The Strategy & Tactics of World War II

Number 2

The Solomons
Campaign

Strasbourg, 1945

Battle of Gdynia, Poland, 1939

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 contents

Number 2 Features
Oct/Nov 2008
6 The Solomons Campaign: Joint Warfare in the
Publisher: Christopher Cummins South Pacific, Aug 1942-Feb 1943
Editor: Ty Bomba The South Pacific witnesses a clash of naval, air and land forces
Assistant Editor: Joseph Miranda which proved to be a turning point in World War II and created
Copy Editors: Jason Burnett, Jon Cecil, and Dav
the legend of Guadalcanal.
Vandenbroucke.
Design • Graphics • Layout: Callie Cummins by Joseph Miranda
Map Graphics: Meridian Mapping

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 The Strategy & Tactics of World War II

contents

Departments
43 The Battle for Gdynia & the Polish 27 Observation Post
Corridor, 1939: A Fight for Honor’s Sake
At the start of the war, the Polish Army puts up a On the Seas: Saga of the USS Ohio
desperate fight on the Baltic coast. Ron Bell
by Maciej Jonasz
Weapons & Tactics: The Japanese Knee
Mortar
David Newport

In the Air: Germany’s 50 & 55 mm Anti-

Aircraft Artillery
Carl Otis Schuster

Elite Beat: The Unique Case of Finland’s

Winter War Foreign Legion
John Osborn

53 Strasbourg 1945:
First Act in the Cold War
A German offensive threatens to split the Allied front
in France and almost brings Communists to power in Rules
France. R1 Solomons Campaign
by Kelly Bell by Joseph Miranda

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 The Solomons Campaign:
Joint Warfare in the South Pacific,
August 1942-February 1943
By Joseph Miranda
Opposing Strategies
The Pacific War began on 7 December 1941, and
for the next several months the Japanese armed forces
won a series of stunning victories. By May 1942 the
Japanese had accomplished their pre-war strategic ob-
jectives: the destruction of the American battlefleet,
the conquest of the resource regions of Southeast Asia,
the neutralization of British naval power in the Indian
Ocean, and the seizure of a string of islands to develop
into defensive bases. The Japanese did not expect a
long war, and were not prepared to fight one, if for no
other reason than their industrial base produced only
a fraction of the output of that of the Americans. To-
kyo’s plan was to deplete any Allied counter-offensive
through a combination of defensive airpower and na-
val counterattack, then end the war with a negotiated
settlement that would leave intact Japanese gains.
The Japanese, however, had altered their objectives
as 1942 unfolded. The quick victories led to an overly
optimistic outlook on the part of their leadership, an
6 #2
WaW 2 Issue.indd 6
outlook sometimes since referred to as “victory fever.”
Since seemingly anything could be done in the open-
ing phase of the war, anything could be done in future.
Looking for new areas to conquer, the Imperial Japa-
nese Navy (IJN) high command advocated extending
its airbase system into the New Hebrides and Fiji is-
lands. That would allow them to threaten Allied lines
of communication between the west coast of the US
and New Zealand and Australia. A plan to invade Aus-
tralia was dropped when the Imperial Japanese Army
(IJA) high command pointed out it didn’t have the 10
divisions that move would require.
Even so, the growing realization the war was going
to last longer than had been anticipated continued to
push the Japanese toward new offensive operations.
In the aftermath of Pearl Harbor the US demonstrated
a resolve to fight the war through to its end, whatever
the cost. With American industrial power gearing up,
and its armed forces expanding rapidly, the Japanese
7/3/08 2:46:35 PM
 saw they had to reach a military decision before the
balance of forces turned decisively against them. The
Japanese also believed, though, that the US coun-
teroffensive wouldn’t start until 1943 at the earliest.
That would give them time to conduct operations that
would make their strategic position impregnable. But
that estimation was proved wrong. In the summer of
1942 the US challenged them in the very island chain
that was to have been the jump off point for Japan’s
offensive against Allied communications—the Solo-
mons.
The Solomons
The Solomons are a chain of islands in what the
Allied command designated as the South Pacific Area
of Operations (though some of the islands overlapped
into Gen. MacArthur’s Southwest Pacific Theater).
The Solomons were located at the midpoint between
the major Japanese island bases of Truk and Rabaul
and the newly established US bases in the New Heb-
rides. The Solomons tended to be mountainous, cov-
ered in jungle, with poor roads and plenty of disease,
insects and crocodiles, all making them less than op-
timal for campaigning. They were inhabited by native
peoples who’d been administered by various colonial
powers prior to the war. One Allied advantage was
that relations between the colonial administrators and
the natives were generally good, which would make
for cooperation in intelligence and logistical matters
throughout the campaign.
In the center of the Solomons was the island of
Guadalcanal. In its immediate vicinity were several
smaller islands: Florida, Savo, Gavutu and Tulagi. The
IJN decided to convert them into bases for the project-
ed attack on the New Hebrides, Fiji, New Caledonia
and, perhaps, ultimately Australia. Even so, several
factors mitigated against the grandiose scheme. One
was that, while in mid-1942 the Japanese still had su-
perior numbers of warships over the US Navy (USN)
in the Pacific, they already suffered from a shortage of
ground troops. The IJA therefore showed little inter-
est in the Solomons operation. The army’s main ef-
forts were farther west, in China and Southeast Asia.
The divisions available for the south Seas Area, as the
Japanese termed the region that included the Solo-
mons, were tied down in the fight for New Guinea.
For amphibious operations the IJN had a small marine
corps of Special Naval Landing Forces (SNLF). Those
SNLF were sufficient to seize objectives against minor
resistance, but couldn’t fight sustained ground cam-
paigns.
Nor was the debate in the Japanese high command
simply between the army and navy. The Solomons
operation was as much a defensive move as an offen-
sive one. USN carrier air raids against Japanese bases
showed the vulnerability of the far-flung defensive
perimeter. Rabaul itself would be threatened if the Al-
lies were to move into the Solomons. The failure of
WaW 2 Issue.indd 7
The Imperial Japanese Navy
IJN doctrine centered on the concept of “decisive battle.”
That doctrine called for the IJN to engage and destroy the en-
emy fleet, thereby maintaining control of the sea. Owing to the
interwar Washington Naval Treaties, the IJN began World War
II with fewer ships than the USN and Royal Navy (RN). But
the Japanese believed they had several ways to counter Allied
numerical superiority. One was the USN and RN were divided
geographically, having to commit a considerable amount of
strength to fighting the Germans and Italians in Europe.
Another advantage was to be gained by the Japanese launch-
ing a surprise attack against the main USN Pacific base at Pearl
Harbor, Hawaii. Of course, on 7 December 1941 that attack
knocked out the US battleships in the Pacific Theater of Opera-
tions. The aerial sinking of the RN’s battleships Prince of Wales
and Repulse, and the follow-on IJN carrier raids against British
bases in India, also did much to neutralize Allied seapower: the
RN wouldn’t return to the Pacific in strength until 1944.
On the tactical level, the IJN command believed it could gain
the edge via airpower, training and weaponry. They would use
airpower, both carrier and land-based, to attrition to the enemy
battleline before it got within range of their own fleet. Subma-
rines would also attack enemy warships in order to even up the
fight before the battleships traded shells. The IJN’s submarine
doctrine was in marked contrast to German and US practice, ac-
cording to which the subs were to fight primarily as commerce
raiders. The IJN approach demonstrated some validity insofar
as their boats proved effective in sinking or damaging several
major American warships during the Solomons campaign.
The Japanese also trained extensively for night operations.
That allowed them to commit warships to combat when enemy
aircraft couldn’t operate efficiently. The Japanese designed
special night optical equipment to find enemy ships at sea before
they could be sighted in return. That gave them a real edge in
several of the Guadalcanal actions.
There was also the infamous Japanese “Long Lance” tor-
pedo. Those weapons had longer range and more hitting power
than Allied torpedoes, allowing Japanese warships to engage be-
fore the enemy could fire back. Among other things, torpedoes
could give a destroyer enough power to take on a cruiser, as was
demonstrated at the Battle of Tassafaronga.
Japanese naval aviation included both carrier and land-based
components Pilots were the product of a rigorous training pro-
gram that selected only the highest quality aircrew. The dilemma
the Japanese would face soon after fighting began, though, came
from the fact their training program was actually too rigorous.
There was no reserve of pilots to replace losses. The loss of
pilots in the various 1942 carrier and air battles undermined
Japanese naval aviation throughout the remainder of the war.
Battleship Yamato in 1941.
World at War 7
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 World at War 9

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 Chronology
7/8 December 1941, Pacific. Beginning of hostilities in the
Pacific Theater of Operations (7 December on the east-
ern side of the International Date Line, 8 December on
the western side).
10 December, Malayan Waters. Japanese land-based aircraft
attack and sink the British battleship Prince of Wales and
battlecruiser Repulse.
March 1942, New Guinea. Japanese begin landings on the
island’s north coast.
3 May 1942, Tulagi. Japanese units land and begin con-
structing a seaplane base.
7-8 May 1942, Battle of the Coral Sea. An IJN task force
moving south to support operations on New Guinea
is intercepted by a USN carrier task force. IJN loses a
light carrier and the USN losses a fleet carrier. While a
Japanese tactical victory, Coral Sea is a US strategic win
since it turned back the IJN task force.
4-6 June 1942, Battle of Midway. Greatest carrier versus
carrier battle in history. IJN loses four carriers while the
USN loses one. IJN invasion fleet is turned back from
Midway and possible Hawaiian operations.
6 July 1942, Guadalcanal. Japanese units land and begin
constructing an airfield, later renamed Henderson Field
by the Americans.
22 July 1942, New Guinea. Japanese begin ground offensive
toward Australian-held Port Moresby.
7 August 1942, Guadalcanal. US 1st Marine Division lands
and establishes a perimeter around Henderson Field.
9 August 1942, Battle of Savo Island. Japanese squadron de-
feats USN cruiser force covering Guadalcanal landing.
Marines continue to dig in.
20 August 1942, Guadalcanal. Henderson Field begins op-
erations.
21 August 1942, Guadalcanal. IJA Ichiki Detachment at-
tacks USMC positions on Guadalcanal and is repulsed
with heavy losses.
10 #2
WaW 2 Issue.indd 10
24 August 1942, Battle of the Eastern Solomons. Carrier battle
ends with one IJN carrier sunk and no US losses.
12 September 1942, Guadalcanal. IJA 35th Brigade attacks US
positions and is repulsed.
13 September 1942, New Guinea. Japanese attack on Port Mo-
resby repulsed.
23 September – 9 October 1942, US Matanikau Offensive. Ma-
rines expand their perimeter.
11-12 October 1942, Battle of Cape Esperance. USN squadron
sinks one IJN cruiser and one destroyer while losing one de-
stroyer
23-26 October 1942, Bloody Ridge. Japanese ground force
launches large-scale attacks against US positions on Guadal-
canal, and are once again repulsed with heavy losses.
26 October 1942, Battle of Santa Cruz Islands. Second carrier
battle of the Guadalcanal campaign. USN loses one carrier
and one destroyer while damaging two IJN carriers and sev-
eral other ships. A Japanese tactical victory, the battle ended
with the IJN withdrawing to its bases, ending the threat to
isolate Guadalcanal.
31 October-24 November 1942, Guadalcanal. US continues
ground offensive. Terrain and Japanese resistance slow the
advance.
12-15 November 1942, Naval Battles of Guadalcanal. A series
of surface fleet actions and air attacks result in the IJN losing
two battleships and three destroyers, while the USN loses
two light cruisers and seven destroyers. The deciding factor
is US land-based airpower on Henderson Field, which makes
it dangerous for the IJN to operate during daylight hours.
30 November 1942, Battle of Tassafaronga. An IJN destroyer
squadron covering the Tokyo Express attacks and inflicts se-
rious damage on a US cruiser force in a “last hurrah” for the
Japanese in the campaign.
31 December 1942, Tokyo. The Japanese high command cancels
the planned counteroffensive to retake Guadalcanal, which
was to have begun on 1 February 1943. The evacuation order
for forces on the island is issued on 2 January 1943.
17 December 1942 - 7 February 1943, Guadalcanal. US ground
forces push back surviving Japanese rearguards.
22 January 1943, New Guinea. Allied forces take
main Japanese base at Buna-Gona.
8 February 1943, Guadalcanal. Japanese complete
their evacuation and the US secures the island.
7/3/08 2:46:43 PM
 the Coral Sea and Midway operations also caused the An Island Too Far
Japanese high command to cancel the projected inva- After some preliminary com-
sion of New Caledonia. Construction of an airbase on mand conferences to hash out re-
Guadalcanal therefore came to be seen as a means to sponsibilities, the Allies decided
build a forward defensive bastion in that area. Japanese the Solomons would fall under
doctrine also called for the creation of a network of is- Adm. Ghormley’s South Pacific
land airbases. Aircraft could be rapidly concentrated at Area of Operations. MacArthur
any particular base when the defensive perimeter was would maintain command of the
threatened by enemy moves. Air attacks would cause Southwest Pacific Theater of Op-
attrition among intruding enemy naval forces, and then erations, lying just to the west
the fleet would move in for the decisive battle. and including New Guinea. In the
In May 1942 the IJN pushed ahead with its Solo- Solomons, Ghormley had a real
mons operation, landing an SNLF along with a couple challenge to face.
of engineer units on Tulagi island, off of Guadalcanal. Pre-war US naval doctrine,
The engineers set up a seaplane facility on Tulagi, and under the War Plan Orange
in July started building an airfield on Guadalcanal it- (WPO) contingencies, antici-
self, which lay forward of other Japanese positions. pated a Japanese offensive in the Pacific that would
The nearest Japanese airfields were on New Georgia conquer the Philippines and seize island bases—which
and Bougainville, a couple hundred miles to the west, is what happened in the actual event. The War Plan Or-
but the main Japanese base was at Rabaul. ange American counteroffensive was supposed to go
The Japanese activities in the Solomons didn’t go through the Central Pacific via the Marianas and back
unnoticed by US intelligence, and quickly led to a to the Philippines. But Pearl Harbor ended any chance
debate in the Allied high command. There were good of WPO being executed in that manner. For one thing,
reasons to see any Japanese projection of their basing the USN battleships had been knocked out of the fight,
system as a threat. Along with the Japanese landings at least for the time being, and they were to have been
on New Guinea, farther west, the Solomons opera- WPO’s primary offensive weapon. Then there was the
tion could be construed as a move against Australia. new aerial dimension of warfare. Pearl Harbor, Coral
It would deprive the Allies of the tier of islands that Sea and Midway had demonstrated the efficacy of
would have otherwise been the continent’s outer line naval airpower. A US offensive into Japanese waters
of defense. Another issue was cargo and transport would have meant operating in the face of both car-
shipping, which were over-stretched owing to the rier and land-based enemy airpower. And Japanese air-
time needed to sail from the West Coast of the US to power had already demonstrated its lethality against
Australia and back. Further, such shipping was often enemy capital ships at sea by sinking the Royal Navy’s
inefficient, being essentially one-way: bringing men Prince of Wales and Repulse in December 1941. Any
and materiel to the Pacific but returning with little. US naval offensive into the Central Pacific would have
Japanese air attacks on that shipping could break the meant going up against superior Japanese strength in
already over-stretched Allied transport capacity. Even aircraft carriers and land-based airpower, far from the
if the Japanese couldn’t cut off Australia, they could cover of US bases.
make it difficult to support, and even more difficult for Guadalcanal offered the opportunity to fight the
it to be used as a base for Allied counteroffensives in Japanese on a middle
the Pacific. ground. The island was
In mid-1942 the Allied position in the south and located roughly halfway
southwest Pacific was vulnerable. The best Australian between Allied bases
ground troops were fighting in the Middle East against in the New Hebrides
Rommel, until the Australian government recalled and the Japanese base
those divisions to defend Australia itself. Then there at Rabaul. It was within
was the still uncertain global situation. In mid-1942, range of US B-17 strate-
German panzers were pushing through southern Rus- gic bombers that could
sia toward the Caucasus oilfields while Rommel was operate from the New
sweeping toward Suez. So for a variety of military, Hebrides. More, if the
political and logistical reasons, the Allies had to fight airbase on Guadalcanal
somewhere—and the Solomons were a good enough could be seized and ex-
place to start. Guadalcanal, which the US code named panded, Allied aircraft
“Cactus,” would become the focus of those opera- could be flown in and
tions. operated directly from
the island, giving the US
local air superiority. Adm. Turner reviews maps of the area.
World at War 11

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 A major issue for the US at the time was its own
lack of airpower. Remember, mid-1942 was still prior
to US industrial power kicking in to produce thou-
sands of leading-edge aircraft. In July 1942 there were
less than 300 aircraft available in the South Pacific
command, and many of them were obsolete. Army
aircraft included too many P-39s and its export ver-
sion, the P-400, which was sometimes referred to as a
P-40 with a “zero” (Japanese fighter) on its tail. While
good ground attack aircraft, they were unsuitable for
air superiority combat. Still, the US Marine Corps
(USMC) had sufficient numbers of F4F “Wildcats,”
and their pilots were trained to work closely in support
of ground units. Then there were the USN’s aircraft
carriers, which could also provide air cover to ground
troops, though they had to be used carefully since their
destruction couldn’t be risked.
Given all that, the US war machine went into ac-
tion. New bases were built in the New Hebrides, with
Espiritu Santo becoming the forward position. Both
the 1st and 2nd Marine Divisions were available for the
Pacific. After some reshuffling of units, the US high
command decided to initially commit the 1st Marine
Division, with the 2nd as a follow-on reserve. As army
units became available, they would also be commit-
ted.
Ghormley scraped together a decent sized fleet for
the operation. It was to consist of two task forces, one
for the amphibious assault, including gunfire support,
and another with three aircraft carriers. Most of the
ships were from the USN, though the Australians con-
tributed two cruisers. With men and supplies hurriedly
loaded onto transports, the Americans sailed for Gua-
dalcanal.
Onto the Island
The arrival of the US task force at the Guadalcanal
island group, 7 August 1942, caught the Japanese by
surprise. Their garrison managed to send a few fran-
tic radio messages to Rabaul and Truk before the Ma-
rines overran them. There was some fighting, but the
lack of Japanese combat troops made the success of
the US operation a foregone conclusion. Within days,
US forces had secured all major Japanese installations,
including the airfield, which was promptly re-chris-
tened Henderson Field, after Maj. Lofton Henderson,
a Marine aviator killed in action at Midway. The few
remaining Japanese took to the hills and awaited rein-
forcement as US engineers began readying Henderson
Field for operations.
As has been the case with many campaigns
throughout history, a major turning point had already
been reached due to events prior to the start of actual
operations. And this turning point was due to a factor
neither the Americans nor the Japanese realized at the
time. That was the failure of the Japanese to adequate-
ly defend the islands. Japanese combat forces on Gua-

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WaW 2 Issue.indd 12 7/3/08 2:46:48 PM

 dalcanal on 7 August amounted to the equivalent of a
single battalion. Their construction troops had little in
the way of combat capability, and all that went back
to the infighting between the IJN and IJA high com-
mands.
The IJN lacked division-sized land forces, and the
IJA wasn’t willing to commit large units to the Solo-
mons, at least not until later. Had the Japanese garri-
soned the island with only a relatively few more troops,
say an infantry regiment dug in around the airfield, and
made an effort to hold Henderson Field, or at least in-
terdict it from the surrounding hills with artillery fire,
the entire US plan would have been unhinged. In the
event, the American ability to utilize Henderson Field
as an airbase gave the US local air superiority and,
as will be seen, made Japanese reinforcement of the
island difficult.
Back at their Truk headquarters, the Japanese were
quick to react to the American landings. Adm. Yama-
moto launched an aerial riposte, sending in squadrons
of land-based torpedo bombers and Zero fighters to
attack the US fleet anchored off Guadalcanal. This
time around, though, both Japanese training and luck
failed and the bombers inflicted minimal damage on
US shipping. Still, the attack had some effect. Adm.
Frank Fletcher, in command of the Expeditionary
Force, decided keeping his carriers in the restricted
waters around Guadalcanal was too risky. He ordered
a withdrawal.
Fletcher has since come under criticism for that
decision, but given the situation he was probably justi-
fied. At the time he controlled the USN’s only three
Cactus Air Force: P-400s of the USAAF’s 67th Fighter Squadron.
WaW 2 Issue.indd 13
operational carriers in the Pacific. Their loss would
have had far reaching repercussions for the rest of the
campaign, as well as the course of the war in general.
Of course, the Marines on Guadalcanal had a different
view of the carriers’ withdrawal, seeing themselves as
being abandoned to fate.
At the same time on Rabaul, Adm. Gunichi Mikawa
was also taking action. If Japanese airpower couldn’t
stop the Americans, then maybe traditional naval pow-
er could. He put together a squadron of cruisers and
destroyers and sailed into the Solomons. At the Battle
of Savo Island, 9 August 1942, he engaged the US/
Australian cruiser task force and inflicted one of the
worst defeats on the US Navy in its entire history. One
Australian and three US cruisers were sunk.
Savo Island caused controversy in the American
command. After-action reports blamed a combination
of factors for the debacle, including a persistent “peace-
time” attitude on the part of the Navy command. Too
many officers grossly underestimated the capabilities
of the IJN, even after the string of Japanese victories
over the last several months. There was also the nature
of the Allied fleet: it had been put together from various
elements and lacked common training and experience
under fire. Another critical factor was the engagement
occurred at night: US forces still had little experience
in night combat, while the Japanese were masters of it.
American radar was supposed to make up the differ-
ence, but the still primitive electronic equipment made
that dependence chancy.
With aviation faltering, but their surface ships tem-
porarily ascendant, the Japanese command finally de-
World at War 13
7/3/08 2:46:48 PM
 cided to commit the third element of modern combat
power: ground force. They sent in a reinforced battal-
ion called the Ichiki Detachment, after its commander.
Ichiki landed on Guadalcanal and, moving forward
aggressively, soon contacted and assaulted Marine po-
sitions. His command was then shot to pieces, with
Ichiki himself among the dead.
Ichiki’s attack ended in disaster for a number of
reasons. Part of it was a Japanese intelligence failure,
one of many which would plague them throughout the
campaign. The Japanese estimated the Americans had
only 5,000 men on the island instead of the 15,000 ac-
tually there. Of course, even if the Americans only had
the numbers the Japanese thought they had, they still
would have outnumbered the Ichiki Detachment. But
the Japanese didn’t see numbers as much of a chal-
lenge. They had the experience of their earlier cam-
paigns, in which their units overcame great odds via
superior tactics and spirit. Night attacks that exploited
gaps in the enemy line had proven successful in roll-
ing up enemy units, but those tactics did not work on
Guadalcanal. First, the relatively solid American front
simply blocked Japanese infiltration attempts. There
were no gaps through which Japanese infantry could
infiltrate. Second, the Marines were a much better led
and motivated force than the often badly trained forces
the Japanese had encountered earlier in the war.
Not to be deterred, the Japanese sent in more ground
troops: at first a brigade and then the better part of two
divisions. But it proved to be a losing race for them.
The US buildup included two full US Army divisions
along with 2nd Marine Division, the latter being sent in
to relieve the 1st Marines. Meanwhile, Japanese ground
forces on Guadalcanal were going to pieces. While the
Japanese could get men to the island, they couldn’t
properly supply them once there. Their troops suffered
from lack of food and medical supplies, reducing their
combat effectiveness. Even the terrain seemed to be
against them. Attempts to make major land assaults
went up against abysmal jungle and mountain trails,
resulting in attacks that were fragmented. Of course,
the US faced the same terrain, which turned all ground
drives on the island into protracted affairs. But the
Americans were winning the battle of supply. The na-
val and air battles fought around the island kept US
transports coming through, while the Japanese were
finding themselves increasingly cut off. The IJN there-
fore came up with a new plan.
Tokyo Express
During the early stages of the campaign, the Japa-
nese Navy had the advantage in numbers and in sur-
face fighting ability, at least in regard to night actions.
The IJN had several battleships in the area of opera-
tions while, at the start of the campaign, the US had
only one, the North Carolina, though she would later
be reinforced by the Washington and Indiana. Given
that, a general engagement between surface ships
14 #2
WaW 2 Issue.indd 14
would most likely have resulted in an IJN victory. The
Japanese did make several attempts to exploit their su-
perior surface naval strength, all of which was in ac-
cord with their naval doctrine of seeking decisive fleet
action.
But the Japanese dilemma was that, while the
IJN could move freely into Guadalcanal’s waters, it
couldn’t stay there. As long as Henderson Field re-
mained in operation, the aircraft based there could
threaten the Japanese fleet. The IJN was therefore re-
stricted to operating at night, when American aircraft
had to remain on the ground. That led to the sortie
characteristic of their naval operations, with the IJN
sailing in, making an attack, then withdrawing. IJN
victories such as Savo Island couldn’t be exploited be-
cause, with the withdrawal of Japanese warships, the
US effectively regained control of the waters around
the island. Had the Japanese been able to maintain a
fleet in Guadalcanal’s vicinity, the USN would have
been forced to confront it at poor odds in order to
protect the transports necessary to supply the ground
force.
Meanwhile, though, the USN was also learning.
Adm. William Halsey took over command of the South
Pacific in mid-October, and he brought a new aggres-
siveness with him. He emphasized training, training
and more training. While the IJN still had some victo-
ries left in it, the US would turn the tables in several
actions.
One result of the loss of local naval superiotiy
was the Japanese found they couldn’t operate their
transports within range of American aircraft based on
Henderson Field. That necessitated the use of destroy-
ers and submarines as ad hoc fast transports, usually
operating at night—the famed “Tokyo Express,” as
the Americans termed those destroyers. The Japanese
used the more prosaic name of “Reinforcement Unit,”
or sometimes the “Rat Line.” While the Tokyo Express
usually got through, it could never provide sufficient
supplies to feed Japanese forces on the island, much
less provide sufficient ammunition for large-scale of-
fensives.
The Japanese recognized their dilemma. They made
several attempts to use their surface ships to bombard
Henderson Field in order to destroy the US airpower
based there. And they also launched air raids against
the US ground force on the island. But the distance
from their bases to Guadalcanal inevitably meant the
Americans had the defensive advantage. US pilots had
to fly shorter distances than the intruders flew to reach
the central Solomons. That meant American aircraft
could engage in air battles longer, as fuel consump-
tion wasn’t as pressing as it was for the Japanese. Shot
down Allied pilots also stood a better chance of being
recovered than did Japanese.
In response, the Japanese started to build air bases
on islands closer to Guadalcanal: Bougainville and
7/3/08 2:46:48 PM
 Cactus Air Force
US air units operating from Guadalcanal’s Henderson Field were nicknamed the Cactus Air Force. That was owing to the code name
for the island, “Cactus,” though it also reflected the mindset evoked by the tough and prickly desert plant. The aircraft initially assigned
to the Cactus Air Force were short-ranged, such as the SBD-1 scout dive bomber and F4F fighter. Longer-ranged craft, such as the P-38
twin-engined fighter, would be available later. In the New Hebrides the US also stationed several squadrons of B-17s, which proved
useful for long-range reconnaissance and ground bombardment.
The following chart shows when air squadrons were first assigned to Guadalcanal. It doesn’t include other units that only temporarily
used the island as a base.
Squadrons Arriving
Model Type Aug-42 Sep-42 Oct-42 Nov-42 Dec-42 Jan-43 Feb-43

F4F-4 Fighter 2 1 1 2 1 1
SBD-1 Scout-bomber 2 1 1
SBD-3 Scout-bomber 1
SBD-4 Scout-bomber 1 1
TBF-1 Torpedo- 1
bomber
PBY-1 Patrol 1

F4F-4 Fighter 3
SBD-3 Scout-bomber 2 1
TBF-1 Torpedo- 1
bomber
PBY-5A Patrol 1
OS2U-3 Recon 1 1

P-38 Fighter 1 1
P-39 Fighter/ 1
Ground attack
P-40 Fighter 2
P-400 Fighter/ 1
Ground attack
F-5 Recon 1
B-24 Heavy bomber 1
B-25/B-26 Medium 1
bomber

Hudson Recon 1
Ventura Bomber/Recon 1

USMC = US Marine Corps

USN = US Navy
USAAF = US Army Air Force
RNZAF = Royal New Zealand Air Force

Island airpower: B-25 medium bomber.

World at War 15

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 New Georgia. But it was too little, too late. US air-
power, again based on Henderson Field, neutralized
the new airfields, maintaining air superiority over the
central Solomons.
The overall situation was actually indicative of a
lack of coordination on the part of the Japanese. Their
ground offensives were always poorly supported by air
and naval power. Had all three forces gone in togeth-
er, the combined effect might have been sufficient to
overwhelm the US position or at least render Hender-
son Field unusable. The destruction of large numbers
of American aircraft on the ground by naval gunfire or
land-based artillery might have forced US airpower to
withdraw to the New Hebrides. That loss of airpower
could then have cascaded into the withdrawal of the
US naval presence, thereby making impossible the
supply of the ground force.
The potential for a combined Japanese action was
of major concern of the US command. Looking back,
the Allied victory in the Solomons can seem to take
on an air of inevitability; at the time, though, the cam-
paign was considered a high risk operation. The US
was gambling its only fleet in the Pacific on an island
chain within range of Japanese naval and airpower.
What’s remarkable about the campaign is how losses
of warships and aircraft to both sides were just about
even. Had there been an action that tipped the balance
further to Japan’s advantage, it might well have been
enough to have caused the US to cancel the effort and
pull back.
Victory through air interdiction: A-20 makes an attack
run against Japanese shipping
16 #2
WaW 2 Issue.indd 16
In late 1942 the Japanese high command was plan-
ning a new offensive to push US forces off Guadalca-
nal. IJA air units were flown to nearby bases, and re-
inforcement divisions began staging forward, but then
it all came back to the supply situation. The Japanese
could get to the island, but they couldn’t fight long
once there. Deciding to cut their losses, they cancelled
the planned offensive and pulled out their troops. By 8
February 1943 the US had complete possession of the
island.
Airpower versus Seapower
The Solomons campaign demonstrated the critical
interaction between air and naval power. During the
years between the end of World War I and the start of
World War II, a debate had gone on in naval circles
over the effectiveness of aircraft against warships.
Airpower advocates, usually personified by Gen. Wil-
liam “Billy” Mitchell, claimed planes had rendered
obsolete all surface warships. Aircraft could find, at-
tack and sink warships with unparalleled efficiency.
The US, Britain and Japan all developed aircraft car-
riers and doctrines to employ them in the belief naval
aviation was adding a new and decisive dimension to
warfare.
The opening years of World War II gave support
to airpower advocates. The British, in their Novem-
ber 1940 carrier-based air raid against the Italian na-
val base at Taranto, crippled the latter’s battle fleet.
At Pearl Harbor the Japanese sank or damaged the
USN’s Pacific battleline. Following that success, the
IJN’s carrier strike force ranged into the eastern Indian
Ocean, knocking out much of British naval power in
that region. Land-based Japanese airpower also sank
the Prince of Wales and Repulse in Mayalan waters.
Additionally, the sortie of the German battleship Bis-
marck in the North Atlantic was cut short by Royal
Navy carrier aviation, which found and crippled the
ship, allowing surface units to finish it off. Both the
Battles of Midway and Coral Sea added even more to
the argument for airpower. In both those engagements,
enemy ships never made visual or gunnery contact
with each other while aircraft brought the fight to the
enemy.
At Midway the Japanese lost four aircraft carriers
and a cruiser. Those losses were sufficient to cause
them to cancel the entire operation, the objectives of
which had included seizing Midway Island and then
moving on to Hawaii for an invasion.
Coral Sea, while something of a Japanese tactical
success because the USN lost more tonnage, was an
Allied strategic victory because the Japanese turned
back from their planned operation on New Guinea. A
similar pattern was seen in the Battle of the Santa Cruz
Islands later during the Solomons campaign. A Japa-
nese tactical victory was turned into strategic failure
when the IJN decided to break off further operations.
7/3/08 2:46:50 PM
 Naval Actions
Savo Island Eastern Cape Esperance Santa Cruz 1st Guadalcanal 2nd Guadalcanal Tassafaronga Other
9 Aug. 1942 (s) Solomons 11-12 Oct. (s) Islands 14-15, Nov. (s) 14-15, Nov. (s) 30 Nov. (s) Actions
24 Aug. (c ) 26 Oct. (c )
IJN CA x 5, CL x 2, CV x 2, CVL CA x 3, DD x 2 CV x 2, BB x 2, CL x 1, BB x 1, CA x 2 DD x 8 N/A
present DD x 1 x 1, BB x 2, CVL x 2, DD x 11 CL x 2, DD x 11
CA x 11, CL BB x 3, CA
x 4, DD x 22, x 8, CL x
NAC x 180 2, DD x 28,
NAC x 230
IJN None CV x 1, NAC CA x 1, DD x 1 NAC 100 BB x 1, DD x 2 BB x 1, DD x 2 DD x 1 CA x 2,
sunk x 90 CL x 1,
DD x 5,
SS x 6
USN CA x 5, DD x 7 CV x 2, BB x CA x 2, CL x 2, CV x 2, BB CA x 2, CL x 3, BB x 2, DD x 4 CA x 4, CL x N/A
present 1, CA x 3, CL DD x 1 x 1, CA x 3, DD x 8 1, DD x 6
x 1, DD x 10, CL x 3, DD
NAC x 170 x 14, NAC
x 170
USN CA x 4 NAC x 30 DD x 1 CV x 1, DD CL x 2, DD x 4 DD x 2 CA x 1 CV x 1,
sunk x 1, NAC
x 74

Abbreviations
(c ) = carrier battle CL = Light cruisers
(s) = surface battle DD = Destroyers
BB = Battleships, including battlecruisers IJN = Imperial Japanese Navy
CV = Aircraft carriers NAC = carrier based aircraft (“sunk” = shot down or otherwise destroyed)
CVL = Light aircraft carriers USN = US Navy (includes Allied ships under US command)
CA = Heavy cruisers
Notes: “USN” includes Allied warships. “Other Actions” include losses due to submarine and air attacks outside of the major naval battles. The chart
doesn’t show the cause of sinking or ships taken out of action due to damage that was later repaired, nor does it show losses to transports and small
craft. The Japanese battleship sunk at First Guadalcanal (the Hiei) was damaged by USN gunfire and then finished off by aircraft. At Santa Cruz, one
IJN CV and one CVL were damaged, while one USN CV was also damaged, though quickly repaired.

The sinews: US aircraft carrier hangar.

World at War 17

WaW 2 Issue.indd 17 7/3/08 2:46:51 PM

 Still, the Solomons campaign also demonstrated
battleships, cruisers and destroyers had plenty of fight
left in them. There were several surface engagements,
starting with Savo Island. More warships were sunk in
those actions than in the carrier battles. One reason for
the persistence of surface naval actions was because
aircraft still couldn’t operate effectively at night, and
the big surface actions were fought during hours of
darkness.
It’s also interesting to compare the number and
types of ships lost to airpower versus surface ships.
During the carrier battles the primary target was en-
emy aircraft carriers. That made sense: by sinking or
otherwise crippling the carriers, the enemy would be
rendered unable to threaten your own fleet with air-
craft. Presumably, that would also mean, if you pur-
sued a fleet, the carriers of which had been knocked
out of action, the rest of that entire force could be
destroyed from the air. Yet several things mitigated
against such pursuit. One was that aircraft losses were
often so great that carrier operations couldn’t be sus-
tained after the initial clash. There was also the ques-
tion of fuel, with major combatants having to return to
base to refuel. Even further, there was also the inevi-
table uncertainty of the intelligence situation. Enemy
losses were frequently overestimated, especially by
the Japanese. For example, at Santa Cruz the Japanese
believed they sank several more US ships than was
actually the case, and they broke off believing they’d
won a decisive victory.
The upshot was carrier battles were rarely as deci-
sive as surface actions in terms of sinking enemy naval
units. Rather, they were decisive in deterring further
operations by the defeated fleet. Again, after both the
Coral Sea and Santa Cruz battles, the Japanese fleet
turned back. In either case, had they continued their
offensive, they could have tipped the balance of the
land campaigns on New Guinea and Guadalcanal, re-
spectively.
On the flight deck: US carrier aircraft with wings folded for storage.
18 #2
WaW 2 Issue.indd 18
Another thing the carriers did was negate the rela-
tive combat power of surface ships. At both Midway
and Santa Cruz, the IJN’s surface naval power exceed-
ed that of the USN. Since the surface ships did not en-
gage, though, that factor didn’t really come into play.
What exacerbated the situation all the more was the
presence of land based airpower. Again, the US pos-
session of Henderson Field on Guadalcanal altered the
air-naval balance in the central Solomons, at least dur-
ing daylight hours. Interestingly, later in the campaign
the Japanese developed and employed tactics for aerial
night attacks, but that was after the decisive period of
the campaign had already passed.
The real advantage of naval airpower—especially
land based naval airpower—was not so much in its
ability to destroy warships, but to attack enemy lines of
communication. Cargo and transport ships were much
more vulnerable than warships, being slower, more
lightly armed and less well armored. In the Gudala-
canal campaign that made the difference. American
aerial interdiction of Japanese shipborne resupply was
sufficient to render the IJA units on the island combat
ineffective. It was that lack of supply that, more than
anything else, led to the Japanese high command’s de-
cision to evacuate.
Across the Pacific
The Solomons campaign was one of the clos-
est fights of the Pacific War. Both sides were evenly
matched, with the Japanese having a slight edge at
sea while the US had the edge on the ground. Air and
naval losses were about even, though the IJA got the
worst of it in ground combat. Why, then, did the cam-
paign turn out the way it did?
As previously noted, one of the most critical deci-
sions had already been made prior to the start of the
campaign: the Japanese established an airbase on Gua-
dalcanal but failed to provide sufficient ground forces
to hold it against an American riposte. Japanese defen-
sive strategy was predicated on utilizing land-based
airpower to strike at intruding fleets. Ironically, it was
the Americans who put that doctrine into practice by
exploiting Henderson Field. Still, as the campaign
demonstrated, airpower by itself was not sufficient to
do the job. Without ground troops to defend the airbas-
es, and seapower to provide the supplies, land-based
airpower could be neutralized.
At sea the IJN demonstrated superior skill and sea-
manship in surface actions throughout the campaign,
but the error they kept making was in failing to fol-
low-up their tactical victories. The pattern begun at
the Battle of the Coral Sea kept being repeated: the
IJN would win a tactical victory, but then throw away
the resultant strategic opportunity by falling back on
its bases. Part of the reason for that was the excess
caution imparted by the Japanese debacle at Midway.
continues on page 24
7/3/08 2:46:55 PM
 The High Commands
Allied Japanese
Adm. Chester Nimitz was Overall responsibility for the opera-
commander of the US Pacific tions in the Solomons was shared between
Fleet and Pacific Ocean Area. the IJN Combined Fleet headquarters and
The Allies divided the Pacific that of the IJA 8th Area Army. An “area
into several “areas,” each a army” was a Japanese formation about
major command made up of the size of a US numbered army, though
naval, air and ground forces. it had more of the responsibility of an
The Solomons campaign army group. A Japanese “army,” which
was the responsibility of the was subordinate to an area army, was
South Pacific Area Com- about the size of a Allied corps, though
mand, initially under Adm. it was capable of independent operations.
Robert Ghormley. Ghormley Ultimate command for the IJN and IJA
proved to be insufficiently lay with Imperial General Headquarters
aggressive, and was therefore in Tokyo.
replaced by Adm. William Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, who Adm. Yamamoto
Halsey. He brought new spirit planned and led the Pearl Harbor operation, was commander of
to the Guadalcanal campaign. Among other things, he recog- the IJN Combined Fleet, headquartered on Truk. Realizing the
nized the shortfalls of pre-war USN doctrine and emphasized a importance of the Solomons, he took personal command of op-
new regimen of realistic training. erations. Vice Adm. Chuichi Nagumo commanded the Japanese
Adm. Frank Fletcher was in command of Task Force 61, the fleet carriers; his previous command included First Air Fleet,
expeditionary force initially sent to Guadalcanal. He was also which controlled the IJN carriers for the Pearl Harbor operation.
in command of the USN’s carriers at the start of the campaign. Vice Adm. Gunichi Mikawa commanded the IJN strike force
He’d commanded carriers successfully at Coral Sea and Mid- that won the Battle of Savo Island.
way, and would later command US naval forces in the Battle of IJN land-based air operations for the Solomons were the
the Eastern Solomons. Task Force 61 was later taken over by responsibility of 25th Air Flotilla, part of 11th Air Fleet, com-
Adm. Thomas Kincaid for the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands. manded by Adm. Sadayoshi Yamada.
To the west was the Southwest Pacific Theater of Opera- The 17th Army was initially responsible for ground combat
tions, under Gen. Douglas MacArthur. His command handled in the South Seas Area, with its focus initially on New Guinea,
the fighting on New Guinea, where the Japanese were directly though that would switch to Guadalcanal. Later in the campaign,
threatening Australia. Later, MacArthur would take the offen- the 18th Army and 6th Air Division would be added to the order of
sive against the Japanese on New Georgia. battle for the planned but never executed counteroffensive.

World at War 19

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 Organization of Forces
Japan
The Japanese armed forces were divided between the
IJA and IJN. There was animosity between the two services
that went beyond normal inter-service rivalry. Part of that
reflected the struggle for political power in Japan at the time,
with the IJA and IJN representing different factions. Another
part of it was due to major differences in strategy. The IJA
saw the primary conflict as being on the Asian mainland.
According to the IJA, the main objectives of the war were
seizing resource areas in China and Southeast Asia, and
countering the Soviet threat from Siberia. The IJN saw the
rival British, Dutch and American colonial empires as the
main threat, and pushed for defeating the Allied navies and
then neutralizing Australia.
At least a part of the failure of the Japanese in the Solo-
mons campaign was due to that inter-service rivalry. The IJN
was in favor of establishing forward bases in the Solomons
and points south in order to threaten the Allied line of com-
munication to Australia and New Zealand, but the Navy
lacked sufficient ground troops to seize and hold those is-
lands. The Army, which had the ground troops, was more
interested in the fighting on mainland China, and only reluc-
tantly committed large formations to the Solomons.
The IJN had a small marine force made up of the Special
Naval Landing Forces (SNLF), which were battalion-sized
units used for amphibious landings. While veteran troops,
the SNLF lacked the numbers to be decisive. In 1942 the
largest SNLF formation was the battalion. Later in the war,
regiment-sized groupings were formed, but by that time the
days of Japanese amphibious landings were over. Many of
the SNLF were eventually converted into defensive units,
garrisoning islands such as Tarawa.
20 #2
WaW 2 Issue.indd 20
The IJA was a well-trained and well-led fighting force. It
had years of experience in China, as well as a failed confron-
tation with the Red Army in Manchuria in 1939. Discipline
was high, yet initiative was encouraged—often too much
initiative, given the tendency of lower-echelon commanders
to push forward against suicidal odds.
Tactics were based on infiltration, with infantry units
probing forward to exploit gaps in the enemy line and then
roll up the flanks. Units had plenty of light guns up front,
designed to support the infantry. Tactics and weapons were
suitable for China, where the Japanese often had to fight dis-
persed across wide areas, and for Southeast Asia, where the
terrain tended to compartmentalize operations. Those tactics
proved inadequate on Guadalcanal, however, where the Jap-
anese had to fight US forces head-on in the face of superior
firepower. Japanese artillery proved too light for sustained
combat against American firepower.
Throughout the Guadalcanal campaign, the Japanese
command tended to underestimate the number of Americans
on the island. That led to Japanese commanders making
attacks at what seemed to be, in retrospect, suicidal odds.
Still, the Japanese could be flexible and, once they realized
Guadalcanal couldn’t be held, they quickly and efficiently
evacuated.
The Japanese used a triangular organization for their
infantry divisions, as did the US. They had three infantry
regiments, each of three battalions, plus assorted artillery,
engineer, reconnaissance and logistical formations at divi-
sion-level. The IJA actually had several different organiza-
tions for its infantry divisions. Some were reinforced with
tanks and heavy weapons for offensive operations; some
divisions were motorized, while others used horse drawn
transportation. Divisional recon and engineer units, while
termed regiments, were actually battalion-sized and could
be tailored for the operation in which the division was par-
ticipating.
Both the IJA and IJN had their own air forces. Naval
land-based aviation was under the overall command of 11th
Air Fleet. Until December, all Japanese aircraft in the Solo-
mons were from the IJN. The IJA’s 6th Air Division was de-
ployed late in the campaign.
7/3/08 2:46:58 PM
 United States
Like the Japanese, the US armed forces during World
War II were divided into two separate services: the Army
and Navy. The US Amy itself was divided into three ma-
jor commands: Ground Forces, Services of Supply (later
renamed the Army Service Forces), and the US Army Air
Force (USAAF). American airpower enthusiasts had since
World War I advocated the creation of a separate air force,
and by 1942 the USAAF was actually a quasi-independent
service. Its chief of staff sat on the US joint chiefs of staff.
The US Navy was divided between the Navy Department
(USN) and the US Marine Corps (USMC). Both the USN
and the USMC had their own aviation branches.
The USMC was forever after identified with the Gua-
dalcanal campaign. The 1st Marine Division shoulder patch
consists of a large numeral “1” with “Guadalcanal” spelled
out on it. In 1942, however, division-sized operations were
still a novelty. In August of that year the 1st Marine Division
was more of an aggregation of units than a unified fighting
team. One of its regiments had been detached for duty else-
where in the Pacific and had been replaced with a regiment
from the 2nd Marine Division.
The Marines had pioneered large-scale amphibious land-
ings during the interwar years. That development lay within
the overall strategy developed by US naval planners, which
had the USMC as an assault force, seizing advanced bases
for trans-oceanic operations. To support this mission the Ma-
rines developed landing craft and close air support tactics.
Of inestimable value to the Marines was the quality of
its troops. While the Marine divisions were filled out with
recruits, most of them were volunteers who were highly mo-
tivated to get into the fight as soon as possible. Cadres were
drawn from veterans with years of combat experience, rang-
ing from the big battles of World War I’s Western Front to
a dozen “small wars” covering the globe from China to the
Caribbean.
Marine organization would go through several evolu-
tions during World War II. Initially the divisions contained
specialized units such as raider (commando) and para-ma-
rine (airborne) battalions. Those units were later found re-
dundant, and were dropped from the table of organization.
The Marines also had defense battalions, consisting of artil-
lery and heavy weapons pieces. Those battalions were in-
tended to guard against enemy landings. Indeed, one of the
major concerns of US commanders on Guadalcanal was a
Japanese landing in the Marines’ own rear area—an impor-
tant concern given Japanese naval superiority in the early
part of the campaign.
WaW 2 Issue.indd 21
Divisional artillery tended to be light by World War II
standards, consisting mainly of 75mm pack howitzers. Later
in the war they would be upgraded, but given Guadalcanal’s
abominable terrain and lack of roads, the 75s proved useful.
The division also had a battalion of light tanks, mainly for
infantry support.
The divisions were supported by Marine Air Wings
(MAW), which provided close air support to units on the
ground. The Marines had actually pioneered close support
tactics during the US interventions in Central America dur-
ing the 1920s and 30s, and found it useful in providing fire-
power to units on the ground, especially those in otherwise
remote locations. The downside was Marine airpower was
not always efficiently employed when it came to indepen-
dent missions, such as interdiction of enemy ground forces.
That contrasted with the USAAF concept of airpower being
an arm of decision by itself, attacking enemy strategic tar-
gets.
Another critical element of US naval land power was in
its engineer construction battalions, nicknamed “Sea Bees.”
Those units were flush with mechanized equipment, includ-
ing bulldozers, graders, and power tools, all of which expe-
dited the building of airfields and other facilities. That made
US engineers more efficient than their Japanese counter-
parts, who relied primarily on manpower, often impressed
from subject peoples and prisoners of war.
The US Army divisions that fought in the Solomons were
organized as combined-arms combat teams, with the mini-
mum of organic support units. Tank, anti-aircraft, heavy ar-
tillery and engineer support were kept in army-level “pools,”
to be assigned to divisions on the front as needed. The idea
was that would allow army commanders to tailor divisions
as needed for specific missions. While the pooling of units
looked efficient on paper, it created problems with command
control and unit cohesion. Pool battalions often didn’t have
time to develop command relationships with the divisions to
which they were assigned.
Otherwise, the US Army divisions were essentially
sound. One real advantage was their efficient artillery fire
control system. It allowed commanders to call in large
amounts of firepower, not only from divisional guns but also
from corps-level units and adjacent divisions. The Army
emphasized expending materiel to exploit US industrial
strength. There was reluctance to repeat the mass infantry
casualties that had been the norm in World War I; whenever
possible, firepower was used to do the work instead.
World at War 21
7/3/08 2:46:58 PM
 Ground & Air Force Order of Battle
Japanese
17th Army. This was the field force responsible for opera-
tions on New Guinea, to the west of the Solomons. As
the Solomons campaign developed, it would become re-
sponsible for ground operations on Guadalcanal as well.
18th Army. The Japanese formed this army in mid-November
to carry out the planned for but never executed coun-
teroffensive to push US forces off Guadalcanal. Some
of the units under its command included the 6th and 51st
Infantry Divisions.
2nd “Sendai” Infantry Division. This was the first division
committed to fight on Guadalcanal. It included the 4th,
16th and 29th Infantry Regiments, as well as the usual di-
visional units.
6th Infantry Division. This unit arrived after the Japanese de-
cided Guadalcanal couldn’t be cleared of American forc-
es. Instead, it was sent to New Georgia and later served
on Bougainville and Kolombangara. It included the 13th,
23rd and 45th Infantry Regiments.
22 #2
WaW 2 Issue.indd 22
38th “Nagoya” Infantry Division. Elements of this division
were committed to Guadalcanal in the autumn of 1942. It
included the 228th, 229th and 230th Infantry Regiments.
21st Infantry Brigade. At the start of the campaign the Japa-
nese considered sending this unit to Guadalcanal. But
Japanese intelligence underestimated both the strength
and intent of US forces, at one point dismissing the
landings as only a diversionary raid. So the 21st Brigade
ended up in New Guinea.
35th “Kawagachi” Brigade. This was one of the first major
units committed. It was named after its commander and
included the reinforced 124th Infantry Regiment.
“Ichiki Detachment” / 28th Infantry Regiment. The was the
first IJA land unit sent to Guadalcanal. The Ichiki De-
tachment was drawn from the 28th Infantry Regiment,
itself a component of the 7th Infantry Division.
Special Naval Landing Forces (IJN). The Japanese Navy
committed several of its SNLF to the campaign. The 3rd
Kure was on Tulagi, a small island adjoining Guadalca-
nal, from the start. Other SNLF committed in the follow-
ing months included the 5th Yokohama, 4th Maizuru, and
5th and 6th Sasebo. (SNLF were named after the naval
bases at which they were formed.)
Japanese Land-Based Aviation. Throughout the summer and
autumn of 1942, the Japanese air effort over the Solo-
mons was conducted by the IJN 25th Air Flotilla of the
11th Air Fleet. In December the IJA 6th Air Division began
staging into the area in anticipation of the planned coun-
teroffensive to retake Guadalcanal.
7/3/08 2:46:59 PM
 United States
XIV Corps, US Army. This command took control of all
ground units on Guadalcanal in December 1942. It also
had assigned to it several non-divisional units.
1 Marine Division. This division was composed of the 1st,
st

5th, 7th (all infantry) and 11th (artillery) Marine Regi-

ments. The 1st Marine Division landed on Guadalcanal
on 7 August 1942, and was relieved and withdrawn on
10 December. There was some switching of units during
the campaign, which saw the 7th Regiment replaced by
the 2nd Regiment.
2 Marine Division. This unit included the 2nd, 6th, 8th
nd

(infantry) and 10th (artillery) Marine Regiments. The

2nd Marine Division relieved the 1st Marine Division on
Guadalcanal in December 1942.
Americal Infantry Division, US Army. This division was
organized from Army units on New Caledonia, hence
the name as an abbreviation for “American New Caledo-
nian.” It was one of the few named units in the US Army
in World War II. It included the 132nd, 164th and 182nd In-
fantry Regiments, which were committed throughout late
1942. It was later redesignated 23rd Infantry Division.
25 Infantry Division, US Army. This division included the
th

27th, 35th and 161st Infantry Regiments, committed during

the final phase of operations
43rd Infantry Division, US Army. This division was commit-
ted to the Solomons after the Guadalcanal campaign had
officially ended in February 1943; however, one of its
regiments, the 172nd, was assigned as the Espiritu Santo
defense force in October 1942.
147th Infantry Regiment, US Army. This regiment was part
of the 37th Infantry Division. It was attached to the Amer-
ical Division.

World at War 23

WaW 2 Issue.indd 23 7/3/08 2:46:59 PM

 Aircraft Losses 1 August 1942 – 15 November 1942
This chart covers the decisive period of fighting, roughly from the US final preparation for the Guadalcanal landing to the
naval battles of Guadalcanal. Losses include planes that were shot down, destroyed on carriers that were hit, and non-combat
operational causes.
Fighters & Dive Torpedo Medium Heavy Flying boats Total
ground attack bombers bombers bombers bombers & recon losses
Japanese carrier-based 81 70 47 - - - 198
Japanese land-based 106 15 - 100 - 20 241
Japanese total 439
US carrier-based 81 63 40 - - - 184
US land-based 134 66 16 1 18 17 252
US total 436

Preservation of the fleet was given too high a priority.
While that conservatism made some sense, given the
inability of the Japanese to rapidly replace major war-
ship losses, it also set in place a dilemma: the Japanese
never put together a cohesive plan for the Solomons
campaign. The IJN began operations without sufficient
ground forces to hold what had been seized. When the
IJA finally did get involved, the naval support was not
coordinated with it.
Japanese naval airpower, which had won great vic-
tories in earlier campaigns, was also showing a marked
drop off in effectiveness. That was in part due to the
loss of veteran pilots, though good numbers of experi-
enced pilots were still in the cockpits until 1943. Some
was just bad luck, as the air raids against the initial US
landings demonstrated. Some of it was due to the dif-
ficulties inherent in operating aircraft at extreme range
and in the face of often adverse weather conditions.
One area of the campaign in which the Japanese
consistently performed much worse than the Ameri-
cans was in intelligence operations. The Japanese
frequently underestimated the strength and resolve of
US forces on Guadalcanal. They also overestimated
the damage inflicted on the USN. The US, in contrast,
Warship Losses August 1942- January 1943
CV BB CA CL DD SS Total
IJN 1 2 3 1 11 6 24
USN 2 - 61 2 14 1 25
Note:
1
Includes one Royal Australian Navy CA
Abbreviations: Ship types:
IJN = Imperial Japanese Navy CV: aircraft carriers, all types
USN = US Navy BB: battleships
CA: heavy cruisers
CL: light cruisers
DD: destroyers
SS: submarines
had the advantage of its superior cryptological intel-
ligence, which gave their commanders a reasonably
accurate picture of both Japanese strength and inten-
tions. Both sides made attempts to set up networks of
coast watchers on the various islands of the Solomons,
with the Allies getting the better return for their effort.
Even so, there could be Allied intelligence shortfalls.
The US completely missed the Japanese evacuation of
Guadalcanal in January-February 1943. The Japanese
managed to get most of their men safely off the island,
while Allied intelligence continued to warn that the
convoys were bringing in reinforcements.
Losses of air and naval forces were about even on
both sides for the overall campaign. It’s easy to say
that in the long term an even exchange was worse for
the Japanese, since they couldn’t easily replace sunk
warships and shot down veteran aircrew. Japanese ship
building was hardly up to replacing lost units, let alone
expanding the fleet. And the Japanese lacked a reserve
of trained pilots to replace casualties among them. It’s
also true, however, that in 1942 the US armed forces
were operating on a slender thread. The IJN victories
at Savo Island and other battles sent shockwaves all
the way to Washington. There was always the poten-
tial for the Japanese to disrupt the re-supply of the Ma-
rines on the island, possibly forcing a withdrawal. Had
the Japanese properly exploited their tactical victories
and continued to inflict such defeats on Allied forces,
the US high command might have cancelled the whole
operation, or perhaps delayed it long enough for the
Japanese to build up sufficient bases to contest the air
space over the central Solomons.
Much of the eventual US victory was actually due
to pre-war planning. The creation of the modern US
Marine Corps, with large units trained for amphibi-
ous warfare and its own dedicated air wings, gave the
Americans a ready made combined-arms force. There
were therefore sufficient ground troops from the start
of the campaign to seize and hold Guadalcanal, along
with enough airpower to provide them close support.
Since the USMC was part of the USN, command ar-
rangements were facilitated. US planning also proved

24 #2

WaW 2 Issue.indd 24 7/3/08 2:47:00 PM

 flexible enough to switch overall strategy for the war Sources
from the WPO Central Pacific operation to thrusts Richard Frank. Guadalcanal. New York: Random House.
through the South and Southwest Pacific areas. Samuel Griffith (BG USMCR). The Battle for Guadalcanal. New
Guadalcanal wasn’t the end of the line for US op- York: Lippincott.
erations in the Solomons. While the original mission Eric Hammel. Guadalcanal : Starvation Island. New York: Crown.
had been to secure the line of communication to Aus- Samuel Eliot Morison. The Struggle for Guadalcanal. Boston: Little
Brown.
tralia, somewhere along the way the US command re-
Historical Division, US Army. The United States Army in World War
alized seizure of the Solomons would put the Allies on II, Guadalcanal: the First Offensive. Washington, DC: Depart-
the road to capturing Rabaul and perhaps even Truk, ment of the Army.
thereby fully piercing the Japanese defensive perim- Historical Division, US Marine Corps. The Guadalcanal Campaign.
eter. Throughout 1943, Allied forces continued the Washington, DC: USMC.
offensive, eventually landing on New Britain and us-
ing air and naval power to isolate and neutralize both
Rabaul and Truk. The Solomons campaign demon-
strated the US could forge naval, air and land opera-
tions into what would today be called a “joint force”
during a hard fought campaign to create a war-win-
ning combination.
at

War in the Pacific Extension Kit

War in the Pacific is a multi-level simulation of the Pacific theater of operations
during World War II. The game enables players to recreate the entire course of the war,
form the opening Japanese attack on 7 December, 1941 to the climatic Allied assaults
in the closing days of 1945. Representing some 30% of the globe, the strategic maps
let players move and engage in combat on all levels:
air, ground and naval. War in the Pacific is the most
detailed board game of the Pacific Theater ever created.
(For ordering information, see page 60.)

This Extension kit is just that—a kit to extend War in

the Pacific into late 1945 and 1946 making it possible to
explore the possibilities of the war continuing without
atomic intervention. The kit includes a new counter
sheet for planes, ships, and other units scheduled to
appear after August 1945. It also includes an additional
set of the aircraft counter sheets for a total of five
counter sheets, plus two more tactical island maps.
The rules and charts booklet covers the additional
rules needed to continue the war.
$40.00
See shipping chart on page 60.
World at War 25

WaW 2 Issue.indd 25 7/3/08 2:47:01 PM

 Command your task force in the Pacific!

Solomons Campaign is an exten-
sive redesign of the old SPI game of
the same name, originally designed by
James F. Dunnigan in 1973. It presents
a two-player, complex historical simu-
lation of the air, sea, and land cam-
paigns waged on and around the island
of Guadalcanal in the summer and
fall of 1942. The game begins with
the American invasion of that island,
and includes the subsequent Japanese
attempts to retake it. The game is in-
tended to be a simulation of combined
air-naval-ground operations, or what
are today called “joint operations.”
Consequently it centers on modeling
command and staff systems, focus-
ing on the difficulties and advantages
inherent in sequenced interactions
between and among air, naval, and
ground forces.
There are three distinct categories
of military units in the game: ships,
aircraft and ground. Each category has
its own special rules and interacts with
the other types in various ways. There
are also rules covering the different
approaches to operations taken by
both sides’ army and navy high com-
mands.
Each hex on the map represents
100 miles from side to opposite side.
Each game turn represents two weeks,
with each “operational impulse” with-
in a game turn representing 12 hours
of intense tactical operations. Each
point of ground unit strength repre-
sents a battalion of 1,000 or so troops.
Each aircraft strength point represents
a squadron or 10 to 24 aircraft. Naval
units represent one ship for carriers
and battleships, two ships for cruisers,
and five for destroyers and transports.
There are 280 half-inch counters, both
NATO-style and iconic, included in
the game.

To purchase the game that covers the campaigns

analyzed in this issue’s cover story, send your name
and address along with: All prices include postage for first class or airmail shipping.
$24 US Customers
CA residents add $1.09 sales tax. Send to:
$27 Canadian Customers
Decision Games
$29 Overseas Customers
ATTN: World at War Game Offer
PO Box 21598
Bakersfield CA 93390
26 #2

WaW 2 Issue.indd 26 7/3/08 2:47:03 PM

 On the Seas
Saga of the USS Ohio
Sometimes the efforts of only a
few people make a difference in a
large war. This was proven true by
the captain and crew of the SS Ohio,
a 14,150 ton tanker launched in 1940
and loaned to the British. Manned by
a handpicked crew of 53, and cap-
tained by D.W. Mason of the Eagle
Oil & Shipping Company, that single
ship played a pivotal role in the war
in the Mediterranean.
In the late summer of 1942 the Al-
lies were struggling to keep the island
of Malta alive as a functioning base.
Bombed and strafed, its air defense
was in danger of being eliminated
altogether, if not by the attrition of
constant combat with Italian and
German aircraft, then by a growing
shortage of fuel. Without defending
aircraft, the island would be vulner-
able to Axis airborne assault, and
without that island helping to choke
off enemy supply lines to Africa, the
Allies would’ve been hard pressed to
maintain their presence there.
Malta needed resupply, and there
was only one way to get it: a convoy
across the middle of the Mediter-
ranean. Such an obviously important
convoy would need heavy escort
to make it through the gauntlet of
Axis submarines and aircraft; so two
battleships, seven cruisers, three air-
craft carriers and four destroyers were
assigned to its 14 merchantmen, one
of which was the Ohio. Further high-
lighting the importance of getting her
cargo of fuel through, for enhanced
self defense the Ohio was fitted with
a five-inch gun and a high-angle three
inch gun, a 40 mm Bofors gun, six
Oerlikons, two .30 caliber machine-
guns and four rocket projectors.
Those weapons were served by 24
Royal Navy and Maritime Regiment
gunners in addition to the regular
crew. It would be a long voyage, and
the Ohio would need every gun and
man.
The attacks on the convoy,
which was codenamed “Pedestal,”
started the day after it first entered
the Mediterranean via Gibraltar (11
August), when the U-73 torpedoed
WaW 2 Issue.indd 27
and sank the carrier Eagle. For the
next six hours several other U-boats
made repeated attempts to get at the
convoy, but excellent escort work by
the destroyers, and good maneuver-
ing on the part of the merchantmen,
prevented any more hits. Frustrated,
the U-boats dropped back at twi-
light to allow Luftwaffe Ju-88s and
He-111s to take over. Surprisingly,
however, despite claims of several
hits, their faultlessly timed attack
actually produced only near-misses.
Ominously, though, all that night
those aboard the convoy could hear
the engines of shadowing floatplanes.
Despite further evasive maneuvering
and anti-aircraft fire, which occasion-
ally lit up the entire sky, they couldn’t
shake those shadowers. So all knew
they had to brace for more trouble
when dawn arrived.
The first wave of new attackers
arrived at 9:15 a.m. and the second
around noon. A total of over 80
aircraft struck the convoy. Even with
that massive effort, though, only one
ship was damaged, the Deuclion. Un-
able to keep up, she left the convoy
and later sank. The convoy had by
that time covered 800 miles and was
only 300 from Malta, but that would
prove to be the toughest leg of the
trip.
On the evening of 12 August, after
more air attacks out of Sicily, the
convoy entered the Skerki Straits, the
deep-water channel between Bizerte,
in Tunisia, and the western tip of
Sicily. Those constricted waters were
ideal hunting grounds for subma-
rines. The Italian submarines Axim
and Dessie, lying in wait, both fired
spreads of torpedoes, striking the
cruisers Nigeria and Cairo as well as
the Ohio. The hit on the Ohio tore a
hole 24 feet high and 27 feet long in
her side. Ironically, the severity of the
rupture helped save her, as the crew
were aided in fighting the fires by
the flood of seawater that cascaded
through the break.
When the fires had been brought
under control, the captain ordered the
ship to get underway again, and her
diesel generators enabled her to get
moving in less than 10 minutes. It
was soon found, however, she could
only move in arcs that endangered
other ships in the convoy. The captain
therefore ordered another shutdown.
Emergency manual-steering gear
was fitted aft, and shortly after 8:30
p.m. she again got underway. Left
behind by the convoy, and making
only seven knots, she struggled to
catch up, but with her compasses and
gyros out of order the Ohio was in
danger of losing her way in the dark.
Again highlighting the importance of
her cargo, and against normal convoy
practice, the destroyer Ledbury was
assigned to lead her along by sailing
a short distance ahead with a blue
signal lamp rigged on her sternpost.
Unfortunately, the lamp couldn’t
be kept in view from the stern
emergency steering position on the
Ohio; so the captain had to go back
and forth to the bridge and relay his
instructions through the telephone and
helm recorders. By dawn, when she
caught up with the rest of the convoy,
it was discovered none of the remain-
ing escorts were set up for fighter
direction; so air cover from Malta
failed to materialize. Thus, despite
having regained the relative security
of the convoy, the sky above the Ohio
remained open for German and Italian
flyers.
The first wave of dive-bombers
arrived at 8:00 a.m. The Waimarama,
two ships ahead of the Ohio, was hit
and simply disappeared in a shat-
tering explosion. The immediately
following Melbourne Star couldn’t
avoid the conflagration, and steamed
directly into the burning wreckage
and oil slick. So intense was the
shower of flaming debris, 34 of her
crew, thinking their own vessel was
burning, jumped overboard. Follow-
ing the Star, the Ohio next moved
into the flames, which quickly set
afire her deck cargo of kerosene
canisters. While that fire was being
fought, a new wave of Ju-88s inflicted
a near-miss under the Ohio’s bow that
buckled plates and further damaged
her engines.
World at War 27
7/3/08 2:47:04 PM
 Then a Ju-88, struck by the com-
bined anti-aircraft fire of the Ohio and
the nearby destroyer Ashanti, bounced
off the crest of a wave and smashed
onto the foredeck of the Ohio. By
9:00 a.m. the Ohio had suffered six
near-misses, and an hour later two
sticks of bombs straddled her so
closely her hull was almost entirely
lifted out of the water for an instant. A
few minutes after that a JU-87 Stuka,
hit by Ohio’s Oerlikons, crashed onto
the poop deck. Trailing black smoke
and flames, with the remains of two
wrecked aircraft on her decks, and
listing five degrees, she managed to
hold her course and kept up with the
convoy’s 11 knots.
A further chain of events then
brought the Ohio to a dead stop. At
10:30 a.m. the electric fuel pumps
failed and the engines stopped. While
work was being done on the back-
up steam-powered pumps in order
to get them functioning, the number
one boiler blew out. After repairs to
the pumps and boiler, she was able
to limp along at 16 revolutions, but
then a second boiler exploded and
she came to a halt. As it seemed her
engines would never start again, the
only hope was a tow. Three destroy-
ers were dispatched, but then had to
leave the Ohio alone on the sea when
they were detoured to aid the sinking
cruiser Manchester. Over the next
two hours, as she sat alone, the Ohio
took two more near-misses from Ital-
ian dive-bombers.
They made it to Malta: SS Ohio in Grand Harbour.
28 #2
WaW 2 Issue.indd 28
The destroyer Penn then ar-
rived and passed her a line, but as
the Ohio now weighed 30,000 tons
due to the intake of seawater, and
had a damaged bow, the Penn could
barely move her. A second destroyer
was needed with a line astern but, as
none could be spared, the Penn was
forced to give up. The Ohio started to
drift with the current. A sitting duck,
it was assumed she would soon be
destroyed; so the crew was removed
to the Penn.
Shortly after coming onto the
deck of the Penn, Capt. Mason went
among the Ohio’s crew one by one,
seeking volunteers to go back aboard
to try to get her moving again. To
a man they all volunteered. After a
short break for some much-needed
sleep, and two more near misses,
the crew re-boarded her. They went
aboard a floating hulk with no power,
light or water. She was farther down,
drawing 38 feet, and her steering was
smashed beyond repair.
Even though the Penn had mean-
while been joined by a minesweeper
and two motor launches, it was still
a struggle to tow the Ohio. With a
Herculean effort, they managed to
move her 20 miles in the next 15
hours. She parted her tow numerous
times, fouled several of the ships
helping her in the towline, and at 6:45
p.m. she was hit again, that time on
the forward boat deck. By dawn on
the 14th, Malta was still 70 miles away
and it was beginning to look like that
island would have to do without the
Ohio’s cargo of aircraft fuel.
Fortunately, additional help ar-
rived in the form of the destroyer
Bramham, the mine-sweeper Speedy
and three motor launches. Upon
inspection, water was found to have
contaminated the remaining kerosene
cans on deck; the engine room was
flooding at the rate of six inches an
hour, and she was continuing to settle
by the bow. As it was estimated she
might just last the 12 hours it would
take to get her to Malta, towing op-
erations were started again.
The Axis attackers, perhaps sens-
ing their prey was escaping, came in
for the kill. Malta’s Spitfires finally
appeared, fighting to keep most of
the attackers at bay, but three broke
through and one landed a 1,000 lb.
bomb just aft in her wake. Flung vio-
lently forward, the Ohio’s stern was
blown open and, with water gushing
in, already weakened plates buckled.
It seemed that at any moment she
would break in half. In a final effort to
get her to Malta, the Penn and Bram-
ham made fast along opposite sides,
and the minesweeper Ledbury took
her in tow. With her pumps struggling
to keep up with the flooding seawater,
the Ohio was soon down so far a man
could lean over the side and trail his
fingers in the sea.
Now fully under the air umbrella
from Malta, only one final trial re-
mained: the slow and unwieldy group
of ships had to negotiate the narrow
channels of the minefields around the
island. Axis submarines waited at the
entrances to those channels. When
two submarines were spotted, how-
ever, barrages from shore batteries
drove them off. With much difficulty,
then, the group managed to avoid the
mines.
At 6:00 a.m., 15 August, the Ohio
entered Malta harbor, one of only
five of the original 14 merchantmen
of Pedestal convoy to do so. Even as
she tied up at the quay her keel settled
onto the bottom, but her cargo was
safe. In 60 hours she’d taken seven
direct hits, some 20 near-misses,
and she still had the remains of two
aircraft on her decks. Mason and
his crew had gotten her through,
however, and Malta’s planes could fly
7/3/08 2:47:05 PM
 and fight a while longer on the fuel
that was off loaded from her scorched
decks and out of her battered holds.
A year later, in recognition of his as-
tounding feat of seamanship, Mason
was awarded the George Cross.
~Ron Bell
Weapons & Tactics
The Japanese Knee
Mortar
The Type 89 grenade launcher
was widely used by the Japanese dur-
ing World War II. It entered service
in 1929, and was intended to cover
the gap between the range of manu-
ally thrown hand grenades and true
mortars. The “89” refers to the year
of introduction, the Japanese year
2589. Nearly 120,000 of them were
produced before the end of the war,
and they served the Japanese well.
The English nickname for the
Type 89 was “knee mortar.” It had a
curved base plate meant to be braced
against a solid foundation, such as
a mound of earth or a log. The base
plate did therefore look like it could
be propped on the knee or upper
leg to fire, but doing so would have
resulted in serious injury from the
recoil. There was also a spring at the
base of the weapon that looked like it
was designed to absorb recoil, but it
actually only served to hold a canvas
cover against the mortar shaft, to
keep dirt out of the ranging and firing
mechanism, while the full recoil was
actually transmitted through the base
plate. One US Marine on Guadalcanal
who tried to fire a captured Type 89
from the top of his knee broke his
thigh.
The Type 89 was a rifled grenade
launcher that could be broken into
three parts for ease of carrying. It usu-
ally fired a 793 gram, 50 mm projec-
tile, the type 89 grenade. It weighed
4.7 kilograms (10.36 lbs.), with an
overall length of 610 mm (23.79
inches) and a barrel length of 254 mm
(9.9 inches). Due to its small size and
weight, it was easily portable. The
weapon could be fired by one person,
from either the prone or kneeling
WaW 2 Issue.indd 29
position, with one hand on the barrel know when it was at exactly that in-
and the other on the trigger. Typically, cline. The only range adjustment was
a team of three would be assigned provided by changing the position of
to each weapon: a gunner and two the firing pin inside the barrel with an
ammunition carriers. Well-trained adjustment knob just under the barrel.
teams could achieve a rate of fire of The knob worked through a set of
25 rounds per minute. In the hands of gears to move the firing pin up and
skilled gunners, the type 89 could be down. Two scales were provided, one
extremely accurate. for the type 89 grenade, with a range
The type 89 fired several types scale from 120 to 650 meters, and a
second for the type 91 grenade with
of ammunition. The type 89 grenade
was a high explosive round with an a booster that had a scale from 40 to
impact fuse, and it had been purpose- 190 meters. By choosing the appro-
designed to go with the launcher. Its priate ammunition, the gunner could
kill radius was roughly three times engage targets from 40 meters out
larger than that of a hand grenade. to 650 meters. Experienced gunners
The impact fuse made the round less could estimate the range, fire a round
effective in the jungle, where the to ensure they were on target, and
canopy could cause premature deto- then put a round on the target nearly
nation. The round had a copper base every two seconds.
designed to expand during firing. The For longer-range targets, the firing
base would engage the rifling in the pin was screwed all the way down to-
barrel, causing the round to rotate and ward the bottom of the barrel. That al-
thereby improve accuracy. lowed the round to be acted on by the
A multi-purpose grenade, the propellant gasses for the whole length
type 91, could also be fired from the of the barrel, giving a higher muzzle
launcher, and it had a seven-second velocity and therefore a longer range.
fuse. The 91 could also be used as The muzzle velocity was still low: at
a hand or rifle grenade and had set-
fuse timing. It required a separately
attached booster to be fired with the
launcher, and couldn’t be used at long
range as the fuse would then work
to explode the grenade while it was
still in flight. A smoke shell and an
incendiary shell were also used on oc-
casion. Due to the small size of those
rounds, though, they weren’t very
effective and it’s rare to see mention
of their actual use.
The type 89 was fired by bracing
the launcher on the ground, pulling
the safety pin from the round, and
dropping the round down the muzzle
of the barrel. There was an aiming
line inscribed on the back of the bar-
rel to assist in lining up the shot on
the target. The type 89 grenade had
a separate trigger loop that had to be
pulled before firing the round. (The
rounds didn’t have the traditional
mortar-round contact fuse on their
base to fire them automatically when
they reached the firing pin.)
The launcher was always to be in-
clined at a 45 degree angle, and some
had a spirit level to let the operator Japanese soldier demonstrates the Type 89 .
World at War 29
7/3/08 2:47:05 PM
 the maximum range of 650 meters a
round took 13 seconds to reach the
target. For shorter ranges, the adjust-
ment knob would move the firing pin
progressively higher in the barrel,
reducing the time the round spent
picking up speed before leaving the
weapon. At minimum range settings
the round would actually protrude
from the barrel due to the firing pin
being cranked up so high.
The Type 89 grenade launcher
was common in the Japanese Army. A
1944 infantry regiment of 2,850 men
had 81 of them in its table of organi-
zation and equipment (TO&E), one
per every 35 men. In comparison, that
same regiment would have 91 light
and 23 heavy machineguns. The Type
89 grenade launcher was therefore al-
most as prevalent at the tactical level
as machineguns, with each infantry
platoon having three in its establish-
ment.
Conversely, infantry regiments
had few actual mortars, as a battery of
four 75 mm guns and six 70 mm in-
fantry guns was supposed to provide
that kind of indirect fire support. Mor-
tars were used by the Japanese army,
but they were normally organized into
separate battalions under the control
of a higher headquarters. Local fire
support was provided in large part by
the grenade launchers.
~David Newport
30 #2
WaW 2 Issue.indd 30
In the Air
Germany’s 50 & 55 mm
Anti-Aircraft Artillery
As the 1930s progressed, Germa-
ny’s air defense command became
concerned over the gap between their
light and heavy anti-aircraft weapons.
The top speeds of enemy bombers
were accelerating, and their approach
altitudes had grown to a level above
that which could be reached by light
flak. Their high speeds and maneuver-
ability made them difficult targets for
heavy anti-aircraft artillery (AAA),
the rate of fire of which wasn’t
enough to provide a high probability
of damage or destruction against
rapidly moving and agile aircraft.
The Flak arm’s leading theorist
and visionary, Oberst Karl Rudel (no
relation to the more famous Stuka
pilot, Hans Rudel), recognized the a center of gravity to corner or travel
problem as early as 1935, and con- well on uneven roads. It also made
vinced the Luftwaffe high command the gun inaccurate in combat. The
to issue a contract to the Rheinmetall sighting mechanism also proved too
Corporation for a 50 mm anti-aircraft delicate to withstand field conditions
gun. Four years later, Luftwaffe frus- and too complex to service and main-
tration with Rheinmetall’s inability tain there. Production was cancelled
to develop the weapon led them to after only 200 were built.
award a competing contract to Krupp. Development of medium AAA
Krupp then produced a better design. was suspended as part of the 1940
Like Rheinmetall, Krupp’s cannon “rationalization” of German weapons
was a gas-operated automatic cannon, research and development following
but differed in that it used a vertical the successful campaign in France.
sliding breechblock instead of the Only the advent of heavily armored
reinforced machinegun mechanism Soviet attack aircraft, such as the Il-2,
employed by smaller 20 mm and rekindled interest in more powerful
40 mm guns. That enabled the gun and rapid firing AAA. The Luft-
to handle the higher recoil shocks waffe’s 20 mm guns were found to
of the larger round. Happy with the lack the power needed to down those
prototype’s demonstration firing, the “flying tanks.” The larger 37 mm
Luftwaffe ordered it into production guns proved effective only during the
as the 5 cm Flak 41. final phase of an Il-2 attack, and then
only if the entire battery concentrated
It used the same carriage as the 88
on one plane. Development therefore
mm Flak 36, but had a more complex
resumed in 1943, and got yet another
process for emplacement, making it
boost in 1944 when low-level Allied
a slower weapon to bring into action.
bombers destroyed the Moehne Dam.
Theoretically, it was an impressive
weapon with a rate of fire of 130 A new requirement was issued
rounds per minute, an effective en- calling for a medium AAA weapon
gagement ceiling of 18,374 feet, and a that could “ensure” destruction of a
maximum horizontal range of 13,565 four-engine bomber attacking a criti-
yards. Operational experience in the cal target. Some suggested centering
field, though, showed the gun and the gun around the superceded 5 cm
carriage combination to have too high anti-tank gun, but that round proved
7/3/08 2:47:07 PM
 unstable at ranges beyond 2,700
yards. Weapons experts also reported
its high explosive rounds lacked the
punch required to meet specifications.
Rheinmetall therefore shifted focus
to a larger 55 mm round that its re-
searchers had been testing since 1941.
Rheinmetall’s study came at a
time when Luftwaffe thinking was
changing. It was finally recognized
that ensuring a fast moving target’s
destruction necessitated concentrating
the fire of an entire battery against
it. In fact, tests revealed only the
concentrated fire of an entire six-gun
battery could even hope to accom-
plish that. They therefore ordered the
development of what US officials to-
day refer to as an “integrated weapon
system.” That is, the gun along with
its fire control and command-control
system and radar, were all developed
together.
Fortunately for the Allies, that
pioneering approach proved slow to
implement. The first rounds of the
new caliber were tested in April 1944,
and gun development only moved
forward thereafter. The resulting
weapon was little different from the
Flak 41, except it utilized a “differ-
ential recoil” method to reduce those
forces. Both the gun and carriage
made extensive use of stamped and
forged parts to simplify the manufac-
turing process. Three prototypes were
completed and tested south of Berlin
in March and April 1945, but the war
ended before it could be brought into
production.
Those prototypes were impres-
sive, however, firing 1,340 two-kilo-
gram shells per minute, with a muzzle
velocity of 3,445 feet per second.
The S-band fire control radar was
exceptionally accurate, and would
have been difficult to jam. The combi-
nation would have made the “Geraet
58” a formidable and deadly weapon
against Allied fighters, medium
bombers and attack aircraft.
Though the weapons system
didn’t enter service in time to help
Nazi Germany, many analysts believe
the Soviet Union adapted the concept
with its S-60 57 mm cannon, which
was fielded in six-gun batteries oper-
WaW 2 Issue.indd 31
ating under the control of a single fire
control radar. If so, then the Geraet 58
actually lived on well into the late 20th
century, and proved effective when
first employed by North Vietnam
against the US.
~Carl Otis Schuster
Elite Beat
The Unique Case of
Finland’s Winter War
Foreign Legion
As strange as it sounds, consider
the idea of an Italian fighting for Fin-
land in 1939. Stranger still, consider
a black Jamaican or even a Japanese.
In fact, they were just a few of the
unusual cases among the 11,000-plus
from around the world who rushed
to fight for the small Scandinavian
country in the 1939-40 “Winter War”
interlude, during what was otherwise
called the “Phony War”. Taken to-
gether, the story of these men must be
regarded as one of the most heroically
intentioned, even quixotic, volunteer
efforts of the entire war. (Among
those examples above, only one, the
Italian, a pilot, actually got into com-
bat, and he was killed.)
The motivation was simple: the
USSR’s invasion of Finland on 30
November 1939, launched due to
the refusal of the smaller country
to give up territory near Leningrad,
set in motion an eruption of inter-
national outrage, which turned to
astonishment and then admiration,
when what was generally expected
to have been a week-long walkover
turned into a 105-day death match
in the snow in which over 200,000
Red Army soldiers died. Expres-
sions of support ranged from materiel
(arms shipments) to impotent protest
(the League of Nations expelled the
USSR), to the ludicrous (that year’s
Nobel Prize for literature was given to
a Finnish farmer who, decades earlier,
had written a few otherwise forgotten
novels).
The most determined and color-
ful champion of the Finnish cause
was Swedish Count Carl von Rosen,
an aerial “soldier of fortune” who
actually never made a penny because
he flew only for lost causes, the first
time for Ethiopia against Fascist Italy.
Nephew by marriage to Hermann
Goering, von Rosen raised money
in Sweden to purchase a DC-2 from
the Dutch KLM airline, converted it
himself into a makeshift bomber, and
piloted it to attack Soviet positions on
the Karelian front as well as against
the Murmansk railway. (He would
go on to spend his last years flying in
Africa, at one time doing so on behalf
of starving Biafran rebels. He was
eventually killed, on the ground, by
Ethiopian guerrillas in 1977.)
During January 1940, a self-orga-
nized Swedish “air group,” Flygflottilj
19, consisting of 16 British-made
Gloster Gladiator fighters with skull
and cross-bone markings painted on
their wings and fuselages, command-
ed by Maj. Hugo Beckhammer, also
went into action against Soviet 9th
Army in the Kemi region. Still other
Swedes fought on the ground.
The Swedish government, official-
ly neutral, looked the other way while
a private organization set up recruit-
ing offices throughout the country.
Hundreds of Swedish army officers
and enlisted men were meanwhile
quietly granted no-questions-asked
extended leaves. In the end, over
9,000 Swedes fought for Finland.
On 22 December 1939, a total
of 350 Scandinavian-Americans,
most from the Midwest, and calling
themselves the “Finnish-American
Legion,” sailed to Europe on the
Swedish liner Gripsholm. The oldest
among them was a 56-year-old Long
Island chauffeur, Jalmari Ruikula.
Col. Kermit Roosevelt, the son and
Attention readers: We’re always looking
for authors for FYI for Strategy & Tactics
and Observation Post for World at War.
If you’d like to try your hand at writing
short (under 2,000 words), pithy articles
for this column, on virtually any aspect of
WWII military history, contact Ty Bom-
ba, FYI editor, at: WhiteRook@att.net.
World at War 31
7/3/08 2:47:07 PM
 cousin of US presidents, worked to organize and dispatch
(though he didn’t accompany) a 230-man “Finnish Le-
gion.”
In London the cabinet approved the enlistment of vol-
unteers for Finland despite the fact Britain was, of course,
already fully involved in World War II. Other volunteers
came from Norway, Denmark, Hungary and Italy. That last
group included 17 Fiat bombers along with a total of 150
pilots, air and ground crew. Of course, the overwhelm-
ing military weight brought to bear by the Soviet Union
ultimately meant the volunteers, however heroic their
intentions, stood no chance of helping to turn the tide, and
the flow of events meant they had little time even to try.
The Swedes, along with 725 Norwegians, saw the most
action, and even they went into combat only during the last
week of February 1940, on the relatively quiet Salla sector,
where their losses were relatively light: 33 dead and 200
wounded. Their fighter squadron’s airfield was bombed into
inoperability soon after it opened, and the entire squadron
managed to down only one Soviet fighter.
The Finnish-American Legion and 450 Hungarians
went into action around Viipuri, for just a few of the war’s
very last hours, on 12 March 1940. That same day, in
Moscow, the Finnish government’s representatives signed a
peace treaty that gave up more territory than had originally
been demanded but that also preserved their nation’s inde-
pendence.
Winter warriors: Swedish volunteer ski troops in
Finland.
32 #2
WaW 2 Issue.indd 32
Eight hundred Danes who were on their way to Finland
when peace came, simply turned around and went home.
The British volunteers arrived late, and 30 percent of them
were found to be unfit for combat anyway. (Two were
deemed “partially blind,” and one had a wooden leg.)
Most of the volunteers returned to their countries
without incident, but bad luck dogged the British. Sixty of
them who tried to return via Norway got caught up in the
Nazi invasion there; a dozen were captured, while the rest
fled into Sweden. The others, stuck in Finland, found work
as farmhands, loggers, English teachers, and one even got a
job as a golf pro at the Helsinki Country Club. Yet another,
Harold Evans, found a job at the British embassy, and from
there eventually rose up the bureaucratic ladder to become
press secretary at 10 Downing Street.
When it came Finland’s turn to attack the USSR, as part
of Hitler’s Operation Barbarossa in June 1941, there was no
new rush of volunteers.
~ John W. Osborn, Jr.
Next Issue
Next Issue: The game will be “Bulge,”
a redesign of the popular old-SPI mini-
game of the same name. Articles will in-
clude: “Cherkassy Pocket,” “I Remember:
The Dyhernfurth Raid, Silesia, 1945”; and
“LBJ in the Pacific.”
7/3/08 2:47:08 PM
 Bodenplatte 1945: Goering’s
New Year’s Resolution
by Kelly Bell
Royal Air Force (RAF) Squadron Leader G. Dickin-
son of 142 Wing had risen early to greet the New Year,
1 January 1945. His outfit was quartered at the Belgian
coastal airfield known as Knocke-de Zoute. Standing on
the flat roof of the field’s clubhouse that freezing morn-
ing, he at first assumed the engine noises he heard were
from a flight of England-based RAF Spitfires coming in
to refuel en route to strafe German V-1 and V-2 rocket-
launching sites located farther inland. But Dickinson
was ripped from his musings by the clatter of machine-
gun and cannon.
Swarms of Luftwaffe Messerschmitt-109s (Me-
109) and Focke Wulf-190s (Fw-190) ripped through
the airspace over the installation, strafing every target
of opportunity. Jumping down from the roof and into
the clubhouse, Dickinson grabbed a telephone and rang
up the duty officer. On hearing Dickinson’s frenzied re-
port the man cordially replied: “This is January 1, old
boy, not April 1.” An instant later the duty officer gave a
strangled cry of, “My God!” and the line went dead.
WaW 2 Issue.indd 33
Within minutes Knocke-de Zoute airfield was a blaz-
ing ruin, and the morning was just getting started. The
Western Allies were about to receive their second great
shock of the Battle of the Bulge—this time from the
sky. The Germans were taking advantage of the clearing
weather to launch a massive air strike against the Allied
air forces. It would be the Luftwaffe’s last great offen-
sive, Unternehmen Bodenplatte (Operation Baseplate).
Bulge of the Skies
The summer and autumn of 1944 had seen the Allies
break out of Normandy and race across France, shatter-
ing the Wehrmacht as they raced to the Rhine. But on
the Reich’s frontier the Allied armies ground to a halt
owing to a combination of outrunning their supply and
dogged German resistance in the Hurtgen, Reichswald
and Ardennes. While the US Army Air Force (USAAF)
and Royal Air Force (RAF) had gained air superiority
over France, Luftwaffe units were able to withdraw to
a safe distance behind the front. There they absorbed
new men and machines arriving from the Fatherland, as
World at War 33
7/3/08 2:47:08 PM
 Armaments Minister Albert Speer ruthlessly exploited
Germany’s shrinking industrial complex to keep man-
ufacturing productive. Indeed, during late 1944, Ger-
man industry turned out record numbers of aircraft,
as well as returning damaged planes to service. New
models were also coming online, such as the Me-262
jet fighter and Ar-234 jet bomber.
On 16 September, Adolph Hitler ordered Luftwaffe
Gen. Werner Kreipe to prepare for a new offensive
in the air. It would accompany the planned Watch on
the Rhine offensive, the ground attack later to become
known as the “Battle of the Bugle.” Hitler believed a
massive offensive could shatter the Allied front in the
West and restore the initiative to Germany.
34 #2
WaW 2 Issue.indd 34
On 21 October, Kreipe ordered seven fighter groups
and a bomber group to start relocating to the west from
various points throughout the Reich. On 14 November,
Luftwaffe supreme commander Reichsmarschall Her-
mann Goering issued the following five-point directive
outlining the units to be used in the attack and their ob-
jectives.
• An attack by II Jagdkorps (fighter corps), with 3
Jagddivision (fighter division) attached, on Allied
fighter-bombers at airfields near the front line in the
west.
• II Jagdkorps was to fly fighter cover for the army to
give it freedom of movement during the Ardennes
offensive.
7/3/08 2:47:10 PM
 • Schlachtgeschwader (ground attack wing) 4 was
to operate mainly during the planned crossings of
the Meuse by panzer spearheads whose ultimate
objective was the port city of Antwerp.
• 3 Fliegerdivision (flying division) was to at-
tack enemy airfields using its jet bombers and
Nachtschlacht (night attack) units.
• Nachtjagdgeschwader (night fighter wing) 2 was
also to operate as a Nachtschlacht unit with its
Junkers-88s.
Belatedly suspicious, the Allies may have broken
their codes, the Nazi high command maintained a blan-
ket of secrecy around the project as aircraft and air-
men assembled just behind the Western Front. Indeed,
it wasn’t until 20 December, four days after the start
of the Battle of the Bulge, that Allied cryptographers
intercepted and deciphered a German wireless com-
munication that may have given them a clue a major
aerial offensive was in the offing. That transmission
was from 3 Jagddivision, and confirmed emergency
landing sites for the “special undertaking” had been
set up. Allied intelligence operatives misconstrued the
phrase as referring to air facilities to support the al-
ready launched ground offensive in the Ardennes.
By the final days of December 1944, Allied coun-
terattacks had largely halted the further growth of the
“bulge” German ground forces had created in the Al-
lied lines. Hitler’s vaunted final offensive was begin-
ning to be ground down to defeat. But the Nazis still
believed they had one final chance for victory—in
the air. As both sides waited for the weather to clear
enough for major air operations, Goering affixed the
new code-name Bodenplatte to the looming assault,
which had originally been designated “Operation Big
Blow.” Bodenplatte was scheduled to launch on 1 Jan-
uary 1945.
In his 1945 New Year’s Day radio address Hit-
ler railed: “The world must know that this state will,
therefore, never capitulate. Germany will rise like a
phoenix from its ruined cities and will go down in his-
tory as the miracle of the 20th century.”
The Third Reich, of course, had less than six
months to live, but at the time it was still capable of
fierce resistance.
The Luftwaffe Strikes
While the Fuehrer engaged in histrionics, the Luft-
waffe was busily preparing for another fight. The 1
Jagdgeschwader (fighter wing) was made up of three
Gruppen (groups). As part of the Luftwaffe contingent
defending Germany’s Atlantic Wall during the Nor-
mandy campaign in the summer of 1944, the wing had
been decimated by the USAAF and RAF. Pulled back
to Germany for re-equipping and to receive new pi-
lots, 1 Jagdgeschwader (1/JG) was back up to strength
by December. On the last day of the year, 1/JG, based
outside the Dutch town of Twenthe, received a few
WaW 2 Issue.indd 35
Aerial pioneer: Luftwaffe Me-262 jet fighter.
more of the latest variant of Me-109s. After supper,
commanders ordered their men to go to bed immedi-
ately and to drink no alcohol. Something definitely
was up.
The pilots were awakened at 5:00 a.m. After being
informed their targets would be the Allied airfields at
Maldegem and Ursel, and being meticulously briefed
on how to execute their attacks, the aircrew went to
their planes and began lifting off at 8:12 a.m. Fol-
lowing a pathfinding Junkers-88 (Ju-88) twin-engine
bomber, the formation droned west through freezing
winter skies. The pathfinders were critical, since many
of the pilots were inexperienced and needed to be
guided to their targets. Nor was that the only shortfall
in the operation.
Luftwaffe planners had kept a tight lid on informa-
tion about the planned air strike. Unfortunately for the
Germans, it was too tight. For example, no one had
bothered to inform the German anti-aircraft batteries
of the mission. As mass formations of Nazi aircraft
winged toward their objectives, FLAK gunners below,
unaccustomed to seeing large numbers of their own
aircraft in the skies, mistook them for Allied planes
and opened fire. They shot down three Fw-190s and a
Ju-88. It wasn’t an auspicious beginning for an opera-
tion intended to turn around the situation in the skies.
The wing arrived over the airfields at about 8:30
a.m., and the planes began diving with their guns blaz-
ing. Despite running into unexpected opposition from
a few Polish pilots aloft over Maldegem, and who shot
down two Fw-190s, the attackers left the installation
in smoldering rubble. Only three of the field’s 14 Spit-
fires survived the attack.
Three Fw-190s then continued on to Ursel and shot
up the only airplanes on that field, a US B-17 Flying
Fortress, two RAF Avro Lancaster bombers, and a de
Havilland Mosquito fighter-bomber.
The Polish pilots of RAF 131 Wing were on a
bombing mission when the 30-plus Fw-190s of 2/JG’s
2nd Squadron (2/JG. 2) fell on their field outside the
town of St. Denis. As the Focke-Wulfs savaged build-
ings and parked planes, the Allied airmen began re-
turning from their mission. Engaging the intruders, the
expatriate Polish pilots proved as lethal as they had
World at War 35
7/3/08 2:47:11 PM

Somewhere over Europe: German He-111 bomber makes an air raid.
during the Battle of Britain. Goering lost 29 fighters,
and as many irreplaceable pilots, in that attack. Still,
the Allies suffered 54 aircraft destroyed on the ground
during that one engagement. And elsewhere the de-
struction was spreading.
The airfield at St. Trond, Belgium, was occupied
by the USAAF’s 48th and 404th Fighter Groups, which
were part of Ninth Air Force. Flying P-47 Thunder-
bolts, those units were close to the front and had been
busy lately strafing German forces in the Ardennes.
On New Year’s Day that airbase was therefore a prime
target.
Luftwaffe Unteroffizer Theo Hartmann participated
in the raid on St. Trond, and later described the out-
bound flight:
In the early light of January 1, 1945 I took
off with my comrades from Nidda, taking a
westward course in the direction of Koblenz-
Aachen. We were flying at very low altitude
behind a Ju-88 night-fighter. I can still remem-
ber this because of the deer-like looks of the
antenna-equipped aircraft. On the entire flight
along the Rhein-Main corridor we were fired
upon by our own flak.
German anti-aircraft fire would not, however, be
the attackers’ only problem. Powerful American anti-
aircraft artillery (AAA) savaged the German forma-
tions as they approached their targets, shooting down
90 airplanes. Attacks by P-51 Mustangs of the 352nd
Fighter Group, and Thunderbolts from the 366th
Fighter Group operating from an airfield outside near-
by Asch, inflicted further losses on the intruders and
dissipated their momentum. The anti-aircraft and in-
36 #2
WaW 2 Issue.indd 36
terceptors effectively aborted the attacks on St. Trond
in the single most success Allied response to all the
raids that day. (As late as 1992, wreckage of Germans
planes was being recovered from the flight path of the
unfortunate 1/JG. 2.)
But the next attack would made up for the earlier
German failure. The Allies had captured the airfield at
Eindhoven in September. It was being used by the Ca-
nadians of the Second Tactical Air Force. The instal-
lation’s Hawker Typhoons had been providing sorely
needed ground support to US forces in the Ardennes.
The Canadians’ attacks on German armored columns
during the Bulge had repeatedly saved the day for
units that otherwise would have been overrun by the
panzers.
Billeted at Gutersloh, the pilots of Luftwaffe 3/JG.4
also arose at 5:00 a.m. on 1 January. By 7:00 a.m.
they’d eaten, and Lt. Siegfried Muller was briefing
them. They learned their target was the troublesome
base at Eindhoven. Muller gave them no alternate tar-
get—he made it clear they had to destroy the Canadian
unit. The airmen began lifting off at 8:22 a.m. and their
60 machines turned west.
The approaching Germans suffered two casualties
en route when anti-aircraft fire downed one plane and
Lt. Hans-Ulrich Jung flew his Me-109 into a power
line. Minutes later the rest of the formation arrived
over Eindhoven.
The first German planes over the field immediately
torched two Typhoons that were taking off, and the
other German pilots then eagerly followed them into
the attack. The Germans were so thick over the airfield
that two Fw-190s destroyed each other in a mid-air
collision. Other attackers were nearly blown from the
sky when 440 Squadron’s bomb dump exploded. They
were at such low altitude the ack-ack gunners man-
ning 40mm Bofors guns had trouble drawing beads on
them.
The Germans suffered just five planes lost to
ground fire and 19 damaged. One of the reasons for
the great numbers of Luftwaffe planes involved there
was that part of 6/JG, actually assigned to attack the
airfield at nearby Volkel, had strayed off course and
mistakenly assaulted Eindhoven upon arriving there at
the same time as 3/JG. The combined attack force lost
15 of its 60 aircraft, but destroyed 44 RAF planes on
the ground and in the air, damaging 60 more to varying
extents.
Massacre in the Skies
The Allies were manning two airfields on the out-
skirts of Le Culot, Belgium. One was Beauvechain,
and the other was Le Culot East. The USAAF 9th Air
Force’s 373rd and 36th Fighter Groups had been using
Beauvechain as the base for their dreaded Thunder-
bolts since October. The P-51-equipped 363rd Tactical
Reconnaissance Group was at Le Culot East.
7/3/08 2:47:12 PM
 Maj. Gerhard Michalski commanded 4/JG. On
the evening of 31 December, he briefed his men on
their coming assignment. Confidently telling them he
hoped to destroy 800-1,000 enemy aircraft, he ordered
them to don their full dress uniforms before lifting off.
That way, if they were shot down and captured, they
would look presentable to the enemy. He then also
forbade them to drink alcohol. The following morning
the pilots were dapper, sober and wide-awake as they
climbed into their Me-109s.
Michalski commanded one of the smallest Boden-
platte formations. It comprised just 17 machines when
they set out at 8:30 a.m. Michalski’s plane soon devel-
oped engine trouble and he had to return to base, but
minutes later the flight picked up two stray Fw-190s
whose pilots had become separated from their for-
mation. American AAA soon thereafter downed four
planes, and Unteroffizer Werner Anetzhuber got lost
and wound up over Eindhoven, where two RAF Tem-
pests shot him down.
The remaining aircraft kept having trouble, losing
their way and ending up attacking the American base
at St. Trond. Though Michalski’s hopes of destroying
hundreds of aircraft were wildly optimistic, the raid
did burn 10 machines on the ground and damaged an-
other 31. Still, it had been a jinxed mission from its
start. Of the 19 planes that had set out that morning,
just one Me-109 made it back to base. Le Culot was
not attacked at all, and the Luftwaffe’s run of bad luck
was far from finished.
The 6/JG was one of the last major fighter units
to be established by the Luftwaffe. Formed in August
1944 from pilots drawn from depleted formations, its
airmen had always flown the Me-109. Reequipped
with the Fw-190, they had to retrain on that outstand-
ing but unfamiliar aircraft, and they’d had little time
to do so. Commanded by Maj. Helmut Kuhle, on 31
December the unit had 78 Fw-190s and 21 Me-109s
combat-ready. They were based on airfields outside
the west Germany cities of Quakenbruck, Vechta, Bis-
sel and Delmenhorst.
The targets for 6/JG were the Allied airfields at
Spakenburg, Veghel and Volkel, all in the Netherlands.
The pilots were ordered to concentrate on parked air-
craft and fuel storage facilities. At 8:17 a.m. the 99 Fo-
cke-Wulfs and Messerschmitts began taking off. They
were in for a surprise.
During October and November the RAF had con-
structed a new installation outside the Dutch town of
Heesch. That base was home to the Royal Canadian
Air Force’s 2735 and 2819 Fighter Squadrons. Those
units had been flying operational missions since 6
December, but the Germans had mistakenly assumed
the Heesch-based attacks had come from Veghel and
Volkel.
Passing over Heesch at 9:15 a.m., most of the 6/JG
pilots didn’t realize there was an Allied airbase below.
WaW 2 Issue.indd 37
The defensive team: US Army antiaircraft gunners.
RAF Flight Officer Doug Cameron hastily lifted off
and quickly shot down three Me-109s. At first, Kuhle
forbade his pilots from engaging the interceptors, but
when more Spitfires appeared he allowed one section
to close with them. In the ensuing melee, two Fw-190s
and one Spitfire went down. Confused by the unex-
pected appearance of the British and Canadians flyers,
the Germans passed over Veghel without attacking it.
The German pilots were then distracted by columns
of black smoke rising from Eindhoven, which was un-
der attack by 3/JG. A number of Kuhle’s men mistook
it for their target and joined in that assault. The bulk of
6/JG, increasingly bewildered, continued to search for
Volkel.
At about 9:30 a.m., Kuhle and the planes still with
him passed over the town of Helmond flying from the
northwest to southeast. At that point concentrated anti-
aircraft fire opened up on the Germans, killing Kuhle
and sending his plane down in flames. Two more air-
craft went down under that same battery’s accurate
shooting. Those gunners were protecting another new
airstrip just east of Helmond. Several pilots misidenti-
fied that field as Volkel, and for the second time that
morning the formation attacked the wrong target. With
almost no planes on the still-unfinished landing field,
however, little damage was done to Allied airpower.
The attackers lost two more planes to concentrated
AAA and five to some passing Tempests.
The attacking force never did locate Volkel, and
failing fuel supply finally compelled its return to base.
In the mistaken assaults on Eindhoven and Heesch, 6/
JG lost 16 aircraft and their irreplaceable pilots. A few
days later the high command withdrew the group from
the west and in February transferred it to the Russian
front.
The P-47 and P-51-equipped USAAF 352nd and
366th Fighter Groups had moved to a small airfield
outside the Belgian village of Asch at the end of No-
World at War 37
7/3/08 2:47:13 PM
 38 #2

WaW 2 Issue.indd 38 7/3/08 2:47:14 PM

 vember. At only 10 minutes flying time from the front,
the rustic little strip was busy and important to the Al-
lies. It was therefore another prime target for the Luft-
waffe that day.
At 6:30 a.m. Capt. Horst-Gunther von Fassong
briefed the pilots of 11/JG on their target. Few of them
had ever heard of the installation at Asch, but von
Fassong made it clear it was a vital objective whose
neutralization was critical to the overall success of
Bodenplatte. A few minutes after 8:00 a.m., 61 Fw-
190s and Me-109s started taking off from Zellhausen,
Gross-Ostheim and Biblis.
Yet again the Germans had trouble with target iden-
tification, and almost half of von Fassong’s group erro-
neously attacked the American base outside Ophoven.
There remained 31 fighters to attack Asch, and when
they arrived they met two flights of Thunderbolts and
an additional 12 Mustangs that were taking off on mis-
sions of their own. Those planes defended their base,
flaming 21 Germans for the loss of 11 of their own. It
was another Bodenplatte attack that was too costly to
be termed successful. More such were in store.
Oberstleutnant Josef Priller had commanded 26/
JG for two years by the time of the New Year’s air
offensive. With 101 kills, he was one of the most suc-
cessful Luftwaffe pilots in the west. As darkness fell on
31 December he and his befuddled pilots were loaded
on trucks and hastily driven to a monastery at nearby
Kloster Handrup for a briefing on the next morning’s
mission.
Priller and his men were to attack an RAF instal-
lation outside the Belgian town of Grimbergen, and
also Evere airfield outside Brussels. But German intel-
ligence had slipped up in its evaluation of worthwhile
objectives. Grimbergen was almost deserted. Previ-
ously it had been the base of operations for the RAF’s
132 Wing, which had relocated to Woensdrecht in Hol-
land a few days prior.
On the outbound flight from Grimbergen, German
FLAK gunners, again uninformed about Bodenplatte,
shot down three Fw-190s. Over the Scheldt estuary,
British naval AAA opened up on the formations,
shooting down three more planes. As the Germans
crossed the Dutch/Belgian border, a dozen Spitfires
of the Polish 308 Squadron shot down three more of
them. Two more Fw-190s were lost when their pilots
snap-rolled to escape the Poles, but were flying too
low and crashed.
Having lost 11 planes before reaching his target,
Priller had 35 remaining as he neared Grimbergen at
9:22 a.m. One of his officers, Lt. Karl-Heinz Ossen-
kop, recalled: “I noticed there were only very few air-
craft on the field. A four-engine aircraft was burning.
The AAA probably just woke up because there was
hardly any defensive fire.”
The Germans searched wildly for the ranks of
Spitfires they’d been told to expect, then saw to their
WaW 2 Issue.indd 39
The View From On High
Allied supreme commander Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower was
stunned when informed of the Luftwaffe’s massive assault against Al-
lied airfields. By that time in the war, Allied planners had largely writ-
ten off the Luftwaffe as an effective air force. Eisenhower was sobered
when briefed on how over 300 Allied aircraft had been destroyed in the
attacks on airfields in the Low Countries and northern France. Even
British Field Marshal Sir Bernard Law Montgomery’s personal trans-
port plane had been shot to pieces while parked on a runway. What if the
Field Marshal had been in the plane?
The Allied high command immediately ordered what amounted to a
cover-up, claiming the Germans had lost over 300 planes while inflict-
ing only insignificant damage. They claimed the attacks would have no
effect on the Allies’ capacity to continue their overall offensive. In truth,
Goering succeeded in paralyzing the Allied tactical air forces for over a
week, thereby hampering their ability to assist in the counteroffensive
against both the Bulge and the German offensive further south at Stras-
bourg. Looking back, Bodenplatte can be seen as the last gasp for the
Luftwaffe. At the time, though, the Allied high command was concerned
it might be the signal of a resurgence of German airpower.
Free French fighter ace Pierre Closterman later wrote: “The Ameri-
can censorship and press service, in a flat spin, tried to present the attack
as a great Allied victory by publishing peculiar figures. We pilots were
still laughing about them three months later!”
astonishment a large white cross in the middle of the in-
stallation—the international symbol of an inactive air-
field.
Lt. Theo Nibel went down when a partridge flew into
his plane’s radiator. He belly-landed in a field where Al-
lied military police captured him and his aircraft. AAA
shot down three more Fw-190s over Grimbergen during
the 15 minutes of the attack. On the return flight another
seven 26/JG planes fell to German FLAK, and one more
went down to a patrolling Spitfire. It was a stiff price
to pay for the total of six parked aircraft the attackers
destroyed.
The next assault went more according to plan. Com-
manded by Maj. Anton Hackl, 29 Me-109s left Nordhorn
at 8:15 a.m. They steered for Brussels-Evere via Rot-
terdam, where they veered left to approach their target
from due north. Again their own FLAK proved deadly,
as German gunners shot down four Messerschmitts just
after they passed over the River Ijssel. Arriving at 9:26
a.m., Hackl and his airmen spent almost half an hour
over hapless Evere airfield, shooting up rows of parked
warplanes that had been delayed in taking off because
their runway was covered with ice. The Allies later ad-
mitted to losing 61 planes in the devastating attack. That
German success was quickly followed by another.
The 27/JG was one of the oldest units in the Luftwaffe,
having flown on every front since 1939. Beginning on 2
November 1944, the group began operations against the
US Eighth Air Force and sustained heavy losses while
doing so. Five weeks later the unit moved west to sup-
port the army in the Ardennes, where it lost 43 pilots
killed and 29 wounded with more than 100 planes shot
down. During that period 27/JG accounted for 58 Allied
aircraft.
World at War 39
7/3/08 2:47:15 PM
 The odd couple: FW-190 with Ju-88 ‘Mistel’ bomber.
On the evening of 31 December, Group Command-
er Maj. Rudolf Klemm and his staff informed their
pilots that on the following morning they were to at-
tack the Allied airfield at Melsbroek, outside Brussels.
Because Klemm and his executive officer, Capt. Karl
Resch were both ill, Sgt. Fridolin Bachhuber would
lead the mission.
The 27/JG was based at airfields outside the towns
of Hopsten, Rheine, Hesepe, Vorden and Achmer. Six-
ty German pilots took off at 8:15 a.m., winging west
into Holland, where they veered south over Utrecht
and into Belgium. At the same time the Me-109s of
27/JG were leaving their runways, 15 Fw-190s from
54/JG lifted off from Vorden to support their mission.
Slightly before 9:00 a.m., they dove to attack.
Eighteen USAAF B-25 Mitchell bombers had just
taken off to attack the communications center of Das-
burg when three 12-plane waves of Me-109s swooped
in from different directions. Oberleutnant Emil Clade
later recalled: “As we arrived over Melsbroek ev-
erything was peaceful. The AAA batteries were not
manned, and around fuel stations, bombers and fight-
ers were standing in circles like cows around a water-
ing hole. After the third run the airfield was so covered
by smoke that I was amazed there were no mid-air col-
lisions.”
The Nazis destroyed 85 Mitchells, Wellingtons,
Lancasters, Stirlings, Mosquitoes, Spitfires, Mustangs,
Ansons, Austers and Oxfords in that one attack. Forty
more planes were damaged to varying extents. Later
Luftwaffe aerial reconnaissance verified the huge tally
as 27/JG made up for its recent trouncing. It was the
last significant German success of the morning.
40 #2
WaW 2 Issue.indd 40
In the Bulge
Early during the Battle of the Bulge, 53/JG flew
support missions over the southern sector of that com-
bat front. The sorely outnumbered outfit fought hard
against the planes of the US Ninth Air Force, shooting
down 34, most of them Thunderbolts. The effort cost
53/JG 39 Me-109s and 25 dead pilots. There was little
time to regroup and heal, for as Bodenplatte began, the
group was slated to target the Allied bases at Frescaty,
outside the French cities of Metz and Etain.
At 8:30 a.m., 28 Me-109s of 53/JG took off from
their base at Kirrlach, Germany, en route for Etain, but
were intercepted and shot to pieces by two flights of
Thunderbolts. The rest of the group, 52 planes, arrived
over their target at Frescaty at 9:15 a.m. Over the next
half-hour the attackers demolished 27 P-47s and dam-
aged 11 more. Still, it was an expensive mission, as
53/JG lost 30 Me-109s in the raid. Eight more made it
back to base despite serious battle damage; nine pilots
were killed and another four were captured.
The 77/JG was another unit decimated in the sec-
ond half of 1944. Many of the replacement pilots sent
to the unit in December were still in their teens and
trying to acquaint themselves with their machines
when they learned of their imminent participation in
Bodenplatte. Stationed at bases outside Dortmund and
Bonninghardt-Sud, the group was commanded by Maj.
Siegfried Freytag. He told them their target was the
massive Allied base at Deurne, outside Antwerp. He
knew they weren’t ready for such an assignment, but
Deurne harbored one of the largest contingents of Al-
lied warplanes on the continent. It had to be attacked
and no other unit was available.
At 8:00 a.m. the 36 pilots of 77/JG lifted off and head-
ed west. Only about half of them even found their tar-
7/3/08 2:47:16 PM
 get, and they destroyed only 14 aircraft while damag-
ing nine others. Freytag lost 11 planes on the mission,
and all of those pilots were either killed or captured. It
was a costly way for the rookies to gain experience.
Jets
In December 1944 the Luftwaffe’s Kampfgruppe
(battle [bomber] group) 51 was equipped with the new
Me-262 jet, and the pilots quickly fell in love with it.
The previous August, the Arado 234 jet had been de-
livered to Kampfgruppe (KG) 76. Goering had high
hopes for his new weapons on New Year’s Day.
That morning 26 jets assailed Gilze-Rigen airfield,
in southern Holland, and also went in against Eind-
hoven. Just three Allied planes were destroyed at
Gilze-Bergen. It was impossible to tell how many fell
victim at Eindhoven because nobody could differenti-
ate between the damage done by the jets and that by
the earlier attacks by 3/JG and 6/JG. The main accom-
plishment of the jet units were the aerial photos they
provided of the Allied airfields attacked that morning,
which gave the Luftwaffe high command a clear pic-
ture of the overall success of Bodenplatte. Otherwise,
though, the jet missions proved of little consequence.
Still, they were among the first major operations by jet
aircraft in the history of warfare.
End of an Air Force
By 10:00 a.m. on 1 January, Unternehmen Boden-
platte was largely over. Later examination of the fig-
ures on Allied losses produced a tally of 305 aircraft
lost, with another 190 damaged. It was high price for
the Allies to pay, as they’d assumed the Luftwaffe was
already finished by that time in the war.
German records reveal Goering lost 271 Me-109s
and Fw-190s, with another 65 damaged, in his bid to
WaW 2 Issue.indd 41
inflict decisive damage on the Allied air fleet. He also
lost nine Ju-88s, with four more damaged. Based on
the approximately 850 German planes involved in the
raids, the Luftwaffe’s losses in machines were a whop-
ping 32 percent. Ironically, many of the German losses
were due to having been mistakenly fired on by their
own FLAK batteries.
The destruction inflicted by the Luftwaffe during
Bodenplatte was spectacular, but not debilitating. By
concentrating against Allied aircraft on the ground, the
German attacks killed and wounded few pilots. Be-
cause machines were much more easily replaced than
men for the Allies, ground crews simply bulldozed
thousands of tons of wrecked planes off airfields to
make room for readily available replacement craft.
German industry, however, was reeling under constant
bombing from the Allied strategic bombing offensive,
and could never hope to make up the ongoing losses
of aircraft on the eastern and western fronts, as well as
in the skies over the Reich itself. The Luftwaffe was
especially hard pressed to provide trained pilots to
man its aircraft. The destruction of much of the Ger-
man petroleum industry meant there was little fuel to
train replacements. To make matters worse, Luftwaffe
pilots who survived being shot down during Boden-
platte often parachuted behind Allied lines to become
POWs. Experienced combat pilots were incredibly
valuable for both sides, and the Luftwaffe’s loss of
them made the New Year’s attacks far too expensive
for Germany.
Had the aerial offensive been launched a couple
weeks earlier, when German ground forces still had
momentum during the Battle of the Bulge, Allied air
power might have been overtaxed by simultaneous in-
terdiction, ground support and air defense missions.
World at War 41
7/3/08 2:47:16 PM
 Of course, the overcast weather that kept the Allied air
forces from massively intervening in the ground battle
at that time would also have made any low-altitude air
base raids by the Luftwaffe that much more difficult.
Either way, by 1 January, Hitler’s panzer columns had
been largely contained or destroyed in the Ardennes,
and the RAF and USAAF could afford the losses ex-
acted by Bodenplatte.
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42 #2
WaW 2 Issue.indd 42
Sources
Bekker, Cajus. The Luftwaffe War Diaries, Ballantine Books,
1964.
Manrho, John. Putz, Ron. Bodenplatte: The Luftwaffe’s Last Hope,
Hikoki Publications, 2004.
Pimlott, John. The Battle of the Bulge, Gallery Books, 1990.
Toland, John. The last 100 Days, Bantam Books, 1965.
Whiting, Charles. Bounce the Rhine, Avon Books, 1985.
Whiting, Charles. The Other Battle of the Bulge: Operation North-
wind, Scarborough House Publishing, 1986.
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 The Battle for Gdynia
& the Polish Corridor, 1939
A Fight for Honor’s Sake
By Maciej Jonasz

hen German troops crossed the Polish

border on 1 September 1939, one of
the main targets of their aggression,
and one of the main rationales for it,
was the “Corridor,” the narrow section of the Baltic
Sea coast governed by Warsaw. That was so because
the formerly German city of Danzig (Gdansk) lay in-
side that area. That place had been declared a neutral,
free city-state by the League of Nations shortly after
the end of the First World War, with Poland holding
a number of privileges within it. The entire corridor’s
larger significance lay in the fact it separated East Prus-
sia from the rest of Germany. Both those things were
ideologically unacceptable to the Nazis. Thus, despite
the fact the corridor was of only secondary operational
importance within the overall German invasion plan,
significant resources were committed to it by them, and
intense fighting began there within moments of the start
of the war.
The Polish high command knew the coastal area
would be targeted by the Germans, but there was little
they could do about it. The corridor was only 50 miles
(80 kilometers) wide, and was squeezed between two
hostile territories. That meant any Polish forces posi-
tioned there would face enemy action from two direc-
tions and, almost automatically, would start any war al-
ready ‘surrounded’ for all practical purposes. Because
of that unfavorable situation, the defense of the coast
was written off. In fact, just prior to the beginning of
the war, thousands of reservists were moved out of the
area to supplement units mobilizing farther inland.
On the coast itself, small forces were positioned to
defend the Polish naval bases at Gdynia and on the Hel
peninsula. There were also enclaves within the territory
of Danzig, but they were of little military value and had
been created only as havens in which to shelter Polish
citizens from the German-controlled police and “home
guard” para-military units there. The most notable were
the Military Transit Facility at Westerplatte, in the port
of Danzig, and the Polish Post Office. Those enclaves
held no real military value, but were of great symbolic
World at War 43

WaW 2 Issue.indd 43 7/3/08 2:47:20 PM

 importance to the Germans. Because of that, they were
attacked at the very outbreak of the war. Westerplatte
was defended by a well-fortified infantry company,
and it therefore held out for a week, while the fight for
the post office only lasted a day.
Located in the middle of the city, and defended
only by its employees and a handful of reservists, a
total of 51 men and women under command of 2nd
Lt. Konrad Guderski, the Polish Post Office stood no
chance of holding out for long. The small garrison,
however, was determined to defend itself. Armed with
rifles, grenades and a few machineguns, they hoped to
hold out until friendly forces from outside the city cut
through to them. They’d been told the Polish Pomera-
nian Army would need no more than six hours to reach
them once the fighting actually started.
Of course, the German assaults against the build-
ing continued long after those six hours had passed.
Finally, after 14 hours of intense combat during which
the attackers used flamethrowers to set the structure
ablaze, the defenders surrendered. Sadly, after a month
of captivity, during which forceful ‘interrogations’
were frequent, all those captured at the post office, and
who hadn’t since died of wounds, were executed just
outside the city.
The defense of the Gdynia naval base was centered
44 #2
WaW 2 Issue.indd 44
on two regular army infantry regiments and a territo-
rial brigade, along with a number of artillery and other
small support units. Commanded by Col. Stanislaw
Dabek, the total strength of the force was roughly that
of a reinforced infantry division (about 15,000). That
wasn’t a huge force for the task at hand, but Dabek
believed he could defend the sector well for at least
several days.
The defense was set so the two strongest formations
within it, the two naval rifle regiments, were placed on
the expected axes of the German attack, with remain-
ing national guard battalions spread out between them.
Thus the 1st Naval Rifle Regiment deployed along the
western edge of Gdynia, while the 2nd Naval Rifle Reg-
iment defended the south to shield against any Ger-
man advances coming out of Danzig. The 1st Gdynia
National Guard Battalion covered the gap between
those two regiments. That was a lot of ground to cover
and, even after other units were moved in to reinforce,
there were still gaps the Germans were able to move
through to outflank the Poles’ forward positions.
The 2nd Gdynia National Guard Battalion was
initially to have been held in reserve, but was soon
moved the southern front. The 4th Kartuzy National
Guard Battalion formed the link to central Poland in
its position in that town, which lay at the southern end
7/3/08 2:47:21 PM
 The Hel Peninsula
The Hel Peninsula was the other Polish
base on the Baltic coast. Its location across
the mouth of Danzig Bay was an excellent one
from which to control nearby waters. The base
itself was located in Hel, a small town on the
tip of the peninsula. It was protected by light
anti-aircraft guns along with some medium-
caliber coastal artillery. That protection was
enough to shoot down a number of attacking
German aircraft, but not enough to protect
the naval vessels in port from being bombed.
As a result, all those vessels were soon either
sunk or severely damaged.
One battery of 152 mm coastal guns, sited at the t i p
of the peninsula, potentially had enough range to engage
the Schleswig-Holstein and Schlesien battleships that were
operating in the region. Those German ships, though, sim-
ply stayed far enough away to keep them out of effective
range of the guns. In turn, that also worked to render those
warships’ fire less effective than it otherwise could’ve been.
Well-mounted in concrete emplacements, the 152 mm guns
remained in operation until the end of the fighting on the
peninsula. At the same time, as more and more of the Polish
vessels in the port were sunk or damaged, their weaponry
was brought ashore to add their weight to the ground de-
fense.
There was also some infantry and field artillery on hand,
which was to be used to help repel ground or amphibious as-
saults. It consisted, in total, of one battalion from the Border
Defense Corps, reinforced by ad hoc units of naval and avia-
tion personnel.
The prepared defenses were limited to earthworks and
minefields that cut across the narrow peninsula at several
points. Two of those minefields actually consisted of bur-
ied torpedo heads that were set to blow up together on com-
mand. One of those fields was laid in front of a key defensive
position, with the intent of exploding it at some critical mo-
ment in the fighting. The other was laid across the narrow-
est section of the peninsula, in the hope its explosive power
would totally flood the area and create a water barrier. In the
end, it turned out the explosive force was insufficient to do
all that, and only a few water-filled craters were created.
of the corridor. The 5th Puck National Guard Battalion
deployed to cover the north. The remaining battalions
were still in the process of mobilizing when the war
began, and so were committed as need and opportu-
nity arose.
For support, there were a number of artillery and
anti-aircraft batteries in Gdynia. Though outgunned
by German artillery, they contributed their share to the
defense. For instance, four 75 mm guns were mounted
on railroad flatcars to create a fire-support unit. De-
spite having mobility only along the city’s rail lines,
those guns proved valuable to the defense.
German artillery from within Danzig opened fire
against Gdynia at 4:45 a.m. on 1 September. Since the
Polish positions had been well mapped by the Germans,
the bombardment was accurate and caused a number
WaW 2 Issue.indd 45
The earthworks were formed into four defen-
sive positions. The first was at the base of the
peninsula. It was there to protect the small fish-
ing village, which was also defended by the men
of the naval aviation squadron and two 75 mm
guns. The next two lines, one east of Chalupy
and other east of Kaznica, were meant only as
delaying positions for use while falling back
to the last line. That main defensive line ran
across Jastarnia. A small reserve force was gar-
risoned within the woods at the tip of the peninsula. It’s main
intended mission was to move to counter any German at-
tempts at an amphibious landing—something that was never
actually attempted.
In the end, most of the fighting for the peninsula centered
on airstrikes, artillery and naval bombardments. Only a few
skirmishes occurred on the ground when the Germans at-
tacked sufficiently to force the Poles to withdraw from the
base of the peninsula. Further German ground action was
limited to patrolling, as the losses they suffered in Gdynia
argued for greater caution.
That situation lasted until 1 October, when Adm. Un-
rug, the garrison commander, offered to surrender to the
Germans. He saw further resistance as futile, as by that date
almost all of Poland had been overrun by the Germans and
Soviets. Thus, the next day some 3,200 Polish military per-
sonnel simply marched off the peninsula into prisoner of war
camps. Sixteen managed to escape to Sweden on a motor
launch, where they were interned.
of casualties, completely obliterating one machinegun
outpost. At the same time, Landespolizei (national po-
lice) troops crossed the border and advanced along the
coast with plentiful use of machineguns and mortars.
Within a few hours the southern Polish line had been
overrun and the Orlowo district captured. As German
pressure continued to mount, Lt. Col. Szpunar, the Pol-
ish southern line’s commander, ordered a withdrawal
to the main line of resistance. When, after several at-
tempts, the German police found they couldn’t break
that line, the fighting there stopped temporarily.
There was little further action in that sector, with
the exception of some small but sharp clashes between
the border guards of both sides as the Germans probed
from Danzig toward the west and Kartuzy. That ad-
vance was halted, though, when a Polish infantry pla-
World at War 45
7/3/08 2:47:22 PM

toon and the 75 mm guns from the improvised train
moved forward to join the fight. Similar clashes took
place along the border to the north, but the Poles again
held their ground.
Farther south, meanwhile, the German 207th Infan-
try Division, reinforced by a detachment from the 12th
Infantry Division, together with the 10th Panzer Divi-
sion, moved east across the corridor to establish a link
with East Prussia. That move was temporarily stalled,
though, when Polish defenders managed to blow up a
key bridge before the Germans could seize it.
Despite those successes, the defense of Gdynia was
then dealt a blow by the Polish high command, which
ordered the 2nd Gdynia National Guard Battalion to
move south to join the Pomeranian Army. That bat-
talion at first managed to slip past the forward German
units in the area, but then fell into an engagement any-
way, and ended up being scattered into non-existence.
46 #2
WaW 2 Issue.indd 46
At the same time, new ad hoc units were put to-
gether from volunteers among the citizenry of Gdynia,
including local Boy Scout troops. Though under-armed
and under-trained, those formations proved another
valuable addition to the undermanned defense. In
time, they also increased their firepower by using
captured German weapons.
German dive bombers also began hitting the port
during the day. Since the Poles had no combat air-
craft in the corridor, the only protection from such at-
tacks came in the form of anti-aircraft guns. Through-
out that first day, then, the German planes managed to
sink two small naval vessels while destroying a battery
of coastal defense guns. In return, three German air-
craft were shot down.
That night, Co. Stanislaw Dabek ordered a coun-
terattack by the 2nd Naval Rifle Regiment, beginning
at 10:00 p.m. Taken by surprise, the German police
units on the southern front were pushed back almost
to their starting positions by daybreak on 2 September.
That clearly demonstrated the superiority of the Poles’
regular army troops over those of the German police.
However well motivated those men may have been,
they didn’t display a sufficient level of combat profi-
ciency. During the daytime fighting, an entire company
had almost been wiped out when it marched directly
into a pre-set Polish kill zone. During the nighttime
Polish counterattack, the police demonstrated a clear
propensity to panic. That allowed the Poles to capture
a large number of heavy weapons in return for mini-
mal casualties. As a result of all that, by sunrise on the
2nd the police formations had effectively been rendered
hors de combat.
The first day also demonstrated the kind of fight-
ing that was to come during the rest of the campaign
for the coast. During the day the defenders’ positions
were subjected to aerial and artillery bombardment,
7/3/08 2:47:23 PM
 including that from surface naval vessels, in support
of strong German ground attacks. At night, the Poles
would counterattack to try to retake what had been
lost. Thus the attackers conducted what amounted to a
set-piece, methodical siege. The Poles countered with
a mobile defense that took advantage of their interior
lines to move reserves, and used their thorough knowl-
edge of the terrain to select the best approaches. Dur-
ing the next few days, then, until the 7th, the upshot of
the back-and-forth fighting was to create a relatively
static overall situation.
One exception to that pattern came on 3 September,
when Col. Dabek decided to try a large-scale coun-
terattack. His intent was to push south out of the left
flank of the 2nd Naval Rifle Regiment, break through
the German battalion that faced the regiment, and then
to turn east toward the sea in order to take from behind
the other German units there. Things got off to a bad
start, however, when the 1st Battalion of the 2nd Regi-
ment got entangled in a serious friendly fire incident
with a mounted reconnaissance unit. The other two
WaW 2 Issue.indd 47
battalions, reinforced by three ad hoc companies from
the reserve, had to carry on without its help. The at-
tack again surprised the Germans, throwing them back
from their front line positions, but it then lacked the
power to make the planned turn toward the coast.
The next morning an improvised follow-on effort
pushed back the Germans farther in that area. With
that accomplished, though, the Poles in the attacking
units all moved back to their starting positions of the
day before, never having gotten through to the sea.
Even so, another German battalion in the south had
taken a severe beating, further weakening their overall
situation on that front.
That same night fight also revealed the greatest
shortcoming of the entire Polish defense: lack of a
proper command and communication structure. The
resource-starved formations under Col. Dabek simply
didn’t have the means to maintain proper communica-
tions with each other once fighting started. That was
further complicated by the fact that, other than the na-
val rifle units, none of the formations under his com-
World at War 47
7/3/08 2:47:23 PM

mand had ever trained or fought together prior to the
start of the war. The National Guard “brigade” was in
fact only a unit in the administrative sense, which had
never been intended to be a true operational formation.
Whatever got done by the Poles was only the result of
Dabek’s energy and personal intercession.
Another episode on the southern front at that time
took place in Kartuzy, where the National Guard battal-
ion of that same name was effectively cut off from the
rest of the defense. Since the Pomeranian Army was
already being pushed away from the corridor’s south-
ern end by the 3rd, the German 207th and 12th Infantry
Divisions were again free to move. The 207th was a
“third wave” German division, meaning its ranks were
mostly filled with older reservists, only recently called
1 September: German troops advance into the Polish Corridor.
48 #2
WaW 2 Issue.indd 48
back to service who were carrying older weapons. To
give it some more muscle, two infantry battalions and
an artillery battery from the 12th Infantry Division (a
“first wave,” all-regular-army formation) had been at-
tached to the 207th.
On 4 September, then, the reinforced 207th began
to move north toward Gdynia. The first obstacle in
its path was the 4th Kartuzy National Guard Battal-
ion. When that unit’s outposts were overwhelmed,
its commander, Capt. Marion Mordawski, ordered a
withdrawal to the north to link up with the main Polish
defense. Fortunately, the Germans exercised caution in
their advance, moving north at a slow pace that didn’t
interfere with the Poles’ withdrawal. At the same time,
though, the fatal lack of Polish communication was
again demonstrated, as the 4th Kartuzy reached the
friendly lines at Gdynia only to be fired on by the un-
informed 1st Gdynia National Guard Battalion. The
entire 4th Kartuzy Battalion was temporarily scattered,
but then managed to pull together sufficiently to enter
the lines to take up positions next to 1st Gdynia.
The improvised artillery train that had taken part
in support of the first day’s fighting around Kartuzy
had been dismantled and brought along. It was reas-
sembled inside Gdynia proper, this time with half-inch
(13 mm) steel plates added, which had originally been
destined for the hull of a destroyer. That improvement
allowed the train to thereafter move directly into the
middle of the fighting it was supporting to fire at point-
blank range. Christened Smok Kaszubski (Kashubian
Dragon), Kashubia being the old Polish name for the
region in which Gdynia was located, it was the last
thing to come out of the Gdynia shipyard, and it played
an important role in the rest of the fighting.
That same day, two more Polish vessels, the sup-
port craft SS Gdynia and SS Gdansk, were sunk in the
harbor by aerial attack. All hands were lost from the
Gdynia, along with almost all from the Gdansk, when
the survivors were machinegunned in their lifeboats by
Luftwaffe aircraft. The German battleship Schleswig-
Holstein also opened fire on Gdynia’s coastal defense
batteries, from beyond their range, in its position in
Danzig harbor. That fire proved ineffective, howev-
er; so when two German minesweepers approached
Gdynia to clear the approaches, Polish guns opened
fire on them, damaging one.
On 5 and 6 September an ad hoc naval battalion
was raised, consisting of about 750 sailors under com-
mand of Lt. Commander Zygmunt Horyd. Well moti-
vated, but under-armed and lacking training in infan-
try tactics, that battalion, much like the German police
units, quickly suffered heavy casualties.
On 7 September the fighting gained in intensi-
ty. It was on that day, at 10:00 a.m., the garrison in
Westerplatte surrendered. That meant the guns of the
Schleswig-Holstein, along with all the other artillery
the Germans had been using against that position,
7/3/08 2:47:25 PM
 The Pomeranian Army in the Corridor
As enmity heightened between Poland and the government of the Danzig “free state”
in the late 1930s, the Poles reacted by reinforcing their presence in the Westerplatte for-
tress as well as at the Polish Post Office inside the city. Though those moves were purely
defensive, the army high command also created the Intervention Corps, which was to
rush into Danzig and bring it under direct Polish control if there were any attempt by the
Nazi-dominated city government to declare unification with Germany. Made up of two
infantry divisions and a cavalry brigade, it was a force that would certainly have been
strong enough to defeat Danzig’s small armed forces.
The plan was of limited utility, though, in that it was intended for use in a crisis be-
tween only Danzig and Poland. If that crisis escalated to became one between Poland and
Germany, the Intervention Corps would be advancing into an area closely flanked by two
well-garrisoned German provinces. As it happened, of course, events on the coast played
out within the context of an all-out German-Polish war. So the forces assigned to the In-
tervention Corps ended up paying a heavy price for the planning shortfall.
The Intervention Corps initially consisted of the 13th and 27th Infantry Divisions, along
with the Pomorska Cavalry Brigade. As it became apparent, however, that a larger con-
flict was looming than one simply to be fought out around Danzig, the 13th was withdrawn
to go into the Poles’ Reserve Army. Shortly after that, farther planning called for the ef-
fective dissolution of the entire Intervention Corps and the withdrawal of its remaining
formations further south. Events overtook planning, though. On 1 September both the 27th
and the cavalry brigade found themselves in exposed positions inside the corridor.
As the corridor was of strategic and symbolic import for the Germans, the weight of
the assault they directed across its base was overwhelming. Within a few days the pan-
zers did their job by severing the corridor and establishing a direct overland link between A still-determined, but obviously
Germany proper and the formerly detached province of East Prussia. As a result the Polish dispirited, Polish lancer near the end of
units in and near the corridor quickly suffered heavy casualties, managing to get out while the campaign.
retaining only a fraction of their strength.
The Polish 9th Infantry Division was stationed just to the south of the Intervention Corps. Since the orientation of the Intervention
Corps was to the north and east, the 9th was oriented toward the south and west, in order to shield the Corps from that direction and
maintain a link with the rest of the country. The 9th, however, also got caught in the German steamroller, suffering heavy casualties as
it fought its way out and south. To the south of the 9th, the corridor opened into the territory of Poland proper, which was where the
mass of the Pomeranian Army was stationed. Those forces managed to hold their positions long enough to allow the survivors of the
northern corridor to retreat to reach them.
In all, the placing of Polish units in the Corridor resulted in those formations taking severe losses without, at the same time, hav-
ing any direct effect on the overall fighting. Thus the failed Polish planning in relation to the problem of Danzig led to the destruction
of about half the combat power of the Pomeranian Army. The Polish government and high command had been aware of that pos-
sibility prior to the start of the war, but they’d felt the entire national territory had to have some kind of defense. Had that not been
the case, they feared the Germans would take advantage of any constricted defense to simply advance into the undefended Polish
territory and effectively annex it without having to fire a shot or otherwise start an actual war.

could be redirected into Gdynia.
The first German objective in their new effort was
the Wejherowo district, defended by the 1st Naval Ri-
fle Regiment. Throughout the day probes were made
against the Polish positions there. All but one of those
probes were immediately repulsed by the Poles. The
one advance that did succeed was counterattacked that
night, and the original front line was again restored.
Another dawn attack also erupted from the direc-
tion of Danzig, with a battalion-sized probe pushing
into the line of outposts on the right flank of the 2nd Na-
val Rifle Regiment. Those outposts, containing in total
approximately one company, were at first pushed back
quickly. Again, though, the Poles counterattacked. The
entire 1st Battalion of the regiment came on line, and
by noon the Germans there had also been rolled back
to their start line.
Suspecting those probes were merely a prelude to
a larger, general attack against Gdynia, Col. Dabek or-
dered company to battalion strength counter-probes to
be launched that night. The results were mixed, with
the Germans caught off-guard at a few places while
detecting and speedily stopping the advancing Poles
in others. They did, though, lose one entire gun battery
along with other heavy equipment.
The next assault was launched against the Polish
positions across Wejherowo. That fighting immediate-
ly became heavy, as the 1st Naval Rifle Regiment was
actually being hit by the concentrated mass of most
of the German units that had been assembled from all
across the Gdynia battlefront. From the west the Poles
came under pressure from the 5th Cavalry Regiment of
SS Battalion Von Rittberg. From the southwest came
the group from the 12th Infantry Division along with
most of the 207th Infantry Division. The Poles held in
the center but were pushed back on both flanks. By the

World at War 49

WaW 2 Issue.indd 49 7/3/08 2:47:25 PM

 The German battleship Schleswig-Holstein opens fire from Danzig harbor.
end of the day, Lt. Col. Pruszkowski, the regiment’s
commander, had to order a withdrawal of the entire
unit in order to avoid it being cut off and encircled.
A stabilizing counterattack was launched by Col.
Dabek’s reserve, but it came too late to change the
situation. Again the defense had been handicapped by
its poor to non-existent command and control system,
and key forward positions were thereby lost. At the
extreme north end of the line, the Germans’ 32nd and
42nd Border Guard Regiments put pressure on the 5th
Puck National Guard Battalion. That effort at first
seemed weak, but it eventually developed enough to
begin to threaten another encirclement. Thus the Pol-
ish withdrawals that day began to open the way for the
Germans to break through to Gdynia’s port.
The same pattern continued over the next few days,
with the Germans forcing their way slowly but steadi-
ly toward the heart of the city. Nighttime Polish coun-
terattacks continued to catch off-guard the occasional
German artillery battery or supply column. Neverthe-
less, by the 13th the defense had been constricted into
the Poles’ final prepared positions on the coast at Kepa
Oksywska. The intensity of the fighting during that
period was well described in the German newspaper
Danziger Vorposten:
The regiments spend the nights…forming
hedgehogs around positions that are continu-
ously attacked by the enemy. The battlefield is
beautifully and eerily lit by the burning town.
There is firing everywhere. Establishing com-
50 #2
WaW 2 Issue.indd 50
munications between the regiments and their
battalions is impossible. With great eagerness,
everybody awaits the coming of dawn.
Also by the 13th, most of the Polish units that
had been resisting the German northern and western
thrusts had been decimated. Accordingly, the 2nd Na-
val Rifle Regiment, which had continued to fair well in
the south since the early repulse of the enemy police
units there, was shifted into key positions in the center.
When all the units had been pulled into the final perim-
eter, a quick count revealed the defense still mustered
about 7,500 combatants. From then to the 17th, intense
fighting continued to rage in what had by that time
become the ‘normal’ daylight and nighttime patterns.
By that time, though, the defensive perimeter had been
reduced to an area no more than three miles (five kilo-
meters) long and about a mile (two kilometers) wide,
with the number still resisting within it down to 2,000
effectives.
From the 17th through the 19th the Germans attacked
almost continuously. On the latter date the Polish field
hospital was heavily bombarded by German artillery,
causing a huge number of fatalities among the wound-
ed of both sides sheltered there. Early that evening one
SS infantry company formed into a tight mass to try to
break into what they believed was only the barracks
of a Polish searchlight company. The building they at-
tacked in that ridiculous way was indeed the barracks
they thought it was; however, unknown to them, the
position had recently been reinforced with a heavy
machinegun. Most of the attacking company was cut
7/3/08 2:47:26 PM
 down, as the Poles kept raking fire through them until
they ran out of ammunition.
As the final perimeter began to crumble, Dabek led
his staff into a small ravine called (strangely enough)
Babi Yar, where he led a last-ditch resistance until
their ammunition ran out. His last orders to his execu-
tive officer was for all to keep fighting to the death. He
then shot himself in the head with his own last round in
order to escape the shame of defeat and surrender. Af-
ter witnessing that grotesque scene, however, the new
commander, Lt. Col. Szpunar, quickly surrendered the
entire command to the Germans. As a sign of respect
for the stoutness of the Polish defense, he was allowed
to keep his saber.
The chaos throughout the town during those last
hours of fighting prevented the quick dissemination of
the surrender order. Numerous small pockets of Poles
therefore kept fighting until they were killed. The last
to give themselves up—those left among the by then
notorious searchlight company—were executed im-
mediately after surrendering to some SS troops.
With that, the Battle of Gdynia finally ended. Dur-
ing 19 days of fighting both sides took heavy casual-
ties. Some 2,000 of the original Polish garrison were
killed outright, with another 3,000 gone “missing in
action.” German casualties were somewhat higher,
and the fear of a similar result motivated them to be
more cautious in their commitment of infantry during
the follow-on assault against Hel.
As with many other engagements in the 1939
campaign, the Battle of Gdynia served as an example
of just how much motivation and training means in
waging war. The German police and border guard for-
mations had the needed motivation, but they lacked
the training that could’ve prevented the losses and
setbacks those units suffered. In the end, it was the
trained infantrymen of the 207th/12th who won for the
Germans. Similarly, on the other side, the core of the
Polish defense was provided by the trained riflemen
of the naval infantry regiments. If nothing else, they
were thoroughly motivated in that they were literally
fighting for their home. It was thanks to the example
of their leadership the rest of the garrison were able to
make their own maximum efforts.
At the same time, the active defensive strategy ad-
opted by Dabek was another key factor in allowing the
garrison to hold out as long as it did. If the Poles had
only tried to passively hold their ground, the Germans
would’ve been able to use their artillery to its fullest
effect by selectively engaging one position at a time
and then launching infantry attacks to take them. As it
was, though, at every opportunity the defenders coun-
terattacked German gains and patrolled beyond the
front line. That largely prevented the Germans from
being able to set up proper forward observation points
within sight of the Polish lines.
After its surrender the Gdynia area remained un-
WaW 2 Issue.indd 51
Cavalry Charge at Krojanty
In the northern section of the corridor at the start of the war, Pol-
ish forces initially grouped into Operational Group Czersk (OGC),
commanded by Gen. Grzmot-Skotnicki. His force was made up of
the Pomorska Cavalry Brigade and a number of smaller reserve in-
fantry units. As German pressure quickly began to force the OGC
south, Grzmot-Skotnicki ordered Pomorska to counterattack in
order to try to take some pressure off the slower moving infantry.
That mission then fell to the brigade’s 18th Uhlan (Lancer) Regi-
ment, under command of Col. K. Mastalerz.
Toward that end, as the regiment’s 4th Squadron moved to di-
rectly block the German advance with the support of a company of
light tanks, its 1st Squadron swung to strike into the German rear
area. It was intended to be a quick assault against an unsuspect-
ing enemy. The 1st Squadron’s commander, Maj. Malecki, there-
fore decided to charge on horseback rather than conduct a standard
dismounted attack. As the Germans came into view, the squadron,
already in extended line formation, drew sabers and charged.
At first the charge was successful. Despite some losses from
machinegun fire, the attack carried enough momentum to break
into the German formation. Panic overcame some of the Germans,
who began to run only to be cut down by the pursuing Poles. At
that moment, however, a German mechanized column appeared on
the road and opened fire against the mounted Poles. The squadron
quickly took heavy losses and had to retire, despite fire support
personally directed into the scene by the regimental commander.
When the dust had settled, it was found the squadron had lost
half its men, including its commander and Col. Mastalerz. Despite
those losses, the objective of the counterattack had been achieved:
the shocked and surprised Germans halted their advance through
that sector for the rest of the day, thus giving the OGC’s infantry
time to get away.
At the same time, though, the legend of Polish cavalry charging
German panzers with drawn sabers had been born. In reality, the
charge had been directed against an advancing infantry unit, and it
was successful there. In fact, had the German panzer column not
shown up, the entire exposed infantry column would likely have
been wiped out.
Though there were several other Polish cavalry charges during
the campaign, none was ever launched when enemy armor was
known to be about. The Polish lancers were brave, not stupid.
A Polish column smashed by German aerial attack.
World at War 51
7/3/08 2:47:27 PM
 der German control until 28 March 1945, when
Soviet infantry and the Polish 1st “Heroes of
Westerplatte” Tank Brigade retook the city. On
4 April the last German resistance on the Hel
Peninsula was extinguished and a Polish flag
was raised on the mast of the Schleswig-Hol-
stein, which had been sunk inside the port by
British bombers in December 1944.
To sum up, then, the fighting on the Baltic
coast in 1939—though vicious—was mainly of
symbolic value for the Poles. That attitude was
further reinforced by the actions of the Polish
Navy’s high command, which ordered almost
all its warships to sail for Great Britain just prior
to the outbreak of hostilities. The battle for the
coast was therefore something not frequently
seen in modern times: it was a fight for honor.

Dabek’s grave today, amid those of the other defenders of Gdynia. at

Sources
Golik, Mariusz. Gdynia Nie Odpowiada. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo
Ministerstwa Obrony Narodowej, 1987.
Jurga, Tadeuz. Obrona Polski, 1939. Warszawa: Instytut Wydawniczy
PAX, 1990.
Komisja Historyczna Polskiego Sztabu Glownego w Londynia. Pol-
skie Sily Zbrojne w Drugiej Wojnie Swiatowej, vol. 1, part 5. Lon-
don: Instytut Historyczny im Gen. Sikorskiego, 1962.
Zaleski, Grzegorz. “Bomby na Parademasch,” Skrzydlata Polska, 10
(1997): 54-55.
Zawiliski, Apoloniusz. Bitwy Polskiego Wrzesnia, vol. 1. Warszawa:
Instytut Wydawniczy Nasza Ksiegarnia, 1972.

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52 #2

WaW 2 Issue.indd 52 7/3/08 2:47:31 PM

 Strasbourg, 1945:
First Act in the Cold War
By Kelly Bell
The senior Allied commanders attending the situation con-
ference on 19 December 1944 were a chagrined, silent bunch.
Less than a week earlier they’d sneered at the scattered, worried
voices among their staffs who sought to warn them of an im-
minent large-scale counterattack by the written-off Wehrmacht.
Now a large US force was fighting for its existence while retreat-
ing through the Ardennes Forest. The meeting’s location added
yet more sobering significance: it was held in Verdun. During the
First World War, Charles DeGaulle had been captured there, and
Adolf Hitler had been wounded nearby. What the Allied generals
didn’t know—but could only suspect—was the Nazi dictator had
a further bitter surprise in store for them.
WaW 2 Issue.indd 53
While Lt. Gen. George Patton, commander of 3rd Army, dom-
inated the discussion, US and British intelligence officers quietly
circulated the situational fact sheets they’d drawn up. Those doc-
uments centered on the troubling revelation that, though the Ger-
mans had committed 20-some divisions to the Ardennes, it was
suspected further reserves still lurked beneath the thick overcast
then protecting the enemy from air reconnaissance. Even so, pre-
occupied with how to stabilize the disintegrating Ardennes front,
the generals gave little attention to how Hitler might be planning
to use that remaining offensive power.
Throughout most of the war, British cryptanalysts, using the
now well-known Ultra decoding apparatus, had kept top-level
World at War 53
7/3/08 2:47:32 PM

The liberator: Gen. Leclerc (far left) rides past the cathedral of
Notre Dame
Allied commanders informed of German intentions. In the
waning months of 1944, however, Hitler and his generals—
suspicious the Allies were reading their communications—
had abandoned wireless transmissions in favor of land-line
telephones and teleprinters, even when communicating with
their most-forward headquarters. That change had staunched
the flow of intercepted information and enabled the Germans
to take the US Army by surprise on 16 December. Continu-
ing to shield his intentions in that way, Hitler sketched a sec-
ond half to his winter offensive strategy. Indeed, the politi-
cal dimension inherent in that further operation might have
considerably prolonged the war in Europe.
Following Allied liberation of Alsace-Lorraine’s pro-
vincial capital of Strasbourg, local resistance fighters and
anti-Nazi intelligence operatives had come out from under
cover and openly identified themselves. Like everyone else,
they never imagined the Germans might return; so it seemed
safe to relinquish their anonymity to join in the general cel-
ebration. Hitler, though, had concocted a stratagem centered
around sending a powerful mechanized spearhead against
Strasbourg.
That plan was based on the idea that Eisenhower, preoc-
cupied with the Ardennes, would, once the new German at-
tack began, most likely pull back his forces exposed around
Strasbourg into more defensible positions. The Allied com-
mander would reason the ultimate fate of Strasbourg would
most quickly and easily be resolved in the larger fight to the
north.
The Free French, under Gen. Charles DeGaulle would
be another matter. They would understand the first result of
a reestablishment of German control over Strasbourg would
be the arrest and deportation, or execution on the spot, of all
the irregulars who were now known to all. The Free French
were thus certain to stand and fight for Strasbourg no matter
what strategy the Americans followed. Eisenhower would
thereby be caught in a dreadful dilemma. He would be
forced to decide to fight another battle from a difficult stra-
54 #2
WaW 2 Issue.indd 54
tegic position or abandon the city and its Gaullist garrison to
the Nazis.
Such a confrontation between the US and their French
ally might prove the first crack in the overall Allied political
front against Germany. The British would be stuck in the
unenviable position of having to mediate—or choose—be-
tween the two quarreling nations. Such a squabble could
only hinder Allied efforts all along the front.
As the Ardennes battle grew in ferocity, it continued to
work in favor of Hitler in the larger strategic context. Eisen-
hower, not yet cognizant of the imminent threat to Stras-
bourg, sent Patton and his 3rd Army to counterattack from
the south into the swelling “Bulge” and relieve encircled US
forces in Bastogne. Upon Patton’s departure, Lt. Gen. Jacob
Devers and his 7th Army had to extend their lines to plug the
resultant gap.
Devers’ command also included French 1st Army, which
for over a month had been hammering at the obstinate Ger-
man 19th Army, dug in around the town of Colmar on the
west bank of the Rhine River. The presence of that last Ger-
man enclave on the Allied side of the southern Rhine—and
its potential as a base for yet another counterattack—had
been enough to prevent Eisenhower from sending even
more forces from that sector toward the Ardennes. At the
close of the Verdun conference, then, he told Devers, in case
some new German attack erupted in Alsace-Lorraine, he was
to withdraw in front of it, “even if you have to move com-
pletely back to the Vosges,” the mountains forming the ex-
treme western limit of that entire French province. A retreat
would save the US Army from having to go through another
bloodletting while the Ardennes campaign was still raging.
It would, though, also leave Strasbourg open to recapture
and a Gestapo-administered bloodbath.
The 7th Army, though smaller than Patton’s, was there-
fore suddenly responsible for over 80 miles of new front. In
addition to being stretched thin along that front, Devers also
had to keep an eye on the 100,000 or so German troops still
occupying the Colmar “pocket” on the Rhine, off to his far
right. It was a daunting situation ideally suited to German
intentions.
At the same time, Alsace-Lorraine remained riddled
with Nazi sympathizers and spies who fed a steady stream
of information back to Germany. Hitler was therefore em-
boldened to begin final plans for his assault against 7th Army
on 21 December, which was actually the day before Patton
kicked off his own drive into the southern Ardennes. The
most ominous outcome for the Allies would be if the new
German push was able to cut through to Colmar, thereby cre-
ating a combined force capable of launching an even deeper
follow-on attack.
Hitler codenamed the new offensive Fall Nordwind (Op-
eration North Wind). In it, German 1st Army would push west
from the Blies River and the town of Bitche to smash into
the US defenses between Phalsbourg and Saverne. Two days
later, reinforcements would be sent across the Rhine while
19th Army sought to break out of Colmar. It was hoped, with
US forces retreating out of the way, French 1st Army could
be cut through directly, with Strasbourg itself either quickly
surrounded or seized in a coup de main. Militarily, then, the
retreat of US 7th Army, coupled with the mauling, or even
outright destruction, of French 1st Army, would further de-
stabilize the entire Allied front in Europe.
7/3/08 2:47:33 PM
 There were also political objectives beyond
setting at odds the Americans and French. After
having ruled that region directly for most of the
preceding 75 years, most Germans considered
Strasbourg a German city. Its recapture would
provide a major boost to sagging spirits within the
otherwise crumbling Reich. That recapture might
also well provide a mortal blow to DeGaulle’s
shaky new provisional national government in
Paris. Only his immense personal prestige had
kept the powerful French Communist Party from
taking control as the Nazis fled. A major Gaullist
defeat could embolden the Reds to seize power
and set up a Soviet-style government. The resul-
tant French civil strife couldn’t help but throw into
disarray all the Allied supply and communication
lines that stretched across the country. With all
those potentials in mind, then, Hitler set Nord-
wind’s start time for 11:00 p.m. on 31 December.
At that moment, eight German divisions would
push into the thin Allied lines in Alsace-Lorraine.
Eisenhower, meanwhile, seems to have be-
lieved that DeGaulle, because his forces remained
almost entirely dependent on US supplies, would
obey American orders under any circumstances.
When Devers met with Ike in Paris on 26 Decem-
ber, the supreme commander therefore repeated
his earlier instructions: in the face of any serious
German attack, fall back into the mountains. Hold-
ing Strasbourg was not to be a concern.
That was precisely the German hope. At the
situation conference Hitler held on the eve of the
new attack, he told his generals:
“It is not even the task of this operation
to liberate all Alsace, though that would
be wonderful! It would have an immense
effect on the German people, a decisive ef-
fect on the world, immense psychological
importance, and a very depressing effect
on the French people.”
By the evening of the 31st, the Colmar pocket’s
manpower had been boosted by 8,000 reinforce-
ments who’d used rafts to ford the Rhine. The sig-
nal for the new offensive’s start was to be a single Me-109 fire!” That ploy fooled many of the Americans into believ-
fighter sent to strafe along the length of the Allied line. On ing what they faced was a mass surrender rather than a mass
schedule, that fighter swooped in and began shooting into assault. The Germans then opened their own fire at deadly
the positions of the US 44th Infantry Division. Nordwind’s close range.
ground component began moments later, as snow-camou- By full daylight the Germans had advanced far enough
flaged infantry of the 13th SS Corps rushed forward. that US heavy artillery emplacements were coming under
The Americans resisted stoutly. As the Germans crossed their small arms fire. The situation became even more savage
the Blies River, the attackers called down an artillery bar- as some pro-German locals took up arms and began firing at
rage that pinned the Germans along the west bank. The 44th the retreating Americans. Fleeing rear-echelon units clogged
Division’s 324th Regiment repulsed three German attempts to the roads, thereby hindering the ability of east-bound supply
ford the river in front of them, but it was the 71st Regiment and reinforcement convoys to move forward.
that was actually hardest hit. There the SS broke into the Late in the morning the sky cleared, allowing Allied
defensive positions screaming: “Die Yankee bastards!” ground attack aircraft to begin to target the attackers. At the
The confused night-fighting in the frost covered land- same time, though, the German air force launched its last
scape allowed squads of Germans to begin filtering through major operation of the war (Operation Bodenplatte), as over
the forward US defenses and appear unexpectedly in the rear. 1,000 of its warplanes suddenly descended on Allied airfields
By dawn the Nazis had penetrated some 2,000 yards into the across northern France and the Low Countries, leaving 300
American lines. Then, just at daybreak, the 256th and 361st aircraft wrecked. Thus, despite the continued blue skies, the
Volksgrenadier Divisions stampeded into the fray while de- planes of the US Tactical Air Command were largely absent
ceptively holding their hands high and shouting, “Hold your from the battlefield for the next week.
World at War 55

WaW 2 Issue.indd 55 7/3/08 2:47:35 PM


Once more west: German infantry advance into the Bulge.
Eisenhower concluded the offensive in Alsace-Lorraine
was a gambit intended to make him withdraw troops from
the Ardennes, which made him continue to feel retreat in the
south was the best option. Hitler’s plan, in fact, might well
have come to fruition had Devers simply done as he’d been
told. Flagrantly disobeying orders, though, he didn’t order a
large-scale retreat. Not only did he continue to have 7th Army
fight to hold its ground, he had the tenacity to go back to
Eisenhower and ask for reinforcements in order to be able to
do that all the better.
At the same time, Eisenhower becoming fully aware
he and DeGaulle didn’t share perceptions of the situation
around Strasbourg. As early as 27 December, when French
1st Army’s commander, Gen. Tassigny DeLattre, had visit-
ed Devers’ headquarters, he’d been warned the Americans
might, if attacked in force, fall back to the mountains. That
same day, though, Eisenhower’s headquarters had sent a
message to DeGaulle’s headquarters, explaining any such
large withdrawal was unlikely, and the planning for it a mere
precaution that “staff are in the habit of considering, particu-
larly in a defense situation.”
Free French: DeGaulle talks with resistance leader George Bidault.
56 #2
WaW 2 Issue.indd 56
By 1 January 1945, then, Eisenhower was repeating his
orders to Devers, telling him to retreat. DeGaulle had mean-
while ordered DeLattre to remain in Strasbourg even if the
Americans pulled out. He also sent a note directly to Eisen-
hower, informing him the French would defend the city to
the last man if need be. He then also cabled US President
Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston
Churchill, warning them of the inevitable political repercus-
sions across France if the Anglo-Americans abandoned the
French to fight and die alone in Strasbourg.
On 2 January, DeGaulle sent his personal assistant to
Eisenhower’s headquarters to again assure him the French
were staying in Strasbourg no matter what. Eisenhower re-
fused to meet personally with DeGaulle’s emissary, delegat-
ing that job to his hot-tempered chief of staff, Gen. Walter
Bedell (“Beetle”) Smith, who at the time was also suffer-
ing from an agonizing stomach ulcer. So, when the French-
man explained, “Gen. DeGaulle has ordered Gen. DeLattre
to take responsibility for the defense of Strasbourg,” Smith
blew his top.
“If that’s so,” he roared, “it’s bordering on insubordina-
tion pure and simple, and the French Army will not get a sin-
gle further round of ammunition or a gallon of gasoline!”
To which the response was: “Gen. DeGaulle will then
forbid American forces use of French railways and commu-
nications!”
That was a potentially serious threat, as US supply trans-
shipment requirements across France were immense. There
was no way the Allied war effort could be kept up without
the smooth and unhindered use of French railroads from the
Channel Ports to Marseilles.
At the same time, Eisenhower was also having trouble
placating British Field Marshal Sir Bernard Law Mont-
gomery, who was obsessed that His Majesty’s armed forces
garner adequate accolades in the Ardennes recovery effort.
Thus it was not the time to further antagonize any ally. Con-
sidering all that, Smith cooled down and suggested a face-to-
face meeting between Eisenhower and DeGaulle might best
solve the crisis.
Eisenhower, DeGaulle and Churchill hurriedly arranged
a meeting at Versailles. There, as DeGaulle at first listened
patiently, the American general lectured him about the still
unsettled Ardennes fighting, the threat from Colmar, and
the US Army’s growing manpower shortage. He finished by
stating: “That is why I have ordered the troops to establish
another, shorter line farther back.”
To which DeGaulle responded:
If we were playing wargames I would say you are
right, but I must consider the matter from another
point of view. Retreat in Alsace would yield French
territory to the enemy. In the realm of strategy that
would be only a maneuver, but for France it would
be a national disaster. At the present moment we
are concerned with Strasbourg. I have ordered the
French 1st Army to defend that city. It will, therefore,
do so in any case. But it would be deplorable if this
entailed a dispersion of Allied forces, perhaps even a
rupture in the system of command. That is why I urge
you to reconsider your plan and order Gen. Devers
to hold fast in Alsace.
Of course, Eisenhower and Churchill couldn’t help but
catch the significance of the phrase “rupture in the system
7/3/08 2:47:37 PM
 of command.” That meant DeGaulle and his forces would
defy Anglo-American authority and fight the Germans alone
in Strasbourg, even as the Americans fell back to a defen-
sive line far to the rear. Both men understood such a situa-
tion could not be justified to the populaces of their nations.
Churchill, seeing the inevitable, weighed in by immediately
agreeing with DeGaulle.
Feeling alone, pressed and defiant, Eisenhower again
repeated his earlier threat to simply cut off supplies to the
French. Meeting the American’s stare with a steady one of
his own, DeGaulle then simply repeated his threat to declare
French railroads and communications off-limits to US use.
Seeing he was beaten, Eisenhower telephoned Devers and
authorized him to go ahead with his forward defense of the
entire region.
The unified Allied position came almost too late. Devers
had been expecting the French to leave Strasbourg, however
reluctantly, and move to help him shore up new positions
outside the city. He’d therefore continued to deploy his
troops to reinforce sectors distant from Strasbourg. With the
French not moving, by 4 January that left only some 6,000
Americans strung out along 31 miles of front. Looking fear-
fully to their front, and hopefully to their rear-flank, those
men suddenly realized they were really all that stood be-
tween the Germans and Strasbourg.
At dawn on the 5th, the Germans again crossed the Rhine
into the west bank towns of Gambsheim and Herrlisheim.
US reconnaissance patrols reported that movement, but the
WaW 2 Issue.indd 57
intelligence report given to Devers summarized it as having
been conducted only by units “small and of inferior quality,
and their mission is merely to occupy the ground the Allies
would give up in their anticipated withdrawal to the Vosges
Mountains.”
Those small and inferior units then handily defeated a
US probe back toward Gambsheim, and then covered the 21st
Panzer Division’s crossing of the Rhine to set up a bridge-
head that quickly swelled to two miles deep and five miles
wide along the west bank. Led by a battalion of Foreign
Legion veterans, DeLattre’s Free French tried to pierce the
new German perimeter on the 5th. The Germans fought hard,
though, knowing further reinforcements were on their way
to them. During the night of 6-7 January, both sides traded
heavy artillery fire, but for the time being neither command
felt strong enough to launch a further effort.
The 25th Panzer Grenadier Division, intent on linking
with the newly crossed 21st, bore down from the north to-
ward Gambsheim. At first the attack appeared promising,
led by 10 Tiger tanks. Those behemoths then drove into a
minefield, and those that got out were all picked off by the
anti-tank guns of the US 79th Division’s 313th Regiment. A
lull settled as both sides ran out of steam, but things then
heated up in another sector.
As the countryside around Gambsheim quieted, another
Tiger-led attack, this one by the German 198th Infantry Di-
vision, boiled out of Colmar and headed straight for Stras-
bourg. Initially it seemed there was little the French could
World at War 57
7/3/08 2:47:38 PM
 It’s our city again: Parisians celebrate the liberation.

do against the abrupt new onslaught. The Germans got across the frozen Ill River, reaching the Strasbourg-Selestat Autobahn
before their charge was halted. The French then began to blow up the bridges across the Rhone-Rhine Canal. The Germans,
though, managed to take one bridge intact, crossed over, and again began churning toward Strasbourg, with only one more
bridge to cross. It lay just 10 miles from the city, and French sappers brought it down at the last minute.
That left only one untried avenue into the city. The town of Obenheim sat astraddle another highway into Strasbourg, and
the 198th Infantry Division savagely attacked the French defending that area. When that fight began on 6 January, there were
almost 600 French making up the defense. By the evening of the 10th, only 22 survivors crept out of the town to escape west.
There was then nothing standing between the Germans and their objective—only they didn’t realize. Instead of rushing into
Strasbourg, they shifted their effort.
At 7:00 a.m. on 11 January, the veteran 6th SS Moun-
tain Division, trailed by the infantry of the 36th, 256th and
361st Volksgrenadier divisions, followed a rolling artil-
lery barrage into the lines of the US 45th Infantry Divi-
sion. The ensuing shootout lasted all day. After nightfall
the Germans again infiltrated through the terrain to sur-
round the 157th Regiment’s 3rd Battalion. It took another
week for them to finish off those surrounded Americans.
German units attacking out of the towns of Hatten and
Ritterhofen then pushed a salient to the west, and then de-
fended it against counterattacks by the US 14th Armored
Division. Devers sent two battalions, one armored and
one infantry, to help, but strafing by Me-262 jet fighters
stalled the US attack. The jets screamed in at seemingly
impossible speeds, cannon blazing, and panicking some
units which were surprised by the new aircraft. The con-
duct of the Nazi ground troops was equally unnerving.
Intoxicated by bloodlust, captured liquor and narcotics,
the German combat infantry in the area became increas-
ingly irrational. Though they were fighting in and around
a historically German town, in which the large majority
of the populace supported them, the troops began setting
ablaze every building in the community regardless of
whether it contained, or had contained, any Americans.
One SS man turned a flamethrower on a basement filled
with women and children. Their terrible screams added
to the chaotic nighttime battle’s already surreal nature.
Though US forces penetrated into Hatten and Her-
rlischeim, they were then stopped by the 10th SS Panzer
and 6th SS Mountain divisions. The situation along the
58 #2

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 entire 7th Army front seemed on the verge of collapse. Devers
understood that, and on 19 January he authorized bringing
the line back to establish a new defensive position, more di-
rectly linked with the French, running north-south between
the towns of Bischweiller and Weyersheim. Though that cer-
tainly gave up some ground, it left Strasbourg still behind
Allied lines.
Six German divisions then crossed the icy Moder River
on the night of 24 January, smashing into the US 42nd In-
fantry Division’s 222nd Regiment. It took those outnumbered
Americans 18 hours to fight the Germans to a standstill. At
the same time, the US 193rd Infantry Division fought a new,
ski-troop led effort by the ubiquitous 6th SS Mountain Divi-
sion between Bischoltz and Mulhausen.
Luckily for the Western Allies, Soviet dictator Joseph
Stalin’s vengeful Red Army began driving deep into East
Prussia and across German-occupied Poland toward Berlin.
By the time that offensive had spent itself, over 1.4 million
German civilians were dead and another of Hitler’s army
groups had been wrecked. He had no alternative but to begin
withdrawing units from the west in order to halt the Sovi-
ets. At the same time, Roosevelt had ordered the Western
Front become the primary destination for US replacements.
That temporarily starved other theaters for manpower, but
it quickly began to improve the situation along the Franco-
German frontier.
The rapidly altering situation put the focus back on Col-
mar. While the bulk of French 1st Army turned to attack east
again, Eisenhower also loaned DeGaulle use of the US 21st
Army Corps, containing the 2nd, 28th and 75th Infantry Di-
visions. Thus reinforced, the Anglo-French would clear all
Alsace of Germans by 10 February. That ended Hitler’s last
offensive on the Western Front. In his order suspending the
Alsace attack he explained those withdrawing forces were
“needed as reserves behind future defensive efforts.”
When the US 68th Armored Infantry and 25th Tank Bat-
talions attacked the Moder-crossing on the 25th, they were
amazed at the ease of their advance as the enemy fell back
across that river. Those fleeing German units were doing so
against Hitler’s direct orders, because their commanders had
correctly deduced the Allies were trying to ford the river in
order to surround them. Still, they fully intended to resume
fighting once they were on the Rhine’s east bank.
DeLattre misinterpreted that retrograde movement,
thinking it signaled the beginning of the entire German Ar-
my’s disintegration and flight out of the theater of operations.
He began developing a scheme in which his French forces
would be the first Allied units to cross the mighty Rhine and
move into the German heartland. His over-optimism might
be excused in light of what took place on 2 February.
That morning an attack spearheaded by the US 28th In-
fantry Division routed what remained of the German defend-
ers in the Colmar pocket. With that strategic thorn finally
removed from the flank of Allied operations across the area,
a surge of hope and revived morale ran through US and
French ranks. They didn’t know the Germans were well pre-
pared to destroy all the Rhine bridges in the region.
The town of Neuf-Brisach possessed both a well pre-
served castle and an excellent span to the east bank. It was
also still full of German soldiers. When the US 7th Infantry
Division moved on the town, it advanced swiftly until reach-
ing the suburb-village of Biesheim, where it collided with an
ad hoc but numerically superior enemy force. First stalled in
WaW 2 Issue.indd 59
The last act: French troops guard German prisoners of war.
the graveyard outside town, the Americans eventually broke
through, led by a force of Stuart light tanks. That left just one
more strongpoint, the castle. Unfortunately, it had been built
as the sturdy centerpiece in a line of fortifications set in place
by Louis XIV. The “castle” was actually an ingeniously laid
out, star-shaped baffle of thick stone walls, which the ap-
proaching Americans instantly nicknamed “Waffle City.”
As the Americans massed around the empty moat, the de-
fenders lost their nerve and fled across the Rhine to the east,
blowing the bridge after them. When some locals guided
US troops into the castle’s complicated interior, they found
just 76 scared Germans, everyone of them crying: “Kama-
rad!” By 8:00 a.m. the next morning, the last standing bridge
across the southern Rhine, at Chalampe, was also blown up
by the Germans.
After participating in a victory parade through Colmar,
where they liberally handed out medals, DeGaulle and De-
Lattre had to give up their plans to try to jump the Rhine and
get into Germany proper. They had to divert three of their di-
visions back to Paris, where swarms of communists seemed
on the verge of launching a coup to seize the government.
Hitler had launched the Ardennes offensive in the hope
of retaking Antwerp and splitting the Anglo-American al-
liance. His effort there never actually came close to doing
that. In the south, though, with forces far smaller than those
attacking in Belgium, he almost succeeded in effectively
knocking France out of the Grand Alliance. For those who
study such things, it will always be an intriguing possibility
to consider how well the Germans might have done—and
the effects that would’ve had on the course of the war—had
Hitler simply switched his attack priorities from the north to
the south.
at
Sources
Arnold-Foster, Mark. The World at War, Signet Books, 1974.
Pimlott, John. Battle of the Bulge, Gallery Books, 1990.
Toland, John. The Last 100 Days, Bantam Books, 1966.
Whiting, Charles. Ardennes: The Secret War, Stein & Day, 1984.
_______. Bounce the Rhine, Avon Books, 1985.
_______. The Other Battle of the Bulge, Scarborough House, 1990.
Editors, Time/Life Books. Series, The Third Reich; volume, Descent
into Nightmare, 1992.
World at War 59
7/3/08 2:47:40 PM
 Another Classic Game from Decision Games

War in the Pacific

On Sunday, 7 December 1941,
the US naval base at Pearl Harbor,
Hawaii, was attacked by Japanese
aircraft. For the next four years, Al-
lied task forces engaged elements of
the Imperial Japanese fleet through-
out the ocean. Marines and army
units began their program of island-
hopping, wresting from the Japanese
the empire that they had expanded
in every direction.

War in the Pacific is a multi-level

simulation of the Pacific theater of operations during World War II.
The game enables players to recreate the entire course of the war,
form the opening Japanese attack on 7 December, 1941 to the cli-
matic Allied assaults in the closing days of 1945. Representing some
30% of the globe, the strategic maps let players move and engage in
combat on all levels: air, ground and naval. War in the Pacific is the
most detailed board game of the Pacific Theater ever created. There
are a number of rules and concepts that will, at first, be unfamiliar to
a majority of players. But playing through smaller map sections and
scenarios enables the player to become familiar with the mechanincs
of the game.

Components: 7 full size strategic maps in full color, new tactical maps with nearly
340 individual islands for new ground units to fight over, 32 die-cut counter sheets,
nearly 9,000 counters showing all types of units from the Pacific Theater, rule books
and assorted displays and player aid charts. Ships as 12 units.

$420.00
PO Box 21598
Bakersfield CA 93390
661/587-9633 • fax 661/587-5031 • www.decisiongames.com
Name
Address
City/State/Zip Shipping Charges
Country 1st unit Adt’l units Type of Service
$10 $2 UPS Ground/USPS Priority Mail
V/MC # Exp.
20 2 Canada
Signature 26 4 Europe, South America
Phone # 28 6 Asia, Australia

60 #2

WaW 2 Issue.indd 60 7/3/08 2:47:43 PM

 A game so big—it’s a tsunami in a box.

Tactical
Map

Strategic Map

World at War 61

WaW 2 Issue.indd 61 7/3/08 2:47:48 PM

 Decision Games…
Games
publisher of military history magazines & games

China: The Middle Kingdom

China: The Middle Kingdom covers the full scope of
Chinese history, from its beginnings as a collection of warring
feudal states, to the current cold war between China and
Taiwan. In this epic game based on the classic Avalon Hill
Britannia system, four players each control several factions
simultaneously, with each faction having their own objectives
and situations, such as conquering certain provinces. The
winner is the player who scores the most points by the end of
the game. This breathtaking game unfolds on an illustrated map
of China with 432 counters, covering 50 separate countries and
peoples, including all of the major dynasties of Chinese history,
the arrival of the European powers, both World Wars and the
Japanese invasion, right up to the end of the civil war between
the Communists and the Nationalists. The game occurs over
24 turns, starting from 403 BC, during the “Warring States”
period as China begins to rise from its feudal age. The game
has two shorter campaign scenarios covering the first half and
second half of the full campaign game.
Battles between armies can be dramatically affected by
the presence of mountains, emperors, heroes, new inventions,
and even the Great Wall. Rebellions, barbarian invasions, and
uprisings may spring up from anywhere, and signal the end of
one dynasty and the birth of a new dynasty. Diplomacy is as
important as military strength. Each player continually must
defend against multiple enemies on multiple fronts.

62 #2

WaW 2 Issue.indd 62 7/3/08 2:47:54 PM

 Available this Summer
Flying Circus:
Aerial Combat in WWI
Flying Circus: Aerial Combat in WWI depicts the fun
and flavor of World War I aerial dogfighting. You fly the
colorful and agile aircraft of WWI as you make history
in the world’s first use of aircraft in a military role.
This is the basic game. You have everything you need
to play single aircraft duels to multi-aircraft dogfights.
Each aircraft has its own unique charateristics reflected
in its ratings and special abilities. The basic game rules
cover all the maneuvers that made WWI aerial combat:
barrel rolls, stall turns, Immelmanns, vertical rolls and
Chandelles. Outmaneuver your opponent to line up your
guns and watch his planes go down in flames!
Gamers who have played the Down in Flames game
series will find many similarities in game play, however,
previous experience is not necessary. The basic game
rules can be read in less than 20 minutes and you can
play your first game immediately.
110 full color
playing cards &
rules sheet
Flying Circus Deluxe:
Bombers & Campaigns
This is the deluxe game. You will need the basic game
card deck to play this expanded version. Then you will
have everything you need to play single aircraft duels
and team play with multiple flights in swirling dogfights.
This deluxe game adds rules for altitude, pilot abilities—
including a deck of 25 pilot cards for historical cam-
paigns—bombers, rear gunners, scouts and other optional
rules. This deluxe game also includes cards and rules
for playing multi-mission games of famous WWI cam-
paigns such as Cambrai and Meuse-Argonne, along with a
“Campaign Analysis” article detailing the development of
the aircraft, their tactics and strategy.
Contents:
110 Deluxe deck cards
(bombers, scouts, plus more
fighters & action cards)
Deluxe Game rules booklet
6 Campaign Cards
Pilot Log
36 Pilot & altitude cards
Dice marker

Shipping Charges
1st unit Adt’l units Type of Service
$10 $2 UPS Ground/USPS Priority Mail
20 2 Canada
26 4 Europe, South America
28 6 Asia, Australia

QTY Title Price Total

China The Middle Kingdom $60
Highway to the Reich $160
Flying Circus-Basic $25
Flying Circus-Deluxe $40
Shipping

Name
Address
City/State/Zip
Country
V/MC # Exp.
PO Box 21598 Signature
Bakersfield CA 93390
661/587-9633 • fax 661/587-5031 • www.decisiongames.com Phone #
World at War 63

WaW 2 Issue.indd 63 7/3/08 2:47:58 PM

 jump into history!

Highway to the Reich

Highway to the Reich is a tactical simulation of the largest airborne operation in history. Over 35,000 men
belonging to 1st Allied Airborne Army dropped from the skies of Holland. Their objective: capture and hold a high-
way. The result: a salient into German territory that lacked only the last objective, and was thus a tragic defeat.
The 2,000-plus counters detail Gen. Brereton’s airborne corps of three divisions, the units of 30th Corps, and
Model’s scattered and disheveled forces at company level for infantry; battery level for artillery, anti-tank and
anti-air, and troop-level for tanks and armored cars.
The four maps cover from the front along the Meuse-Escaut Canal to the area, nearly 200 hexes away, sur-
rounding Arnhem Highway Bridge. Each map is positioned to cover the operational area of one airborne division
in order to allow one-division scenarios.
All the activities of each formation are completed before those of another are begun. Attacks start with a
preliminary barrage, followed by fire attack by maneuver companies, and then close action with tanks and as-
sault troops. All activities involve comparisons of involved units’ capabilities. Optional rules focus on hidden
movement and multi-player variations, as well as giving the Allied player the opportunity to execute his own
operational plan. The revisions have made this classic game easier and faster to play than ever before.

Contents:
Four 22” x 34” maps
2,520 die-cut counters
Rule & scenario books
6 Organization Charts
Player Aid Cards
Campaign Analysis
Six-sided Dice

PO Box 21598
Bakersfield CA 93390
661/587-9633 • fax 661/587-5031 • www.decisiongames.com Order form on page 63.
64 #2

WaW 2 Issue.indd 64 7/3/08 2:48:03 PM