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 The World Was Never
the Same: Events That
IM
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ED T E OF
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1. Hammurabi Issues a Code of Law (1750 B.C.)
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The Rhineland War:
What if World War II
Started in 1936?
Background
A
s part of the Versailles Treaty,
Allied armies occupied the
Rhineland in 1919. That
occupation was originally supposed
to have lasted until 1935, but it actu-
ally ended in 1930, in a move that was
supposed to signal Germany’s full
return to the “community of nations.”
The withdrawal might’ve been the
start of a larger and more general
reconciliation; however, it turned out
not to be enough. The Germany Army
still wasn’t allowed to reenter the
region. That meant there remained
parts of their own country over which
the Germans still couldn’t exert full
sovereignty. That became a major issue
for Hitler, culminating with his ordering
troops into the region in March 1936.
That move was in contravention of
the Versailles Treaty, but by that time the
European powers were no longer willing
to do much to enforce its provisions.
While Germany had officially been
forced to accept the blame for starting
the Great War, by the 1930s many took a
more evenhanded view. Deeper causes
were seen to have existed in the trend
toward general European militarization
and confrontational diplomacy by all
the great powers in the years leading up
to 1914. The ravages of the depression
also did a lot to dampen militarism
within the democracies. Those govern-
ments believed they couldn’t rearm
without destroying their already out
of balance economies and politics.
Finally, there was the overarch of the
communist revolution in Russia and
6 World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011
By Joseph Miranda
leftist agitation globally. Another world
war was seen as being something that
could easily lead to more widespread
revolution and even possibly the
overall destruction of civilization.
On 7 March 1936, then, the
German Army marched back into the
Rhineland, and for a moment the world
held its breath, expecting another
general European war to break out.
With German rearmament having
been officially declared in 1935, Hitler
had thus already stepped over the line
violating Versailles, and the Rhineland
then become the first in a series of
international crises in which he gained
territory (and political prestige inside
Germany) by pushing Europe to the
brink of war. In each of those crises
the Allied powers backed down, with
that “appeasement” only ending when
it was too late—when Germany was
fully rearmed and ready for a new war.
A common postwar consensus has
therefore been that, had the Allies stood
up to Hitler during the first of those cri-
ses—the Rhineland in 1936—the Nazis
could’ve been stopped in a confronta-
tion much smaller and less destructive
than the war that finally began with
the invasion of Poland in 1939.
Reichswehr to Wehrmacht
The German armed forces
(Wehrmacht) in 1936 were a well-trained
but still growing force. The Wehrmacht
was the successor to the Reichswehr,
the armed forces allowed to Weimar
Germany by the Treaty of Versailles.
The Reichswehr officially included an
 World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011 7
German troops marching across a Rhine bridge on the first day of the remilitarization. Note the somber look on the faces of the soldiers and the civilians.
Few arms are raised in the Hitler salute. They’re all worried they’re witnessing the first act of what might quickly turn into a new war with France.
army of a mere 100,000 (seven infantry
and three cavalry divisions) and a navy
of 15,000 sailors. Tanks, planes, heavy
artillery and capital ships were all
forbidden. Yet within the Reichswehr’s
ranks there was great potential. Given its
restricted size in relation to the overall
manpower available, the Reischswehr
came to be made up of long-term, top
quality professionals. Gen. Johannes
Friedrich Hans von Seeckt, the small
army’s commander, then also turned
the Reichswehr into an experimental
force that would exploit the emerging
forms of modern warfare in order to
make up for its lack of numbers.
One such concept was the future
of land operations lay in a two-tier
army. There would be, as in World
War I, a mass of infantry divisions that
would man the front. There would,
however, also be an elite of mobile
shock troops who would make assaults,
execute breakthroughs, and bring back
maneuver to the art of war. Von Seeckt
emphasized motorization, though he
still saw a place for cavalry, a concept
that had validity then due to the still
primitive state of the technology of
8 World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011
motorization and mechanization.
Contrary to legend, he wasn’t a propo-
nent of tanks—which in the 1920s still
lacked the mechanical reliability for long
range cross-country operations—but
nonetheless did much to promote
a doctrine for a “war of movement”
(Bewegungskrieg—which later evolved
into the infamous Blitzkrieg). What that
meant was, when later in the 1930s
the Wehrmacht began developing its
panzer divisions, there was already
in place a foundation of doctrine and
trained cadre with which to do that.
Von Seeckt and the Reichswehr also
did a lot to promote aviation. While
Germany was denied an air force by
Versailles, he found ways to get around
that restriction. One was via agreements
with the government of the Soviet
Union. In return for German technical
assistance, Moscow gave German
airmen access to airfields in Russia to
test new plane designs. While it might
seem strange that Berlin and Moscow
collaborated militarily, both countries
were regarded as pariahs in the 1920s.
Germany was blamed for having started
the World War, and the Soviet Union
was seen as a threat for promoting
global revolution. So there were
reasons for the two to work together.
Hitler and the Nazis came to
power in 1933. By 1935 the Fuehrer
had re-introduced conscription,
authorized the production of tanks,
and created an independent air force.
With the Reichswehr rechristened as
the Wehrmacht, the German armed
forces were expanded to include the
Army (Heer), Navy (Kreigsmarine) and
Air Force (Luftwaffe). While well trained
and certainly well led from the start,
those services were also beset by many
limiting factors. In 1936 the army had
36 infantry divisions organized into 12
corps. That wasn’t a large force by World
War I standards, and France could, in
theory, mobilize 100 divisions quickly
by calling up reserves. The Heer thus
had barely enough divisions to cover
the frontier let alone conduct major
offensives. Effectively, the Versailles
restrictions on the size of the army were
still to be overcome, and it would take
several more years of training conscripts
continued on page 11 »
 World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011 9
 left — Another view of German
troops entering the Rhineland

10 World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011

As the troops marched into the Rhineland below it, this Stuka dive bomber prototype flew in the sky above.
» continued from page 8
to regain a reasonably large force.
Nonetheless, there was real
offensive capability in the army’s
three panzer (armored) and three light
divisions, the latter being experimental
mechanized formations. They were
ahead of their time insofar as they were
combined-arms armored formations
capable of independent operations.
Most European militaries, meanwhile,
still saw tanks as an infantry support
weapon or as a form of ersatz cavalry.
Some credit must be given to Hitler
here, who was an early advocate of
the panzer divisions, and certainly
his attention on this matter did much
to make them the premier arm of the
ground force. The panzer divisions
would provide the shock and mobile
force von Seeckt had envisioned
for the next war. Yet they too had
deficiencies, one of which was logistics.
The Germans had yet to work out the
details of vehicle transportation, supply
and maintenance. The peacetime
German invasions of Austria and
Czechoslovakia in 1938-39 proved to
be large-scale logistics and training
exercises insofar as they demonstrated
the flaws in the organization and
gave staffs the time to correct them.
In the Air
The Luftwaffe was also still in an
embryonic state. Even so, the Nazis
did much to exploit its propaganda
value by threatening to lay waste to the
cities of any country that dared oppose
them. That reflected and built on the
interwar fears a future war would see
“aerial armadas” delivering bombs
and poison gas on a stupendous scale.
The impact of those fears was so great
various diplomatic proposals were at
times floated to outlaw aerial bombing.
As the 1940 Battle of Britain would
demonstrate, the Luftwaffe lacked the
city destroying capability originally
credited to it. That was partly due to
doctrinal considerations. The Luftwaffe
high command called for the produc-
tion of two-engine medium bombers as
opposed to four-engine heavy strategic
bombers. That was because, on the
one hand, German industry lacked
the capability to produce engines of
sufficient power to develop an effective
heavy bomber. At the same time, a four-
engine bomber required twice as many
engines as a two-engine model. In pro-
paganda terms, then, Hitler could count
on the production of twice as many
medium bombers as heavy, thereby
World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011 11
providing him with inflated numbers of
aircraft, which were useful for their psy-
chological impact in forcing adversary
governments to negotiate on his terms.
At the same time, medium bombers
for a while seemed to represent the
aeronautic wave of the future. The
newer models, such as the Heinkel-111,
introduced in 1935, were fast enough
to outrun existing interceptors, thereby
contributing to the general belief the
bombers would always get through air
defenses. By 1935 the Luftwaffe had
900 fighters and bombers, even as the
doctrinal question persisted: what
would a future air war truly be like?
Despite the propaganda value of the
Luftwaffe as a terror force, its leaders
initially rejected the concept of the
indiscriminate bombing of civilians.
The primary aerial mission was instead
considered to be operational, insofar
as the most effective use of an air
force was seen to be the conduct of
support operations against enemy
ground forces. That calculation was
based on the disappointing results
the Germans had gotten from their
strategic bombing campaign against
Britain in the First World War. There was
therefore a considerable push for the
development of dive bombers, as they
were more accurate in their delivery of
ordnance than level bombers, owing
to the crude bombsites of the time (25
percent hit rate vs. two percent). That
led to the development of the infamous
Junkers-87 “Stuka,” which would appear
in large numbers starting in 1937.
At first most Luftwaffe fighters
had been biplanes. The Me-109 was
introduced in 1935 as the first opera-
tional modern monoplane fighter, but
it wasn’t yet present in large numbers
for the Rhineland Crisis. What that
meant was, had a war broken out in
1936, the Luftwaffe would’ve lacked two
of its most effective planes of the early
Blitzkriegs, the Me-109 and the Stuka.
Both of those aircraft proved
themselves in the Spanish Civil War, but
had a general European war broken out
in 1936 that later experience would’ve
still been unavailable. The Spanish
Civil War proved an especially good
test bed for the Luftwaffe. It confirmed
the utility of the Stuka and Me-109
designs, and certified the inability of
strategic bombing to produce decisive
results. It also allowed the Germans
to iron out procedures for close air
support—establishing inter-service
communications nets, setting up
liaison teams, and training pilots to
work in conjunction with ground
forces. That meant when the Stukas
went to war in 1939 they had a proven
system for supporting the army—which
would’ve been lacking in 1936.
Another interesting aside here
is the Luftwaffe’s first chief of staff,
Gen. Walther Wever, was actually
an advocate of heavy bombers and
12 World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011
strategic bombing. He pushed for
development along those lines, in
what was termed the “Ural Program,”
the idea being to produce a plane with
the range to reach and attack targets
as far afield as those distant Soviet
industrial complexes. Wever was killed
in an air accident in June 1936, three
months after the Rhineland Crisis.
It makes for fascinating speculation,
then, if war had broken out in 1936 with
Wever still in charge of the Luftwaffe,
would the course of German aircraft
production and doctrine have gone
in a different direction? Perhaps a
Luftwaffe strategic bombing force
would’ve been created; though given
the time needed to have gotten such
a force flying, the fighting might have
long since been decided on the ground.
All that goes to indicate the German
armed forces of 1936 weren’t the
Wehrmacht of 1939-40. Despite having
excellent leadership and nascent
doctrine, it needs to be kept in mind the
experiences of the Spanish Civil War, as
well as the experience gained in maneu-
ver and logistics during the Austrian
Anschluss and Czechoslovakian
occupations, did much to hone
what later became the German war
machine of the Blitzkrieg era.
France & Britain
The two major Allied powers were
France and Great Britain. Both emerged
victorious from the Great War, dictating
the terms of peace and expanding
their imperial holdings at the expense
of the defeated Central Powers. Yet
neither of those countries was keen to
fight a resurgent Germany in 1936.
The French had taken massive
casualties in the Great War, in no small
part due to their army’s doctrine of
the offensive at all costs. That led to
the backlash-rise of defensive military
doctrines in the 1920s. One manifesta-
tion of that was the construction
of the Maginot Line in the 1930s,
the legendarily massive system of
fortifications facing the Rhine frontier.
The purpose of the line was to blunt
any future assault from Germany. If
such a war occurred, France would
use the time gained by that initial
defense to mobilize its reserves, and
in that they had an advantage in 1936.
French reserves were already in place,
while those for the Wehrmacht were
still to be trained in large numbers. At
that time the French high command
expected to come out ahead in any
nascent battle of attrition and, after the
Germans had been sufficiently worn
down, the French would go over to the
offensive and win the final battle.
That doctrine made sense at
the time, given France’s situation:
its manpower had yet to recover
from the ravages of the Great War,
and the experience of that war
seemed to indicate the superiority
of the defense over the offense. The
Maginot Line would give French
defenders an even greater advantage,
and its fortress troops were even
considered something of a new elite.
There was also debate about
the role of tanks in the French army.
Another view of the remilitarization
Some conservative officers wanted to
get rid to them altogether, believing
anti-tank guns had rendered them
into nothing more than expensive
deathtraps. Others, such as the up and
coming Charles deGaulle, promoted
the creation of tank divisions. To their
credit, the French went ahead and
experimented with large combined-
arms mechanized formations.
In the air, things weren’t as positive
for the French. Their air force had
declined from its days of glory in
the Great War. Aircraft production
was anemic at best, but even more
critical was the lack of doctrine. The
French had an independent air force,
but the problem came from the fact
it was actually too independent.
French airmen simply weren’t trained
to cooperate with the ground force.
Unlike the Luftwaffe, which honed its
close air support doctrine throughout
the 1930s, the French Air Force
continued to lack the training and
inclination to do much in that regard.
The French political situation also
made confronting the Third Reich dif-
ficult. There were large domestic radical
and pacifist movements that opposed
militarism of any kind and degree.
In part that was due to the French
communists following orders from
Moscow via the Comintern (Communist
International, the revolutionary
organization run from Moscow). That
was at first a move on the part of the
Kremlin to undermine Western military
power in all ways. In 1935, though,
with the advent of German rearma-
ment, Comintern policies reversed,
thereafter calling for the formation of
a “United Front” to bring together all
anti-Fascist parties to oppose the rise
of Nazi Germany. That was reflected in
the Soviet Union forming an alliance
with France that same year. Even so,
the damage had been done and a
strong antiwar movement continued to
oppose the opening of any hostilities.
On the other side of the political
spectrum, French rightists frequently
rioted in the streets and attempted to
destabilize the government. When a
Popular Front (broad spectrum leftist)
government came to power in June
1936, with Leon Blum of the Socialist
Party as prime minister, it brought on
even more confrontations in the street.
At the same time, many of the
French Army’s top commanders were
opposed to another war with Germany
so soon after the bloodbath of 1914-18.
When Hitler ordered the move into
the Rhineland, that camp exagger-
ated the strength of the Wehrmacht,
going so far as to count paramilitary
forces such a the Brownshirts and
Reich Labor Service as regulars.
As for Britain, while the level of
political radicalism was nowhere near
that in France, there had also been a
general psychological retrenchment
against war. That was coupled with
some popular sympathy for Germany,
which was seen as having been victim-
ized by the dictates of Versailles. British
leaders therefore made attempts at rec-
onciliation in order to prevent another
European war, which they rightly
foresaw could lead to the disintegration
of their empire regardless of who won.
World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011 13
That was reflected in military policy,
the centerpiece of which was the “Ten
Year Rule,” which was implemented in
1919 and stayed in force until 1932. It
stipulated defense planning was to be
based on the assumption there would be
no large war for at least another decade.
That provided the basis for cutting
defense budgets, something seen as an
even greater political necessity once
the Great Depression began in 1929.
The defense cutbacks were especially
felt in the army. In the years leading up
to 1914 the British Expeditionary Force
(BEF), essentially a small but elite army
capable of rapid deployment, was one
of the best-trained and best-equipped
ground forces in the world. It gave
London a military force with which
it could intervene on the continent,
and had significant impact during the
opening campaign of the Great War in
Belgium and France. Just as critically, the
BEF gave London a diplomatic bargain-
ing chip with which it could reassure
its French ally of support. By 1936 no
similar British force existed. Indeed, it’s
doubtful the British could then field a
single division capable of rapid deploy-
ment. (Of course, even in 1914 critics of
the BEF had pointed out it was a force
just large enough to convince the gov-
ernment it could effectively intervene
on the continent without actually being
large enough to be decisive in that role.)
As for armor, there was only a single
tank brigade available. Overall, then, the
British Army was less prepared to fight a
war in 1936 than it had been in 1914. It
was certainly nowhere near its 1915-17
peak, when it had been on the cutting

Prior to the move across the river, German soldiers literally stand
‘watch on the Rhine’ from a promontory on its east bank.
edge of such things as tank warfare.
While the Royal Air Force (RAF) had
become the world’s first independent
air force in 1918, air defense had
largely been neglected during the
interwar period. That accentuated the
popular fear British cities would be
immediately and inescapably subjected
to aerial attack upon the start of any
new war. The still unproven doctrine of
strategic air warfare promised quick and
decisive retaliation by the RAF’s Bomber
Command, but that was cold comfort
to a populace still war-weary from
1914-1918. It wouldn’t be until late in the
1930s that dedicated interceptor fight-
ers, such as the Hurricane and Spitfire,
would be introduced in large numbers.
The Royal Navy was supposed to
be the primary defense of the empire,
but it could do nothing to quickly
project decisive combat power onto the
continent. Moreover, the RN also had
commitments in the Mediterranean
14 World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011
and Far East, dispersing its strength.
Since Britain therefore couldn’t
intervene effectively on short order, that
meant France would have to go it alone
in confronting Hitler over the Rhineland.
At the same time, though, the French
also lacked an immediately available
offensive expeditionary capability. In
order to deal with a German move into
the Rhineland, given the structure of
their reserve system, the French would
have had to mobilize their entire armed
forces. That would’ve been economically
disruptive, as well as possibly being
seen as the singular cause of plunging
Europe into another major war, just as
mass mobilization in 1914 had triggered
the final chain of events leading to gen-
eral conflagration. The overall French
defensive stance had placed them in a
position where they couldn’t take effec-
tive action against a limited German
threat—it would be total war or nothing.
Italy
One of the ironies of the 1930s was
that in 1934 Benito Mussolini upheld
Austrian independence against the
first Nazi attempt to seize that country.
Mussolini’s move handed Hitler one
of his few diplomatic defeats. Hitler’s
objective was to annex Austria into
the Reich and make it an integral part
of a greater German state. Austria
had a considerable National Socialist
movement, and throughout early 1934
what amounted to a low-level civil war
was fought between those Nazis and
forces loyal to Chancellor Engelbert
Dollfuss. Dollfuss was also something
of a rightwing authoritarian, but he was
committed to his country’s indepen-
dence. When he was assassinated by
Nazi agents on 25 July, triggering fears
Germany would exploit the chaos to
move in, a grab by Hitler was stymied
when Mussolini mobilized his armed
forces and threatened war. Hitler,
then still lacking an effective military,
backed down—at least for a time.
Why Mussolini chose to take that
course bears on the larger issue. Hitler
in Mein Kampf expressed admiration
for the Duce as the man who’d defeated
Marxism and made Italy a force to be
reckoned with. Certainly, there was a
relationship in their political ideologies,
with both Nazism and Fascism stressing
extreme nationalism and militarism
as well as the centralization of state
power in a single leader. At the same
time, though, Mussolini wanted Italy
as the chief European power broker: if
Germany became too strong, it would
work against Italy’s position in Europe.
While Mussolini and Italy would be over-
shadowed by Hitler and Germany during
World War II, until the late 1930s Rome
was generally considered the spearhead
of the insurgent right in Europe.
In 1936, Mussolini had the armed
forces to back up that view. There had
been large-scale promotion of airpower
in Fascist Italy, and Mussolini was him-
self a pilot who saw in airpower another
means to enhance his regime’s prestige.
The Italian Army was experimenting
with mobile warfare, and in 1936 already
seemed to have a sound doctrine for
the operation of large motorized forces.
(They would deploy a corps-sized
mobile formation in the Spanish Civil
War.) Certainly, Italy was to be respected
as a military power and probably had
more on hand offensive capability than
did France or Britain in the early 1930s.
above/right — More views of the remilitarization
The USSR
In the east the great countervailing
power to Germany was the Soviet Union.
With the rise of the anti-communist
Hitler, the cooperation of the Reichswehr
era came to an end. Moscow openly
allied with Paris against Germany in
1935. Had it come to war in 1936, then,
there were some fascinating possibilities.
The Red Army was at that time
experimenting with cutting edge
concepts. One was centered on large-
scale mechanized units with tanks and
motorized infantry; they were termed
“corps,” but were actually division-sized
in Western terms. Commander’s such as
Mikhail Tukhachevsky also promoted
concepts, such as deep operations by
mechanized and cavalry maneuver
groups, all supported by airpower. The
Red Army formed the first airborne
units that could be deployed by
parachute, and they were also first to
deploy four-engine heavy bombers.
At the same time, while the doctrine,
manpower and equipment were there,
none of it had yet been proven in com-
bat. Stalin began his great purge in 1936,
liquidating much of the Red Army lead-
ership, including most of the innovators.
Yet, had it come to open war then, that
purge of the officer corps wouldn’t have
yet occurred; so perhaps such a conflict
would’ve seen Red Army operational
maneuver groups breaking into Europe.
Minor Powers
The forces of Poland, Austria and
Czechoslovakia were also an important
part of the military equation in 1936.
All three countries had effective armed
forces, at least by the standards of that
year. The Poles had the advantage of
extensive combat experience gained
during their war with the Soviet Union
in 1919-21, which had seen mobile
forces sweep from the Ukraine to
the gates of Warsaw and back again.
The Poles had then won a creditable
string of victories against the Red
Army and, as would be demonstrated
in 1939, they were willing to fight.
The Polish Army was built around
infantry divisions, but there was some
tank support and a small but useful air
force. If Germany had to take on Poland
in 1936, the Wehrmacht couldn’t have
deployed the panzer strength it would
World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011 15
have three years later, nor would it
have had available Me-109s and Stukas
in large numbers. For their part the
Poles planned on fielding 27 divisions
on mobilization, which wasn’t a much
smaller total than the Germans at the
time. A war in 1936 would therefore
have seen a far smaller disparity in
force between those two nations, given
the Germans would’ve had to deploy
a good number of their divisions to
deal with intervention from France.
Austria had five infantry, two moun-
tain and one mobile division, along with
some airplanes. While obviously smaller
than the Wehrmacht, the Austrian armed
forces were certainly sufficient to work
effectively in conjunction with allies.
As for Czechoslovakia, in 1936 it had
a good military position. There were 35
infantry and five fortress divisions, the
latter well placed in fortifications built
into the country’s mountainous frontier
with the Germany. Just as critically, the
country possessed a solid industrial
base to fight a war in its Skoda Works. In
1936 their T-35 tank was just beginning
to roll off the assembly lines. That was
an effective vehicle for the time and
was, after the Germans annexed the
 country in 1938, utilized by the panzer
divisions. The Skoda Works must also
be considered when calculating the
larger military balance in 1936, since a
German war effort then wouldn’t have
had them producing armaments for
the Wehrmacht as they did in 1939-45.
Despite that apparent strength,
though, Czechoslovakia was also split
by internal ethnic disputes. The country
had been created by the post-World
War I settlement, combining the Czechs
and Slovaks, and both demonstrated a
lack of enthusiasm for working together
in a single state. Those tensions were
exacerbated by German propaganda.
More critically, German nationals who
lived in the Sudeten border area were
actively subversive and many called for
Nazi annexation. Czechoslovakia was
therefore a potentially powerful counter-
weight to Germany, but one that might
fail owing to its own internal pressures.

Appeasement

So, on 7 March 1936, 19 German bat-

talions marched to the Rhine and three
then crossed into the Rhineland. Hitler’s
challenge to Europe was thereafter clear
and in the open. While publicly Hitler
had been confident the Allies would
back down, privately he expressed the
opinion that, had the French intervened,
the affair would’ve turned into a fiasco
for the Reich and himself. He later stated
about the crisis: “A retreat on our part
[then] would have spelled collapse.”
But the European powers did
nothing. No politician in France felt
confident enough to order mobilization,
and no French general felt confident
enough to call on the government to do
so. The British saw no reason to go to
war over German troops marching in
German territory. The Rhineland there-
fore became the first in a series of power
plays that made Hitler master of central
Europe by August 1939. That led to his
demands on Poland and the outbreak
of World War II a month after that.
The Allies held back in 1936 because
they feared the terrible potential
inherent in the war that could’ve sprung
up from such an intervention. We now
know, of course, the war they eventually
got in 1939 proved more massive and
terrible than anything imagined half a
decade earlier. They took the counsel of
their fears and paid heavily for it. ✪

above — Still more views of the remilitarization

16 World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011

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Design Corner
Joseph Miranda
The Rhineland War
O
ne thing that came up right
away in designing Rhineland
War was the state of military
(un)preparedness among the European
powers in the 1930s. Germany was
busily rearming in 1936, but its army still
only amounted to a dozen corps and
three panzer divisions. Great Britain,
which had fielded the magnificent BEF
at the opening of World War I, could
scarcely scrape together a division
for expeditionary purposes. France,
while possessing a large army and the
Maginot Line, was woefully divided by
both political radicalism and pacifist
sentiment. Nobody (aside from Hitler)
wanted another European conflagra-
tion, which is one reason, of course,
that London and Paris were willing
to follow a policy of appeasement.
The premise of Rhineland War,
then, is the Western powers did stand
up to Hitler over his remilitarizing the
Rhineland in 1936. Much of the strategy
in the game involves grabbing the vari-
ous “Crisis Hexes” around the map. They
generate additional chit picks, thereby
giving you potentially more allies as well
as other advantages. Of course, being
overly aggressive in that regard can
18 World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011
backfire because, if you push things too
far too fast, your own internal politico-
economic situation becomes unstable.
To model all that, the system uses
a “chaotic effects generator” (a fancy
term for drawing chits out of an opaque
container) to smoothly handle many
otherwise complex military and diplo-
matic factors. It just may be Mussolini
who decides to throw in with the Allies
against a resurgent Germany. (In fact,
he did oppose Hitler’s first attempt to
take over Austria.) Similarly, Poland
might decide to join with the Reich
in carving up Eastern Europe, while
waiting in the wings is the Soviet Union.
The orders of battle show a lot
about the military balance at the
time. Countries like Italy, Poland and
Czechoslovakia have creditable militar-
ies; Britain and France are playing catch
up. The Red Army is a smaller but more
efficient force in those pre-purge days,
and Germany is frantically building.
At the same time, this is before
the lessons of the Spanish Civil had
been learned and taken to heart by the
Wehrmacht. For example, air forces
are marginal when it comes to close
support of ground forces, but they can
conduct terror bombing, reflecting the
doctrine and fears of the time. That
means you can’t efficiently use the his-
toric approach to airpower of 1939-45;
instead, you have to think in the more
purely Douhetist terms of the mid-30s.
The map spotlights crisis hexes.
They represent the flash points of the
1930s: the Rhineland, Danzig, the
Sudetenland, and so forth. The Spanish
Civil War is in there on top of everything
else. I depicted it as initially just one
component of a more general European
crisis, but it can become a critical front.
Another premise of the design is the
major powers are facing their own inter-
nal political crises. Hitler has yet to prove
himself a mastermind, and could easily
face a putsch from disgruntled generals.
France has a large, radical, anti-war
movement that might bring down the
government in the event casualties get
out of hand. The British have yet to
recover from the Great War. Stalin is just
about to start the purges that decimated
the Red Army. Players are racing against
time. This is 1936: you don’t have to con-
quer the map to win; rather, you have to
seize control of Europe’s destiny. ✪
 Rhineland 1936
The Rhineland War, 1936-37 (RW), designed by Joseph Miranda, To purchase the game that covers the battles featured in
is a strategic-level simulation of intermediate complexity that covers this issue send your name and address along with:
an alternative World War II in Europe, one that began in 1936.
The assumption is, when Hitler ordered his army to march into the $30 US Customers
Rhineland, the Allied powers, instead of appeasing him, ordered $36 Canadian Customers
their armed forces to resist. The ensuing chain of events leads to $38 Overseas Customers
the war expanding throughout Europe. A war fought at that time
would’ve found all European militaries woefully unprepared. All prices include postage for first class or airmail shipping.
Central to the play of the game are its “crisis chits.” They CA residents add $1.74 sales tax.
represent various diplomatic and military events that could bring
other powers into the war. Players pick crisis chits depending on the Send to:
number of crisis hexes (printed on the map) they control. The more Decision Games
such hexes they control, the greater the chances they have of gaining ATTN: WaW Game Offer
more allies. At the same time, grabbing too much territory can lead PO Box 21598
to political collapse at home, as domestic foes work to undermine Bakersfield, CA 93390
your power before the conflict explodes into a wider war.
Rhineland War is a two-player game. One player commands the Axis,
controlling Germany and the countries that choose to align with Berlin. The
other is the Allied player, who controls the anti-German forces. Each hex on
the map represents 62 miles (100 km) from side to opposite side. Each full
game turn represents one month. Units of maneuver are corps and armies.
Detail of the Rhineland map

World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011 19

Fall of the Jiangxi Soviet,
the Long March
& the Rise of Mao
Ed’s Note: Communist forces
are shown in italics; those opposing
them are shown in plaintext.
Background
T
he Jiangxi Soviet, or the
Chinese Soviet Republic,
existed from 1931 to 1934
as an independent polity created by
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders
Mao Zedong and Zhu De in Jiangxi
province in southeastern China. It was
their movement’s main socio-political
and economic base during that time.
Jiangxi is a subtropical landlocked
province south of the Yangtze River.
Mountains border it on three sides to the
20 World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011
east, west and south. The southern half
of the province is cut by ridges and val-
leys while the northern half is lower and
flatter. The region is centered on the Gan
River valley, a tributary of the Yangtze.
The Gan has historically been the main
north-south transport route of south
China, as it provides a corridor through
the rugged mountains, thus making
the region strategically important.
On 7 November 1931 the CCP
established the capital of the Provisional
Republic in Ruijin, a relatively isolated
city in the mountains along Jiangxi’s
eastern border with the province of
Fujian. The republic covered more
than 18,000 square miles and included
a population of over 3 million, with a
By Allyn Vannoy
thriving economy that at the time was
outperforming most of the rest of China.
For defense, in addition to militia
and guerrilla forces, the Chinese Red
Army numbered more than 140,000
regulars, and was better armed than
most forces fielded by China’s numerous
warlords. For example, the Red Army
was already using telephones, telegraphs
and radios for communication, which
most warlord forces lacked. It was also
regularly transmitting wireless mes-
sages in code and breaking the codes of
China’s Nationalist government. Only
Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist Army
could match it in terms of capability.
By 1930 the Nationalists, along
with several of their allied warlords,
were feeling increasingly threatened by
Jiangxi. They therefore decided to move
to destroy it, launching what Chiang
and his fellow Nationalists referred to as
“Encirclement Campaigns,” and what
the Communists responded to with
“Counter-Encirclement Campaigns.”
The First Encirclement Campaign
was launched in November 1930.

First Encirclement Campaign

Plans to launch attacks on the Jiangxi

Soviet had been under preparation
since mid-August, but the actual start
was interrupted by the Central Plains
War, a struggle within the Kuomintang
(KMT) Nationalist Party between Chiang
and a coalition of opposing armies
under three major warlords. Though
Chiang was successful in overcoming
that coalition, thereby consolidating
his power, the fighting bankrupted the
Nationalist government and produced
over 300,000 casualties on both sides.
Even so, in October, as Chiang’s forces
were completing their Central Plains
War victory, he began redeploying
his troops in preparation for the
extermination of the Communists.
As part of the plan to crush the
Reds, Chiang appointed Lu Diping, the
Nationalist provincial governor of Jiangxi
and commander of 19th Route Army,
to organize troops from allied warlord
forces for the campaign. By 2 November, for the Red Army to engage and defeat December to personally take overall
Lu had organized seven divisions and the Nationalist forces inside Jiangxi. command, and decided Nationalist
one brigade (100,000 troops) into three The founder and commander-in- forces would attack Communist posi-
columns. Reinforcements, in the form chief of the Red Army, Zhu De, along tions at Donggu, along one of the key
of Chiang’s own troops, departed from with Mao, led most of the army to north-south roadways. More Nationalist
Hunan province (west of Jiangxi), while Xingan on the Gan River, then east to troops were brought in, for a total of
19th Route Army marched from Wuhan Chongren and Yihuang, thereby allowing 11 divisions and two brigades, with
(northwest of Ruijin). Realizing the need the Nationalists to occupy positions more than 100,000 in total manpower.
to bring together the separated elements west of the Gan at Qingjiang, Xingqan, The 19th Route Army joined the battle
of the operation, Lu set a deadline Luofang, Xinyu and Fenyi by early as its 49th and 56th Infantry Divisions
of 5 November, by which time all the November. Only small units remained and 2nd Independent Infantry Brigade
involved Nationalist forces were to have behind to harass the enemy, while Mao attacked from the east out of Fujian.
reached their final jump off areas. and Zhu De moved their troops toward Mao decided the time had come to
The Communist leadership initially Zhangshu and Linchuan. Fearing alter his strategy. The focus of operations
disagreed among themselves on how to Zhangshu and Linchuan would be lost was henceforth to shift to destroying
defend their territory. Several supported to the Communists, Lu ordered the individual enemy units. That was to
the idea of having the main body of the Nationalist 3rd Column to attack along be accomplished by concentrating
Red Army strike at the Nationalist cities the western shore of the Gan, while the Communist forces in selected areas and
of Nanchang and Jiujiang, to the north, 1st and the 2nd Columns crossed the river thus achieve local superiority. Small
in that way forcing the Nationalists to to pursue the main Communist force. groups were to take advantage of terrain
abandon the offensive. Mao Tse Tung, After the crossing the Nationalists to slow enemy units and thus prevent
then the Red Army’s top commissar succeeded in taking Communist posi- them from being able to move to speedi-
(political officer), opposed that idea, tions at Xingquan, Chongren, Jishui, ly reinforce each other. One division was
pointing out Communist forces weren’t and Lukou by mid-November. Then, sent northwest of Ruijin to distract ene-
in a position to leave their base to seize from 18 to 20 November, they took Jian, my forces, while a concentration of the
two major Nationalist cities. Instead, he Jishni, and Yihuang. By early December, rest of the Red Army was put in motion
said they should fight within Jiangxi and however, the Nationalists were over- in preparation for the upcoming effort.
“defeat the enemy with the support of stretched and had to stop their offensive The period of relative calm ended
the people.” Mao’s argument prevailed, to regroup and resupply their units. on 16 December, when the Nationalists
and on 30 October orders were issued Chiang went to Nanchang in early started the second phase of their

World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011 21


Mao and his closest companions on the Long March. The image is
actually from a recent Australian television documentary.
offensive. They reached Donggu with
two infantry divisions on 20 December;
however, heavy fog and poor commu-
nications then prevented coordination
between those units. They mistook each
other for Communist forces and shot
at one another with heavy artillery for
nearly a day. It wasn’t until 21 December,
when the fog dissipated, the Nationalists
realized their mistake. By then hundreds
of casualties had been suffered.
Between 24-28 December, the
Communists managed to halt most of
the advancing Nationalist forces. After
an initial setback, though, one National-
ist division continued its push forward.
Communist forces attempted to ambush
it from 25 through 27 December, but
failed each time. The Communists were
then forced to withdraw and regroup.
First Counter-Encirclement
Campaign
On 28 December, Lu ordered five
divisions to launch a new attack in the
area north of Ruijin. The Nationalist
18th Infantry Division pushed forward
from Donggu. Once the Reds learned
of the new move, they decided to use
local militia and guerillas to draw the
attention of the three other Nationalist
infantry divisions in that area – the 50th,
22 World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011
24th and 8th – while their main force
concentrated to destroy the 18th.
The next day the 18th Division took
Dragon Hill, a tactically prominent posi-
tion near Donggu; so plans were drawn
up to launch a pincer movement against
it there. The left wing of the pincer
consisted of 64th Infantry Division, while
the 35th Infantry Division was to guard
against possible Nationalist attacks
aiming to come to the 18th’s assistance.
The 3rd Legion (Corps) formed the right
pincer and was to attack Dragon Hill
from that side. Meanwhile, the 4th Army
was to push toward the northwest of
Dragon Hill while guarding against pos-
sible counterattacks from that direction.
On the morning of 30 December,
18th Division began to move from its
position on Dragon Hill, led by its 52nd
Brigade. Around 9:00 a.m., then, the
first battle of what the Communists
were calling their “First Counter-
Encirclement Campaign” began.
The commander of the 18th initially
believed the Communist forces facing
his troops were only guerillas, not Red
Army regulars; so he committed just
two more regiments to support 52nd
Brigade when word of the fighting was
brought to him. During the afternoon,
as the situation became more clear,
that assistance was increased to four
regiments, but the Nationalist advance
was still thrown back. The Reds were
then able to cut off the 18th from Donggu
by attacking Dragon Hill from behind.
The Nationalists attempted to break
out of the trap, but by late afternoon the
complete destruction of the 18th Infantry
Division marked the end of their
offensive. The other Nationalist forma-
tions inside Jiangxi started to withdraw.
The new year began with the
Nationalist forces in Jiangxi in retreat
and disarray, and the Reds gaining
momentum on the battlefield. The
50th Division of the Nationalist 19th
Route Army became the next target
of the Communists on 2 January. The
Communists decided to attack it
from three directions. The 3rd Legion
was to attack from the north, while
this new operation’s main force, 3rd
Army, was to engage the 24th Division
of the Nationalist 6th Route Army,
preventing it from reinforcing 50th
Division, while a portion of 3rd Army
would attack from the east. At the
same time 12th Army was to push
from the west while 4th Army acted as
reserve, moving up behind 12th Army.
On 3 January the Communists began
their attack and – despite the over-
complexity of their attack plan – suc-
ceeded in driving the enemy; however,
3rd Legion failed to reach its objectives in
time, allowing many Nationalist troops
to escape. Even so, the Communist
victory wrecked four Nationalist
brigades while capturing some 12,000
small arms and artillery pieces.
The overall success of the
Communists’ First Counter-
Encirclement Campaign was thus a
milestone in that it marked the Red
Army’s transition from guerilla warfare
to offensive conventional fighting. It pro-
vided important experience in how to
conduct such large operations while also
setting a pattern for future campaigns.
Encirclements & Counter-
Encirclements
A cycle of three more Nationalist
Encirclement Campaigns and
Communist Counter-Encirclement
Campaigns followed from 1 April to 31
May 1931. Despite the demonstrated
ability of the Red Army to survive from
campaign to counter-campaign, it
was becoming increasingly obvious
that nothing decisive was being
accomplished. So, following the third
campaign Mao was removed from his
leadership position and replaced by
individuals who had recently returned
from the Soviet Union, including Wang
Ming, a personal rival. The command
of the Red Army was turned over to a
three-man committee that included
Otto Braun (a.k.a. Li De, the Comintern
military advisor), Bo Gu (General
Secretary of the party from 1932 to
1935) and Zhou Enlai. The Fourth
Counter-Encirclement Campaign
saw Mao make a political resurgence
within the party, but by then the Red
Army had lost nearly half its strength.
China’s internal turmoil was closely
watched by other governments, and
attracted the increasing attention
of Japan’s expansionist faction, who
moved to take advantage of the situ-
ation. Chiang had to call a halt to the
Third Encirclement Campaign when
The memorial that today stands on the spot in Jiangxi from which the Long March began.
Japanese forces attacked Mukden,
Manchuria, in September 1931. Later,
in 1933, Japanese advances in northern however, most of them were troops from They therefore didn’t participate in
China and Mongolia necessitated the regional warlords. The largest group the fiercest fighting, only committing
Nationalist government sign a truce with (300,000) was that of Guangdong war- their units to block lines of supply and
the Communists. Once that emergency lord Chen Jitang, which deployed along communication and act as garrisons
had been dealt with, Chiang again the southern border of the Jiangxi Soviet. in newly occupied territory after it
turned his attention to the Communists. The warlords generally only half- had been won by Chiang’s troops.
After the Fourth Encirclement heartedly participated in the struggle
Campaign in the spring of 1933, Chiang against the Communists, as they wanted
mobilized more than a million men; to preserve their own manpower.

The headquarters building of the Jiangxi Soviet, having been rebuilt

as a museum after the Communists took power in 1948.

World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011 23

An actual photo of Mao on the Long March.
Fifth Encirclement Campaign
Chiang again took on the job
of overall commander of the com-
ing campaign, reestablishing his
headquarters in Nanchang. The Fifth
Encirclement Campaign was thus set
in motion in September 1933, and
lasted over a year to October 1934.
It was largely orchestrated by
German advisors, including Gen. Hans
von Seeckt, former organizer and
commander of the German Reichswehr
under the Weimar Republic. Those
advisors prepared plans for a more
careful and systematic encirclement
of the Red forces within Jiangxi. Unlike
previous campaigns, in which the
Nationalists had attempted to make
deep penetrations in bold advances,
this time they patiently built a system
of fortified positions, each separated by
about five miles, to gradually surround
the Communists ever more tightly and
cut off their supplies. Villages in the
fortified region were organized into
paramilitary locales known as baojia, to
prevent the Communists from obtaining
supplies and intelligence from the locals.
Once the front line had been secured, a
new ring of positions was begun within
it to further close in on the Communist
base area. Thus a concentric ring of
24 World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011
ever-tightening defensive works was
gradually put in place, the end result
of which was to be the final squeezing
out of existence of the Communists.
In an effort to break the Nationalist
blockade, the Red Army, still under the
direction of the three-man command
committee, attacked some of the new
fortifications. That only produced
heavy Red casualties with no success.
A new phase of the Nationalist cam-
paign started on 25 September, as their
forces began an assault into the interior
of their blockade ring. Within three days
the Communists were in retreat. Though
the Reds then managed to temporarily
stop the Nationalists, subsequent efforts
to retake lost ground ended in disaster
on 9 October. The Communists were
then forced to withdraw further after
having suffered heavy casualties.
The Communist leadership refused
to adjust their overall approach, stub-
bornly continuing to engage in futile
assaults on the Nationalists’ system of
fortified posts through mid-November.
The Red Army therefore continued
to suffered heavy losses while the
Nationalists used the protection of their
fortifications to minimize casualties.
On 11 December the Nationalists,
sensing their opponents’ growing
weakness, simultaneously sent eight
columns of troops advancing out of
the fortifications. The Communists
futilely tried to engage all those forces
simultaneously rather than concentrate
against individual components within
the overall enemy attack. By the end of
January 1934 even the warlords, seeing
the growing Nationalist momentum
and wanting to be part of the coming
victory, began to fully join the fighting.
The forces of the Fujian warlord clique
struck from the east in coordination
with the Nationalist forces in the north
and south, inflicting further severe
defeats on the Red Army through March.
On 10 April, 11 Nationalist divisions
began an assault on the Communist
positions just north of Ruijin. The
Communists responded by concentrat-
ing nine of their divisions to defend
that area, hoping to fully defeat the
Nationalist effort north of town. Due to
the Nationalists’ numeric and technical
superiorities, however, Red Army posi-
tions across the area continued to fall.
On 19 April the Communists launched
a final counterattack, only to be driven
off with heavy loss. Eight days later the
Nationalists had inflicted over 5,500
casualties on the Communists and the
Red counterattack ground to a halt.
The Communist leadership
reorganized their remaining forces into
six “elements” in preparation for new
counteroffensives. They still believed
they could drive the Nationalists out
of Jiangxi, but events continued to go Zhang Guotao: The Other Leader
against them. On 5 August another
nine Nationalist divisions advanced A founding member and leader of the Chinese Communist Party, by 1932, Zhang Guotao was
out of their fortified positions to start in charge of 4th Army. It was located in Sichuan, where he established a key base of operations.
yet another round of assaults. By late He at first seemingly succeeded in turning the area into a prosperous autonomous region
September the Jiangxi Soviet had through a land reform program that enlisted the support of much of the local population. Then,
been reduced to isolated positions at due to his mishandling of a series of Stalinist-style purges, he and his command just as quickly
Ruijin, Huichang, Xingguo, Ningdu, lost that popular support, and were forced from the area, having to initiate another portion of the
Shicheng, Ninghua and Changding. Long March. In 1935, Zhang and his more than 80,000 troops united with Mao’s 7,000 survivors.
The Nationalists continued their Zhang became locked in a series of disagreements with Mao over issues of strategy and tac-
overall strategy of containment and tics, causing a split in the Red Army. Their main disagreement was Zhang’s insistence on sending
slow strangulation, with the entire forces south to establish a new base in Sichuan. Mao pointed out the impossibility of setting up
Communist movement increasingly large bases in regions where the populace was obviously hostile, as was the case in the south.
facing the possibility of annihilation. Zhang tried to have Mao and his followers arrested, but his plan was foiled by some of his
To the Nationalists it seemed the own staff members. They informed Mao of the plot while also taking with them important
time had finally arrived to finish codebooks and maps. As a result Mao moved his command just in time, escaping arrest
off the main internal enemy. and possible execution.
Zhang decided to continue with his plan to move south, but in doing so met with disastrous
Mao Takes Command results. Over 75 percent of his command was lost in that misadventure. He was forced to
admit defeat and retreat.
The deteriorating situation The failed effort led to Zhang’s being discredited among his remaining followers, who
convinced Mao and his supporters increasingly turned to Mao. Further, because all of his codebooks were in Mao’s hands, Zhang
they had to abandon the Jiangxi Soviet, lost contact with the Comintern while Mao was able to establish his own links. That further
but the party leadership stubbornly discredited Zhang within the Comintern, which began to give its full support to Mao.
refused to accept even the possibility Zhang’s remaining 21,800 troops were annihilated in 1936 by a force of more than
of such a failure. The three-man army 100,000 under the warlords Ma Bufang, Ma Hongbin and Ma Zhongying, during an attempt
command committee devised yet to cross the Yellow River. Only 427 of Zhang’s men escaped. Purged from the Communist
another complex plan that included Party in 1937, Zhang defected to the Nationalists. He died in Canada in 1979. ★
a series of diversionary moves to be
followed by a temporary retreat and
regrouping. Once that regrouping was
completed, a decisive counterattack Zhang Guotao & Mao Tse Tung
was to be launched in conjunction with
the forces from the earlier diversionary
operation, all coming together to once
more drive out the Nationalists.
The diversionary operation was
undertaken by forces that were to break
open the Nationalist line, followed by
“pathfinder” units that would then move
into and through those punctures. That
effort initially took the Kuomintang
commanders by surprise, as they didn’t
expect any further attacks on their
fortified perimeter at that late time in
the campaign. Even so, the diversionary
force was then soon crushed, with
nearly every officer in it wounded or
captured. The pathfinder force fared
little better, though some did manage
to break through and eventually reach
friendly areas in Hubei province.
The failure of the diversionary
force resulted in the increasing loss of
Red Army communications within the
Jiangxi Soviet. The Communists seemed
doomed; however, there was still a
glimmer of hope due to the fact Zhou
Enlai had succeeded in planting more
than a dozen spies in Chiang Kai-shek’s
inner circle, including at the main
headquarters of the Nationalist Army.
For his part, having successfully
occupied most of the Jiangxi Soviet,

World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011 25

Chiang was confident he would finish
off the Communists in one more strike.
In late September he distributed a secret
plan, codenamed “Iron Bucket,” which
detailed the final push to annihilate
the Communists. It called for building
another 30 blockade positions, including
electrified barbed wire fences, around
the 90-square-mile holdout area at
Ruijin. That final constriction of the
fortified circle within the province
would soon starve out the last of the
Communists. In addition, more than
1,000 trucks were to be mobilized to
form a rapid reaction force that could
be deployed to prevent any last-minute
Red Army breakout attempts.
Chiang’s plan was obtained by one
of Zhou Enlai’s spies, who arranged to
smuggle a copy of it through Nationalist
lines to the Communist leadership.
That information finally convinced
the party leaders of the necessity of
abandoning the entire Soviet and
starting a general retreat before Chiang
could begin Iron Bucket. Mao’s policy
was thus deemed the “correct” one, a
crucial moment in his personal rise.
In late October the Communists
took advantage of gaps in the ring
of Nationalist blockhouses – across
areas manned by troops of Chiang’s
warlord allies rather than by Nationalist
units – to abandon Jiangxi. The
Nationalists didn’t become aware
26 World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011
the main Communist force had left
its base at Ruijin and escaped until 5
November. The massive retreat of the
Communists lasted a year, moving over
3,725 miles. The “Long March,” as it
came to be called, ended only when the
Communists reached Shansi. Of some
80,000 troops and party members who
began the Long March, only 7,000 would
eventually reach the new stronghold.
Conclusions
In the final assessment, there were
a number of nearly fatal mistakes
the Communist leadership made
during the fighting in Jiangxi.
The Fifth Encirclement Campaign
was allowed to turn into a battle of
attrition, even though the Communists
clearly lacked the replacements
to engage in head-on clashes. The
leadership clique who had earlier
replaced Mao mistakenly believed the
conventional successes scored by the
Red Army in 1930-31 had signaled the
end of the era of guerilla warfare, and
that it was correct to continue with
conventional operations. In reality,
though, Red Army units were far from
equal to their Nationalist opponents.
During Mao’s early leadership phase,
warlord forces had been distinguished
from Chiang’s main force troops. That
usually allowed the Communists to
achieve some degree of neutrality or
non-engagement with the warlords,
thereby avoiding direct confronta-
tions with large numbers of enemy
troops. As a result, the Communists
actually only had to fight some 50,000
Nationalist troops in the first four
Encirclement Campaigns. When the
new Communist leadership took over,
they regarded all Nationalist troops
and their allies as “enemies of equal
danger.” The Communists thereby
placed themselves in a position of
having to face a larger opposition.
In addition to attempting to match
the Nationalists in head-on clashes in
the field, the Communist leadership
ordered the Red Army to do the same
in dealing with the enemy’s static
defenses. The concrete fortifications of
the Nationalists proved immune to most
Communist bombardments and attacks.
In the early campaigns the
Nationalists didn’t have enough
troops to guard all the newly occupied
regions; so their troops were only
stationed in important cities, towns
and fortifications, leaving gaps in
their line. By exploiting those gaps,
the Communists were often able to
use guerrilla tactics to penetrate deep
into Nationalist-controlled areas and
there disrupt supply lines and com-
munications. By the Fifth Encirclement
Campaign, Chiang had nearly half
a million troops at his disposal, and
thus was able to fill most of the gaps.
Despite many mistakes, losses and
hardships, Mao was able to use the fall of
the Jiangxi Soviet so as to re-solidify his
own political and military primacy with-
in the Communist Party. Fifteen years
later he would achieve final victory. Mao
himself perhaps best summed up the
entire episode when he wrote, shortly
after arriving in Shansi: “The Long
March is the first of its kind in the annals
of History. It is a manifesto, a propa-
ganda force, a seeding machine....It has
proclaimed to the world the Red Army is
an army of heroes, while the imperialists
and their running dogs, Chiang Kai-shek
and his like, are impotent.” ✪
Selected Sources
Bianco, Lucien & Muriel Bell. Origins of the Chinese
Revolution, 1915-1949.
Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press. 1971.
Blasko, Dennis J. The Chinese Army Today: Tradition and
Transformation for the
21st Century. NY: Routledge. 2006.
Shuyun, Sun. The Long March: The True History of
Communist China’s
Founding Myth. NY: Anchor Books, 2008.
Zarrow, Peter. China in War and Revolution, 1895-1949. NY:
Routledge, 2005.
 DAI SENSO!
Axis Empires
This game stretches from the border clashes
at Marco Polo Bridge and Nomonhan to the
titanic battles of Midway, Guadalcanal and
Leyte, to the firestorms of Tokyo, Hiroshima
and Nagasaki and everything in between.
No game tells the story of World War II
in Asia and the Pacific like Dai Senso!.

DS takes the playable, unpredictable and

enjoyable Krieg! system used for World War
II in Europe and adapts it to tell the story of
Japan’s struggle from a unique perspective.
Most other Pacific wargames focus on
the operational aspects of the 1941-45
war. DS starts in 1937 for a true strategic
experience. As the leader of imperial Japan,
and seeking complete domination (“hakko
ichiu”), will you strike at China or Russia
or the British Empire or the United States?
Whichever you choose, you must eventually
face the grim struggle of total war.

Best of all, DS can be played linked with its

new European brother game, Totaler Krieg!,
for an eye opening look at all of World War
II. The fate of the world is in your hands!

CONTENTS:

• Two 22 x 34 inch maps

• 560 counters

• 200 cards

• A 64-page rulebook

• A 24-page scenario book

• Play aids and force pool displays

Retail price: $120 (+ shipping)

1 Played Winter 1939-40 / Pre-War

Food Shortages
27 Played Au
Selection Requirement tumn 19
40 / Limited
 Only one Axis Rearmament card can be playedTripar War
per year. Selectio
tite Pact
n Requi
 Europe rement
Option Card Segment an Li mited War
has occurre
 Add to Force Pool: Japan: three 0-1-1 infantry, d.
Option C
six 1-1-1 infantry [31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37]. ar
 If the US d Segment
Policy is
the Quara
Political Events Segment W France Defeated ma ntine or Surrender
arf Bo rk an
 If Economic Program (16.2.2) has notare been x, apply Ce er is in the Strateg d
Indochina ded Land ic
applied, roll on this table:  . (15.7) to
If Russia’s
1. Roll on Cabinet Crisis Table the Po lic
Russia De y is Disputes or Su
2. Conflicting Plans: No ResultW feated ma rrender an
arf rker is in d
3. Roll on Cabinet Crisis TableSa are Box, apply Ce the Strateg
ic
khalin. ded Land
4. Conflicting Plans: No Result (15.7) to
5. Roll on Colonialism Table Replace
6. Failure (Supply): Axis (15.15) ments Se
 Japan:
3 infantry gment
steps.
“The Japanese people are asked to sleep on kindling and
lick gall.” –Marquis Koichi Kido
Japan struggles to meet food production.

Japan ass
umes contr
ol of Fren
ch Indochin
a.

P.O. Box 21598 | Bakersfield, CA 93390-1598 | (661) 587-9633 phone | info@ decisiongames.com | decisiongames.com
RAF Bomber Command &
the Drift Into Area Bombing
By Ron Bell

28 World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011

 Embarrassed Silence

A
t the end of the Second World War the men of the British Army
and Navy came home to a thunderous welcome. Campaign
medals were struck for almost all theaters, and they were worn
proudly on tens of thousands of chests, but one branch of service was
omitted. The men of Bomber Command gained no laurels and no cheering
crowds hailed them. Rather, a seemingly embarrassed silence was the
reward for their efforts. Some 78,000 of them had died or been wounded
on operations, in training accidents, and as prisoners of war, while another
12,500 were missing in action or had been POWs. The answer as to why the
British people turned a blind eye to those sacrifices lies in their reaction
to the strategy used by Bomber Command, that of “area bombing.”

World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011 29

Bomber Command crews stand by their planes for an inspection shortly after the start of the war.
Origins
RAF equipment and doctrine at the
beginning of World War II had much to
do with why bombing strategy evolved
as it did. In 1917 Great Britain had
become the first country in the world
to create a separate air force, the Royal
Air Force (RAF); however, because of the
declining economy after the war, cou-
pled with public revulsion to the carnage
of World War I, all the services had to
fight each other for dwindling resources.
Building up a new branch of the
armed forces had serious logistical
considerations. An air force is more
than just planes and pilots; it’s also
a host of ground support personnel
and equipment, as well as structures
such as hangers and control towers.
Beyond even that, training a man to
use a rifle took much less time and
was cheaper than training him to
maintain an aircraft engine or wireless
equipment, never mind actually
becoming a pilot. It couldn’t be done
all at once, and what was done as the
1930s wore on was to give more and
more emphasis to the fighter arm.
30 World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011
In the anti-war atmosphere of the
time, the ability to strike first took
a backseat to the ability to defend
oneself while being struck. In that
way the emphasis on British aircraft
development and production for a time
came to be centered on what are now
referred to as “point defense fighters.”
Range wasn’t seen as important, as
the fighters only needed to fly above
England. High speed was also viewed
as unimportant, at least at first, as the
lumbering bombers of World War I had
been easy targets in that regard. It was
only when information and propaganda
about the rebirth of German airpower
became common knowledge that a
start was made on a truly modern
fighter, the Hawker Hurricane.
For commanders who embraced
air power in the early interwar period,
the prevailing dictum had been: “The
bomber will always get through.” Never
mind that it had been the entirely
unmilitary Prime Minister Stanley
Baldwin who’d first uttered that phrase;
it was soon a dictum popularly accepted
all over the world. No major power
developed long-range fighter aircraft
in those years for the simple reason
it was believed bombers didn’t need
fighter escort. Almost all aircraft design
and development between the wars
in Britain was on short-range fighter
aircraft (and, fortunately, an air defense
system that included a chain of radar
stations). While that meant the home
islands had a good early warning sys-
tem, it also meant what bombers there
were would have to fight their own way
through to their targets and home again.
Due to those trends, Bomber
Command wasn’t even set up until
1936, a mere three years before the
war began. At that time its aircraft
roster was divided into two main
types, “lights” and “heavies.” The
lights took the forms of Fairey Battles,
Vickers Wellesleys, Bristol Blenheims
and assorted obsolete holdovers from
earlier years such as Hawker Harts.
The so called heavies were then all still
two-engine aircraft such as the Vickers
Wellington and Armstrong-Whitworth
Whitley, neither of which could carry a
significant bomb load over long ranges.
Long-range navigation was primitive
and bombsights were rudimentary.

An unexploded incendiary bomb.
Given the limitations of the aircraft
available and the existing technol-
ogy, the effectiveness of any bombing
campaign was therefore in doubt.
Britain went to war with obsolete
bombers that had to fly to their targets
unescorted, defend themselves against
enemy interceptors, avoid anti-aircraft
defenses, try to bomb their targets
accurately, and then fly home alone
through those same defenses.
Doctrine
At the start of the Second World
War, despite the leveling of Guernica
during the Spanish Civil War and the
bombing of Polish cities during that
campaign, for a time it seemed there
was a “gentleman’s agreement” in place
that civilian targets of the major powers
wouldn’t be bombed. French and British
politicians held the belief that, as long
as they didn’t bomb German cities, the
Germans wouldn’t bomb theirs. During
the “Phony War” period of late-1939
and early 1940, many otherwise viable
missions were therefore scrubbed due
to the possibility of civilian casualties.
At the same time, most of Germany
was out of range of Bomber Command’s
aircraft during that period as few of
them were based in France. That meant
the first raids were against naval targets
and ports on the nearby German coast.
Most of those raids were failures for
several reasons. First, the fickle North
Sea weather made simply finding the
targets difficult. Second, the practical
limits on what could be hit while still
trying to avoid civilian casualties cir-
cumscribed how targets were bombed.
Third, the inaccuracy of the existing
bomb-aiming technology meant few
bombs hit their targets (which didn’t
right — A ruined
German city in the
Ruhr after repeated
area bombings.
Ordnance
Leaflets
One of Bomber Command’s main “weapons” in 1939/40, leaflets were delivered to the
aircraft in batches of 1,500 held together with rubber bands, and then tied together with string
in groups of 12 of those bundles. Once airborne, it was one crewman’s job to untie the bundles,
take off the rubber bands from the individual batches, and then stuff them down the flare chute
in order to disperse them over the target. That was often done in minus-30 degree Fahrenheit
temperatures while being jostled around inside an aircraft taking enemy fire. More than once the
bundles came undone inside the aircraft, with a resultant storm of leaflets blowing around inside.
Leaflet missions were codenamed Nickel Raids. The messages on the leaflets were of the
“you can’t trust your government; it’s impossible for you to win, so press for peace” theme,
and they were welcomed by the Germans as there was a wartime shortage of lavatory paper.
At the same time, though, bombers were shot down just as if they were dropping bombs; so
Nickel Raids could never be seen as “milk runs” by those tasked with carrying them out.
High Explosives (HE)
There were three general types of HE bombs: General Purpose (GP), Medium Capacity (MC)
and High Capacity (HC).
Bombs came in seven sizes by pound weight: 20, 40, 250, 500, 1,000, 1,900 and 4,000. In the
beginning they only had a charge-to-weight ratio of 27 percent. For example, a “500 lb. bomb”
actually delivered only 135 lbs. of explosive, which meant you didn’t get much “bang for the buck.”
At the end of 1940 a development program was started aimed at producing bombs with
at least a 40 percent charge-to-weight ratio. They became the MC bombs. The 500 lb. bombs
became the most common size used, but later on there were also 12,000 lb. “Tallboys” and
22,000 lb. “Grand Slams,” though they were both available only in limited numbers.
HC bombs had the highest charge-to-weight ratio at 80 percent, and therefore had
tremendous blast capability. They were used extensively during the late-war campaign
along with 4 lb. incendiaries. The HC bombs would blast apart buildings, enabling the
incendiaries to fall inside them and more effectively set afire what remained.
Incendiaries
The 4 lb. magnesium incendiary bomb came to be a main weapon during the area bombing
campaign. Originally dropped in small groups and falling individually, they tended to land
over a large area, reducing their effectiveness. Later they were dropped in bundled groups
of 350, 500 and 1,000 lbs. That made them much easier to aim, and they impacted in closer
proximity to each other, thereby increasing their effectiveness. There were also 30 and 40 lb.
phosphorus bombs, but they weren’t seen as being any more effective than the magnesium
bombs, and problems with reliability led to them being largely abandoned during the campaign.
Target Indicators
Known as TI bombs, they detonated at a set altitude over a target after which their benzol,
rubber and phosphorus charge ignited and fell on the target, illuminating (“indicating”) it.
Developed to help improve accuracy, they were at first dropped only by the lead aircraft in each
group, but later they became the main tool of the Pathfinder force that went in ahead of the
main bomber stream. A variant was conducted when cloud cover was encountered, known as
“cloud marking” and “sky marking.” The Pathfinders would drop TI bombs that would detonate
just above the clouds over the target. The following heavy bombers’ ordnance would then
simply be aimed at the TI bombs’ light to fall through the overcast to the target below. ★
World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011 31
32 World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011
 stop the crews from consistently report-
ing they were hitting them). Finally,
there were the German interceptors.
They shot down the bombers by the
dozens, and there were no long-range
Allied escort fighters to counter them.
It quickly became obvious from
the losses suffered in those early raids
the bombers couldn’t carry on in
daylight. The loss rate was too high; so
the decision was made to operate at
night. That meant finding new ways
to locate and hit targets in the dark.
The fall of France brought the
Luftwaffe’s bombers within range of
almost all of England, and the Battle of
Britain began. At first German attacks
were limited to Channel convoys,
Fighter Command airfields, air defense
centers and radar stations in the south.
What came next, however, has passed
into folklore and also had immense
real-world implications for Bomber
Command and the cities of Germany.
It’s been variously held that either
an errant German bomber missed
it’s target and dropped it’s bombs on
London, or that a panicked bomber pilot
jettisoned his bombs when attacked
over London, or some variant of those
stories. In either case, it was a mistake.
The story then goes on that the British,
with the gentlemen’s agreement having
been broken, unleashed their bombers
on Berlin, which in turn caused Hitler
to change the course of the Battle
of Britain by shifting the Luftwaffe’s
effort from airfields to cities, primarily
London, thus saving Fighter Command
and losing the Battle of Britain.
In reality, however, both the
Germans and the British had already
been bombing each other’s cities. The
British had bombed railroad yards in
German cities west of the Rhine, and
after the Germans bombed Rotterdam
for no other reason than to terrorize
the Dutch, British bombers had been
sent against various targets lying within
German cities. Those attacks had even
included “maximum effort” raids against
oil industry targets during the Dunkirk
evacuation. Keeping in mind those raids
by Bomber Command were conducted
at night, and given the inaccuracy of
bombing, the British authorities knew
at least some bombs would fall on the
civilian areas of German cities. Clearly,
avoiding the bombing of civilians was
no longer a main issue by mid-1940.
In fact, Prime Minister Churchill,
increasingly frustrated with the poor
performance of all the British armed
services. then called for a special force
of bombers to “discharge bombs from a

World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011 33

Ground crew ready a Wellington for its next mission.
considerable and safe height upon the
nearest large built-up area of Germany
which contains military targets in
abundance.” He also conceded that,
under current technological condi-
tions and bombing in darkness, he
understood “no special accuracy
could be obtained.” The official seeds
of area bombing were thus sown.
Change Comes
Lord Cherwell (a.k.a. Frederick
Lindemann), Churchill’s personal
scientific advisor, had from the start
been skeptical of the bomber crews’
claims concerning their accuracy in
hitting their targets. In August 1941 he
commissioned a study of the perfor-
mance of Bomber Command. In that
report he noted, while two thirds of the
pilots on any given raid claimed to have
bombed their target, in reality only 22
percent came within five miles of hitting
it. Against the heavily defended targets
in the Ruhr that figure fell to seven
percent. He also found that on moonless
nights only one crew in 15 came within
15 miles of hitting their aiming point.
While the RAF high command
wasn’t disposed to make much of a
report from an outsider, it hit home
with Churchill, who was already
34 World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011
frustrated by the lack of tangible
results from Bomber Command’s
efforts. He wanted something done,
and he wanted it done right away.
During the fall of 1941 Bomber
Command losses soared. In August,
107 aircraft were lost; in September, 138
went down; in October, the number was
108, while in the first weeks of November
it was 37. The loss rate among planes
sent on raids to Berlin was 12.5 percent,
against Mannheim 13 percent, and the
Ruhr took 21 percent. That pace couldn’t
be allowed to continue or Bomber
Command would be wiped out in four
more months. On 13 November, there-
fore, Bomber Command was ordered
to conserve its resources for a renewed
offensive effort starting the next spring.
During that lull a crisis in confidence
took place, and there was debate
about the effectiveness and cost of
strategic bombing within the RAF,
Parliament and Britain in general.
Bomber Command had displayed no
dependable ability to strike targets
in daylight or darkness, yet it was the
only arm of service that had any ability,
however small, to hit back at Germany
in a direct way. The upshot was, on 14
February 1942, the Air Ministry issued
a new directive to Bomber Command
stressing operations should henceforth
“be focused on [destroying] the morale
of the enemy civil population and, in
particular, of industrial workers.”
Up until then the Whitelys and
Wellingtons hadn’t had the bomb-car-
rying capacity, nor the overall numbers
needed, to carry out a truly effective area
bombing campaign. By the spring of
1942, however, new four-engine heavies,
the Lancasters and Halifaxes, were
starting to come off the assembly lines
in large numbers. While area bombing
had been haphazardly taking place
since soon after the beginning of the
war, the new bombers made it possible
for the British to make it official policy.
In addition, a change of command
took place. The commander-in-chief of
Bomber Command, Air Marshal Richard
Pierce, was replaced by Air Marshal
Arthur Harris. Harris brought with
him a no-nonsense, bloody-minded
approach. Organized, efficient and
competent, he could be abrupt, and he
often rubbed fellow commanders the
wrong way, but he got on with the job he
had been given. If fell to him to carry out
the destruction of Germany’s cities. It
hadn’t been his idea, but he carried out
his orders with efficiency and, because
of that, area bombing has ever since
been associated with “Bomber Harris.”
 Statistics for the RAF’s Drift Toward Area Bombing

Year Total Bomber Production Total Bomber Losses Total Tonnage Dropped

1940 3,488 494 13,033

1941 4,668 914 31,704

1942 6,235 1,400 45,561

Conclusion postwar reaction. When the occupiers

As can be seen, the British decision
to fully prosecute area bombing had
come about as the result of a drift or
evolution. Late in the war another
debate took place about the morality
of it, but by then it was impossible to
stop. Harris had embraced the policy
completely, and his bulldog-like deter-
mination to carry it through to ultimate
success swept away all in its path. The
completeness of the destruction and
Harris’s crowing enthusiasm for it also
helped bring on the aforementioned
stood in the rubble that had been
Germany’s cities and had to look into
the faces of the surviving civilians, they
were no longer the faceless Nazis of
Churchill’s speeches. While no depend- above — ‘Bomber’ Harris at his desk
ably exact civilian German casualty
figure has ever been compiled, the best Selected Sources
Hastings, Max. Bomber Command. NY: Simon & Schuster,
estimate is that somewhere between 1979.
400,000 and 600,000 died as a result of Neillands, Robin. The Bomber War. Woodstock, NY:
Overlook Press, 2001.
area bombing. The retrospective guilt Richards, Denis. RAF Bomber Command in the Second
over those numbers caused the sacri- World War. London: Penguin, 2001.
fices of the men of Bomber Command
to go largely unrecognized. ✪

A late-war Lancaster heavy bomber shortly after take off.

World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011 35

 AIRCRAFT OF BOMBER COMMAND

In Service Max. Speed Service Ceiling Range Armament Bomb Load

Bristol Blenheim

Two engine, light bomber Mar. 1937 266mph/11,800 ft 27,260 ft. 1,460 miles five .303 mg 1,320 lbs

Armstrong-Whitworth Whitley

Two engine, medium bomber Mar. 1937 230mph/16,400 ft. 26,000 ft. 1,500 miles five .303 mg 7,000 lbs

Vickers Wellington

Two engine, medium bomber Jan. 1938 235mph/15,500 ft. 19,000 ft. 1,540 miles eight .303 mg 4,500 lbs

Handley-Paige Hampden

Two engine, medium bomber Sept. 1938 254mph/13,800 ft. 19,000 ft 1,885 miles four .303 mg 4,000 lbs

Short Sterling

Four engine, heavy bomber Aug. 1940 270mph/14,500 ft. 17,000 ft. 2,010 miles eight .303 mg 14,000 lbs.

Avro Manchester

Two engine, medium bomber Nov. 1940 265mph/17,000 ft. 19,200 ft. 1,630 miles eight .303 mg 8,100 lbs.

Handley-Paige Halifax

Four engine, heavy bomber Nov. 1940 282mph/13,500 ft. 24,000 ft. 1,030 miles nine .303 mg 13,000 lbs.

Avro Lancaster

Four engine, heavy bomber Sept. 1941 287mph/11,500 ft. 24,500 ft. 2,530 miles eight .303 mg 14,000 lbs.1

de Havilland Mosquito

Two engine, fighter-bomber Nov. 1941 362mph/5,500 ft. 33,000 ft. 1,650 miles none 2 1,000 lbs.

1
With multiple smaller bombs or 22,000 lbs. with one large bomb.
2
The bomber photo recon versions had no defensive armament.
Other versions carried an assortment of mgs, cannon and rockets.

below — The Railway Viaduct at Bielefeld three days after Bomber Command’s attack of 14 March 1945.

above — The official emblem

of Bomber Command.

36 World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011

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US Strike Force in the CBI:
Merrill’s Marauders
Background
T
he Japanese offensive into
Burma early in 1942 not only
inflicted bitter humiliation
on the British, it cut off the landward
Lend Lease supply route to China. As
such, both Great Britain and the US
were eager to launch a counteroffensive
38 World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011
to liberate the conquered territory.
The first tentative blow was struck
in 1943. In February and March,
Col. Orde Wingate led a reinforced
infantry brigade into the jungles of
Burma. After fighting several actions,
Wingate dispersed his brigade and
withdrew back to India. While the
actual damage done to the Japanese
By William Stroock
was negligible, the raid had a wonderful
effect on Allied morale in the theater,
as it proved British troops could prevail
against the Japanese in deep jungle.
Wingate used the success of that
operation (codenamed “Longcloth”)
to his advantage, gathering precious
men and material until he com-
manded six brigades along with
what amounted to his own small
air force. For the 1944 campaign he
conceived a large aerial invasion of
Japanese-held Burma in which four of
his brigades would be airlifted into the
jungle around the Myitkyina-Indaw
railway, and from there move to open
up a new land route to China.
The new operation (codenamed
“Thursday”) wouldn’t be an exclu-
sively British effort. The northern
thrust, aimed at the railhead at
Myitkyina (pronounced Mit-cheh-nuh)
would be made by US Gen. Joseph
Stillwell’s Northern Combat Area
Command (NCAC), a corps-sized force
originally based on the Chinese 22nd
and 38th Infantry Divisions. Unlike
other units of the Chinese Nationalist
Army, those divisions were battletested,
having fought in the 1942 campaign.
They had since been further trained by
American instructors at a base in the
Indian town of Ramgarh, and they were
well led by competent Chinese generals.
Supplementing those Chinese
infantry divisions was the 1st Provisional
Tank Group, an American-officered
Chinese armored regiment equipped
with 60 M3A3 Stuart light tanks.
Rounding out NCAC was a brand
new unit, the 5307th Composite Unit
(Provisional), which would go down
in history as “Merrill’s Marauders.”
Into Burma
The Myitkyina campaign would be
fought in the Hukawng Valley, covered
by thick jungle and flanked by steep
slopes.. The 5307th and the Chinese
were going up against the Japanese 18th
Infantry Division, commanded by Gen.
Sinichi Tanaka. That division had fought

in China, taken part in the conquest of
Singapore, and battled British forces
in the 1942 campaign. The 18th was
considered elite by the Japanese.
On 23 February 1944, the 5307th
left its camp at Shingbwiyang and
began its epic jungle campaign. The
regiment marched in a column nearly
six miles long, with 1st Battalion (Lt.
Col. William L. Osborne) leading the
way, followed by Gen. Merrill and the
command group, 2nd Battalion (Lt.
Col. George A. McGee), and last 3rd
Battalion (Lt. Col. Charles E. Beach).
The initial march was a success,
with the regiment following a narrow
jungle trail, passing through several
villages. Local Kachin tribesmen were
eager to help the Americans and
provided them with intelligence about
Japanese forces. There were several
small skirmishes but no major actions.
The trail turned south, taking them over
the Tawang River. During that time the
Order of Battle
Northern Combat
Area Command
Chinese 22nd Division
65th Regiment
66th Regiment
Chinese 30th Division
88th Regiment
89th Regiment
Chinese 38th Division
112th Regiment
113th Regiment
114th Regiment
Chinese 50th Division
150th Regiment
1st Provisional Tank Battalion
5307th Composite
Regiment (Provisional)
Headquarters/Headquarters Company
1st Battalion
Red Combat Team
White Combat Team
2nd Battalion
Blue Combat Team
Green Combat Team
3rd Battalion
Orange Combat Team
Khaki Combat Team
Each Combat Team
Headquarters/Headquarters Platoon
x3 Rifle Platoons
Intel & Recon Platoon
Pioneer & Demolition Platoon
Heavy Weapons Platoon
Medical Detachment
68 Horses & Mules ★
Troop Carrier Squadrons made several
supply drops (see sidebar on p. 47).
They continued south to the Tanai River,
reaching it on 2 March. There Merrill
received orders from Stillwell to take
the regiment about 10 miles farther
south to establish a roadblock across
the Japanese line of supply on Kamaing
Road in the vicinity of Walawbum.
With that done, the Chinese 22nd and
38th Divisions would attack southeast.
The Kamaing Road crosses the Tanai
River and runs southeast to Walawbum,
on the Numpyek River, where it pivots
south. A hill overlooks that village.
Merrill deployed his 2nd Battalion west
of Walawbum to a village called Wesu.
There the unit was supposed to form
a roadblock. The 3rd Battalion’s Khaki
Combat Team would occupy the high
ground overlooking the trail east of
Walawbum. Orange Combat Team would
deploy just north to Lagang, where it
would protect the flank and build an above — The Marauder’s unit patch.
World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011 39
 airstrip. The 1st Battalion would man a
roadblock south of Walawbum to pre-
vent Japanese forces from escaping in
that direction. Each combat team, while
remaining in radio communication
with the command echelons above it,
would essentially be fighting on its own.

Walawbum

The ensuing battle provided a

textbook example of what Wingate’s
operations were supposed to accom-
plish, placing a powerful force, kept in
contact with its base by an aerial tether,
behind enemy lines. As the Chinese
pushed south, Tanaka fell back, march-
ing right into Merrill’s roadblock. Tanaka
then tried to push his way through.
The first Japanese blow fell on 2nd
Battalion. The battle began in earnest
on 4 March, with Tanaka launching
several probing attacks against the
American defenses. An attempt to get
around the right of 2nd Battalion took
the Japanese strait into 1st Battalion,
which inflicted heavy losses on them.
The Japanese attack was hampered
by the fact the Marauders had excel-
lent air support in the form of P-38
Lightning fighter-bombers, called in
expertly by air-ground liaison teams.
Tanaka renewed the effort the next
day with similar results. Exhausted
by two days of hard fighting, how-
ever, Col. McGee then pulled back
2nd Battalion to the east bank of a
small river. Tanaka followed, and on 6
March tried to force a crossing, losing
hundreds of men to concentrated
machinegun fire in the process.
The 3rd Battalion, on the heights
opposite Walawbum, endured several
Japanese attacks as well. There American
airpower was especially effective, as
Japanese troops were brought forward
in trucks that were easily identifiable
from above. Mortar fire also exacted
a heavy toll on the Japanese.
While 2nd Battalion was pulling back,
Merrill ordered Lt. Col. Beach to bring
3rd Battalion north to Wesu, joining
the rest of the regiment in a defensive
box centered on the airstrip at Lagang.
That consolidation was followed by
Japanese artillery fire falling on the
reassembled regiment, but no ground
attack was forthcoming. The Chinese
had broken through the Japanese
lines to the north, forcing Tanaka to
abandon the overall fight. Chinese
forces entered Walawbum on 7 March,
linking up with Merrill’s men there.
The victory at Walawbum vindi-
On the march toward Myitkyina. cated Wingate’s theory that long-range

40 World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011

 Formation & Organization

During the 1943 Quebec Conference, Chief of Staff Gen. George

Marshal had promised the British at least a token force of American
troops would be deployed to the Asian mainland. Those troops would
be trained to move and fight as Wingate’s Chindits had, though they
would be commanded by Stilwell and fight as an integral unit.
The resultant regiment, the 5307th was composed of 1,000
veterans of the Guadalcanal and New Guinea Campaigns, 950 garrison
troops from the 33rd Infantry Regiment stationed in Trinidad and
Puerto Rico, and another 1,000 men recruited from units then in the
United States. All the men were volunteers. They were assembled
at a British base at Deolali, India, before moving to a permanent
encampment at Deogarh, where they trained for jungle warfare.
That training program was run by an American colonel named Francis
Brink, who’d been training Chinese troops for operations in Burma. He
worked under the close supervision of Wingate, who was a constant
presence at the camp, as were British and Indian veterans of Longcloth.
For Operation Longcloth, Wingate had divided his brigade
into a northern and southern group, both subdivided into several
individual columns, each a reinforced company. The columns used
mule transport and were resupplied by air. On Wingate’s advice, each
of the 5307th battalions was divided into two combat teams, both
named after a color. Each combat team had a headquarters platoon,
three rifle platoons, an intelligence and recon platoon, a heavy
weapons platoon of three machineguns and three 81mm mortars,
a pioneer and demolition platoon and a medical detachment.
The intelligence and reconnaissance (I&R) platoons were
considered particularly important, as they would be the combat teams’
eyes and ears, leading the way through the jungle. The 54 enlisted
men assigned to each I&R platoon were carefully selected from a
pool of volunteers for their strength, intelligence and reliability.
The 5307th also adopted the Chindits’ mule transport.
A few hundred men were selected from the ranks
and trained as handlers (“muleskinners”).
The 5307th would be supplied by airdrop. Food and ammunition
were accumulated at a warehouse in Dinjan, about 50 miles from the
border. Delivery of those supplies fell to the 1st and 2nd Troop Carrier
Squadrons, both of which flew C-47s capable of carrying 3.5 tons of
cargo. Palettes of ammunition were assembled so each battalion’s
supply officer could simply call for a drop of a “unit of fire.” The airdrops
were usually made by groups of three to five C-47s. The squadrons
also operated several small L4 light aircraft, which could land on
improvised airstrips, flying in supplies and evacuating wounded. ★

penetration forces could be inserted
behind enemy lines, be resupplied by
air, and defeat Japanese forces. The
Marauder’s had taken everything the
Japanese could throw at them. Unable
to push through the American defense,
Tanaka had then been forced to break
off and retreat to the west and south.
While the Japanese division escaped,
it didn’t do so unscathed, losing about
1,500 men in the engagement.
Masterstroke at Shaduzup
With the 5307th’s mettle proven,
Stillwell next turned his attention to
Jambu Bum Ridge, which lay across
Kamaing Road about 15 miles south of
Walawbum, hoping to repeat the same
kind of success. He planned a two-
pronged attack, with the 66th Regiment of the date on which he was to have
Chinese 22nd Division pinning Japanese
forces atop the ridge while the 5307th
worked around the Japanese right and
formed a new roadblock to the south.
For that effort Merrill split the
regiment in two. Lt. Col. Osborne’s
1st Battalion and the Chinese 113th
Regiment would march south, pivot east Japanese camp along the road. It was
to get around the ridge, and then swing
back to establish a block along Kamaing Osborne decided to attack and then
Road at the town of Shaduzup no later
than the 24th. At the same time 2nd and
3rd Battalions would continue south to
establish another block 10 miles below
Shaduzup on the Mogaung River.
The 1st Battalion set out for
Shaduzup on 12 March. The Chinese
113th Regiment followed close behind.
From the start the going was slow
through the dense jungle, and was
made slower the next day when several
Japanese patrols were encountered.
On 14 March skirmishing turned into
a major firefight when 1st Battalion
encountered a company-sized force
near a village on the Tingkrung River.
Osborne pinned those Japanese in place,
ordering Red Combat Team to push
forward while White Combat Team cut a
trail east around the enemy right. Seeing
the threat, the Japanese pulled back.
The skirmishing resumed until 24
March when, already having missed
established his roadblock, Osborne
decided to abandon the known trail
and cut his own to Shaduzup. The
battalion therefore only reached
its destination on 27 March.
Just south of Shaduzup, White
Combat Team’s I & R Platoon found a
well stocked but only poorly guarded.
establish his roadblock there.
Leaving Red Combat Team to hold
on the east bank of the Moguang River,
he sent White Combat Team across in
the early morning of 28 March. Three
platoons remained at the crossing
point; one continued east to the road
and then advanced along it, while
the last moved along the river to the
Japanese camp. The Chinese 113th
Regiment was a mile to the north.
At dawn, three American platoons
swept into the camp at bayonet point,
finding the Japanese at their cook fires
or in their bunks. The result was a rout
with serious resistance encountered
only in the jungle outside the camp.
Within an hour the battalion had set up
a roadblock and intercepted a Japanese
convoy making its way south, killing 60.
The next day the Chinese 113th
Regiment attacked Shaduzup from
the north, taking it against light
resistance. The Chinese pursued the
fleeing Japanese south to a small
village called Laban, which they
took after a short fight.
Shaduzup again showed the LRP
concept at its best. The 1st Battalion
had been able to march deep into
Japanese territory and launch a surprise
attack. More important, as will be
described below, the battalion was
then able to pull out of Shaduzup and
rush to the aid of 2nd and 3rd Battalions,
further demonstrating the utility of
elite light troops in the jungle.

World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011 41


Struggle at Nphum
While 1st Battalion was winning
the Battle of Shaduzup, the men of
2nd and 3rd Battalions were fighting for
their lives 10 miles to the south near
Inkangantawng. That situation had
begun to take shape when two battal-
ions made their way south to the village
of Janpan, arriving there on 19 March.
From there Merrill sent 2nd Battalion,
along with 3rd Battalion’s Khaki Combat
42 World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011
Team, to the Kamaing Road with orders
to establish a block at the village of
Inkangantawng, all done in support of
1st Battalion’s attack to the north. McGee
set out on the morning of 22 March,
marching his unit 30 miles in a day.
McGhee established his HQ at a trail
junction 10 miles east of the Moguang
River and sent forward his I&R platoons.
They encountered Japanese patrols on
the night of the 23-24 March. Under fire,
Khaki Combat Team forded the river,
placing them a quarter-mile north of
Inkangantawng and 300 yards east of
the Kamaing Road. On the morning of
24 March, McGhee sent two platoons
southeast to try to get around the vil-
lage’s left, but those units soon encoun-
tered stiff resistance; so McGhee
ordered them back to his position.
Just after 7:00 a.m. the Japanese
attacked, running through the tall
grass and bursting into the open field
20 yards in front of the American
line. It was suicide: the Japanese were
met by a wall of fire. They next hit the
Americans from the north, but there
they ran into fire from the pioneer
& demolition platoon. The battle
continued throughout the day, with
the Japanese alternating attacks on the
northern and southern perimeters.
As pressure mounted and
Japanese reinforcements moved up,
Merrill became concerned McGhee’s
force would be flanked by Japanese
coming south from Shaduzup. He
therefore ordered McGhee to pull
back during the night. They did so,
moving east and linking with 3rd
Battalion. The united force continued
east, receiving aerial resupply and
fighting several skirmishes with
the pursuing Japanese. They soon
occupied a small hill called Nphum.
There Merrill deployed 2nd Battalion
across the hill while sending south
one platoon to the nearby village of
Kauri. He ordered 3rd Battalion to
move about five miles to the north
in order to guard that flank and
defend a patch of open ground that
was to be made into a new airstrip.
The first Japanese attack on
Nphum, launched near sunset on
28 March, was thrown back by 2nd
Battalion assisted by several air strikes.
During the night Merrill suffered
a heart attack and was evacuated,
leaving the regiment to Col. Hunter.
The Japanese launched another
attack at dawn on the 29th. Though
preceded by a long artillery barrage, it
also failed to make headway against
the dug-in troops. Follow on efforts
from the southwest and south were also
stopped. In the afternoon an assault
against Kauri was easily repulsed,
as was another attack on Nphum.
During the night the Japanese tried
to work their way around 2nd Battalion’s
eastern flank, but that force was
harassed by patrols from 3rd Battalion
and several parties of Kachin guerillas.
The Japanese attacks launched on
30 March were again stopped cold.
The Japanese did manage to get
Publicity posters for “Merrill’s Marauders,” the internationally successful 1962 Hollywood production that for a time made the unit’s name a common phrase.
around 2nd Battalion’s western flank,
cutting the trail linking them with 3rd
Battalion. The next day they hit Nphum
from three directions. Those attacks
pushed back 2nd Battalion on the hill,
but failed to breach the perimeter.
While 2nd Battalion was holding on,
Hunter sent Orange Combat Team
to reopen the trail to 3rd Battalion.
The Japanese had established
several blocks along the trail, and each
one had to be taken out with small
arms and 60mm mortar fire. Air strikes
were out of the question, as it was
impossible for the pilots to distinguish
between friend and foe. On 1 April,
Orange Combat Team fought its way
through two blocks before stopping
for the night. On 2 April progress was
halted by several Japanese machinegun
nests positioned on a small rise.
On 4 April all of 2nd Battalion attacked
north but was unable to break through.
The Japanese then launched several
assaults on 2nd Battalion’s western flank
and managed to get well onto the
hill. A fierce American counterattack,
supported by 60mm mortars dropping
rounds on enemy troops in some
cases a mere 30 yards away, drove
the Japanese back into the jungle.
The 3rd Battalion pressed on, blasting
the Japanese out of their positions with
a series of rolling mortar barrages and
getting within a mile of 2nd Battalion’s
perimeter. On 7 April, Khaki Combat
Team took over the advance but was
unable to get far against well-positioned
Japanese machinegun nests.
Fortunately, 1st Battalion, which
had force marched to join the fight,
arrived on the scene and occupied
the airstrip, enabling Col. Hunter to
commit both of 3rd Battalion’s combat fighting in the mountainous jungle.
teams to the fight. On 8 April, Khaki By early May, Merrill had recovered
and Orange renewed the advance and, and returned to the field to command
on 9 April, they finally broke through. the regiment. Despite the Marauders
After that link up the Japanese pulled having reached the point of exhaustion,
back, leaving Nphum to the Americans. Stillwell – at Merrill’s urging – tapped
them for the main attack on Myitkyina.
A Ridge Too Far Under a plan drawn up by Col.
Hunter, Merrill broke the battalions
In one regard Nphum was another into individual columns and paired two
triumph, again certifying the effective- of them with a Chinese regiment. The
ness of Wingate’s concept of light 1st Battalion was paired with Chinese
columns supplied by air. That said, the 150th Regiment and a battery of 75mm
battle had also sapped the Marauders pack artillery and was christened H
of their physical and moral strength. Force, after Col. Hunter who would
They lost 436 dead and wounded, more command. The 3rd Battalion was
than half of them to disease. Combined paired with Chinese 88th Regiment
with the losses from Walawbum and and a battery of 75mm pack artillery
Shaduzup, each battalion was able to from the Chinese 22nd Division, and
muster only about 500 men, and most was named K Force after its com-
of them were afflicted with an array of mander Lt. Col. Kinnison. Battered 2nd
maladies including malaria, dysentery, Battalion was regrouped into two rifle
trench foot, nausea and anorexia. Most companies, a heavy weapons company,
of all, the men were simply exhausted a headquarters company, and a group
after weeks of hard marching and of 300 Kachin scouts. Commanded by
Training
Maneuvers were conducted at the squad and platoon levels, with units fighting mock
battles against each other and against experienced British outfits. When small unit tactics
had been worked out, the regiment conducted a grand exercise against one of Wingate’s
Chindit brigades. In addition to British troops, American soldiers trained with Ghurkas
(elite Nepalese commandos), whom they came to admire for their toughness and élan.
The Americans especially liked the traditional knives the Ghurkas carried, called Kukris
and featuring a wooden handle and a foot-long curved blade, which they felt was superior
to the machete. Several hundred were obtained and distributed throughout the ranks.
Enlisted men spent a lot of time at the target range and were encouraged to go
on hunting expeditions in the jungle. The officers received special instruction as well,
with every one of them required to learn radio cipher. Selected officers took classes at
the British intelligence school in Agra, after which they were subjected to a survival
course in which they were left in the jungle on their own for three days. ★
World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011 43

Gen. Frank D. Merrill (1903-55)
Merrill was well suited to command the Marauders. A graduate of West Point, before the
war he’d been military attaché at the embassy in Tokyo. He was in the Philippines with MacArthur
when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Soon after, he was transferred to Rangoon to coordi-
nate with the British command there. He was at Stilwell’s side in the disastrous 1942 campaign,
during which he earned a Purple Heart. In 1943, Stillwell made him his chief-of-staff, at which
time he helped organize the 5307th.
When it was time for the
regiment to go into the field, Merrill
took personal command. Already
suffering ill health – during the
retreat out of Burma in 1942 he’d
fallen unconscious from exhaus-
tion – Merrill suffered a heart attack
on 30 March and had to be airlifted
out. Late in the war Stillwell was
given command of 10th Army on
Okinawa. He again made Merrill his
chief-of-staff. After the war Merrill
moved to New Hampshire, where he
became highway commissioner. He
died of a heart attack in 1955. ★
Merrill confers with Stillwell
44 World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011
Lt. Col. McGee, it was called M Force.
H and K Forces would start the
new advance by moving east to the
village of Ritpong, there turning
south toward Myitkyina, the main
Japanese supply and communication
center for all of northern Burma.
M Force, initially advancing east
along a trail about five miles to the
south, would protect that flank.
K Force set out on 28 April; H Force
followed two days later. With pioneers
(combat engineers) and Kachin scouts
widening the trail before them, H
and K Forces arrived at Ritpong on 5
May. Kinnison wasted no time. While
the Chinese 88th Regiment attacked
from the north, he dispatched Orange
and Khaki Combat Teams around
the Japanese right. By the 7th the
Americans had taken positions south
of Ritpong while advancing the I&R
platoon farther south to guard that
approach. There they found a small
Japanese column and scattered it.
On the night of 7/8 May the Japanese
launched two fierce attacks against
Khaki Team, but they were unable to
break through. In the meantime the
Chinese fought their way into the village
and had it cleared by the next day.
To secure his left, Merrill next sent
K Force east to help a battalion of
Kachin guerillas then locked in battle
just north of the village of Nsopzup. K
Force set out on the morning of 11 May.
The next day they ran into a Japanese
patrol west of a small village called
Tingkrukawng, and Beach ordered
Orange Combat Team to attack. Soon,
however, they found the Japanese patrol
was actually the vanguard of an entire
battalion, and the attack bogged down.
Kinnison ordered a company of 88th
Regiment around the Japanese right,
but it met stiff resistance and couldn’t
advance. Seeking to replicate his success
at Ritpong, Kinnison then ordered
Orange Combat Team to launch a frontal
assault while Khaki cut a trail around
the Japanese right to get behind them. A
Chinese battalion would simultaneously
work its way around the left in support.
While Khaki Combat Team made
good progress, a steep slope above the
trail they were cutting was occupied by
enemy forces who poured heavy fire
down on them. The incline was so steep
Khaki’s troops couldn’t hope to attack
the position. Orange Combat Team
had little success against the dug in
Japanese, neither did the Chinese battal-
ion. Judging that he’d accomplished his
larger mission of protecting the flank,
Kinnison decided to break off rather
 The Marauders undergoing final training before going on their first mission.
than risk further losses. Besides, his men
were exhausted and unable to receive
aerial resupply do to the thick jungle
and steep terrain, while the Japanese in
Tingkrukawng were being reinforced.
Despite the failure to take
Tingrukawng, the action there
must be judged an Allied success,
as it secured the way for H Force to
march on Myitkyina, reaching its
outskirts on 16 May.
Myitkyina lies on the west bank
of the Irrawaddy River, in a bend that
pivots west. A few miles down river
was the village of Pamati, a ferry point,
and just north of that an airstrip. The
railhead was on the southern edge of
the town. Myitkyina was garrisoned
by a Japanese infantry regiment.
Hunter wasted no time, attacking on
the morning of the 17th. That effort went
off smoothly, with the Chinese 150th
Infantry Regiment easily taking the air-
field while 1st Battalion secured Pamati.
Seeing Myitkyina was wide open,
Hunter ordered M and K Forces to
rush south as quickly as possible. To
help, Merrill flew in a battalion from
the Chinese 89th Infantry Regiment.
Hunter sent White Combat Team
upriver to Rampur while garrisoning
Pamati with Red Combat Team. He
left one battalion of the Chinese 150th
Infantry Regiment at the airfield and
positioned the other two north of the
city for the main assault. The attack
got underway on the morning of the
18th and met with initial success, as the
Chinese fought their way into the town
to the railhead; however, the follow-on
battalion then confused the leading
force for Japanese and opened fire.
In the confusion that followed, all the
Chinese broke and fled the field, again
leaving the railhead to the Japanese.
In the coming days the rest of the
Marauders arrived on the scene. M
Force arrived on the 19th and garrisoned
the town of Namkwi to the northwest.
K Force occupied Charpate to the
north. At the same time, White Combat
Team advanced to the Irrawaddy
bend and took the island of Zigyon.
With the Japanese pinned against
the Irrawaddy and bracketed on three
sides, the Allied position seemed strong.
In fact, though, it was the Japanese who
held the upper hand. Over the coming
days, Tanaka rushed reinforcements
to Myitkyina, bringing the strength
of the garrison there up to 4,000. The
Marauders were exhausted, as were the
Chinese. Sensing that, Tanaka counter-
attacked and retook Charpate on the
night of the 24th and Namkwi on the 26th.
Those actions marked the end of
the Marauders as an effective fighting
unit. The men of 2nd and 3rd Battalions
were evacuated at a rate of about 70 per
day. By the beginning of June only 3rd
Battalion remained, and it counted less
than 400 able to fight in its ranks. In des-
peration, Stillwell took two engineer bat-
talions, the 209th and 236th, from working
on the Ledo Road and deployed them to
Myitkyina. Well suited to road building
but not combat operations, those
units’ subsequent attack on Namkwi (7
World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011 45
June) was a failure. Another attack on
the 10th was easily turned back by the
Japanese. What had become the siege
of Myitkyina lasted until early August,
when the Japanese evacuated the town.
Conclusions
Despite the failure at Myitkyina,
the Marauders’ overall mission
must be considered a success. The
unit was the ultimate realization of
Wingate’s dream of inserting a Long
Range Penetration Group behind
enemy lines and supplying it by air.
That overall success, then, was the
result of two factors. First, Stilwell made
good use of the regiment, deploying it
on the Japanese flanks rather than in
frontal assaults. Teaming them up with
competent Chinese regiments also
proved effective. Second, the final train-
ing under the eyes of experienced British
veterans paid great dividends, readying
the men for the rigors of the jungle.
Stillwell’s one mistake was pushing
the Marauders too far and sending
them to Myitkyina when the Chinese
22nd and 38th Divisions, reinforced by
the 30th and 50th Divisions, could’ve
done the job or at least manned the
trenches around Myitkyina until the
Japanese evacuated. Still, the overall
record is impressive. An American
regiment, cobbled together from units
all over the world, became an elite
jungle-fighting unit, winning victories at
Walawbum, Shaduzup and Nphum. ✪
Game Preview
Guadalcanal
Pacific Battles: Guadalcanal is a two-
player (Japanese versus US) operational
level game, designed by Joseph Miranda.
The game includes 228 medium-sized
die-cut counters, with the battalion as
the primary maneuver unit, and also
includes air units, supply markers,
campaign chits, suppression chits, and
deception markers. The colorful map
features the island of Guadalcanal,
with each hex representing two miles
across, and includes such prominent
locations as Henderson Field and
46 World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011
Bloody Ridge, as well as various charts
and tables for easy reference during play.
The rules contain a variety of
standard and unique features, such as
Reinforcements, Suppression, Logistics,
Reorganization, Headquarters, Air
WaW Upcoming
Operations, Naval Bombardment, Fog Features
of War, Engineer Units, Fortifications, #22 Battle of Minsk, 1944
Amphibious Movement, Evacuation, as #23 Pacific Battles: Guadalcanal
well as optional rules detailing aspects #24 Sedan 1940
such as High Ground, Artillery, Air
#25 Keren: Bloddy Anglo-Italian
Superiority, Close Air Support, Capturing
Battle for Eritrea, 1941
Supply, and Airborne mechanics. ✪
#26 Race to the Reichstag
Visit STRATEGYandTACTICSpress.com
 Classic
History
Classic
The Conquerors
Games
The Macedonians
Alexander in Persia, 334-331 BC
In the Spring of 334 B.C., young king Alexander
of Macedon with an army 40,000 strong,
set out to fulfill the centuries old dream of
his countrymen by launching the invasion
of the Persian Empire, the largest and most
powerful empire in the Mediterranean world.

The Romans
Mediterranean Expansion, 200-189 BC
A century and a half later, the Roman Republic
was just emerging from its 2nd and most
debilitating conflict with the Mediterranean
trading power — Carthage. Philip V was on
the throne of Macedon, and his interventions
in Greek politics would soon draw Rome’s
response and eventual advance to become
an Eastern Mediterranean power.

Even after several years of conflict with Philip,

Rome would not rest. Rome found herself
again involved in an immense conflict — this
time in Asia. The great Seleucid King, Antiochus,
threatened the very existence of Rome’s two
key allies — Rhodes and Pergamum — and
threatened to march into Europe itself on a
mission of conquest. Thus began the Syrian War.
The Conquerors is a double game
that covers both of these theatres of
conquest at a grand strategic level.
Each game in this Twin-Pack has its own
counters, rules and game map. However,
the rules of both games are based upon the
same system so that having played one it is
quite simple to play the other. Also introduced
is an optional Tactical Battle System.
Game components include:
Two large rules books; two large playing maps,
1,200 die-cut counters; plus numerous player aids.
A Mighty Fortress
Between 1531 and 1555 the world shook to the reverberations of
a struggle whose resolution was to chart the course of Europe’s
religious and political alliances for centuries. It was in these years
that the conflicting ideologies of Lutheran Reformation and Catholic
Counter-Reformation inexorably drew the disparate empires, nations,
and leaders of Europe into a maelstrom of religious war and dispute.
A Mighty Fortress simulates this major historical conflict
on a beautifully illustrated political map of Europe. Colorful
cardboard playing pieces move, position. And engage in
battle upon this map through a superimposed hexagonal
grid, which functions like a chessboard’s squares.
Game components include:
One rules booklet, 200 die cut playing pieces, one
22 x 34 inch map and various player aids.

available from:
Decision Games
(661) 587-9633 | (661) 587-5031 fax | P.O. Box 21598 | Bakersfield CA 93390
decisiongames.com
Observation Post
Strategy
The Franco-Italian Front, 1940
“I only need a few thousand dead
so I can sit at the peace conference as
a man who has fought.” With those
words to his armed forces chief Marshal
Pietro Badaglio, Italian dictator Benito
Mussolini launched his country into
what he thought would be a short,
victorious war. It was 10 June 1940,
but it was another 10 days before the
Italian Army could gather itself to attack
France. When thousands of volunteers
showed up at recruiting stations, they
found a lack of necessities such as
food, blankets and uniforms, as well
as shortages of pots and pans with
which to cook the scarce rations.
Italian Army Group West, consisting
of 1st and 4th Armies, was under the
command of the Gen. (and Prince)
Umberto di Savoia, and it contained 22
infantry divisions, three of which were
Alpini (mountain infantry), plus various
armored, artillery, cavalry and Alpini
groups (brigades). In total, the Italians
had a force of over 700, 000 available to
attack France; however, they were on
the whole poorly armed and equipped.
For instance, their “armored”
regiments consisted primarily of L3/35
tanks, which were little more than lightly
armored machinegun carriers. Except
for the Alpini, the units deployed were
unprepared for the cold and unforgiving
mountain passes in which they would
fight. By 20 June only some 300,000 men
were prepared to cross into France.
Facing them was the French
Armee des Alpes under Gen. Rene Olry.
He commanded a force of 190,000,
including three mountain infantry
divisions, and various colonial forces
then mobilizing in the area, such as
the staunch Tirailleurs Sénégalaises.
That army would live up to its motto of
“None Shall Pass,” even if only briefly
before the armistice was signed.
Even as French forces went into a
full retreat from the Germans on the
main front to the north, Mussolini
48 World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011
decided on an invasion across the
border on two axes. One force was
to advance inland through the Alps,
while a second would advance
along the coast toward Nice.
For their part the French had spent
a great deal of resources on the creation
of a line of fortifications along their
border with Italy. Formally known as the
Alpine Line, it was popularly called the
Little Maginot Line, and it formed the
basis of French strategy against Italy.
The line mainly consisted of a
number of fortresses called ouvrages
(defensive works), which were
combination above-and-underground
strongpoints linked by tunnels and
containing living quarters, supply
caches and power generators. The
larger ones had their own tramlines to
move materials and ammunition. Due
to the alpine terrain, the ouvrages were
built into hillsides with their galleries
hidden beneath the rock cover. In
addition, the ground between each
ouvrage was dotted with blockhouses,
observation points and gun batteries.
Cap Martin, for example, was an
ouvrage located at Menton, on the bor-
der east of Nice, which would become
centrally involved in the fighting. It had
taken nine years to build, only having
been completed in 1939, due to the
difficult terrain. It had three positions
(blocks) within it, one housing two
machineguns, a grenade launcher and
two 81mm mortars, each in bunkers
called cloches (bells or turrets). The
second block had one 75mm cannon
and two more cloches, and was set up
so as to be able to give support fire to
a nearby fort at Pont Saint Lucas. The
third Cap Martin block had two 75mm
cannon, two 81mm mortars and two
additional cloches; its task was to sup-
port the nearby Roquebrunne ouvrage.
The 96th Brigade Alpin de Forteresse
(BAF) was the garrison for Cap Martin.
Its men became the first to engage
the Italians when, on 14 June, they
opened fire on a reconnaissance
patrol crossing the Pont Saint Louis
bridge. The first heavy combat only
began on the 20th with the start of the
larger Army Group West advance.
When the Cosseria Infantry
Division attempted a frontal assault
on the bridge, Cap Martin fired, as did
supporting ouvrages at Saint Agnes
and Mont Agel, repulsing the Italian
attack. The next day the Italians were
content to merely bombard the area
with artillery. On the 22nd their air force
bombed the ouvrages, while an armored
train was also brought forward that
directly exchanged fire with the forts.
The attacking planes managed to knock
out one of Cap Martin’s 75mm cannon.
The 24th saw the heaviest fighting,
with Italian troops advancing to the
edge of the fort with the support of
armored trains firing 120mm and
155mm heavy guns. They were then
thrown back by the combined fire of the
ouvrages, which also destroyed one of
the armored trains. During that day’s
fighting the Cap Martin forward post,
garrisoned by only eight men, held out
until relieved that evening. The armistice
the next day ended the fighting.
Inland the Italians fared little
better at the Little Saint Bernard Pass,
where their 4th Army, reinforced with
artillery shifted from 1st Army, attacked
near Albertville. They were opposed by
three regiments of BAF plus 18 assorted
battalions of other forces. That offensive
began on 21 June with eight Alpini
battalions attacking into Seign Pass,
but it was stopped by artillery fire from
the local ouvrages. Another column,
led by the Trieste Motorized Division,
was bogged down by artillery fire and a
series of blown bridges and minefields.
On the 22nd the division’s 65th
Motorized Regiment and some sup-
porting tanks managed to overcome
resistance in the French forward posts,
but that effort then became stalled by
the concentrated fire from the nearby
ouverages. Finally, a column of ski troops
managed to bypass the French forward
positions by crossing a glacier, seem-
ingly allowing for an advance toward
Albertville, but the armistice then
halted that promising development.
 World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011 49
Observation Post
The French Air Force in the area had
been greatly reduced by withdrawals to
North Africa by the time of the Italian
entry into the war, by then consisting of
just two squadrons of LeO 451 medium
bombers, three fighter groups, a night
fighter squadron and some recon planes,
for a total of 150 aircraft. The British
were at the time also staging two squad-
rons of Wellington bombers out of Cran.
Weather influenced the regional
air war due to several storms in the
Alps that prevented effective ground
support by both sides. The most
notable action occurred on 15 June,
when French Warrant Officer Pierre Le
Gloan shot down five Italian planes in
about 40 minutes, and was promoted
to sub-lieutenant shortly thereafter.
The Italians had opened the air war
by bombing Toulon, Fayannce and
Canne on 13 June. Their air force flew
a total of 717 sorites and dropped 276
tons of bombs prior to the armistice.
On 14 June, French vessels, part
of their 3rd Naval Squadron based in
Toulon, sortied to attack oil storage
tanks near Genoa. Those four armored
cruisers and 11 destroyers only suffered
one hit from Italian coastal defense
guns when a 155mm round struck
Hawker Typhoon
50 World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011
one ship’s boiler room, killing 12
sailors. In colonial Africa the French
battleship Lorraine fired on the port
of Bardia in Libya, while the sloop La
Curieuse sank the Italian submarine
Provana off the coast of Oran.
On 25 June the French and Italians
signed an armistice in Rome. At those
negotiations the Italians were awarded
a small patch of border land, where
the forts they’d been unable to take by
assault were located. They also annexed
the entire island of Corsica. In 15 days
of fighting the French had lost 40 dead
and 84 wounded. The Italians had
suffered 631 killed and 2,361 wounded,
along with some 2,000 cases of frostbite
and 616 men missing. Of course, no
one had any doubt it was actually
the German dead and wounded, lost
in the main campaign to the north,
which had gotten the Italians their
settlement at the negotiating table.
— David March
In the Air
The Hawker Typhoon & Tempest
The Hawker Corporation received
an Air Ministry specification in January
1938 that asked for a fighter based on
an engine intended to deliver over
2,000 horsepower. The resultant large,
water-cooled engine brought with it
complicated maintenance procedures
that made it hard to work on in the
field, but by 1944 it was producing
nearly 5,500 hp and flew faster than
an FW-190 when below 20,000 feet.
The front fuselage was welded steel,
and the thick 40-foot wing was fitted
with wide-stance landing gear that
enabled the plane to land and take
off on unimproved airfields like those
found behind a rapidly advancing army.
The early versions of the seven-ton
plane were fitted with a car-door-like
entrance to the canopy, and a three-
blade propeller the pilots complained
was prone to vibration at high speed.
The RAF command was so impressed
with the aircraft it ordered 1,000 of
them, and deliveries began in February
1940. Some production was outsourced
to the Gloster Aircraft Company in
order to increase as rapidly as possible
the number of planes being built.
It was only then, however, the new
design began to display problems,
such as the tendency for skin to peel
off of its thick wings during dives, and
heavy vibration caused by its massive
engine. It became clear the plane
was a failure as a replacement for the
Spitfire. It had abysmal performance
above 20,000 feet, maneuvered like a
truck and was slow to climb. While it
was fast and stable at lower altitudes,
it was decided to cancel production.
That all changed with the Germans’
introduction of their FW-190 fighter in
1942. The Spitfire Vs, which then made
up the bulk of RAF Fighter Command
squadrons, were outclassed by the new
opponent and began suffering heavy
losses. The new German fighter was
faster than the Spitfire, and so could
Hawker Tempest
break off from combat at any time by
diving away from the fight and using
its higher speed to simply pull away.
The Typhoons were therefore rushed
back into service and, while it proved
capable of combating the FW-190s
in certain situations, they began to
be lost to unexplained causes. Only
the seriousness of the situation in the
air kept the Typhoon in demand.
Eventually the cause of the unex-
plained losses was traced to a failure of
the elevator mass-balance arm. That
weight was meant to counter-balance
the weight of the control surface and
thus make it easier to move. It was
found that a higher speeds the weight
became unbalanced and actually
begin to flutter. That fluttering became
progressively worse as speed increased,
until it would eventually cause the tail
to break off. Since a favorite tactic of
the FW-190 was to escape by diving
away from combat, the Typhoons were
failing as they accelerated to pursue.
The quick fix was to strengthen the
tail where it joined the fuselage.
It was then also found exhaust
fumes were leaking into the cockpit;
so pilots were required to wear their
oxygen masks from take off until
landing. The cockpits were also prone
to building up heat from the engine.
Those problems were slowly worked
out until, by early 1943, it was believed
the Typhoon was finally and fully ready
World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011 51
for front line fighter service. By that time,
though, more capable fighters were
available to the Allies and the Typhoon
was therefore converted to the con-
figuration for which it became famous,
that of a fighter-bomber. The powerful
engine allowed it to carry two 1,000 lb.
bombs and, also carrying four 20mm
cannon, the Typhoon became a impres-
sive ground combat support aircraft.
Since it was fitted with a bubble
canopy, from some angles the Typhoon
resembled the FW-190, and there
were numerous incidents of friendly
fire from Allied anti-aircraft units and
other fighters. In an effort to prevent
that, the Typhoons were marked with
high-visibility black and white stripes
Observation Post
Hawker Tempest
under their wings. That addition proved
so successful it was adopted for all
Allied aircraft for the D-day invasion.
It was when the Typhoon was
fitted with rockets it finally became
the iconic ground attack aircraft it’s
recognized as today. Armed with four
RP-3 rockets under each wing, they
proved effective against unarmored
vehicles, road transport, trains and even
small sea craft and submarines. British
propaganda claimed a salvo of eight
of the rockets had the explosive effect
of a destroyer’s broadside, though the
actual result was usually less than that.
The rocket body was a steel tube
three inches wide that was filled with
52 World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011
11 lbs. of cordite as propellant. Four
tailfins made it spin as it was fired and
provided stability. The rockets required
a good deal of skill from a pilot to aim
properly. They tended to drop after
firing, especially over long distances,
and by today’s standards they were
inaccurate at best. Despite all that,
the rockets were less complicated
than guns, had no recoil, and were
found to have a demoralizing effect on
enemy ground troops, especially when
combined with 20mm cannon fire.
Many German vehicles were
later found to have been abandoned
by their crews despite the fact little or
no actual damage was found on them.
Interrogation of survivors showed the
mere overhead presence of rocket-
armed Typhoons was often enough
to cause panic among some troops.
A 60 lb. high explosive warhead was
screwed onto the end of the rockets
and, while great things were initially
expected of it against tanks, they were
largely a failure when used against
armored vehicles. During the ground
attacks on the retreating Germans in
the Falaise Pocket, hundreds of tanks
and transport vehicles were claimed
destroyed by Typhoon pilots. Even so,
after action investigations showed only
17 tanks were destroyed by rocket fire.
Further analysis of the tanks destroyed
during the break out, counted against
the number of rockets fired, showed
a hit rate of barely four percent.
That’s not to say the rockets were
actually useless. For instance, during
the German counterattack at Mortain,
the Typhoons of 2nd Tactical Air Force
repulsed the attack, destroying or
damaging 81 vehicles. In October 1944,
acting on intelligence, Typhoons of 146
Wing attacked a building in Dordrecht
where the headquarters staff of the
Germans’ 15th Army was meeting.
Seventeen of those officers were
killed and 55 others were wounded.
By mid-1944 the RAF had 26
operational squadrons of Typhoon
1-Bs. The aircraft proved itself as one
of the best ground attack planes in the
Allied arsenal. It was so effective the
RAF began to pull the early models
out of storage and upgraded them in
order to get more into action. Fitted
with a four-blade, 14-foot propeller that
reduced the annoying vibrations from
which the fighter had suffered early
in its career, those older planes were
begun to be put back into service.
At the same time, upgrades on
others of those original fighters also
continued until a completely new
version was fielded called the Tempest.
It had flush-riveted elliptical wings like
the Spitfire. Smaller radiators were also
used, resulting in a more streamlined
chin that gave it a top speed of 466 mph.
Those fighters finally began to live
up to their original expectations. They
were used against V-1s over England,
shooting down a third of the buzz
bombs that were destroyed by aircraft.
Faster than a FW-190 below 20,000
feet, the Tempest was the only Allied
fighter Me-262 jet pilots regarded
as a truly dangerous opponent.
While the Typhoon was quickly
phased out of service after the war, the
Tempest continued to be used, many
being passed onto the Pakistani and
Indian Air Forces. Indeed, the airframe
and engine combination came to be the
basis for the Sea Fury, which served in
the Korean War. Fitted with an engine
producing 3,400 hp, and capable of
485 mph, a Sea Fury managed to shoot
down a MiG-15 in August 1952. Sold
to numerous air forces as it left active
service for Britain, the Sea Fury served
with Iraq and Cuba as well as many
other countries in Central America
and throughout the world. Indeed,
they’re still valued today as air racers
due to their reliability and high speed.
— Russ Jennings
Strategic
Backwaters
Vichy Gabon
French Equatorial Africa (FEA)
consisted of the Congo, Ubangi-Shari,
Tchad, Gabon, Moyen Congo and MOYEN
Cameroun. (Prior to 1918 that latter
had been a German colony, and in
1940 it was resident to widespread
anti-French sentiment because
colonial administrators actively worked especially as the British increasingly
to remove all traces of the earlier looked to the airfield at Fort Lamy in
German presence.) In aggregate, FEA Tchad as a possible stopover point.
was four times larger than metropolitan In early August 1940, French officers
France. Since June 1940 those territories loyal to Charles De Gaulle arrived in
had been effectively cut off from the British Nigeria and proposed seizing
“mother country,” then called Vichy control of FEA. Their plan was accepted
France, the locals depending only on a and, as soon as they entered Tchad,
few colonial officials for governance. Vichy Governor General Felix Eboue, the
The natural resources and manpower only black governor general in French
of the region were unavailable to Vichy service, declared for De Gaulle. In rapid
France (and by extension, the Axis succession Cameroun (Cameroon),
powers), yet the FEA intelligence bureau Ubangi-Shari (Central African Republic)
remained active. Not only did it have and the Moyen Congo (Republic
to monitor the hostile nearby British of the Congo) also declared for the
colonies for threats, it had to monitor Free French, all through the efforts
the Spanish and Free French as well, of fewer than 100 military personnel
looking for any early warning of threat and without a drop of blood shed.
to the extensive but almost indefensible Gabon, though, wasn’t so easy. The
FEA territories. Subversion and unrest coincidental arrival there of the Vichy
were a constant fear, as always for an submarine Sidi-Ferruch dissuaded
imperial power, but collecting intel- the local colonial administration in
ligence on British naval and shipping Libreville, the seaport and administra-
movements assumed new importance. tive center, not to declare for De Gaulle.
Most importantly, the increasing Despite that, De Gaulle announced
ferry over-flights of British aircraft over the radio all the FEA territories
from the Gold Coast and Nigeria to the had rallied to the cause of Free France.
Middle East needed to be watched, Authorities in Vichy Dakar heard
World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011 53
Observation Post
that broadcast and immediately
dispatched to Libreville the submarine
Poncelet and the merchant ship Cap
de Palmes, with a detachment of
Senegalese infantry aboard. (They
arrived in early September. releasing
the Sidi-Ferruch to return to Dakar.)
Simultaneously the Vichy govern-
ment in France ordered the dispatch to
Dakar of a naval task force from Toulon,
designated Force Y and composed of
three cruisers and three destroyers, to be
used to “restore order” in the entire colo-
nial region. That force, commanded by
Rear Adm. Celestin Bourrague, departed
Toulon for Dakar on 9 September.
Force Y never arrived in FEA, as it
was prevented from doing so by the
otherwise unsuccessful Anglo-French
Operation Menace, which tried but
failed to capture the Vichy base at
Dakar. The initial force dispatched
from Dakar was therefore the only one
to arrive and reinforce the few locally
raised Vichy troops (approximately
battalion strength, but deployed in
independent companies) and
the naval sloop Bougainville (two
5.5-inch guns and a single 3-inch
anti-aircraft gun) at Libreville.
With the check at Dakar on 26
September, De Gaulle shifted his focus
to Gabon, which he believed offered
a more favorable opportunity. The
British also believed the liberation
of Gabon would remove a potential
U-boat resupply base, while also seizing
airfields that might otherwise be used to
interdict their regional air ferry lanes as
well as South Atlantic merchant traffic.
Asking the British to impose a
naval blockade, De Gaulle and his
Free French force moved to Douala,
Cameroun, on 8 October, reinforcing
the few dozen Free French adherents
there, then under the command of a
Capt. Philippe de Hautecloque, later to
be better known as Gen. Leclerc. Free
French forces out of Moyen-Congo and
Cameroun, with some locally raised but
primarily French troops brought back
from Norway, accompanied by several
H-39 tanks, advanced slowly south in
54 World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011
two columns (codenamed Parant and
Dio) into Gabon, capturing the small
towns of Mitzic on 27 October and the
town of Lambarene on 5 November. The
advance was then brought to a virtual
standstill as both columns were forcing
trails through ever-thicker virgin forest.
Inconclusive skirmishing off the
coast was soon followed by Free French
aircraft (Lysanders) out of Douala
attacking Libreville and the sloop
Bougainville at her anchorage, all to
little effect. On 7 November, in an effort
to bring the campaign to a conclusion,
the Free French troop transports Fort
Lamy, Casamance and Nevada moved
to began landing elements of 13th
Demi-Brigade of the Foreign Legion
(lately out of Norway) on the mangrove-
covered shore north of Libreville.
The Vichy submarine Poncelet sor-
tied against the invasion force, but was
soon sighted by the British patrol boat
Milford. The submarine was damaged
and forced to the surface. Her skipper,
Lt. Commander Bertrand de Saussine,
ordered his men to abandon ship and
then opened the seacocks and went
down with his command. The landing
went ahead early on 8 November, led by
Foreign Legionnaires with Senegalese
and Cameroonian troops following.
As those Free French forces
consolidated their position north of
Libreville, the Bougainville sortied on
9 November in order to remain mobile
as a defense against further aerial
bombardment. She was soon sighted
by the Free French sloop Savorgnan
de Brazza (5.5-inch guns and a single
3-inch anti-aircraft gun), a sister ship.
The Bougainville open fire first, but
as a third of her crew was ashore
reinforcing the small land defense force,
her fire was slow and erratic. After a
20-minute action the Bougainville was
disabled, afire and sinking. That was
one of the few instances in history in
which ships flying the same French
flag fought until one sank the other.
In the following land campaign the
Free French defeated the weaker Vichy
force, but only after fierce fighting at the
airfield outside Libreville. The liberators
entered the city on the morning of 10
November. Four days later the only
remaining Vichy port, a small one at
Port Gentil south of Libreville, was
occupied, the only casualty being
Vichy Governor General Georges
Masson, who committed suicide.
Vichy Gabon was no more, and
the Free French conquest of French
Equatorial Africa was complete. Soon
after the conclusion of operations, De
Gaulle asked those who’d served Vichy,
both in the army and navy, if they would
join with him and the Free French.
Almost all the prisoners declined
the offer and were then transported
to POW camps in the Congo.
— Vernie Liebl
Movers & Shakers
Karl Doenitz: Reichpresident
By mid-April 1945 it was obvious
to all in the German high command
the war was nearly over. Germany had
been split in half by the advancing
Western Allied and Soviet drives. Hitler
therefore designated Grand Adm. Karl
Doenitz as commander of the northern
enclave and Field Marshal Albert
Kesselring commander in the south.
Doenitz immediately left Berlin and
traveled by convoy to the Kriegsmarine
training center near Flensburg.
On 28 April, Hitler dictated his last
will and testament, naming Doenitz as
overall Reich President and Minister of
War. His other two possible successors
had fallen out of favor. Hitler had found
out SS chief Heinrich Himmler had been
negotiating with several countries, as
well as the Jewish World Congress, for
an armistice in return for his own safety.
Then Herman Goering had tele-typed
the Fuehrer bunker indicating his inten-
tion to take control of the government if
Hitler failed to respond. Hitler ordered
both arrested and Doenitz to take over.
Doenitz set up his headquarters in
the small town of Plon near the naval
Grand Adm. Karl Doenitz
base at Kiel. The German Navy had
several large training centers in the
area, including a U-Boat school. On 1
May, following Hitler’s suicide the day
before, Doenitz addressed the German
nation over the radio as its president.
Doenitz was above all a pragmatist.
He could see the war was fully lost and
there was a strong possibility of total
annihilation at the hands of the Red
Army. He therefore immediately drew
up plans to offer a separate surrender
to the Western Allies. He sent the new
head of the Kriegsmarine, Adm.
Hans-Georg von Friedeburg, to Field
Marshal Montgomery’s headquarters
at Luneburg, south of Hamburg.
Friedeburg offered the immediate
surrender of the German forces in
Holland, Denmark and northern
Germany, but not those in Norway or
the southern enclave under Kesselring.
The situation in southern Germany
and northern Austria was unclear.
In March and April the British had
collected Ultra intercepts indicating
the Germans there were preparing an
“Alpine Redoubt” for a ferocious last
stand. Radio traffic between Berlin and
army commanders in Bavaria constantly
referred to that last-ditch stronghold. An
American army had meanwhile raced
into the area, but no major stockpiles
of weapons or troop concentrations
World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011 55
had been found. Still, no one knew if
the redoubt was the location of some
final Nazi super weapon or just wishful
thinking by the Nazis. The partial
surrender offer was therefore rejected.
Doenitz then ordered Freideburg and
Field Marshal Alfred Jodl (by then overall
German armed forces commander) to
Eisenhower’s headquarters at Rheims,
France. The two were this time to offer
a complete German surrender, but
to ask it be conducted in two phases.
The first phase would be a cessation
of hostilities followed by a formal
surrender of all German forces. The
catch was the simultaneous request
for freedom of movement by German
Observation Post
above — Grand Adm. Karl Doenitz
below — View of the reserve fleet
56 World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011
soldiers and civilians between that first
phase and the second. The intention
was clear: Doenitz wanted to allow time
for as many civilians and members of
the armed forces as possible to flee the
Red Army in order to formally surrender
to the Americans and the British.
Eisenhower agreed to an uncon-
ditional surrender with a 48-hour
grace period during which German
military units were to turn themselves
in. At 2:41 a.m. on Monday, 7 May, the
Germans surrendered. In the follow-on
grace period an estimated 2 million
Germans escaped Soviet captivity.
For the next two weeks the formal
surrender negotiations continued. On
23 May, Eisenhower ordered the leaders
of the acting German government and
armed forces at Poln to report to a
delegation from his headquarters that
also included representatives from the
Soviet high command. Doenitz, Jodl
and their staffs drove to a cruise ship
docked near Kiel for the meeting.
The Germans were ushered aboard
and taken to a large stateroom where
they were seated at a conference table.
The Allied team entered the room
and all present came to attention. The
Allied spokesman was US Army Maj.
Gen. Lowell Rooks. He announced
to the Germans that Eisenhower had
ordered their government dissolved
and they were prisoners of war.
The Germans were driven back to
their quarters to collect their personal
belongings, after which they were taken
to a local police station and placed
in the custody of the British. They
were soon joined by Nazi Production
Minister Albert Speer, who’d also been
arrested. Of the remaining senior Nazi
leadership, Goering was also already
in custody. SS leader Himmler had
been captured by the British, but he
‘escaped’ by swallowing a suicide pill.
They were all soon flown to a prison
at Bad Mondorf, Luxembourg, to await
trial for their war crimes. Doenitz
received a sentence of 10 years in prison
for having authorized unrestricted
submarine warfare. Upon his release
he published his memoirs and he
maintained his support for National
Socialism until the end of his life in 1980.
— Roger Mason
View of the reserve fleet
Behind the Lines
Suisun Bay Ghost Fleet
In a quiet backwater near San
Francisco Bay, row on row of gray ships
sit at their moorings. Those rusting
and decaying hulks form the Suisun
Bay Ghost Fleet or, more accurately,
the Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet (SBRF).
During the past seven decades the
reserve fleet has included some of the
Navy’s most memorable vessels as
well as some of its most unheralded
workhorses: the cargo ships of the
Liberty- and Victory-classes. (The last
Victory ship moored at Suisun Bay, the
World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011 57
SS Winthrop Victory, departed on her
final voyage in spring 2010. She was
hauled to a dry dock in San Francisco
to be scraped of marine growth and
loose exterior paint in preparation for
a voyage through the Panama Canal on
her way to a breaker yard in Texas.)
Suisun Bay is located between San
Francisco Bay and the Sacramento-San
Joaquin Delta area, and the reserve fleet
is easily visible to passing motorists. Set
up after World War II, the reserve fleet
served as part of a national defense
program to meet shipping require-
ments during national emergencies.
Since 1946 the SBRF has comprised
ex-commercial cargo ships, tankers
Observation Post
Another view of the reserve fleet
and US Navy inactive vessels like the
battleship Iowa (BB-61), which was
permanently decommissioned in 1990
and towed to Suisun Bay in 2001. Other
famous vessels moored there have
included the Glo Mar Explorer, built
for the CIA in 1974 as part of a secret
project to recover Soviet submarine
K-129, lost in and accident in April 1968;
and Sea Wolf, a secret vessel designed
to demonstrate stealth technologies.
Often overlooked, though perhaps
more important from the historical
perspective, are the Liberty-class and
Victory-class cargo ships such as the
SS Rider Victory and the SS Winthrop
Victory, which were still moored at
58 World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011
Suisun Bay as recently as spring 2010.
Those classes of ships played a major
role in winning the war against the
Axis powers. They transported an
estimated 85 percent of the troops,
ammunition and supplies in support
of the Allied war effort in both the
European and Pacific theaters.
At the onset of World War II, the
US faced a critical shortage of cargo
ships. The result was the initiation of
an emergency construction program
using assembly line methods. In all 2,571
Liberty-class ships were constructed
between 1941 and 1945, making it
the largest class of ships ever built.
A Liberty ship’s maximum speed
of 11 knots made it an easy victim for
U-boats prowling the waters of the
North Atlantic; so early in 1942 the
War Shipping Administration (WSA)
began design of a faster vessel (17
knots) known as Victory ships. By 1944
that new class had started to come off
the production line. The Victory ship
profile featured a raked bow, a raised
forecastle, and a cruiser-style stern.
Armament was similar to that of the
Liberty ships and included one 5-inch
stern gun, one 3-inch bow antiaircraft
gun and eight 20mm machineguns.
The first Victory ship, the SS
United Victory, was launched on 28
February 1944. Initial deliveries of
the planned 615 Victory ships were
slow — only 15 had been delivered
by May 1944, and by the end of the
war some 531 of three types had been Get your free subscription
completed. A total of 534 Victory
ships were built; 81 were cancelled.
to
At war’s end, Victory ships were
classified as “surplus” and offered for
sale. Some were sold to US firms while
★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Briefing Room
others were sold abroad, loaned to
the Army, or mothballed as part of the
National Defense Reserve Fleet. In 1950
the NDRF numbered over 2,000 vessels
located at eight sites around the county. ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
In 1976 the Department of Defense
(DOD) created the Ready Reserve Force
(RRF) program to support the worldwide
deployment of US military forces. As a
When you activate your free subscription to
key element of DOD strategic sealift,
the RRF primarily supports transport
Briefing Room, our weekly e-newsletter, you’ll get:
of Army and Marine Corps equipment
and initial resupply during the critical • Upcoming Magazine Issue Previews
surge period before regular commercial • Special offers & new releases
ships can be activated. By 1991 the • Special content not available in our magazines
RFF had dwindled to 116 ships in and much more!
three sites, including 71 Victory-class
ships built during World War II and
another 45 of varying vintage.
Another component of the reserve
fleet comprised non-RRF ships that
received far less maintenance and,
Go to strategyandtacticspress.com
because of their much-deteriorated
appearance, were disparagingly
referred to as “rust buckets.” In 2007 a
lawsuit brought about by a coalition of
environmental groups, and later joined
by the State of California, resulted in a
ruling that the remaining 52 non-RFF

ne w computer games
ships in the Suisun Bay Ghost Fleet
violated the federal Clean Water Act by
illegally polluting San Francisco Bay.
Over 20 tons of heavy metals, including availa b le !
PCB, zinc, lead, copper and cadmium,
as well as asbestos and petroleum
products, have been released into Retail price:
the bay, a critical habitat for several Napoleon’s Last Battles $ 29.95
endangered species. Under court order Operation Olympic $ 24.95
the DOD is now tasked with the removal * Download Only
of the entire Ghost Fleet by 2017.

— J.P. Cecil ✪
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World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011 59

Media Reviews
The Retreat: Hitler’s First Defeat,
by Michael K. Jones (Thomas Dunne
Books, 2009). Reviewed by Jon Cecil.
From the moment Operation
Barbarossa was launched on 22 June
1941, it appeared the Wehrmacht
was unstoppable. In one of the most
dramatic offensives in military history,
the Germans advanced to reach the
area of Moscow by late October. No less
astonishing, however, was the reversal
of fortune that followed. In The Retreat:
Hitler’s First Defeat, British historian
Michael Jones recounts the turning
point of World War II, when Army Group
Center was halted and then thrown back.

At the moment of crisis, with the
panzers and infantry of Army Group
Center massed just outside Moscow,
something astonishing occurred. On
6 December the Red Army launched
a counteroffensive that took the
Germans by surprise, saved the city
and set in motion the forces that would
ultimately bring down the Third Reich.
60 World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011
Germany had prepared for a withdrawal of First Shock Army at
summer but not a winter campaign. the height of the counteroffensive.
Temperatures plummeted below Overall, this highly readable account
minus 30 degrees Celsius, and as a is one of few focused primarily on
result the Wehrmacht found it itself the Soviet counteroffensive, and it
literally frozen in its tracks. Moreover, will appeal to a wide audience.
they had completely underestimated
the resolve of the Russians to protect
Moscow. It was the Germans’ first
strategic defeat in World War II.
Jones dissects the fighting with
precision and telling detail; his
primary purpose is to capture the
human story, which he does in a lucid
and well written manner. It was: “a
military retreat, but also a retreat from
human values, as an already brutal
war degenerated into a mass killing of
the innocent and the unprotected.”
He takes the reader from the opening
salvos of Operation Barbarossa to the
spring of 1942, with a narrative tying
together stories of soldiers and civilians
alike: the over-optimistic German
troops, who panicked as they began
their retreat; the desperate resolve of the
Red Army, with their backs to the wall;
the millions of Russian civilians caught Brazilian Expeditionary Force
in the savagery of a war of extermination in World War II, by Cesar Campiani
along with some of the several million Maximiano and Ricardo Bonalume
Red Army POWs who also perished Neto (Osprey Publishing, 2011).
under barbaric conditions in German Reviewed by Paul V. Walsh.
custody that winter. The book
eloquently captures the titanic struggle Even among military historians,
between two brutal totalitarian regimes. Brazil’s contribution to the Allied cause
The drawback is the lack of conclu- in World War II remains largely unfamil-
sions. The author relies on the inter- iar. This brief yet detailed account of the
pretations of others and doesn’t readily service of the FEB (Força Expedicionária
offer any of his own. For example, one of Brasileira) in the Italian theater helps
the greatest controversies of World War to correct that. Both Maximiano, a
II was the decision taken by Hitler in university professor, and Bonalume,
August to change the strategic direction a veteran combat journalist, are well
of Army Group Center, which resulted qualified to tell this tale, having written
in a delayed assault on Moscow. The numerous articles and books on the
implications of that decision are left FEB. It’s to their credit they neither
unexplored. He also passes over one exaggerate the FEB’s role, nor gloss
of the biggest Soviet mistakes: Stalin’s over its shortcomings and setbacks.
 The difficulties experienced by
this division-sized unit in adjusting
to combat were, after all, no better or
worse than those of its US counterparts.
The first actions involved the 6th Infantry
Regiment in the Serchio Valley from
September through October 1944. After
November the entire FEB operated
in the Reno River area and eventually
on the plains of northern Italy.
The narrative is enlivened by
firsthand accounts from veterans.
Also recounted are the services of the
1st Brazilian Liaison & Observation
Squadron, which provided aerial
reconnaissance for the FEB, and the
1st Brazilian Fighter Squadron of the
350th Fighter Group, which oper-
ated independently of the FEB.
The FEB’s coming of age occurred
with the capture of a formidable
German position at Monte Costello
during Operation Encore. There
the Brazilians, attacking along with
the US 10th Mountain Division, laid
the groundwork for the forthcom-
ing Allied spring offensive.
One of the drawbacks to the book
is the absence of maps. For those,
readers will either have to consult the
“Green Books” series – the official US
Army history – or one of the better
studies of 10th Mountain Division.
At the same time, the use of limited
illustrative space exclusively for pho-
tographs is understandable, and the
book concludes with detailed visual
coverage of uniforms and insignia.
Some important questions are
addressed only briefly. How, for instance,
did US personnel, from what was then a
strictly segregated armed force, react to
the varied racial and ethnic makeup of
the FEB, which included, among others,
African- and Japanese-Brazilians? How
did men serving in the FEB reconcile
fighting on the side of democracy
against European dictators while their
own country lived under the dictator-
ship of Getúlio Vargas? Unfortunately,
compiled with English-speaking
readers in mind, the bibliography fails
to include other works that do address
those issues, including the authors’
other books in Portuguese and a recent
photographic history (Gli Eroi Venuti
dal Brasile, Edizioni Il Fiorino, 2005).
Such drawbacks aside, this
book serves as a fine introduction
to a neglected aspect of World
War II and, with the increasing
importance of Brazil on the world
stage, it’s a timely subject. ★

Crowns in the Gutter

A Strategic Analysis of World War I
by Ted S. Raicer
Illustrated by Christopher Perello
Crow ns in
World War I was the crucial event of the 20th century, as the great European powers —
the Gutter
A Strategic An
which until then dominated the world economically, militarily and politically — destroyed alysis of Wor
ld War I
themselves. That led to a second war a generation later, enabled the ascendance of the United Ted S. Raicer

States and Soviet Union, and unleashed the forces of nationalism and self-determination around
the globe. On the battlefield the war ushered in the age of the internal-combustion engine and
wireless communication, making factories and science as important as manpower and generalship.

In the midst of all that, politicians and generals still had a war to win, and soldiers a war to
fight. Crowns in the Gutter provides a concise analysis of the strategies and tactics employed
to to try to achieve those goals. The chapters cover the entire war chronologically. They
weave together the campaigns and battles with political events, improvements in weapons
and changes in combat methodology, into one seamless story. The narrative also has
dozens of maps and diagrams to further illustrate all the action of the first total war.

Retail price: $35 (plus shipping)

PO Box 21598 | Bakersfield, CA 93390 | (661) 587-9633 | www.strategyandtacticspress.com

World at War 21 | dec–jan 2011 61

 A v a i l a b l e Now
Folio Game Series
The Folio Game Series provides dozens of games using the same 8-page Standard rules
(Musket & Saber for 19th century battles, Fire & Movement for 20th century battles) with a short
Exclusive rules sheet for each individual game to capture the unique aspects of each battle. Each game can
be played in about 90 minutes allowing for multiple games to be played in an afternoon or evening.

Chalons: The Fate of Europe | Marengo: Morning Defeat, Afternoon Victory

Leipzig: Napoleon Encircled | Chickamauga: River of Death | Stones River: Turning Point in Tennessee
Frayser’s Farm: Wasted Opportunity | Shiloh: Grant Surprised | Arnhem: The Farthest Bridge Great
Cauldron: Battle for Gazala | Kasserine: Baptism of Fire | Saipan: Conquest of the Marianas Gift
Bastogne: A Desperate Defense | Aachen: First to Fall (below) | Crusader: Battle for Tobruk Idea!
Naktong Bulge: Breaking the Perimeter | Golan: The Last Syrian Offensive | DMZ: The Next Korean War
Showdown: The Coming Indo-Pakistani War

AACHEN
WORLD W
First to Fa ll AR II BATT
LES
Before October
1944, no large FOLIO GA
had been direc
tly assaulted
German city
ME SERI
army. German
fight stubbornly
soldiers were
by any Allied
continuing to
ES
throughout Europ
after Germany’s e, even
defeat became
so US comm a certainty;
ande
worr y resistance rs had every reason to
on German soil
tenacious. In would be
the city of Aach

Aachen
street fighting en itself, the
was expected
just as it had to be severe,
been in other
cities. The situa hard-fought
tion along the
was even wors border itself
e; the infamous
loomed in front West Wall
of Aachen, enclo
the city with sing
miles of conc
casemates and rete bunkers,
“dragon’s teeth
of foreboding
the attack, as
generals, was
among the GIs
.” The sense
assig
well as their comm ned to First to Fall
evident and warra anding
nted.
Aachen utilize
s the new Fire
combat syste & Movement
m that’s desig
can augment ned so players
their units with
fire” during the “support
course of the
mortars to self-p turns. From
ropelled artille
receive support ry, units can
assets to enga
positions and ge
formations, allow enemy
to develop at ing combat
all levels. A singl
battalion, for e
example — perha recon
by tanks — could ps supported
enemy paratroopebe tasked to assault a lone
landing zone. r battalion defen
As that attack ding a
however, the gets underway
recon battalion ,
itself strafed may find
by enemy fighter
More support -bombers.
will be necessary
the landing zone to take
, but assets are
limited.
In Aachen, the
attritional desig
new Combat n of the
Results Table
true nature of simulates the
battle
are typically two- s in Europe. Units
sided formation
can incur casu s that
alties without
eliminated, accu being
rately replicating fully
realities of comb the
at and the high
sustained by
both sides durin losses
fighting aroun g the actual
d the cauldron.
the battle is thus Winning
a matter of mane
firepower and
asset manageme uver,
nt.

Game Conten
ts: Aachen
• 17 x 22” (43 x 56
cm) terrain map
• 120 die-cut coun
ters PLAYERS
• One Standard
Rules booklet 2
• One Exclusive for this series
Rules booklet
for this title
LEVEL II III X XX XXX
BATTALION
HEX SCALE
2 mi (3.2 km)
PLAYING TIME
Each counter repres
ents 1-2 hrs
formation from among an individual historical
forces that fought the German and
US COMPLEXITY
across Holland, •••••
armor regiments, including LOW
1613 infantry battalions,
paratroopers, recon
elements, and more. Minutes to lea
SOLITAIRE ••••• rn. Quick to pla
HIGH
y. Historicall
A FOLIO SERIES
A product of
GAME
Decision Games
y Accurate.
Copyright © ,
2010. All Rights Inc.
Reserved.

1/3rd Actual Size Copyright ©

2010, Decisio
n Games, Inc.
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All Rights Reserve
d. Made & Printed
games.com in U.S.A.

Each game under $25 (most under $20)

P.O. Box 21598 | Bakersfield, CA 93390-1598 | (661) 587-9633 phone | (661) 587-5031 fax | www.decisiongames.com
 Totaler krieg!
Axis Empires
This game stretches from the fjords of Narvik
to the sands of El Alamein, from the gates of
Moscow to the beaches of Normandy, and
to the last days in the bunker in Berlin and
everything in between. No game tells the story
of World War II in Europe like Totaler Krieg!.

This third edition of our popular Krieg! game is

still the playable, unpredictable and enjoyable
experience it’s always been. What’s new
is it’s redesigned and expanded to give you
more options — especially if you want to
explore the critical pre-war period from 1937
to 1939. What if the Republicans had won
the Spanish Civil War? What if Germany and
Russia hadn’t signed their Non-Aggression
Pact? What if France had modernized its
army instead of building the Maginot Line?

Best of all, TK can be played linked with its

new Pacific War brother game, Dai Senso!, for
an eye opening look at all of World War II.

CONTENTS:

• Two 22 x 34 inch maps

• 840 counters

• 200 cards

• A 64-page rulebook

• A 24-page scenario book

• Play aids and force pool displays

Retail price: $120 (+ shipping)

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Value of Current Card
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P.O. Box 21598 | Bakersfield, CA 93390-1598 | (661) 587-9633 phone | info@ decisiongames.com | decisiongames.com