Was the US Army in Europe any good?

1. Was the US Army in Europe any good?

3. S. L. A. Marshall Men Against Fire: The Problem of Battle Command, 1947. • The American soldier does not want to kill. • Only c. 10% of all soldiers actually aimed at their enemy. • Soldiers fight for each other, not because of political motivation.

4. 90th Infantry Division UTAH Beach – Battle of the Bulge General William DuPuy, 1919-1992 FM100-5, Operations, 1976

5. DePuy's experience as an infantry officer in Europe during World War II profoundly affected his vision of how a future army should fight. He had witnessed poor-quality soldiers, sent into battle by poorly prepared leaders, waste themselves in poorly conceived and executed operations against an enemy often better led and better prepared for the harsh realities of combat. Thirty years later DePuy retained a pervasive respect for the fighting skill of the German army, as well as an often critical view of the leadership and fighting ability of American soldiers. His fixation on the European battlefield remained steadfast, and he sought from the start of his tenure at TRADOC to redirect the Army‘s focus from jungle warfare to a possible ground war with the Soviets on the plains of central Europe. Robert H. Scales, Certain Victory: the US Army in the Gulf War.

6. DePuy's experience as an infantry officer in Europe during World War II profoundly affected his vision of how a future army should fight. He had witnessed poor-quality soldiers, sent into battle by poorly prepared leaders, waste themselves in poorly conceived and executed operations against an enemy often better led and better prepared for the harsh realities of combat. Thirty years later DePuy retained a pervasive respect for the fighting skill of the German army, as well as an often critical view of the leadership and fighting ability of American soldiers. His fixation on the European battlefield remained steadfast, and he sought from the start of his tenure at TRADOC to redirect the Army‘s focus from jungle warfare to a possible ground war with the Soviets on the plains of central Europe.

7. DePuy's experience as an infantry officer in Europe during World War II profoundly affected his vision of how a future army should fight. He had witnessed poor-quality soldiers, sent into battle by poorly prepared leaders, waste themselves in poorly conceived and executed operations against an enemy often better led and better prepared for the harsh realities of combat. Thirty years later DePuy retained a pervasive respect for the fighting skill of the German army, as well as an often critical view of the leadership and fighting ability of American soldiers. His fixation on the European battlefield remained steadfast, and he sought from the start of his tenure at TRADOC to redirect the Army‘s focus from jungle warfare to a possible ground war with the Soviets on the plains of central Europe.

8. Problems: • Heavy losses among company-level leaders • Lieutenants and Captains • Non-Commissioned Officers • Individual replacements instead of unit replacement • Proficiency testing skimmed off smarter soldiers into technical branches

9. With regard to Marshall . . . • “The truth never got in the way of a good story. COL David Hackworth • "The 'systematic collection of data' appears to have been an invention.“ Dr. Roger J. Spiller

10. The current argument . . . Bonn, Keith E., When the Odds Were Even: The Vosges Mountains Campaign, October 1944-January 1945 (1994) Peter Mansoor, The GI Offensive in Europe: The Triumph of American Infantry Divisions, 1941-1945 (1999)

11. Edward Shils and Morris Janowitz, “Cohesion and Disintegration in the Wehrmacht in World War II” Public Opinion Quarterly (1948)