US Army SS 07 Three Battles: Foreword

Foreword

This volume pictures the difficulties of small unit commanders and soldiers in executing missions assigned by higher headquarters. Such missions are based at best on educated guesses as to the enemy situation and probable reaction. Success, failure, confusion, outstanding behavior, as pictured here, illustrate battle as it did, and often can, take place. The viewpoint of the participants at the time is hard to re-create in spite of what is known of the circumstances that surrounded the engagement. What now seems to be obvious was then obscure. The participants were continually faced with questions which can be reduced in number only by thorough training: What do I do next? Where shall I fire? Who is now in charge? Shall I fire? Will firing expose my position? Shall I wait for orders? To us who comfortably read accounts of the engagement the answers may seem evident. We must remember that confusion, like fog, envelops the whole battlefield, including the enemy. Initiative, any clear-cut aggressive action, tends to dispel it.

In battle the terrain is the board on which the game is played. The chessmen are the small units of infantry, of armor, and the various supporting weapons each with different capabilities, all designed for the coordinated action which makes for victory. No one piece is capable of carrying the entire burden. Each must help the other. Above all, the human mind must comprehend which, for the instant, has the leading role. There is no time out in battle. Teams must be prepared to function in spite of shortages in both personnel and equipment. They must be practiced and drilled in getting and retaining the order necessary to overcome the confusion forever present on the battlefield. This is the outstanding lesson of these pages. If heeded they will have most beneficial effect on our Army.

We, the victors in this war, can ill afford not to examine our training methods continually. Do we drill as we would fight? Do we instill in the soldier discipline and a knowledge of how to get order out of battle confusion? If not, victory will cost too much.

Orlando Ward

Maj. Gen., USA

Chief of Military History

Washington, DC

15 November 1951

United States Army in World War II

Kent Roberts Greenfield, General Editor

Advisory Committee

James P. Baxter, President, Williams College

William T. Hutchinson, University of Chicago

Henry S. Commager, Columbia University

S. L. A. Marshall, Detroit News

Douglas S. Freeman, Richmond News Leader

E. Dwight Salmon, Amherst College

Pendleton Herring, Social Science Research Council

Col. Thomas D. Stamps, United States Military Academy

John D. Hicks, University of California

Charles S. Sydnor, Duke University

Charles H. Taylor, Harvard University

Office of the Chief of Military History, Maj. Gen. Orlando Ward, Chief

Chief Historian, Kent Roberts Greenfield

Chief, War Histories Division, Col. Thomas J. Sands

Chief, Editorial and Publication Division, Col. B. A. Day

Chief Cartographer, Wsevolod Aglaimoff

Page vi

The Authors

Charles B. MacDonald, compiler of this volume and author of two of the studies, commanded a rifle company in the 2nd Infantry Division in World War II and is the author of Company Commander.* He is now on the staff of this office writing a volume on the U.S. Army in Europe. Sidney T. Mathews, author of the third study, was a member of the Historical Section, Fifth Army, during the war, wrote the study entitled “Santa Maria Infante” published in Small Unit Actions* of the series AMERICAN FORCES IN ACTION, and is a Ph.D. in History of the Johns Hopkins University. He is now on the staff of this office, writing a volume on the U.S. Army in Italy.