Suppress and Destroy

In March of 1965, an aerial interdiction campaign against ground targets in North Vietnam - Operation Rolling Thunder - got underway. In response, the North Vietnamese began strengthening their air defenses, but not without help. 

In May 1965, reconnaissance flights over North Vietnam revealed the first surface-to-air (SAM) sites, with Soviet-built S-75 Dvina missiles, more commonly known by the NATO codename SA-2 Guideline and their accompanying Fan Song detection and targeting radar.

U.S. military strategists quickly took notice when, on July 24, 1965, the new technology shot down a USAF F-4C Phantom II. It was the beginning of a chilling twist in air warfare; even the very next day, an SA-2 brought down an American reconnaissance drone flying at 59,000 feet. The game had irrevocably changed.

What should have been no surprise served as a wake-up call for the U.S., albeit in a reactionary construct. Retaliatory strikes were directed at offending SAM sites but were met with failure as the North Vietnamese often substituted fake missiles and used dummy sites as a ploy. The losses continued to mount as more aircraft were lost either directly or indirectly due to the SA-2s; as the threat of the radar-guided missiles forced strikers down to low altitudes - out of the deadly missile's performance envelope but within the effective range of the dense anti-aircraft artillery (AAA, or Triple-A). The missile sites proved exceptionally successful at airspace denial, and drastic measures were needed to counter the deadly threat they presented.

In October 1965, a group of ten specially-selected United States Air Force aviators were gathered at a remote part of Eglin Air Force Base in the Florida panhandle. This highly-classified operation, called Project Weasel, was designed to develop new equipment and tactics to counter the SAM threat over Vietnam.

"It was really hush-hush," describes retired USAF Lt. Col. Allen Lamb, "and they were really depending on us."

Installed in their North American F-100F Super Sabre aircraft were radar homing and warning receivers such as the APR-35, taken from the CIA's Lockheed U-2 spy plane and designed to locate the signal emitted by the SAM radar operators. The aircraft also featured SAM launch detectors, which would notify the crew if a missile had been launched.

Under the direction of Maj. Gary Willard, the men hurriedly trained for the new mission - currently known as Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses, or SEAD (pronounced "seed"). Within a month, the group and their aircraft deployed in complete secrecy to Korat Royal Thai Air Base, arriving in theater Thanksgiving Day of 1965. The deadly cat-and-mouse game between the "Wild Weasels" and the North Vietnamese air defenses had started, beginning with flights near the border region of Vietnam and Laos to gather electronic intelligence and build situational awareness (SA) of the NVA air defenses.

"We were trolling for SAMs," according to Lamb, a captain at the time he volunteered for the program. Within a matter of weeks, he and his Electronic Warfare Officer (EWO), Capt. Jack Donovan, validated the Weasel project by scoring the first kill on a SAM site in history during a mission on December 22.

The Weasels flew perilous sorties in which they would fly well in front of a strike package, their task to occupy the attention of the North Vietnamese air defense emplacements. While this increased their exposure to hostile fire, it also allowed the Weasels to practice the art of evasion while incentivizing the SAM operators to keep their heads down - providing kinetic effects with bombs and rockets. These missions allowed the strikers to press their attack and then egress from the target area while the SAMs were occupied. All the while, Weasels remained on station - thus earning their fitting "First in, Last Out" motto.

A later effort was made to shift the objective from suppression to the outright Destruction of Enemy Air Defenses (DEAD - pronounced "deed"). Called Iron Hand, these "hunter-killer" missions set out with Weasel F-100s leading an additional strike package of Republic F-105 Thunderchief, or "Thuds," to a given target area. The Weasels would again purposely entice the SAM operators to shoot at them, and once the emitting signal was initially found and fixed by the F-100s, it was subsequently finished by the F-105s.

The Thud was the emerging ground attack workhorse of the USAF, and this massive fighter was faster and carried more weaponry than the F-100. The main drawback of the F-100 was the way it took on fuel in flight, which proved to be a pretty serious limiting factor based on the availability of tankers equipped with the right mechanism. With these issues considered, a decision was made to designate the F-105 as the new Weasel platform in 1966. Modifications were made to the two-seat F-model, reflecting the new mission requirements. The first of these aircraft arrived at Korat in May of 1966; the Weasel F-100s flew their last SEAD sorties by July of that year.

 

Rome: The Forgotten Front

The New York Times Army correspondent in North Africa and Italy during the Second World War was a man named Herbert Mitgang. On June 5th, 1944, he reported back to his section editor that American Infantrymen had captured Rome, officially making it the first conquered Axis capital of World War II.

As far as victories go, it was significant, and it was vastly overshadowed by the events of the next day, when on June 6th, 1944, the D-day landings brought the first battles of the invasion of France.

The banner of the American Army newspaper Stars and Stripes pronounced "WE'RE IN ROME" on the day the city fell. Correspondents raced to Il Messaggero, a newspaper plant on the Via del Tritone, to get the paper out. The next day, however, it ran a one-word headline that referenced Normandy, rather than Italy: "INVASION."

The "dogface" troops who faced heavy enemy resistance on the beachheads of Sicily at Salerno and Anzio for nearly a year and were now riding high on the rush of victory. They were expecting the accolades of a war well fought to rain down for months to come but were left sorely disappointed when they found that their day of glory lasted literally a day.

The greater and more portentous victories on the beaches of Normandy relegated their conquest to that of a smaller stature. Rome became an afterthought when it became clear that Berlin was the objective.

The Allied strategy of the war put a much greater premium on the Nazis rather than Mussolini's fascists, and both factions, the Anglo-Americans and the Russians were on point in their pursuit. The ugly winter and spring war in the Mediterranean theater was not glamorous. Despite the obvious grueling sacrifice suffered by the American Fifth Army and the British Eighth Army, it still ultimately acquired the callous and undeserved moniker "the forgotten front."

According to Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Italy and the Balkans were the soft underbelly of the axis. Yet, the common soldier, enduring heavy shelling in his foxhole with his head down, all along the forgotten hills after the Salerno landing, would argue about how "soft" it was. However, he would fight on, marching into the center of the resurgent fascist empire to replace the fear and tyranny of the occupying German troops with a sense of relief, freedom, and a second chance for democracy.

Sergeant John A. Vita, a 27-year old Italian-American soldier from Port Chester, N.Y., stood on Mussolini's balcony in the Palazzo Venezia and mocked Mussolini's salute, shouting to his adoring crowds lingering below - "Vincere! Vincere! Vincere!" After which, he was thoughtful enough to provide a translation: "Conquer! Conquer! Conquer! - For the Allies!" It was the fulfillment of a promise made to his mother, originally from Reggio, Calabria that he would make a speech from Mussolini's balcony in Rome. He would later show up among the overjoyed Romans, kissing Madeline Carscallen, who had married an Italian in 1935 and survived the Occupation.

Now the Jews could come out of hiding. And so, they did, exiting from monasteries and forests, convents and hospitals. They began the long, arduous tasks of finding their children and reconnecting with their families. Soon the walls of the great synagogue in the Piazza Della Scuola bore paper scrolls bearing the names of the Jewish missing with the hope that the train of communication from word of mouth would ultimately serve to reunite them with their loved ones.

On June 5, 1944, the city of Rome was liberated. The people of Rome flooded the streets to welcome Allied troops with cheers, flowers, wine, and kisses. Shops closed, and jubilant crowds celebrated. The liberation of Rome was not only important strategically but culturally as well. In addition to the extensive network of airfields, rail lines, and roads, Rome was a treasure trove of culture, antiquities, and artifacts.

Liberation day was especially meaningful for 26-year-old Hubbert Guthrie, an American soldier living in Memphis when he was drafted. Plans to liberate Rome started with a surprise amphibious attack on the city of Anzio, just 37-miles away. Guthrie boarded a boat bound for Anzio the morning of January 22, 1944. His flotilla was led by a minesweeping boat circling ahead. It hit a mine and exploded, resulting in casualties. As Guthrie's boat approached the floating wreckage, he spotted a tattered 48-star American flag floating in the water. He scooped it up, wrung it out and saved it. Though oil-stained and torn, he brought it home as a souvenir. "A lot of men died under that flag, every man on that little ship," he said. "Old Glory had a hard life; she did."

Guthrie was one of 36,000 troops that descended on Anzio that first day. The goal was to outflank German troops, draw them away from the Gustav line, (a German defense line running across central Italy) and open the way to Rome. They hoped for a quick defeat, but the battle of Anzio turned in to a 4-month stalemate. The Allies didn't have enough manpower to push forward, and the Germans weren't able to push the invaders back. After months of steady pressure, the Germans retreated. The battle of Anzio resulted in the loss of 7,000 Allied troops.

Guthrie was wounded at Anzio and spent ten days in the hospital. "It seems like everything I went into was a slaughter. I don't know how I missed being killed, but I did," Guthrie said. When the first American tanks finally rolled into Rome on June 5th, they found it largely undamaged. The liberation was a huge military and cultural victory.

Hubbert Guthrie never returned to Europe after WWII. He was interviewed when he was 80-years-old by a Nashville newspaper, The Tennessean, "I never wanted to go back. I left everything over there that I wanted to - part of my soul," Guthrie said. 

Along with many other WWII veterans, Hubbert Guthrie has since passed away. He died on March 24, 2006.

The above is just a glimpse, a sketch of the countless faces and stories and names of the human consequences of those who fought and suffered and died in what historians have called The Forgotten Front.

 

Battlefield Chronicles: Union Attack on Fort Donelson

After the successful siege of Fort Henry by Federal troops on February 6th, 1862, the Confederate forces hurried back to the neighboring Fort Donelson, which was located a few miles away.

The Federals sought control over the waterways of Cumberland and Tennessee, knowing full well the advantage that it would afford them in the Western Theater of the Civil War.

The chief agitator of the move to conquer the forts was Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, who had sent several telegrams to his superior officer, Maj. Gen. Henry Wager Halleck.

In his messages, he urged Halleck to deliver his consent to besiege the forts along the Cumberland and Tennessee waterways, all without favorable response.

Despite being a very successful commander in the Civil War, Halleck had little faith in Grant, fearing him to be very irrational in his thinking. Once Grant's requests were backed up by Flag Officer, A.H. Foote, the petitions made by Grant were accepted. 

Nonetheless, Grant wasted no time in producing results by capturing Fort Henry five days after he was given the order to proceed with the assault and sustaining only as little as 40 casualties. The next line of action was, therefore, to obtain control of the other Confederate fort that overlooked the waterways.

Taking a few days off to prepare a strategic assault for which he reported his intent to take Fort Donelson on February 8th, whereas Halleck's initial orders were to 'take Fort Henry and return.' More formidable than Fort Henry, Grant expected to fight a greater battle at Fort Donelson if he was going to gain control and drive out the Confederate soldiers occupying it.

This was the last major obstacle preventing the control of the rivers that led into Tennessee and Missouri, and Grant was poised to besiege and overcome it.

Fort Donelson stood near the Tennessee-Kentucky border as a bastion-type fortification with two batteries and at 100 ft. above sea level, the fort allowed its defenders the ability to engage in plunging fire, thus covering a longer distance of fire as well giving trajectory angles against attacking gunboats.

In this regard, Fort Donelson established superiority over Fort Henry as well as having a better location. It was named after Brig. Gen. Daniel Smith Donelson of the Confederate Army who gave approval for its construction as well as Fort Henry.

The fort boasted a 10-inch columbiad, still in frequent use at the time for heavy direct and projectile shooting at low and high trajectories. Also, in the artillery were two 32-pound Carronades, nine 32-pounders, and a rifled gun.

When Gen. Albert Sydney Johnston learned of the fall of Fort Henry into Federal hands, he immediately sent reinforcements of 12,000 men to solidify the defenses at Fort Donelson.

However, fearing that the fall of the second fort was only a matter of time, Johnston moved his army to the Tennessee capital of Nashville.

Prior to the arrival of the reinforcements, the combined forces of the survivors of Fort Henry and the army present at Fort Donelson numbered a total of 6,000 men under the command of Brig. Gen. Bushrod R. Johnson.

The arriving reinforcements were under the command of Brig. Gen. John B. Floyd, a man who was more of a politician than a soldier. Many historians have criticized Johnson's choice of Floyd as commanding officer at the fort from among his array of senior Officers.

Floyd lived up to his reputation by subsequently relegating his military duties to Brigadier Generals Simon B. Buckner and Gideon J. Pillow. In Grant's account of the battle, he described Floyd as unfit for the command which he was entrusted.

Hostilities commenced on February 12th, 1862, with the Confederate forces still setting up entrenchments around the fort, Brig. Gen. John A. McClernard of the Union Army began the battle in a skirmish with Lt. Col. Nathan Bedford Forrest's Cavalry.

Arriving later that day, Grant established his headquarters at the Widow Crisp's house. The Federals slogged at the earthworks of the Confederates for days, engaging in artillery duels and frequent skirmishes.

On one such occasion, on the Friday of February 14th, Flag-Officer Foote, leading a naval assault of the Flag-ship St. Louis with three ironclads undertook heavy attack which left the flag-ship wrecked along with one of the ironclads and two boats, leading to the deaths of 55 Federals, some of whom were Officers. Foote was injured, ironically on his foot.

After trying for several days unsuccessfully to deal a significant blow that would indicate a victory for the Confederates at Fort Donelson, it was only a matter of time before they ran out of supplies and ammunition.

Meanwhile, the Federals spent a few nights out in the winter cold without food; neither army dared to light fires for fear of sharpshooters.

After a council of war meeting organized on the morning of February 15th, Pillow lead a failed attempt to retreat from the fort, they successfully assaulted the Federal lines for hours until about 1:00 PM and had the upper hand to escape.

Pillow then ordered the Confederates to return to the fort to regroup and gather supplies before leaving. This decision would, however, prove costly as it undermined the gained grounds of the morning's efforts.

When the Confederate Army was stacked up and ready to move out a determined Brig. Gen. Charles F. Smith and Brig. Gen. Lew Wallace's brigades drove them back into their entrenchments, dashing all hopes of a successful evacuation of the troops.

That night, Floyd, Pillow, and Buckner and some other senior Officers met to determine their next course of action against the Federals.

Buckner believed the only action left to take was to surrender to the Union, something Floyd swore that he would never do, as was Pillow. 

Floyd thereafter relieved himself of command, passing his duties on to Pillow, who did the same. Buckner, being next in the line of command assumed the responsibility of the fort, stating that he would rather share the fate of the garrison than abandon them in flight.

And so, the stage was set, that night Floyd sent a telegram to Gen. Johnston stating his lack of faith in his army's ability to withstand the Federal forces. He escaped at the break of dawn of February 16th.

The total dead in the battle numbered close to 1,000, over 12,000 Confederates were captured. Casualties of the Union Army were over 2,000 men. Several water vessels and batteries were destroyed.

Pillow and his units fled via steamboats, and Forrest escaped by land. A few hours later, Buckner sent a letter to Grant proposing terms of a truce.

However, Grant replied, stating that truce would only be agreed upon with terms of an unconditional surrender, which Buckner reluctantly agreed to.

White flags were raised, and Grant had succeeded in gaining a strategic victory for the Union, one which merited him the nickname "Unconditional Surrender" and saw his appointment as Maj. Gen. by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln under recommendation from Halleck.

The site of the battle has been preserved by the National Park Service as Fort Donelson National Battlefield. The Civil War Trust (a division of the American Battlefield Trust) and its partners have acquired and preserved 368 acres of the battlefield, most of which has been conveyed to the park service and incorporated into the park.


 

The Worst Mistakes of The Axis Powers During WWII

Looking back at WWII, there have been four decisions made that, in the end, did not work out to the Axis advantage. Of course, you can argue that starting the war in the first place was the biggest mistake made. But, for the sake of the argument let us look at four mistakes that were made after the war was started.

Nazi Alliance with Fascist Italy
Having allied themselves with Italy, although ideologically similar, was something that the Nazis should not have done. Time and again, the Nazis were forced to come to the aid of Italy after the fascists launched an ill-conceived invasion or bit off more than they could chew.

Getting the German forces involved in North Africa, a costly commitment, was bad enough, but the forced German invasion of Greece could not have come at a worse time.

In March of 1941, Mussolini, the Fascist dictator of Italy, was still angry with Hitler after he failed to inform the Italians beforehand of his plans to invade France and the Low Countries. This made Mussolini decide he was going to surprise Hitler and invade Greece without telling him. The Italian advance quickly bogged down, and after a few weeks, the Greeks had fought them back to their starting point. The British came to the aid of the Greeks and landed forces in what Churchill called the soft underbelly of Europe.

This loss of face for the Axis powers could not be accepted by Hitler, who ordered his generals to come up with a plan to secure his, now vulnerable, southern flank. This meant that the Invasion of the Soviet Union, which was supposed to start in early spring, had to be postponed to June 22nd. As it turned out, this delay proved fatal.

Nazi invasion of Russia
Even though it was inconceivable that Nazis would not invade the Soviet Union, so was the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, which they signed on August 13, 1939. This non-aggression pact allowed Nazi Germany to invade Poland without having to worry about a possible war with the USSR.

It even went so far that Poland was divided between the two, and the part that the Soviets took in September 1939 has never been returned to Poland. It also gave the Soviets free reign in expanding their influence in the Eastern European countries, and they lost no time in subjecting them to their rule.

The fact that the two sworn ideological enemies were willing to sign a non-aggression pact shook the world and allowed Nazi Germany the time to focus its attention on western Europe without having to fear a war on two fronts. Germany made the most of this freedom and, in quick succession, defeated Denmark, Norway, The Netherlands, Belgium, and France.

Only their planned invasion of the United Kingdom was thwarted by the 'Few of the Royal Air Force,' the first setback for the Nazis. Deteriorating weather caused the invasion of Britain to be postponed indefinitely, and Hitler once more turned to the East where, according to his book Mein Kampf, he believed the "Lebensraum" (living space) was which the Germans needed above all other things. However, this living space was occupied by the Russians. Russia had now moved its western borders hundreds of kilometers closer to Nazi Germany because of the pact.

Unable to knock Britain out of the war first and thus faced with a war on two fronts, which he had vowed to avoid at all costs, Hitler invaded the Soviet Union. Hitler was confident the Soviet Union would be defeated in mere weeks, and he is quoted as having said: "We have only to kick in the door, and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down."

However, most of the first month, if not six weeks, was spent fighting a way through countries now occupied by the Soviet Union. These countries might otherwise have been ensnared into the Axis camp, had it not been for the pact.

The extra territory gave the Soviets the ability to trade space for time and, with the extra delay caused by the invasion of Greece, meant that Nazi Germany could not complete its conquest during the remaining period of good weather. The autumn rains rolled in and turned most of Russia in a quagmire of mud, which made all movement virtually impossible. Then Winter arrived early, with extreme cold for which the Germans were not equipped.

The Attack on Pearl Harbor
In a history like the German attack on the Soviet Union, the Japanese wanted an empire of their own to secure the future prosperity of a country which they thought did not have enough natural resources to sustain the population. The Germans called it "Lebensraum," the Japanese called it the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere." It amounted to the same thing.

Having occupied vast portions of China and some countries in East Asia, the next step was to expand its empire east into the Pacific Ocean. Their eye was on the prosperous and natural resources that were under the control of the British and Dutch empires and the American-governed Philippines. However, attacking these would cause the United States to join the war on the side of the allies.

America, on the other hand, had kept an eye on Japanese conquests and brutality and, short of war, did what they could to restrict them. In July 1941, they embargoed the export of oil to Japan, which then calculated that, without acquiring the oil in the Dutch East Indies, they only had enough fuel for two years. They reasoned that now there would be no other option than going to war.

Realizing that they could not defeat the USA in direct battle, they chose to deliver a crushing blow to the American fleet based at Pearl Harbor. This would give them time to complete their desired conquests and present the Americans with a "fait accompli." They reasoned the Americans would not be willing to enter a protracted war with Japan, and they would be able to make peace, keeping their vital conquests and handing back the less desirable places.

Fate, or bad Japanese intelligence, intervened on the Allied side on December 7, 1941, and the vital American Aircraft carriers were not in port when the Japanese struck Pearl Harbor. This meant the Americans were able to fight back, causing the Japanese Admiral in charge of the attack to say (supposedly), "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve." 

No Alliance Between the Nazis, Spain, and Turkey
One look at the map of Europe will show the strategic importance of both Spain and Turkey. However, these two were two of the few countries on the European mainland that remained neutral during the second world war.

Even though Spain remained neutral during the First World War, it was expected they would come in on the side of the Axis after all the help Hitler had given General Franco in the Spanish Civil War. However, despite pleading and perhaps even begging, Franco remained adamant. He would not join the Axis and would not even allow the Germans to pass through his country (as the Swedes did).

Not being able to pass through Spain meant that Great Britain was secure in using its military base in Gibraltar. Not only did this effectively seal off the entrance to the Mediterranean from the Atlantic Ocean for the German Navy, but it also gave the British a location from which it could support Malta and Egypt. Possession of Malta meant the British could interdict shipping from Italy to North Africa. Possession of Egypt meant it could stop the Axis from linking up with their forces fighting in the Caucasus (Soviet Union) and taking the much-needed oil fields in the middle east.

Turkey fought on the side of the Axis in the First World War yet declined to join them in the Second. This, again, meant the Germans could not link up with their forces in the Caucasus, making the capture of Egypt paramount. In February 1945, Turkey joined the Allies and declared war on a virtually defeated Nazi Germany.