calculation an impressive assem-
blage. By then the planned amphibious assault along
the Belgian coast had run into logistical obstacles and
been postponed (it was ultimately cancelled), but Haig
assured Lloyd Georges War Cabinet the delay would in
41
 YARD BY YARD TO
PASSCHENDAELE
F
ield Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, commander of the British
Expeditionary Force on the Western Front, had a plan.
Recognizing the threat posed by Germanys resumption
of unrestricted submarine warfare, and needing a decisive
offensive to break the three-year stalemate, he proposed
a two-pronged attack to accomplish both aims.
Haig planned a large-scale offensive in the Ypres salient combined
with an amphibious assault on the U-boat bases along the Belgian
coast. Success hinged on operational coordination and good weather.
Neither was forthcoming, and the amphibious assault was canceled.
The target of his armies was Passchendaele, a wrecked village
atop the dominant ridge east of Ypres. Stepping off on July 31 after
a massive 10-day artillery barrage, a half-million British, Belgian and
French troops soon bogged down in the morass wrought by their
own shells. Australian and New Zealand troops fared little better.
Not until Haig sent in four Canadian divisions that fall did the
momentum shift. The Allies nally took the ridge on November 6.
To gain 5 miles of ground, Haig had sacriced some 250,000 men.

DISTANCE:
YPRES TO PASSCHENDAELE
7 MILES/11 KM

Stalemate on the Western Front

By the time Haig launched his drive toward Passchendaele, the opposing armies
on the Western Front had been largely deadlocked for three years. Offensives had
prompted counteroffensives, with thousands of lives purchasing mere yards of gain.
Little changed until the Americans arrived in divisional strength in the fall of 1917.
MAPS BY STEVE WALKOWIAK/SWMAPS.COM
PHOTO: GEORGE METCALF ARCHIVAL COLLECTION/CANADIAN WAR MUSEUM

42 MILITARY HISTORY NOVEMBER 2017

Water, Mud, Bodies and Blood
Soldiers on either side of no-mans-land had a hard enough
time simply surviving amid, let alone advancing across, the
moonscape that was the Western Front. If shells, bullets or
poison gas didnt get them, rampant disease very well might.

43
 German prisoners carry wounded Canadians to the rear as their
captors bring up wooden duckboards to deal with the mud. Allied
infantrymen await the next German counterattack (center). British
troops don respirators during an enemy gas attack (opposite).
no way jeopardize the success of his battle
plan at Ypres.
Over the first 10 days the Allied big
guns red some four and a quarter million
rounds, further churning the soil and de-
stroying Flanders centuries-old drainage
system, which had held back the waters
of local creeks. Meanwhile, a long period
of torrential rainsthe heaviest in memory
struck the region, ooding the creeks
and turning the elds to thick, deep mud.
Over the weeks that followed, countless
more artillery shells from both sides,
Gas Attack! as well as 60-pound bombs from Ger-
Chemical weapons were man heavy bombers, churned the muddy
an ever-present threat at ground into porridge.
Passchendaele, so ofcers The line of the salient remained virtu-
carried brass whistles like ally unaltered, as men, animals, tanks and
this one to quickly warn guns wallowed in the mire. The all-but-
their troops to mask up
before the clouds of deadly impassable expanse over which Haig pro-
gas descended on them. posed to send hundreds of thousands of
troops had become, in the words of Cana-
dian historian Tim Cook, a battleeld of despair, the
place where soldiers went to die in the mud.
Stymied by the impossible conditions that his own
guns had in large measure created, Haig did not resume
his attack until mid-Augustagain with practically no
effect. In September he sent in reinforcements from the
Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) to
support the spent British forces. Nothing changedthe
44 MILITARY HISTORY NOVEMBER 2017
Allies advanced, seizing small portions of muddy ground,
only to be forced back by German counteroffensives.
On October 4 the Allies managed to wrest control of
one of the ridges east of Ypres, encouraging Haig to
attempt yet another assault on Passchendaele Ridge. In
the second week of October he launched two indecisive
attacks, gaining little ground and losing another 20,000
men. Despite growing resistance from London, difcult
terrain, poor weather and the increasingly debilitating
conditions under which his exhausted army was living,
Haig persisted.
FROM LEFT: GEORGE METCALF COLLECTION/CANADIAN WAR MUSEUM; BRITISH NATIONAL ARMY MUSEUM (3)
Not all the deaths within the Ypres salient were the
result of gunshot or shrapnel. Scores of wounded, care-
less and simply unlucky menas well as countless
army horses and mulesfell into water-lled shell holes
and drowned.
Mud, however, was the soldiers deadliest obstacle.
The moment you set off, you felt that dreadful suction,
recalled Private Charles Miles of the 10th Battalion,
Royal Fusiliers. It was forever pulling you down. It also
clogged the muzzles and breeches of rearms, rendering
them useless.
Men mired in the mud became stationary targets for
German ries, machine guns and artillery, dying in the
slime and sinking anonymously into it. And horrible
though the mud was for the advancing soldiers to nego-
tiate, there were worse things underfoot. When it yielded
under your feet, recalled Private Miles, you knew that
it was a body you were treading on. It was terrifying.
Youd tread on one on the stomach, perhaps, and it would
grunt all the air out of its body. It made your hair stand
on end. The smell could make you vomit.
During their constant artillery barrages, whenever
winds allowed, the Germans mixed in rounds containing
poison gas. The Germans rst introduced chlorine gas
at the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915. Even in small doses
it induced coughing and vomiting. In concentration it
could destroy lung tissues, causing death by asphyxiation.
By the time of Haigs offensive the Germans had intro-
duced the even more horrifying mustard gas. Although
not always lethal, the sulfur-based agent could cause
blindness, blistering burns and permanent damage to the
respiratory and digestive systems. The threat of contam-
ination persisted even after the gas cloud dissipated, as
its residue saturated uniforms and settled on the ground
and in the water, remaining toxic for days or weeks.
In the event of an attack, ofcers ordered their men
to immediately don their gas masks. The clunky, ill-
tting masks formed a poor seal, and improved respira-
tors were not available until late in the war. If the men
lost or left behind their masks during an assault, they
could counter the respiratory effects by urinating into
a rag or handkerchief and covering their faces with the
urea-soaked cloth. There was little protection for the
rest of the body, as chemical suits had yet to be invented,
and the penetrating gas could blister and peel off skin
beneath ones uniform.
Generally, the best way to determine the type of gas
being used was by its smell. By this point in the cam-
The constant shelling cast up
the corpses of men who had died
days, weeks or months before
paign, however, competing odors were an ever-present
problem. There were no latrines on the front lines; for
safety reasons men were instructed to use crude waste
pits carved from the mud of the trenches, then toss in
lime to combat odor. An exercise in futility if there ever
was one, as there were also no bathing facilities, and the
unwashed soldiers, living day and night in perpetually
wet wool uniforms, reeked.
Worst of all, the constant shelling frequently cast up
from their nameless muddy graves the rotting corpses of
men who had died days, weeks or months before. There
were bodies rotting everywhere, one Western Front
survivor recalled. Nothing could be done about them.
You could throw a shovel full of quick lime on them to
take some of the smell away, but the odor of the trenches
was appalling. Rats ourished in such conditions.
Disease was also rampant. The unsanitary water supply
made cholera a real and terrifying threat. In the ankle-
deep mire trench foot was a common affliction. Left
untreated, the affected appendage could become gangre-
nous and require amputation. Trench fever, transmitted
by body lice, brought on a high temperature, muscular
pain and a month-long recovery. Living conditions were
45

Australian troops marching toward front lines at Passchendaele pass
Ypres landmark 13th-century Cloth Hall, reduced to rubble by shellre.
so abysmal, soldiers were almost relieved when ordered
over the top.
By mid-October Haig had pursued his offensive for
nearly three months, with little to show for it other than
a casualty list approaching 250,000half his original
troop strength. Despite the desperate efforts of the British
troops, followed by those of the resolute Australians
and New Zealanders, the Germans still held Pass-
chendaele Ridge. If Haig had any hope of salvaging his
military career, he needed a tangible victory.
The headstrong general turned to the
100,000-man Canadian Corps, whose ac-
tions had factored signicantly in the
April victory at Vimy Ridge. He ordered
its notably competent commander, Lt.
Gen. Sir Arthur William Currie, to cross
Ravebeek stream and take Passchendaele
Ridge. Currie estimated the cost of such an
assault at 16,000 dead and woundedas
events would prove, an uncannily accurate
calculation. But he didnt balk.
After assuring Haig his Canadians could
and would take the ridge, Currie set about
making preparations for the offensive. His
men spent the next two rainy weeks under
re as they completed the treacherous
Masked Men work of repairing and extending board-
walks, plank roads and tramlines over the
of Ypres muddy ground to allow for the movement
Chemically treated hoods of troops, munitions and supplies. By the
like the example above time Currie was ready to advance on Pass-
were uncomfortable,
chendaele, shelling had dammed the Rave-
impeded ones vision
and offered scant beek, ooding the crossing. Undeterred,
protection against the adaptable Currie split his attacking
German gas attacks. force, sending one division up Bellevue
46 MILITARY HISTORY NOVEMBER 2017
Spur to the north and another up Passchendaele Ridge to
the south. He ultimately sent all four Canadian divisions
up the ridge, initially supported to the north by the Brit-
ish Fifth Army and to the south by I ANZAC Corps.
Taking the mud into account, Currie executed his two-
pronged attack in four bite-and-hold stages supported
by creeping barrages and broken by multiday intervals. By
the end of the rst day, October 26, his units had advanced
only a few hundred yards, at a cost of 2,500 casualties.
German resistance was formidable. Major Talbot Papineau
of Princess Patricias Canadian Light Infantry (PPCLI) off-
handedly remarked to fellow Major Hugh Niven shortly
before advancing, You know, Hughie, this is suicide.
Moments later an artillery shell struck Papineau in the
midriff, obliterating all tissue above his beltline. Only his
legs were left intact, protruding grotesquely from the mud.
The second assault went off four days later, the re-
serve divisions leapfrogging past the rst two. If human
endurance can stand it, wrote Lt. Col. Agar Adamson,
commander of the PPCLI, to his wife back home in
Ontario, we should be successful. His men slogged
through the mud and barbed wire through a hailstorm
of machine-gun re, gaining 550 yards at a cost of 360
of their 600 men. After tallying the casualties, Adamson
again wrote home: My dear Mabel, I am still alright and
hanging on.I cannot help wondering if the position
gained was worth the awful sacrice of life.
Meanwhile, within minutes of stepping off the line,
the 85th Battalion (Nova Scotia Highlanders) lost most
of its 12 ofcers and more than 425 other ranks. By the
end of the second day the Canadians had incurred 2,300
additional casualties, including 900 killed, with a gain
of slightly more than 900 yardsan average of nearly
one dead man per yard. Another 1,000 yards remained.
The next assault was planned for November 6. During
the tactical pause the German army Haig still believed to
be on its last legs received a steady stream of reinforcements
from the Eastern Front. The Germans, many of whom rode
out the Allied artillery barrages in thick-walled concrete
pillboxes, were determined to hold the ridge at all costs.
Meanwhile, Currie used pack trains to quietly move up
ammunition and supplies and ordered night raids to elim-
inate obstacles and wreak whatever havoc possible. The
Canadian commander was as determined to take the ridge.
FROM TOP: AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL; CANADIAN WAR MUSEUM
The third assault up Bellevue Spur and Passchendaele
Ridge began at dawn. Supported by a creeping barrage
by every gun in Curries battery, the Canadians mounted
a series of short, desperate ghts. By 8:45 a.m., as his-
torian Groom put it, They were bayoneting Germans
in the rubble that had once been Passchendaele. They
had taken the ridge, as Currie had promised, at a cost
of nearly 16,000 casualties, as the general had predicted.
For their heroism nine Canadians received the Victoria
Cross, the highest British and Commonwealth award
for gallantry in the face of the enemy.
 An Australian soldier escorts four
German POWs carrying a wounded
man across duckboards amid the
muddy moonscape at Passchendaele.
The day Curries men took Passchendaele, Haigs chief
of staff, Lt. Gen. Sir Launcelot Kiggell, viewed the detritus-
strewn battleground in front of Ypres for the rst time.
Horried, he reportedly broke down, exclaiming, Good
God! Did we really send men to ght in that? The ofcer
with him replied, Its worse further on up.
After more than three desperate months the Battle of
Passchendaele was over. Though touted as a victory,
the Allied forces had suffered a quarter-million casualties
(a toll nearly matched by the Germans) to capture just
5 miles of ground. Of these some 90,000 were reported
missing. Many lie in nameless graves, while 42,000 bodies
were never recovered.
Though the capture of Passchendaele Ridge had saved
Haigs career, it brought down on him a rain of both
popular and official criticism. The field marshal had
failed to accomplish the ambitious objectives he had
so condently set forth in the War Cabinet meeting of
June 19his 56th birthday. Faced with the massive
FRED LEIST/AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL
losses his army had incurred, as well as the intervening
cancellation of the amphibious operation, he did not
pursue a course to the coast. The channel ports re-
mained in German control, and within six months Pass-
chendaele Ridge itself would once again fall into enemy
hands, abandoned by the army that had sacriced so much
to gain so little.
Churchill deemed Passchendaele
a forlorn expenditure of valor
and life without equal in futility
In the end the ght at the Ypres salient represented, in
the estimation of one Canadian chronicler, the Great Wars
low point for the Allies, clouded in controversy and mired
in seemingly useless death. As author Will Bird, a veteran
of the Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment), wrote,
Every man who had endured Passchendaele would never
be the same again, was more or less a stranger to himself.
British Prime Minister Lloyd George bemoaned the battle
as one of the greatest disasters of the war, while Western
Front veteran and future Prime Minister Winston Churchill
deemed Passchendaele a forlorn expenditure of valor
and life without equal in futility. Few who have studied it,
and none who experienced it, would disagree. MH
Frequent contributor Ron Soodalter is the author of
Hanging Captain Gordon and The Slave Next Door.
For further reading he recommends Passchendaele, by
Peter Barton; A Storm in Flanders: The Ypres Salient,
19141918, by Winston Groom; and Passchendaele:
The Lost Victory of World War I, by Nick Lloyd.
47
 Mounted U.S. troops reconnoiter
the Bayang rancheria on Mindanao.

48 MILITARY HISTORY NOVEMBER 2017

 HEARTS AND
MINDS IN
MINDANAO
A century ago American ofcers Frank Baldwin and
John J. Pershing battled a Muslim Filipino insurgency
with strikingly different methods and results
By Paul Maggioni

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN SPECIAL COLLECTIONS LIBRARY

49
 O
n April 26, 1902, U.S. Army Captain John
J. Pershing sat in his ofce at the old Spanish
garrison in Iligan on the north coast of the
Philippine island of Mindanao, reecting
on the brewing Moro Rebellion, months of
wasted diplomatic outreach and the catalyst
of much of the troublehis immediate
superior, Colonel Frank Baldwin.
Ten weeks earlier Pershing had journeyed unarmed
with an interpreter and three native scouts into the
heart of hostile Moro country around Lake Lanao.
Hed managed to gain the respect of the Muslim datus
(chiefs) and establish cordial relations with Manabilang,
the most inuential datu on the north shore. Pershing
had returned triumphant to Iligan only to nd he no
longer reported to Brig. Gen. George W. Davis (com-
manding the 7th Separate Brigade), but to Davis newly
arrived deputy, Baldwin, a veteran of the Civil, Indian
and Spanish-American wars and a two-time recipient
of the Medal of Honor. Few doubted Frank Baldwins
courage or pugnacity, historian Robert A. Fulton notes,
but while a ghting mans ghting man, at age 60 he
was known to be somewhat to the right of the Sherman-
Sheridan doctrine of the only good Indian is a dead one.
Within weeks the Lake Lanao Moros (aka Maranaos)
had ambushed and killed two soldiers. To Pershings dis-
may Baldwin began organizing a punitive expedition to
Lanao, a potential trigger for a full-scale Maranao revolt.
Maj. Gen. Adna Chaffee, the military governor of the
Philippines, had his hands full with the ongoing insur-
rection in the north but reluctantly approved Baldwins
expedition. However, he told Davis, I prefer lots of
talking to shooting, and Davis in turn urged Baldwin
to ght only if red on rst. Baldwin then sent an ulti-
matum to the Maranao datus, demanding they hand over
those who had killed the soldiers. After receiving their
scornful reply on April 9, he telegraphed for 1,000 men
Would Mindanao are into
rebellion due to Baldwins
prodding? It seemed probable
to assemble at Malabang in preparation for the march
on Lanao. The move stunned Pershing and surprised
Chaffee and Davis, who had heard nothing from Baldwin
about the expedition since March 18. Without consulta-
tion the colonel had grabbed half the Mindanao garrison
for the expedition against the enemy.
But who were the enemy? Baldwin knew the names of
individuals who had ambushed the soldiers, and he had
identied hostile Maranao rancherias (tribal settlements)
50 MILITARY HISTORY NOVEMBER 2017
along the Lanao shore, such as Bacolod, Bayang, Butig,
Masiu and Taraca. But the rancherias were independent
efdoms, and Baldwin did not know the extent of each
rancherias responsibility for the attacks. Davis and Chaffee,
concerned the situation might deteriorate into a general
conict between the 2,000 U.S. Army troops on Mindanao
and the 100,000-strong Maranaos, journeyed down the
Ganassi trail to meet with the Maranao datus. The Moros
expressed their fear and anger over the forming expedi-
tion, and in response Chaffee issued another proclama-
tion, disclaiming any intent to conquer the Maranaos but
giving them a deadline of April 27 to surrender the killers.
Baldwin decided to force the issue. On April 18, after
Davis and Chaffee had left and without their approval,
the colonel marched his expeditionary force from Mala-
bang some miles up the trail, ostensibly to open the road
to Ganassi. The advance sparked two minor skirmishes
with the Maranaos, increasing the likelihood of full-scale
conict with the Moros.
Only after the fact did Baldwin wire Davis at Zambo-
anga with a report of his impetuous, insubordinate ac-
tions, word of which reverberated through the highest
corridors of power in Washington. Considering the state
of ongoing insurrection on other Philippine islands, no
one in President Theodore Roosevelts administration
wanted a war with the Moros. Secretary of War Elihu
Root himself angrily ordered Baldwin back to the coast,
an order seconded by Chaffee. Davis, however, backed
Baldwin, insisting a withdrawal would weaken tenuous
U.S. authority on the island. Accepting Davis advice,
Chaffee directed him to accompany Baldwin.
Back at Iligan on the north coast of Mindanao, Pershing
realized Baldwins thrust north from Malabang had riled
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: KEYSTONE/HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES; GAMMA-KEYSTONE/GETTY IMAGES; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (4)
the previously neutral northern Maranaos. Would Min-
danao are into rebellion due to Baldwins prodding?
It seemed probable. To reassure the Muslim tribesmen
that conquest was not the intended purpose of the U.S.
expedition into the heart of their territory, Pershing re-
alized he must venture a second time into Lanao country,
again unarmed. It could help prevent a general war.
Or it could mean his death.
The doughboys had arrived in the Philippines four years
earlier during the Spanish-American War. When the
United States assumed what was essentially colonial rule
over the islands, an insurrection broke out, centered in the
north. However, Morolandcomprising Mindanao and
the Sulu Archipelago in the southhad remained quiet.
In 1899 U.S. Army Maj. Gen. John C. Bates had negotiated
an agreement with the sultan of Sulu, who had nominal
authority over the fractious Moros. The sultan acknowl-
edged U.S. sovereignty and pledged neutrality, while
Washington promised to keep largely out of Moro affairs.
For some six centuries the Muslim Moros of Minda-
nao had farmed, shed and foughtbattling Christian
 In a rare contemporary photo 42-year-old Captain
John J. Pershing stands tall during the April 1903
American advance on the Moro cotta at Bacolod.

Pershing

Adna Chaffee Frank Baldwin

Elihu Root Hugh Drum

51
 A Moro (above) poses in ceremonial attire not usually worn in combat.
Moros carried a variety of edged weapons (above right), including the
wavy-bladed kalis, straight-bladed kampilan and leaf-shaped barong.
Filipinos, the Spanish and each other with equal fervor.
An insular cultural and religious minority disliked and
mistrusted by the majority Christian populace, they lived
within the hundreds of independent rancherias ruled
by the datus. In his posthumously published memoir
Kris and Krag: Adventures Among the Moros of the Southern
Philippine Islands Colonel Horace Potts Hobbs offered
this general description:
The individual Moro is, on the average, from 5 to 5 feet
7 inches tall, solidly built, erect of carriage, with red-
brown complexion, straight black hair, front teeth
ground concave and polished black from chewing
buyo, or betel nuts.The Moro dress is colorful and
picturesque: bright colored turbans, embroidered jack-
ets leaving the broad and often scarred chest bare,
tight-tting trousers and yards of colored sash around
the waist in which is carried the brass buyo box and
the razor-sharp kris, or barong.Dont try to bluff
him or push him around, or that kris will cut you down
in a ash. I have seen it done.
A year after U.S. representatives signed the Bates
agreement, infantry units stationed on Mindanao vio-
lated its terms. Taking sides in a long-standing rivalry
between Rio Grande Moros and the dominant Maranaos,
the Americans engaged in several sharp skirmishes with
the latter. The Maranaos remained hostile to the troops
until Pershings September 1901 arrival at Iligan and
subsequent diplomatic outreach. Pershings efforts had
52 MILITARY HISTORY NOVEMBER 2017
shown promise by early 1902, but when Baldwin landed
on Mindanao in March with the newly formed 27th U.S.
Infantry, he had orders to explore and improve roads into
the interiorsetting the stage for conict.
On April 27 Pershing again left Iligan on the road to Mara-
hui (present-day Marawi) rancheria, having arranged a
meeting with Manabilang attended by hundreds of other
Maranaosincluding such diehard datus from the south-
ern shores of Lanao as the sultan of Bayang. The war-
riors could have killed Pershing on the spot. Instead, they
heard out the captain as he spoke through an interpreter
of the Armys intentions to nd the killers, explore the
lake and open the roads for commerce. Although Per-
shing left the conference alive and cautiously optimistic,
the sultan of Bayang and others declared they would ght
any U.S. troops who dared enter their rancherias.
Meanwhile, the deadline to surrender the killers came
and went. Intelligence indicated the hostile Maranaos
were massing at Binadayan and Pandatapan, adjacent
cottas (forts) within Bayang rancheria. On April 28 Bald-
win duly marched his troops north from camp on the
Ganassi trail. The colonel dispersed about half of the
soldiers at waypoints along his supply line, and by the
time the expedition reached the open highlands at Lake
PHILIPPINES PRESIDENTIAL MUSEUM AND LIBRARY (2)
Lanao, he only had 600 available ghting men, a number
further reduced by malaria and other maladies.
Regardless, shortly after noon on May 2 Baldwin sent
1st Lt. Thomas Vicars Company F and Captain Samuel
Lyons Company H to assault Binadayan at bayonet point.
Wearing their trademark felt campaign hats and blue
shirts and carrying modern Krag-Jorgensen bolt-action
repeating rifles, the men scrambled across defensive
ditchesand stopped, stymied by the cottas high, thick
 Men of the 27th U.S. Infantry pose
M I N DA N AO
atop the walls of Binadayan, on
ENLARGED the southern shore of Lake Lanao.
AREA
SULU
ARCHIPELAGO
MILES
MARAWI
0 3
LAKE
LANAO
BACOLOD TARACA
BINADAYAN &
PANDATAPAN
BAYANG MASIU
GANASSI
TRAIL CAMP
VICARS
BUTIG
walls. Under point-blank re from Maranao intlocks
and the odd Remington or Mauser rie captured from
the Spanish, the Americans hoisted one another over
the walls and took the position at the cost of a single
wounded man. Meanwhile, the surviving Maranaos ed
across the shallow valley toward Pandatapan, the stronger
cotta, ringed by trenches and foxholes.
After fortifying Binadayan hill with artillery and the
1st Battalion, 27th Infantry, Baldwin sent the four com-
panies of 2nd Battalion to assault Pandatapan. From
its parapet blood-red battle ags apped in the breeze
coming off Lake Lanao, while inside Maranaos beat gongs
and shouted their defiance. As the Americans closed
within a few hundred yards, the cotta erupted with the
sharp crack of rifles and the roar of lantakasforged
bronze swivel cannons ring rocks, lead balls and any-
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN SPECIAL COLLECTIONS LIBRARY; WIKIMEDIA COMMONS; MAP BY BRIAN WALKER
thing else that could rend esh. Nearing its walls, many of
the soldiers stumbled into deep pits dug by the Maranaos.
As sharpshooters kept the defenders heads down,
other soldiers maneuvered to enlade or directly assault
the enemy positions. However, the Moros were adept at
close combat and charged the Americans with the double-
edged kalis sword, thick, leaf-shaped barong or long,
single-edged kampilan. They fought our ofcers and
enlisted men on the edge of the trenches, in the trenches
and everywhere, a dispatch from the front reported of
the erce ght. It was shoot, cut, bite, throw rocks and
yell for fully 30 minutes. By that time the Moros in the
trenches were all dead, but our loss was heavy.
Around dusk Sergeant William Kelleher of Com-
pany G became the rst American to reach Pandatapans
12-foot-high south wall, soon joined by 1st Lt. Hugh
Drum. Unable to scale the wall, Kelleher and Drum stood
shoulder to shoulder, forming a platform for Corporal
John Ward, who spent the next half-hour shoot-
ing down into the cotta at anything that moved
as other soldiers handed up freshly loaded ries.
Meanwhile, Company F assaulted the main gate
on the north wall, where close-range lantaka
re gruesomely decapitated Lieutenant Vicars,
stopping the attack cold. Others tried scaling
the wall, but the task proved impossible, and
the Americans withdrew a short distance.
At nightfall a heavy rain set in. Baldwin rallied
his dispirited men, ordering them to maintain a
cordon around the wall and build scaling ladders
for a nal assault in the morning. He vowed to
be the first man over the parapet. That night
the Moros attempted a desperate sortie, seeking
to escape. Drum later recalled the resulting
Double-Edged
bitter hand-to-hand ghts, the bayonet
contesting with the kampilan, knife, sword.
Early on the morning of May 3 the Ma-
Death Dealer
ranao holdouts cut away the bamboo screen While this ornamented
covering the parapet, and the Americans Moro kaliss sword is
clearly meant for show,
braced for a nal suicidal rush. Instead, it bears all the features
the Moros dropped their red battle ags of one intended for
and raised four white ags. As the beaten combat usenotably
defenders emerged from the gate, two the double-edged blade
(for slashing) and wavy
knife-wielding Moros made a slashing bid lines (for easier removal
for freedom and were cut down. The die- from a victims body).
hards turned out to be the sultan of Bayang
and his brother. The Battle of Bayang was over.
In a sanguinary postscript that afternoon Ameri-
can guards killed 35 of the 83 prisoners as the
Moros attempted a mass breakout. Thirty-nine
got away, while soldiers recaptured nine. In all
the Americans had killed perhaps 400 Maranaos
53

Between battles American troops on Mindanao often lived under canvas
in less-than-ideal conditions, as in this camp on the trail to Lake Lanao.
and obliterated the Bayang rancheria, while U.S. casu-
alties amounted to 10 killed and 40 wounded of some
300 men directly engaged. The next day Baldwin estab-
lished Camp Vicarsnamed for the fallen lieutenant
as a permanent U.S. military cantonment at Lanao, a
half-mile south of Pandatapan.
Chaffee thought the affair had been botched and be-
lieved Pershing had saved the Army from disaster by per-
suading the northern Maranaos to remain neutral. Within
days of the battle Chaffee visited Pandatapan, but when
Baldwin began describing the clash, Chaffee coldly cut
him off, saying, Baldwin, you have solved the problem.
But what had the ghting colonel really accomplished?
Although the Roosevelt administration and Chaffee
sang Baldwins praises in public, it soon became clear the
campaign had solved nothing. The violent incursion and
high casualties had only inamed the Moros of Mindanao,
stiffening their resistance against the Americans. Bayang
became a rallying cry. Chaffee needed a commander at
Pershing had by 1903 rmly
established U.S. sovereignty
and won over most of the datus
Lanao who could handle the Moros with diplomacy and
not the sword, a man with a proven track record.
He needed Pershing.
Pershing arrived at Camp Vicars in mid-May. Nominally
Baldwins intelligence ofcer, in fact he was the outposts
acting commandant and reported directly to Chaffee
a rebuke to both Davis and Baldwin. No move will be
made, Chaffee had assured Pershing, without your
54 MILITARY HISTORY NOVEMBER 2017
approval. To his credit Baldwin reluctantly accepted
the extraordinary arrangement, which violated every
Old Army principle of rank, seniority and chain of com-
mand. Pershing, for his part, respected the old colonel,
recalling him as a ne soldier with a long experience in
handling Indians, but he was inclined to be impetuous.
The hostile Maranaos waylaid patrols sent out from
Camp Vicars and even red directly on the outpost. Casu-
alties mounted from ambushes and increasingly accu-
rate sniper re. Baldwin boiled with rage, itching to
march immediately on the nearby rancherias of Masiu
and Bacolod. Pershing disagreed. To move against those
who are so-called enemies, he insisted, would force the
hand of many who would like to be friends and cause
them to take sides against us.
In his own way Baldwin was much like a Moro chief-
taina proud, proven warrior, suspicious of others and
quick to pull the trigger. The colonel regarded the Armys
mission on Mindanao as another Indian campaign, a chal-
lenge to U.S. authority to be suppressed with absolute
force. His superiors, on the other hand, viewed the mis-
sion as the slow and peaceful establishment of a govern-
ment for Moroland, with force withheld as a last resort.
The divided command could only last so long, and in
June Chaffee kicked Baldwin upstairs, promoting him to
brigadier general and shipping him off to the relatively
peaceful island of Panay.
Once hed taken command at Camp Vicars, Pershing
sought to regain the trust of the Maranaos by holding
formal conferences, developing a rapport with indi-
vidual datus and establishing economic relationships.
The fighting continued, however, as some rancherias
proved implacably hostile, and during his 190203 ten-
ure Pershing led expeditions to reduce the cottas at Butig,
Masiu, Taraca and Bacolod. Unlike Baldwin, however,
he sought to minimize casualties. Rather than cordoning
off and frontally assaulting hostile cottas, for example,
Pershing bombarded them at long range for an extended
period, prompting defenders to ee and only sending in
troops if necessary. In the Masiu expedition of Septem-
berOctober 1902 U.S. troops destroyed 10 cottas with
little loss of life on either side. Pershing followed up by
inviting the hostile Maranaos to Camp Vicars to talk
peace. By early May 1903 the area had been pacied to the
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN SPECIAL COLLECTIONS LIBRARY
extent Pershing was able to mount an expedition along
the lake to an enthusiastic welcome from most Maranaos,
with hardly a shot red in anger.
Pershing, a 40-year-old captain with dim career pros-
pects in 1901, had by 1903 fought a successful counter-
insurgency around Lake Lanao, rmly established U.S.
sovereignty and won over most of the Maranao datus.
Recognizing his accomplishments, in the summer of 1906
the Army took the unusual step of promoting Pershing
from captain directly to brigadier general. He went on to
 command the American Expeditionary Forces in Europe
during World War I and in 1919 was promoted by special
act of Congress to the rank of general of the armies, the
highest rank in the U.S. armed forces.
Pershings local successes did not wholly pacify Moro-
land. By 1903 the United States had abrogated the Bates
agreement and placed the region under direct American
civil jurisdiction and governance. Moro risings ared up
through the rst three decades of the 20th century, while
Washington gradually transferred responsibility for gar-
risoning Moroland from the U.S. Army to the Moro con-
stabulary, a paramilitary colonial force that recruited
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN SPECIAL COLLECTIONS LIBRARY
Moros to ght and police themselves.
Even after the Philippines won recognition as an
independent republic in 1946, the Moros remained a
thorny issue for its majority Christian populace. The
lingering tensions ignited in the 1960s with the forma-
tion of the militant Moro Islamic Liberation Front. In
2002, at the invitation of the Philippine government,
the United States again deployed troops to Mindanao,
this time to help the Filipinos ght Moro groups aligned
with al-Qaida.
Pershing (standing at center) was ready to ght when necessary,
but he also sought to win the Moros trust by holding formal talks.
In 2014 government ofcials and the Moro insurgents
signed a peace agreement. The government established
the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanaowhich
includes the Lake Lanao regiongranting Moros budget-
ary discretion, a separate police force and enforcement
of sharia law for Muslims only. In return the Moros ac-
knowledged government control of national security, for-
eign policy and other national-level administrative tasks.
In 2015 the United States withdrew a task force of
some 500 special operations troops from Mindanao.
A handful of American advisers remain. Though the
troops serve in a noncombat role, their presence is an
echo of an earlier chapter in Americas long and convo-
luted relationship with the Philippines. MH
Paul Maggioni is a rst-time contributor to Military
History. For further reading he recommends Moroland:
The History of Uncle Sam and the Moros, 18991920,
by Robert A. Fulton, and My Life Before the World War,
18601917, by John J. Pershing.
55
 THE PERIL
OF WAR
Thomas Hart Benton depicted the
U.S. Navy during both world wars and
captured the human cost of conict

56 MILITARY HISTORY NOVEMBER 2017

Score Another for the Subs (1943)

57
 THE PERIL OF WAR
EmbarkationPrelude to Death (1942)
Through September 24 the Chrysler Museum of Art
[chrysler.org] in Norfolk, Va., presents Thomas Hart
Benton and the Navy, an exhibit of two-dozen of the
artists World War IIera paintings and drawings.
58 MILITARY HISTORY NOVEMBER 2017
T
homas Hart Benton launched his art career against the
wishes of his father, a Confederate veteran and four-term
U.S. congressman from Missouri. Moving to Paris in
1909, Thomas soon adopted his signature Synchromist
style. When the United States entered World War I in
1917, Benton enlisted in the Navy. He served as a drafts-
man in Norfolk, Va., assigned to document the camou-
age patterns applied to American warships to aid in
the identication of any lost vessels.
Benton was best known for his paintings of everyday people, particu-
larly in Midwest settings. Often described as brooding and outspoken,
he drew ire for his envelope-pushing propaganda works. Shaken by the
Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Benton set about render-
ing The Year of Peril, a series of eight massive paintings intended
to alert Americans to the threat of fascism. Hed planned to hang
them in Kansas Citys Union Station, but when his agent saw them
in Bentons studio, he arranged to have them widely reproduced.
In 1943 Abbott Laboratories commissioned Benton to paint life
aboard U.S. submarines and landing ships. Many of his works
depict the submarine USS Dorado, which was lost at sea with all
hands during its 1943 maiden voyage. Art historian Henry Adams
concedes that while some of Bentons propaganda works clearly
were in bad taste, there was a good reason. He is reminding us that
there is a tragic consequence to war, that war itself is bad taste. MH
 U.S. NAVAL HISTORY AND HERITAGE COMMAND (ALL)

Back Him Up! Buy War Bonds (1943)

59
 THE PERIL OF WAR

Cut the Line (1944)

Invasion (1941)

60 MILITARY HISTORY NOVEMBER 2017

Up the Hatch (1944)

61
62 MILITARY HISTORY NOVEMBER 2017
 How Hawaiis indebted last queen lost her throne
to sugar barons and the American rush to empire
By Paul X. Rutz
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS/COLORIZATION BY MARK JAMES MILLER

The last monarch of an independent Hawaii,

Queen Liliuokalani sought to resist foreign
domination of her country but was ultimately
deposed in a coup supported by U.S. troops.

63
 I
n the late afternoon of Jan. 16, 1893, 162 U.S. Marines and sailors disembarked from the armored cruiser
Boston, at anchor in Honolulu Bay. Landing at the city wharf, they formed up and marched past Iolani
Palace, saluting Hawaiis reigning monarch as she watched from her second-oor veranda. Towing Gatling
guns and eld cannons, the troops set up in three positions. One Marine stood guard at the U.S. Consulate,
while 40 others secured the ministers residence. The main contingent of bluejackets, meanwhile, made a

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: GRAPHICA ARTIS/GETTY IMAGES; HUGO STANGERWALD/BERNICE P. BISHOP MUSEUM; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
show of force and then retired to Arion Hall, then under lease as a Mormon house of worship, adjacent to
Aliolani Hale (Government House) and across the street from the palace. After clearing out the pews and
unfurling their bedrolls, they waited through a tense night. Hundreds of armed Hawaiians loyal to the queen
stood by with orders not to provoke the Americans.
Bostons troops had occupied Honolulu at the request of U.S. Minister John L. Stevens, who claimed the queens
recent attempt to ratify a new constitution had put American property and lives in danger. In truth, he was facili-
tating a coup dtat, acting as mouthpiece for the Committee of Safety, a cabal of 13 men who had undermined
the monarchy six years earlier and were worried this resurgent queen would harm their business interests
particularly sugar plantations.
The next morning these men presented a letter to Queen Liliuokalani, demanding she abdicate. The queen
shrewdly drafted her own letter, ceding her authority not to the coup plotters but to the country whose warship
and troops threatened her capital. She expressed condence that once the facts were known, that government
would undo the action of its representatives and reinstate me. After all, this kind of thing had happened before.

The fall of Hawaiis last queen and the islands subsequent
annexation by the United States is best understood as the
intersection of two stories: The rst explains their strategic
value to a U.S. government eager to join the worlds great
powers. The second describes the religious, economic and
cultural Americanization of the Hawaiian people, which
began the moment they encountered Western explorers.
The islands rst dazzled European eyes when British
Captain James Cook spotted their lush tropical slopes on
Jan. 18, 1778, naming them the Sandwich Islands after
First Lord of the Admiralty John Montagu, 4th Earl of
Sandwich. Careful to keep other European powers in the
dark about his actual missionto search for the fabled
Northwest PassageCook had sailed his two ships,

64 MILITARY HISTORY NOVEMBER 2017

 HMS Resolution and HMS Discovery,
to Tahiti before heading north across
the equator. After crossing roughly
2,700 miles of the Pacic, Cook and John L.
his crews encountered a sprawling, Stevens
isolated archipelago that both dazzled
and terried them. Jungles teemed with
exotic birds and foliage, and ancient stone
irrigation ditches funneled water to crops. The
Polynesian culture centered on kapuits version of
taboo. Hawaiians practiced human sacrice to mark the
death of a leader or appease Pele, the volcano goddess.
Men never swallowed their saliva, instead spitting con-
stantly, and they never ate with womenyet women
held important leadership positions. A strict caste system
FROM TOP: EDGEWOOD PUBLISHING CO.; BERNICE P. BISHOP MUSEUM
separated the alii, the ruling class, from commoners and
governed their interactions. A commoner, for example
could be ritually clubbed or strangled to death for letting
his shadow fall on the person or house of an alii.
Genealogy mattered more than anything. Hoping to
have children by the mighty visitors, women aggres-
sively solicited Cooks sailors, returning to their villages
with lice and venereal disease. As he sailed about the
islands, observing thousands of canoes paddling out to
greet his ships, Cook estimated the total Hawaiian popu-
lation at 300,000. He continued northeast to map the
West Coast of North America. On Cooks return in Feb-
Kamehameha (opposite left, in cape) subdued all the
Hawaiian Islands and ruled them from 1810 until his death
in 1819. His second son, Kamehameha III (opposite, top
right, at center), took the throne in 1825 after the death of
his older brother and ruled nearly 30 years. The protected
cruiser USS Boston (opposite, below right) played a key
role in the 1893 coup against Liliuokalani. In this period
photo the ships ofcers await events at a Honolulu hotel.
ruary 1779 during an ill-starred season
the superstitious islanders clubbed
him to death, baked the esh from his
body and preserved his bones for the
spiritual mana the Hawaiians believed
they contained.
A prominent warrior named Kameha-
meha had visited Cooks agship, HMS Res-
olution, and fully grasped the value of the British
weapons. In the years that followed he traded goods
for guns and ultimately convinced two British sailors
to teach his men their use, rewarding the pair with high
ofce, wives and land. (Thus began the practice among
Hawaiian leaders to appoint Western men to their inner
circle.) Using every tool at his disposalranks of mus-
kets, artillery mounted on double-hulled canoes, reli-
gious edicts and diplomacyKamehameha the Great
ruthlessly subdued the islands one after another, uniting
Hawaii for the rst time in 1810.
For six decades the Kamehamehan dynasty adapted to
the changes that came with each wave of new arrivals.
On the heels of Kamehamehas death in 1819 his widow
Queen Consort Keopuolani broke kapu by permitting
men and women to eat togetheryet Pele did not erupt
in protest. A year later Calvinist missionaries from New
England lled the religious void, wisely linking evange-
65
 lism with education. They invented a Ha-
waiian alphabet, printed Bibles, opened
schools and by 1834 had raised the islands
literacy rate from essentially zero to one of
Hawaiis the highest in the world.
Banner Western inuence showed in the mon-
Adopted in 1845, the ag archys new ag. Laid out like the Ameri-
of the Hawaiian kingdom can ag, it featured the British Union Jack
centered on Britains
Union Jack, to which in the upper-left corner. Representing each
were added eight red, of the main islands, eight horizontal stripes
white and blue stripes, alternated white, red and blue. In 1839
symbolizing Hawaiis Hawaiis longest-reigning monarch, Ka-
eight main islands. It mehameha III, adopted a Declaration
remains the state ag.
of Rights and the next year drafted a con-
stitution establishing a parliament and judiciary. Mean-
while, the sleepy shing villages of Lahaina and Honolulu
grew into multicultural boomtowns, hosting hundreds
of whaling and trading vessels, whose sailors clashed
with the moralistic missionaries. Influenza, measles
and other maladies also visited the islands. By the mid-
1800s disease and warfare had reduced Hawaiis popu-
lation by two-thirds to about 80,000. By 1890 it had
fallen to a low of 40,000.
To ll the economic gap when whaling and sandal-
wood sales plummeted, entrepreneurs brought in men
from China, Portugal and Japan to work the sugar plan-
tations. Although the Kamehamehas tried to diversify
the economy with other exports like coffee and beef,
sugar dominated the islands by the mid-1800s. Plantation
owners such as German-American industrialist Claus
Spreckels bought their own ships, railroads and reneries
to streamline operations. They built company towns and
diverted huge amounts of water, changing the islands
ecosystems and topography. The sugar barons also loaned
the crown money, then leveraged that indebtedness to
secure legislative seats for their favored politicians.
Visits by foreign naval vessels periodically made Ha-
waii the site of intense saber rattling, such as in Febru-
ary 1843 when Britains Lord George Paulet used his
K AUAI
NI I HAU OAH U
M OLOK A I
HONOLULU
MAUI
LA N A I
K AH OOLA WE
PACIFIC OCEAN
HAWAII
66 MILITARY HISTORY NOVEMBER 2017
command, the 26-gun frigate HMS Carysfort, to threaten
Kamehameha III over a variety of business and diplo-
matic disputes. Paulet held the islands hostage for ve
months before the commander of the Pacific Station
arrived, reprimanded Paulet and affirmed Kameha-
meha III as Hawaiis rightful ruler.
In August 1849 a rogue French deputation took a turn,
presenting a range of frivolous demands to Kameha-
meha III. When the king ignored them, French marines
seized Honolulu Fort, spiked its cannons and ransacked
the area. Negotiations for reparations on the $100,000 in
damages dragged on indenitely while French threats
increased. As a British treaty with France kept London
from intervening, Kamehameha III put Hawaii under
the provisional protection of the United States, tacitly
conceding to extend the Monroe Doctrine into the Pa-
cic. American newspapers went wild with speculation
Manifest Destiny could soon envelop the islands.
A change to Hawaiis constitution provided for its rst
elected king, Lunalilo, to take the throne in 1873. The
unmarried monarch died just a year later. Kameha-
meha IVs widow, Queen Dowager Emma Kaleleonalani,
was the peoples choice to succeed him, but her rival,
David Kalakaua, defeated her through a legislative vote,
avoiding a popular referendum. At the news a mob
rushed the Honolulu Courthouse, killing one represen-
tative and wounding a dozen others.
In his rst act as king-elect Kalakaua asked the com-
manders of the U.S. sloops of war Tuscarora and Ports-
mouth and British gunboat Tenedos to help quell the
MAP AND FLAG: ISTOCK; OPPOSITE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS; LUCIEN YOUNG; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (2); HAWAIIAN KINGDOM
violence. Their collective bluecoats cleared the court-
house and square, then patrolled the streets for eight
days. Thus Kalakauas 17-year reign began in debt to
Western powers, an indebtedness that only grew. By
accepting loans from the sugar barons to nance a lavish
lifestyle and stumbling into scandal, he made it easy for
political opponents to best him.
Lorrin A. Thurston, whose ancestors included some
of Hawaiis rst missionaries, founded a secret society
with other Westerners to press their advantage with Ka-
lakaua. They formed a volunteer militia and on July 6,
1887, stationed 150 uniformed militiamen with xed
bayonets near the palace while coercing the king to sign
what became known as the Bayonet Constitution. It
kept Kalakaua on the throne but made him share power
with the legislature and his ministers. He had no role
in amending the constitution, and he couldnt re the
cabinet. Thurston, the new interior minister, packed the
cabinet with wealthy Americans and Europeans.
By this time the major powers were establishing foot-
holds throughout the Pacic. In 1880 the French made
Tahiti a colony. Germany took the Marshall Islands and
Micronesia as a protectorate in 1885 and supported a
faction struggling for control of Samoa against rival
 groups funded by the United States and Britain. Japan
inquired about Hawaii, but the Americans kept courting
the country economically. As early as 1872 naval intel-
ligence had been mapping the Pearl River estuary, the
largest and best protected port in the North Pacic, esti-
mating how much dredging would be needed to pre-
pare it for a eet, while U.S. diplomats spent more than
a decade tying a free trade deal for sugar to a lease on
King David the harbor, which they nally secured in 1887.
Kalakaua The 1890 publication of U.S. Navy Captain Alfred
Thayer Mahans The Inuence of Sea Power Upon History,
1660-1783 blew the lid off a underway global shift in
naval strategy and popularized a national security case
for empire. In a nutshell, Mahan advocated moving from
coastal defense and commerce protection to offensive
sea control, replacing small squadrons with far-ranging
battle eets whose mission would be to concentrate re-
power and prevail in a decisive battle, preferably far
from the nations shores. Since navies of the era relied on
steamships, it was vital to have coaling stations around
the world to refuel them. This was music to expansion-
ists ears, and they showered Mahan with international
acclaim and honorary university degrees. Germanys
Kaiser Wilhelm II went so far as to have a translation
of the book placed in every German naval library and
compel his ofcers to read it.
Kalakaua died in early 1891, and his sister Liliuo-
kalani assumed the throne. Seeking to lower the debts
her brother left behind, Liliuokalani entertained propos-
als to start a lottery and tax the import of opium for the
many Chinese workers in Hawaii. She also sought to
abrogate the Bayonet Constitution, in part because she
wanted to appoint her own cabinet ministers. With the
help of Hawaiian legislators she wrote a new consti-
tution and gave advisers a month to comment on it.
Incensed at the proposed changes, Thurstons faction
courted American intervention.
The stage was set for six crucial days: Jan. 1217, 1893.

On Thursday, January 12, Liliuokalani successfully

lobbied the legislature to vote out the cabinet, allowing
her to appoint ministers who shared her way of think-
ing. On Saturday, January 14, she declared the legisla-
tive session closed, then summoned her new cabinet
Lorrin A. Thurston Gilbert C. Wiltse to a meeting at the palace, expecting them to sign the
new constitution. Coached by Thurston, they refused,
claimingquite correctlyshe was asking them to dis-
obey current law. She furiously argued with them but
in the end was forced to admit she had overreached.
With memories of the 1874 bloodshed rmly in mind,
she backed down, not wanting to give the foreign war-
ships in the harbor any excuse to intervene this time.
That afternoon Thurstons allies set up the 13-member
Committee of Safety. They spent Sunday on horseback
rounding up support.

James H. Blount Alfred T. Mahan

67
 Sanford B. Dole (above) was appointed rst president of the Republic
of Hawaii. Sailors and Marines from Boston (above right) present arms
following the overthrow of the monarchy. The annexation ceremony
was held at Iolani Palace (center) on Aug. 12, 1898. Liliuokalani (opposite
right) fought for reinstatement as queen until her death on Nov. 11, 1917.
Liliuokalani called a meeting for noon on Monday,
January 16, urging supporters at the palace square to
remain calm. Just a few blocks away Thurstons Commit-
tee of Safety was holding its own meeting, denouncing
the queen. They had written a letter to Minister Stevens,
pleading for help: We are unable to protect ourselves
without aid and, therefore, pray for the protection of
the United States forces. Captain Gilbert C. Wiltse,
The Hawaiian pear is now fully
ripe, and this is the golden hour
for the United States to pluck it
commanding the 3,240-ton armored cruiser Boston, said
Stevens could count on his troops, and at about 5:30 p.m.
they occupied the city. Estimates vary, but Liliuokalani
had at least double the number of armed men at her dis-
posal to counter the Americans. Given Hawaiis history
with armed occupation, however, she thought it pru-
dent to wait out this latest disturbance. Thurston worked
through the night writing a justication for her over-
throw, while other members of the Committee of Safety
asked Sanford B. Dole, a justice on Hawaiis Supreme
Court, to act as president.
On Tuesday, January 17, Dole accepted the presidency,
and the Committee of Safety requested Liliuokalanis
68 MILITARY HISTORY NOVEMBER 2017
abdication. She stalled, asking for time to meet with her
secretary and compose the appropriate document. In it
she wrote, I yield to the superior force of the United
States of America, whose minister plenipotentiary, his
excellency John L. Stevens, has caused United States
troops to be landed at Honolulu and declared that he
would support the said Provisional Government. Dole
endorsed the letter, perhaps not realizing he was agree-
ing to let the U.S. government decide Hawaiis fate.
President Benjamin Harrison favored the expansion
of American interests in the region. But his successor
Grover Cleveland, who took office on March 4, grew
leery and called for an investigation into the overthrow.
President Cleveland immediately sent former U.S.
Representative James H. Blount of Georgia to Hawaii as
a special commissioner, with orders granting him para-
mount authority over the American civil authorities
and troops. Arriving in Honolulu on March 29, the tact-
ful Blount rst directed provisional President Dole to
lower the American ag over the Government House and
ordered the bluecoats to return to Boston. The commis-
sioner stayed for ve months, gathering testimony and
LUCIEN YOUNG/THE BOSTON AT HAWAII; UNDERWOOD ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES
documents from all sides. Among the documents was
an incriminating letter from Minister Stevens to former
U.S. Secretary of State John W. Foster, in which Stevens
wrote, The Hawaiian pear is now fully ripe, and this
is the golden hour for the United States to pluck it.
In his nal report Blount concluded Stevens had called
on Bostons troops not to protect U.S. property, but rather
to back the coup. Cleveland promptly dismissed Stevens.
In mid-November 1893 President Clevelands admin-
istration offered Liliuokalani a deal: grant amnesty to
those who had deposed her, and the United States would
restore the monarchy. From the queens perspective that
 was impossible. Thurston and the others had committed
treason and needed to be punished, or they might try
again. She reportedly told Stevens replacement, U.S.
Minister Albert S. Willis, the coup leaders deserved to
be beheaded. Whether or not she meant that literally,
the idea of the dark-skinned queen bringing back sacri-
cial practice made the American press howl. On Decem-
ber 18 Liliuokalani nally sent a letter saying she would
accept Clevelands dealbut it was too late. That same
day Cleveland sent her notice he was turning over the
matter to Congress. In February 1894 the Senate released
its own report, which absolved of all blame everyone
involved in the overthrowLiliuokalani not included.
In May the Senate went even further, issuing a resolu-
tion opposing the queens restoration. The provisional
government slammed the door on July 4 by establishing
the Republic of Hawaii, with Dole as president.
On Jan. 6, 1895, Honolulu police disrupted a plot to
overthrow the republic and routed the royalists after three
days of skirmishing. After nding weapons and incrimi-
nating documents in a search of Liliuokalanis residence,
authorities arrested the deposed queen. Convicted with
192 others by a military tribunal, she abdicated, hoping
to save her compatriots lives. To avoid creating martyrs,
Dole ultimately commuted the sentences of all those con-
victed and kept Liliuokalani under house arrest for nearly
HAWAII STATE ARCHIVES; CORBIS/VCG VIA GETTY IMAGES
two years before pardoning her. On her release Liliuoka-
lani mortgaged her property and used the money to travel
stateside in a last-ditch effort to reclaim her crown. She
published her memoirs, detailing the coup from her point
of view, and presented the U.S. Senate with the results
of a petition against Hawaiis proposed annexation. Her
backers had shuttled between the islands capturing signa-
tures from half of Hawaiis native population. Their effort
helped defeat ratication of an 1897 annexation treaty.
Hawaiian royalists celebrated their victory, but they
failed to realize the 1896 U.S. presidential election had
shifted the political winds. With the election of William
McKinley as president, Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge and
other expansionistsincluding Assistant Secretary of
the Navy Theodore Rooseveltnally had a commander
in chief who would allow them to implement Mahans
naval strategy in a deliberate bid for empire.
The final blow to Liliuokalanis efforts came with
the Feb. 15, 1898, sinking of the USS Maine in Havana
Harbor, which made war with Spain inevitable and a
coaling station in Hawaii essential. This time annexation
threaded the loophole of joint resolution, requiring a
simple majority in both houses. The Senate approved the
bill on July 4, and McKinley signed it law three days later.
The annexation ceremony outside Iolani Palace
marked the last step in Hawaiis Americanization. On
August 12 native Hawaiians in Western suits and dresses
offered up Christian prayers, read speeches in English
and stood alongside American troops from the protected
cruiser USS Philadelphia while their ag was lowered.
The former Royal Hawaiian band and the ships band
from Philadelphia together played the Hawaiian an-
them, Hawaii Ponoi, then struck up The Star-Spangled
Banner as Old Glory rose up the staff and snapped in
the breeze. The sight proved too much for the Hawaiian
players, who abandoned their instruments and left the
ceremony in tears. MH
Paul X. Rutz, a 2001 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy,
is a painter and freelance writer whose articles have been
published in the Hufngton Post, Army History and other
publications. For further reading he recommends Captive
Paradise: A History of Hawaii, by James L. Haley, and Ha-
waiis Story by Hawaiis Queen, by Liliuokalani.
69
 Reviews
Tet Turnaround
Hundreds of battles and thousands of smaller
engagements characterized the Vietnam
War, but most living Americans can likely
name only a few. Notable among those few
is the 1968 Tet Offensive, the coordinated
series of surprise attacks throughout South
Vietnam by the North Vietnamese Army and
Viet Cong that eroded U.S. public support
Hue 1968: A Turning for the war and marked the beginning of the
Point of the American end of American involvement.
War in Vietnam, Tactically speaking, the offensive was a
by Mark Bowden, disastrous defeat for North Vietnam. It cost
Atlantic Monthly Press, the communists as many as a half-million
New York, 2017, $30 casualties, virtually eradicated homegrown
Viet Cong insurgent forces throughout South
Vietnam and failed to elicit a popular up-
rising in the south against the Saigon regime.
Tellingly, North Vietnams vaunted architect
of victory, General Vo Nguyen Giap, who
planned and carried out the offensive, was
effectively sidelined for the rest of the war
by Hanois political leadership.
Yet the Tet Offensive led to a stunning
political about-face that can arguably be
70 MILITARY HISTORY NOVEMBER 2017
called the singular turning point of the war.
While the battered communists may have
lost the military means to win the war on
the battleeld, the shock of the attack, its
ferocity and press coverage of the offensive
brought about a loss of faith in military
commanders among politicians and much
of the public back home, eroding their will
to persevere until nal victory.
Take, for example, the failed but emi-
nently photogenic attack on the U.S. Em-
bassy in Saigon or the bitter street-by-street,
house-to-house slugfest in Vietnams ancient
imperial capital of Hue, the focus of this
book. The press corps presented each battle
to American readers and viewers in stark,
bloody images that seemed to put the lie
to months of optimistic military announce-
ments the war was all but won. Clearly, it
wasnt. But neither was it lostat least not
BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES
on the battleeld.
Veteran reporter Mark Bowden, acclaimed
author of Black Hawk Down, presents a thor-
ough and compelling narrative of the signa-

American troops advancing through
Hue in 1968 use an M48 tank as cover.
ture battle of the 1968 Tet Offensive.
Drawing on more than 50 interviews
with participants from all sides of the
ght for Hue, the author relates events
from the highest level of power to the
troops engaged in desperate combat
on the ground. The result is a must-
read for anyone seeking to understand
the battle that, more than any other
in the long Vietnam War, ultimately
decided its outcome.
Jerry D. Morelock
The Second World Wars: How the
First Global Conict Was Fought
and Won, by Victor Davis Hanson,
Basic Books, New York, 2017, $35
Historians have analyzed and written
about World War II in exhaustive de-
tail since the last days of the war itself,
all the while debating its root causes
and exact starting date. In his latest
work, noted military historian Victor
Davis Hanson provides an utterly origi-
nal account of what he terms the rst
true global conict.
Some 60 million people perished
during World War II. What began in
1939 as a classical European war had
expanded by 1941 into a global conict,
which in turn morphed into total war.
Hanson examines the land, sea and air
battles across the theaters of war, but
the book really shines in his chapters
on ideas and people. Hanson argues
that the Treaty of Versailleswhose
reportedly harsh terms historians have
long blamed for the rise of Adolf Hit-
ler and subsequent outbreak of World
War IIwas not harsh enough. In-
deed, it was mild in comparison to
the terms Germany had imposed on
France in 1871 and on the Soviet
Union in 1918. Humiliating perhaps,
but not emasculating. Through laxity
on the part of the Allies, by 1936 Ger-
manys military had almost rebounded
to full strength. The terms of the armi-
stice had allowed the defeated but not
deterred nation to act on its desire for
Lebensraum (living space).
306 PAGES | H A RD CO V ER | $39.95
Hanson lays out the origins of the
warwhat prompted German aggres-
sion; why Great Britain and France
initially sought to accommodate the
Nazis through diplomacy and de-
terrence; and, finally, why the Allies
ultimately abandoned diplomacy and
chose to fight. He argues that World
War II was a preventable conict, that
tens of millions of people need not
have perished just to conrm the fas-
cist powers were in fact far weaker
than the United States, the Soviet
Union and Great Britaina conclu-
sion he lays at the feet of British ap-
Ranger arrived just in time. Read this
peasement, American isolationism
book to restore your faith in America
and Russian collaboration. No ideal-
and bolster your confidence in the
ist, Hanson also acknowledges post-
future of this great nation. H. R.
war calm will forever remain a tempo-
McMaster, National Security Advisor
rary phenomenon. To quote General
and author of Dereliction of Duty
George Patton: Nobody can prevent
another war. There will be wars as
366 PAGE S | HA R DCOV ER | $50.00
long as our great-great-grandchildren
live. The only thing we can do is to pro-
duce a longer peace phase between
wars. That is one of the few senti-
ments Hanson could not have ex-
pressed any better.
Claire Barrett
Becoming Hitler: The Making of
a Nazi, by Thomas Weber, Basic
Books, New York, 2017, $35
When and where did Adolf Hitler
change from moody loner into messi-
anic Fhrer? Some scholars maintain
the transformative events occurred
either during his childhood in Bavaria
or during his World War I service on This work fills a significant gap in
the Western Front. In this intensively the historiography of the US cavalry
researched account author Thomas in WWII, and makes a significant
Weber, a history professor at Scot- contribution to understanding the
lands University of Aberdeen, claims cutting-edge synergy between mass
the crossover came between 1918 and and mobility that defined the US
1924 in Munich. Were Hitler else- Armys outstanding combat record in
where, Weber argues, he would not the ETO.Dennis Showalter, author
have become a Nazi. of Hitlers Panzers: The Lightning
After Germanys surrender Hitler Attacks That Revolutionized Warfare
traveled to Munich and joined a bat-
talion supporting the newly pro-
claimed Bavarian Soviet Republic, UNIVERSITY PRESS
which had seized power in November OF KENTUCKY
1918. He served it until nationalist
800-537-5487
Freikorps units overthrew it in May
www.kentuckypress.com
 Reviews
Recommended
Voices From the
Easter Rising
Joseph McKenna
While the world was at war,
in 1916 some 2,000 Irish
rebels took up arms against
the United Kingdom in the infa-
mous Easter Rising. Historian
McKenna provides a narrative
of the conict from both sides,
delivering stunning personal
accounts of the insurrection,
as well as the trials and execu-
tions that followed.
Grant
Ron Chernow
Historians alternately stereo-
type Ulysses S. Grant as either
the hapless businessman, the
victorious but harsh Union
general or the inept presi-
dent. Chernow provides a
balanced biography that re-
veals all sides of the complex
Civil War figure whose for-
tunes repeatedly rose and fell
on the road to the White House.
72 MILITARY HISTORY NOVEMBER 2017
1919, whereupon Hitler
switched sides. In reaction
to the victory over the com-
munists, the city became a
haven for right-wing politi-
cal groups from across Ger-
man-speaking Europe.
That September Hitler
joined the tiny German
Workers Party, whose na-
tionalist, anti-capitalist,
anti-communist and anti-
Semitic views appealed to
him. His magnetism and
oratorical skill quickly
made him its leading gure.
In 1920 its name changed
to the National Socialist
German Workers Party and
membership swelled. In
1923 Hitler organized the
Beer Hall Putsch, and while
the attempted coup opped,
his subsequent trial for trea-
son spread his fame. During
the year he spent in pris-
on, he wrote his ideologi-
cal treatise, Mein Kampf,
and resolved that his party
would seek power through
democratic means.
Weber works hard to ex-
plain Hitlers often diver-
gent and bizarre views. As
a young man he was a fer-
vent German nationalist.
He was also anti-Semitic,
but it was the prevailing,
socially accepted variety of
anti-Semitism; he remained
on friendly terms with many
Jews right through his war
years. By 1921, however, his
speeches described a world-
wide Jewish cabal that ruled
Europe, America and even
Soviet Russia. Many early
Nazi sympathizers consid-
ered such views extreme,
but Hitlers explanation res-
onated with audiences, pro-
viding a satisfying excuse
for Germanys defeat. Re-
peated enough times, it be-
came accepted fact. That locked with combator the
Aryans were the master
race had been a widespread
and only mildly contro-
versial belief for a century.
Anthropologists grew skep-
tical, but the Holocaust, not
science, delivered the kiss
of death.
Weber never gets inside
Hitlers head, but he specu-
lates well, delivering a sat-
isfying, nuts-and-bolts ac-
count of the six-year span
during which an obscure
ex-soldier became a dema-
gogue the German estab-
lishment should have taken
more seriously.
Mike Oppenheim
The Struggle for Sea Power:
A Naval History of the
American Revolution, by
Sam Willis, W.W. Norton &
Co., New York, 2016, $35
Historians risk conceptu-
alizing naval power in the
American Revolution as a
sort of deus ex machina, with
eets appearing at the right
side of the map and then
disappearing just as myste-
riously until the next round.
Sam Willis capably lls this
gap with a history that both
expands to a global scale
and zooms to a barnacular
level of detail.
Willis notes that while
historians have catalogued
many individual elements
of naval combat during the
conflict, no attempt has
yet been made to unite or
combine these many themes
into a comprehensive naval
history of the war. He starts
by emphasizing the ways
in which naval conflict in
North America was inter-
mere specter of itin such
distant theaters as the Eng-
lish Channel, the Straits of
Gibraltar, the Caribbean
and the Indian Ocean. He
stresses the consequenti-
ality of naval operations
within the North Ameri-
can theater in occasionally
revelatory ways, with ample
attention to combat on riv-
ers and lakes. To give two
examples, it was the seem-
ingly puny Pennsylvania
Navys control of the Dela-
ware that enabled success
at Trenton and Princeton,
while General John Bur-
goynes turn away from his
formidable naval forces on
Lake George doomed the
British at Saratoga.
Among Willis emphases
is the particular difficulty
of maintaining and operat-
ing fleets anywhere, given
the attendant risks of tides,
storms and pestilence, but
especially at the months
remove from home North
American operations en-
tailed. Multiple conflicts
turned on simple discrep-
ancies of knowledge of local
tides and sandbarsmore
often, though not always,
 to the benet of Americans.
Their misplaced faith in the
Charleston Harbor sandbar,
for instance, proved no pro-
tection from a British fleet
well aware of how to sail
over it.
The largest U.S. naval ef-
fort during the war, the per-
haps deliberately forgotten
Penobscot Expedition of
1779, was an utter disas-
ter, but individual Ameri-
can ships soon showed great
promise. Even the most fa-
mous naval engagement
of the war is often misun-
derstood, Willis stresses.
French strategic efforts
to bring naval and land
strength to bear in one the-
ater while British eets were

  


occupied elsewhere nally
succeeded at Yorktown, and
yet this was not the iron-
clad trap of popular imag-
ination. Lt. Gen. Charles
Cornwallis had strong pros-
pects for escape and a sub-
stantial eet still at anchor;
he chose not to try.
Anthony Paletta
Sevastopols Wars: Crimea
From Potemkin to Putin,
by Mungo Melvin, Osprey
Publishing, Oxford, United
Kingdom, 2017, $38
When Russia annexed Cri-
mea in 2014, the world was
shocked. Yet it wasnt the
first time. Catherine the
Great had annexed the stra-
tegic peninsula on the north
end of the Black Sea in
1783, immediately follow-
ing her conquest of the
khanate of the Crimean
Tatars. In 1954 the Soviet
Union transferred Crimea
from Russian to Ukrainian
authority. It was little more
than an administrative pro-
cedure, however, as the re-
public remained within the
monolithic USSR. Within
a half-century the Soviet
Union was no more, and
since its dissolution the
republics of Russia and
Ukraine had been at odds
over Crimean autonomy,
particularly control of its
port city of Sevastopol, his-
toric headquarters of Rus-
sias Black Sea Fleet. When
Russian President Vladimir
Putin announced the an-
nexation, it should not have
come as a surprise to any-
one. All indicators in Rus-
sias 200-plus-year history
in the region pointed to
such a move. Retired British
Maj. Gen. Mungo Melvin
relates that history admi-
rably in Sevastopols Wars.
Crimea is one of the most
fought-over pieces of ground
in recent history. Almost im-
mediately after conquer-
ing the peninsula in 1783,
the Russians started build-
ing the fortress city of Sev-
astopol, siting it at the head
of a magnificent bay that
would become home port

 
 
 



In October 1777, a 6,000-strong British army surrendered in defeat after
the American victory at the Battles of Saratoga. For the first time in history,
a British General surrendered his sword.



 





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Reviews
to a Russian naval squadron. In 1854
55 the city fell to a 349-day siege by
British and French forces, ultimately
forcing Russia to sue for peace and
end the Crimean War. In 1905 dis-
affected sailors aboard the Russian
battleship Potemkin staged their infa-
mous mutiny just days after it sortied
from Sevastopol. The Germans briey
occupied Sevastopol after defeating
the Russians in 1918. Almost immedi-
ately thereafter Red and White forces
battled for control of the city during
the Russian Civil War. In 194142
German and Romanian forces under
Field Marshal Erich von Manstein con-
quered Crimea and took Sevastopol
after a 247-day siege. The Red Army
retook the ruins of the destroyed town
in May 1944. Designated a Soviet
Hero City of the Great Patriotic War,
Sevastopol also became one of only
three Federal Citiesalong with Mos-
cow and St. Petersburgdirectly ad-
ministered from Moscow.
There was no way Russia would ever
give up Sevastopol or the Black Sea
Fleet, which numbers 40 surface war-
ships and six submarines. Russia and
Ukraine sparred over those strate-
gic prizes for 23 years following the
breakup of the Soviet Union, until the
2013 internal crisis in Ukraine gave
Putin the pretext he needed to resolve
the problemat least for the time
being. By putting Putin and his actions
in context, Melvin is in no way de-
fending the Russian president. Rather,
the author clearly traces Sevastopols
direct geostrategic arc from the days
of Catherine the Greats military com-
mander, Grigory Potemkin, to Putin.
It is a story well worth understanding.
David T. Zabecki
The Second Anglo-Sikh War, by
Amarpal Singh, Amberley Publishing,
Stroud, United Kingdom, 2016, $42
Amarpal Singhs rst book, The First
Anglo-Sikh War (2010), appeared to
general acclaim. He follows up with
this companion volume, described
as the warts-and-all story of the
conict that led to the demise of the
Sikh empire, the last independent
power in India. Indeed, the con-
flict was more than that, for British
rule extended all the way to the Khy-
ber Pass.
The slaying of two young and su-
premely inexperienced British offi-
cers, Patrick Alexander Vans Agnew
and William Andrew Anderson, sent
with a pitifully small escort in April
1848 to take possession of the city
of Multan, sparked the unexpected
war between the East India Co. and
the Sikh empire. As the governor gen-
eral, when writing to the Duke of
Wellington in September 1838, re-
lated, These Sikhs ght, as we know,
well and long behind walls and guns.
And so it proved.
Commanded by Field Marshal Sir
Hugh Gough, the British pursued a
series of battles in which the outcome
was always in doubt. At Ramnuggar
in November, Sher Singh, having
skillfully used every advantage of
ground, kept his main positions in-
tact, boosting the morale of his army.
At Chillianwala, where 2,000 years
earlier Alexander the Great had faced
the Punjab ruler Porus, the opposing
forces met on January 13, at the end
of which Gough boasted, Victory was
complete as to the total overthrow
of the enemy.
Not quite, for one final, epic vic-
tory was required, at Gujrat on Feb-
ruary 21. Gough recalled the cannon-
ade there as the most magnicent he
had ever witnessed, and as terrible
in its effect. One old artilleryman,
the sole Sikh survivor of a battery
whose eight guns had been destroyed,
turned toward the advancing British
troops, rendered a profound salaam,
then walked away, the cheers of his
foes ringing in his ears.
It was an epic day, the end to an
epic war that decided the near-term
future of the Punjab. In its aftermath
Sher Singh agreed to British terms
for surrender, his army finally lay-
ing down its arms and disbanding
in mid-March.
David Saunders
Blitzkrieg: Myth, Reality and Hitlers
Lightning WarFrance 1940,
by Lloyd Clark, Atlantic Monthly
Press, New York, 2016, $27
Even though the bad guys won, every-
one agrees that Nazi dictator Adolf
Hitlers May 10, 1940, invasion of
France was a brilliant operation, car-
ried out with German efciency and
blessed by good weather, luck and a
distracted enemy. British historian
Clark begins by emphasizing it was
a conventional offensive led by in-
fantrynot, as often described, a
signature German blitzkrieg.
In recounting the run-up to the
invasion, the author reminds read-
ers that almost none of Hitlers ca-
reer military leaders liked him. They
had opposed his march into the Rhine-
land in 1936, the Austrian Anschluss
in 1938, his eagerness for war with
Czechoslovakia and his invasion
of Poland in 1939. In return the Fh-
rer openly held them in disdain,
and by 1940 the commanders had
been burned too often to stand up
to him.
Still, they remained unhappy with
his order to attack France. The Wehr-
macht was still a work in progress,
and everyone knew Frances army
was the worlds best. No less mired
in the past than France, Germanys
high command proposed attacking
through Belgium. After throwing his
usual tantrum, Hitler reminded them
France had handled that pretty well
in 1914. It took several more tantrums
before they produced a suitably imagi-
native plan.
It was not a slam dunk. Though
Germany threw its army and the en-
tire Luftwaffe at the main Allied force
in Belgium, it pushed back the de-
fenders only after some difficulty.
To the south, when German troops
emerged from the Ardennes on May
13, they were extraordinarily vul-
nerable. While the Allied air force re-
mained preoccupied 100 miles away,
inferior French forces still managed
to inict heavy casualties as the Ger-
mans forced their way across the
Meuse. French commander General
Maurice Gamelin should have re-
sponded more quickly, but Clark in-
sists communications from local units
failed to identify the thrust as Germa-
nys major effort. By the time Game-
lin realized his mistake, no response
he could have mounted would have
made a difference.
The bulk of Clarks narrative is a
minute-by-minute, blow-by-blow
account of the fighting from May 9
until Vichy Marshall Philippe Ptain
took office and signed an armistice
on June 22. Readers depressed by the
outcome can console themselves with
a good read and by remembering that
Hitlers victory in France fed the Fh-
rers exaggerated confidence in his
military acumen and his suicidal taste
for risky operations.
Mike Oppenheim
 Hallowed Ground
Bosworth Field, England
By Chris Allsop
W
hen Henry Tudor, Lancastrian claimant to
the throne of England, landed with an army
in southwest Wales, on Aug. 7, 1485, it was
no surprise. Richard III had kept a close eye
on his preeminent challenger ever since
Tudor had ed to exile in France following
the decisive Yorkist victory at Tewkesbury
in 1471a victory that had seemed to all but settle the
long-raging Wars of the Roses.
Wales, Henrys birth country, was a suitable landing site
for the 28-year-old son of a Welsh knight. He stepped ashore
at Milford Havens secluded Mill Bay with a patchwork
army of several thousand English and Welsh exiles, Scottish
soldiers and French mercenaries, the latter described by
contemporary French writer Philippe de Commynes as
some of the most unruly men in Normandy. Their num-
bers swelled as they marched through the Welsh country-
side, Henry benetting from a series of crucial defections
to the Lancastrian side.
Richard was also marshaling his forces. Choosing Leices-
ter as a rallying point, he sent the English army to meet
those of his allies the Earls of Norfolk and Northumberland.
A fourth Yorkist contingent, led by Thomas Stanley, Earl of
Derby, was expected to join the kings cause, but Lord Stan-
ley was far from a sure thing. A shrewd political operator,
hed curried royal favor through the reigns of three kings yet
had recently become Henrys stepfather. To encourage the
mercurial earl to remain Yorkist in his loyalties, Richard
had Stanleys son George, Lord Strange, taken hostage.
The king wasnt being paranoid. As Tudors army crossed
into England, it slowed to acquire as many recruits as possi-
bleand to allow Stanley and Tudor to meet twice in secret.
The armies met on August 22. Richard had deployed his
main force atop Ambion Hill, just west of the present-day
village of Sutton Cheney in Leicestershire. The king held the
summit with 3,000 infantrymen. Northumberland guarded
his left flank with 4,000 mounted men, while Norfolks
vanguard of 3,000 foot soldiers held the right, forming a
wall of spears around Richards cannons and archers. To the
south atop Dadlington Hill waited Stanleys army of 5,000.
As Henrys 5,000-plus men approached Ambion Hill,
the inexperienced Tudor wisely handed over command to
renowned war veteran John de Vere, 13th Earl of Oxford,
and then retired to the rear with his bodyguards.
76 MILITARY HISTORY NOVEMBER 2017
After struggling through a rain of arrows and cannon
re, Oxfords force charged Richards vanguard en masse,
the better to offset the Yorkists numerical advantage. Seeing
Norfolks men reeling, Richard signaled Northumberland
to ride to their relief. For reasons that remain murky, North-
umberlands horsemen failed to execute the command.
Meanwhile, Richard had sent Stanley a royal ultimatum:
Charge the Tudor troops, or your son will be executed. Sire,
I have other sons, Stanley reportedly replied. Incensed,
Richard ordered Stranges execution, but the kings ofcers
demurred, advising him to wait until after the battle.
Perhaps sensing his advantage slipping and suffering
from a reported lack of sleep on the eve of battle, Richard
resorted to a Hail Mary maneuver. Spotting Henry at the rear
of his army, the Yorkist king and a cadre of trusted ghters
circled around the melee and crashed into the challengers
retinue. Reckless though Richards charge might have been,
reports indicate it caught Henrys rear guard unaware. Were
it not for a body of stalwart pikemen, who managed to slow
Richards assault, English history might be much changed.
At that critical juncture Stanley sent in his men. Slicing
into Richards force, they pushed back the king, placing
Henry out of danger. The last moments of Richard IIIs
reignand lifearrived when his horse lost its footing.
According to Polydore Vergil, Tudors ofcial historian,
King Richard, alone, was killed ghting manfully in the
thickest press of his enemies. In the aftermath Tudor
was crowned Henry VII, while Richards scarred body was
publicly exhibited and then consigned to a simple grave.
Historians had long placed the site of Richards last
FROM TOP: LOOK AND LEARN/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES; NEIL HOLMES/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES
stand at the foot of Ambion Hill, marked by a present-day
visitor center [bosworthbattleeld.org.uk]. But in 2009,
after a ve-year research project, the nonprot Battleelds
Trust [battleeldstrust.com] found key artifacts proving the
clash ended about a mile farther southwest. In 2012 archae-
ologists surveying a Leicester parking lot unearthed the
skeletal remains of a man with distinctive curvature to his
spine and multiple battle wounds. DNA testing conrmed
the remains as those of Richard III. He was reinterred in
Leicester Cathedral in 2015. On the site where Shakespeares
crookbacked villain was exhumed stands the multimedia
King Richard III Visitor Center [kriii.com], with exhibits
about the Wars of the Roses and the birth of the Tudor
dynasty, which ruled England for more than a century. MH
 Artist Abraham Coopers 19th century illustration of the 1485 battle
(above) depicts Richard III, astride the white charger, coming within a
swords length of killing Henry Tudor. The Bosworth Battleeld Visitor
Trail takes in several sites thought to encompass the eld of combat.
XXXXXXXXXXXX

77
 War Games
1

Joseph
Brant

A Busy Year 4
Can you match each American

TOP LEFT: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS; CENTER, FROM TOP: W.I. BOUCHER; WINGS PALETTE; DEVIANTART.COM; SUPERHOBBY.COM; PETER GREEN; WINGS PALETTE
Revolutionary War commander
to the victory he won in 1781?
1. Francis Marion and Henry Lee
2. Charles Cornwallis
3. Andrew Pickens and Henry Lee
5
4. Benedict Arnold
5. John Cruger
6. Francis Rawdon-Hastings
7. Joseph Brant
8. Nathanael Greene
9. Franois-Joseph-Paul de Grasse 6
10. Daniel Morgan

____ A. Eutaw Springs

____ B. Hobkirks Hill
____ C. Ninety-Six
____ D.
____ E.
Virginia Capes
Cowpens
Wings Over Passchendaele
____ F. Augusta Identify the warplanes that fought far above the Flanders elds
____ G. Guilford Court House in the summer of 1917.
____ H. Fort Watson ____ A. Royal Aircraft Factory R.E.8 ____ D. SPAD S.XII
____ I. Groton Heights ____ B. Breguet 14 ____ E. Fokker F.I
____ J. Lochrys Defeat ____ C. Junkers J.I ____ F. Pfalz D.III
Answers: A8, B6, C5, D9, E10, F3, G2, H1, I4, J7 Answers: A3, B5, C4, D1, E2, F6

78 MILITARY HISTORY NOVEMBER 2017

 NAPOLON
ON THE NILE
HE LOST EGYPT
BUT WON FRANCE MAY 2017

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79
 Captured!

On Rotation
A soldier bearing a rie and eld pack test ies
the de Lackner HZ-1 Aerocycle at Brooklyn
Army Terminal in 1955. Conceived by the Army
as a reconnaissance platform, the HZ-1 was
U.S. ARMY TRANSPORTATION MUSEUM

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80 MILITARY HISTORY NOVEMBER 2017

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