76. PRO, Minutes of Evidence, Q. 7500, Cab. 19/33.
77. Ibid., Q. 7473.
78. Ibid., Qs. 14 538, 14 542.
79. Malthus, Anzac: A Retrospect, p. 32.
80. Aspinall Oglander, Military Operations, vol. 2, pp. 236, 248, 272.
81. PRO, Minutes of Evidence, Q. 14 538, Cab. 19/3 3.
82. Bean, Official History of Australia, vol. 1, p. 46.
83. Cmd. 371, The Final Report, p. 22.
84. Tim Travers, “A Particular Style of Command: Haig and GHQ, 1916–18,” Journal of Strategic Studies 10:3 (September 1987): 363–376.
85. Hamilton, Gallipoli Diary vol. 1, p. 147 (April 26, 1915).
86. PRO, Minutes of Evidence, Q. 7601, Cab. 19/33.
87. Rhodes James, Gallipoli, p. 319.
88. Bean, The Official History of Australia, vol. 1, pp. 120–21.
89. Moorehead, Gallipoli, p. 227.
90. Cmd. 371, The Final Report, p. 37; Mackenzie, Gallipoli Memories, pp. 263–64.
91. PRO, “The 11th Division at Suvla Bay,” p. 16, Cab. 45/258.
92. PRO, Minutes of Evidence, Q. 36 (Telegram, October 31, 1915), Cab. 19/33.
93. Bean, Official History of Australia, vol. 1, p. 262.
94. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 466.
95. PRO, Minutes of Evidence, Qs. 9709–11, Cab. 19/33.
96. General Sir Hugh Beach, Gallipoli Memorial Lecture (London: Brassey’s, 1985), p. 16.
97. PRO, Minutes of Evidence, Q. 25 278, Cab. 19/33.
98. Ibid., Qs. 8030–31.
99. Cmd. 371, The Final Report, p. 147.
100. PRO, Minutes of Evidence, Q. 14 538, Cab. 19/33.
101. Churchill, The World Crisis, vol. 2, p. 476. Churchill to Alexander, September 14, 1943. Quoted in Martin S. Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: Road to Victory 1941–45 (London: Heinemann, 1986), p. 503.
102. Cmd. 371, The Final Report, pp. 84–85.
103. William H. Form and Sigmund Nosow, Community in Disaster (New York: Harper Bros., 1958).
104. Bean, Official History of Australia, vol. 1, p. 344.
105. PRO, Minutes of Evidence, Q 12 395; Bean, Official History of Australia, vol. 1, p. 231.
106. PRO, Minutes of Evidence, Q. 9825, Cab. 19/33.
107. J. A. Stockfish, The Intellectual Foundations of Systems Analysis (Santa Monica: RAND, 1987), P. 7401-, p. 15.
Chapter 7
AGGREGATE FAILURE
The Defeat of American Eighth Army in Korea, November-December 1950
1. Roy E. Appleman, South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu (June-November 1950) (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military History, 1961), p. 180; Max Hastings, The Korean War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987) is harsh but accurate on the failings of the U.S. Army in this period.
2. JCS 92985, Secretary of Defense to CINCFE, in Foreign Relations of the United States 1950, vol. 7. Korea (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1976), p. 826. Hereafter this volume will be cited as FRUS 1950, 7.
3. CINCFE to JCS C69953, November 28, 1950, FRUS, 1950, 7, p. 1237.
4. The most thorough study of this subject remains Allen S. Whiting, China Crosses the Yalu: The Decision to Enter the Korean War, Rand R-356 (Santa Monica: RAND, 1960).
5. Joseph C. Goulden, Korea. The Untold Story of the War (New York: Times Books, 1982), chap. 14, “MacArthur Marches to Disaster,” pp. 323–44, is a relatively moderate indictment.
6. Clay Blair, The Forgotten War: America in Korea, 1950–1953 (New York. Times Books, 1988), p. 464. Although we think that Blair exaggerates MacArthur’s faults, this is an exceptionally fine and thorough book.
7. Matthew B. Ridgway, The Korean War (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1967), p. 78.
8. See Clayton D. James, The Years of MacArthur, especially vol. 3, Triumph and Disaster, 1945–1964 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1985).
9. The best account is Mineo Nakajima, “Foreign Relations from the Korean War to the Bandung Line,” in Denis Twitchett and John K. Fairbank, eds., The Cambridge History of China, vol. 14, The Peoples Republic, Part 1: The Emergence of Revolutionary China 1949–1965 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 270–9.
10. See, for example, a CIA assessment, “Threat of Full Chinese Communist Intervention in Korea,” October 12, 1950, FRUS, 1950, 7, p. 93 3; this view reappears in National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) 2, “Chinese Communist Intervention in Korea,” November 8, 1950, ibid., pp. 1101–6.
11. Memorandum DCIA to President, “Chinese Communist Intervention in Korea,” November 1, 1950, ibid., pp. 1025–26.
12. Memorandum, JCS to Secretary of Defense, “Chinese Communist Intervention in Korea,” November 9, 1950, ibid., pp. 1117–21.
13. Bevin Alexander, Korea: The First War We Lost (New York: Hippocrene Books, 1986), p. 9.
14. Whiting, China Crosses the Yalu, pp. 151–62. On Panikkar’s warnings, see Ambassador to India to Secretary of State EMBTEL 716, September 20, 1950, and EMBTEL 828, October 3, 1950, FRUS, 1950, 7 pp. 742, 850.
15. See Samuel B. Griffith, The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967), p. 189, and Alexander George, The Chinese Communist Army in Action: The Korean War and its Aftermath (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967), pp. 7ff. This book was based on extensive interviews with Chinese POWs in 1951.
16. The best discussion remains Whiting, China Crosses the Yalu, pp. 154–60. In his memoirs, Nikita Khrushchev recalls that the Chinese had this as their objective. Strobe Talbott, trans, and ed., Khrushchev Remembers (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970), pp. 372.
17. See Jürgen Domes, Peng Te-huai, The Man and the Image (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1985), p. 60, and Peng Dehuai’s own memoirs, Memoirs of a Chinese Marshal, Zheng Longpu, trans. (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1984), pp. 472–74.
18. S. L. A. Marshall, The River and the Gauntlet: Defeat of the Eighth Army by the Chinese Communist Forces, November 1950 in the Battle of the Chongchon River, Korea (New York: Time, 1962), pp. 267ff.
19. Letter by S. L. A. Marshall, quoted in William B. Hopkins, One Bugle, No Drums: The Marines at Chosin Reservoir (Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books, 1986), pp. 211–12. See also Roy E. Appleman, East of Chosim: Entrapment and Breakout in Korea, 1950 (College Station: Texas A & M Press, 1987), pp. 336–40 for a somewhat more sympathetic comparison of army and marine forces in the Chosin Reservoir campaign.
20. See, for example, Eighth Army, G3 War Diary, November 23, 1950, which includes Operations Plan 16 for the final march north, and Periodic Intelligence Reports (PIR) 134–136, November 23–25 1950. Eighth Army records are in Record Group 407, Washington National Records Center, Suitland, Maryland.
21. Eighth Army, G-l, Daily Historical Report, November 27, 1950.
22. Far East Command, Daily Intelligence Summary #3000, November 26, 1950. FEC records are in RG 319, Washington National Records Center, Suitland, Maryland. This source hereafter cited as FEC, DIS.
23. Billy Mossman, “Ebb and Flow,” chap. 2, n.d., unpublished manuscript, U.S., Army Center of Military History, Washington, D.C.
24. CINCFE to DA, November 8, 1950, Record Group 9, MacArthur Memorial Archive, Norfolk, Virginia. Marshall had been very insistent on the hydroelectric-plant theory.
25. Conference Notes, 8 January 1951, in “Korean War—Special File, December 1950—May 1952,” Matthew B. Ridgway Papers, Archives, US Army Military History Institute Archives, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. Hence-forth this archive cited as “USAMHI”
26. See, for example, Headquarters, EUSAK, “Enemy Tactics,” 1951, Record Group 319, National Archives; S. L. A. Marshall, “CCF in the Attack,” a two-part study done for the army in the winter of 1950–51 through the Johns Hopkins Operations Research Office, and reprinted in Hopkins, One Bugle, pp. 233–54; Griffith, Chinese People’s Liberation Army, especially pp. 143–49.
27. The discussion that follows draws on Eliot A. Cohen, “Only Half the Battle: The Chinese Intervention in Korea, 1950,” Studies
in Intelligence (Fall 1988): 49–66
28. Mossman, “Ebb and Flow,” chap. 3, pp. 14–18.
29. Chargé in China to Secretary of State #614, FRUS, 1950, 7, p. 1069.
30. Mossman, “Ebb and Flow,” chap. 2, pp. 1–3.
31. See the discussion in Cohen, “Half the Battle,” p. 57.
32. Kenneth Strong, Intelligence at the Top: The Recollections of an Intelligence Officer (London: Cassell, 1968), pp. 62–63. Strong was Eisenhower’s intelligence officer in World War II and the first head of joint intelligence at the British Ministry of Defence.
33. Eighth Army, PIR #136, November 25, 1950; PIR #137, November 26, 1950.
34. FEC, DIS #2990, November 16, 1950. This potential had been noted earlier: see FEC, DIS #2971, October 28, 1950.
35. This conception of intelligence is discussed in Eliot A. Cohen and Stephen P. Rosen, Thinking Strategically, Chapter III, “Intelligence in Support of Strategy,” (New York: The Free Press, forthcoming).
36. The following is based on the study “Comparison of CCF and NK Infantry Divisions,” published in FEC, DIS #2976, 2 November 1950. US forces generally referred to PLA units as CCF, for Chinese Communist Forces.
37. FEC, DIS #2971, October 28, 1950. The one exception is with respect to guerrilla warfare, where American intelligence analysts noticed quite different styles of operation: FEC, DIS, #2946, October 3, 1950.
38. Contemporary North Korean organization and tactics are reviewed in FEC, DIS #3008, December 4, 1950. Discussions of North Korean artillery and signals equipment, organization, and doctrine are to be found FEC, DIS #2935, September 22, 1950, and #2971, October 28, 1950. Both branches demonstrated marked similarity to Soviet tables of organization and practice.
39. See note 21.
40. Sun Tzu, The Art of War, Samuel B. Griffith trans. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963), pp. 66–69.
41. Peng, Memoirs, p. 476.
42. FEC, DIS #3025, December 21, 1950. Soon thereafter the Daily Intelligence Summary published Marshall’s study of “CCF in the Attack,” which he had just completed.
43. IX Corps, PIR #46, November 11, 1950, enclosure to Eighth Army PIR #124, November 13, 1950.
44. FEC, DIS #2988, November 14, 1950.
45. Ibid.
46. Appleman, South to the Naktong, p. 477.
47. Ibid., p. 256.
48. FEC, DIS #2971, October 28, 1950.
49. Notes compiled by General Omar N. Bradley, FRUS, 1950, 7, p. 953.
50. Weather intelligence estimated, on the basis of Japanese records, that the Yalu would freeze over in mid-December: in fact, in 1950, it froze before then. Far East Air Force Weather Study, November 7, 1950, enclosure to Eighth Army PIR #124, November 14, 1950.
51. Much of what follows is based on “Intelligence and Counterintelligence During the Korean Conflict,” manuscript, Office of the Chief of Military History, 1955, which is available at OCMH and on microfilm from that institution. This draft study was not published. That document’s conclusions are supported by review of contemporary intelligence reports.
52. George, The Chinese Communist Army, pp. 127–33.
53. On the photo-interpreter shortage see Marshall, The River and the Gauntlet, p. 5; Robert F. Futtrell, The United States Air Force in Korea 1950–1951, rev. ed. (Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1983), pp. 72 ff; on reconnaissance priorities see pp. 228–9.
54. “Basic Journal, Marshall’s Notes, 2d Division,” S. L. A. Marshall Papers, USAMHI.
55. S. L. A. Marshall, “Commentary on Infantry Operations and Weapons Usage in Korea, Winter of 1950–1951,” ORO-R-13 (Chevy Chase, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Operations Research Office, 1952), pp. 120–21 (emphasis in the original).
56. Appleman, South to the Naktong, p. 653.
57. Far East Command, Command Report, November 1950, p. 29. Replacements scheduled to arrive in September numbered only half the number required.
58. Headquarters, United States Army Forces Far East and Eighth Army, “Logistics in the Korean Operations,” Camp Zama, Japan, 1955, vol. 1, chap. 3, p. 2. Historical monograph prepared for the Office of the Chief of Military History, henceforth cited as “Logistics in the Korean Operations.”
59. Ibid., vol. 1, chap 3, fig. 2a.
60. Far East Command, Command Report, November 1950, p. 36. In November the Army sent 8,600 combat replacements, and 9,000 support replacements to the front.
61. There are other indications of the mishandling of replacements. See Eighth Army, G-1 Daily Historical Report, November 21, 1950, for an account of replacements being left out in the open overnight without facilities to shelter them from the weather—one of a number of such reports.
62. Eighth Army, G-1 Daily Historical Report, November 6, 1950. See also “Logistics in the Korean Operations,” vol. 1, chap. 3, pp. 26 ff.
63. “Logistics in the Korean Operations,” vol. 1, chap. 3, p. 26.
64. Marshall, The River and the Gauntlet, p. 94.
65. Marshall, “Commentary on Infantry Operations,” pp. 52–54.
66. “Logistics in the Korean Operations,” vol. 1, pp. 2–11. See also Eighth Army, Command Report, December 1950.
67. “Lessons from Korea” (Fort Benning, Ga: The U.S. Infantry School, 1954), ms., Army Library, Pentagon.
68. The River and the Gauntlet, p. 17.
69. Ibid., p. 24.
70. Ibid., p. 243.
71. Quoted in Hopkins, One Bugle, No Drums, pp. 211–12.
72. Lynn Montross and Nicholas A. Canzona, U.S. Marine Operations in Korea, 1950–1953, vol. 3, The Chosin Reservoir Campaign (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1957), pp. 351–54.
73. S. L. A. Marshall, “Hearing it from the Marines,” and “The Last Barrier,” in Battle at Best (New York: William Morrow, 1963), p. 105.
74. S. L. A. Marshall, “CCF in the Attack,” part 2, “A Study based on the Operations of 1 st Marine Division in the Koto-ri, Hagaru-ri, Yodam-ni area, 20 November-10 December 1950,” reprinted in Hopkins, One Bugle, No Drums, p. 257.
75. Hopkins, One Bugle, No Drums, p. 207.
76. Montross and Canzona, Chosin Reservoir Campaign, p. 107.
77. Eighth Army, G-4 Staff Section Report, 19 November 1950.
78. Ridgway, The Korean War, p. 88. See also Eighth Army, Command Report, January 1951, Commanding General section, which has some accounts of Ridgway’s talks to commanders—and which more than corroborates his view that he spared no one’s feelings.
79. Ridgway, Korean War, p. 97.
80. Griffith, Chinese PLA, p. 161.
81. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Michael Howard and Peter Paret, eds. and trans. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), pp. 88–89.
82. Futrell, U.S. Air Force, pp. 71, 91.
83. Ibid., p. 186. On July 31 the Joint Chiefs told MacArthur that “mass air operations against industrial targets in North Korea were ‘highly desirable.’”
84. Ibid., p. 221.
85. MacArthur’s reliance on air power is captured in Charles A. Willoughby and John Chamberlain, MacArthur, 1941–1951 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1954), pp. 100–122.
86. Appleman, East of Chosin, p. 21.
87. Griffith, Chinese PLA, p. 73. The army later followed suit.
88. “Logistics in Korean Operations,” vol. 1, chap 1, p. 4.
89. Joint Strategic Plans Committee, “Courses of Action in Korea,” 23 August 1950, Folder CCS 383.21 Korea (3–19–45), Joint Chiefs of Staff Geographic File 1948–1950, Record Group 218, Modern Military Records, National Archives.
90. JCS99935, JCS to MacArthur, December 29, 1950, “Korean War—Special File,” Ridgway Papers, USAMHI.
91. Clausewitz, On War, book 1, chap. 6, p. 118.
92. Michael Howard, “The Use and Abuse of Military History,” Parameters ll:l(March 1981): 13.
93. S. L. A. Marshall, Sinai Victory (New York: William Morrow, 1958), p. 6. Cf. Ridgway’s assertion, “We are not adapting our tactics to the ene
my and to the type of terrain encountered,” conference notes, January 8, 1951.
Chapter 8
CATASTROPHIC FAILURE
The French Army and Air Force, May-June 1940
1. Churchill to Roosevelt, May 15, 1940. Quoted in Warren F. Kimball, ed., Churchill and Roosevelt: The Complete Correspondence (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), vol. 1, p. 37.
2. William S. Shirer, The Collapse of the Third Republic (London: Pan, 1972), p. xxiv.
3. Sir Charles Petrie, ed., The Private Diaries (March 1940 to January 1941) of Paul Baudouin (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1948), p. 92 (June 10, 1940).
4. Pétain to Reynaud, 26 May 1940. Quoted in J. Benoist-Méchin, Soixante jours qui ébranlèrent l’occident (Paris: Albin Michel, 1956), vol. 1, p. 306.
5. André Beaufre, 1940: The Fall of France (London: Cassell, 1965), p. 213.
6. Baudouin, p. 46 (May 24, 1940).
7. William S. Shirer, Berlin Diary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent 1934–1941 (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1941), pp. 437–38 (June 27, 1940).
8. Aldo Cabiati, La guerra lampo: Polonia-Norvegia-Francia (Milan: Corbaccio, 1940), p. 317.
9. Marc Bloch, L’étrange défaite (Paris: Societé des Editions Franc-Tireur, 1946), pp. 55–56.
10. Charles de Gaulle, War Memoirs, vol. 1: The Call to Honour 1940–1942 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, n.d., [1955]), p. 13.
11. Robert A. Doughty, The Seeds of Disaster: The Development of French Army Doctrine 1919–1939 (Hamden, Conn.: Archon, 1985), p. 190.
12. Guy Chapman, Why France Collapsed (London: Cassell, 1968), pp. 331, 334.
13. De Gaulle, War Memoirs, p. 41.
14. Jeffrey A. Gunsberg, Divided and Conquered: The French High Command and the Defeat of the West, 1940 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1979), p. 276.
15. Matthew Cooper, The German Army 1933–1945 (London: MacDonald and Jane’s, 1978), pp. 214–15; R. H. S. Stolfi, “Equipment for Victory in 1940,” History 55 (1970): 1–20. For an interesting attempt to compare weapons systems on either side, see Philip A. Karber, Grant Whitley, Mark Herman, and Douglas Komer, Assessing the Correlation of Forces: France 1940, Washington, Office of the Secretary of Defense. DNA-001–78-C-0114.
16. Alistair Home, To Lose a Battle: France 1940 (London: Macmillan, 1969), pp. 108–9.
Military Misfortunes Page 37
