Army to lose history center
James Jay Carafano:
I really liked Army at Dawn. Atkinson's second book in his World War II trilogy, Day of Battle was a little too long, and suffers from Atkinson's method of attributing events to screw ups rather than to doing things right. Perhaps the Italian campaign was just a series of screw ups. I tend to think it was one of Churchill's mistakes in strategy. It did turn into a World War I type bloody grind. The friction of warfare can be interesting, but it overlooks the creativity that necessity sometimes inspires. Both books seem to give short shrift to the accomplishments of Gen. George Patton who was one of the best generals in the war despite his personal flaws.
It was known as a hard luck division -- until the day it got lucky.I bet the University of Texas would love to have this collection and keep it available for historical research. It is the kind of library they have siught in the past.
In Normandy, the 90th Division suffered more casualties than almost every other combat division. Two division commanders had already been relieved. Almost nothing seemed to go right. Until late July 1944.
That's when the 90th got laced by German artillery fire ... and got very lucky indeed. None of the rounds exploded. Engineers inspecting the shells found they'd been loaded with sawdust. It was noted in the unit combat log -- and forgotten.
Americans did not yet know that slave labor manufactured German munitions. Some deliberately sabotaged the ammunition bound for the front. They knew that, if discovered, their defiant acts would lead to torture and death. But these nameless, enslaved heroes did it anyway.
The soldiers of the 90th never suspected they owed their lives to that anonymous courage. They just pressed on, fighting for freedom. At war's end, they liberated one of Hitler's concentration camps -- a fitting, albeit unconscious payback.
Today, we know this story of GIs and Holocaust victims joining forces against the Nazis -- without even knowing they were brothers in arms -- but only because of the records held at the Army Historical Education Center at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pa.
A huge repository of official military records, as well as private records kept by the nation's soldiers, the center houses everything from Civil War photographs to letters home.
For decades, researchers and scholars have used these archives to inform the development of Army leadership and strategy. For example, scholars from the center used insights gleaned from its holdings to help craft the successful counterinsurgency doctrines implemented in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And, when it comes to Army history and tradition, the center serves as the indispensable keeper of the flame. Books like Rick Atkinson's Pulitzer Prize-winning "An Army at Dawn" and Ken Burns' magisterial documentary series on the Civil War could not have been created without the materials housed at the center.
Yet, the center now is on the chopping block. The Army's Training Program Evaluation Group has concluded that the center is "no longer relevant" and has "no operational impact."
...
I really liked Army at Dawn. Atkinson's second book in his World War II trilogy, Day of Battle was a little too long, and suffers from Atkinson's method of attributing events to screw ups rather than to doing things right. Perhaps the Italian campaign was just a series of screw ups. I tend to think it was one of Churchill's mistakes in strategy. It did turn into a World War I type bloody grind. The friction of warfare can be interesting, but it overlooks the creativity that necessity sometimes inspires. Both books seem to give short shrift to the accomplishments of Gen. George Patton who was one of the best generals in the war despite his personal flaws.
Comments
Post a Comment