An After Action Battle

The thirty-six chapters reflect changes in the military art. Each chapter deals with one case drawn from recent military history that illustrates and illuminates a problem with which a modern professional soldier may have to contend. Each case is set in its strategic and operational context, explained in detail, and briefly analyzed.

One hundred thirty six American soldiers, isolated from supporting units, hunted the dark jungles of Phuoc Tuy Province for the Viet Cong main force battalion D-800. The enemy found Charlie Company first. Surrounded; then gutted, these Americans had been used as bait to draw out the enemy. Charlie Company’s heroic but doomed stand did not go according to American plans. General William Westmoreland called the disaster a “serious blow.” The Army Chief of Staff, Harold K. Johnson, personally flew to Vietnam to confront Westmoreland and warn him that the American people would stop supporting the war if such costly battles continued. There were heroes and there were cowards and some were both heroes and cowards. They were all soldiers of the United States who were sent to fight in Southeast Asia by men in the halls of power who demonstrated no particular bravery in ordering these soldiers to fight and die. Particular Bravery focuses on a company of warriors who labeled themselves “grunts” and honored military service as a patriotic obligation and believed fighting in Vietnam was their duty. The soldiers’ memories are the core of Particular Bravery. Here are the grunts’ recollections of their march to a night when 80% of them fell in battle. They recall the friendly fire that shattered the unit; they relive the hail of gunfire that decimated their ranks; they recount the murder of their wounded friends and their own belief that as the noose tightened, they were next; they remember the battle’s aftermath as they marched past rows of blood-stained ponchos that covered their dead comrades. It is also the story of unbelievable heroism, as a gun-ho former Marine turned Army Sergeant repeatedly risked his own life for his comrades while an Air Force Pararescue hotshot volunteered to drop into hell so that others might live.

In Patton at the Battle of the Bulge, Army veteran and historian Leo Barron explores one of the most famous yet little-told clashes of WWII, a vitally important chapter in one of history’s most legendary battles. Includes photographs! “Barron captures the fiery general’s command presence and the pivotal commitment of his Third Army tanks to relieve the embattled crossroads town of Bastogne.”—Michael E. Haskew, Author of West Point 1915: Eisenhower, Bradley, and the Class the Stars Fell On December 1944. For the besieged American defenders of Bastogne, time was running out. Hitler’s forces had pressed in on the small Belgian town in a desperate offensive designed to push back the Allies. The U.S. soldiers had managed to repel repeated attacks, but as their ammunition dwindled, the weary paratroopers of the 101st Airborne could only hope for a miracle. More than a hundred miles away, General George S. Patton was putting in motion the most crucial charge of his career. Tapped to spearhead the counterstrike was the 4th Armored Division, a hard-fighting unit that had slogged its way across France. But blazing a trail into Belgium meant going up against some of the best infantry and tank units in the German Army. And failure to reach Bastogne in time could result in the overrunning of the 101st and turn the tide of the war against the Allies.

This study is a historical analysis of Confederate Major General John S. Bowen’s delaying action during the Battle of Port Gibson. This research looks at how a numerically inferior force can successfully delay a numerically superior force. This American Civil War battle during the Vicksburg Campaign pitted Bowen’s diminutive forces against the numerically superior Union forces under Major General Ulysses S. Grant. The resulting delaying action on 1 May 1863 is referred to as the Battle of Port Gibson. This successful Confederate delaying action has been overlooked in many historical contexts. Most historians emphasize Grant’s audacity in conducting an amphibious operation south of Vicksburg, Mississippi. The Confederate perspective is often referred to as a gamble. Yet, against the odds, Bowen masterfully deployed his numerically inferior force to delay a Union force four times larger. Bowen’s forces effectively utilized the terrain to buy precious time for the arrival of additional reinforcements from the Vicksburg garrison. Bowen welded his composite division into a formidable fighting force. Confederate battle tactics were characterized by a strong sense of urgency and superb leadership. Bowen yielded to superior Union forces after a protracted day of bitter fighting.

[Illustrated with 1 table, 7 maps, 1 figure and 13 Illustrations] The Battle of An Loc was one of the most important battles of the Vietnam War. It took place during the 1972 North Vietnamese Spring Offensive, after most U.S. combat troops had departed South Vietnam. The battle, which lasted over two months, resulted in the virtual destruction of three North Vietnamese divisions and blocked a Communist attack on Saigon. The sustained intensity of combat during this battle had not been previously seen in the Vietnam War. Although this battle occurred after the high point of American involvement in Vietnam, when U.S. forces were in the process of withdrawing from that country, Americans played a key role in the action. South Vietnamese ground forces and their U.S. Army advisers, working in close cooperation with U.S. Army and Air Force air support, proved a combination capable of resisting defeat and seizing victory. Because the Battle of An Loc did not involve large numbers of American troops, little has been written about the battle or American participation in it. Jim Willbanks’ study focuses on the conduct of the battle and the role American combat advisers and U.S. air power played in defeating the North Vietnamese forces during the spring of 1972.

This thesis compares and contrasts the field artillery corps of the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of Tennessee. The purpose is to determine which field artillery corps was more effective on the battlefield and why. To answer this question several areas will be examined. The foundation of each army and its field artillery corps is one of these areas. The foundation includes militia forces, strength, recruiting, and governmental roles in the foundation of each army. The senior leadership of each army and its relationship with the Confederate government will be reviewed. Ordnance, equipment, logistics, and training of each army’s field artillery corps are other areas that will be addressed. Finally, artillery leadership, organization, and tactics of each field artillery corps will be examined.

During Britain’s desperate struggle for survival that in the summer of 1940, the Dornier Do 17 played a prominent part in raids designed at neutralizing the RAF’s ability to resist and the British people’s will to fight back. Having been built to outrun contemporary fighters when introduced into the Luftwaffe in 1937, it had become the Luftwaffe’s main light bomber, and for the attack against Britain, three bomber wings, KG 2, KG3 and KG77, were equipped with the Do 17. But by 1940, the Do 17 was nearing obsolescence and, with its weak defensive armament, it fell prey to Fighter Command’s Hurricanes and Spitfires. Its vulnerability was starkly revealed on 18 August 1940, when eight Dorniers were shot down and nine damaged in attacks on RAF Kenley, and on 15 September – Battle of Britain Day – when twenty were shot down and a further thirteen damaged. On that day, Sergeant Ray Holmes rammed his Hurricane into a Do 17 that was reportedly aiming for Buckingham Palace. Part of the bomber’s wreckage fell to earth near Victoria Station. In this comprehensive pictorial record of the Do 17, the bomber’s role throughout the period of the Battle of Britain is displayed in the author’s unique collection of British and German photographs. These photographs, coupled with first-hand stories from those who flew and those who fought against the Do 17, bring those desperate days and dark nights back to life in the manner which only contemporary images and accounts can achieve.