The Strategy & Tactics of World War II

Number 5

Feature Game:
The Finnish Front, 1941-42
Their Greatest Day:
D-Day at Omaha Beach

The Other Ribbentrop

Aerial Samurai of the Pacific

US & CAN - $24.99

With Complete Historical Game

World at War 1

WaW5 Issue.indd 1 2/6/09 2:46:34 PM

 Strategy & Tactics magazine
covers all of military history
and its future possibilities.

Each issue is packed full of:

• In-depth analysis
• Detailed maps
• Orders of battle

In future issues:
Operation Anaconda
RAF: The Battle of Britain
Fire & Ice: Chosin Reservoir, Korea
Canada Rebellion of 1837
and much, much more!

3 easy ways to order

Subscribe online: www.StrategyAndTacticsPress.com
Call: (661) 587-9633 • Fax: (661) 587-5031
2 #5 Post: Strategy & Tactics Press, PO Box 21598, Bakersfield, CA 93390-1598

WaW5 Issue.indd 2 2/6/09 2:46:36 PM

 World at War magazine pro-
vides a sharp focus on WWII,
with the same in-depth for-
mat as Strategy & Tactics.

Each issue includes a feature

article from the Western and
Mediterranean Theater, the
East Front, the Pacific The-
ater, and a category for other
battles and campaigns.

Going beyond the usual nar-

ratives, articles focus on the
“how” and “why” of conflicts
and are illustrated liberally
with maps, charts, tables and
In future issues:
pictures.
Greater East Asia War
Naval Strategy in the Mediterranean, 1939-45
Skorzeny Strikes: Coup in Budapest, 1944
and much, much more!

Use the postcard included in this magazine or visit our website

for more information and subscription rates. World at War 3

WaW5 Issue.indd 3 2/6/09 2:46:38 PM

 The Strategy & Tactics of World War II

Number 5
Apr/May 2009

Features
6 War at the Top of the World:
The Finnish Front, 1941-42 6
War rages from the Arctic Circle to the outskirts of Leningrad
as the Finns launch an invasion of the Soviet Union to gain
back the territory lost in the Winter War of 1939-40.
by Joseph Miranda

25 Their Greatest Day:

From Disaster to Victory on Omaha Beach 25
D-Day, 6 June 1944, American GIs achieve victory even
though the invasion plan fouls up.
by John Butterfield
Features

43 The Other Ribbentrop

The son of Nazi Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop
proves his mettle as a tank commander on the Reich’s far-
flung frontiers.
by Blaine Taylor 43

52 Saburo Sakai’s Longest Day

Imperial Japan’s top ace fights his hardest day in the skies over
Guadalcanal.
by Kelly Bell

52
4 #5

WaW5 Issue.indd 4 2/6/09 2:46:39 PM

 columns
20 Game preview:
Greek Tragedy

21 Observation Post Publisher: Christopher Cummins

Editor: Ty Bomba
Behind the Lines: Assistant Editor: Joseph Miranda
Ehh, What’s up Sarge? Copy Editors: Jason Burnett, Jon Cecil
and Dav Vandenbroucke.
David Tschanz
Design • Graphics • Layout: Callie
Cummins & Chris Cummins
Elite Beat: Map Graphics: Meridian Mapping
First Canadian Army on the Advertising: Rates and specifications available
Channel Coast on request. Write P.O. Box 21598, Bakersfield
Will Stroock CA 93390.
SUBSCRIPTION RATES are: Six issues per year—
Game Edition: United States is $109.97. Non-U.S.
addresses are shipped via Airmail: Canada
Technology Backdate: add $20 per year. Overseas add $30 per year.
Jimmy Doolittle’s 100 Octane International rates are subject to change as
postal rates change.
War Six issues per year—Magazine edition. United
Mark Lardas States is $19.97/1 year. Non-U.S. addresses are
shipped via Airmail: Canada add $10 per year.
Overseas add $15 per year.
In the Air: All payments must be in US funds drawn on
5 The Italian 274th Heavy Bomber
a US bank and made payable to World at
War (please no Canadian checks). Checks and
Squadron money orders or VISA/MasterCard accepted
(with a minimum charge of $40). All orders
James Marino should be sent to World at War, P.O. Box 21598,
Bakersfield CA 93390 or call 661/587-9633
(call 9am-4pm PST, M-F) or use our 24-hour fax
46 mega feedback
columns

661/587-5031 or e-mail us from our website

www.StrategyAndTacticsPress.com.
NON U.S. SUBSCRIBERS PLEASE NOTE: Air mail
to foreign addres­ses may take six to ten weeks
58 media reviews for delivery. Inquiries should be sent to World
at War after that time, to P.O. Box 21598,
Bakersfield CA 93390.

Game edition Rules World at War (©2009) reserves all rights on

R1 The Finnish Front, 1941-42
by Joseph Miranda
Next Issue
Next issue’s wargame will be Joseph Miranda’s Greater East
Asia War, which covers WW2 on the East Asian mainland at
the strategic level. Articles will include: “Operation Panzer-
faust: Hungary 1944”; “The Mediterranean War”; “Ribbentrop
Senior”; “Bari: A Calculated Risk”; “Axis Blockade Runners”;
“Draper Laurence Kauffman: Father of the UDTs”; “The West-
land Whrilwind”; and another installment of the new Media
Reviews column.
Have a question or comment for our editorial staff? Visit our free bulle-
tin board at www.StrategyAndTacticsPress.com
the contents of this publication. Nothing may be
reproduced from it in whole or in part without
prior permission from the publisher. All rights
reserved. All correspondence should be sent
to World at War c/o Decision Games, P.O. Box
21598, Bakersfield CA 93390.
World at War (ISSN ______) is pub-
lished bi-monthly by Decision Games, 1649
Elzworth St. #1, Bakersfield CA 93312.
Application to mail at Periodical Postage
Rates is pending at Bakersfield, CA and
additional mailing offices.
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to
World at War, PO Box 21598, Bakersfield
CA 93390.

World at War 5

WaW5 Issue.indd 5 2/6/09 2:46:40 PM

 War at the Top of the World:
The Finnish Front, 1941-42
By Joseph Miranda

Somewhere on the northern front: Finnish troops advance through a town.

When
the Germans invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, they had a
co-belligerent in the far north, the country of Finland. The Finns saw
the new struggle as an opportunity to regain the territory they’d lost
during the Winter War of 1939-40. Consequently, to them Operation
Barbarossa was known as the “Continuation War.” As in the Winter War, the Finns would have the tactical edge
but, in the long run, the Soviets would gain the strategic ascendancy.
Finland’s position in the far north was tenuous. The country had only gained independence in 1917. From that
time back to 1809 it had been a duchy of the Russian Empire, and prior to that part of the Kingdom of Sweden.
When World War II broke out on 1 September 1939, Finland had a population of about 4 million. The economy
was based on logging, nickel mining and agriculture. While that hardly seemed to provide a basis for an effective
military system, the Finnish armed forces proved to be well trained, well led and highly motivated.
In the wake of the German invasion of Poland, the Finns declared neutrality; however, they soon found they
couldn’t keep out of the growing conflict. The Soviet Union was allied to Germany at that time, thanks to the
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact signed on 24 August 1939. That agreement had radically changed the balance of power
in Europe since, until that time, Germany and the Soviet Union had been opposed to each other. The pact resulted
in, among other things, the partition of Poland between the Third Reich and the USSR. As the Germans overran
the western part of Poland, the Soviets occupied the rest. With his eastern flank secure, Hitler could then turn his
attention west. Even so, that didn’t end tensions in the east.
Stalin didn’t view Hitler as being an ultimately reliable ally. Consequently he ordered the Red Army to oc-
cupy bases in the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia in order to create further buffer space between
Germany and the Soviet Union proper. That move was done with the approval of Berlin via secret provisions
6 #5

WaW5 Issue.indd 6 2/6/09 2:46:41 PM

 World at War 7

WaW5 Issue.indd 7 2/6/09 2:46:44 PM

 in the pact. Later in 1940, the USSR would formally
and fully annex the Baltic States. Stalin’s plan was to
move the Soviet outer defenses that much farther west.
To further secure the Baltic region, then, Stalin also
demanded the Finns surrender some frontier areas and
the naval base of Hanko. The Finns refused.
In response, on 30 November, Stalin sent in the
Red Army, expecting a quick victory. The Finns
fought fiercely, and though the Soviets succeeded in
overwhelming the frontier defenses, the war was a
moral victory for the Finns. They did a superb job of
repulsing the initial attacks and causing mass casual-
ties in the Red Army. Their performance earned Fin-
land great respect throughout the West.
Regardless of its outcome, the Winter War con-
vinced the Finnish government it could no longer stay
neutral in the larger war. Consequently they made
overtures to Berlin. Even though Hitler and Stalin
were still allies, it was clear the antipathy between Na-
tional Socialism and Communism would eventually
result in a new and larger war in the east. By mid-
1940, with France defeated and Britain besieged, the
Finns realized they would have to deal with Germany
as the dominant power on the continent. If Germany
were to attack the USSR, the Finns wanted to get in on
what they hoped would be the winning side.
Finnish objectives included regaining the territories
lost in the Winter War’s peace settlement, while also
gaining a general position of strength in any postwar
negotiations. The Finns also sought economic assis-
tance from Germany, along with help rebuilding their
armed forces.
Hitler welcomed the participation of another coun-
try in his planned war against the Soviet Union. That
was especially so given the fierce Finnish military rep-
utation earned in the Winter War. The Finns could be
expected to tie down Soviet forces in the far north and
perhaps assist in operations against Leningrad. Politi-
cally, a German-Finnish alliance would, in conjunc-
tion with the occupation of Norway, encircle neutral
Sweden. The German steel industry was dependent on
Sweden for iron ore, without which the Wehrmacht
would be unable to expand according to its long-range
plans. Such a strategic encirclement would also likely
prevent Sweden throwing in with the Allies and, as
long as Sweden remained neutral, iron ore shipments
would continue. A neutral Sweden also gave the Reich
a window on the world, albeit a limited one, through
which commerce and espionage activities could be
conducted.
Hitler had another reason for getting involved in
Finland. He considered the nickel mines near Petsamo
vital to Germany’s war economy. In the event of an-
other Soviet-Finnish War, he planned to have his forces
occupy those mines to secure them from a Red Army
grab. That became the genesis of Operation Reindeer,
the initial German move into Finland at the start of
8 #5
WaW5 Issue.indd 8
Operation Barbarossa in June 1941. During the spring
of 1941, then, the Germans and Finns entered into se-
cret negotiations to coordinate operations in the event
of a Nazi-Soviet war. While the Germans intended to
invade the USSR, for security reasons all preparations
for that operation were kept secret from the Finns.
Continuation War
Hitler would launch Barbarossa on 22 June 1941
(see the sidebar with the chronology for details). Three
days later, Finland officially entered the war against the
USSR. In the opening stages of the campaign, Finnish
and German forces advanced toward Murmansk and
captured extensive areas of Karelia. Berlin also pres-
sured the Finns to attack Leningrad from the north and
push through Karelia in order to cut the Murmansk
railroad. Field Marshal Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim,
who’d commanded the Finnish Army since the inde-
pendence war in 1917-18, refused on the grounds of
his prewar pledge to Moscow that his nation’s forces
would never threaten Leningrad. Helsinki was also
concerned about completely alienating the Western
Allies by an overly aggressive strategy. The Finns
saw the war not as the decisive struggle for European
hegemony, but as a balancing act between the major
powers. There was little support in their parliament for
any expansion of Finland’s borders beyond the prewar
territory. Nonetheless, the participation of Finland in
the new war gave the Red Army another front to cover
when it was already over-extended fighting the main
German effort.
For the Soviets, the Finnish front came down to
two critical points that had to be held: Leningrad, the
great city at the head of the Gulf of Finland; and Mur-
mansk, the Arctic port through which Allied lend-lease
supplies were shipped in once fighting began. In the
event, Leningrad was turned into a fortress and held
throughout the war. Axis forces would threaten Mur-
mansk, but were repulsed after considerable maneu-
vering and some hard fighting. Later attempts by Axis
forces to cut the Murmansk railroad farther south were
stymied by the difficult terrain and still more fierce
fighting. The Soviets attempted counteroffensives in
southern Karelia, but they came to little during the first
two years of the war. It wouldn’t be until 1944 that the
Red Army would be able to seriously threaten Finland.
One reason for the indecisive nature of the Continua-
tion War was of the terrain.
Theater of Operations
The landscape of Finland and Karelia is dominated
by primeval forest, which did much to shape the fight-
ing. Much of the region was simply unexplored; roads
were few and far between, as were landmarks. That
made cross-country navigation difficult for troops not
experienced in forest craft. Moreover, much of the ter-
rain was broken by lakes and small rivers that further
impeded movement. The result was units tended to
2/6/09 2:46:44 PM
 Chronology
24 August 1939: Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Nazi Ger-
many and the Communist Soviet Union ally. That move
temporarily secures the Reich’s eastern front in the event of
another general war across Europe.
1 September 1939: World War II Begins in Europe.
Germany invades Poland. France and Britain declare war
on Germany two days later.
30 November 1939 – 12 March 1940: Winter War.
The Soviet Union attacks Finland. The Finnish resistance
inflicts high levels of casualties on the Red Army. The war
ends with Finnish territorial concessions.
9 April 1940: German Invasion of Scandinavia. The
Wehrmacht overruns Denmark and Norway.
22 June 1941: Operation Barbarossa. Germany invades
the Soviet Union. In occupied Norway, Operation Reindeer
begins, the movement of Mountain Corps Norway into
Finland. German aircraft mine the Baltic Sea, bottling up
the Soviet fleet in its bases.
25 June 1941: Continuation War Officially Begins. The
Soviet Air Force launches mass bombing attacks on Finn-
ish cities and airfields. These attacks provide the Finnish
government with justification for entry into the war as a
German co-belligerent.
June 1941: Murmansk Front. Mountain Corps Norway
launches Operation Platinum Fox, an attempt to capture
Murmansk. Overall German operations in the far north
were termed Operation Silver Fox.
June 1941: Northern Karelia. In central Finland, German
XXXVI Corps advances into Karelia alongside the Finns, as
part of Operation Polar Fox, to cut the Murmansk railroad.
June 1941: Southern Karelia. The Finns’ Army of Karelia
attacks toward Lake Ladoga and the Svir River, retaking
regions lost in the Winter War. Offensives continue into Au-
gust, with the Finns encircling and destroying several major
Soviet units. On the Karelian isthmus, the Soviets fall back
from Viipuri, and the siege of Leningrad begins.
22 September 1941: Platinum Fox Ends. Gen. Dietl, the
Mountain Corps commander, realizes Murmansk can’t be
taken that year and calls off the operation. Neither Platinum
Fox nor Silver Fox attain their objectives.
1942: Karelia. Axis forces launch Operation Salmon
Catch, another attempt to cut the Murmansk railroad.
Soviet resistance and abysmal terrain cause the offensive
to fail.
1942-1943: Finnish Front Stabilized. The Finns begin se-
cret negotiations with the Allies to withdraw from the war.
9 June – 15 July 1944 Karelian Isthmus. A Soviet offen-
sive pushes back the Finns to the prewar frontier. Mean-
while, in western Russia, the Red Army launches Operation
Bagration, destroying Germany’s Army Group Center.
19 September 1944: Helsinki. The Finns sue for peace.
Some fighting between Finnish and German forces follows,
known as the Lapland War. The Germans fall back into
Norway.
October 1944: Lapland. During the Petsamo-Kirkenes
campaign, the Red Army defeats German forces within the
Arctic Circle.

World at War 9

WaW5 Issue.indd 9 2/6/09 2:46:45 PM

 fragment as they moved, and it was difficult to con-
centrate large formations for major operations. Ma-
neuvers therefore tended to follow the roads, such as
they were, and flanks were almost always open to in-
filtration.
Re-orienting an axis of attack became next to im-
possible once an operation was underway. That tended
to make individual battles indecisive, and decisive
battles rare. It wasn’t uncommon for units to run into
foes they didn’t even know existed, leading to many
meeting engagements. The defender generally had the
edge when it came to large actions, at least if he was
prepared for the terrain. Conversely, when it came to
small-unit actions, the attacker tended to have the edge
if he was trained and equipped to fight in the environ-
ment were falling back on their own. The Red Army could
In the extreme north, in the Kola Peninsula and
Lapland, the characteristic terrain was tundra. That
was broken land, created by retreating glaciers from
the last ice age, dominated by boulders and many small
streams flowing into the Arctic Ocean. It must be un-
derstood that much of the campaign occurred within
the Arctic Circle. That meant summer days were ex-
tremely long, and winter nights endless. The com-
bination of forest and tundra not only made combat
operations exceptionally difficult, they also hobbled
logistics. Trucks were quickly rendered useless, ne-
cessitating the use of pack animals, sledges and even
reindeer.
The military truism “no plan survives contact with
the enemy” was even more applicable on the northern
front. The failure of the elite German Mountain Corps
Norway to capture Murmansk in the summer of 1941
Finnish Gen. Tuompo
10 #5
WaW5 Issue.indd 10
was due to its inability to overcome the terrain, while
its Red Army foes fully exploited the landscape.
Another area in which the Soviets had an advan-
tage was the rail network. The Murmansk railroad,
which ran from that Arctic port to points south, gave
the Red Army the ability to switch forces along the
entire length of the front. Effectively, it provided them
with “interior lines.” The Finnish railroads didn’t run
in the places needed to support offensive operations
across the border and into Soviet Karelia, though they
were useful within Finland itself. For the Germans, the
situation was even worse. Their nearest railheads were
in Norway, hundreds of miles away. What that meant
was, as Axis forces advanced, they quickly outran
their lines of communication. Meanwhile the Soviets
therefore win any race to build up manpower and sup-
plies, while the Axis had to push beyond the point of
diminishing returns.
The Finns did have their Arctic Highway, which
had originally been built to support tourist traffic to
the polar region. That road proved to be of utility in
supporting Axis forces in the far north. The Germans
would also make some attempts to build up communi-
cations, including building roads, but they were con-
strained by the tremendous logistical difficulties of
such engineering operations.
Paradoxically, winter was often the best time to
go over to the offensive. The ground froze, making it
more suitable for large-unit movement. The rivers and
lakes also froze, further facilitating movement and un-
dermining the defenders’ use of waterways as barriers.
Unlike the rest of the eastern front, the rains didn’t
cause too much havoc. The ground tended to be more
absorbent, though the spring thaw could make the ter-
rain temporarily unmanageable. What that meant was
some of the difficulties that often impeded Axis opera-
tions elsewhere on the eastern front weren’t as big an
issue in Finland and Karelia.
A major problem the terrain created was a sense
of isolation among the troops. That was caused by the
brooding forests, the endless winter nights, and the
general lack of communication. For instance, mail
from home, always an important tool for maintaining
soldier morale, was frequently held up by the long dis-
tances and poor roads. The isolation affected the Ger-
mans more than the Finns or the Soviets, who were
acclimated to the conditions.
What all that indicates is the Finnish front was dif-
ferent than the rest of the USSR. It called for special-
ized tactics and specialized forces. The mechanized
and mobile style of warfare that characterized the
main front were unworkable here. The Finns and the
Soviets had those specialized forces, and the Germans
quickly learned to assemble them in-theater.
2/6/09 2:46:46 PM
 Germans
The German armed forces (Wehrmacht) were at
the peak of their fighting abilities in 1941. They were
highly trained, well led and had an operational and tac-
tical doctrine that had proven successful in campaigns
in Poland, the West and the Balkans. Moreover, their
record of continuous victory in the first two years of
World War II resulted in high morale among the Ger-
man soldiers, airmen and sailors as well their leaders.
The Wehrmacht high command expected to win the
war with the Soviet Union in a single campaign in
1941. As events would demonstrate, that expectation
was based on an overestimation of German capabili-
ties.
The Wehrmacht suffered from two major deficien-
cies as it launched its campaign against the Soviet
WaW5 Issue.indd 11
Union in the summer of 1941. The first was a lack of stra-
tegic intelligence about the USSR. German intelligence
underestimated the number of Soviet divisions in the Red
Army order of battle as well as the ability of the Soviet
economy to rapidly mobilize and equip more armies.
The second German deficiency came from the fact their
own economy wasn’t fully mobilized for war. Hitler and
the Nazis, mindful of the need to maintain home front
support, kept a large consumer economy running. That
provides an interesting comparison with the Finns who,
for the 1941 campaign, mobilized fully with some 16 di-
visions taking the field. That was actually a higher ratio
of divisions-to-population than was fielded by Germany.
That’s a further indication the Germans weren’t as pre-
pared for the War in the East as were the Finns.
World at War 11
2/6/09 2:46:52 PM

The German contingent: mountain troops assemble for a plan.
Nonetheless, the Germans did commit forces to the
Finnish Front that were considered suitable for opera-
tions there. In the far north was Mountain Corps Nor-
way (later reorganized as XIX Mountain Corps) with
its 2nd and 3rd Mountain (Infantry) Divisions. Both
were well trained and experienced units. While the
terrain within the Arctic Circle wasn’t mountainous
in the sense of the Alps or Caucuses, those divisions
were nonetheless suitable for the Finnish front. They
had winter training and were otherwise better prepared
for cold weather operations than other German divi-
sions. Another favorable factor was German mountain
division logistics were suitable for the Arctic Circle.
Both divisions had pack animal trains to haul supplies,
which proved useful in crossing the tundra.
The organization of the mountain divisions was
also good in that it emphasized independently oper-
ating battalions. Given the fragmenting nature of the
forests and tundra, that gave them something of an
edge, though, as it would turn out, not enough of one.
The real shortfall came from the fact those German
formations lacked training for fighting in the specific
kinds of terrain in which they would be operating.
They would learn by experience during the second
half of 1941, but by the end of that year it was too late
to gain a decisive victory.
On the central part of the Finnish front, the Germans
deployed the XXXVI (Infantry) Corps, in which they
committed two infantry divisions and the motorized
SS Battlegroup North. BGN was poorly trained when
it was first committed – indeed, even its commander
12 #5
WaW5 Issue.indd 12
recommended against it being sent into combat. After
suffering an initial drubbing, however, BGN was reor-
ganized and expanded into a division, and it performed
credibly in 1942. The XXXVI Corps was also later re-
organized into the XXXVI Mountain Corps, which was
actually a strange move, since it was operating in flat
terrain and had no mountain divisions assigned to it.
German operations in Finland were under Army
High Command Norway (Armee Ober Kommando
Norwegen or AOKN), a headquarters set up in Decem-
ber 1940 to control forces in both northern Norway
and Finland. AOKN faced difficult problems. Logistics
were abysmal, while moving men and supplies to the
front difficult owing to poor communications. (The
Swedes helped out, though, by allowing the Germans
to transit their country.) In December 1944 AOKN was
reorganized as Twentieth Mountain Army.
Another interesting fact is there was little in the
way of the generally lavish German corps and army
echelon support formations. Non-divisional artillery,
assault guns and engineers were scarce compared to
those committed to army groups engaged on the rest
of the eastern front. What that meant was the Germans
would find it difficult to concentrate strength for major
operations. For example, when the Mountain Corps
was held up in front of Murmansk in the summer of
1941, the best AOKN could do was send in some ma-
chinegun units and two infantry regiments as support.
The Germans did commit two armored battalions to
central Karelia, but they were equipped with captured
vehicles.
Later in the campaign the Germans would send in
a few more units via AOKN, which were intended to
secure the Arctic coast against Red Army amphibious
landings. One useful unit was the SS Ski Company (lat-
er Battalion) Norway, composed of volunteers from
Scandinavian countries and attached to the SS North
Division. Another unusual unit was a detachment from
the Brandenburgers. They were German commandos,
and their efforts involved long-range reconnaissance
missions and attempts to sabotage the Murmansk rail-
road.
Also valuable to the Axis effort, was air support
from the Luftwaffe’s Air Fleet Five, based in Norway.
Those planes could concentrate combat strength at
otherwise inaccessible locations, and somewhat made
up for the lack of heavy artillery on the ground. The
air fleet’s ground attack group also proved useful in
interdicting enemy movement of troops and supplies.
The winter of 1941-42 didn’t hurt the Germans as
badly in Finland as it did elsewhere in the USSR. One
reason was AOKN couldn’t help but anticipate the cold
weather, and had prepared its units to deal with it. The
Germans worked with the Finns to set up northern
warfare survival training courses, rotating personnel
through them. Further, unlike the rest of the eastern
front, the onset of winter on the Finnish front wasn’t
2/6/09 2:46:54 PM
 Finnish Fortifications
Following the Winter War, the Finns prepared a defense against any future Soviet invasion. Accordingly, they built the “Bolt Line” in
eastern Finland. That was a series of fortified positions along the new frontier, including bunkers, barbed wire and anti-tank traps. The line
was thoroughly equipped with weapons, but when the war broke out most of them were removed and transferred to units in the field. With
the war moving away from the Finnish frontier and into the Soviet Union, there was little sense holding the line. Farther south, after the
Finns had advanced to the outskirts of Leningrad, they built a fortified position across the Karelian isthmus called the VKT (Viipuri–Ku-
parsaari–Taipale) Line. In the later part of the war, the VKT Line proved effective in holding up the Soviet offensive—for a while.

accompanied by the fierce fighting that beset the Ger-

mans in front of Moscow. Shelters could therefore be
prepared under relatively safe conditions. In 1942 the
Germans would try again to win on the Murmansk
front; the problem then came from the fact the Finns
had advanced as far as they wanted to go.
Finns
The Finnish armed forces were prepared for the
kind of war they would have to fight. Finland lacked
the industrial wherewithal to mobilize a mechanized
army; and so they emphasized well led, well trained
infantry. Divisions were lightly equipped by German
standards, but that wasn’t really a disadvantage given
the ability of the Finns to exploit the terrain. The one
real shortfall was in anti-tank weaponry. The Finns
had to do with improvisations, such as the infamous
“Molotov Cocktail,” though they would later obtain
some anti-tank guns from the Germans. Fortunately Home front: Finnish munitions factory.
for the Finns, during 1939-42 the Red Army armored
force suffered grievous deficiencies in its training and
World at War 13

WaW5 Issue.indd 13 2/6/09 2:46:56 PM

 logistics, which rendered their tank attacks less than
effective.
The Finns also emphasized small-unit tactics. They
were called motti, from a Finnish word meaning to
cut wood into small pieces. Using that doctrine, Finn-
ish infantry would infiltrate among enemy units, cut
them off from each other, and then reduce the pockets
one by one. That often led to hard fighting, since Red
Army soldiers generally fought until their ammunition
was exhausted before surrendering.
The Finns further took advantage of their native
skills. Many of them were good skiers and hunters;
consequently, they emphasized ski mobility in winter
and marksmanship year-round. The Finns were also
adept at forest craft, which made for good navigation
in the forests and for survival during the winters.
The 1939-40 Winter War ended up giving the Finns
a boost in morale. While they lost strategically, tacti-
cally they demonstrated the superiority of their system.
The Finns then also used the months after the war to
rebuild their armed forces. Equipment was purchased
from abroad, and captured Soviet weaponry was inte-
grated. The Finns also developed an effective artillery
fire-control system, with observers placed up front
In the snows: Finnish machinegun team.
14 #5
WaW5 Issue.indd 14
with the line units. That allowed their infantry to call
in massed artillery and mortar fire, giving them local
combat superiority.
The Finns organized an armored brigade in 1941,
upgrading it to a division the following year. It was
initially equipped with captured Soviet tanks, and was
later supplemented with German-manufactured as-
sault guns. The armored division was considered an
elite unit, with its personnel handpicked.
There were other elite units. The Jaeger (light in-
fantry) brigades were highly mobile, using skis in the
winter and bicycles in the summer. The cavalry bri-
gade was similarly equipped, and each division had its
own Jaeger battalion. There were also numerous in-
dependent units, including long-range reconnaissance
battalions that often operated behind enemy lines. One
such unit was Detachment P (Petsamo, known to the
Germans as the Ivalo Battalion), which worked direct-
ly with the Mountain Corps.
Numerous quasi-military units, such as the civic
guard, supported the regular army in the field. They
provided for civil defense, air raid warning and local
security. Some frontier and guerrilla battalions were
organized, and ended up being used for local defense.
Foreign volunteers signed up to fight against Com-
munism, including a battalion of Swedes who were
used to besiege the Soviet base at Hanko on Finnish
territory. That unit was disbanded after the Soviets
evacuated the base, though some of its volunteers con-
tinued to serve in other capacities. A regiment of Esto-
nians was also formed, as well as some “tribal” units
from the inhabitants of captured Soviet territories.
The Finnish Air Force, though small, was useful.
It was initially equipped with a variety of foreign air-
craft, the best of which were British Hurricanes and
US Brewster Buffalos. Finnish pilot training empha-
sized gunnery and wingman tactics. Fighters concen-
trated against enemy bombers, since they were the
biggest threat to the troops on the ground and to ci-
vilian installations. Generally, Finnish flyers had high
kill ratios against intruders. Later in the war the Finn-
ish Air Force was reequipped with Me-109s from the
Germans.
The Finnish military system, while good, couldn’t
be sustained over the long term. The near-total mobi-
lization of the Finns deprived many of their factories
and farms’ of essential workers. As a result, the Finns
had to demobilize several divisions in 1942 in order
to keep their economy from collapsing. The Finns had
to win, and win quickly, for their system to work. As
the war dragged on into 1942 and beyond, the army
showed the strain while the Soviets got stronger.
Soviets
While Germans and Finns were at the peak of their
capabilities on 22 June 1941, the Red Army was at a
low point, just beginning to recover from its nadir. In
2/6/09 2:46:57 PM
 the early 1930s the Red Army had pioneered several
modern military concepts, including massed armored
formations and paratroopers; however, Stalin’s purge
of the officer corps then worked to wreck much of the
Soviet military. More, the Soviet military had a high
“tooth to tail” ratio: a large combat force coupled with
inadequate logistics. To top it off, in 1941 many units
remained badly trained. The poor showing of the Red
Army during the Winter War with Finland also did
much to undermine morale.
Yet the Winter War proved a two-edged sword. The
Germans, as did most outside observers, afterward
tended to underestimate Soviet military capabilities.
True enough, in 1939-41 the Red Army was probably
incapable of large offensive operations against a major
power, and even the Soviet leadership, including Sta-
lin and STAVKA (the general staff), recognized that
fact. In the period between the end of the Winter War
and the opening of Barbarossa, the Soviets reconsid-
ered their entire military system and strategy. Overall
strategy for war with the Reich – in place of the early
hold-on-the-border idea – came to be to let the frontier
force suffer the initial enemy onslaught, and then use
reserves mobilized in the interior to stabilize the front.
Finally, mechanized and shock armies would be de-
ployed to launch counteroffensives. In the event, that
Soviet strategy proved effective, halting the Germans
in front of the critical cities of Moscow and Leningrad,
and then retaking some lost territory in the winter cam-
paign of 1941-42.
In the far north, Moscow saw a renewed war with
Finland as being a secondary front at most. The two
main objectives would become holding the city of
Leningrad and securing Murmansk and its rail line.
Operations were initially under the Northern Front. (A
Soviet “front” was the equivalent of a Western army
group.) That included the Seventh (Lake Ladoga re- Karelia
gion), Fourteenth (Murmansk) and Twenty-Second Karelia, or Karjala in Finnish, is the frontier region of Finland and
Russia, which consists of several areas. The Karelian isthmus connects
(Karelia) Armies. The Northern Front was later split
Leningrad with the city of Viipuri (Vyborg). South and North Karelia are
into the Leningrad and Karelian Fronts. on the traditional Finnish side of the border, northwest of Lake Ladoga.
The effectiveness of Red Army units varied greatly On the Russian side, Karelia stretches up to the White Sea. The area to
on the Finnish front. Some units, such as the 14th and the north of it is the Kola peninsula. Sweden, Russia and Finland have
52nd Divisions in the Murmansk area, performed well. all fought over Karelia. Its strategic importance is that it controls the ap-
And the 168th Division’s tactics in delaying the Finn- proaches to St. Petersburg (Leningrad) as well as the Finnish interior.
ish advance at Ladoga in July 1941 provided the basis
for such operations throughout the Red Army. At the
same time, though, other Soviet units suffered from
shortfalls in leadership, training and logistics. One
area in which Red Army units were able to outperform
the Germans on this front was in survival skills. Many
of the units that had been stationed in the area prior to
the start of the war had used that time to pick up expe-
rience in forest craft.
The Soviet military in the north also had some spe-
cial formations, such as naval infantry brigades. They
were trained for amphibious operations and conducted
numerous raids throughout the course of the cam- Winter warriors: Soviet ski patrol.
World at War 15

WaW5 Issue.indd 15 2/6/09 2:46:58 PM

 Logistics in the Far North
Logistics on the Finnish front proved to be difficult,
to say the least. Bear in mind logistics includes not only
supply but also medical support, maintenance of equip-
ment, transport, administration, postal services (vital for
morale) and so forth. The difficulty wasn’t simply moving
supplies to the front, but also moving men and equipment
to the rear. Wounded, for example, had to be evacuated
over torturous forest paths or boulder strewn tundra. Sim-
ply pulling a unit out of the line for rest or reorganization
could become a major undertaking.
At the start of the Continuation War, Finland had only
6,400 trucks to support the entire army. They were con-
centrated into companies and were used at the most criti-
cal points of the front. Given the abysmal road situation,
however, the overall lack of motorized vehicles didn’t prove
critical. Most transport was by horse or reindeer drawn ve-
hicles and, during winter, much use was made of sleighs and sledges. The Finns also had an efficient snowplow service that
kept the roads open for winter operations.
Given the shortage of trucks, railroads were a necessity for long-range transport of men and materiel. The Finns had their
rail system well organized, with railroad repair companies, special trains, and military officers in command of stations and
depots. What all that demonstrates was, even though the Finnish Army didn’t have the most modern weaponry and equipment,
it was still capable of supporting troops in the field.

paign along the theater’s extensive coastlines and lake

One World War Earlier
World War II wasn’t the first time the Finns and Germans fought as
allies. Finland had been a Russian grand duchy since the Russo-Finnish
War of 1808-09 (see Strategy & Tactics #215 and 249). The Finns were
restive under Russian rule and, with the disintegration of the Russian
Empire in World War I, they made a bid for independence, declaring
it officially on 6 December 1917. Civil War immediately broke out in
Finland between communist Red Guards and nationalist White Guards.
Lenin, who’d seized power in Russia in November 1917, wanted to
support the Finish communists, but the incipient Red Army was in no
position to cross the frontier and fight a foreign war.
The Germans meanwhile saw an opportunity to expand their own
position in the Baltic, as well as to contain the spread of revolution.
They therefore committed their Baltic Sea Division to Finland in April
1918. Finno-German forces then routed the Bolsheviks, officially es-
tablishing Finland’s independence. Interestingly, the Finns initially
considered a monarchy for their government, with a German prince as
king; however, in 1919 they firmly established a republic.
Even following the collapse of the Kaiser’s government in the wake
of the November 1918 armistice, some German formations continued
to fight in the east. These were the Freikorps, made up of a combi-
nation of veteran troops and volunteers. The Freikorps fought against
communism, in support of German nationalists, and sometimes just for
the sake of fighting. They generally proved effective in defeating the
poorly trained Red forces they were usually up against. By the end of
1919, great power diplomatic pressure caused the Freikorps to be with-
drawn to Germany. Even so, the legacy of that German-Finnish alliance
would survive to be more fully realized in the Second World War.
16 #5
shores.
Another special force was the Reindeer Brigades,
so called because of their extensive use of reindeer for
transport. Those units were extensively recruited from
the tribal peoples who lived in the Arctic region. From
youth they were brought up to be hunters and trackers.
The one problem with those units was their personnel
didn’t respond well to harsh Red Army discipline and,
as a result, there were a number of mutinies that had to
be suppressed.
Soviet airpower included separate tactical and air
defense forces, as well as naval aviation. The Ger-
man invasion caught the Soviet Air Force in the midst
of a transition. New aircraft were being brought into
the inventory, but pilots and ground crew weren’t yet
well trained with them. More, the Soviet Air Force
also lacked an effective command-control system, and
many of its planes didn’t even have radios. There was
little training for long-range bomber operations. Con-
sequently, even though the Soviets had many more
aircraft than the Luftwaffe, they weren’t able to exploit
them to the same level of efficiency. After Finland en-
tered the war, the British sent several Royal Air Force
squadrons to provide additional air defense of the
Murmansk area.
Evaluation
The Continuation War proved something of a stale-
mate. While Axis forces initially made good gains,
they failed to take any of their major objectives. Nei-
ther Leningrad nor Murmansk was captured, nor was
the Murmansk railroad cut. On the Soviet side, the Red
Army didn’t overrun Finland as it did Hitler’s other al-
lies in eastern Europe. Finland emerged from the war

WaW5 Issue.indd 16 2/6/09 2:46:59 PM

 with some loss of territory, along with an enforced
neutrality, but its culture and government remained in-
tact. For the Finns that was victory enough, since the
national goal of playing off the various great powers in
order to maintain their nationhood had succeeded.
Militarily the campaign had more potential for the
Axis than for the Soviets. The Finnish successes in the
Karelian isthmus and southern Karelia put the Axis
powers in a position from which they could besiege
Leningrad. Their failure to take that city can be at-
tributed to decisions made outside the Finnish theater
of operations. The initial plan for Barbarossa hadn’t
called for a direct assault on Leningrad. Instead, it was
to have been reduced by blockade and starvation. Lat-
er in the war the Germans considered a direct assault,
but the forces to be used ended up being diverted else-
where. In the end the Germans tied down their Army
Group North for a siege without accomplishing any
strategic goal.
Farther north, had the Axis cut the Murmansk
railroad, they could have impeded Allied lend-lease
shipments. That would have made the Soviet mili-
tary position more difficult, but the Allies could have
shifted shipments through Archangel, Persia or other
routes. Indeed, as it was, only about 25 percent of total
lend-lease supplies came through Murmansk. That’s
something that has to be viewed in retrospect; how-
ever, since, at the time, the Germans didn’t consider
Murmansk a particularly high-priority objective. The
critical thing was, by means of what was essentially
an economy of force operation (committing about half
a dozen divisions to the far north), Germany ensured
Finland’s participation in the war while simultaneous-
ly keeping several Soviet armies engaged elsewhere
than the main front.
The Finns made an intelligent political choice in de-
ciding not to alienate the British and Americans by be-

World at War 17

WaW5 Issue.indd 17 2/6/09 2:47:00 PM


The Naval War
Naval operations were important in the Continuation War. That was
due to the long coastlines and many inland waterways, especially lakes,
which characterized the theater of operations.
The Finnish Navy included a coastal flotilla and an inner-lake force,
both made up largely of light craft. There were also several coastal de-
fense brigades and some naval infantry, the latter used mostly to defend
bases.
The Germans had some destroyers based in northern Norway, which
they occasionally used to attack Soviet shipping within the Arctic Circle
and to make enemy amphibious operations difficult. Concerns about So-
viet naval raids against their northern lines of communication also led the
Germans to commit several ground units to coastal defense.
The Soviet Navy had two fleets in the theater. The Red Banner North-
ern Fleet was based in Polyarny for operations within the Arctic Circle,
and it conducted some amphibious landings along the Barents Sea. The
threat posed by those raids forced the Finns to commit considerable forces
to coastal defense. The Soviet Baltic Fleet operated out of Kronstadt and
other ports on the Baltic Sea. It included two battleships plus cruisers
and escorts, and it should’ve had a greater impact on the campaign. The
Germans managed to keep it largely bottled up through the use of mine-
fields, Luftwaffe attacks, and some aggressive naval operations of their
own. Stuka pilot Hans Ulrich Rudel gained fame by sinking the Soviet
battleship Marat at Kronstadt.
In 1942 the Axis launched an operation aimed at interdicting Soviet
naval traffic across Lake Ladoga, especially the over-water supply route
to Leningrad. It included Italian and Finnish patrol boats, along with some
purpose-built German craft armed with 88mm anti-aircraft guns. The lat-
ter vessels were technically under control of the Luftwaffe, which made
for an interesting mix of forces.
In the northern theater overall, neither side proved to have sufficient
naval power available to gain a decision. Even so, seas and waterways
remained an active part of the fighting throughout the campaign.
ing totally offensive on their front. Of course, that also
worked to undermine the overall Axis position. On the
other hand, when the Germans did make a concerted
effort to take Murmansk, they failed. That failure was
all the more pronounced considering the mountain di-
visions assigned the task were two of the best units in
the Wehrmacht. Perhaps a greater effort on the part of
the Germans could’ve taken the port, or at least cut the
railroad south of it, but the real Axis problem on the
Murmansk sector was logistical. Simply moving units
to the front was difficult enough given the terrain, and
keeping them supported was a Herculean task. Unless
the logistical situation had been improved dramatical-
ly, committing more forces wouldn’t necessarily have
accomplished anything.
The Red Army resistance also shouldn’t be forgot-
ten. The divisions operating on the Finnish Front, at
least around Murmansk, demonstrated the skills of
the Soviet soldier when fighting on terrain of his own
choosing. The Finnish Front was an infantryman’s
war. The Germans’ panzer operations, which proved
successful in cutting up the Red Army elsewhere in
the USSR, couldn’t be applied there owing to the ter-
rain, even assuming the Germans could’ve shifted mo-
bile units to the far north. The Soviets proved capable
of fighting an infantryman’s war and, in the end, that
made all the difference.
at

Sources
Conner, Albert and Robert Poirer. Red Army Order of Battle. Novato, CA: Pre-
sidio, 1985.
Dunn, Walter. Hitler’s Nemesis: the Red Army. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1994.
Erfurth, Dr. Waldemar. Warfare in the Far North. Washington, DC: Historical
Division, US Army, 1948.
Jowett, Philip, Brent Snodgrass & R. Ruggeri. Finland at War 1939-45. Os-
prey.
Mitcham, Samuel. Hitler’s Legions. New York: Stein and Day, 1985.
Ziemke, Earl Frederik, The German Northern Theater of Operations, 1940-45.
Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1976.
Continuation War. www.tutorgig.com/ed/Continuation_War
German Norwegian Army. www.tutorgig.com/ed/German_Norwegian_Army
Strategy & Tactics nos. 194 and 199 cover the 1941-44 campaigns in detail.

18 #5

WaW5 Issue.indd 18 2/6/09 2:47:01 PM

 Fight the war at the top of the world.
The wargame featured in this issue is Joseph
Miranda’s The Finnish Front, 1941-42 (TFF),
which is the fifth game we’ve published in his
well-liked “They Died With Their Boots On”
series.
TFF’s “Boots” system simulates what might
otherwise appear to be hopeless campaigns, in
this case the first stage of what the Finns call
the “Continuation War.” It was fought between
Axis (Finnish and German) forces and the So-
viets during 1941-42, much of it north of the
Arctic Circle. During that war the Finns recap-
tured the territory they’d lost to the Soviets in
the Winter War of 1939-40. They failed to take
Murmansk, however, which would have seri-
ously hindered Allied Lend-Lease shipments to
the Soviet Union.
TFF is played in sequential “game turns,”
each of which is composed of interactive “phas-
es” and “sub-phases.” During each Operations
Phase the players alternate picking markers
from the command pool; each such pick there-
by indicating which sub-command will be “ac-
tivated” for movement and combat at that time.
The player controlling a selected sub-command
receives reinforcements for it, if any are available that
game turn, and then moves and conducts combat with
the units of that sub-command.
The armies in TFF are divided into “sub-com-
mands,” each of which operates as a semi-autonomous
force within its overall army. Sub-commands are de-
fined by abbreviations and colored stripes on the unit- Each side has a wide range of unique units: Ger-
counters. Pulling certain markers will allow a player to man mountain troops, Finnish jaegers, Soviet marine
conduct operations simultaneously with more than one brigades, plus airpower and naval support units. The
sub-command. SS Nord Battlegroup can be upgraded to a mountain
division, and the Wehrmacht’s Brandenburg comman-
dos make an appearance. All these units conduct op-
erations from the Arctic circle down to the outskirts of
Leningrad.

To purchase the game that covers the battles featured in

this issue send your name and address along with:
$26 US Customers
$32 Canadian Customers All prices include postage for first class or airmail shipping.
$34 Overseas Customers CA residents add $1.45 sales tax. Send to:
Decision Games
ATTN: S&T Game Offer
PO Box 21598
Bakersfield CA 93390
World at War 19

WaW5 Issue.indd 19 2/6/09 2:47:01 PM

 World at War No. 7:
Greek Tragedy

The wargame featured in issue seven will be Richard H.

Berg’s Greek Tragedy (GT), which covers Mussolini’s ill-
fated invasion of that country late in 1940. The game is, at
least for the Italians, a logistics nightmare. Most of what that
player does will be concerned with simply getting his avail- The sequence of play outline is presented below. 
able resources to Albania and Greece—and that includes A. Initiative Determination Phase
keeping his units in viable shape—and resisting the brainless
1. Roll die to see who goes first.
machinations of Il Duce and his ill-chosen subordinates. 
2. Check weather.
For both players, GT is a game dominated by terrain and
B. Resource Phase
weather. Mussolini chose to attack in mid-autumn in a coun-
try noted for bad weather and rough terrain. Until the chosen 1. Players determine how many resource points they
day the weather was fine and clear. On the morning of the want to use.
Game Preview

invasion, about an hour before the Italian army moved out, 2. Roll for available air support in rain or snow.
all across the Albanian border it started to pour. It was down- 3. Place arriving reinforcements.
hill from that moment.  4. Make Italian corps assignments.
There are two scenarios: the “Gamers’ Game,” and the C. Marker Selection Phase
“Historians’ Game.”  The latter allows players to see what 1. Initiative player chooses which command will start.
happened, and why, and is intended for solitaire play. The 2. Place all remaining activation and random event mark-
former is an Italian pipe dream, a best-case scenario for ers in the pool.
them, but one that also allows for competitive balance be- D. Activation Phase
tween two players while showing what could’ve happened
1. Draw activation marker from pool.
had there been better planning and more strategic insight in
Rome.  2. Activate units for that marker (within port capacity for
Italians)
There are 13,007 words in the rules. That means two ex-
3. Operations Sequence
perienced players can complete a game in about five hours.
The game was designed with two-player play primarily in a. Units move.
mind, but solitaire play is doable. b. Units engage in combat.
The scale on the 34x22” map is 7.5 miles (12 kilometers) c. Units engage in construction.
per large hex. Each turn covers one month. Units of maneu- d. Refit, which is repeated until there are no markers
ver range from battalions all the way up to divisions. Each left in the pool. Then go to:
combat strength point is the equivalent of 1,500 men. Each E. Isolation Phase
Air unit represents about 20 planes. There are 280 small- 1. Apply effects of isolation.
size, NATO-style units in the counter-mix, along with the er- 2. Determine changes in isolation status.
rata-fix counters for issue number one’s Barbarossa game. F. End Turn Phase
1.  Remove air interdiction markers.
2.  Proceed to next turn and top of sequence.

20 #5

WaW5 Issue.indd 20 2/6/09 2:47:05 PM

 Behind the Lines
Ehh, What’s up Sarge?
Only one cartoon character has
ever been formally inducted into a
branch of the US military. This, then,
is the story of how and why Bugs
Bunny came to be formally enlisted
by the USMC during World War II.
No character—much less a rab-
bit—has captured the American char-
acter as thoroughly and uproariously
as Bugs Bunny. And no character has
dominated the medium of animation
for as long as the unabashedly bold,
smart-aleck, self-confident Brooklyn-
accented bunny. Given his sheer joy
for living and his personality, is it
really any surprise Bugs is the only
cartoon character ever bestowed an
official position in the US military,
and is currently listed as an honor-
ably discharged master sergeant in the
United States Marine Corps?
He was awarded an honorary
enlistment in the USMC following
his appearance in the 1943 animated
short Super-Rabbit. That cartoon
opens in a fashion similar to the
1940s Superman cartoons, radio
show, and later movie serials and tele-
vision show: “Faster than a speeding
bullet” (in this case, a cork popped
out of a gun); “more powerful than a
locomotive” (a “choo-choo” train);
“able to leap tall buildings in a single
bound” (of course, this being Bugs
Bunny, Bugs falls frantically as soon
as he clears the building).
Once the opening establishes
Bugs as “Super Rabbit,” the story
moves to the lab of a scientist, whose
name sounds like “Professor Can-
nafraz.” The professor is creating a
“super carrot.” Bugs is his test sub-
ject, and he immediately wolfs down
the carrot, which then gives him
super-abilities, such as invulnerability
and flight—but only temporarily. He
must eat another one from time to
time to replenish his new powers.
Bugs then pulls out a newspaper
article about “Cottontail Smith,” a
hunter in Texas who wants to hunt
down all rabbits. Seeing a need,
WaW5 Issue.indd 21
Bugs gathers up all the super carrots,
stashes them in a cigarette case, gives
the professor a kiss on the nose and
flies off.
Bugs flies to “Deepinaharta
Texas,” and assumes a ‘disguise’ as
a “mild-mannered forest creature,”
complete with oversized glasses and
hat. He soon encounters Smith, and
starts to have fun with him. When
Smith tries to shoot Bugs, he finds
none of the bullets will penetrate.
Bugs hands him a cannonball, eats
another carrot (“Just a precaution”),
then plays ‘basketball’ with the can-
nonball once it’s fired at him. The
bemused Smith and his horse are
outwitted by Bugs, but they don’t
give up. The pair fly into the sky in
their own airplane, trying to swoop
in on Bugs, but soon find themselves
piloting a control stick and the top
window of their plane—and nothing
else.
Bugs soon runs out of power, but
when he tries to recharge by eating
another carrot, they all fall to the
ground. When Bugs lands, he finds
a line of eaten carrots—both Smith
and his horse are now super-pow-
ered. Bugs then turns to the camera
and says: “This looks like a job for a
REAL superman!”
He ducks into a phone booth,
and both Smith and the horse are
A still from the 1943 Bugs Bunny cartoon “Falling Hare.” The book title refers to
WWII propoganda film “Victory Through Air Power,” made by Disney in 1943.
ready to attack—until the booth
opens and they both snap to attention
and salute. Bugs marches out in a
Marine uniform, singing The Marine
Hymn, pausing to say: “Sorry, fellas,
I can’t play with you anymore. I got
some important work to do,” before
marching off toward “Berlin, Tokyo
and points East,” while finishing the
Hymn.
In 1943 the implication was clear:
Bugs had entered the Allied fight
against the Axis powers. The Marines
were honored by Bugs’s intimation
that a Marine was more superman
than Superman—and they were also
cognizant of the great public relations
and recruitment opportunity that
Super-Rabbit presented them—they
issued an honorary enlistment order
for one “Private Bugs Bunny.” The
Marines even went so far as to issue
Bugs his own dog tags. Through the
course of World War II, Bugs was
regularly promoted, following mini-
mum time in grade standards, until he
attained the rank of master sergeant,
the second-highest enlisted rank in
the USMC. Bugs was then honor-
ably discharged, and is still listed as a
former Marine. In 2002, Bugs Bunny
was voted the most popular cartoon
character of all time by TV Guide
readers.
~David Tschanz
World at War 21
2/6/09 2:47:06 PM
 Elite Beat
First Canadian Army on the Channel Coast
When the Second World War be-
gan, the Canadian Army amounted to
little more than a cadre of profession-
al officers and a backwoods militia.
After the fall of France in 1940, the
Canadian government began a furious
and successful recruitment effort,
with over 77,000 men volunteering
over the summer. They were orga-
nized into fighting formations and
shipped across the Atlantic. By the
autumn of 1940, there were 57,000
Canadian troops in Great Britain,
principally with the 1st and 2nd Cana-
dian Divisions. They were designated
the Canadian Corps, under the com-
mand of Gen. A.G.L. McNaughton, a
veteran of the First World War who’d
commanded Canadian artillery at
Vimy. The corps was soon reinforced
by the 1st Canadian Armored Brigade.
In the meantime, the 3rd and 4th Cana-
dian Divisions were cobbled together
in Canada, as was the 5th Canadian
Armored Division.
While men and equipment were
gradually assembled and trained in
Great Britain for a projected cross-
Channel assault, Canadians saw
combat in several different actions.
The most famous of them was the
disastrous raid on Dieppe in which six
regiments and two commando units
launched a frontal assault on that
heavily defended French port, losing
2,200 men out of a force of 5,000.
More successfully, the 1st Cana-
dian Division and the 1st Canadian
Armored Brigade fought in Sicily
as Canadian 2nd Corps, commanded
by Gen. G.G. Simonds, riding along
Montgomery’s left flank in his drive
up the coast to Messina.
Those formations, which were
later reinforced by 5th Canadian
Armored Division, played key roles
in the Italian campaign, fighting for
Calabria in the tip of the Italian boot
in September 1943, driving up the
Adriatic coast in December of that
year, and taking part in the fighting
south of Rome in the spring of 1944.
During the course of the Canadian
effort in Italy, Gen. McNaughton
resigned, partly due to ill health, but
also because he objected to Ottawa’s
22 #5
WaW5 Issue.indd 22
acquiescence to the parceling out
of Canadian forces. In March 1944,
H.D.G. Crerar returned from Italy,
where he’d commanded the 1st Cana-
dian Corps, and took McNaughton’s
place.
The first Canadian troops in
France actually belonged to the 2nd
British Army. They were the men of
the 3rd Canadian Division, who came
ashore on Juno Beach during Opera-
tion Overlord. The first wave con-
sisted of 7th and 8th Infantry Brigades,
each supported by an armored regi-
ment. The Canadians landed in rough
seas amid stout German defenders,
some of whom held on to strong-
points until dark while inflicting 946
casualties, 335 of which were fatal.
By evening the division had advanced
only about five miles inland (the plan
called for 10), but nevertheless the
Canadians had carved out a toehold
on the continent. During the coming
days, 3rd Division pushed inland and
fought off a counterattack launched
by 12th SS Panzer Division. In July,
the 3rd participated in the assault on
Caen, holding down the Allied right
flank and, later, made the push into
the city’s southern suburbs.
Meanwhile, the 1st Canadian
Army gradually crossed the Channel,
with elements going into action in late
July as part of US Gen. Omar Brad-
ley’s Operation Spring. There the 2nd
and 3rd Canadian Divisions attacked
south along the road to Falaise and
fought a series of see-saw battles for
three villages atop a strategic ridge
south of Caen. While the Canadians
were fighting outside Caen, Bradley
unleashed Operation Cobra, the of-
fensive that broke the Allied armies
out of Normandy and into the French
interior.
On 23 July, via orders from Gen.
Montgomery, the 1st Canadian Army
was formally activated, giving Gen.
Crerar command of 140,000 men in
five divisions (2nd Canadian Infantry
Division, 3rd Canadian Infantry Divi-
sion, 4th Canadian Armored Division,
2nd Canadian Armored Brigade, 51st
British Division, and 1st Polish Ar-
mored Division). On 4 August, Mont-
gomery ordered Crerar to strike east
toward Falaise, with the objective of
cutting off the retreat of the German
troops battling his 2nd Army. Dubbed
Operation Totalize, Crerar’s 2nd Corps
advanced along a two-division front
with the British 51st Division sup-
ported by 33rd Armored Brigade in the
north, and the 3rd Canadian Division
supported by 2nd Canadian Armored
Brigade in the south. Organized into
armored and mechanized columns
that were ordered to simply roll
over the Germans, on the night of 7
August the Canadians breached the
enemy line and advanced several
miles beyond it. The advance was
handed over to 4th Canadian Armored
Division and 1st Polish Armored Divi-
sion, while the 51st and 2nd Canadian
Divisions branched north and south,
respectively. That phase of the opera-
tion was stubbornly resisted by the
German 12th Panzer Division, which
battled the Canadians and Poles for
the wooded high ground about eight
miles west of Falaise. Despite two
days of hard fighting, the advance re-
mained stalled. On the right flank, 2nd
Canadian Division advanced south
of Falaise road, moving several miles
east.
On 14 August, then, the advance
on Falaise resumed. Once more Cre-
rar pushed forward in two armored
spearheads, the northern thrust led by
4th Canadian Armored Division and
the 3rd Canadian Division’s 8th Bri-
gade, with the southern column led
by 3rd Canadian Infantry Division and
2nd Canadian Armored Brigade. By
the end of the day they’d advanced
about three miles. There followed two
more days of tough slogging through
fierce German resistance. On the 17th
the Canadians fought their way into
Falaise proper, clearing it out by the
next morning.
After the capture of Falaise, the
Canadians began a general advance
along the coast with the object of
taking the Channel ports. Ironically,
the first major port to be liberated by
Canadian troops was Dieppe, which
elements of the 2nd Canadian Divi-
sion entered without resistance on 1
September. From there the Canadian
4th Armored Division and Polish
2/6/09 2:47:06 PM
 1st Armored Division spearheaded
the army’s advance into Belgium,
finally stopping outside Bruges,
which the Germans had fortified. In
the meantime, 2nd Canadian Division
peeled off from the main advance and
invested Dunkirk, while 3rd Canadian
Division lay siege to Calais and Bou-
logne. On 17 September, Boulogne
was attacked by two brigades (8th and
9th), and the place was entirely in Ca-
nadian hands by the 22nd. On the 25th,
the 3rd Canadian Division attacked
Calais and cleared it by the 29th.
By September the Allies had taken
the crucial port of Antwerp, but were
unable to use it, as the Germans still
held key positions along the Scheldt
Estuary to the north. The Canadians
were then tasked with clearing that
waterway and opening Antwerp. That
overall mission entailed three tasks:
crossing the Leopold Canal and the
West Scheldt shore, taking the South
Beveland peninsula, and executing
an amphibious landing on Walchren
Island.
The operation began with the
2nd Canadian Division’s drive north
across the Albert Canal toward the
town of Woensdrecht, at the en-
trance to the Beveland peninsula.
Launched on 4 October, the attack
made good progress for four days,
when 5th Infantry Brigade reached
the outskirts of Woensdrecht. There
German paratroopers contested every
piece of ground and launched vicious
counterattacks against every posi-
tion the Canadians seized. It took 2nd
Canadian Division two more days to
push into the town.
The advance onto the peninsula
paused while the Canadians worked
to clear the shoreline along the West
Scheldt, held by the German 64th
Infantry Division. That effort was led
by 3rd Canadian Infantry Division
and 4th Canadian Armored Division.
In an operation that demonstrated the
considerable skill acquired by the Ca-
nadians, on 6 October 7th Brigade at-
tacked north across the Albert Canal,
carved out a beachhead and repelled
several German counterattacks. On
the right flank, 4th Canadian Armored
Division crossed the canal and pushed
west as well. Three days later, 9th
WaW5 Issue.indd 23
Brigade was ferried through the West
Scheldt and landed behind German
lines. The 8th Brigade reinforced the
9th, and together the two formations
attacked along the shoreline, pushing
the diehard German defenders off the
estuary while the 7th Brigade, the 4th
Canadian Armored Division and the
British 52nd Division did the same on
the left. By early November the task
was completed.
On 23 October, the Canadians
also assaulted Beveland Island. Led
by 4th Brigade, 2nd Canadian Division
pushed its way across the peninsula
and cleared it of Germans by the 28th.
Two days later British 52nd Division
was ferried across the West Scheldt
to the south shore of South Beveland
Island, while 2nd Canadian Division
attacked across the northern shore.
By the morning of the 31st, the entire
peninsula was in Allied hands.
All that remained was to liberate
Walcheren Island, defended by the
German 70th Infantry Division. The is-
land was fortified with bunkers, mine-
strewn beaches, and several large-
caliber guns, most of which were
actually below sea level. Accordingly,
the RAF bombed and breached the
surrounding dykes, flooding German
defenses. In the wake of the dyke
breaching, the Canadians launched
a three-pronged assault. The 2nd
Canadian Division came across the
causeway that linked the island with
Beveland, as the British 52nd Division
was ferried across the small chan-
nel that linked the two in tank and
infantry landing craft. The troops
came ashore behind Sherman “Crab”
tanks equipped with flailing anti-mine
chains, which cleared paths through
the beach, and AVRE (Assault Vehicle
Royal Engineer) Churchill tanks
armed with bunker-busting 290 mm
“Petard” guns and collapsible bridges
that could be deployed over craters
and other obstacles.
At the same time, British No. 4
Commando attacked across the West
Scheldt, landing at the town of Flush-
ing, while British 4th Special Service
Brigade landed on the island’s west-
ern tip at the town of Westkapelle.
The Germans still held the town of
Middleburg, in the island’s center,
which was fortified and surrounded
by water. The main approach, along
the bank of a causeway, was heavily
defended, but a local led a company
of eight LVT Buffalo amphibious
through the waterlogged terrain to the
undefended western edge of the town,
forcing the Germans’ surrender.
The first Allied supply ships sailed
into Antwerp on 28 November. For
the next three months the 1st Cana-
dian Army maintained a position
on the River Maas and, in Febru-
ary 1945, took part in clearing the
Rhineland. After being reunited with
1st Canadian Infantry Division and 5th
Canadian Armored Division, which
had returned from Italy in March,
they pushed across the North German
plain to occupy Bremen on the River
Weser, when the Germans finally
gave up on 7 May. The backwoods
militia had indeed matured into an
elite force of the British Common-
wealth.
Canadian First Army Order of Battle, May 1945
1st Canadian Infantry Division
2nd Canadian Infantry Division
3rd Canadian Infantry Division
4th Canadian Armored Division
5th Canadian Armored Division
1st Canadian Armored Brigade
2nd Canadian Armored Brigade
3rd Infantry Division (British)
49th Infantry Division (British)
308th Infantry Brigade (British)
1st Belgian Infantry Brigade
Royal Netherlands Brigade
1st Polish Armored Division
~ Will Stroock
Canadian troops take a breather.
World at War 23
2/6/09 2:47:07 PM
 Technology Backdate
Jimmy Doolittle’s 100-Octane War
James “Jimmy” H. Doolittle is
best known for his eponymous air
raid on Tokyo in 1942. Many consider
it his most significant contribution
to Allied victory in World War II;
however, those with more than casual
knowledge about the war might also
cite Doolittle’s command of Fif-
teenth Air Force in 1943, or Eighth
Air Force in 1944. Doolittle planned
and guided Eighth Air Force’s “Big
Week” offensive, which broke the
back of the Luftwaffe in February
1944.
Yet Doolittle’s single greatest con-
tribution to Allied victory in World
War II was actually made in 1934. As
an executive at Shell Oil, he cham-
pioned the production of 100-octane
gasoline. Without Doolittle’s efforts
in that direction, US development
of 100-octane fuels would’ve been
delayed, with possibly decisive con-
sequences. It was one of the invisible
victories of the war.
The first decades of aircraft devel-
opment were dominated by a search
for more powerful engines. The more
powerful the engine, the bigger and
faster planes could be. Aircraft engine
power wasn’t measured by horsepow-
er alone—it was measured by horse-
power per pound of engine weight.
Engine weight and fuel weight, in
turn, both detracted from payload.
Much effort went into improving that
ratio.
The most straightforward way to
increase the power-to-weight ratio
was by increasing the engine’s com-
pression ratio. As technicians drove
development along that pathway,
however, it didn’t take long for two
new problems to manifest themselves:
pre-ignition and knock. Pre-igni-
tion occurred when the fuel mixture
spontaneously detonated before the
cylinder reached maximum compres-
sion. Knock, or “ping,” occurred
when there was a second, spontane-
ous combustion of fuel in a cylinder
immediately after the spark plug
ignited the fuel. Both reduced the
power in each stroke of the cylinder
and damaged the engine.
24 #5
WaW5 Issue.indd 24
By 1930 most of the problems
associated with pre-ignition had been
controlled. While designers had be-
come aware ping was a different and
more difficult phenomenon, they’d
also made strides in overcoming its
effects.
One such development was the
discovery, in 1926, that gasoline
contained two major hydrocarbons:
heptane and isooctane. Heptane
caused knock at low compression ra-
tios, while isooctane resisted knock at
even the highest ratios. An “octane”
rating for gasoline was therefore es-
tablished, based on the effects of the
ratio of heptane to isooctane. A fuel
exclusively made of heptane had a
zero octane rating. A fuel exclusively
consisting of isooctane had an octane
rating of 100. World War I aviation
gasoline had an octane rating of 40 to
60.
Empirical solutions to knock had
been found during World War I. Both
benzol and alcohol worked to reduce
knock, but with an engine perfor-
mance penalty. Both additives had
lower specific energy than gasoline.
Other aromatics, toluene and xylene,
were also tried, but they, like benzol,
fouled cylinders with carbon while
also dissolving rubber gaskets and
fuel lines. Another additive, tetraethyl
lead (TEL), proved to have remark-
able anti-knock characteristics. It
raised the octane rating up to 20
percent and soon became standard in
aviation fuel.
By the 1930s, fuel development
focused on increasing the isooctane
fraction in gasoline. The Army Air
Corps understandably became the
leader in pushing for the development
of higher octane ratings in aviation
fuel. When 52-octane fuel was the
industry norm, the Army Air Corps
pushed for 87 octane. It was soon
found to deliver a 33 percent increase
in power for only a 10 percent
increase in price, and quickly became
the new aviation standard.
The Army Air Corps then began
experimenting with 92- and 100-
octane fuels, and those results were
equally impressive. The problem,
though, lay in making enough of the
new fuels to meet Air Corps needs
without going bankrupt. Isolating iso-
octane, made with the processes then
available, meant 100-octane fuel cost
100 times more than conventional
fuels.
Standard Oil came to the rescue
by developing a new process to create
isooctane, one that cut manufacturing
costs 90 percent. In 1931, Shell Oil
licensed the Standard Oil process and
quickly went on to discover a way to
further reduce the cost of 100-octane
fuel. It was still significantly more
expensive than 87-octane, but within
reach of the Air Corps budget.
The Army Air Corps put out a
major contract for 100-octane fuel.
Initially, however, no company was
eager to bid. The expense of building
a refinery to mass-produce 100-octane
fuel wasn’t justified by the volume of
the contract.
Doolittle, then working for Shell
Oil, believed in the potential of 100-
octane aviation fuel. He saw its poten-
tial beyond Air Corps needs, realizing
engines built for 100-octane fuel
would be more powerful than those
running on 87-octane, thereby al-
lowing for much larger aircraft. That
would in turn create more demand for
100-octane fuel. He also recognized,
however, that until someone began
manufacturing 100-octane fuels in
large quantity, designers wouldn’t
build engines optimized for them.
It was a classic “chicken and egg”
situation. The world was struggling
through the Great Depression; a com-
mitment to mass-produce 100-octane
fuels was a ‘bet the company’ gamble.
Then known as a test pilot and air
racer, Doolittle had earned a Ph.D. in
aeronautical engineering at MIT. He
therefore had both flying and engi-
neering credibility. Trading primar-
ily on the technical prestige offered
by his Ph.D., he convinced Shell
engineers 100-octane fuel would be a
successful investment for Shell.
Shell built the plant and began
delivering 100-octane fuel in 1934.
As Doolittle predicted, demand for it
continues on page 41
2/6/09 2:47:08 PM
 Their Greatest Day:
From Disaster to Victory
on Omaha Beach
By John H. Butterfield

Allied units are in plaintext; Axis units are in italics.

On
6 June 1944, US forces assaulted a stretch of sand held by the Germans on the Calvados coast of
France—a shore ever since known by its code name: Omaha Beach. Of the five beaches assaulted
by the Allies on D-Day, Omaha was the bloodiest and the hardest-won. For several hours the fate of
the invasion hung in the balance on Omaha. Ultimately, the heroism and initiative of the US soldiers
prevailed to establish a viable beachhead. It was the greatest day of victory in World War II for the United States, yet Omaha
Beach also represented an appalling failure of planning. That plan, developed in such detail, was actually ill-suited to reality.
Omaha Beach commonly conjures images of US infantry struggling from landing craft across the sand, through defensive
obstacles and into the teeth of German machineguns; however, tanks, engineers, anti-aircraft, artillery and support troops also
landed in the first hours. All had missions to perform, most of which fell by the wayside in the chaos. The various levels of US
command on the beach, from generals to junior officers and NCOs, tried to execute the plan, but then had to adapt to its failure
in order to go on, recover, and finally achieve victory. In that story lies one of the great controversies of World War II.
A nearly identical plan succeeded brilliantly that same day on nearby Utah Beach. In the case of Omaha, though, the plan
was a mismatch to the particular terrain and enemy preparations. What saved the day, then, was the fact the US approach to
training officers and enlisted men, and preparing them for battle, produced soldiers who, when faced with failure, took stock
of the terrain and the enemy and improvised a victory.
World at War 25

WaW5 Issue.indd 25 2/6/09 2:47:09 PM

 Invasion Plan
In early 1943 the Allies formed COSSAC (Chief of
Staff to the Supreme Allied Commander) to plan the inva-
sion of western Europe—Operation Overlord. The invasion
was first intended to establish a front in France with secure
flanks and sufficient depth to protect it from German coun-
terattack. The Allies would then build up and launch power-
ful offensive operations across France, with the final objec-
tive being Germany itself. Based on the projected available
resources, the COSSAC plan called for an invasion of three
beaches on the Normandy coast. In January 1944, Gen.
Dwight D. Eisenhower was named Supreme Allied Com-
mander, and General Sir Bernard Law Montgomery took
command of the invading ground forces. They immediately
expanded the plan to include five beaches from the base of
the Cotentin peninsula to the Orne River—over 50 miles of
coast. Within that area, Allied planners selected individual
invasion beaches code-named Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and
Sword. The choices all offered flat expanses ideal for assault
craft, and were spaced such that landing forces at each one
could link up with each other in one day—if things proceed-
ed according to plan. Unfortunately, Omaha Beach was also
an ideal place for the Germans to defend against amphibious
assault.
The assault on Omaha was assigned to US V Corps under
Maj. Gen. Leonard T. Gerow, part of the First Army com-
manded by Lt. Gen. Omar Bradley. The attack plan called
for units of 1st Infantry Division, commanded by Maj. Gen.
Clarence Huebner, and 29th Infantry Division, under Maj.
Gen. Charles Gerhardt, to conduct the D-Day assault. The
116th Regiment of the 29th would land on the west half of the
beach, and the 16th Regiment of 1st Division would go in on
the east half. A battalion from each regiment was to land at
H-Hour, just after low tide, followed by the other two bat-
talions over the next 90 minutes. Their landings were to be
directly supported by DD (amphibious) tanks as well as by
conventional tanks landed from assault craft. In addition, a
company of Rangers were to land west of the 116th.
The infantry landings were to be preceded by an intense
air and naval bombardment, with the DD tanks arriving five
minutes before H-Hour to provide immediate fire support.
The infantry were to arrive in landing craft that each car-
ried approximately 30 men assigned specific objectives. On
the heels of the first wave, engineer demolition teams were
tasked with clearing and marking lanes through beach ob-
Aerial view of Omaha Beach taken just after D-Day,
looking north across the bocage toward the beach.
26 #5
WaW5 Issue.indd 26
stacles exposed by low tide to allow safe passage for the
later landings during the rising tide. Follow up forces in-
cluded anti-air, artillery, armor and support troops. Later in
the morning two additional infantry regiments were to land
to reinforce the push inland.
The plan called for the beach defenses to be neutral-
ized within two hours and the exits from the beaches to be
ready for traffic within three hours. At day’s end, the Oma-
ha beachhead was to be five miles (eight kilometers) deep,
linked with the British who landed at Gold Beach to the east,
and prepared to link up the next day with US VII Corps at
Utah Beach to the west. All together, over 30,000 men and
3,000 vehicles were to land on Omaha Beach on D-Day.
The plan sought to put overwhelming force on Omaha
Beach in a matter of hours, with the objective of eliminating
the defense, seizing the local high ground, and establishing
a defensive perimeter capable of holding off even a strong
enemy counterattack. It looked good on paper.
Battleground
Battle plans are shaped by the terrain of the battleground,
and the unique shape and features of Omaha Beach called
for a unique plan. Sheer cliffs on both ends framed a sand
beach four and a third miles long (seven kilometers) and
shaped like a shallow crescent, backed by bluffs and slopes
running the length of the beach. Defenders atop those cliffs
and bluffs had unobstructed views along the full length of
the beach, aided by the gentle concave curve. Taking advan-
tage of that, the Germans set up firing positions at both ends
from which to cover the entire beach with overlapping fields
of grazing and enfilading fire. Because the positions fired
laterally, instead of toward the sea, they could also be con-
cealed and protected from naval gunfire.
On Allied planning maps the beach was divided into al-
phabetical zones: Charlie, Dog, Easy and Fox. Each zone
was further subdivided into colors, such as Dog Green, Easy
Red and so on. The beach itself had a gentle slope ranging
from 657 yards (600 meters) in depth at low tide to just a few
yards at high tide. For an attacker, the best time to land was
at high tide to avoid a long beach crossing under fire. Un-
fortunately, the Germans constructed landing obstacles that
were exposed only at low tide and so had to be destroyed
before they became submerged and threatened incoming
landing craft.
At the top of the beach, running its full length, was the
shingle: a slope of loose stone that planners identified as the
first line of cover for assaulting troops, providing protection
from flat trajectory fire. Along the western half of the beach
the shingle was interrupted by wooden and stone sea walls,
providing more protection. The shingle had a downside for
the invaders—it couldn’t be crossed by vehicles until cleared
by engineers. Just beyond the shingle, a narrow stretch of flat
and sometimes marshy ground, called the “pavilion,” was
the last exposed ground the attackers would have to cross
before reaching the bluffs, though the occasional beach cot-
tage provided protection (to attacker and defender).
The bluffs, ranging in height from 100 to 150 feet (91
to 137 meters), gave defenders tremendous positional ad-
vantage in setting up fields of fire and protected observation
points; however, they also limited the defense by denying it
depth. No position inland of the bluff could see the beach
and vice versa. All German fire on the beach would have to
come from the bluff line or below. In addition, the bluffs’
2/6/09 2:47:09 PM
 folds and gullies offered the attacker avenues of advance to ing at night. Rommel argued: “If the enemy once gets his
infiltrate the enemy line. foot in, he’ll put every anti-tank gun and tank he can into the
Five draws (narrow valleys) pierced the bluffs, leading bridgehead and let us beat our heads against it.”
inland to the high ground. The Allies named the draws for In the end, then, the German strategy for D-Day came to
nearby towns and assigned them code-words: D-1 (Vier- be a compromise between Rommel’s plan and that of Rund-
ville), D-3 (les Moulins), E-1 (St. Laurent), E-3 (Colleville) stedt. The armor (panzer) divisions were farther from the
and F-1 (Cabourg). Roads, mined and blocked by the Ger- beaches than Rommel wanted, but he succeeded in moving
mans, led from the beach through the draws to the high quality infantry reserves up to the beaches.
ground. Control of the draws was essential to the US plan That led to the presence of the German 352nd Infantry
of getting vehicles off the beach and into the interior. The Division at Omaha Beach. According to the US Army’s offi-
Germans, of course, understood the importance of the draws cial history, US intelligence missed the 352nd entirely—even
as beach exits and so established most of their fortified posi- though it had been in Normandy for three months before
tions in and around them. D-Day—and only reported the much weaker 716th Infantry
Beyond the bluffs and the draws was the high ground— Division in the area. Actually, records show US intelligence
and another world. Beach and bluff suddenly change to located the 352nd Division some nine miles (15 kilometers)
green fields and villages in a quilt of berms and hedgerows, from Omaha Beach weeks before D-Day, and that informa-
the bocage of Normandy. No one on the beach below could tion was shared with all levels of Allied command. What the
see or conduct lateral fire onto the high ground beyond the Allies didn’t know, however, was two battalions of the 352nd
bluff, and vice versa, creating two distinct battlefields. had then been moved up to the beach itself. Even so, intel-
ligence on German infantry movement capabilities should
German Defenses have indicated elements of that division could be at Omaha
In late 1943, under the command of Field Marshall Er- Beach within three hours of an invasion alarm. The US plan
win Rommel, the two armies of Army Group B initiated wasn’t modified to take that capability into account, and re-
improvements to defenses throughout the coast of northern mained fixed on fighting just the 716th Division.
France. In addition to improving fortifications and weapons
To give teeth to his strategy of defeating the invader at
systems along the coast, Rommel proposed an active de-
the beach, Rommel also intensified the construction of bar-
fensive strategy based on immediate counterattack. He be-
riers at all likely invasion sites. At Omaha they took three
lieved the invasion would have to be defeated at the beach.
forms. On the low-tide beaches, mined obstructions would
He therefore advocated placing reserves in operational ar-
ensnare and destroy landing craft; at the top of the beach,
eas of likely invasion sites, so they could reinforce coastal
anti-tank obstacles and minefields would prevent movement
units and counterattack within hours of an enemy landing.
inland and, overlooking the beaches, concrete fortifications
In Rommel’s words: “The enemy is at his weakest just after
would conceal and protect guns covering every inch in over-
landing. The troops are unsure and possibly even seasick.
lapping fields of fire, both lateral and plunging.
They are unfamiliar with the terrain. Heavy weapons are not
yet available in sufficient quantity. That is the moment to On 6 June, the 716th and 352nd Divisions were thinly
strike at them and defeat them.” spread over a 43 mile (70 kilometer) front. In charge of that
Rommel believed centrally located reserves farther in-
land would be unable to reach the beaches until after the
Allies had gained the material and manpower advantage.
His experience operating in the face of Allied airpower in
North Africa convinced him Allied air forces would heavily
interdict the movement of more distant reserves. Only local
reserves could reach the battle in time. He was, however,
alone in that opinion among the German high command.
Field Marshall Gerd von Rundstedt, senior commander in
the west, and armor expert Gen. Heinz Guderian favored
a central reserve, capable of massing armor and attacking
when the enemy’s intentions were clear. Any given beach
landing might prove to be only a diversion, tying up mobile
forces while the main thrust developed elsewhere. Guderian
believed Allied air supremacy could be countered by mov-
GIs struggle through the surf, toward Easy Red beach.
World at War 27

WaW5 Issue.indd 27 2/6/09 2:47:11 PM

 28 #5

WaW5 Issue.indd 28 2/6/09 2:47:15 PM

 World at War 29

WaW5 Issue.indd 29 2/6/09 2:47:20 PM


Maj. Gen. Dietrich Kraiss.
sector overall was Maj. Gen. Dietrich Kraiss, command-
ing officer of the 352nd. He deployed five companies from
the 726th Regiment, 716th Division, intermingled with four
companies of the 916th Regiment, 352nd Division at Omaha
Beach, most in Widerstandsnester (WN—resistance points)
defending the beach. Farther inland, artillery batteries with
105mm and 88mm guns targeted the beach with the aid of
forward observers.
Allied Plan Unfolds
Allied planners knew prepared defenders with the terrain
advantages of Omaha Beach could potentially hold off any
invasion force thrown against them. To counter, the Allies
developed two coordinated plans: the Joint Fire Plan and the
Assault Plan.
The Joint Fire Plan, so called because it combined air,
naval and ground forces, was developed at the army group
and army levels by the staffs of Montgomery and Bradley.
It included air bombardment, naval bombardment, and di-
rect fire support by approaching assault craft to prepare the
Aboard an LCI on their way to the invasion beaches: Lt. Gen.Omar
N. Bradley, Rear Adm. John L. Hall Jr, Maj. Gen. Leonard T. Gerow,
Maj. Gen.Clarence R. Huebner.
30 #5
WaW5 Issue.indd 30
beach and support the assault as soon as it got underway. The
Assault Plan, developed at the corps and division levels by
Gerow and Huebner, laid out the specific ordering, locations
and missions of assaulting forces. Here emerges the key de-
fect in the Allied plans: the objective of the Joint Fire Plan
was to suppress and disrupt the enemy at Omaha Beach, and
the Assault Plan was then developed based on the assump-
tion the Joint Fire Plan would achieve its objective.
In the Pacific Theater of Operations, extensive bombard-
ment preceded island invasions, subjecting the enemy to a
full day or more of pummeling before the ground force hit
the beach. Yet the fire plan for Omaha Beach didn’t call for
a prolonged pre-invasion bombardment. The reason lies in
what waited beyond the beach. In the Pacific, the beach de-
fense was often the entire defense of the island and, even
when it wasn’t, the interior of the relatively small islands be-
ing assaulted could be targeted with naval gunfire. In France
the enemy held reserves inland and demonstrated great skill
at employing them. Any lengthy bombardment would raise
the alarm, with enough time for those reserves to move for-
ward and engage the invaders at the beach. Surprise there-
fore had to be maintained in order to get ashore before the
enemy reserves could deploy. And then there was the situa-
tion in the air.
The air portion of the Joint Fire Plan called on the US
Eighth Air Force to: 1) establish air superiority; 2) isolate
the battle area by interdicting enemy movement and com-
munication; and 3) neutralize the coastal defenses. The first
mission was achieved prior to D-Day, allowing concentra-
tion on the other missions. The second mission was success-
fully carried out on D-Day: no German forces transported by
vehicles reached Omaha Beach on 6 June. The third mission
failed.
Eisenhower, Montgomery and Bradley believed airpower
would win the battle, with precision daylight bombardment
of the beaches clearing the way for the invaders. That belief
was based on misunderstanding the Eighth Air Force’s defi-
nition of “precision bombing,” which was in turn due to the
US Army Air Force’s (USAAF) own over-reporting of its
effectiveness over Germany. To Bradley, precision meant the
ability to hit specific structures and positions. To the bomber
forces, precision meant putting a bomb in the vicinity of an
entire facility, such as a Ruhr factory complex. Precision
daylight bombing at that time simply wasn’t capable of de-
pendably hitting specific targets on a thin strip of beach.
As it turned out, not a single bomb was dropped on Oma-
ha Beach by the Eighth Air Force on the morning of D-Day.
Heavy cloud cover that day meant the bombers had to rely
on radar to find targets. Without visual target-sighting, the
bombardiers feared hitting the invading troops, and thus de-
layed their bomb releases a few seconds, resulting in a rain
of bombs on the farms inland of the beach.
The naval portion of the Joint Fire Plan called for 40
minutes of intense fire from an Allied flotilla off Omaha
Beach. First, counter-battery fire from battleships and cruis-
ers would take out German artillery positions. Then, drench-
ing fire would hit the beach defenses from destroyers and
small craft, augmented by that of the large ships after they
completed their counter-battery mission. After the first-wave
landings, all craft would switch to support-fire called in by
naval fire-control parties assigned to the assaulting battal-
ions ashore.
The planners’ faith in firepower resulted in the ground
2/6/09 2:47:21 PM
 commanders preparing to fight the wrong battle, and in
the men of the assault force being given a wrong impres-
sion of what the battlefield would be like. Word went down
that the soldiers approaching the beach would witness, in
Bradley’s words, “the greatest show on earth” as airpower
and naval gunfire neutralized the enemy’s coastal defense.
But the bombers didn’t have the technical capability to hit
specific targets in overcast conditions, and the large ships
of the bombardment force concentrated against the German
big guns, not the beach. Due to the rough Channel waters,
the artillery and rockets on the small craft had no way of
compensating their aim for the unpredictably of the waves,
so most of their fire fell short. The barrage impressed those
who witnessed it, but all the fireworks had little impact on
the defenses overlooking Omaha Beach. The overall naval
fire plan also employed too few ships and too little fire time
between first light and troop landing.
Naval bombardment can devastate defensive emplace-
ments, as was shown in the Pacific Theater, and as was dem-
onstrated next door to Omaha Beach. At Pointe du Hoc, the
destruction is still visible today in the form of deep overlap-
ping craters and blasted concrete. No such damage is vis-
ible on Omaha Beach. Inexplicably, the number of ships as-
signed to Omaha and Utah beaches were roughly equivalent,
despite the fact intelligence estimated the defensive prepara-
tions at Omaha were much tougher (even without the battal-
ions from 352nd Division). One reason for that was the inva-
sion planners didn’t want to risk damaging the exits from the
beach, which might slow the movement of vehicles.
The Joint Fire Plan at Omaha Beach called for the early
deployment of DD tanks, each launched offshore to navigate
to the beach under their own power, with flotation provided
by an inflated canvas shroud. Sixty-four DD Tanks of the
741st and 743rd Tank battalions were to land just ahead of the
first wave of infantry, delivering direct fire against German
positions to cover the assault troops’ arrival. Those DD tanks
were favored over conventional tanks for several reasons.
First, they could arrive along the length of the beach, instead
of grouped together on landing craft. Second, by approach-
ing the beach individually, DD tanks offered the enemy only
WaW5 Issue.indd 31
small individual targets. Third, the early presence of the DD
tanks would provide both a psychological and firepower ad-
vantage over the enemy and bolster the confidence of the
friendly troops. Fourth, since the existence of DD tanks was
unknown to the Germans, those vehicles’ unexpected emer-
gence from the surf could be expected to surprise them.
Gerow didn’t share the confidence Montgomery and
Bradley placed in the DD tanks. Accordingly, his assault plan
called for an additional 48 conventional tanks to be brought
ashore on landing craft with the first wave of infantry.
Gerow and Huebner were responsible for developing
the assault plan, within the parameters of the resources and
forces defined by First Army, down to details of how com-
panies were to be divided into boat teams and the weapons
they would carry. The assault plan focused on the tactics of
where to go and what to attack, based on the assumption the
Joint Fire Plan would thoroughly suppress the enemy prior
to the assault. As a result, Gerow and Huebner prepared the
assault forces to fight the wrong battle.
Three principles drove their assault plan: 1) tactical
surprise, to get ashore without forewarning the enemy; 2)
concentration of force, to land sufficient men and material
to overwhelm the enemy numerically; and 3) speed, to es-
tablish a viable defensive perimeter before any enemy coun-
terattack. Accordingly, the assault plan called for direct ad-
vances on the draws, with the objective of clearing them in
no more than two hours. That would enable the waves that
followed to move off the beach immediately on landing.
Four months before D-Day, the Allies become aware of
German efforts to fortify the defenses with minefields and
obstacles placed beneath the high tide water line, making the
beaches dangerous places to land at mid and high tide. As-
saulting at low tide took on enormous tactical importance, to
avoid the beach obstacles and to land engineers who could re-
move the exposed obstacles before they became submerged.
The beach obstacles presented major planning challenges,
affecting the mission of the tanks and introducing teams of
combat engineers into the first wave who needed protection
so they could destroy the obstacles before the tide rose.
Low tide in early June was at dawn; so Gerow and Hueb-
World at War 31
2/6/09 2:47:21 PM
 ner favored landing the first-wave infantry in the pre-dawn
darkness to gain tactical surprise, to engage the enemy be-
fore the engineers landed, and to give the engineers more
working time. Landing at low tide also created a tactical
problem, as men would have to cross hundreds of yards of
open beach before reaching protective terrain. All that was
more reason to land in the dark. Gerow and Huebner didn’t
get their wish; however, as the timing of the first-wave ended
up a compromise between several competing priorities.
The German beach obstacles needed to be removed at
low tide, when they were exposed; so the landing needed to
be at low tide. The beach obstacles would be exposed from
about 6:00 a.m. to 7:30 a.m.
The Eighth Air Force required daylight for precision
bombing, which started at about 5:50 a.m. The bombers
wanted an hour over their targets, but were given only 40
minutes, from 5:50 to 6:30.
The naval bombardment would likewise be more ef-
fective in daylight, operating in the same timeframe as the
bombers.
Gerow and Huebner wanted the first wave to land un-
der cover of darkness (prior to 5:50), accepting the risk that
night operations tend to be more disorganized and the land-
ing craft would be more likely to miss their specific targets.
The daylight requirements of air and naval fire won out,
and the first-wave landings were set for 6:30. As it turned
out, then, the infantry got the worst of both worlds. A 6:30
landing meant they would be coming ashore in daylight, but
they would still be approaching in darkness, causing many
assault craft to go off course.
Once on the beach, the soldiers faced a second line of
obstacles in the form of concrete walls, anti-tank ditches and
barbed wire. Those obstacles needed to be removed. Bradley
believed the precision air bombardment would take out that
second line of obstacles. If not, the fire plan called for naval
forces and arriving tank and artillery, still in their landing
craft, to drench the defenses with direct fire just before the
infantry went in. Following that close-in barrage, direct in-
fantry assault would be most effective.
Huebner and Gerow also rejected the tactic of indirect
infiltration, which generally worked only at night or in dense
vegetation, as practiced in the Pacific. Given their experi-
ence and the promise of the Joint Fire Plan, direct assault
was indeed the right call. Accordingly, the first-wave sol-
diers trained to jump off their assault craft in front of the
Omaha Beach draws, cross a beach cratered by air and naval
bombardment, and take out already suppressed enemy posi-
tions.
After 18 months of planning and training, then, at H-
Hour, 6:30 a.m. on 6 June 1944, the ramps of the landing
craft went down onto Omaha Beach. Among the first to land,
A Company of the 116th Regiment was on time and on target
in front of Vierville draw, on the west end of Omaha Beach.
Initially quiet as the Germans waited for more to debark and
enter their pre-set fire zones across the beach, the GIs wad-
ing ashore wondered, are the Germans gone? Then hell was
unleashed and all the planning evaporated. But the training
survived, and it would be up to the survivors to improvise
a new plan. The US victory at Omaha Beach is the story of
how that new plan emerged as small groups of soldiers and
junior officers found a way.
32 #5
WaW5 Issue.indd 32
6:25 A.M.
The first landings scheduled, for H-5 minutes, were for
the DD tanks of the 741st and 743rd Tank Battalions. Due to
the potential hazards and unknowns of piloting DD tanks in
Channel waters, Allied planners wisely left a key decision to
the tank company commanders: whether to launch the DD
tanks offshore, as planned, to make their way to the beach
under their own power or, if conditions were unfavorable,
to carry the DD tanks to the beach on their landing craft.
For companies B and C of the 741st Battalion attached to
the 16th Regiment, the decision was to launch despite rough
seas. That proved a disaster. Even as the first tanks sank,
the launchings continued, perhaps attributable to the “can
do” attitude of the 1st Division. Of the 32 tanks launched, 27
sank. Two made it to the beach on their own, and three were
carried in due to launch failure. Conversely, for the com-
manders of companies B and C of the 743rd Battalion at-
tached to the 116th Regiment, watching two tanks sink upon
launch was enough. They then ordered the landing craft to
take the rest of the tanks to the beach. Thirty of 32 tanks
made it ashore, 15 minutes late but on target.
The problems with the DD tanks at Omaha Beach have
led to the misconception that, with their failure, the infantry
lost all tank support. Actually, almost half the DD tanks got
ashore, and 32 conventional tanks were carried to the beach
with the first wave of infantry.
6:30 A.M.
Nine infantry companies, four with the 116th Regiment,
four with the 16th, and one Ranger company constituted the
first wave to land on Omaha Beach, aboard 50 landing craft.
For those soldiers, survival was primarily a matter of luck.
Strong cross currents to the east, darkness, and smoke from
brush fires set off by the naval bombardment caused many
boats to miss their assigned landing locations. Most of them
drifted well to the east of their targets. Those boats that
landed directly in front of German strong points suffered the
heaviest casualties. Other craft that happened to find gaps
between enemy strong points were able to hit the beach un-
scathed. From such fortunate boats emerged small groups of
soldiers that were the first to advance off the beach. Here is
how fate played out for the first wave at Omaha Beach, from
west to east.
• C Company/2nd Rangers (60 men) and A Company/116th
Infantry (190 men) landed on target in front of the Vier-
ville draw, the most heavily defended on the beach. Half
the Rangers managed to reach the cliffs to the west of the
draw. A Company was virtually wiped out.
• The landing target for G Company/116th Infantry lay
between the Vierville and Les Moulins draws, a lightly
defended area. Unfortunately, their boats drifted east and
scattered, intermingling with the boats of F Company/
116th, who landed on target in front of the deadly German
positions at Les Moulins draw.
• E Company/116th drifted far to the east, scattering into
the 16th Regiment’s sector.
• E Company/16th Regiment, scheduled to land in front of
the St Laurent draw, traded one hazard for another, drift-
ing east and landing on both sides of Colleville draw. The
E Company boats to the east of the draw found them-
selves under heavy fire, while those to the west happened
on one of the seams in the German defense between
draws. One fortunate boat from E Company/116th found
itself in the same location.
2/6/09 2:47:22 PM
 • F Company/16th, scheduled to land around that same
seam, unfortunately drifted east just enough to encounter
the intense German fire from Colleville draw.
• L Company/16th, delayed by heavy seas, drifted east to
relative safety beneath the cliffs on the far eastern edge
of the beach instead of landing in front of Colleville
draw.
• Navigational errors sent I Company/16th so far to the east
it missed the beach entirely and had to make a second
run, not landing until 8:00 a.m., after the second wave.
As the men of the first wave crossed the beach under
deadly fire, out of contact with other units, with casualties
piling up and their objectives nowhere in sight, the mis-
sion plan fell away. Only survival remained, and that meant
reaching the slanting stone shingle at the top of the beach.
Those soldiers who made it there amid the carnage hunkered
down and waited for someone to tell them what to do. What-
ever they’d been told to do earlier was no longer possible,
and many of those not dead or wounded were paralyzed by
confusion and shock.
It wasn’t the hail of bullets that stopped the US soldiers
at the shingle so much as the totally unexpected situation.
They’d been told the beach would only be lightly defended
by second-rate troops, and even that defense was to have
been thoroughly suppressed by air and naval bombardment.
Lt. Spalding’s War
The initiative of individual junior officers, NCOs and enlisted men
They were supposed to charge up the draws and rout out
won the battle of Omaha Beach, as was exemplified by Lt. John Spalding
the few survivors, but the beach and bluffs were unmarked
and his lone boat team from E Company. On reaching the shingle and
except for smoke, and there was nothing second-rate about
finding themselves alone, Spalding and his NCO Tech. Sgt. Phillip Strec-
the German defense.
zyk immediately led forward their men. Blasting a gap through barbed
To the west of the deadly Vierville draw, C Company wire beyond the shingle with Bangalore torpedoes (1), the team dashed
of the 2nd Ranger Battalion stuck to its mission. That unit across the flat to the safety of a stone cottage at the base of the bluff, from
arrived in only two landing craft, with the mission of ad- where they started their climb. Folds in the steep grade afforded protec-
vancing up Vierville draw and then heading west to seize tion from a nearby German pillbox. On the way up, the team rushed a
the German strongpoint on the promontory of Point de le machinegun nest and took its lone occupant prisoner, who revealed a Ger-
Percee, west of Omaha Beach. Under fire from the Vierville man strongpoint firing on the beach was located 656 yards (600 meters)
strongpoints as he crossed the beach to the base of cliffs, west.
Capt. Ralph Goranson appraised the situation and aban-
Atop the bluff at 8:00 a.m. (2), Spalding’s 21 men were joined by
doned the planned advance up the draw. He instead began a
Capt. Dawson and G Company plus a few GIs from two lost boat teams
climb directly up the cliffs, shielded from most enemy fire.
of the 116th, who had independently followed a similar route to the high
In that way his men became the first off Omaha Beach.
ground. Dawson planned to press on toward Colleville, and he directed
6:35 A.M. Spalding to move against the strongpoint to the west. Following a trench
Among those suffering the heaviest casualties at Omaha system along the bluff, Spalding’s team took out another machinegun po-
Beach were the demolition teams tasked with destroying ob- sition, then came upon an elaborate German dugout network on the east
stacles in the first half hour of the assault, before the tide side of St. Laurent draw. The surprised crew surrendered as Spalding’s
rose. Those teams, composed of combat engineers and naval men worked their way through the trenches from the rear. It was 9:30 a.m.
demolition specialists, were to perform their work on the ex- and Spalding had taken WN 64 without a casualty (3).
posed flat of the beach while the first-wave infantry stormed He then turned south to follow G Company to Colleville. Advancing
enemy positions that had been disrupted by air and naval through hedgerow country, the GIs encountered a new kind of fighting—
bombardment. Tanks were to provide covering fire while small pockets of experienced German snipers and machinegun crews tak-
the teams worked. There should have been a lot going on ing advantage of the bocage. Nonetheless, Spalding’s men crossed the
to keep German fire away from the engineers, but none of it farmlands and caught up with Dawson at the south end of Colleville draw,
happened. The exposed engineers were mown down as they where G company was attempting to advance into the village against a
attempted to wire obstacles for demolition. Of the nearly vigorous German defense (4). The commander of 2nd Battalion arrived at
1,000 engineers landing in the first wave, over half become noon and ordered Spalding’s team to the right (south) of the town in an
casualties. outflanking maneuver. As Spalding moved out, Germans moved into the
Nonetheless, by their determined actions, obstacles were gap between his team and G Company, and soon Spalding’s team was
blown and gaps were created. Again, those who landed in surrounded and under counterattack (5). Setting up defensive positions in
the seams between the draws were more likely to survive to drainage ditches, his men fought off the Germans all afternoon. Still sur-
fulfill their mission. By the time the tide covered the obstacle rounded and low on ammunition at 7:00 p.m., the team decided to break
belt at 9:00 a.m., gaps had been created and marked in areas out for Colleville. Moving through drainage ditches, they made it back to
between the heavily defended draws. That limited success the 2nd Battalion outside the village (6). Whereupon they were promptly
saved many lives in the later landings, not only due to the sent back to the right flank to dig in for the night (7).

World at War 33

WaW5 Issue.indd 33 2/6/09 2:47:23 PM

 removed obstacles, but also because it tended to direct later
landing craft to the seams.
7:00 A.M.
Landing just 30 minutes after the first wave was the
397th Provisional Anti-aircraft Artillery (AAA) Battalion,
with crews carrying .50 caliber machineguns and mounts for
firing at aerial targets. Their plan was to set up at intervals
along the beach to defend against German aircraft attack. No
German aircraft attacked Omaha Beach that day. The 397th
thus became the first of many units whose primary purpose
actually seemed to be to give the Germans more targets at
which to shoot. Even so, the AAA battalion proved more
useful than some units landed later that morning, as a few
machineguns managed to set up and put direct fire on Ger-
man WN positions. That was an improvised mission in sup-
port of the infantry assault.
7:15 A.M.
The second wave of infantry, four companies each in
the 116th and 16th sectors, landed under fire as heavy as that
greeting the first wave, but with the navigational advantage
of daylight on their approach. With the terrible carnage now
visible on the beach, officers on a few of the incoming craft
were able to discern the deadliest areas were in front of
the draws. B Company/116th benefited from an alert Brit-
ish commander’s decision to shift three landing craft east of
their assigned destination at Vierville draw. From those who
could see the need for it, a shift in strategy began to emerge:
first, land away from the draws, where living soldiers could
be seen; then advance up the lightly defended bluffs instead
of the draws.
Lt. John Spalding’s boat team from E Company/16th
landed in the first wave In the seam between the Colleville
and St. Laurent draws. They were joined there by the newly
arriving G Company commanded by Capt. Joseph Dawson.
More than 500 yards (456 meters) from the nearest Ger-
man strongpoint, and further protected by stone cottages
and walls, this group also concluded the way off the beach
was up the bluffs. They would be the first regular infantry to
reach high ground.
Following the second wave of infantry came four more
combat engineer battalions, one per draw. The Germans had
blocked the beach exits with barbed wire, minefields anti-
tank ditches and, at Vierville draw, a concrete wall. All of
that had to be cleared before vehicles could get off the beach.
Landing on target at their assigned draws, the combat engi-
neers suffered heavy casualties and weren’t able to start their
assigned missions for at least three hours. In the meantime,
the survivors fought as infantry.
7:20 A.M.
An unidentified officer on a control vessel, surveying the
grim situation at Vierville draw and the lack of obstacle de-
molition there, ordered Dog Green Beach closed to further
landings. He made the right decision. C Company/116th was
the first to benefit from it, diverting to the east to land in
good order in the relative quiet of Dog White, between Mou-
lins and Vierville draws. There a stone sea wall at the level of
the shingle offered protection. Beyond the sea wall and some
ruined houses were the bluffs, waiting to be climbed.
7:30 A.M.
Support units began to arrive in greater number, in keep-
ing with the plan’s timetable. The 81st Chemical Mortar Bat-
34 #5
WaW5 Issue.indd 34
Gen. Cota’s War
Among the many individual soldiers contributing to the
US victory at Omaha Beach, Brig. Gen. Norman “Dutch” Cota
stands out for his audacity and tireless habit of leading from
the front. After reaching the safety of the seawall, in the sec-
tor where C Company/116th had just landed, Cota took in the
confusion and paralysis gripping the troops huddled at the top
of the beach. He immediately set out to rally men and groups
off the beach, strolling among them with the star plainly vis-
ible on his helmet (1). Spotting a possible location to cross the
open ground between the seawall and the bluff, he crawled
forward to scout a position from which covering fire might be
provided for the advance and directed a Browning Automatic
Rifle (BAR) to set up there.
Some groups on their own, others exhorted by Cota,
dared the advance, crossing through barbed wire, over a road,
through a second line of barbed wire and into a network of un-
occupied German trenches to reach the bluff. Cota joined the
climb and reached the top between Vierville and Les Moulin
draws at 8:30 a.m. (2) He then directed a firefight to clear some
Germans out of the hedgerows on the high ground, opening a
road toward Vierville. Elements of C Company and other units
then advanced cautiously toward the village, expecting strong
resistance. Surprisingly, the GIs reached the crossroads in the
town center without incident, only to find Cota already there
(3). At 10:00 a.m. Vierville was in US hands and any Germans
still in the WNs to the north of there were cut off.
talion, outfitted with conventional heavy mortars, landed its
four companies, one in support of each infantry battalion
already on the beach. Their mission was to provide fire sup-
port to infantry clearing the draws and then to deploy on the
high ground. The cumbersome equipment was nearly impos-
sible to offload and deploy under the intense fire, much of it
sinking in the rising tide. Most mortar crews who survived
the landing were forced to abandon their equipment and join
the ad hoc infantry groups forming at the top of the beach.
One crew managed to set up its 300 lb. mortar and fire at a
German WN, but the target was too close for the shells’ arc-
ing trajectory.
7:40 A.M.
A lone landing craft weaving through the undestroyed
obstacles in the rising tide made its way to Dog White
Beach. Despite striking a pole topped by a mine, the craft
was able to disembark its passengers: Brig. Gen. Norman
Cota, second in command of the 29th Division; Col. Charles
Canham, commander of the 116th Regiment, and his head-
quarters staff. Under heavy fire, most of the men made it to
the seawall, where soldiers from C Company and other units
hugged the breakwater. Gen. Cota immediately set to orga-
nizing ad hoc teams and ordering groups over the seawall
and up the bluffs. In similar fashion, Col. Canham moved
up and down the seawall and shingle with his arm in a sling
after being shot through the hand, exhorting men to advance
off the beach.
7:50 A.M.
When everything seemed to be going wrong on Omaha
Beach, fortune delivered unexpected help in the 116th sec-
tor—reinforcements perfectly suited to deal with the chaos.
Eight companies of the 2nd and 5th Ranger Battalions, total-
ing over 600 men trained for commando missions, had origi-
2/6/09 2:47:23 PM
 Seeking to seize the moment, Cota pushed C Company
west and south of the town, but there German resistance sud-
denly materialized and, making good use of the hedgerows,
stopped the advance. The Rangers joined the effort, heading
first south then west in an effort to complete their own mission,
but they could make no headway (4).
Cota then decided it was time to clear the draw to the north
of Vierville, so vehicles and artillery could get off the beach to
help on the high ground. Handing command of the Vierville
perimeter to Col. Canham at noon, he and a group of six sol-
diers headed north from the crossroad toward the beach exit,
which was still under German control (5). At that time the Ger-
man positions in and around Vierville draw were subject to
intense naval fire. Rattled by the barrage, many Germans were
willing to surrender when surprised by US soldiers advancing
through the draw from the south. Cota took in the prisoners
and continued, despite occasional sniper fire.
Gen. Cota
Those actions ended effective resistance from WNs 71
and 72. Reaching the massive concrete wall at the mouth of
the draw, still intact despite the shelling, Cota’s team passed
through a narrow gap single-file and back onto the beach (6).
There he handed over his prisoners and set out to get the wall
demolished. Informing troops still huddled along the shingle
and seawall that the draw was safe, he walked the beach under
intermittent enemy fire, locating the men and material needed
to do the job—engineers of the 121st Battalion and tank dozers
carrying crates of TNT (7). After setting the demolition mis-
sion into motion, he headed back up to the high ground to ap-
praise the situation between St. Laurent and Vierville (8). By
3:00 p.m. the wall was blown and engineers worked their way
up the draw, clearing out mines and other obstacles. Vehicles
began to move up Vierville draw at 5:00 p.m.

nally been assigned to a mission at Pointe du Hoc, five miles

to the west. Under command of Lt. Col. Max Schneider, that
force was to reinforce Pointe du Hoc if signaled the mis-
sion there had been successful. When no such signal was
received by 7:15 a.m., Schneider switched to plan B: land at
Vierville draw and move west overland to rendezvous with
his comrades.
As the two companies of incoming Rangers approached
Dog Green Beach, they assessed the disaster at Vierville
ing a few isolated soldiers from earlier waves. Despite their
draw and veered to the east, but not quite far enough. Land-
disorientation, the new arrivals could see that, though they
ing in front of WN 70, the 2nd Rangers lost half their men
were under fire from German strongpoints to either side, the
before reaching the shingle. The survivors then set out to
bluffs straight ahead were only lightly defended and offered
climb the bluffs and take the position that had cut down their
relative safety. To the east, Companies A, B C and D of the
brothers. Rangers from this group are depicted in the film
16th landed between Colleville and St. Laurent draws under
Saving Private Ryan.
similar fire. On reaching the shingle, the survivors attempted
On witnessing the effect of the German fire on the 2nd to organize. C Company, landing on the stretch of beach just
Rangers, Schneider ordered the craft carrying the 5th Rang- vacated by Spalding and Dawson, spotted encouraging signs
ers to move even farther east, where they landed unscathed that GI’s had passed through the area and up the bluff.
in the same area as C Company/116th. On reaching the sea
According to the plan, it was time for the artillery to be-
wall, Schneider and his Rangers determined their war was
gin landing and moving up the draws, to provide support for
starting right there, and organized teams to advance up the
the infantry against the German counterattack expected on
bluffs.
the high ground later in the day. The self-propelled howit-
8:00 A.M. zers of the 58th and 62nd Armored Field Artillery Battalions
The third battalion of each assaulting infantry regiment had provided fire support for the first assault waves from
had been told the beach would be clear by the time they came their landing craft offshore. At 8:00 a.m. they were to land
in. Companies I, K, L and M of the 116th landed between St. and move off the beach. That was not yet possible. The 58th
Laurent and Les Moulin draws, an area with few landings up delayed its landing until after 10:00 a.m., and even then lost
until that time. The units made their way to the shingle, join- many vehicles on the beach before it was able to advance in
World at War 35

WaW5 Issue.indd 35 2/6/09 2:47:24 PM

 the late afternoon. The 62nd landed at 3:00 p.m. Neither bat-
talion conducted any land-based fire mission on D-Day.
8:15 A.M.
More artillery, the 7th and 111th Field Artillery Battalions,
made their way toward the beach in DUKW (amphibious)
trucks, each carrying a 105 mm towed howitzer, its crew and
shells. The amphibious trucks fared no better than the DD
tanks in the Channel waters. Of the 24 launched, only six
guns of the 7th FA made it to the beach. On the positive side,
they did later manage to exit the beach and had the distinc-
tion of conducting the only artillery fire mission on the high
ground on D-Day.
Col. George Taylor, commander of the 16th Infantry, land-
ed with his staff just west of Colleville Draw. On reaching
the shingle, crowded with survivors of the first two waves,
he rose and shouted the legendary command: “Get the hell
off the beach! If you stay you are dead or about to die!”
8:30 AM
Armored anti-aircraft artillery arrived to take on the ex-
pected Luftwaffe strafing of the beaches: the 197th and 467th
Battalions, consisting of heavy machineguns mounted on
half-tracks. Half of those armored vehicles survived the
landing. Many that did turned nose into the surf, allowing
their crews to fire at targets on the bluffs and making im-
portant contributions in suppressing fire from German WN
positions.
8:45 A.M.
To counter the expected German armored counterattack,
each regiment’s anti-tank company was next on the land-
ing schedule. The few trucks and artillery pieces that man-
36 #5
WaW5 Issue.indd 36
aged to land remained under fire on the beach all morning.
Several of the AT crews who lost their equipment joined the
infantry assault up the bluffs.
Surveying the congestion caused by the rising tide and
German fire, Naval beach control officers ordered the sus-
pension of all further landings of vehicles. It would be up to
the infantry to clear the beaches before the arrival of heavy
equipment would resume. Unknown to the officers observ-
ing the apparent disaster from offshore, progress was being
made in that regard.
At the western end of the beach, the surviving Rangers
of C Company, 2nd Battalion had scaled the cliffs west of
WN 73, a cliff-top position overlooking most of the beach
and delivering deadly fire in front of Vierville draw. Thirty
Rangers made it to the top, and were soon joined by a lost
boat team from B Company/116th. Capt. Goranson’s orders
were to turn west toward Pointe de la Percee, but seeing the
German position firing at GIs on the beach immediately to
his east, he attacked there instead, saving innumerable lives.
His Rangers advanced past a fortified house and into a laby-
rinthine German trench system, where they spent the rest of
the morning in a running firefight with the enemy. The Ger-
mans were able to keep the position occupied until late in
the day by using their communication trenches and by pull-
ing soldiers from nearby WN 72, but the pressure from the
Rangers halted their fire on the beach. The next day, a body
count tallied 69 Germans and two Americans, a testament to
the tactical skill of the Rangers.
Farther east, the survivors of A and B Companies, 2nd
Rangers ascended the bluff below WN 70, between Vierville
and Les Moulins draws. Taking advantage of folds in the ter-
rain, the Rangers made it to the crest and cleaned out a net-
2/6/09 2:47:25 PM
 work of German trenches and machinegun pits to the east.
As German casualties mounted, the remaining Germans sur-
rendered, giving up the position.
9:00 A.M.
Gen. Cota’s counterpart in 1st Infantry Division, Brig.
Gen. Willard Wyman, landed between Colleville and St.
Laurent draws. His response to the situation was similar to
Cota’s. In the words of Don Whitehead, a reporter who came
ashore with the command party:
Wyman studied the situation for a few minutes—and
then with absolute disregard for his own life and
safety, he stood up to expose himself to the enemy’s
fire. Calmly, he began moving lost units to their
proper positions, organizing leadership for leader-
less troops. He began to bring order out of confu-
sion and to give direction to this vast collection of
inert manpower waiting only to be told what to do,
where to go.
Wyman was encouraged to learn several teams were al-
ready advancing on the high ground. Yet he remained anx-
ious about the vehicles under fire on the beach. The draws
had to be cleared out to relieve that deadly traffic jam.
Though Wyman didn’t yet know it, at that hour German po-
sitions were starting to crumble from east to west.
WN 61, a massive pillbox located east of the Colleville
draw, was one of the first to go, partly due to its location
at beach level. F Company/16th had been hard hit by that
German position, and its survivors were led by Staff Sgt.
Frank Strojny. Accompanied by some lost GIs of the 116th
Regiment, they stormed the position firing BARs and hurl-
ing grenades, overwhelming the enemy.
The intrepid actions of L Company/16th then took out an-
other WN. Scattered against the cliffs at the eastern extremi-
ty of Omaha Beach, the company organized and moved west
until the cliffs gave way to an embankment below WN 60.
That position had a commanding view of the entire beach
and had defensive preparations that made a frontal assault
impossible. Covered by suppressing fire from tanks of the
741st and the destroyer USS Doyle, elements of L Company,
led by Lt. Jimmie Monteith, blew gaps through the barbed
wire and advanced up a small draw under enemy fire just
west of the German position (Cabourg draw, really just a
shallow depression in the bluffs). On reaching the high
ground, Monteith turned back east and led his men to take
the position from behind.
Meanwhile, Lt. Spalding’s team was on the high ground,
moving against WN 64 (see sidebar). By 9:30 a.m., five of
the 11 WN overlooking Omaha Beach were taken, and oth-
ers were under fire from tanks and naval destroyers.
9:15 A.M.
The third and largest landing of engineers, the 5th and 6th
Engineer Special Brigades, came ashore with the mission of
managing the beachhead. That force of 9,000 men included
mine clearers, MPs, beach traffic masters, medical special-
ists, truck drivers—everything needed to run a temporary
harbor and supply depot. Vanguards of those brigades had
landed with earlier waves, but had been unable to accom-
plish their advance work. Now the full force came ashore
amid confusion and under fire. Tasks relating to the beach
itself, such as marking landing sites, could be carried out,
but preparing the draws for the flow of traffic still had to
wait.
WaW5 Issue.indd 37
The View from on High
Accounts of Omaha Beach often suggest the landings came
within a hairsbreadth of evacuation. The source for that belief
comes from Gen. Omar Bradley’s post-war writings. In them
he revealed his state of mind on D-Day morning aboard his
command ship USS Augusta:
Our communications with the forces assaulting Omaha
Beach were thin to nonexistent. From the few radio
messages that we overheard and the firsthand reports of
observers in small craft reconnoitering close to shore,
I gained the impression our forces had suffered an irre-
versible catastrophe, that there was little hope we could
force the beach. Privately, I considered evacuating the
beachhead and directing the follow-up troops to Utah
Beach or the British beaches.
The period from 8:00 to 10:00 a.m. was the most agoniz-
ing for Bradley. Little information reached him or Gen. Ge-
row on the USS Ancon. What bits of news did arrive painted a
bleak and chaotic picture—nothing hinted at the penetrations
onto the high ground already underway. As desperate as things
seemed, Bradley kept his thoughts of evacuation to himself;
and for good reason: there was no withdrawal plan. The on-
scene development of an ad hoc plan for an orderly evacua-
tion was out of the question. With no working radios, soldiers
beyond the beach couldn’t be called back. Insufficient landing
craft survived from the morning’s carnage to scrape together
transport for a full withdrawal. Even if craft had been available,
getting men from the protection of the shingle and bluffs back
across the beach would’ve been a deadly undertaking. Only if
it became certain the operation was an utter failure, such as at
Dieppe in 1942, might an effort be mounted to extract the sur-
vivors.
Bradley’s other consideration, to reroute reinforcements to
neighboring beaches, would have doomed Omaha to failure
before it had a chance to succeed—and, despite the bleakness
of the information coming in, failure wasn’t yet certain. Brad-
ley had to hold at Omaha Beach. Without it, 25 miles would
separate Utah and Gold Beaches—a gap far too wide for link-
ing into a viable beachhead. Without Omaha Beach, Fortress
Europe couldn’t be pierced. Bradley considered those things,
but allowed his commanders to command. By 10:00 a.m., regi-
ments released by Gerow were arriving to reinforce Omaha. At
the same time, small groups of US soldiers from the first wave
were advancing inland and piercing Fortress Europe.
Lt. Gen.Omar N. Bradley (First US Army), Maj. Gen. Leonard
T. Gerow (V Corps),Gen.Dwight D. Eisenhower (Shaef).
World at War 37
2/6/09 2:47:25 PM
 9:30 A.M.
By this time several US units were on the high ground
among all the draws, advancing on German positions and
moving inland.
• L Company/16th was east of Colleville draw.
• G and E Companies/16th were between Colleville and St.
Laurent draws.
• I, K and L Companies/116th were between St. Laurent
and Les Moulins draws.
• C Company/116th and the 2nd and 5th Rangers were be-
tween Les Moulins and Vierville draws.
• C/2nd Rangers and various 116th survivors were west of
Vierville draw.
Those small forces would need reinforcement to main-
tain a semblance of a front line as they advanced. Help was
on the way.
10:00 A.M.—Noon
Two infantry regiments, the 18th of 1st Division and the
115th of 29th Division, were expecting to land on a secure
beachhead and move out to seize objectives miles inland.
Instead, some found themselves assaulting the enemy on the
beach. First to land at 10:30 a.m. was 2nd Battalion/18th on
the west side of St. Laurent draw. Gen. Wyman called for
reinforcements there—the first tactical deployment ordered
from the beach. WN 64 on the east side of the draw had al-
ready been taken by Spalding’s team, but the much stronger
WN 65 on the west side remained active and untouched. It
would be up to 2nd Battalion to take it out and open the draw.
Practically every service branch contributed to the attack.
38 #5
WaW5 Issue.indd 38
As the infantry companies maneuvered to attack the
flanks of the WN, the CO of 7th Field Artillery rallied men
and led frontal assaults; tanks of the 741st fired on emplace-
ments; fire from the USS Frankford took out a mortar bat-
tery, and anti-aircraft guns of the 467th neutralized an artil-
lery position. By noon, the draw was in US hands and the
1st Engineer Combat Battalion, which also participated in
the attack, went to work clearing it for traffic. At 3:00 p.m.
the first US vehicle drove off the beach through St. Laurent
draw.
Improvisation and courage wasn’t practiced only by the
soldiers on the beach, but by the naval forces as well. Naval
destroyers moved in close enough to get hit by German rifle
fire and risk grounding, delivering the equivalent of direct
artillery and tank support at great risk. Fire control parties
on the beach provided accurate observation for the offshore
craft. The effectiveness of the resulting fire proved instru-
mental in taking out key strongpoints. In some cases that
fire alone proved enough to send shell-shocked Germans
streaming from their holes to surrender. Omaha Beach was
one of the few times in the war naval forces provided direct
ground support.
The 115th Regiment, earmarked to land behind the 116th,
was rerouted east between Colleville and St. Laurent draws,
landing its three battalions between 11:00 a.m. and noon.
The units reached the top of the bluffs in that unfamiliar sec-
tor without a mission. Gen. Wyman ordered the three battal-
ions west on a wide front to take the village of St. Laurent.
The remaining two battalions of the 18th landed in the same
area between noon and 1:00 p.m., with orders to advance on
Colleville and points south and west of the village.
2/6/09 2:47:28 PM
 1:00 P.M.—6:00 P.M.
With eight of 11 German beach positions taken, the focus
of the battle shifted to the high ground. The invaders needed
the roads leading up from the draws, as well as the connect-
ing coastal highway, for vehicles coming from the beach.
That meant taking the villages surrounding those vital cross-
roads.
The fighting in the villages and bocage of the high
ground was a confusing affair with no front line. Units had
difficulty staying in contact as they advanced, sometimes
finding Germans moving into positions behind them. The
Germans proved adept at setting up machinegun teams in
the hedgerows and then disappearing just when they seemed
outflanked. Nonetheless, US forces made several penetra-
tions beyond the highway and seized stretches of road. Ger-
man resistance stiffened at the crossroads, especially in the
villages of Colleville and St. Laurent.
After knocking out WN 60, L Company/16th and ele- A pillbox of Widerstandsnest 65 at the mouth of the St. Laurent
ments of 3rd Battalion advanced west and south to secure draw, converted into a command post for the US 1st Division.
the flank of the beachhead, defeating one of the few German
counterattacks, an attempt to retake the WN from the village
of le Grande Hameau.
was secure, and the engineers got to work clearing Colleville
The remainder of the 16th, reinforced by the 18th Regi- draw.
ment, made the deepest penetration of D-Day by advancing
The 115th Regiment advanced with difficulty across the
well south and west of Colleville, effectively surrounding
rough terrain and woods of St. Laurent draw toward the vil-
the village. Despite several US attacks, though, the town it-
lage of that same name. At 3:00 p.m. the three battalions
self remained in German hands until the next day.
launched a coordinated assault, attacking the town from the
Meanwhile, the most extensive German position, WN 62 draw, along the coastal highway and in a flanking move to
on the west side of Colleville draw, fell at 2:00 p.m. Sub- the south. Meanwhile 3rd Battalion/116th, on the high ground
jected to intense naval fire for hours, it was bypassed and cut west of Les Moulins draw, battled German forces for the top
off by US infantry on the high ground to the east and west, of the draw. Attacking westward, the GIs won the eastern
preventing reinforcement and resupply. With their ammuni- half of St. Laurent, but the Germans were determined to hold
tion depleted and most of their heavy weapons destroyed, open the road leading south from there, their only escape
the position was abandoned by the few surviving Germans. route.
With WN 62 knocked out, the eastern half of Omaha Beach
World at War 39

WaW5 Issue.indd 39 2/6/09 2:47:30 PM

 Omaha Beach transformed from a battle ground to a harbor in a matter of days.
Only two WN remained active on the beach, WNs 66
and 68 defending Les Moulin draw, a thorn in the side of the
invaders for the rest of the day. Elements of the 2nd Battalion/
116th tried unsuccessfully to take WN 66 all morning, but
eventually moved up the bluffs toward St. Laurent. No seri-
ous attempt was made against WN 68 on the west side of
the draw. US forces that reached the high ground west of the
position headed toward Vierville. Further, no US reinforce-
ments landed west of Les Moulins, resulting in a thin US
presence on the high ground from there to the west end of
Omaha Beach. It was all the 5th and 2nd Rangers and surviv-
ing companies of the 116th could do to hold open Vierville
draw and maintain a line against the German forces west and
south of Vierville.
With Les Moulin draw still under German fire, and no
US forces to the immediate west of St. Laurent, the move
against the village was limited to frontal attacks, allowing
the Germans to stabilize their defense of the town. It would
not fall until 7 June.
Evening
Four US infantry regiments held the high ground across
all of Omaha Beach by day’s end. The 26th Regiment of 1st
Division came ashore that night, and the 175th of the 29th the
next morning, solidifying the beachhead. Over the next two
days, thousands of troops arrived to transform the bloody
battleground of Omaha Beach into a temporary harbor and
supply head for the massive build up of Allied forces in
France.
Any chance the Germans had of winning at Omaha
Beach was lost by noon on 6 June. The only units able to
respond, the reserves of the 352nd Division, were misdirected
and committed piecemeal. Rommel was right: the invasion
could only be stopped at the beaches. Armored formations
40 #5
WaW5 Issue.indd 40
that might have rolled over unsupported infantry in the early
hours were far from the scene, thanks to the strategic blun-
ders of the high command and to the might of Allied air-
power. All day the Eighth Air Force shot up German traffic
on the highways leading to Omaha Beach. Once established
ashore, the Allied juggernaut couldn’t be stopped. The Ger-
mans were subsequently able to delay Allied progress on oc-
casion, but the defeat of the Wehrmacht in the west became
inevitable once the Allies secured the high ground at the in-
vasion beaches.
at
Sources
Ambrose, Stephen E. D-Day June 6, 1944. New York: Simon &
Schuster, 1994.
Balkoski, Joseph. Omaha Beach: D-Day June 6, 1944. Mechanics-
burg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2004.
Bernage, Georges. Omaha Beach. Bayeux, France: Heimdal, 2001.
Pogue, Forrest C. John Spalding D-Day narrative. Military History In-
stitute, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania).
Harrison, Gordon. Cross Channel Attack. Washington, DC: Chief of
Military History, 1951.
Lewis, Adrian. Omaha Beach: A Flawed Victory. Chapel Hill: Univer-
sity of NC, 2001.
Zetterling, Niklas. Normandy 1944, German Military Organization,
Combat Power and Organizational Effectiveness. Winnipeg, Mani-
toba: J.J. Fedorowicz, 2000.
Various official reports of the actions of the 16th Infantry Regiment on
D-Day, transcribed on the web site http://www.warchronicle.com/
16th_infantry/contents.htm.
2/6/09 2:47:31 PM
 continued from page 24
exploded. The Navy and airlines soon
bought into 100-octane gasoline. By
the fall of 1938, US oil companies
were refining 4.2 million gallons of
100-octane, with Shell producing 62
percent of that output.
Just as he’d predicted, the new
fuel also led to a generation of more
powerful engines, and even allowed
older engines to generate 20 to 30
percent more power than they had on
87-octane. Engines became able to
produce one horsepower per pound of
engine weight.
Despite the additional expense
per gallon of 100-octane fuel, it
soon became more economical than
87- or 92-octane fuels. What hadn’t
been realized earlier was that a fuel’s
octane rating changed as the ratio of
air to gasoline varied. A lean mixture
had a lower effective octane rating
than a richer mixture. Aircraft could
therefore use a leaner mixture at
cruising speeds using 100-octane fuel
than when using 87- or 92-octane.
Aircraft proved able to fly 25 to 33
percent farther on the same load of
gasoline with 100-octane fuel. That
gave aircraft using 100-octane fuel
a decisive edge. They had greater
range, due to their lean mixture’s fuel
economy, and they also had more
power at rich mixtures than identical
aircraft burning 87-octane gasoline.
The development of 100-octane
led to a worldwide “fuel race,” but the
Allies had the inside track. US avia-
tion was primarily using 100-octane
by 1940. Britain, too, was moving
to 100-octane, developing domestic
methods of production that led to
Fighter Command switching fully to
100-octane by the start of the Battle
of Britain. Britain’s domestic 100-
octane relied on aromatics to achieve
that rating, but soon it was able to use
isooctane fuel imported from the US.
Germany was behind both the US
and Britain at the beginning of World
War II. Its aircraft, including fighters,
used 87-octane fuel in the first years
of the war. Britain’s use of 100-oc-
tane gave its fighters the performance
edge they needed to win the Battle of
Britain.
WaW5 Issue.indd 41
Germany was soon distilling 100-
octane gasoline, but their effort was
hobbled by the feedstock petroleum
available to it. Even after adding
TEL, it was suitable only for 87-oc-
tane gasoline. The additional octane
to reach 100 was therefore achieved
only by adding high percentages
of aromatics. Aromatic-dependent
fuels burned hotter and had a lower
specific energy than fuels consisting
of isooctane, and pre-ignition often
occurred when lean mixtures were
used. Luftwaffe pilots were therefore
forced to use richer settings to prevent
that, effectively using fuel as coolant.
Japan was never able to produce
high-octane gasoline. It compensated
for the power differential by reduc-
ing weight and carrying massive fuel
tanks. That made their fighters fragile,
and it made their bombers and patrol
craft into flying bombs.
Gen. Omar Bradley was attrib-
uted saying: “Amateurs talk strategy.
Professionals talk logistics.” Accounts
of the air war in World War II focus
on the combat: German failures in the
Battle of Britain; the B-17 and B-24
raids, unsuccessful until escorted by
long-range fighters; the B-29 offen-
sive against Japan; however, success
or failure in each of those campaigns
actually hinged on the outcome of
the earlier octane war. Long-range
missions were impractical without
100-octane fuel. Fighters were less
effective without the power offered
by 100-octane in combat.
Without Doolittle’s prewar ad-
vocacy, development of 100-octane
would have been delayed, possibly
for years. The B-17 and all first-gen-
eration World War II US fighters were
designed for 100-octane engines.
They couldn’t otherwise have been
built, and the RAF would likely have
lost the Battle of Britain. Doolittle
had therefore succeeded in altering
the course of World War II years
before he bombed Tokyo.
~ Mark N. Lardas
In the Air
The Italian 274th Heavy
Bomber Squadron
Italian Gen. Douhet is cited as
the father of the strategic bombing
concept, and his nation’s aircraft
industry built and flew its first four-
engine strategic bomber in 1939. The
Italian Air force, the Regia Aeronau-
tica, however, set up its first strategic
bombing unit only in 1942. The
274th Squadriglia Bombardamento a
Granda Reggio (Long Range Bomber
Squadron) was the only such forma-
tion in the Regia Aeronautica, formed
for use against long-range shipping
and land targets.
The 274th received the only
four-engine bombers Italy built, the
Piaggio P. 108. B, which was nick-
named the “Italian Flying Fortress.”
The P.108 was extremely expensive
to produce from Italy’s meager
resources. Between November 1939
and August 1943, Piaggio built a total
of only 163 of them.
The P.108 B was an all-metal
cantilever low-wing monoplane with
a retractable under-carriage, driven
by four 1,350 horsepower P.XII
radial engines. The first prototype
was finished in October 1939, and
had advanced defensive armament for
that time: two 7.7 mm machineguns
in the waist, a 12.7 mm machinegun
in a belly turret, a similar weapon
in a nose turret, and two remotely
controlled twin gun turrets in the
outer engine nacelles. The first Allied
bomber with comparable armament
was the Boeing B-29, developed four
years later.
It took some time for pilots and
crews to become accustomed to the
new aircraft; a year passed before the
unit was rated combat operational.
Headquartered in Pisa, the 274th
received training in scattered loca-
tions. The crews took flight lessons at
Guidonia, instrument flying lessons
at Littoria, bomb training at Furbara,
and torpedo-attack training at Gor-
gigia.
The Air Ministry had high expec-
tations for the unit. So much so, the
squadron’s first commanding officer
World at War 41
2/6/09 2:47:31 PM
 was Capt. Bruno Mussolini, Il Duce’s
favorite son. Bruno, only 23, was also
a popular commander with the unit’s
crews.
On 7 August 1941, while practic-
ing landings, Bruno was killed when
his P.108 crashed. The bomber’s
engines failed 300 feet above the
ground. Trying for a pancake landing,
the plane side-slipped and crashed.
In his honor, the 274th was thereafter
authorized to use the name “Bruno
Mussolini” as part of its identifica-
tion. The unit insignia, shown on all
the P.108s, was Bruno’s signature
scrolled across a white band on the
mid-fuselage.
The 274th became fully active
in June 1942. The squadron was
employed in the Mediterranean area
mainly on night bombing missions;
however, the unit’s first action was
against British shipping. Based at
Guidonia, Italy, since 13 February
1942, combat operations began on 9
June, the Bruno Mussolini Squadri-
glia flew out on a search-and-destroy
mission in the area of the Balearic
Islands. They first saw action in an
unsuccessful day mission against a
destroyer on 6 June, releasing ten 350
lb. (160 kg.) bombs. Throughout its
entire existence, the unit never had
more than eight serviceable aircraft,
averaging four at any one time.
The Regina Aeronautica high
command then decided to alter the
mission posture of the 274th. Because
of the bombers’ 2,190 mile range,
and bomb load of 7,700 lbs., the unit
was to henceforth be sent on night
bombing missions to distant targets.
On 26 June 1942, the 274th therefore
moved to Decimomannu, Sardinia,
to be in striking distance of Gibraltar.
The squadron began night bombing
missions of the British fortress, and
also conducted anti-shipping attacks
when called on to do so.
The 274th carried out its first
attack against Gibraltar on 29 June.
It was almost a disaster: out of five
aircraft that set out, one (MM.22004)
was forced to abort the mission due
to engine trouble, while the other four
attacked by dropping sixty-six 220
lb. (100 kg.) and six 350 lb. (250 kg.)
42 #5
WaW5 Issue.indd 42
bombs. Three of the bombers, short
of fuel, were forced to land in Spain,
two of which (MM.22001 and 22005)
crashed and suffered heavy damage.
The third (MM.22007) was quickly
refueled and took off from Majorca
for Italy, while the others remained
in Spain. Several other missions
were launched until October, which
resulted in some damage to the Brit-
ish installation but resulted in further
P.108 losses.
During the night raid of 3 July one
bomber was lost; 24 September saw
two go down; four were lost on 20
October, and another went down the
next day. Each of those missions in-
volved one to four aircraft (15 sorties,
total); all were unsuccessful in terms
of the damage they caused, and the
net result for the squadron was around
33 percent losses. The results were
indeed poor, with only one Hudson
bomber and some artillery positions
destroyed on the ground in the first
mission, and further unspecified dam-
age in the others, despite intensive
long-range mission crew training. On
28 October, yet another P.108 force-
landed in Algeria on its third mission.
The squadron had yet to lose a single
plane due to enemy action.
The Operation Torch landings in
November caused the 274th to turn
its attention to the North African
invasion ports. The effects of its four-
bomber raids on those targets also
proved minimal. At least three were
downed over Africa in that series of
raids, when the 274th struck at targets
in Bona Blinda, Philippeville, Maison
Blanche and Oran.
The 274th stood down in Decem-
ber 1942, when all its P.108s were
sent to the Piaggio works for new
engines. The unit resumed operations
on 6 January 1943, once again strik-
ing at North African ports. During
that phase of its operations, the 274th
ran into a dogfight for the first time.
The target was Algiers on 13
January, and the 274th flew in a
tight formation over that harbor.
The squadron was jumped by night
fighters of the RAF’s 153 Squadron.
Those Beaufighters shot down two
bombers. The survivors flew back to
Sardinia, shortly after which the unit
was pulled back to the Italian main-
land for refitting.
Incorporating new crews and re-
placement bombers, the 274th trained
at Siena Ampugnano until 10 May
1943. The next day the squadron flew
to Guidonia, Italy, to resume anti-
shipping and night bombing missions.
The Allied landing on Sicily, in July,
then drew the 274th like a magnet. The
unit struck at the invasion shipping
until it was transferred to northern
Italy.
On 24 July, the 274th began
operating from Ponteera, exclusively
conducting night bombing naval mis-
sions. The losses suffered in that cam-
paign included two aircraft destroyed
and two others heavily damaged,
mainly by Beaufighter and Mosquito
night-fighters. Only one Allied ship
was damaged,
The 274th was again in transit
when Italy surrendered to the Allies
on 8 September 1943. The squadron
had only five aircraft remaining on
the day of the armistice. The Germans
seized those bombers, and the 274th
ceased to exist. Shortly after that, the
Luftwaffe also captured all 15 of the
P.108 cargo and transport variants.
They were used on the Russian front
as part of Luftflotte 2, where they
performed exceptionally well during
the evacuation of the Crimea in 1944.
~ James I. Marino
Attention readers: We’re always looking
for authors for FYI for Strategy & Tactics
and Observation Post for World at War.
If you’d like to try your hand at writing
short (under 2,000 words), pithy articles
for this column, on virtually any aspect of
WWII military history, contact Ty Bom-
ba, FYI editor, at: WhiteRook@att.net.
2/6/09 2:47:32 PM
 The Other Ribbentrop by Blaine Taylor

Wounded in his Volkswagen in Normandy by strafing Allied aircraft on4 June, 1944, von Ribbentrop (left) returned
to the front two days later with his 12th SS Panzer Division comrade Max Wunsche (also wounded), formerly one of
Hitler’s peronal SS adjustants until December 1940. (Photo from captured Enemy Records, US National Archives,
College Park, MD).

In February 1943, 21-year-old SS panzer
commander Rudolf von Ribbentrop was
standing just outside a Russian village
when he was suddenly approached by a horse-drawn sleigh.
As he noted later in his diary:
I realized that the sleigh was occupied by about 10
Russians, all armed to the teeth. I wasn’t even carry-
ing a pistol, as it hindered me getting into and out of
the tank quickly. Instinctively, I struck the driver in
the face as hard as I could, and began to beat the Rus-
sian, who was as shocked as I, with my bare fists. I did
this only because I believed that the Russians would
have no time to shoot at me in the confusion.
While the Russians were trying to escape from the
tangle of arms and legs and get clear, I dove away
from the milling throng to avoid being hit by my own
tanks, which had meanwhile opened fire on the Rus-
sians. I fell into the snow. One of the Russians stopped
and fired two bursts from his submachine gun. I felt a
heavy blow in the small of my back, which completely
knocked the wind out of me.
That kind of performance was typical of the aggressive
“Rudi” von Ribbentrop, a man who’d enlisted in the Waffen
SS on 1 September 1939—the first day of World War II—
even though his father Joachim was foreign minister of the
Third Reich.
His father—a veteran of the First World War—had mar-
ried his mother, Anneliese Henkell, the daughter of a wine
tycoon whose family business flourishes in Germany to this
day. Rudolf was born in Wiesbaden on 11 May 1921, and
belonged to the Hitler Youth before joining the Waffen SS,
which in 1939 was still only an embryonic armed force, but
one that would grow into Nazi Germany’s second army be-
fore the end of the war.
When his father was German ambassador to the Court
of St. James in London in 1936, he tried to get Rudolf into
Eton. He believed that elite English school would show Ru-
dolf a different perspective on life, but the administration
rejected him on the grounds he was too old, which the elder
Ribbentrop interpreted as a snub by the British establish-
ment.
World at War 43

WaW5 Issue.indd 43 2/6/09 2:47:32 PM

 Rudolf was then enrolled at the less prestigious West-
minster School in London where, despite his movie star
good looks, he quickly made himself unpopular by giving
Nazi salutes and extolling the glories of the new Germany.
Three frustrating years later, then, Rudolf began his mili-
tary career as a recruit in the Germania Regiment’s replace-
ment battalion. In October 1939, young Ribbentrop was
transferred to a field regiment in the Nazi “protectorate” of
Bohemia and Moravia, which Hitler had set up when he oc-
cupied Czechoslovakia the previous March.
On 30 April 1940 he left his post for an unauthorized
one-day trip to Berlin to celebrate his father’s birthday at a
meal that included the Fuhrer’s presence as well. Over din-
ner, Hitler spoke of the coming German attack in the west, as
Rudolf recalled in his diary: “I myself hoped that the attack
would begin soon,” since he wanted to join in it rather than
go, as he was scheduled to do, to attend officer candidate
school. He wanted to go fight instead, for the simple reason:
“It was not my intention to go to an officer candidate school
without frontline experience and then have to command men
who had such experience.”
Impulsively, he brought up the matter up to one of his
father’s strong supporters within the ranks of the Nazi Party,
Heinrich Himmler, who, he said, “Clapped me on the shoul-
der and declared dryly: ‘You will do as you are ordered!’”
Undeterred, Rudolf returned to his post and went to see
his regimental commander, SS Gen. Felix Steiner, who also
clapped him on the back, and said: “Believe me, son, you
will have plenty of time to get into this war! When you are
an officer, come back and see me, because I will probably be
forming a new division.”
When his father’s further intervention with Himmler
failed to change his status, Rudolf simply called a taxi and
took off for the front to find his regiment on his own, which
he did on 10 May 1940, just as the attack in the west was
launched. While crossing Holland, Ribbentrop led a bayonet
charge against a patrol, which then surrendered to him. When
his regiment entered the Dutch town of Bergen op Zoom,
they encountered some enemy soldiers about to withdraw.
He described the scene that followed: “I entered a farmhouse
that was full of Dutch soldiers. I suddenly found myself fac-
ing a Dutch lieutenant….
I shouted to him, ‘Hands
up!’ He answered my bluff
in fluent German…and or-
dered his men to lay down
their weapons.”
Ribbentrop, all the
while technically AWOL
from officer candidate
school, served in the 11th
Company throughout the
campaign in the west, win-
ning the Iron Cross Second
Class and a promotion to
corporal for bravery in the
face of the enemy. He also
received his first wound,
a bullet fragment in his
upper-right arm that, as
he wrote: “had originated
from a bullet that shattered
on striking the gravel. My
44 #5
WaW5 Issue.indd 44
two comrades, who had been pinned down with me . . . had
both been killed. Sadly I stood before them. They had been
killed to my left and right. Fate had spared me.”
Later he participated in a cross-river attack in a rubber-
boat while under enemy machinegun fire, only to be greeted
later by an irate Himmler, who was on an inspection tour
of his unit: “So, you managed to get your own way after
all—but then see to it that you get to Braunschweig!” (The
location of the officer candidate school.)
He arrived there on 31 May with his Iron Cross and
Wound Badge (the German equivalent of the US Purple
Heart award), finally ready and willing to attend classes at
the officer candidate school. He wrote in his diary: “I had
done it. No one could say of me that I had been transferred
to the officers school instead of seeing action because I was
the son of a minister.”
He successfully completed the course, was commis-
sioned on 20 April 1941 (Hitler’s 52nd birthday) as a second
lieutenant, and was given command of a platoon in the 1st
Company of Reconnaissance Battalion North, which was
sent to join Gen. Edouard Dietl’s Mountain Corps Norway.
On the first day of the invasion of the USSR on 22 June, the
unit was sent to Finland to fight alongside Nazi Germany’s
co-belligerent in the war against the Soviet Union, the Finn-
ish Army.
His service in SS Kampfgruppe Nord won him Finland’s
Freedom Cross, Fourth Class and, on 2 September 1941, he
received his second wound when a bullet fractured a bone
in his left forearm. He was sent to Himmler’s personal SS
hospital at Hohenlychen to recuperate, and left there for a
short home leave in February 1942. He was also reassigned
to the newly formed Panzer Regiment of the Lifeguard SS
Adolf Hitler Division, the Fuehrer’s own super-elite body-
guard unit, founded in 1933.
He began his service with the LSSAH as a motorcycle
reconnaissance platoon leader, then transferred to the 3rd
Company. After a brief period on the regimental command
staff as operations officer, he was posted to the 6th Company,
2nd Battalion, 1st Panzer Regiment, where he commanded a
tank platoon during SS Gen. Paul Hausser’s unauthorized
first retreat from the Soviet city of Kharkhov in the spring
of 1943. During that series of battles he was wounded three
more times. He was shot in both shoulders and also sustained
a lung wound. After suffering this wound, he strenuously ob-
jected to being flown out in a light aircraft for recovery back
in Germany because he felt other, more seriously wounded
soldiers deserved that treatment more than he. The medical
officer in charge called him a “stubborn ox,” but then did as
Rudolf wanted and had him taken off the plane.
By the end of the war his awards included the Iron Cross
1st Class (18 March 1943), the Wound Badge in Silver (1
May), the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross (15 July), and the
German Cross (25 August 1944.) His most successful day
of the war came on 13 July 1943, during the epic Battle of
Kursk, when he and his unit helped stop a Red Army tank as-
sault using their brand new Panzer VI “Tigers.” For that ac-
tion he later received high praise from another infamous SS
tanker, Jochen Peiper: “I would gladly take your company
into our bunch!”
Ribbentrop’s command knocked out 14 Russian T-34
tanks in that single engagement, leading Gen. Hausser later
to come in person to inspect the scene. “It was later reported
that he had marked the knocked out tanks with a piece of
2/6/09 2:47:33 PM
 chalk and counted them in disbelief,” noted Ribbentrop in He surrendered his unit to the Americans on 8 May, and
his diary. still a stubbornly proud Nazi, he told his men: “We can say
Having commanded 6th Company since 13 March 1943, with pride that at no moment during the war years . . . did
except for a brief period while training some Luftwaffe men we surrender our dignity. . . . They can treat us like dogs, but
to become tankers, Ribbentrop was transferred to the newly they cannot degrade us.”
formed 12th SS Panzer Division Hitler Youth on 1 August,
where he was posted to take command of two junior officer
training courses. Four months later he was named command-
er of the 3rd Company, 1st Battalion, Panzer Regiment 12. On
3 June 1944, while heading back to Le Neubourg, France,
following a training exercise, his Volkswagen command car
was strafed by a Royal Air Force Spitfire. He described the
harrowing incident in his diary:

I felt a light blow in my back…I realized that I must

have suffered a spinal injury. I could feel nothing
below my shoulder blades, resulting in a partial
paralysis…The fighter was on us again. It was not
only most impressive to lay on the asphalt road
and see and hear the enemy’s machinegun fire pass
about a meter from my head and spatter into the car
and the road, but it was also a helpless feeling to
face the attack while totally defenseless. Fortunate-
ly we were not hit again. The Volkswagen had been
riddled, but did not catch fire.

Seemingly paralyzed, and with a new lung wound as

well, Ribbentrop believed he was going to die, but incred-
ibly survived yet again. The feeling in his lower body quick-
ly returned, as his spinal column had only been grazed, not
severed. Meeting his father, the German Foreign Minister, Joachim
While in a bed in the Luftwaffe hospital at Bernay (where von Ribbentrop, at the front in France, Rudolf recalled in
a more seriously wounded Field Marshal Erwin Rommel his diary: “It was a wonderful day. I was permitted to stay
would be brought after a similar incident on 17 July), Rib- for supper, and afterward we sat in the open and enjoyed the
bentrop learned the news the D-Day invasion had begun on lovely evening. The orders for the next day had been issued,
6 June, and he immediately returned to his unit. In a remark- and my father said to me: It’s going to start again tomorrow!’”
able battle on 8 July against the Canadians, his company de- (Photo from the Joachim von Ribbentrop Albums, US National Archives,
stroyed 27 tanks, eight Bren gun carriers and four anti-tank College Park, MD)
guns. Soon afterward he was decorated for having person-
ally led 25 tank assaults in his career up to that time.
On 1 September 1944, during the final stage of the break-
out battle of the Falaise Gap, Ribbentrop served as regimen-
tal adjutant once more, and it was in that capacity he saw
action in the Battle of the Bulge against the Americans. On
20 December 1944 he received his next wound, when he was
struck in the mouth by a shell fragment, which won him the
Wound Badge in Gold. In all, his panzers destroyed 24 US
tanks before the Ardennes offensive ground to a halt in Janu-
ary 1945. His unit was then withdrawn from the line for a
rest period, and reformed as part of the 1st SS Panzer Corps.
He and his men then went on to fight as tank-less infantry in
both Hungary and Austria during the final desperate weeks
of the war against their old foe, the Red Army. In late April
1945 he was given command of his own battle group. Sources
Block, Michael. Ribbentrop: A Biography. New York: Crown Pubs., 1992.
Kurowski, Franz. Panzer Aces. New York: Ballantine Books, 1992.
Schwarz, Paul. This Man Ribbentrop: His Life and Times. New York: Julian
Messner, 1943.
Weitz, John. Hitler’s Diplomat: The Life and Times of Joachim von Rib-
bentrop. New York:
Ticknor & Fields, 1992.
at

World at War 45

WaW5 Issue.indd 45 2/6/09 2:47:33 PM

 P
lease take a few minutes to review the game pro-
posals and select the ones you would like to see us
publish. Mail in the card found in this issue or e-
mail your feedback with your name and address to
Doc at <ccummins@bak.rr.com> or go to our Mega-Feed-
back page at <http://www.strategyandtacticspress.com>.
This feedback is the most important source for determining
what games we will be working on for future issues of World
at War. We’re also seeking your input on additional ideas
we’re considering.
We also have a feature on our other web site <decision-
games.com> where you can pledge your support for future
boxed games, S&T Special Editions, books, and computer
games. As those projects move up the rankings, they move
forward into design, development, artwork, printing and re-
lease. You can also see the latest listing in the next Dispatch.
The World at War game line-up current looks like this:
06 Greater East Asia War
07 Greek Tragedy
08 Arriba Espana!
09 Destruction of Army Group Center
mega feedback
10 Coral Sea Solitaire
11 AfrikaKorps: Decision in the Desert
12 1940: What If?
13 First game in the East Front Battles series
14 New Guinea Campaign
15 Hardest Days
16 Partizan!
17 Leningrad
The games in issues six through nine are printed and
awaiting their magazines. The games in issues 10 through
17 are in various stages of development and artwork – there
may be some changes to the schedule for numbers 13 through
17, but those games are expected to appear. This survey will
determine what games will be going into issues 18 through
25.
Christopher “Doc” Cummins
Publisher
In sections A through D, you will find six proposals per
category. Please rank the proposals from first to sixth cor-
responding to the proposal you would most like to see being
ranked first (1) to the game you would least like to see being
ranked sixth (6). Please use each ranking, one through six,
only once per category and use all six rankings.
When you read the proposals in section E, you may vote
for any or all of them. Your vote will be treated as a pledge
order. Sections F and G ask a few additional questions that
will help guide us. Please answer as indicated in the ques-
tions.
46 #5
WaW5 Issue.indd 46
West/Mediterranean Theater
(mark 1 to 6)
A1. Go For Broke! Rescuing the Lost Battalion. As the
US 7th Army advanced through southern France in the fall
of 1944, they found themselves mired in a slugfest with
the infantry, armor and artillery of German 19th Army in the
rugged terrain of the Vosges Mountains.  Nothing exem-
plified the confusion and bitterness of those battles more
than the plight of the “Lost Battalion” of the 36th Infantry
Division. Trapped behind enemy lines, 300 men held out for
almost a week, as other US forces battled ferociously to re-
lieve them. Ultimately it was the Japanese-American Nisei
of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team who broke through
at tremendous cost. Amazingly, at the same time, a pocket
of Germans trapped behind US lines nearby were the target
of relief attempts by German forces. So confused was the
fighting one soldier woke up in his foxhole to find a Ger-
man sleeping next to him. Go For Broke! simulates that
extraordinary situation using a new company-level system
designed to simulate small unit actions over extended peri-
ods of time. Scenarios allow two players to focus on either
relief effort or to play out an entire week of the campaign
in multi-impulse game turns, each representing one day of
action. Map scale 500 meters per hex and 176 counters. John
Butterfield.
A2. Red Ensign is a battalion to brigade level simulation
of the great battles waged in Europe by the Canadian Army
during WWII. A game turn representing one day is broken
into three impulses, one for morning, afternoon, and night.
Each impulse is divided into Canadian and German phases:
Movement, Attack, Exploitation, and Defender Reaction.
Scenarios include Juno: go ashore with the 7/3 and 8/3 In-
fantry Brigades as they clear out a beachhead and repel a
counterattack by the vaunted 12th SS Panzer Division. Op-
eration Spring: The 2nd and 3rd Canadian Division’s clear
the road to Falaise. Operation Totalize: organized into flying
columns to breach German lines, the Canadian I Corps fights
its way through the heights west of Falaise and into the city.
Battle of the Scheldt: using a variety of special amphibious
vehicles, Canadian and attached allied forces open up the
Scheldt Estuary. Red Ensign will use four 11”x 17” maps
and 176 large-size counters. Will Stroock
A3. Soft Underbelly: The Italian Campaign, 1943-44. Ty
has reworked his original proposal and this topic, and the
design would now use a derivation of the Downfall system
to cover the Italian Campaign from the landings on the main-
land through the capture of Rome. Has both historical and
alternative history scenarios. 176 counters. Ty Bomba.
A4. Sedan. Sedan was the decisive battle for France in May
1940 and offers a superb gaming situation of attack and
counterattack in the 8 daily turns of the full game (there are
two other shorter scenarios). The German player has to push
Guderian’s and Reinhardt’s Panzer Corps and their supports
across the River Meuse and then westwards to complete
Operation Sicklecut; while the French player must hold his
lines and throw his armor reserves, including de Gaulle’s 4th
DCR, into the counterattack. The game uses a chit pull Corps
activation system and players must choose whether to move
first then attack or attack and then move with their activated
combat units. The game features easy to operate movement,
combat, supply and reinforcement rules and adds special
rules for air to air combat, river assault, building and de-
stroying bridges and traffic jams. The map scale is two miles
2/6/09 2:47:34 PM
 per hex and the combat formations controlled by each play-
er consist of regiments and battalions. 228 counters. Paul
Youde
A5. Tunis 1943:  A solitaire game simulating the final Allied
drive on Tunis.   The game uses a similar system to Victory
Point Games’ Israeli Independence, using chits as to track
army movement and random events.  The player is placed
in the unusual position of controlling German forces, at-
tempting a holding action with remnants of the famed Af-
rika Korps and relief troops under the command of General
von Arnim. As Free French, British, and American forces
close in on the Eastern Dorsal, the player must hold back
Allied advances long enough to secure permission to evacu-
ate North Africa, while withstanding a deterioration of sup-
plies and air power.  The task is tricky, but with playing time
under an hour, replay ability is paramount.  228 counters.
Darin Leviloff.
A6. Salerno Beachhead: The game would cover the land-
ings through the German counterattack at a battalion level
with a map scale of one kilometer per hex and three game
turns per day. Options would include a variable arrival
schedule for German reinforcements and Allied advance of
Montgomery’s 8th Army. 280 counters. Joe Youst.
Eastern Theater (mark 1 to 6)
B1. Iron Hammer: the Luftwaffe’s Last Chance for Vic-
tory. In 1943 the Luftwaffe planned one last desperate aerial
offensive to win the war in the East: Operation Eisenham-
mer, or Iron Hammer. Iron Hammer would pit a specially
trained force of Luftwaffe aircraft against the Soviet Union’s
industrial complexes east of Moscow. The objective is to
knock out the Soviet electrical generation system in order
to paralyze Soviet wear industry. Iron Hammer would use
a system similar to DG’s Luftwaffe, only with units at the
group level (36-60 aircraft). Luftwaffe aircraft would in-
clude He-177s strategic bombers, long range FW-200s, and
experimental aircraft such as the Mistel. Soviet air force de-
ployment would be based on the number of victory points
traded for interceptors and diversion of antiaircraft units
from the front. There would be special rules for German air-
launched guided missiles and KG 200 (the Luftwaffe spe-
cial operations wing). Both sides would have the option to
employ additional aircraft against a wide range of targets.
But divert too much, and your high command will not be
pleased. Joseph Miranda
B2. The Tigers are Burning. This design would model
the campaign for the Ukraine from July 1943 through April
1944. It would basically be a systemic and graphic update of
the first edition (published in S&T 118). The action would
be fast and furious throughout, with the German player al-
ways just one step ahead (or maybe not) of a Soviet “sudden
death” victory. Ty Bomba.
B3. Stalingrad: The Pocket Battle. This design would cov-
er the pocket battle fought in and around Stalingrad in the
autumn and winter of 1942, using a derivation of the system
originally created for Command magazine’s Wave of Terror.
Units of maneuver would be battalions and regiments for
the Germans, and divisions for the Soviets and Romanians.
Extensive use of data recently made available in the Red
Army’s official after-action report on this campaign would
be used to create a savage yet easy to play game. A what-if
“Breakout Scenario” would also be included. Ty Bomba.
B4. Jackboots on the Caucasus: In the summer of 1942, the
WaW5 Issue.indd 47
Germans launched their great Eastern offensive to seize the
Soviet Caucasus oilfields. The campaign came crashing to a
disastrous finale at Stalingrad later that year. Caucasus will
use the They Died with Their Jackboots system to simulate
this mighty campaign. It uses a command chit system which
randomly selects sub-commands for operational impulses.
Certain command chits will give players extra, one time,
bonuses such as the Soviet Operation Uranus. Others will
provide Hitler and Stalin Directives, generating objectives
that players must obtain during the turn, such as the city of
Stalingrad. Axis units will be corps with some mechanized
division breakdowns. Soviet units will be infantry armies
and mechanized/cavalry corps level formations. Airpower is
represented by air strike markers. Joseph Miranda
B5. Budapest Bulge. This will use Ty Bomba’s Bulge system
to simulate the last German offensive on the Eastern Front:
the attack of the 6th SS Panzer Army around Budapest and
the Lake Ballotin oilfields. German units will be divisions,
Soviet will be corps. Options include German jets. Victory is
via a point system in which players try to do better than their
historical predecessors. 228 counters. Joseph Miranda
B6. Berlin Solitaire. This will be a solitaire game of the
Battle of Berlin, April 1945. The active player is in the role
of the German command. His objective will be to delay the
Soviet Red Army from reaching the Bunker. If he can delay
more than was the historical case, then the player wins (get-
ting an all expense paid trip to Argentina). German units will
range from fanatic SS troopers down to Volksturm militia.
Soviet forces will be controlled by the game system. Ran-
dom events will include the possibility of German wonder
weapons. 228 counters. Joseph Miranda
Pacific Theater (mark 1 to 6)
C1. Invasion: Pearl. This explores the Japanese plans to
send an invasion force with the carriers to seize Pearl Har-
bor and force the Americans to fight from bases on the West
Coast. The two American divisions on Oahu ere only two
months old, disorganized and had poor communications. A
command draw system smoothly simulates the chaos. Play-
ers have the choice to bring the carriers in close for air sup-
port or keep them far at sea for potential engagement. 176
counters. Adrian McGrath.
C2. Bloody Ridge. This design would use an evolution of
the First Blood system seen in S&T#248 to cover the most
dramatic day of fighting during the ground portion of the
Guadalcanal campaign in 1942: the Japanese attempt to
break through to Henderson Field across the geographic
feature that came to be known as Bloody Ridge. The fight
pitted Japanese flesh and fanaticism against steely American
will and massive firepower: a near-run thing. 176 counters.
Ty Bomba.
C3. Air War India. From 1942 to 1943, the Japanese and
Allies fought an air war over the skies of India. The Japanese
objective in the game is to cripple the Allied land-power
build up in India and interdict the aerial supply route to Chi-
na. Meanwhile, the Allies must secure the skies for an even-
tual counteroffensive, as well as supporting the China airlift.
Victory will use a cumulative point system, where both sides
are attempting to inflict sufficient damage on the other to
prevent them from attaining their strategic theater objec-
tives. The game will include rules for aces, pilot training, the
Flying Tigers, and “flying the hump”. Joseph Miranda
C4. CA. This will be a tactical, ship to ship game of surface
World at War 47
2/6/09 2:47:34 PM
 naval battles in the Pacific theater of operations. Counters
will be large rectangles, each representing one warship.
Each warship will be rated for primary and secondary arma-
ment, protection, speed, maneuver, and spotting capability.
Combat resolution will be relatively simple without the usu-
al paperwork involved in naval tactical games, though there
will be the possibility of critical hits sinking a ship in one
turn. There will be rules for radar, night fighting, damage
control, superior naval commanders, and optional air strikes.
Scenarios will include several major battles, from historical
actions such as Iron Bottom Sound, to “what if” the Yamato
got loose. Joseph Miranda
C5. Green Hell: Battles for Burma. Green Hell is an opera-
tional simulation of the great battles in Burma. Players con-
trol battalion sized units. There are Special counters for air-
lift and aerial resupply, the Chinese 38th ‘Army, and Merrill’s
Marauders. A game turn representing one day is broken into
three impulses, one for morning, afternoon, and night. Each
impulse is divided into Anglo-Indian and Japanese phases:
Movement, Attack, Exploitation, Defender Reaction. Ad-
min Box: 5 and 7 India Divisions hunker down against a
Japanese counterattack in the wake of the failed First Arakan
campaign. Imphal: Command four Indian and one British di-
vision as they fight Japanese forces for the ‘Plain of Knights’
mega feedback
and Kohima Ridge. Operation Thursday: Orde Wingate’s
Chindits bring the war to the Japanese around Indaw in sup-
port of Chinese forces at Myitkyina. Battle of Meiktila: 17
India Division’s dogged resistance against counterattacking
Japanese during the drive on Mandalay. 176 counters with
four maps on one map sheet. Philip Sharp.
C6. Last Voyage of the Yamato. This will be a solitaire
game in which the active player will be the commander of
the Japanese super-battleship Yamato during its final sortie
against US forces invading Okinawa in 1945. The player
will have operations points with which he can “purchase”
various types of ship modifications, ammunition, elite
crews, escort ships and air cover. He then will have to sail
from the Yamato’s base to Okinawa while the game system
will generate various types of Allied interception efforts. If
the Yamato can reach Okinawa, then the Japanese player has
won. Joseph Miranda.
Other Proposals (mark 1 to 6)
D1. Savoia: Battle of Keren. This is set during the bloody
battles of the Abyssinian Campaign of World War 2. Dur-
ing the retreat from Acordat a mixed group of Italian troops
stiffened with the Elite Savoia battalions hold off the better
part of two British divisions for over a month. This battle
preludes much of what later would happen at Monte Cassino
where heavily dug in troops hold up much larger forces for
a great deal of time. Company/battalion scale. 228 counters.
David March.
 D2. Rhineland. What if Britain and France confronted
Hitler when he reoccupied the Rhineland and did not back
down? World War II breaks out in 1936. Both sides would
be woefully unprepared, but there would have been some
real potential for a Spanish Civil War style conflict in which
the emerging military systems of armor and airpower would
be employed on an ad hoc basis. There would also be the
chance for Soviet and/or US intervention. The game map
would cover western and central Europe. Units would be di-
visions and corps, as well as airpower. Joseph Miranda.
D3. Strike North: Japan Attacks the USSR. One of the
great “what-ifs” of World War II, a hypothetical Japanese
48 #5
WaW5 Issue.indd 48
invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. The assumption is the
Japanese decide to forego their offensive in the Pacific and
instead invade the USSR to support the Third Reich. Units
will be divisional and corps level, including air units. There
will be different CRTs demonstrating Japanese and Soviet
tactics. Joseph Miranda.
D4. 1939: Hinge of Fate. This design would model historic
and what-if campaigns of the first month of WWII. Two
players can play the historic German invasion of Poland in
September, or they can examine the what-ifs inherent in the
never-launched French push to the Ruhr that same month,
or they can link the two scenarios for a combined what-if
covering both. The scales are one turn/two days, one hex/16
miles. Ty Bomba.
D5. Kommando Skorzeny. This will be a solitaire game
covering German commando Otto Skorzeny’s special opera-
tions: the rescue of Mussolini, the Hungarian coup of 1944,
and Panzer Brigade 150 and the special units infiltrated
American lines during the Battle of the Bulge (the game will
include possibly two of these operations). The game will
include a mini-map for each scenario. Units will be team
level. Planning will be critical. At the start of a scenario, the
German player will expend Command Points to buy Opera-
tions markers representing intelligence, training, deception,
and other things which he can then use once the operation
has begun to execute the mission. The game system will
respond by throwing up various obstacles which the active
player will have to overcome by using Operations markers,
or by fighting his way through with his combat units. Joseph
Miranda
D6. Knight’s Move, the Assault on Tito’s HQ. In May of
1944, the 500th SS Parachute Battalion launched a daring
airborne assault on Yugoslav Partisan Leader Marshal Tito’s
headquarters. While the SS paratroopers failed to capture
Tito, they did succeed in causing massive casualties to the
Partisans before being forced to withdraw. The game will
also include the German 1st and 7th SS Mountain Divisions,
which fought their way in to relieve the paratroopers. Par-
tisan units will be shown as “untried” units, from the elite
Escort Battalion down to proletarian militia. There will be
counters for objectives such as Marshal Tito himself, as well
as his dress uniform (which the Germans managed to cap-
ture). 228 counters. Joseph Miranda
Computer Game Subscription Pro-
gram
We’re starting to convert many of our board games to
computer games. All will be fully refereed – this means the
software will enforce all the rules of movement, combat,
supply, etc, and will resolve combat for the players (unlike
ADC2, Cyberboard, and Vassal). Games will work as in our
War in Europe computer game. Board games that are soli-
taire will be playable with the system AI (as in our computer
version of Wolfpack). Some two-player games may have AI
added to them. All games will be stand-alone (one time pur-
chase, not a periodic payment web site such as HexWar).
We expect to offer a unique subscription deal: subscrib-
ers will purchase a set of subscription units at a discount, and
will then be able to select the games they want to receive as
well as when they receive them (a DIY flexi-sub). Games
are expected to be available via disk or as downloads. Your
pledge orders will help determine which games will be de-
veloped sooner. We want your feedback on other titles to
2/6/09 2:47:35 PM
 add to this list. Pledge orders will be entered into our Pledge Other Questions
Program, and can be checked through the Decision Games For multiple-choice questions, please write in the letter of
website on the Pledge Status Request page. An initial “C” in your response on the response card (or click the box or mark an
front of the title denotes the pledge is for a computer version “X” in front of the answer if using the form on the website) that
of the title. best fits your response. For open-ended questions, please use the
corresponding response line (or the box) to answer.
PBEM Games (without AI) F1. How often do you play wargames solitaire?
E1. Barbarossa (W1) a. at least once a week
E2. Solomons Campaign (W2) b. at least once a month
E3. USAAF (W4) c. at least once a year
E4. Finish Front (W5) d. more than a year since last play
E5. Greater East Asia War (W6) e. never
E6. Operation Cobra (ST251) F2. How often do you play wargames with live
opponent(s)?
E7. Kursk (ST253)
a. at least once a week
E8. Moscow (ST244)
b. at least once a month
E9. Drive on Stalingrad
c. at least once a year
E10. Blue & Grey I
d. more than a year since last play
E11. Blue & Grey II e. never
E12. Blue & Grey Seven Days Battles (quad and campaign) F3. How often do you play wargames via Cyberboard?
E13. Blue & Grey Atlanta Campaign (quad and campaign) a. at least once a week
E14. Blue & Grey III (Road to Richmond, Vicksburg, and b. at least once a month
two more) c. at least once a year
E15. Napoleon’s Last Battles (Waterloo quad and cam- d. more than a year since last play
paign)
e. never
E16. Napoleon at War (quad) F4. How often do you play wargames via Vassal?
E17. Twilight’s Last Gleaming (ST 187 & 225) a. at least once a week
E18. Moscow Campaign b. at least once a month
E19. Turning Point: Stalingrad c. at least once a year
E20. Invasion: America d. more than a year since last play
E21. North Africa (quad) e. never
E22. Westwall (quad) F5. How often do you play wargames via Aide de Camp?
E23. War Between the States a. at least once a week
E24. Nine Navies War b. at least once a month
E25. Red Dragon Rising (S&T#250) c. at least once a year
d. more than a year since last play
e. never
Games with AI
F6. How often do you play wargames via HexWar?
E26. Bulge (W3)
a. at least once a week
E27. Destruction of Army Group Center (W9)
b. at least once a month
E28. Coral Sea Solitaire (W10)
c. at least once a year
E29. Lost Battalion: The Meuse-Argonne Offensive (ST
d. more than a year since last play
217)
e. never
E30. First Blood, Second Marne (ST248)
F7. Are you in favor of a computer game subscription pro-
E31. RAF
gram as described above?
E32. D-Day at Omaha Beach
a. Yes. I’ve already pledged my support.
E33. Struggle for the Galactic Empire
b. Yes. I’m pledging my support now (E40).
E34. Operation Olympic c. Yes, but I’m waiting to see what games will be offered
E35. Napoleon at War (please indicate what games you’d like to see in the com-
ments section).
E40. Computer Game Subscription d. Yes, but financial conditions preclude my support in
the near future.
e. No, but I’m pledging for the individual computer
games that interest me.
f. No, but I’ll buy individual computer games that inter-
est me after they are published.
g. No, I’m not interested in computer games.
h. No, I don’t have a computer to play war games on.
World at War 49

WaW5 Issue.indd 49 2/6/09 2:47:35 PM

 F8. When you play computer wargames, are you using a
_______ ?
a. PC
b. Mac
c. other system
F9. Would you prefer our computer games to be available for
Mac or other systems?
a. PC is fine.
b. Prefer Mac.
c. Prefer other system (please name in comments sec-
tion)
G1. In regards to our post publication rules and errata sup-
port for MAGAZINE games, we currently provide living
rules text files via our web sites. Would you prefer:
a. Living rules text files is fine (as we do currently).
b. Errata/delta instead of the living rules (that is, just the
errata/clarifications/changes, not the entire rules set).
c. Living rules plus PDF updates after six months and
annually as needed (these would be a new set of rules
with all illustrations and involve a new round of rules
layout at additional expense factored into subscriptions
mega feedback
rules with all illustrations and involve a new round of rules
layout at additional expense factored into subscriptions and
cover price).
e. All of the above.
G2. In regards to our post publication rules and errata support
for BOXED games, would you prefer:
a. Living rules text files is fine (as we do currently).
b. Errata/delta instead of the living rules (that is, just the er-
rata/clarifications/changes, not the entire rules set).
c. Living rules plus PDF updates after six months and an-
nually as needed (these would be a new set of rules with all
illustrations and involve a new round of rules layout at ad-
ditional expense factored into retail and pledge pricing).
d. Errata/delta files plus PDF updates after six months and
annually as needed (these would be a new set of rules with
all illustrations and involve a new round of rules layout at
additional expense factored into retail and pledge pricing).
e. All of the above.
G3. What would you like to see improved or added to World at
War magazine or games?
H1. Please add any comments you have about the magazine
and games, suggestions for further titles to convert to computer

and cover price). games, comments about the F and G section questions and any
d. Errata/delta files plus PDF updates after six months other comments.
and annually as needed (these would be a new set of

Feedback World at War #5-M

West/Med Pacific CG PBEM CG PBEM CG AI Other Other
A1_____ C1_______ E1_ ______ E14_ _____ E26_ _____ F1_ ______ G1_______ G2_______

A2______ C2_______ E2_ ______ E15_ _____ E27_ _____ F2_ ______
G3
A3______ C3_______ E3_ ______ E16_ _____ E28_ _____ F3_ ______

A4______ C4_______ E4_ ______ E17_ _____ E29_ _____ F4_ ______

A5______ C5_______ E5_ ______ F5_ ______

E18_ _____ E30_ _____
H1
A6______ C6_______ E6_ ______ F6_ ______
E19_ _____ E31_ _____
Eastern Other E7_ ______ F7_ ______
E20_ _____ E32_ _____
B1______ D1_______
E8_ ______ F8_ ______
B2______ D2_______ E21_ _____ E33_ _____
E9_ ______ F9_ ______
B3______ D3_______ E22_ _____ E34_ _____
E10_ _____
B4______ D4_______ E23_ _____ E35_ _____ Mail this form or a copy to:
E11_ _____ Strategy & Tactics Press
B5______ D5_______ E24_ _____ E40_ _____
PO Box 21598, Bakersfield, CA 93390-1598
E12_ _____
B6______ D6_______ E25_ _____ Use the Online form at:
E13_ _____ www.StrategyAndTacticsPress.com

Comments

50 #5

WaW5 Issue.indd 50 2/6/09 2:47:35 PM

 World at War 51

WaW5 Issue.indd 51 2/6/09 2:47:35 PM

 Saburo Sakai’s
Longest Day
by Kelly Bell

Saburo Sakai
was a modern samurai, tracing his warrior-caste
lineage back to sword-swinging feudal fore-
bears who had invaded Korea in the 16th cen-
tury. Raised on a small farm near the Kyushu city of Saga, he learned to scorn money and to endure poverty rather
than accept servitude. His family still proudly wore the twin saber-emblazoned emblem of the abolished samurai
order, and stoically endured the harshness of their lot.
Young Sakai’s hardships didn’t lessen after militarists seized control in Tokyo. When the 16-year-old joined the
Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) in 1933, he endured that service’s brutal recruit training without complaint. Afterward
he served on the battleships Kirishima and Haruna before applying for flight training and being accepted.
52 #5

WaW5 Issue.indd 52 2/6/09 2:47:37 PM

 His iron constitution helped him stand out in Navy
Fliers School. His instructors were impressed as they
watched him swim 50 meters in well under 30 sec-
onds, hold his breath underwater for two-and-a-half
minutes, hang by one hand from the top of a pole for
more than half an hour, and effortlessly snatch flies
out of the air. In 1937 he graduated at the head of the
school’s 38th non-commissioned officers class. Sev-
enty-five meticulously selected applicants had started
the course, and Sakai finished first among the 25 still
there at the end.
Serving in China during the Sino-Japanese War,
Sakai gained fame for his daring aerial exploits, down-
ing Chinese pilots with monotonous regularity. Once,
after being caught on the ground and wounded in a
surprise air raid, he staggered to his Zero fighter, got
into the air, pursued the attacking formation, and crip-
pled an enemy bomber before returning to base half
dead from loss of blood.
WaW5 Issue.indd 53
Pacific War
The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, 7 December
1941, found Sakai based on Formosa, which at the time
was part of the Japanese Empire. From there he partici-
pated in the opening Japanese airstrikes on US forces in
the Philippines and, on 11 December 1941, was respon-
sible for shooting down the first B-17 Flying Fortress
ever lost in combat.
After flaming a few more American, British and
Chinese planes, he and his outfit were transferred to the
island paradise of Bali in the Dutch East Indies. There
his unit languished until being rotated back to Japan in
March 1942—except for Sakai. He was one of 80 top pi-
lots herded aboard an ancient freighter and shipped 2,500
miles east to the great Japanese base of Rabaul. There he
was equipped with the latest model Zero. From Rabaul
he flew attack and bomber escort missions against Port
Moresby, the Allied foothold on New Guinea. US Army
Air Force (USAAF) Bell P-39 Airacobras and Curtiss
P-40 Tomahawks fell easily and often under his guns.
World at War 53
2/6/09 2:47:43 PM
 On 8 April, Sakai and his squadron were trans-
ferred to a base at Lae, New Guinea, closer to Port
Moresby. The outfit was quickly becoming a crack
group, sweeping the sky of outmoded Allied planes
and strafing ground targets into burning wreckage dur-
ing the summer of 1942 until, on 3 August, they were
sent back to Rabaul.
Over the Solomons
Despite the long string of victories, the honeymoon
period of the war was over for Japan. Their defeats at
the Battles of the Coral Sea and Midway put an end to
Japanese naval offensives in the Pacific. Those battles
also proved to be more than the temporary setbacks
the Imperial high command first assumed them to be.
For a short time during that eventful summer, how-
ever, the Japanese considered their precarious toehold
on Buna, New Guinea, their most pressing concern.
The bane of the Japanese Buna beachhead came from
the air attacks launched against it by American bomb-
ers based in Port Moresby.
By that time in his career, Sakai had credit for 56
kills and was assigned as flight leader of the 2nd Fight-
er Squadron’s 2nd Section. On the morning of 7 August
1942, he was among the elements of Rear Adm. Sa-
dayoshi Yamada’s 25th Air Flotilla preparing to launch
a big strike against the Port Moresby airfields. The
veteran airmen were lined up outside their command
shack when an excited courier ran past them into the
building. The dispatch he carried caused great agita-
tion among the officers inside. voirs of manpower and material.
There had been a surprise American landing on a
small island called Guadalcanal in the Solomon chain.
The Imperial High Command had planned to use the
Solomons as the step-off point for a naval offensive
against the US-Australia line of communication. The
Japanese air base under construction on Guadalcanal,
along with the seaplane installation on nearby Tulagi,
was the main objective of the landing force of US Ma-
rines.
Carrier warfare: flight deck operations.
54 #5
WaW5 Issue.indd 54
After squadron commander Capt. Masahisa Saito
hurriedly briefed his pilots on the new development,
he altered the day’s assignments to meet the threat.
Saito informed his men: “The situation is extremely
serious. Our naval forces operating in the Rabaul area
have been ordered to engage the enemy immediately,
in full strength, and drive back the American invasion
forces at any cost.”
At 560 miles one-way, the mission to Guadalca-
nal was the longest flight the squadron had ever been
assigned; yet the gravity of the situation made it im-
perative. For the first time they would be engaging
American naval pilots from the carrier task force that
had defeated the Japanese near Midway eight weeks
earlier. Those American fliers were regarded by both
sides as the best then in action. For Sakai especially,
it was an exhilarating prospect—after years of flying
circles around machines whose performances were far
inferior to the Zero’s, he would now be engaging air-
men and aircraft of equal caliber.
After studying maps to guide them to their new
target, the squadron lifted off, escorting 27 medium
attack bombers. Long before finishing the four-hour
flight to the Solomons, the formation passed over con-
centrations of Allied warships and troop and supply
vessels. Despite years of flying cover for Japanese in-
vasion armadas, Sakai had never before seen such a
sprawling array of shipping, and for the first time he
began to grasp the full scope of America’s vast reser-
Nearing Guadalcanal at noon on the 7th, the group
spotted a swirling dogfight in the distance, as planes
of an earlier Japanese wave closed with US warplanes
over the invasion fleet. After seven or eight aircraft
went down in flames, the fight broke up. Taking ad-
vantage of the sudden dearth of American interceptors,
the Japanese bombers began their attack runs. Because
of the unexpected change in assignments, there hadn’t
been time for the bombers to exchange their bom-
bloads for torpedoes; so they had to attempt a difficult
high-altitude bomb run against the ships far below.
As the bombers drew their beads, two Wildcats
attacked from below. Sakai swung his Zero around
and moved to cut off the attackers’ approach path to
the bombers while the rest of his 18-plane formation
followed. Seeing the odds, the Americans prudently
veered off and withdrew, and a frustrated Sakai obeyed
his orders to stick close to the bombers and returned to
his escort position. Alas for the Japanese, the bombers
missed their targets. The best their ordnance could do
was create huge columns of water that sprayed the US
transports with foam.
At that moment the sky abruptly filled with huge
black puffs of smoke as shore-based anti-aircraft bat-
teries opened fire. Since it had been only six hours
since the assault began, the Japanese pilots hadn’t ex-
pected to have to contend with flak. The speed with
2/6/09 2:47:44 PM
 which the landing was being accomplished came as a
shock. Still, with their mission completed, the bomb-
ers turned for home and the Zeros resumed their escort
positions without having so far fired a shot.
A burst of tracers then came suddenly from above.
A flight of Wildcats was diving on the Japanese, scat-
tering their formation and downing several planes.
Twisting clear of the enemy’s line of fire, Sakai got
some breathing room, but also isolated himself from
the rest of his formation. He pulled his fighter along-
side that of Lt. Junichi Sasai and prepared to call the
rest of his flight to reform, but then noticed an even
more critical situation below. A single Wildcat was
pursuing three Zeros, steadily picking them apart with
its heavy firepower. After signaling his intentions to
Sasai, he dove in and opened fire at 1,000 yards—too
distant to do damage, but sufficient to draw the Amer-
ican’s attention to him.
The quality of the fighting forces facing him came
home to Sakai as he engaged the US aircraft. It was a
far better plane than any he’d previously encountered.
Even after he shot away most of its rudder, Sakai
couldn’t immediately down his opponent. Finally
closing from behind, he snapped a photo of the Wild-
cat so he would have evidence of its introduction into
the theater, and then moved in for the kill.
Thinking there would be no need for his 20mm
cannon, he opened fire with just his 7.7mm machine-
guns, but the American plane simply absorbed the
bullets without visible harm. Pulling alongside his ad-
versary, Sakai slid back his canopy and locked eyes
with the American for several seconds. Cutting power,
Sakai then eased behind again and opened fire with his
cannon. The battle-ravaged F4F finally belched smoke
and went into a tailspin. Seconds later, and far below,
a parachute opened.
With the dogfight over, Sakai realized he and his
men were still far too close to the bristling array of
anti-aircraft guns, and he led them back to the relative
safety of 15,000 feet. The formation had just leveled
off when they were assailed by a lone Douglas SBD
dive-bomber. A .50-caliber bullet crashed through
Sakai’s cockpit just behind his head, leaving a fist-
sized hole in the canopy. Turning on the Douglas, the
Zeros quickly shot it down and then turned toward the
main air combat area over nearby Tulagi.
Nearing the kill zone, they spotted an eight plane
US formation ahead and above them at 18,000 feet.
Closing from behind and to the rear, the Japanese ex-
pected their foes to turn and attack immediately to take
advantage of their superior altitude, or to spread out in
order to present eight widely spaced and harder-to-hit
targets. Instead they tightened their formation, leading
Sakai and his men to assume they were still undetected
and could therefore take their victims by surprise. On
three previous occasions Sakai had mauled enemy
flights by striking unexpectedly from below and be-
WaW5 Issue.indd 55
Aerial Samurai: Sakai poses on an airfield.
hind. As the chance to do so again seemed imminent,
he powered his fighter to full speed.
On those three earlier occasions he’d assaulted
Dutch fliers in Bell P-39s, and he assumed in this in-
stance he was facing similar planes. As he pulled to
within 1,000 feet, however, he could make out the
details of his intended targets and his error became
apparent. He’d been suckered into a trap. Rather
than fighters, the Americans were flying TBF torpedo
planes, and they’d tightened their formation to take
advantage of their own rear gunners (they had sighted
the approaching Zeros) by luring the Japanese into
easy range of those machineguns. It was too late to
break off the attack and, as Sakai stared bleakly at the
array of 12.7mm machineguns pointing at him, he was
certain he was doomed.
With nothing to lose, he opened up at close range as
a hail of fire simultaneously erupted from the US air-
craft. With a terrible crash his Zero was slammed from
its flight path with such violence Sakai at first thought
he’d collided with another plane. He momentarily lost
consciousness, only coming to moments later when a
frigid stream of air lashed his face. Since he still as-
sumed he was about to die, he first decided his best
option was a suicide dive. He couldn’t see a target,
though, because the volley had wrecked his cockpit
and blew out his right eye while leaving his left one
full of blood.
He then instinctively pulled back on the control
stick to arrest his dive and assume a horizontal flight
path. Attempting to adjust the engine throttle lever, he
realized his left hand and arm were paralyzed along
with the entire left side of his body. Briefly releasing
the stick, he frantically rubbed his face with his right
hand and managed to restore partial vision in his left
eye. As his lucidity began to return, he became aware
of ghastly pain in his head. The shock was already
wearing off, and with its departure came the searing
World at War 55
2/6/09 2:47:44 PM
 Higher Echelon Units
Petty Officer Saburo Sakai, was part of the 25th Air Flotilla, which was made up of the Tainan Air Corps, the 4th Air Corps
and the Yokohama Air Corps. The 25th Air Flotilla was, in turn, part of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s (IJN) Eleventh Air
Fleet.
The Eleventh was responsible for land-based naval aircraft across the Pacific Theater of Operations during World War II.
Given the long distances to be flown, IJN airpower emphasized long-range aircraft, such as the Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter,
and theMitsubishi G4M Betty medium bomber. The Zero had both carrier and land-based versions.
At the time of Guadalcanal, Petty Officer Sakai was in the Tainan Air Corps that, despite its name, was based on Rabaul.
Following an almost two-year convalescence after his wounding over the Solomons, he returned to the same unit (June 1944)
for the war’s duration.

Japanese Zero fighter.

US Wildcat fighter.

Aircraft Crew Range Loaded Engine Max Ceiling Rate of Wing Armament Bombs
weight speed climb loading
(miles) (hp) (ft) (lbs)
(lbs.) (mph) (ft/min) (lbs/sq ft)
A6M Zero 1 1,930 5,313 1 x 950 331 33,000 3,100 22.0 2×20mm 2 x 132
cannon,
2× 7.7mm
machine guns
F4F Wildcat 1 770 7,950 1 x 1,200 320 39,500 1,950 26.9 6 x 12.7 2 × 100
machineguns

56 #5

WaW5 Issue.indd 56 2/6/09 2:47:45 PM

 agony of his wound.
Looking blearily around him, he saw black objects
racing past his left wing tip and heard the crash of more
heavy gunfire over the roar of his engine. He’d leveled
off directly over the US troopship convoy, whose gun-
ners were blazing away at him. He resolved to crash
into one of the invasion ships, but then changed his
mind again and decided to engage an Allied fighter in
a dogfight that, in his present condition, he was certain
to lose, but at least he would die gallantly in battle.
The only problem was, despite flying in wide circles in
the warplane-infested sky, nobody attacked him. Sakai
had wandered into one of the few quiet sectors of sky
over Guadalcanal.
Recalling the saga of Ryuma Sakamoto, a noble
samurai who survived a wicked head wound inflicted Objective in the Solomons: Guadalcanal from the air.
by a treacherous assassin, Sakai resolved to try to reach
Japanese-held Shortland Island. It was an ambitious Finally he spotted several Japanese warships
undertaking—there were two 12.7mm machinegun steaming south at full speed. He contemplated ditch-
bullets embedded in his brain, and numerous small ing alongside one of them and being picked up, but
metal fragments lodged in his skull. His face had also realized that “might mean diverting the ships from an
been cut to ribbons by hurtling glass shards when his important mission. I cannot do that.”
canopy disintegrated. Losing track of time, he finally noticed an island
Unable to read his compass because of his impaired beneath his right wing. It had an airfield next to a dis-
vision, he had to navigate by the sun and, with the tinctive volcanic crater. Rabaul! To his surprise, the
wind tearing through the cockpit and his left hand use- battered plane’s landing gear still worked and, as the
less, he was unable to bandage his head. Fortunately half-paralyzed young man bounced to a bumpy but
for him the howling wind quickly dried the blood into safe touchdown, he was overcome with joy at his
a huge scab, saving him from bleeding to death. unexpected survival. Fatigue quickly returned, but
As he concentrated on finding his destination, he before drifting into merciful oblivion Sakai heard his
encountered yet another problem—staying awake. comrades shouting: “Never say die!”
The sudden desire to sleep was almost overwhelm- The Great Pacific Warrior
ing. After shaking himself back to wakefulness, Sakai Sakai later learned that during his 1,200 nautical
was astonished to see the ocean speeding by through mile flight he’d downed four US planes. They would
the top of his broken canopy. Somehow managing to be his last victories for quite awhile. After spending
right his inverted plane, he slammed his fist against almost two years convalescing, the one-eyed pilot, by
his bloody head in a desperate attempt to revive him- then an ensign, was assigned to help oppose the mas-
self. Deciding he would never make it to Shortland, he sive Allied offensive against the Marianas. His two
again decided on a kamikaze attack, but as he banked kills in that campaign amounted to one of the few
his machine around to return to the combat area his bright spots for the Japanese in the otherwise disas-
head suddenly cleared, his vision improved and alert- trous “Great Marianas Turkey Shoot.”
ness returned. Sakai found himself “caught in a dilem-
Before Japan’s surrender he would shoot down two
ma between the overpowering instinct of self-preser-
more Americans and be promoted to lieutenant. With
vation and the strong desire to finish this flight with a
64 victories, Saburo Sakai was his country’s top sur-
glorious and honorable death.”
viving ace at war’s end. His incredible Guadalcanal
Suddenly he sighted one of the horseshoe-shaped odyssey was the highlight of his violent career.
Green Islands that he’d passed over on the outbound
flight. The elation brought on by the realization he was
on course was quickly banished as his plane’s engine
suddenly sputtered and died. Most planes would’ve
run out of fuel long before that, but Sakai had aug- at
mented the Zero’s already long range by running it
on the leanest possible mixture. Even so, after almost Sources
nine hours of combat and aimless wandering, even Caidin, Martin. Zero! Ballantine Books, 1956.
_______. The Mission. J.B. Lippincott Company, 1964.
that restricted fuel consumption had emptied the gas Congdon, Don (ed.) Combat: Pacific Theater. Dell Publishing, 1958.
tank. There was, however, still the 40-gallon reserve Leckie, Robert. Challenge for the Pacific. Doubleday, 1965.
supply.
World at War 57

WaW5 Issue.indd 57 2/6/09 2:47:45 PM

 Hell in the Pacific: The Battle for Iwo
Jima, by Gordon L. Rottman & Derrick Wright (Os-
prey Publishing, 2008). Reviewed by Chris Perello.
In Sum: This book covers the approach to and battle
for Iwo Jima. The main thrust of the book is on the
“worm’s eye” view of the battle, the experiences of
individual soldiers, rather than a detailed examination
of the strategies used and operations undertaken on the
island. Almost half the book is devoted to a detailed
description of the life, induction, training and equip-
ment of the individual Marine and Japanese soldier.
Good Stuff. As is typical for Osprey, the photos,
drawings and maps are superb, particularly the two-
page 3D maps. The chapters on the individual soldiers
are hugely detailed, even getting into indoctrination
techniques and goals.
Media Reviews
Bad Stuff. As good as the maps are, one or two more
would not have come amiss. There is a need for a good
overall map of the fighting, along with more text on
the course of the battle on an island-wide basis. It is
possible to cobble together that information from the
book as a whole, but it takes effort and much page
flipping. There is also a need for a more detailed map
of the ridges and valleys that dominated the last half
of the battle.
In both the description of units and the course of
the fighting, the “middle” is missing. There is much
discussion of individual soldiers and overall numbers,
but relatively little of squad, section, platoon, or com-
pany tactics and actions. Along that same line, the
book needs a complete order of battle, with the size of
each unit.
Overall. This is probably not the first book you should
read on this battle, being more trees than forest. Once
you have a feel for the outline of events, to include the
controversy over whether the island should have been
invaded in the first place, it provides a wealth of detail
and a good feel for the fighting.
58 #5
WaW5 Issue.indd 58
If Mahan Ran the Great Pacific War: An
Analysis of World War II Naval Strategy,
by John A. Adams (Indiana University Press, 2008).
Reviewed by Chris Perello.
In Sum: Built around a narrative of World War II in
the Pacific, Adams considers each of the major deci-
sions by the United States and Japan through the lens
of the teachings of Alfred Thayer Mahan, the preemi-
nent American naval theoretician.
Good Stuff. The coverage of pre-war planning is ex-
cellent, laying out the basic goals desired and principles
followed, by each side. Maps—including a superb one
showing how the effective range of land-based aircraft
drove the island-hopping strategy—illustrate the stra-
tegic dilemmas facing both sides, while good numeri-
cal analysis of their relative strengths helps explain
the choices made. The post-Midway period, a time
of rough parity, shows how superior American strat-
egy—through more consistent application of Mahan’s
primary principle, never divide your fleet—turned the
tide even before American industrial power fully came
to bear. The explanations for the Guadalcanal cam-
paign and the Formosa-vs-Iwo Jima conundrum in
late 1944 are among the best I have read. The chapter
on submarines, more properly an appendix than part
of the narrative, was highly illuminating and explains
why the Japanese achieved so little with their excel-
lent boats.
Bad Stuff. There are no glaring weaknesses in the
book, so the following should be viewed as minor
criticisms. First, while the discussion of land-based
airpower, its limitations, and its effect on overall strat-
egy are well-covered, the same cannot be said for the
range of ships and fleets. That clearly had an enormous
impact on the war: the short-range of the Japanese bat-
tlefleet led them to court battle in the Marianas rather
than steaming east toward Hawaii, no doubt part of the
reason for their reluctance to invade after Pearl Har-
bor, and the decision to take Tarawa was guided by the
need for an intermediate fleet base. Yet nowhere are
we given the numbers: how far or long could ships go
between refueling and resupply; how long did it take
2/6/09 2:47:46 PM
 to refuel; how did the intermediate bases help?
Second, the heart of the book is the application of
Magazine Subscriptions
Mahan’s principles to events on the water; however, Strategy & Tactics or World at War

Mahan never wrote a cohesive set of principles, so the
set used is Adams’s own. There is nothing wrong with Issues Rate
that in theory, but he does have a tendency to lapse 1 Year (6 issues) $19.97
into business-oriented mission-statement-speak. This
leads not only to convoluted sentences, but a longer 3 Years (18 issues) $54.97
list than is really necessary for the book. (Non-U.S. addresses are shipped via Airmail:
Finally, while the maps are generally clear and ex- Canada add $10 per year. Overseas add $13 per year.)
cellent, a few more—even repeats—would make for
less page flipping. I would also like to issue a call for
the end of the “classic” naval battle maps, which use
zig-zag lines to show the movement of fleets, with
World at War
only time-marks to show their actual positions. In this Issue # Game Topic & Lead Article
era of vectored-graphic programs yielding files easily 6 The Greater East Asia War
embedded in text pages, there really is no good reason
not to have a sequence of maps comparing locations at 7 Greek Tragedy
different times. 8 Arriba Espana!
Overall. This probably is not the best book for a nov- 9 Dest. Army Group Center
ice on this aspect of the war, but for those already pos-
sessing familiarity with the subject it offers excellent
analysis. Rates are subject to change. Please check our website for current issues
and rates.
Fill out the order card in this magazine and send it with your US drawn
check/MO payable to Strategy & Tactics Press or call (661) 587-9633
(9:00am-4:00pm PST) to place your credit card order. 24 hour fax line
(661) 587-5031. Mail to : Strategy & Tactics Press, PO Box 21598, Bakers-
field CA 93390-1598
Hitler: The Unknown Soldier 1914-1918 www.StrategyAndTacticsPress.com
(DVD by Stuart Russell for International Historic
Films). Reviewed by Blaine Taylor.

This video tells the story of Hitler’s wartime expe-

rience, where he was “a brooding, fearless loner who
preferred battlefields to brothels, frontline service to
home leave.” Aside from that basic story, the video has
a number of other extraordinary featurettes that add im-
mensely to the overall presentation. One is an in-depth
interview with noted British historian and Hitler biog-
rapher Ian Kershaw. Another is a slide show of period
German Army postcards backed by contemporary mu-
sic. Also shown are locales connected with Hitler: the
Feldhernahalle in Munich, where he enlisted; From-
meles on the Western Front, where he created many of
his paintings prior to serving on the Somme; Pasewalk
Military Hospital in Pomerania, where he heard about
the armistice; and Landsberg Prison where he wrote
Mein Kampf.
Overall, this is an excellent production covering a
little-known part of Hitler’s life, but that also had an
immense impact on him and the Germany he would
rise to lead.

World at War 59

WaW5 Issue.indd 59 2/6/09 2:47:48 PM

 A Fast & Easy Playing Series of Card Games
Poland
This game depicts the German campaign against Poland in September, 1939. Historically,
it was a stunning victory but the blitzkrieg strategy was untested and Poland expected to hold
on long enough for other countries to intervene. In the game, the Germans strive to
force the Polish surrender quickly by capturing Polish cities including the Polish
capital, Warsaw. The Polish fight to defend their cities and stop the German advance.
Cards depict the combat forces, objectives, and events of the campaign. $23.00

D-Day
June 6, 1944, the day that decided the fate of World War II in Europe. Now you command
the Allied and Axis armies as each struggles to control the five key beaches along the
Normandy coastline. If the Allied troops seize the beaches, Germany is doomed. But
if the assault fails, Germany will have the time it needs to build its ultimate weapons.
You get to make vital command decisions that send troops into battle, assault enemy
positions, and create heroic sacrifices so others can advance to victory! $20.00

Midway
From June 4th to June 6th of 1942, a massive battle raged around
the tiny Pacific island of Midway that changed the course of World
War II. The victorious Imperial Japanese Navy was poised to capture
the airfield on the island of Midway and thus threaten Hawaii and the
United States. The only obstacle in their path was an outnumbered
US fleet itching for payback for Pearl Harbor. You get to command
the US and Japanese fleets and their squadrons of fighter planes,
torpedo bombers and dive bombers in this epic battle! $20.00

North Africa
Covering the great battles of Erwin Rommel from 1941 to 1943, as he fought his way back and forth
4TH INDIAN DIV. across the deserts of North Africa. LNA uses cards to represent the military units, supply convoys and
objectives of the historic campaign. To win, you must consider your units’ combat power and maneuver
options as well as their supply situation. The game features: the Afrika Korps, Tobruk, the Desert Rats, Malta,
FORCE

anti-tank guns, resupply from Europe, minefields and more. LNA is based around a new combat system
MOTORIZED ADVANCE
that makes maneuver and planning as important as brute force. That approach is faithful to the historic
009

Starts Game in
WESTERN DESERT events, in which smaller forces were often able to defeat and rout larger ones by using better tactics and
planning. In LNA, battles can be won not only by overwhelming the enemy with firepower, but also by
out-thinking and bluffing him. The dynamic game system puts you in charge of one of the most famous
MOTORIZED theaters of WWII. $20.00
037

Play if your Attack Plan was

successful. Inflict one extra War on Terror
Fight the war on terror with America’s cutting edge weapon systems!
loss for each motorized force
you had committed to the
battle.
You have been charged with hunting down terrorists aiding regions
SIEGE around the world and toppling their corrupt governments. To accom-
plish this, you have been given command of the latest weapons and
best personnel America has to offer. You get to command elements of the Air Force,
Army, Navy, Marines, Special Forces and Propaganda Warfare. War on Terror is an
ultra-low complexity card game for all ages. The focus is on fast card play, strategy, and
fun interactive game play for 2-4 players. $20.00

All games include 110 full color playing

cards and one sheet of rules.

PO Box 21598, Bakersfield CA 93390-1598 • (661) 587-9633 •fax 661/587-5031 • www.decisiongames.com

60 #5

WaW5 Issue.indd 60 2/6/09 2:47:55 PM

 available now!
Flying Circus:
Aerial Combat in WWI
Flying Circus: Aerial Combat in WWI depicts the fun and flavor of World War I aerial dogfight-
ing. You fly the colorful and agile aircraft of WWI as you make history in the world’s first use of
aircraft in a military role.
This is the basic game. You have everything you need to play single aircraft duels to multi-air-
craft dogfights. Each aircraft has its own unique characteristics reflected in its ratings and special
abilities. The basic game rules cover all the maneuvers that made WWI aerial combat: barrel rolls,
stall turns, Immelmanns, vertical rolls and Chandelles. Outmaneuver your opponent to line up your
guns and watch his planes go down in flames!
Gamers who have played the Down in Flames game series will find many similarities in game
play, however, previous experience is not necessary. The basic game rules can be read in less than
20 minutes and you can play your first game immediately. Includes: 110 full color playing cards & rules sheet. $
23

This is the deluxe game. You will need the basic game
card deck to play this expanded version. Then you will
have everything you need to play single aircraft duels and
team play with multiple flights in swirling dogfights. This Shipping Charges (Rates are subject to change without notice.)
deluxe game adds rules for altitude, pilot abilities—in- 1st unit Adt’l units Type of Service
cluding a deck of 25 pilot cards for historical campaigns—
$12 $2 UPS Ground (USPS Priority Mail add $5)
bombers, rear gunners, scouts and other optional rules.
This deluxe game also includes cards and rules for playing 24 4 Canada
multi-mission games of famous WWI campaigns such as 34 8 Europe, South America
Cambrai and Meuse-Argonne, along with a “Campaign 38 9 Asia, Australia
Analysis” article detailing the development of the aircraft,
their tactics and strategy. $40 QTY Title Price Total

Contents:
DG Lightning Series: 5 games $99
(WOT, DDAY, MID, NA & POL)
110 Deluxe deck cards (bombers, scouts, plus more fighters & action cards)
Deluxe Game rules booklet Flying Circus-Deluxe & Exp $55
6 Campaign Cards Flying Circus-Basic $23
Pilot Log
36 Pilot & altitude cards Flying Circus-Expansion $40
Dice marker Shipping

Name
Address
City/State/Zip
Country
V/MC # Exp.
PO Box 21598 Signature
Bakersfield CA 93390
661/587-9633 • fax 661/587-5031 • www.decisiongames.com Phone #
World at War 61

WaW5 Issue.indd 61 2/6/09 2:47:59 PM

 Send your air group to the skies!

Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe is an update of the classic Avalon Hill game covering the US
strategic bombing campaign over Europe in World War II. As US com-
mander, your mission is to eliminate German industrial complexes. You
select the targets, direct the bombers, and plan a strategy intended to defeat
the Luftwaffe. As the German commander, the entire arsenal of Nazi aircraft
is at your disposal. Turns represent three months each, with German rein-
forcements keyed to that player’s production choices. Units are wings and
squadrons, and they’re rated by type, sub-type, firepower, maneuverability
and endurance. There are rules for radar, electronic warfare, variable pro-
duction strategies, aces, target complexes, critical industries and diversion
of forces to support the ground war. The orders of battle are much the same
as in the original game, though the German player now has to plan ahead if
he wants to get jets.
There are also other new targets on the map, such as the German electric
power grid. In the original game the US player had to bomb all the targets
on the map to win. Given the way the victory point system now works, the
Americans need bomb about four out of the five major target systems to
win, thereby duplicating the historic result.
Contents: 1 22x34" map, 280 die-cut counters, rules and PACs. $50.00

Battle Over Britain

Hitler’s war machine has rolled like a juggernaut across the Continent,
crushing all opposition. Only Britain still stands, isolated and defiant, readying
itself for a mortal struggle between the Luftwaffe and the Royal Air Force. For
the first time in history, air power will decide the fate of a nation.
In this Battle Over Britain air game, the outcome of the battle is in your
hands. You must plan the strategies and the decisive moves that will bring
victory. The Strategic Game recreates the entire battle in five-day turns and
confronts you with the same fateful choices faced by the actual commanders.
In the Combat Game you experience the fury and tension of aerial combat in six
raids that decide the outcome of the battle. In the Advanced Game, you must
combine sound strategy and winning tactics. This is the definitive treatment of
the battle, allowing you to relive the daily action of this decisive campaign.

Contents: Two 34 x 22 inch full color maps, one 22 x 17 inch British airfield display,
one 34 x 17 inch screen, three counter sheets, one 40 page rules folder, one 20-sided die
and one plastic counter tray.

62 #5

WaW5 Issue.indd 62 2/6/09 2:48:02 PM

 :
E y e rRAF: Lion vs Eagle
dit
ion
ew - P la
N o The Battle of Britain, 1940
All & Tw
ire
France has fallen. England stands alone against the might of a triumphant Germany,
ta defended only by the Spitfire and Hurricane squadrons of the Royal Air Force. Hitler
Soli orders his mighty Luftwaffe to destroy the RAF in preparation for Operation Sealion—the
invasion of England. German fighters and bombers fill the English skies and the RAF
responds.
Now you command the RAF or the Luftwaffe in history’s greatest air campaign—the
Battle of Britain. Improving on his award winning solitaire classic, designer John Butterfield
ramps up the historical accuracy, tension and play options with three complete games.
RAF: Lion puts you in control of British Fighter Command, responding to German raids.
The game’s unique card system generates targets and forces, which may remain hidden
until after you commit your squadrons. Your foe is no mindless system: the Luftwaffe
has priorities and a strategy. Scenarios range from one raid day, taking an hour to
complete, to the full campaign, playable in 12 hours.
RAF: Eagle puts you in control of the Luftwaffe forces raiding England. You schedule raids
and assign missions to your bombers and fighters, attempting to deliver the knockout
blow. Can you take out the British radar system and cripple their aircraft production?
The game controls the RAF response to your strategies. How does a foe so close to
defeat keep coming back?
RAF: 2-Player pits you against a live opponent, one controlling Fighter Command and the
other the raiding Luftwaffe forces. Historical features include: German high command
priorities, close escort, free hunt, the Channel Patrol, Jabos, day and night bombing,
radar, the Observer Corps, weather, ULTRA intercepts, squadron patrols, “big wings,”
altitude advantage, ace squadrons and flak.
Game Scale
Time: each game turn equals a “raid day” with six two-hour segments.
Units: British squadrons and German Gruppen.
Map: one inch equals 20 miles (32 kilometers). Contents:
• 176 Die cut counters
• 165 Cards
• 3 34” x 22” Map
• Rule booklets
• Player Aid cards & display
• 2 Dice
• Storage bags
QTY Title Price Total
Luftwaffe $50
Battle Over Britain $20
RAF: Lion vs Eagle $80
Available Spring 2009
Shipping
PO Box 21598
Bakersfield CA 93390
Name 661/587-9633 • fax 661/587-5031 • www.decisiongames.com
Address
City/State/Zip Shipping Charges
1st unit Adt’l units Type of Service
Country
$10 $2 UPS Ground/USPS Priority Mail
V/MC # Exp.
20 2 Canada
Signature 29 4 Europe, South America
Phone # 29 6 Asia, Australia
World at War 63

WaW5 Issue.indd 63 2/6/09 2:48:04 PM

 Strategy & Tactics
magazine covers all
of military history
and its future
possibilities.

Each issue is packed

full of:

• In-depth analysis
• Detailed maps
• Orders of Battle

Going beyond the usual

narratives, articles focus
on the “how” and “why”
of conflicts and are il-
lustrated liberally with
maps, charts, tables, and
pictures.
Partial map and diagram
from RAF article in #256.

Use the postcard included in this magazine or visit our website

P.O. Box 21598
for more information and subscription rates. Bakersfield, CA 93390-1598
www.StrategyAndTacticsPress.com ph: (661) 587-9633 • Fax: (661) 587-5031
64 #5

WaW5 Issue.indd 64 2/6/09 2:48:13 PM