Armageddon - Max Hastings [61]
It was often hard for a local commander to judge how he should handle himself. Conscientious junior officers instinctively wanted to go first. Yet, if they did so, they often fell, and the assault lost impetus. Experienced leaders placed themselves near the front, but not on point, though this sometimes prompted feelings of guilt. Lieutenant William Devitt of the U.S. 83rd Division once asked for volunteers to cross a road first, and got none. Eventually he persuaded some men to move, and followed them. “Why didn’t I go first? Perhaps I should have. I don’t think it was fear. I just felt it was better to lose a man than the leader.” Devitt was absolutely right, but such everyday battlefield decisions were hard for inexperienced young officers.
Like most riflemen, “Red” Thompson never fired an aimed shot in the whole campaign—only “approach fire” from the hip, as his unit advanced upon an objective. He never threw a grenade, and indeed was mortally frightened of the thermite bomb he was obliged to carry. When he joined his battalion, “Nobody had time to teach you anything, you just had to pick it up for yourself. I learned to take care of myself; to be wary; to look, to listen; and to dig holes which you usually left before you finished them. I knew I was just cannon fodder.” Proficient American leaders were critical of the failure of officers to keep their soldiers informed. “If the men can be told each day just where they are and what should take place the next day,” wrote a Ranger company commander sourly, “they would do their jobs a great deal better.” Infantry replacements, who not infrequently joined a unit hours before it was committed to an attack, in such circumstances found themselves utterly bewildered about what was expected of them. A U.S. officer described an action during the winter of 1944 in which newcomers were “naturally scared and actually had to be herded out of their holes to make the attack.”
Two British divisions which analysed officer casualties—very similar to those in U.S. formations—found that platoon leaders accounted for 31.2 per cent; company commanders for 30 per cent; battalion COs for a remarkable 18 per cent. Of these losses, 69 per cent were incurred in attack, 23 per cent in defence, 8 per cent on patrols. Fifty-seven per cent were caused by shelling, 35 per cent by small arms, 6 per cent by mines. Accidents with weapons and men shot by their own sentries accounted for 4 per cent. Forty per cent of officers were hit in close-quarter fighting—within 400 yards of the enemy—18 per cent at longer ranges, 13 per cent while forming up for attacks. A British rifle company officer who landed on D-Day faced an almost 70 per cent probability of being hit at some time before May 1945, and nearly 20 per cent prospect of being killed. Among other ranks, there was a 62 per cent likelihood of being hit, a 14 per cent chance of being killed.
“I never failed to be impressed as I went from the rear to the front,” said U.S. Major-General W. M. Robertson. “I would see this mass of artillery and tank destroyers and regimental and battalion headquarters. At the front lines, a small number of men were carrying the attack. There were about 1,100 men in the assault element [of an infantry regiment]. They took 90% of the casualties. In an infantry division, they carry your battle.” There was considerable bitterness among fighting soldiers about the promiscuity with which decorations were awarded to officers who never faced enemy fire. “Enlisted personnel,” reported a U.S. Corps Combat Observer, “being far from dumb or gullible, wonder why a divisional commander, assistant divisional commander, divisional G-2, G-3* 6 and other rear echelon personnel can receive Silver Stars for ‘gallantry in action’.”
Riflemen, Patton told an officers’ conference, made up 65.9 per cent of a U.S. infantry division—an over-generous estimate by the general—inflicted 37 per cent of casualties on the enemy, but took 92 per cent of the formation’s losses. Artillery