Death of a Battalion (Reposted)
While the liberal left British media crow about British & US losses in Iraq & 'The Stan', this morning I want to introduce something that your humble correspondent has little of ... perspective & yes, I have been watch Band of Brothers over the weekend.
My father-in-law, the Old Salthorse tells the story of his father, a YO with the RWF during WWI & at one point, the only officer still alive in the battalion. However, during the campaign in North West Europe 1944 - 45, units spent more time in action & suffered higher casualty rates than their counter parties did in the Great War. One example of the intensity of the fighting in the Normandy bridgehead is the fate of the 6th Battalion, Duke of Wellington's Rifles.
Having fought a traumatic battle at Le Parc de Boislande they remained to plug a gap outside Fontenay-le-Pesnel, which the SS Div Hitler Jugend was attempting to force. After 14 days of continuous fighting, their replacement CO (his predecessor having been killed), submitted the following report;
Report on the State of the 6th Bn DWR (49 Div) as on 30 Jun [1944]
1. I arrived at 6 DWR on the evening of 26 June. From am 27 June until 30 June we have been in contact with the enemy & under moderate heavy mortar & shell fire.
2. The following facts make it clear that this report makes no reflection on the state of 6 DWR when they left UK:
a) In 14 days there have been some 23 officers & 350 OR casualties.
b) Only 12 of the original offices remain & they are all junior. The CO & every rank above Cpl (except 2 Lts) in battalion HQ have gone, all company commanders have gone. One company has lost every officer, another has only one [officer] left.
c) Since I took over I have lost two second-in-commands in successive days and a company commander on the third day.
d) Majority of transport, all documents, records and a large amount of equipment were lost.
3. State of Men
a) 75% of men react adversely to enemy shelling & are 'jumpy'.
b) 5 cases in 3 days of self-inflicted wounds - more possible cases.
c) Each time men are killed or wounded a number of men become casualties through shell shock or hysteria.
d) In addition to genuine hysteria a large number of men have left their positions after shelling on one pretext or another & gone to the rear until sent back by the MO or myself.
e) The new drafts have been affected, & 3 young soldiers became casualties with hysteria after hearing our own guns.
f) The situation has got worse each day as more key personnel have become casualties.
4. Discipline & Leadership
a) State of discipline is bad, although the men are a cheerful pleasant type normally.
b) NCOs do not wear stripes & some offices have no badges of rank. This makes the situation impossible when 50% of the battalion do not know each other.
c) NCO leadership is weak in most cases & newly drafted officers are in consequence havimg to expose themselves unduly to try & get anything done. It is difficult for the new officers (60%) to lead the men under fire as they do not know them.
5. Conclusion
a) 6 DWR is not to fit to take its place in the line.
b) Even excluding the question of nerves & moral 6 DWR will not be fit to go back into the line until it is remobilised, reorganised, & to an extent retrained. It is no longer a battalion but a collection of individuals. There is naturally no esprit de corps for those who are frightened (as we all are to one degree or another) to fall back on. I have twice had to stand at the end of a track & draw my revolver on retreating men.
6. Recommendation
If it is not possible to withdraw the battalion to the base or UK to re-equip, reorganise & train, then it should be disbanded & split among other units.
If essential that the battalion should return to the line, I request that I may be relieved of my command & I suggest that a CO with 2 to 3 years experience should relieve me & that he should bring his adjutant and a signals officer with him.
Being a regular officer I realise the seriousness of this request & its effect on my career. On the other hand I have the lives of the new personnel (which is excellent) to consider. Three days running a major has been killed or seriously wounded because I have ordered them to in effect stop the men running during mortar concentrations. Unless withdrawn from the division I do not think I can get the battalion fit to fight normally & this waste of life would continue. My honest opinion is that if you continue to throw new officer & other rank replacements into 6 DWR as casualties occur, you are throwing good money after bad.
I know my opinion is shared by two other commanding officers who know the full circumstances.
A.J.D. Turner
Lt.-Col. Commanding 6 DWR
In the field, 30 June 1944
Yes the world has changed but our enemy today is just as dangerous as our enemy of 60 years ago - we a fortunate that we haven't yet suffered the same losses as our parents / grandparents. & as for the battalion, it was pulled out of the line, remaining officers & men rested before it was disbanded.
Comments
Yeah, the liberal media tends to not give us all the facts. We might find the whole story not so bad afterall.
Posted by: GrumpyBunny | April 5, 2004 5:31 PM
I read this war diary record in "The Polar Bears-Monty's Left Flank" by Patrick Delaforce.The book is about the 49th Infantry Division during the War. Whole battalions were decimated during these campaigns. My father's Unit, No 3 (Army) Commando, lost a staggering number of men Killed, Wounded and Missing. Any of the old boys left alive now must be wondering why on earth they fought that war. The regimes in place since have turned Britain into a cesspit. Regarding the enemy of today, has anyone realised that he has an enormous Fifth Column at work in Britain? A sharia edict recently told "British" Muslims that they should fight Britons and Americans. Time for internment?
Posted by: Frank | June 30, 2009 11:00 AM
Amazing isn't it, that one battalion took more casualties in two weeks than we have taken so far in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Germans were indeed tough bastards, and if the Russians hadn't worn them down, we'd surely never have won.
Seriously, I deplore any losses amongst our men, especially if they are caused by poor kit such as the Snatch or the Vector. Nonetheless, by any historical standard, our losses have been low, and if they are sufficient to allow the Taliban to drive us out of Afghanistan, then we may as well disband the armed forces and spend the money on cider.
Posted by: John K | June 30, 2009 11:02 AM
I think that with a few exceptions the best of Britain emigrated, were transported for life or died for King and Country over the last 400 years leaving behind a most bleak shadow of a formerly great people. The more I read about the current kingdom of sheep the more convinced I am that something great has vanished from England and been replaced with nothing of much value.
Posted by: Curtis | July 1, 2009 1:59 AM
"In approximately 11 months of combat, the 22nd Infantry Regiment suffered 111 officers and 1594 enlisted men killed; three officers and 209 enlisted missing or captured, and 419 officers and 7287 enlisted wounded...This does not count the thousands of non-battle casualities due to tench-foot, frostbite, combat fatique and other illnesses. Combined battle and non-battle casualties for the 22nd Infantry reached 351 percent and 560 percent for the rifle companies."
That's twice as many dead in one year for one regiment (equivilent of a British brigade)as the worst year in Iraq for the entire US military - yet we're taking "massive, unsustainable casualties?"
From the same unit
"By the end of the war, of the 229 soldiers assigned to his company on D-Day, 54 had been killed, 22 captured or missing and 192 wounded - 60 percent of those seriously - amounting to 268 casualities (presumably some wounded returned to duty to either be wounded again or killed) for the initial cohort of this one rifle company"
On Omaha Beach, on June 6 1944, the 1st and 29th Infantry Divsions lost approxiamtely 3000 dead, which is 75 percent of US KIA in seven years in Iraq
The USS Bunker Hill lost more dead in one minute in 1945 than the worst year in Iraq for the entire US military.
HMS Hood lost more men in seconds than the British military has lost in the past half century and if you throw in the loss of HMS Prince of Wales and Repulse, you can probably expand that to, since WWII
Posted by: Beausaber | July 24, 2009 5:38 AM