June 4, 1942

From the moment the first bomb dropped on the US Naval base at Pearl Harbor on Sunday morning, December 7, 1941, Japan was ascendant in the Pacific and the Allied navies were on the run. Defeat followed defeat, major surface ship after major surface ship sunk, every defended objective or stronghold lost before the Imperial Japanese military juggernaut...with little damage inflicted in retaliation. There was Doolittle's heroic raid on Tokyo in April, a 'mosquito bite on an elephant's arse' if ever there was one...but it did have one enormous consequence: it infuriated Japanese high command, and committed them to an elaborate offensive by early summer, the successful completion of which would, they felt, effectively end Allied resistance in the Pacific. The chief military goal of this offensive...was Midway.

Japan should have accomplished it's goal. It's fleet was massive...and the tip of it's spear, the four aircraft carriers Akagi, Kaga, Hiryu and Soryu, the largest, most advanced such vessels in the world, their crews and aviators skilled and accomplished without peer. Against them, after the attrition of the war thus far, the US Navy could range only a small task force of escorts, the hero of the Doolittle raid the carrier Hornet, her sister ship Enterprise...and the Yorktown, so badly mauled at Coral Sea the previous month Japan actually believed her sunk, but asteam at Midway thanks to an heroic refit by the dockworkers at Pearl Harbor. Still gross underdogs, even before considering the inadequacies of early war aircraft and inexperience of crew versus the Japanese, the Navy still took arms to defend Midway Island--with one enormous advantage, the intelligence of knowing Japans intentions after breaking her military cipher, and an almost unbelievable sequence of fortunate breaks, from the ridiculous (the Japanese scout plane that would have spotted the US fleet had a broken radio) to the sublime (one squadron pilot--a 'half-indian,' disregarded patrol instructions and found the Japanese by sheer luck), to the tragic (torpedo squadron VT-8 arrived over the Japanese fleet alone and unescorted, courageously attacked anyway and lost every plane and all hands save one, Texas Aggie Ensign George Gay, who then watched the entire pivotal battle of the war--and arguably modern history--from the ocean in the middle of it...but in that sacrifice drew down the fleet's combat air cover, leaving it critically undefended).

When, in that fleeting, supremely advantageous moment, with it's fighter cover off wave hopping after obsolete torpedo planes and the decks of its four carriers overflowing with bombs being loaded for a second strike on Midway and it's attack planes sitting helpless while being refueled, and the Dauntless dive bombers of USS Enterprise arrived above the Japanese fleet, the course of the Second World War changed. Reversed, in the span of moments. Vulnerable beyond any set of circumstances one could contrive, the dive bombers from Enterprise would sink three of Japans front line aircraft carriers, and join flyers from Yorktown and Hornet in decapitating the fourth and final, before the day was done. Worse for the aggressor, in a single morning the flower of it's most experienced, most talented aviators would perish, irreplaceable--either killed on the decks in that moment after the Enterprise dive bombers appeared unexpectedly above them, or after ditching their aircraft in the sea when there was no place to come back to, after the last sortie.

The massive invasion force had turned for home by June 6. A final, reflexive strike saw the Yorktown taken in return, though most of her crew, flyers and planes were saved. America had turned aside the blow intended to finish her, and her allied nations, in the Pacific War. For the first time since hostilities had begun, *she* commanded the seas.

It was a command the Allies would never relinquish. Just as they had not won a battle against Imperial Japan, until Midway, they would not lose a battle to Imperial Japan after Midway. Fortune in the battle for half the world changed in the virtual blink of an eye, in the skies above the mid-Pacific, won by the endlessly creative minds of iconoclastic American code breakers, the relentlessly committed sweat-and-muscle of American manual laborers, the commitment of American leadership and the courage--and blood sacrifice--of American warriors, June 4, 1942, 72 years ago today.
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Wargaming in 'Real Time'

One generally has to have a committed interest to WWII history to learn much about the November 1944-February 1945 Battle of the Hurtgen Forest (being among the worst defeats ever suffered by the US Army is probably a part of that), but for those in our hobby a fascinating subplot has emerged about the battle.

Field Marshal Walter Model is accorded great regard for his coordination of German defenses during the campaign, and it transpires that, even as the ill-fated US 28th Infantry was jumping off their attack on November 2, Model was running a wargame simulation of *just such a possible scenario* amongst his senior commanders, behind the lines in Cologne. Rather than scrapping the exercise when he learned of the American action, Model ordered the wargaming to continue, substituting actual tactical data for the hypothetical exercise data in as close to real time as possible, then responding with his available defensive assets as the wargame demonstrated various possible outcomes.

Before the Hurtgen campaign ended, over 33,000 Allied casualties had been suffered trying vainly to take 15 miles of woods. Model is often described as 'that rare form of German, the *defensive* military genius;' perhaps 'wargamer' is equally apt.

(for more on the Hurtgen Forest Campaign, see this month's Armchair General Magazine) +++

Pigs Fly No More

Though it would be difficult to find an aircraft with a past more fraught with political interference, the General Dynamics F-111 overcame all to render decades of service to NATO air forces, from Cold War stand-off strike capability to surgical missions into the modern era of asymmetrical conflict, the F-111's unique combination of near-fighter speed and maneuver capability, bomber payload delivery, and nose-to-the-earth terrain-hugging radar effectiveness providing a mission effectiveness and flexibility that remains difficult to equal.

Some combination of aircraft will have to, however...for with the formal retirement of the Royal Australian Air Force's strike fleet, all F-111s are retired.

Known to it's US crews (fondly) as the Aardvark (reportedly for it's pronounced snout), to the RAAF it was a contraction of aardvark's literal translation, 'earth pig'--simply, the Pig.

An RAAF pilot with the second-most flight hours in type, squadron leader Steve Clarke with some 3400, was a pilot for the Pigs' final sortie. The type leader, Captain Brad Insley (United States Air Force, retired) was present for the final flight and got one last Pig ride, as well: in the cockpit of an F-111 he had flown to Vietnam in 1972, as it was towed to permanent static display.

With it's distinctive cockpit pod and variable-geometry 'swing wings,' the F-11, like the Navy's F-14, was an obvious artifact of it's era...and it may be that era has passed. Not without challenge, however, or trial. All of us still alive and free owe some measure of gratitude for the fact to Pigs that flew--and the men who made that so.

April 1829: The Fall of The Raven

Mention 'Sam Houston' in 21st century America and the image conjured by the name is of a giant of the War for Texas Independence, and in the governance of that same republic once independence was won; a man as big as the towering statue of him which overlooks I45 in Huntsville, Texas.

It is worth remembering that he was all of those things, while still being as human--and flawed--as us all. And his darkest moment of failure culminated almost two centuries ago this month.

Houston was an Andrew Jackson man. He fought under Jackson at the Horseshoe Bend of the Tallapoosa River against the Red Stick indians, where he was nearly killed but his relentless courage was noted by Old Hickory; both were promoted from Tennessee militia to regular army as result--Houston to Washington to recuperate from his horrific injuries, where he watched in fury as the British burned the upstart nation's capital in the War of 1812, Jackson eventually to New Orleans, where his makeshift coalition of bayou Cajuns, southern gentlemen, blacks slave and free and Jean LaFitte's pirates shattered those same British, further idolizing him in Houston's eyes--and when the two turned after to politics, they did so as virtual father-and-son, Jackson eventually to the presidency in no small measure due to Houston's relentless support in Congress, and Houston ultimately to follow Jackson to the governance of Tennessee, and commandery of her militia (whence he would take his title, like Jackson before him, of General). As the tidal wave of liberalized 'western' democracy reshaped the face of the establishment 'eastern' American republic in the late 1820s, there were no small few who believed the tall Virginian who had lived among the Cherokee in his youth and earned the name 'colonneh,' or Raven, would continue to follow his mentor on to the presidency.

His resume lacked only the social touch. The Raven needed a wife.

He took one in Eliza Allen, blonde and blue-eyed daughter of a Gallatin, Tennessee colonel. She seemed the perfect fit, embraced by the gentry of Nashville, and Houston, by all accounts, fell deeply for her.

And never recovered--for within three months, it was over, and Sam Houston's rise with it.

It is still not absolutely clear what happened. Considerable aspersions of character were suggested of Eliza, which so provoked Houston that he swore in print to kill any man who questioned her purity. She slipped after into obscurity, and Houston refused publicly ever to speak of it, the rest of his life; most likely, it was the simple, calamitous combination of a man in love with a woman who loved another, which neither could reconcile.

By April of 1829, the marriage was over (Houston not being of either honor or temperament to demand Eliza remain in a loveless union of politics or convenience), Houston had resigned the governorship of Tennessee due to 'overwhelming...sudden calamities'...and The Raven, once destined for greatness in the East, had disappeared, miserable, beaten and failed, into the west.

Fortunately--for Sam Houston and for the many liberty-minded settlers of the next decade--to the west lay Texas. Without the 'calamity' which took him down so completely in disgrace by April of 1829, there likely would not have been a man of his stature west of the Sabine in 1836, a man capable of making the difficult, wrenching decisions which kept the newborn republic alive in the face of overwhelming adversity, of weathering the bitter scorn of the humiliating 'Runaway Scrape' without breaking; he had broken once, and been so tempered by it he would not falter again. By the April of seven years later, the old Sam Houston was reborn...and when the time came to turn and break Santa Anna and Mexico instead, at San Jacinto, in the name of liberty, freedom, the selfsame rights so essential to the democracy of the west that had changed the American nation a decade earlier and borne him to triumph after triumph, this time, Sam Houston was ready.

The Raven had risen, phoenixlike, and borne a nation up with him. A weight he likely would not have been equal to without the tempering of disgrace, in April of 1829.
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The Hoard of Arthur?

In July 2009, an amateur with a metal detector uncovered on of the greatest hoards of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver yet found, buried in Staffordshire, England. The find has now been tentatively dated to the AD 600s--an era to conjure with--and the nature of the treasure does not suggest noble burial, as at Sutton Hoo, so much as hastily-hidden war gain: virtually all of it is military, from helmet fragments to sword hilts, virtually all of it appears to have been used (and recently) as opposed to ceremonial or ornamental in nature, and such things as still-evident rivets on the gear suggest it was ripped from it's original owners hastily, and buried to hide it. 'It looks like war booty,' according to the archeology head of Staffordshire. 'Losing these objects, (a Saxon) king would have lost his status and authority.'

So much is lost and unknown from these dark ages--called the Insular Period in Great Britain as it seems almost completely isolated from events occurring across Europe, about which little enough is even known--we may never know who the defeated Saxon was...much less who conquered him, stripped him and his warband of the objects which demonstrated their power, and threw them into at least temporary disorganization and chaos by hiding away their status symbols. But it fires the imagination to consider literature, folklore and tradition's likeliest candidate.

Modern 'historical' Arthurian scholarship tends to put its favorite candidates for an historical King Arthur earlier than this, into the early sixth and even likelier fifth centuries...and given what the two great historical documents (the Anglo Saxon Chronicle and the History of Gildas) of the era say--or rather *don't* say, at least explicitly--about the dux bellorum of Roman Britain's successful-if-brief turning-back of the Germanic invasion of the isle, they are probably right. There is no shortage of evidence--including in their own literary tradition, the epic Beowulf--of Anglo-Saxon internecine warfare in these dark times.

But could it have been 'the Bear' and his mounted champions of the Romanized and perhaps Christianized British tribes, who struck this blow against barbarism and brute tyranny on the Staffordshire plain a millennia-and-a-half ago? Fortunately for the poet or romantic in us all, the times were too dark to definitively answer no....

'And here we leave Arthur...who was never historical, but everything he did was true.' --Thomas Berger, Arthur Rex

Source: Kate Ravilious, 'Archeology' Jan/Feb 2010, page 22, Archeological Institute of America
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Chemical Warfare in 256 AD

Around 256 AD the Persian Sassanid (lately called Sasanian) Empire beseiged the Roman Fortress of Dura, in Syria. Though the Persians never breached the walls, the undersized and unreinforced Imperial contingent eventually fell; everyone within was executed or deported east to live the remainder of their lives as slaves. A recent reexamination of the original 1930s excavation has revealed how: Sassanid sappers digging tunnels under the fort were ready for Roman counterminers tunneling to thwart them from above--when the Romans broke into the Persian tunnels, readied braziers of pitch and sulfur were lit. The resultant rising cloud of sulfur dioxide gas overcame the Roman legionnaires trapped in the dark and congested space in seconds.

This earliest evidentiary use of chemical warfare was not without the consequence that has made it anathema to civilized soldiery throughout subsequent history, however: collateral damage. Along with the bodies of some twenty Roman soldiers excavated in the tunnels were remains of a single Persian soldier...probably the sapper who had set the braziers afire, but miscalculated his escape time and been overcome in the tunnel darkness by his own deadly chemical trap...

•Source: Samir S. Patel, 'Archeology' Jan/Feb 2010, page 26, Archeological Institute of America

28mm Ancient and Medieval Historicals: A Brief Overview

Since a recent question on the Adeptus North Texas mailing list, several hobbyists have written me privately inquiring further about the current state of Historical miniatures wargaming in our favorite 'GW' scale. I figured I would attempt a quick overview to try to address these questions, and any other unexpressed interest that may be out there. You may have a potential opponent--or interested retailer--convenient to you, awaiting only mutual discovery!

First, I should qualify that my comments will be limited to Ancient and Medieval Wargaming. There are thriving Historicals of every era out there, from ECW (English Civil War) to Napoleonics to the Vietnam War, and WWII and ACW (American Civil War) are probably the *most* currently popular Historical eras being wargamed...but AnM (Ancient and Medieval) most closely resembles GW's Fantasy skirmishes--and I am an Ancient and Medieval history major (albeit now some two decades removed); that's where my interest lies, so that is where I am best able to point you right.

Anyone interested in the state of the hobby should start with the Society of Ancients ( http://www.soa.org.uk ), whose quarterly magazine, the Slingshot, is a near-perfect alchemy of enthusiast history, wargaming figure/rules reviews, latest historical book reviews, and battle reenactments/scenarios/reports that combine both history and wargaming.

Beyond the SoA, rulesets are the next thing one should explore. Rather than recommend any, I encourage interested hobbyists to get games in with the various systems; there are a great many, and there is no better way to figure out which rules play the way you like than to actually game with them. Moreover, it would do me little good to write about the relative virtues and vices of Armati vs DBMM vs Tactica, et al, if no one local to you plays any of those. I will briefly mention three systems:

•Field of Glory is the most readily available current ruleset commercially, as it is supported by famed military publisher Osprey and available through any retailer which stocks their books. The rules and supplements for specific eras are gorgeously-presented graphically; the game mechanics feel (to me) very--perhaps *too*--traditional. Same-old/same-old syndrome. Your mileage may vary.

•Ancient and Medieval Wargaming is a book format ruleset by Neil Thomas; although it abstracts rather than simulates as a guiding principle, which runs contrary to my traditional preferences, the abstractions are placed, in his book, in the context of specific battles of historical consequence from the Ancient and Medieval world, which serves to thoroughly ground the entire work with satisfying substance.

•Warhammer Ancient Battles (and Warmaster Ancients) are, as the names suggest, adaptations of our familiar GW rulesets for historical armies. In many ways, these might seem the ideal AnM rules, because they are reasonably available commercially, professionally presented, and familiar--and in some cases they *are* nearly ideal (though be warned the basis of the system is 6th--versus 7th--edition WHFB). I am biased against WAB somewhat because (in my view) it critically botches the key army of the Ancient World in simulation, the Roman Legions (though Adrian Goldsworthy's alternative rules in the most recent Slingshot look to have corrected many of the particular issues I have)...but if you play Warhammer Fantasy Battles (and any army *other* than Rome), you probably ought to give WAB consideration.

That business addressed, comes the fun part--the toy soldiers.

There are other scales (Warmaster, in fact, is 10mm, like it's fantasy counterpart) with 15mm, 20mm and 25mm the most popular--but hobbyists having at Historicals from a GW orientation are likely to prefer 28mm--or 'heroic'--scale, as the perfect compromise between figures of sufficient size to capture detail and artistry and still be small enough to simulate battle with on a tabletop.

In 28mm, there are more than a few small manufacturers who cast in metals--Crusader, 1st Corps, Gorgon, Gripping Beast, et al--but the undisputed leader is Wargames Foundry, also known as Foundry Miniatures or simply The Foundry ( http://www.wargamesfoundry.com ): they have been at it long time, their lines are extensive (and their sculpts often gorgeous) and they are located, conveniently, right near Nottingham, UK, the toy soldier capital of the world. Their proximity to GW means many of that giant's SF and/or Fantasy figure sculptors will work for Foundry when they wish to indulge an historical whim.

Building an army completely from pewter is no small investment, even with Foundry's army bundles and occasional sales...but even if a hobbyist prefers to begin with a foundation of plastic models from manufacturers such as those listed following, rare is the era that will not see it's forces improved in quality and variety by inclusion of models from metal-casters such as Foundry.

And--as of just recently--modelers *can* do 28mm Ancient and Medievals in plastic. This is an enormous development toward potentially broadening the hobby. Just as GW has staked it's future on the reduced cost, increased flexibility and ease of work which comes with modeling in multipart hard plastic, at least two major companies have staked themselves to the same potential, with Historicals.

Wargames Factory ( http//www.wargamesfactory.com ) is the newest such company, and has generated considerable interest chiefly because of the extremely low retail prices their multipart plastic model sets boast. There have been, in turn, criticisms of the comparative softness of their molding plastics (and how same accepts adhesives) and especially of their sculpts, which appear to vary wildly not only in quality but in dimension (check out the veritable giant helming one of their Celtic chariots for a good example); more than one source has suggested these problems reflect the company's policy of casting directly from computer-modeled images, rather than traditional artists-master sculpts--which is a part of how they are able to offer such prices, to return to the original point. If Wargames Factory can trend further toward the scale model and away from the toy figure as they mature their processes, while keeping their retail prices attractive, their impact could be significant.

Meantime, the field leader, the company that brought the concept of 'mass market plastics' to Historicals wargaming, is Warlord Games ( http://www.warlordgames.co.uk ), also Nottingham-based, also with deep GW ties (White Dwarf's best editor ever, Paul Sawyer, is one of Warlord's founders). They have an extensive line of pewter sculpts of exceptional quality, some fine resin pieces, as well...but have made their name with multipart hard plastic Historical regiment boxes very like what a hobbyist would expect from a 40K, WHFB or LotR box. Like Foundry, they also offer discounted army bundles--in many cases keyed to building armies to specific rulesets--but because they can create the foundations for these armies from their multipart plastics, building an entire army isn't so daunting a fiscal investment: I've an Imperial Roman army from Warlord more than twice the size of my Post-Roman Briton (Arthurian) army from Foundry and Gripping Beast, PLUS a nice battery of Roman war machines...all at less cost.

Will Roman Legions and Germanic Barbarians clashing in the Teutoberg Forest replace Space Marines and Orks (or High Elves and Orcs) on many tabletops? Unlikely--but then, one needn't necessarily 'replace' the other, so much as complement it. Hobbies are for relaxing, for fun; if you think you might find Historicals fun, the sources listed should get you started.

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Best Books on War

May 25 is Memorial Day in the US. To honour the sacrifice of those with the courage to have served--and with express gratitude--herewith Military History magazine's list of Best Books on War, in the sincere hope that through study comes understanding.

• THE ILIAD (Homer)
• THE HISTORY OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR (Thucydides)
• ON WAR (Clausewitz)
• WAR AND PEACE (Tolstoy)
• RED BADGE OF COURAGE (Crane)
• PERSONAL MEMOIRS (Grant)
• FACE OF BATTLE (Keegan)
• WITH THE OLD BREED (Sledge)
• BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM (McPherson)
• WE WERE SOLDIERS ONCE...AND YOUNG (Moore with Galloway)
• ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT (Remarque)
• FROM HERE TO ETERNITY (Jones)
• CAINE MUTINY (Wouk)
• CIVIL WAR: A NARRATIVE (Foote)
• FORGOTTEN SOLDIER (Sajer)
• ONCE AN EAGLE (Myrer)
• GOODBYE, DARKNESS (Manchester)
• EISENHOWER'S LIEUTENANTS (Weigley)
• WORLD AT ARMS (Weinberg)
• PATTON (D'Este)

As MH chose not to distinguish between fiction and nonfiction, I would add Slaughterhouse-Five (Vonnegut), Citizen Soldier (Ambrose), Art ofWar (Sun-Tzu), War and Remembrance (Wouk) and--to round arbitrarily to 25--any history of choice by Walter Lord (my personal military choices would be either Incredible Victory--about the Battle of Midway--or A Time To Stand--about The Alamo; Lord's research may by now be dated but his prose and, especially, sense of the dramatic moment of each chosen story brings history to life).

The Illustrated Alamo 1836

In the pre-dawn of March 6, 1836, the fate of an unknown number (but probably around 200) of Tejanos, Texians and American Texas immigrant rebels and an unknown number (but probably in the high hundreds to low thousands) of Loyalist Mexican soldiers was decided at a place almost everyone has heard of...but that almost no one can properly visualize, as it was on the day: the crucible of Texas liberty (and an anvil upon which was struck much of subsequent North American history, from the nineteenth century through the present)—the Alamo.

Artist Mark Lemon has created the most thorough-going visual recreation of the Alamo to date, in his meticulously-researched and skillfully rendered 'The Illustrated Alamo 1836 A Photographic Journey'. From the 1/48th scale model Alamo he bases his work on, to the stunningly evocative photographic work which brings the model to realistic life, to the text analysis of both, including his reasoning behind some of the speculative decisions he had to make, Lemon's work is impeccable...and the result is a fuller understanding of the monumental hopelessness of a few hundred defenders securing so broad and open a 'fortress' against determined assault—and a deeper appreciation for the depth of their conviction to their cause, that nonetheless they tried.

While there are unfortunate errors in editing (Lemon consistently misspells Alamo commander William Barret Travis' middle name, for example), they are rendered inconsequential in contrast to the enormity and thoroughness of Lemon's research. Not only does he cover the physical plant of the Alamo on that fateful day (visitors to the shrine as it is currently preserved in San Antonio unfamiliar with the changes—and in some cases virtual demolition—the Alamo has been subject to in the years since 1836 will be stunned by how different a place it was), Lemon also details virtually everything known of the mission fortress' artillery battery, complete with illustrations of the guns, and provides one of the most cogently-argued analyses of which flag(s) flew over the commandery while it was in possession of the Texians, and why.

That this is a must for the library of every Alamo historian goes without saying. It will probably be of considerable interest to the model-builder and miniature military gamer, as well; though Lemon's triumphs here are ultimately in line with his intentions—to recreate history insofar as possible and do so with an artistry that transcends simple recreation—the stunning package that is 'The Illustrated Alamo 1836' is arguably one of the most beautiful, elaborate tributes to the scale modelers' art, as well, and deserves appreciation for that.

By the time the sun rose on the Mission San Antonio de Valero on March 6, 1836, the thirteen day seige was over. William Barret Travis, James Butler Bonham, Jim Bowie, Davy Crockett and her other defenders were all massacred (or soon would be, depending on one's fixation with how things for each of them ended, especially Crockett). Mexican General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, the 'Napoleon of the West,' would dismiss the battle as 'a small affair.' But the most experienced heart of his veteran army lay wounded, dying or dead piled high against the mission fortress' north wall, and dedication to a cause—which was arguably still smouldering in the hearts of many beyond its most ardent disciples—had been fanned to incandescence by Travis' epistolary eloquence, by the band of defenders' courage, by the mercilessness of Santa Anna's massacre. Without the Alamo, there well might never have been a Texas.

Mark Lemon's book finally brings the birthplace of Texas freedom back to life, as it was—and takes us there.
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