"L" Company Tactics

As an artillery forward observer my job was to direct artillery fire in support of the infantry units my Battalion, the 39th Field Artillery, was responsible for supporting. In that job I moved and stayed with the infantry and sometimes felt more like an infantryman than an artilleryman except that my weapon was artillery fire instead of M1 rifles. However, on rare occassions, I did fire my carbine in combat.

The first time was in France after my division participated in the amphibious landing on the southern coast near San Tropez in August of 1945. Unlike the Normandy landing which took place in June of that year, we faced only light resistance. Once we broke out of our beachheads the German forces facing us began to withdraw to the north by establishing a series of strong-point blocking actions designed to slow our advance in order to buy time to withdraw their forces in an orderly manner.

To counter that tactic we raced into their territory to deny them the time they needed to set up their defensive strong points. That made for a very fluid front and in some sectors our infantry, with its supporting tanks, moved so fast that it got out of range of its supporting artillery. It was in just such a sector that I found myself shooting at the enemy with my carbine instead of with artillery fire.

I was moving with "L" Company of the 15th Infantry, which was commanded by a very aggressive red-headed captain named Coles, who happened to be from my home town of Alhambra, California. Red Coles favorite tactic was said to be to deliberately get his company surrounded so it would have to fight its way out. Whether or not that was really his tactic, it was what happened in one instance when I was with "L" Company.

We were way ahead of the main effort, so far ahead I could not contact my Battalion by my FM tactical radio. It was a hot day and we had advanced along an improved road in beautiful rolling farm country. We had met only light sporadic resistance but the troops were tired and hungry, and Coles decided to stop for the night and dig in around a large two story building which might have been an inn or a small hotel, by the road nestled in among a stand of trees. I promptly set up my radio on the second floor anticipating that the artillery would soon catch up enough to allow radio contact.

By dusk a perimeter defense had been established and we all relaxed a little and ate portable rations we had with us. There was no sign of the enemy but sometime after dark we heard the sound of vehicle engines approaching from the direction in which we had come. No one knew how many enemy units we might have bypassed, if any, so the company was alerted and directed to hold its fire until the vehicles could be identified as German or American. They approached without lights so they were almost inside our perimeter before we could identify them as German. As I recall there were two, maybe three, vehicles; a staff followed by a truck.

I was at a second floor window with my crew and a number of infantrymen. We could look down at those vehicles which were perhaps fifty yards away and coming very cautiously. As they drew near I was excited and asked to anyone, "Do we shoot them?"

The answer came, "Shoot them."

So we opened up with a fusillade of small arms fire which ended the ambush. I don't recall if any were taken prisoner, but most were killed or wounded.

That action ended the tension. No one knew how many more enemy troops might be coming up the road - and if there were more had they been alerted by our gun fire? All was quiet for several hours and just as we began to relax, someone reported hearing the sound of tanks approaching from the same direction. If they turned out to be German we clearly would be in considerable danger. Without tanks of our own or effective anti-tank weapons our situation would be untenable.

Time passed very slowly as we heard those tanks coming closer and closer, ever closer. It was certainly a dry-mouth time for us all. But, happily, those tanks turned out to be American Shermans which had come up to reinforce "L" Company for the next day's advance.

Misnomer
Who named the animals is no mystery
It was father Adam, we know from history.
By and large and for the most part
I find little fault in his tedious art.
Most were labeled exactly
With names chosen most aptly.
Adam's appellation samples
Certainly match it's creature, for examples:

'Elephant'
Is certainly relevant,
As is 'Aardvark,'
'Hippopotamus' and 'Lark.'
A 'Cow' of course
Is more itself than a 'Horse'
Which takes its fame
From a flowing mane.

'Lion' is fi-on
For that great fe-lion,
And, oh, gorgeous 'Jaguar'
That's exactly what you are!
And what better name than 'Crocodile'
For that prehistoric repotile?
Then 'Deer,' 'Bison,' 'Elk,' and 'Moose' all clearly relate
To that great clan called ungulate.

What better than 'Goose' describes those fowls
Famed for their overactive bowels?
And isn't the term for they that squirm
Quite properly 'Worm?'
But there is one name that seems singularly uninspired.
Perhaps our father Adam was overly tired
When it came time
To name the prickly 'Porcupine.'

No, no it cannot be.
It sounds half pig and half tree.
The pig part is fine
So did he really mean to call it 'Porcu-spine?'
That seems a more appropriate name
Considering the animal's spiny fame.
Perhaps spelling changes
Over the time of ages.

With all that, I pray you'll find this box sublime
Despite the fact 'tis made from the ill-famed,
And ill-named
Lowly 'Porcupine!'


(Every Christmas Francis writes his lovely wife a poem to accompany her gifts. This is one of those memorable poems!)

The Six Horse Stagecoach Team

The Six Horse Stage Coach Team:

How exactly does it work?

by Francis Graves

   Six horses working together as a team are a symphony of cooperative effort – beautiful to behold and thrilling to drive or ride behind. A six horse team is composed of three sub-teams: the Lead, the Swing and the Wheel teams. All contribute their strength in pulling the load, but each also has an additional unique function important to the success of the whole. In the days when horse-drawn conveyances were the prime means of transportation, people understood how a good team functioned and took pleasure in that knowledge. They came to admire the skills of expert drivers who attained modest celebrity status, not unlike the pilots of airliners today.

   In the era of giant aircraft, high speeds trains and space travel, we have no need to understand how a six horse hitch functioned. It has become only a small part of history – something we know nothing about except what we learn from Hollywood films (which are singularly inaccurate in the way they represent the operation of stage coaches). For example, they invariably show the stage coach teams operating at a full gallop which never happened. Horses can only run so far without resting, perhaps a mile or two, especially if they are pulling several tons of coach, its passengers, baggage and freight. The can go farther at a trot, and perhaps all day, at a walk. Therefore the American long distance stages traveled at a walk in the flat and speeded up to a trot going downhill – a lesson sternly taught by my uncle.

 

   As children my sister, my brother and I, and a number of cousins were blessed to have a great uncle, Captain William Banning, who in the 1920s and ‘30s was perhaps the last of the experienced California stagecoach drivers. He was a consultant to Hollywood, which often ignored his counsel (much to his annoyance), and to several museums. His greatest pleasure was driving his collection of horse-drawn passenger vehicles, including several models of the famous Concord Coaches, which opened the West before railroads took their business. I recall riding with him as he drove then through the streets of Los Angeles and later on through the countryside around Walnut, California, when he moved out of the city to a small ranch. The high spot of our lives was spending summer with him there and having the privilege, if we behaved, of riding with him up on the driver’s boot. Those of us less well-behaved were condemned to ride inside the stage or, in extreme cases, left behind. My cousin Paddy, Evangeline Victoria Banning, and I were the oldest, and we had the honor of riding with him in the grand parade through the streets of Los Angeles and into the coliseum as a part of the 1931 Olympic Games celebration.

 

   While he drove, Uncle taught us many things; about the coaches, how they were built and the intricacies of their design, and about the team’s harness and its functions. As a special honor, he taught us how to hold and use the reins controlling the six horses. It was heady stuff, sometimes difficult for our young minds to fully grasp. But somehow we knew it was important, because it came from that wonderfully wise man who had lived so long and experienced so much, and whom we loved and honored.

 

   For me, the most interesting things he taught us were about his horses. He pointed out their different characters and personalities; which were faithful workers and which would loaf if allowed to; which liked to show off and which were quiet and dignified; and which were playful and which had a sense of humor – yes, horses can have a sense of humor. He made us understand that horses are individuals, just like people. Those were the lessons I remember most and they helped me when I later attended Culver Military Academy and was assigned to a Field Artillery horse-drawn unit which utilized six horses to pull its guns. It was a different version of a six horse hitch which, instead of a driver on the conveyance, used three drivers each mounted on the near (left) horse of the Lead, Swing and Wheel teams. A substantial difference, but the lessons learned from Uncle about horses and how a six horse team functioned still applied there, and they still have stuck with me to this day.

 

   Which brings me to my beginning point. How does a six horse team, the Lead pair, the Swing pair and the Wheel pair, function? Aside from exercising horse power, what unique contribution does each make to the successful performance of the whole?

 

   The Leaders lead – their eyes on the road ahead, ears forward, but always alert and listening for the voice of their driver, ever aware and sensitive to directional signals transmitted to them through his reins. The Leaders set the pace and the spirit, communicating style and pride and energy to the whole team. They are leaders in more ways than one.

 

   The Swing teams job is to follow the leaders, except in sharp turns when they swing wide to insure their tow stays on track, does not “cut the corner”, and, thereby, they set the course for the Wheelers.

 

   The Wheel team, reinforced by the Swing and Lead teams on an uphill grade, provides the major muscle – and in some harness arrangements they help brake on a downhill grade. The Wheelers follow the track set by the Swing team and because the wagon tongue anchored between them is connected to the swiveling front carriage of the stage, they actually steer it.

 

   When the horses know their jobs and are harnessed and hitched to the stage, they cease to be individuals and are transformed, with their driver, into a team – single unit composed of man and beast, working together for a common purpose. Together they become that “symphony” of cooperative effort, that thing of beauty, which cannot be matched today by man and soulless machines.

 

   “With the horses trotting loosely in their harness, and the driver on the brake, we streamed around the curves, at a moment swinging over the abyss until one’s hold on one’s breath involuntarily tightened, and the next, swinging back easily toward the bank. In some places the shoulders of the mountains jutted out so abruptly that we would lose sight of the leaders around the curves before we got there ourselves.

 

   “They were dainty, elegant little animals, those leaders; at one moment with their reluctant heads reined around toward their flanks, they danced like wild deer along the verge of the precipice, and the next, the inexorable driver was grinding them against a bank – but never a sign did they give of leaving the road, so thoroughbred were they. The swing horses, a trifle larger; followed the movements of the leaders but more sedately. The wheelers. Big steady fellows that held the stage back. All six moved in fearless obedience to the guidance of the two hands, clad in a pair of buckskin gloves, whose taciturn owner, with one foot on the brake and another on the footboard, made me think of a skilled musician playing upon a familiar instrument.” (Banning, William and Banning, George. Six Horses. 1928.)*

 

   Clearly there was an element of romance attached to the relationship between man and his horse which is fast fading in the American ethos – that sense of interdependence, appreciation and affection for God’s gift of the willing, faithful, trusting “co-worker,” the horse. Sadly, we no longer need them.

   *This quote from the book Six Horses was taken from an article published in the San Francisco Argonaut on September 9, 1889, authored by Captain Robert Howe Fletcher, describing riding a stage through the mountainous terrain.

 

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Submitted to Ashland Daily Press, January 10, 2012

Is President Obama repeating President H. W. Bush's bad decision in Iraq following Dessert Storm?

The Bush administration failed to affect regime change by deciding not to occupy Baghdad following the defeat of the Iraqi army. That decision was allegedly made on the assumption that the Iraqi people would oust the defeated Saddam Hussein - an assumption apparently driven as much by domestic and international politics as it was by the realities in Iraq at the time. Hindsight proved it to be a mistake because it resulted in the resurgence of the Hussein government and the subsequent slaughter or displacement of thousands of Shiite Iraqis we had encouraged to revolt - not to mention the costly war just declared won by President Obama.

Politically expedient declarations of victory based upon politcally expedient assumptions have a way of coming back to haunt the administration which made them. The truth sooner or later is always revealed. It is revealed sooner when the national media is opposed to the administration making the declaration. It was immediate when President George W. Bush made the "Mission Accomplished" claim halfway through the Iraq war. Hardly a day passed before he was being vilified for that gaff.

Now President Obama has claimed victory in Iraq. He also claimed we can safely leave that country because its new democratic government is stable enough to hold the country together and strong enough to become an ally of the domestic world. Even more problematic, he intimated it was strong enough to resist domination by neighboring Iran. Despite the fact that a great many people of experience who know the area well have questioned the accuracy of his claims, the main stream media seems to have obediently accepted them.

Obama's claims were barely out of his mouth when a new Shiite-Sunni conflict exploded in the heart of Iraq, precipitated at least in part by the Shiite dominated Malaki Government seeking to purge duly elected Sunni officials. That at best has been under-reported by the press which also has cast a blind eye on a new wave of persecution of Iraqi Christians - nor has it mentioned the internal struggle for control of Iraq's oil resources. Clearly the Iraqi situation began deteriorating just as American troops were being withdrawn. That information is available. It is there on blogs and on some cable networks.

Can it be that the mainstream media is withholding the news because it would undermine support for Obama? These events may now be hidden from the American voter who has been gulled into believing our mission has been accomplished in Iraq and all is right and well there. But is it really? And what will we do when the President's happy declarations prove to be false?

If the worst happens in Iraq before November, we will certainly have our own regime change - if after - oh, well, in that case we can leave the problem to future administrations. Whatever happened to integrity in politics? While the Republicans seek another Ronald Reagan, the Democrats ought to be searching for another Harry Truman - both Presidents who put the country above self.

Francis Graves
Bayfield, WI

With General Patton in Czechoslovakia

     European WW II operations ended May 7, 1945. Prior to that date the Third US Army commanded by General George S. Patton had penetrated into what became Czechoslovakia as far as the City of Pilsen.At that time I had just begun my assignment as junior Aide de Camp to General Patton having been transferred to Third Army Headquarters in April, less than a month earlier. I had served over a year as an artillery forward observer in the Third Infantry Division, a unit of the Seventh US Army.

     I was very green and excited about my new job, and was privileged to accompany the General on a trip to what then was the front line of the Army’s advance. The Third Army had been ordered to advance and capture Prague, but that order had been countermanded by Generals Eisenhower and Bradley by reason of problems the British forces were having taking their objective - or it may have been a political accommodation for Soviet Union forces attacking from the east.

     For years I believed that trip was to Prague, but I can find no record of the General ever going to Prague which is some 45 miles northeast of Pilsen. So I have concluded my memory is faulty and that trip must have been to Pilsen - but I am not completely convinced. However, it is known that some Third Army reconnaissance units did reach Prague without resistance in the end days of the war in Europe.

     Whether it was Prague or Pilsen I was privileged to have been with the general when he met with President Benes.

     I have several distinct memories of the occasion. First when we arrived at what I had thought was the Presidential Palace of Czechoslovakia (but it wouldn’t have been that in Pilsen) for a formal luncheon, the General instructed me to remove my web belt with my forty five automatic attached and leave it with the driver of the command car in which we were riding as a matter of courtesy to our host.

     The second thing I remember is how very impressed I was with the beautiful very large and long room in which we were to eat. My guess is that there were at least forty place settings at a very long banquet table beautifully set with silver and crystal and linen napkins. It seemed to me to be typical old world grandeur. Before we sat down wine was served and there was a welcoming speech by President Benes and Czech military dignitaries to which General Patton responded with beautiful words praising the brave Czech people who had harassed their Nazi occupiers.

     I am not sure who else was with the Patton party but I believe it was the Corps Commander of the XII Corps which had spearheaded the drive into Czechoslovakia. That would have been Major General LeRoy Irwin on that date. He had a number of his officers with him. His Aide and I would have been the most junior officer’s present so we sat at the foot end of the sumptuous table, pretty much overawed by it all. The food was of course wonderful, especially for those of us who had been subsisting on army rations for a long time.

     Sometime during the festivities, as was the European custom, all members of the Generals party were decorated by the President. Those of us who were junior received the War Cross of Czechoslovakia, a beautiful medal with red, white and blue thin vertical stripes. To this day I cherish it because not many Americans have it.

     That was a fascinating afternoon in my memory. To be at such a high level ceremony was exciting and interesting, but it had its down side also which was singularly upsetting to us. After the meal and all had risen from the table, there was an informal social time when the Czech and American officers intermingled. I was cornered by a number of Czechs, as were my counter parts. Their one message was “You Americans must not let the Soviet forces into our country. We want no part of them or communism.” I was only a first lieutenant and higher ranking Czechs were taking time to give me the message while the President was delivering the same message to our generals. Those talking to me were emotional and very serious - actually pleading that I deliver their message to my boss.

     I, of course, delivered that message. But it remains an awful memory because we knew the deal had been made between the allies and the Soviets leaders which permitted them to occupy Czechoslovakia.

     Shortly after that meeting Soviet forces marched into the country and imposed their brutal occupation which took the lives of many thousands of Czechs. Without doubt among those were the very same good people we met that day.

     The lesson I learned reflecting back on that day is that political compromise with an evil entity accomplishes nothing other than compounding the evil. General Patton advised against that compromise but in the end obeyed orders.

“A” Battery’s Independent Battle Action – Korea

by Francis Graves

I served in the 1^st Calvary Division in the Korean War. My unit was the 82^nd Field Artillery Battalion which was the general support artillery for the division. We were armed with 155mm Howitzers as opposed to the direct support battalions which were armed with the shorter range 105mm Howitzers.

In early 1951 I was the Commander of “A” Battery when it was assigned an unusual direct support mission. The Division had been driving north (before the Chinese entered the war) and was fighting in very remote, mountainous terrain. One of our cavalry* battalions was locked in a hard fight near a large reservoir and urgently needed artillery support, but it’s direct support unit could not get within range to help due to the difficult terrain.

My Battery was detached from the Battalion and ordered into the mountains to a deep narrow valley from which our Howitzers could reach the enemy. There was a very old unused road, more trail than road, leading into that valley which was barely passable for our high speed tractor prime movers. I believe the valley had been located by aerial reconnaissance. I went up to look at the site and was appalled. The valley was “V” shaped with no flat ground and its sides were very steep, but treeless, and soft ground.

The area was too small for all six of my guns so I opted to bring up four which we emplaced halfway up the slope opposite from our direction of fire. We used a D-4 Caterpillar bulldozer to dig deeply into the side of the hill to provide enough level ground for our guns to be put into action.

I left most of my battery sub-units behind bringing only the four Howitzers, two ammunition trucks and my fire direction center along with a security detail armed with several machine guns because in that area we were vulnerable to attack by enemy patrols.

We were in contact with the infantry unit we were supporting by radio and someone, possibly an artillery observer, managed to register (direct) our fire into the enemy area. Once in position we spent the day and evening providing fire support by employing the high-angle fire capability of our Howitzers which was necessary in order to clear the high ridge on the opposite side of our narrow valley. It was hard work for our gunners and canoneers working without rest preparing, loading, and firing projectiles weighing about one hundred pounds almost continuously.

But at the end of the day we were successful. Our infantry defeated the North Korean enemy unit they were facing decisively, with our fire support.

It was an unusual mission for a general support battery which rarely operated independently of the battalion, and on a direct support mission. The action was made especially difficult by the “impossible” terrain, our isolated vulnerable location, difficult radio communication conditions, and the need to work directly with an infantry unit we did not know.

I was proud of the way my soldiers performed. They were professionals and dedicated to our mission. We all certainly earned our pay that day.

Our greatest reward, however, was a message from the infantry commander, whom I have yet to meet, commending us for the “best artillery support he’d ever had.”

*The 1^st Cav Div in Korea was organized as an infantry division so it called its regiments “cavalry.”