Air University Review, May-June 1978

Four Approaches

Captain Daniel T. Kuehl

One can use a variety of approaches in the writing of military history. The view from the trenches can be just as valid as the commander's perceptions. No one approach--biographical, operational, strategic, not even the historiography of military thought--is more important than another. The historiography of the American Civil War, for example, includes works on economic warfare, grand strategy, and technological innovation, but without the stories of Burnside's Bridge at Antietam, or Little Round Top at Gettysburg, it all seems rather cold and purposeless. What is the essence of warfare, after all, if it is not brave men engaged in battle? Military historians and practitioners of the military art, therefore, divide their reading among these various areas.

At the time of his death in 1970, Sir Basil H. Liddell Hart, the renowned British military writer, was working on an anthology on war, a "selection of great writing on military topics," which would include material from antiquity to the present. Sir Basil's son Adrian has completed the volume, and the name Liddell Hart on the dust jacket of a hook is reason enough to peruse it. However, the ringing title, The Sword and the Pen,* is followed by a rather disappointing collection of military writings--not because the editor is Adrian Liddell Hart rather than his father but primarily because any anthology of the best of military writings would be limited if held to three thousand pages, let alone three hundred. The chronological arrangement of the selections also hampers their effectiveness.

*Adrian Liddell Hart, editor, The Sword and the Pen: Selections from the World's Greatest Military Writings (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1976, $10.95), 282 pages.

Because of this space limitation, each author averages three pages of text. One simply cannot do justice to Alfred Thayer Mahan in two pages or to Sir Winston Churchill in three pages. Even Sir Basil himself, who receives five pages of text, is shortchanged. Only in a few instances are the essential writings or teachings of an author successfully captured. One of these is William T. Sherman's "Letter to Major R. M. Sawyer, 1864," which reveals the philosophical basis for Sherman's harsh, though very effective, way of war; another is Adrian Liddell Hart's introduction, in which he expresses his own views on war and the military art. The presentation indicates the compromises the editor was forced to make. He was faced with limiting the number of contributors or publishing a very lengthy book, and the decision to include numerous short selections has resulted in a rather disjointed and superficial book.

The arrangement of the selections also lessens the book's impact. Why the title The Sword and the Pen? A potential contrast between military "thinkers and doers" never materializes, and the simple chronological grouping of selections often separates some that logically belong together. Thus, separation of the selections by Onasander and William T. Sherman by 100 pages and 1800 years fails to emphasize their common theme: how an army should conduct itself while operating in enemy territory. The paragraphs from Sir Walter Raleigh's History of the World discuss the problems of defending a coastline and accurately predict the situation of the German forces in Normandy on D-Day in 1944, but there is nothing in the text which points this out. World War I is touched on only indirectly, even though there are excellent sources available: Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front or Robert Graves's Goodbye to All That for a view from the trenches, or even Sir Basil's own The Real War, 1914-1918 for an overall view of that war.

These shortcomings do not completely negate the value of this book, however. The notes that precede each selection are excellent and provide the necessary background on each author and selection. The book is a good guide to further reading, and some of the passages are thoroughly enjoyable, such as nineteenth-century Russian General Suvorov's description of Russian infantry tactics: ". . . bayonet the first, shoot the second, and lay out the third with your bayonet." Although not a general history of military thought, Liddell Hart's anthology gives the reader a broad exposure to military writings from which to choose further readings.

The number of books written on operational aspects of military history probably equals all others combined. Werner Girbig’s brief account of the Luftwaffe's fighter operations on the western front in the closing months of World War II is such a book.* It is not a history of the Luftwaffe nor even a history of one arm of the Luftwaffe, but it does not pretend to be. Girbig's goal is to recount the sacrifices of German fighter pilots as they fought a losing battle against overwhelming Allied air power ever before has this part of the story been described in such detail.

*Werner Girhig, Six Months to Oblivion: The Eclipse of the Luftwaffe Fighter Force (New York: Hippocrene Books, 1975, $16.00), 140 pages.

The book focuses on Operation Bodenplatte (Baseplate), the Luftwaffe's low-level attack on Allied airfields New Year's Day 1945. Girbig develops his story by discussing the operations and losses of the German fighters in the west throughout December 1944 as they tried to oppose Allied bombers while simultaneously supporting German ground forces in the Ardennes. The extent of this effort is made painfully clear: 53 pilots killed or missing on 5 December 1944, 55 lost on 17 December, and a staggering 197 lost over the three-day period ending Christmas Day. December 1944 cost the German fighter force in the west more than 500 pilots, including many experienced flight and squadron commanders.

Thus the stage was set for Bodenplatte, which Girbig characterizes as a foolish operation that held no hope for improving Germany's strategic situation. In fact it was a disaster for the Luftwaffe. Although the Allies lost approximately 500 aircraft, most of them were destroyed on the ground, and few pilots were lost, On the other hand, the Luftwaffe lost more than 200 pilots either killed, missing, or captured; after 32 years 48 men are still unaccounted for Girbig's research was meticulous, and he presents a detailed account of the attack on each airfield and attempts to indicate where and how each German loss occurred.

The reasons for these heavy losses become evident. The planning failed to reach many fighter units until it was too late to brief the pilots; many flights took off with the leader merely saying "follow me." The Luftwaffe's antiaircraft units shot down many of their own planes simply because they had not been informed that the large numbers of aircraft overflying their positions would be German; by 1945 any German antiaircraft unit that saw a large number of fighters assumed that they were Allied and reacted accordingly. On the other hand, Allied aircraft shot down far more German planes in air-to-air encounters than the Luftwaffe had believed possible. The key point was that each Allied aircraft lost could be replaced in a matter of weeks; each German pilot lost, however, was literally irreplaceable. It is easy to accept Girbig's assessment that Bodenplatte, coming hard on the heels of the terrible month of December, was the fatal wound to the German force.

Yet, Girbig does more than just chronicle the Bodenplatte disaster. He pays tribute to the courage and self-sacrifice of the German fighter pilots as they continue to fly and fight, even into the last desperate days of April 1945:31 pilots lost on 24 March 1945, 77 more on 7 April, and the list goes on. One must respect the manner in which these men flew their missions, did their duty, and died. Girbig's book is a fitting tribute to these pilots and one that any student of fighter operations, or of brave men at war, would enjoy reading.

Battles are won or lost, and operations carried out, by men. From any great conflict a few personalities emerge who, either through brilliance, eccentricity, or a combination of the two, attract complete admiration or condemnation. Such a man was Field Marshal Sir Bernard Law Montgomery of Alamein; any discussion of his role in World War II immediately explodes into heated debate. During one of Montgomery's interviews with Lord Alun Chalfont, the author of this new biography,* Montgomery stated, "If you are going to write about me you must find out what makes me tick-that's the hub of the whole thing-what makes me tick." This is precisely what Chalfont attempts to reveal in this engrossing study of Montgomery: what forces drove this man, how he could have risen to the pinnacle of his profession while being "prickly, antisocial, graceless." The book is not about Montgomery' skill as a soldier but rather about Montgomery the man, a very strange man who happened to be a soldier.

*Alun Chalfont, Montgomery of Alamein (Net York: Atheneum, 1976, $12.95), 365 pages.

The first part is devoted to the twin influences that most profoundly shaped his personality and career: early family life and the Western Front between 1914 and 1918. Montgomery's personality, tactfully described as "difficult," was shaped by his relationship with his mother while he was a young boy. Son of an Anglican clergyman and a strong, determined young woman, Montgomery was, in his own words, "a dreadful boy." In frontier Tasmania, young Bernard was reared by his mother, Maud, firmly committed to keeping control of the family while her husband traveled throughout the island on church business. The boy's inherent rebelliousness caused running civil war with his mother, a war without an armistice and the source of many of his mature attitudes and eccentricities. This is not merely psychological speculation on Chalfont's part; Montgomery's peers and especially his siblings agree that the apparent lack of affection between mother and son was the key to his personality. His determination to strike at his mother probably led to a military career. His obsession with winning--possibly to makeup for the early battles lost to her--led to his disagreeing with senior officers and to personalizing conflict, even to the point of putting pictures of Rommel and von Rundstedt, two of his chief World War II opponents, on the walls of his command vehicle.

Experiences on the Western Front during World War I shaped his concepts of how war should be waged. Like so many of his contemporaries, Montgomery was shocked by the waste resulting from trench warfare. He could accept casualties, but he tried to conserve his infantry, the cutting edge of his army, so that he had enough troops to exploit an advantage when one became apparent. It was on the Western Front that he learned the importance of planning and conserving his forces in order to implement his plans. Theses two lessons formed the fabric of all his subsequent military operations.

Nowhere was this more evident than in the campaign from which Montgomery drew his title. The planning for the El Alamein offensive was meticulous and detailed; each unit, almost every soldier, had a specific role to play. It was a set-piece battle, typical of Montgomery's operations during the war. Indeed some commentators have faulted him for being too methodical, and it is true that he displayed a great deal of caution-some say excessive-in the exploitation of El Alamein. Coincidentally, the one Montgomery operation that was unconservative and seemed hastily planned, Operation Market-Garden, resulted in disaster at Arnhem. Although Chalfont does not evaluate Montgomery as a field commander, his opinions are apparent. Montgomery was a good logistician and planner, but he was unable to follow up a victory swiftly and push forward.

Two other well-known traits of Montgomery must be mentioned: his ability to inspire the troops that fought for him and his aptitude for exasperating and infuriating senior officers, both British and Allied, with and for whom he worked. At El Alamein and Normandy he spent many hours explaining "the plan" to the men who had to implement it. Just prior to D-day he met with one British unit, the Welsh Guards After asking a guardsman what his most important possession was and receiving the standard infantryman's reply, "My rifle," he said "No it isn't, it's your life and I'm going to save it for you. Now listen to me…" Time and again he worked the "only magic on his troops," who believed he would look after them, as indeed he did.

Officers who served with him, however, remember his lack of tact and his ability to infuriate his peers. Through three major campaigns, the Desert, Italy, and Western Europe, Montgomery's abrasiveness seemed to increase, and probably very few senior officers were not angered by him at some time during the war. Only the firm hand of General Sir Alan Brooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, held him in line. After one row between an Allied commander and Montgomery, he proudly displayed a message stating "Another Brookie blasting, by gum!" Chalfont details the progressive deterioration of relations between Montgomery and Eisenhower, and charges Montgomery with most of the blame. He never seemed to take "no" for an answer and constantly infuriated Eisenhower by bringing up proposals that Ike thought were settled. Sometimes Montgomery’s arrogance distorted his view of the world: as late as the l960s he was worrying about losing Ike's friendship, when in reality Ike had long since lost all feeling of cordiality toward Montgomery, whom he described as "a liar." Montgomery's insensitivity was the cause of innumerable incidents during his career, many of which Chalfont covers in detail, to the delight of the reader.

In spite of his personal and military shortcomings, however, Montgomery was, in Chalfont's opinion, the right man in the right place at the right time. His eccentricities endeared him to the British public, which was desperate for a high-ranking war hero, and he was the perfect man to fight the war of materiel that finally defeated the Germans. This biography is a fascinating study of the only man who was instantly recognizable merely by his rank--"The Field Marshal."

One tremendous advantage Montgomery and other Allied commanders had over their German opponents was advance knowledge of many of the German plans and dispositions. Obtaining accurate intelligence is the job of any good commander, but it is only in the past few years that we have been enlightened as to just how much more intelligence we had than the Germans, how it was obtained, and its accuracy. Anthony Cave Brown's massive work spells out for the first time how this intelligence was used to assist Operation Overlord, the invasion of Europe.*

*Anthony Cave Brown, Bodyguard of Lies (New York: Harper and Row. 1915, $15.95), 946 pages.

The title of Brown's book comes from a remark made at the 1943 Teheran Conference by Prime Minister Churchill, "In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies." Thus was born the cover name for Plan Bodyguard, the series of spoofs and deceptions designed to make Hitler and the German high command believe that the invasion of Europe would be made elsewhere than Normandy.

Much of the story of Bodyguard of Lies concerns the Allies' use of information gleaned from reading the top secret German message traffic placed in Allied hands by British cryptographic experts. In 1974 the secrets of this operation, called Ultra, were finally told by the Royal Air Force officer in charge of it, Frederick Winterbotham, in his book The Ultra Secret. Brown, in laying the groundwork for Bodyguard, goes back even further into Ultra's past than Winterbotham does, beginning with Hugo Koch's invention of a "secret writing machine" in 1919. This device was adopted by the Germans in the 1930s as their "unbreakable" code machine, and it was given the name Enigma. The story of how the British obtained a copy of the Enigma machine is one that outdoes even the best fictional spy thriller. Finally, just at the start of their crisis in 1940, the British were able to unravel Enigma's secrets, and they began reading an increasing amount of the Germans' most vital message traffic, sometimes even before the intended recipients had received it.

At first the Ultra material was not of decisive importance, partly because of the Germans' limited use of Enigma and because the British could not decipher all the traffic. But as the message traffic increased so did British skill in breaking the codes, and eventually they were intercepting and decoding messages of considerable importance. It was an Ultra message that provided RAF Fighter Command with the targets and plans of the Luftwaffe on Adlertag (Eagleday), the day that the Luftwaffe planned to break the RAF and, instead, helped the RAF break the Luftwaffe. Two days later another Ultra revealed the extent of the victory: Hitler began dismantling facilities that were to have been used in the planned invasion of England.

Brown traces the use of Ultra through many of the war's campaigns: Coventry, where Churchill permitted the city to be cruelly mauled by the Luftwaffe rather than risk revealing Ultra; Alam Halfa and El Alamein, where Ultra gave Montgomery detailed knowledge of Rommel's forces, plans, and weaknesses; Normandy, where knowledge of Hitler's planned counterattack at Mortain enabled Allied forces to trap and destroy much of the German army in the Falaise pocket.

The military significance of Ultra is obvious--it provided the Allies with knowledge of what the enemy was planning. British counterintelligence forces achieved the corollary to this accomplishment by eliminating the German intelligence network in England. Not only' were they able to eliminate the German agents, they "turned" many of them and used them to pass false information to the German high command. This achievement, described in John Masterman's book The Double-Cross System in the War of 1939 to 1945, formed an essential second part of the Bodyguard operations.

This was the background of Bodyguard. Through Ultra the Allies had access to the German plans and dispositions, even the ability to follow the debates between Hitler and his generals over questions of strategy.

Through the operations of MI-5, the British counterintelligence agency, the Allies were able to furnish the Germans false information. Ultra even enabled the Allies to judge the effectiveness of their deceptions. All of this was designed to assist the Allies in carrying out one of the most important and difficult military operations of modern history, the cross-channel invasion of Europe. Bodyguard was composed of seven major deceptions that aimed at inducing the Germans to disperse their forces throughout Europe away from the main theater of operations. The first, Overthrow, was designed to convince the Germans that the Allies intended to invade Europe in 1942, thus tricking the Nazis into keeping troops in France and away from Africa and Russia.

The second, Cockade, hinted at an invasion of France in 1943. The operation was rife with plot and counterplot, agents and double agents. Brown presents evidence that one man even played the role of a triple agent, betraying portions of the French Resistance to the Germans in order to gain credibility, then passing false information to them. It was a cruel situation, Brown asserts, for the Resistance was deliberately misled into believing the invasion to be imminent, thus fooling the Germans into believing the statements tortured from captured members of the underground. Unfortunately, large portions of the Resistance were destroyed for naught since the Germans saw through the plan and actually withdrew troops from France. Cockade was an Allied defeat.

Five of the operations took place in 1944: Zeppelin in the Balkans; Royal Flush and Vendetta in southern France; Fortitude North in Norway; and Fortitude South in France's Pas-de-Calais. This last operation was the key to the plan, and many tricks were pulled from Bodyguard's bag to fool the Germans. Nonexistent units sent. messages to other nonexistent units so that the German wireless intercept service could learn that a few more infantry divisions had "arrived" along the Channel coast. Flamboyant armored commander General George Patton was announced as commander of these "forces," so that his reputation would attract the attention of the German intelligence network. Ultra enabled the Allies to determine what deceptions were succeeding, and they used the "turned" German agents to reinforce the ones the German command doubted.

It is fortunate that we were able to do so. Rommel, commander of the German forces guarding the Normandy coastline, was convinced that the invasion would fall on his sector. Months earlier Hitler stated that he had a hunch" that the Allies might land there, but after the Invasion he reversed himself and insisted that the real invasion would come in the Pas-de-Calais. The Invasion was successful, but only by a narrow margin, and Brown asserts it was Bodyguard that gave the Allies the margin they needed.

Although the basic theme of Bodyguard of Lies is the deception campaign surrounding the Invasion, there are numerous subthemes woven into the book, as seen in the tales of the development and use of Enigma and Ultra. Another is the German resistance movement against Hitler, the Schwarze Kapelle (Black Orchestra). Brown's book reveals that the conspirators were doomed from the start; they depended heavily on the belief that the Allies would assist them, and they were manipulated by the Allies, who distrusted their motives.

There are portions of Bodyguard of Lies, however, built on rather shaky ground. The chapter on the aerial battle of Nuremberg (30-31 March 1944), in which the RAF lost more than 90 heavy bombers in a disastrous defeat, is one such example. Brown suggests that the British may have permitted one or more of the "turned" German agents in Britain to warn the Luftwaffe in order to build up their credibility. This premise may or may not be true. But he also theorizes that the raid may have been betrayed in order to lure the Luftwaffe's night fighters into battle, where they could be destroyed by the RAF's intruder force of Mosquito night fighters. This is foolish. Aside from the fact that it was too small to have had decisive results, this force had been operating previously without significant results. The bombers certainly held no threat to the German fighters; they frequently lost more aircraft to nighttime crash landings than to British aerial gunners. In the event, the German fighters decimated the attacking British force. If the disaster over Nuremberg was caused by betraying the raid to assist Plan Bodyguard, it may have been worth it in the long run, but it certainly was not intended to cause an aerial battle in hopes of defeating the Luftwaffe. The weakest parts of Brown's book are his attempts to discuss military tactics and actions.

The fact that he was able to accumulate such a mass of material in spite of official restrictions and the reticence of key participants is a remarkable achievement. A few years ago Ultra and Bodyguard were terms unknown except to a very select circle of men. The publication of Bodyguard of Lies, in conjunction with similar works such as The Ultra Secret, is forcing a re-evaluation of World War II. The course of many battles and campaigns must be freshly examined in light of this new material. Throughout his book, Brown weaves a masterful tale of suspense and intrigue involving heads of state playing for the highest stakes possible--national survival. It is an excellent study of possibly the least-known aspect of the war and should be read by all who hope to gain a better understanding of it.

To most people, the term "military history" means the story of a battle or series of battles, guns crashing and men charging, a series of colored arrows on a map. As three of these four books demonstrate, however, military history is far more than these popular symbols. If military history means-battles and campaigns, it also means the plans that shaped those actions, the men who directed and implemented the plans, and the entire body of military thought that has come down through the ages. These four books are merely a small sample of some of the military history that has been written recently. A few years ago the "definitive" histories of World War II had been written. Now, after the publication of the books by Brown, Masterman, and Winterbotham, the entire history of the war must be reconsidered. The same is true of any past conflict: the books are never closed on any aspect of military history, and as long as this is true, there is something that we students and practitioners of the military art can learn from its study.

Captain Daniel T. Kuehl (M.A., Temple University) is attending the Missile Launch Officer Course at Vandenberg AFB, California, prior to assignment to the 321^st Strategic Missile Wing at Grand Forks AFB, North Dakota. His initial assignment was as Command Historian for The United Stated Logistics Group (TUSLOG) in Turkey. He recently completed an assignment as a staff historian at the Albert F. Simpson Historical Research Center at Maxwell AFB, Alabama. Previous publications include work for the Air University Review.

 Disclaimer

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.

Air & Space Power Home Page | Feedback? Email the Editor