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Arthur W. Gullachsen, "The Defeat and Attrition of the 12. SS-Panzerdivision Hitlerjugend: Volume II: Operations Martlet, Epsom, Windsor and Charnwood 11 June-12 July 1944" (Casemate, 2026)
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A
I was groomed to become one of his wives.
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This week on Disorder, the podcast that
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A
Welcome to the New Books Network.
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B
Good day. This is Boris Carpa. Welcome. And we have with us a guest which we have had here before, Professor Artur Galaxan of the Royal Canadian Military College. And he has returned to us with a sequel to a book which we had here with us before. And I'm just going to have to read out. I'm going to have to read out the title and because it's a bit of a mouthful, Arthur, the Defeat and attrition of the 12th SS Panzer Division, Hitler Jugend, Volume 2, which covers the period from the 11th of June to the 12th of July, 1944. And I'm happy to have you with us here again, Arthur.
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A
Well, thank you very much for having me.
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B
And so we've asked this before. It's a traditional question and, you know, we are creatures of tradition. Here, I'd like you to ask. And I'd like to ask you, you know, Normandy landings is a big topic on which there's probably thousands of books, both for the general public as well as scholarly books which are more complicated. What is the innovation? What do you feel you brought to the table here with this new book? Why did you feel that we need this book?
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A
Oh, thank you for asking this. It's a book examining a German armored division in great, great detail. And it covers, you know, while many Normandy books cover the invasion landings and the events of D day, you know, the events that are covered in movies like Saving Private Ryan, the further, larger battles sometimes do not receive, I feel, enough attention and as well as studies of the German perspective as well as the German units. And Normandy, I believe, was very much a battle of attrition for the German military. These being the land forces of the Daz here, the German army and the Waffen ss, the politicized Nazi army created by Heinrich Himmler. Now this, this, the Germans, they do lose men, they lose tanks, they lose artillery pieces, various pits of equipment, and all these are not replaced. And slowly but surely, each German division that is deployed to Normandy becomes weaker and weaker. It's worn down by the sheer combat power of the US first army and the British second Army and later on the first Canadian Army. Now, these German divisions, despite their best efforts, they're driven back, they're beaten, they're bludgeoned back. And eventually the front breaks in late August or mid August, and we see the Americans begin to break out. The U.S. 3rd army under Patton escapes into southern France and circles around. So you know how exactly it got to the stage where the Germans were overwhelmed. My book seeks to illustrate or provide an answer to that question through the use of a case study. The case study being a German armored division, this a unit, a very much favored unit of the Waffen SS, the 12th SS Panzer Division hit Hitlerjugen, which was largely formed from a cadre of former Hitler Youth, which, with a sprinkling of veteran Eastern Front veterans from the Waffen SS and other previous divisions. Now, this division, the 12th SS Panzer Division, slowly but surely ground down in some of the largest, most titanic battles of the Normandy campaign. And I feel it's very important historically to illustrate how the Germans lost and to illustrate how the British, the British second army, with the Canadian forces attached, managed to accomplish this goal. So hopefully that gives you a good enough answer there.
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B
Thank you, Artur. And I think that makes a lot of sense to me. And there's Always a question which I always ask and you know, I've just finished my own book which is coming out soon and I think that because of the nature of our show, a lot of the, of our of our listeners are readers and writers and the process of writing a book is always of a great interest to someone. I always ask this question, when you were working on this book, can you tell us about the difficulties which you've had and how you've overcome them? Because of course we have overcome them. We have a book. So we would like to learn a bit about your process.
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A
Yes, there was, there's a large amount of primary documents that were consulted for this book. And while my German is so so and it's a very much a work in progress, I did rely at times on translation software just to make absolutely sure that what I thought is said was, was, is what exactly was the case in the typed German documents? But there was a problem. A certain document, a very important document for One of the two Prancer Grenadier regiments within the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitler Eugen, the 26th SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment. The war diary that survived that's located in the Czech Republic in the post war years and resides now in the Czech military archives. You can order reproductions of it or certain pages if you wish, but it is in cursive. The only part that has survived was in the pencil entries day by day and these were not typed up or the typed versions did not survive the war. So through the employment of a Queen's University student here in Kingston, Ontario, this Queen's University student, who's a language specialist, I used some of my research money to employ her to actually translate the cursive German which totally, you know, if, if you're ever confronted by it, there's two versions of pre war cursive German that are actually present in this war diary and so actually decipher it. Some of it was completely, could not be deciphered, but others could be translated and she did a very, very good job of it. And you know, she's listed credited in the introduction. But yes, employing her was one of the best decisions I've made in my research career when it comes to doing research for these books because it provided detail that is not provided with any other books on the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugen or German forces in Normandy. This examination of this particular war diary. So, so having this, it gives extra insight into the extreme detail of the day by day battles as the Germans tank by tank, SS Panzer Grenadier by SS Panzer grenadier were slowly but surely ground down by the British artillery fire and the relentless infantry and armored attacks. So, yes, having that curse of German investing in that translation process by a language specialist who specializes in understanding or, you know, is. Is well versed in cursive German, which is. Is totally. I can't even begin to understand it, but having heard do this, it was. It was amazingly beneficial.
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B
Yes, yes. I've had a similar situation back in the day when I was working on my own research Berserwer, handwritten diary entries which. Which were transcribed in English by a Russian officer in the early 19th century. And I have a great suspicion that he was doing shots of vodka while he was writing because his handwriting degraded. Was every. It was every few lines. So I do understand the difficulty which you were dealing with at the time. And so I'd like to follow up a bit on the idea of the process, the idea of, you know, writing a book. Any kind of research where you're working overtime, especially, you know, several years, and a big book like this one, where this is the second volume. Sometimes it happened that you started out with one idea with what happened and what you were going to find, but then your research brings up something you didn't expect. Some kind of surprise, some kind of shock, perhaps. And it's happened to me when I was working on my book, and I'm sure it happened to everybody who's doing research. I think if you're not surprised and you're researching, then you're not researching. So maybe you can tell us about ways which you were surprised by your work.
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A
Yes. The sheer scale of the German losses when it came to tanks that were disabled or destroyed or human losses in the way of killed, wounded, captured or simply for. For any reason, you know, a particular piece of equipment or truck or car, motorcycle, is out of action, disabled. The combat power of the Allies and the destructive natures, particularly of the field artillery as well as the naval artillery. It's something that I knew it made an impact on the Germans, but. But exactly how fast their forces were destroyed in Normandy during the course of, say, one day's battle. You know, you'd be losing, you know, perhaps hundreds of men in one day if it went particularly badly in a certain defensive engagement or, you know, in the days where of the British Operation Epsom, one of the largest yet most historically unappreciated British attacks of the war. I could say, conservatively, that if there's any British veterans or no. Or family members related to veterans of the Normandy campaign. There's probably a 1 in 3 chance that their relative who fought as a veteran of the Normandy campaign, fought in Operation Epsom, which occurred at the end of the end of the month of June. And the sheer amount of combat force that was unleashed upon the Germans in the way of naval bombardments, airstrikes later on in early July, aerial bombardments from four engine bombers, the number of tanks that are constantly deployed to attack the Germans. We see the, the, the sheer amount of resources that the Allies had deployed, possessed. And seeing it from the German perspective was very, very illuminating for me because, yes, the Germans did lose the war, but exactly how they lost it and occasionally how quickly they were destroyed or decimated or defeated in one day's battle. It's a testament to the industrial might of the 20th century or, you know, 1940s mechanized armies of the Allies. For the Germans. They had a word for it in German material. Schlacht. Material. Schlacht, the battle of war materiel. And this huge number, this bottomless pit of shells and naval artillery that's being unleashed upon them as well as endless fighter bombing runs. It's something that was, was truly awesome, but in a, in a horrible, terrifying way for the, for the German forces. Hopefully that answers your question.
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B
Yes, it certainly does. It certainly does. This is something which is, I think, underappreciated, especially if you are doing the war. So it's mass media portrayals, especially in recent films, where you just don't see the mass of the Allied material which is being deployed in France and later in Germany. And this brings me to something which I'd like to gently push back a bit. Not so much to argue with you, but you're the expert. But we're talking about some. You talk about in your books, inflexibility of the German command. Hector's, shall we say, peculiar leadership style, where he, at some point where he begins to focus on holding ground, on holding it all across various parts of terrain, various objectives. But I've also read, I also read in other sources at this stage of the war, there wasn't really a choice, there wasn't really a way to return to maneuver at this point in the war because very crucial areas of the German Reich, which were crucial in terms of industry and in military terms, were about to be lost. And so there wasn't really a lot of literally no room to maneuver. So the question is, where does normal military necessity end? And Hitler being kind of crazy, start.
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A
Yes, it's a difficult question with regard to the German forces If they pulled back and turned to maneuver warfare, they would perhaps get out of the way of the naval gunfire, which was tremendously, tremendously destructive. And the field and medium artillery batteries that were battering away at them, shelling the living daylights out of them day and night, they were sort of, with the static warfare, they're stuck as if on a plate for the artillery forces to simply destroy, to endlessly bombard. But on the other hand, if they did attempt to use the roadways and maneuver around in broad daylight, they would fall victim to the fighter bomber forces which had total or very close to total air superiority over the Normandy, the skies of Normandy. And if the Germans attempting to fight statically with their large number of divisions, it was a large number of divisions in a very small area compared to, say, for example, the Eastern Front, where the density of German forces per square kilometer was far less. So if they couldn't handle it in the front line, you know, as it was, how, you know, Hitler and his toadies within the berkeleysarden in the high in the Bavarian Alps, reasoned, how could they possibly handle defending France or containing the Allies if they simply pulled back or turned to a mobile form of warfare? Now, some German generals, such as Ger von Schwaffenberg, the commander of Panzer Group west, very much was for pulling back from the, the, the danger zone of Allied artillery and naval gunfire. But at the same time, you know, had like a very vague idea that German forces, one had the fuel and secondly had the, the ability, you know, free from Allied aerial attack airstrikes, constant attention from Allied fighter bombers to actually maneuver around in the fields and, you know, areas where tank warfare could occur. And looking at the western flank of the Normandy bridgehead, the American front, it was very much, and part of the British front was very much bocage which was perfect for static warfare and infantry ambushes. It was very, very much the wrong area for German armored warfare, German armored maneuvers. So did Hitler have a point? Yes, if they pulled back, potentially some Luftwaffe airfields would be lost, some resources potentially from France, or depots of ammunition and fuel, material, war material might be lost. There's also the ports which if they pulled back and allowed the Allies to take certain ports, U boat bases would be lost, even though the Battle of the Atlantic at this time was very, very much lost already. So it's a very difficult question to say some German generals were advocating this mobile warfare rather than attritional static warfare, but at the same time, you know, know, if they're given the chance to succeed in their fighting in the method that they like to fight, would they have even had a chance? It's, it's a bit of a what if question, but I, but I see it as highly doubtful that there would have been a positive outcome for the German armored forces due to the, the, the ever present problem of the Allied thunderbolts, Spitfires, Typhoons, P38 Lightnings, P51 Mustangs that seemingly never disappeared from the battlefield except for very poor flying weather and then the actual fuel to maneuver these tank divisions, Panzer regiments around to move a large number of Panther, Tiger or Panzer IV tanks or even Sturm des Schultz assault guns. Was it even there? So the Germans were in a terribly, terribly poor, poor situation in that they seemedly had very little in the way of advantages and were were had multiple disadvantages pushed upon them by one the destruction of the transportation infrastructure in Northern France, which was the Allied transportation plan air offensive, as well as the, the, the inability of German trucks as well as some trains to actually transport themselves from A to B in the hours of daylight. The Germans were very much creatures of the night. And you know, could they have fought at night, you know, to escape the fighter bombers somehow? It's again, it's a bit of a ridiculous question. Of course they couldn't have. So previous people like Rommel, Rundstedt, Ger von Schweppenberg, Dolmen very much wanted to pull back or to carry out a more mobile defense. But the situations of the Eastern Front where German tanks could drive around in broad daylight and attack Soviet forces, was simply not present due to the overwhelming Allied air superiority, which is a huge factor in German land operations. Hopefully that answers your question. It's not just something you made. It's the privilege that you get to work with your hands. It's building something that serves a purpose, proof that you have the grit to keep going. At Timberland, we understand you take your craft seriously and we do too, which is why our products are built to the highest quality. We put in the work so you can perfect yours with purpose, in every detail and crafted with intention. Timberland built on craft. Visit timberland.com to shop.
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B
And I'd like to just elaborate a little bit on what you said, because something which was actually discussed by German leadership at the time, and we know that they thought of this in these terms because we have their communications, we have their letters, we have witnesses which were, you know, in meetings with Hitler and members of the inner circle is that they argued that they were in a similar situation towards the Soviet Union was in early in the war. And they very much refer to what Stalin had said in order two to seven. Where Stalin doesn't just forbid people from retreating. Stalin explains why he does this and he basically says, you know, in order to the sevens that you are not just maneuvering over empty, endless flat terrain, there are actual assets which are defending the factories, the population and so forth. And at some point if you're retreating too much, then we don't no longer have resources to continue fighting the war because you've retreated and left east to the enemy. And this is a concern which German command has at this point. And on the other hand, like you've pointed out, a retreat is one of the most complicated military operations to have, especially when you're under this much fire, under this many air strikes. It's, it's, it's so some of the most complicated things to organize. I'd like to pivot from this to another question. You talk about the, in your book, the central idea of your book. One of the ideas which I took from your book and maybe I that's how I understood it was it the 12th SS Division. It was very proficient as a maneuver element, but it was put in a situation of an attrition fight which they were not very good at. And the British were able to use the operational lessons for First World War to use their superiority in organization and supply material to defeat the 12th FS Division. But there is something which I did not understand and probably the audience will also grapple with is can you explain what makes a division better at maneuver versus an organization which is maybe more towards attrition? What are the organizational factors which make a ground division better at one thing versus the other?
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A
Oh, of course, having the armored component, the armored group, be it the, the, the armored personnel carriers, tanks and the fuel to do it, to carry out the, the armored counter strikes. That of course enables a positive results to be, to be achieved from your maneuver warfare. If you, you know, don't have the, the vehicles or the armor or, or the armored personnel carriers or the self propelled artillery, you can't really do that. So the 12th SS was designed to maneuver around, to not be fixed in one place. And the British army, while it did have armored brigades and armored regiments and the Royal Armored Corps, in some ways it had not changed very much from the British army of the First World War. Of course, the First World War was only 20 years earlier and well, you know, tanks, aircraft, other pieces of technology had to develop. The German or the British infantry with their, the same helmets and the same.303 Lee Enfield rifles, the same artillery batteries, the same creeping barrages. In some ways they did not change too, too much from the British armies that were attacking decisively in the years 1917, 1918. So this crumbling infantry battle has the revolving door of British infantry battalions with amazing artillery and naval gunfire support, as well as occasionally four engine bomber airstrikes, non stop fighter bomber airstrikes. They can carry out these infantry attacks which if you have a fixed enemy on which to deliver them onto you can have tremendous, tremendous results as these British infantry battalions simply chew their way through the Germans and, and the Germans, because they're not being reinforced. This is another thing. You can do these, this maneuver warfare and you can also do attritional warfare, but it very much depends on being reinforced with new replacement soldiers, replacement tanks, fuel, spare parts, artillery shells, new mortars, new guns, new anti tank guns. And that's something that the 12th SS Panzer Division, Hitlerjugen and all its components, its two panzergrenadier regiments of three battalions each, its Panzer Regiment of two battalions, its Artillery Regiment of three battalions, its Combat engineer regiment, its armored reconnaissance battalion, none of these units were being reinforced so that every time a tank was lost, a soldier was killed or wounded or taken prisoner, the division as a whole became so much weaker. And slowly but surely, over the course of operations Epsom and charnwood, roughly nearly 60% of the division's strength is, is, is destroyed. And this is a process that continues from the first days after the invasion of 6 June, the, the extremely heavy battles against this leading Army in this, the 7th, 8th, even 9th of June, the 11th of June, there's tremendous losses are suffered by the Germans in the way of personnel and tanks. And slowly but surely, if battle after battle after battle, as the 12th SS Panzer Division is not pulled out and replaced by an infantry division. Of course the Allied deception operation Operation Fortitude is tremendously effective as the Germans very much believe a second invasion will occur in the Pas de Calais. So the infantry divisions that are designed within the German army das here for this attritional battle, they are not employed. They're stuck in their static defenses in the Pas de Calais, waiting for this invasion that never comes, or being stuck in southern France. And slowly but surely due to the destruction of the rail network and highways and bridges, can't get to the front in Normandy for a number of weeks. So the, the best of the best, the German Panzer divisions, the cream of the German land forces of the Waffen SS and the Panzerwaffe the German German army tank arm are slowly but surely ground down by these attritional battles by a British army fighting very much almost as they did in the first World War. Infantry first supported by creeping barrages, by tremendous artillery concentrations at targeted fortifications, as well as supported massively by airstrikes. And now this new force, this new technology that the British army is operating, these being not mean battle tanks, but infantry, Churchill and cruiser, Sherman tanks which equip their armored regiments, which they use to launch relentless armored attacks, which supports the infantry. It doesn't, it occasionally leads attacks, but it, it mainly supports the infantry with one squadron of tanks assigned to each British infantry battalion giving it that armored punch as well as the British to make take tremendous advantage of the German practice of launching immediate counterattacks. So when a British infantry battalion captures an objective, it is immediately fortified with all the weapons in the support company, the anti tank platoon, the mortar platoon, the machine gun platoon, you know, the carrier platoon. All those resources are rushed in as well as with extra anti tank guns from the Royal Artillery and with forward observation teams from the Royal Artillery as well. These forces as well as attached tanks crush the German attacks by having a very aggressive defense and inflict very, very heavy losses. So you have the two opportunities to destroy or trip the Germans to inflict massive casualties. One through attacking them and then through defeating and destroying their counterattack. So that's two victories instead of one. And after the battle, a British infantry battalion would be slowly but surely built up with replacement soldiers. An armored squadron would receive new tanks or repair tanks. New anti tank guns, mortars, machine guns would be delivered. But for the Germans, this none of this was happening. They could bring in new units, brand new divisions, panzer divisions or infantry divisions. But to replace the losses in the field as they are happening, allowing a division to be to survive attrition, it was something the Germans had tremendous, tremendous challenges at achieving. Hopefully that answers your question.
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B
Just to elaborate a little bit, do you think, or maybe this is something I misunderstood from your book. Are there ways in which having a unit which is organized towards maneuver, does it take away from its abilities to fight in an attrition fight in some way?
- [32:10]
A
Absolutely. The combat power of the British army arguably. While their armored divisions and armored brigades and motor battalions with armored personnel carriers or half tracks. While that was all very good, the real combat power, the hammer of the British army was the infantry divisions, of course, with three infantry brigades each of three infantry battalions and then the the art three field artillery regiments with the common 25 pounder gun and then there's various machine gun battalions attached, recce battalions and other forces that could be added. But each infantry battalion was almost a force of its own with the four line infantry companies, the support company as well as, you know, various attached assets such as, you know, recce platoon or recce forces. But these infantry battalions, the combat power of them both in the attack and the defense, they couldn't, such as, you know, in a manner similar to Soviet tanks, the T34s charge across 100km in one day advancing. But at the same time they could destroy German static defenses at a tremendous, tremendous rate. And this is exactly what won the Battle of Normandy for the US first Army under Omar Bradley. It was very much a battle in the bocage during Operation Cobra in which the US infantry divisions and the infantry battalions within those divisions, it was their triumph that allowed the Germans to be defeated, to allow them to slowly but surely chew through the Germans in Operation Cobra over a matter of days, allowing the US Armored spearheads to escape to, to break through into areas the German rear where there simply were not any German forces. It was because of the combat power of these infantry battalions, because of the, the, the, at the same time the combat power of the British army during Operation Epsom, during Operation Charnwood, which are mainly infantry led attacks supported by tanks that slowly but surely destroy the 12th SS Panzer Division's infantry and armored components driving it from Caen. And the sheer power of the defense when it comes to the British infantry divisions supported by massively by artillery allowed the German counter offensive of the 2nd SS Panzer Corps which I detail in my book, where the elements of, I'd say 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and even elements of a seventh bits and pieces of these seven German armored divisions are all fighting for the period 29th to 30th of June, even the 1st and 2nd of July to, to launch an attack with which is centered around the 9th SS Panzer Division Honstafen and 10th SS Panzer Division Frundsburg. But this, these, these desperate German attacks, they know it's their, their final, last and best chance to chop the Allied bridgehead in two and break into the Allied rear areas and defeat the invasion of Normandy. These efforts are all for naught as the, the British mainly the British Royal Artillery crushes these attacks in a very, very brutal fashion, allowing the British second Army and its Epsom games this gains the, the Scottish corridor, as they said, because of the, the, the penetration of the German lines in the salient had largely achieved by the, the Scottish infantry divisions, the 15th Scottish Division now, now the. This combat power was just over. Absolutely overwhelming. So while the armored regiments, armored divisions of the British army were very good and they did their job and they, you know, they invaded Germany in 1945 and were the cutting edge of. Of British forces. The liberated Antwerp as an example and cheese the Germans across France. It was the sheer power of the infantry battalions, the infantry brigades and these brigades making up the. The British infantry divisions which achieves victory and then it breaks the back of the German forces in Normandy. Hopefully that answers your question.
- [36:48]
B
Yes, that does make a lot of sense. And I'd like to just expand a little bit about this notion of attrition versus maneuver because I think it's at the core of your book. Correct me if I am wrong, but I think that's at the core core of your book and I think that your book very much challenges some of our ideas about. About. About. About the British military. And you know, very much we have heard. We've read about this multiple times. It's. It's a conv. For example. That's the idea. And the indirect. The strat. The indirect strategy in little Hearts there is a British way of war and that attrition warfare is not something which the British are very good at. But clear. I don't think that's the case in the events which you are portraying in your book. And so maybe you can tell us a little bit about the sense in which the stereotype is maybe somewhat exaggerated.
- [37:54]
A
Yes. I guess some of our, you know, the people that are listening their images of the British army in the recent years, the recent decades or perhaps epitomized by the Desert Storm attack where the British army with its armored division attacks the Iraqi forces during the Desert Storm, you know, war that occurred over a number of weeks for the ground forces in which a huge amount of Iraqi forces in the desert are destroyed at a tremendously rapid rate by this. This neo proficient mechanized force that maneuvers around the battlefields.
- [38:33]
B
But the.
- [38:34]
A
The British army of 1944 was very, very much different and centered on the dismounted British infantry battalion as well as the artillery that's supporting its activities. Everything of. In the way of operations somewhat revolved around this.
- [38:51]
B
The, the. The.
- [38:53]
A
The. Some of the. The senior British leadership, they were artillery officers and and to. To fight their artillery war, they of course had to conduct these static operations in which the British infantry divisions were very adept at fighting to. Under the umbrella, the supporting punch of the massive power of the Royal Artillery, which is very important. The British units never want to or do so Willingly outrun the range of the supporting artillery of the Royal Artillery. They always want it there to help crush German counterattacks or destroy German fortifications or simply support the attacks of the infantry companies through creeping barrages. Everything somewhat revolves around the Royal Artillery and the infantry battalion. These are, this is sort of like the. The sun on which all the planets revolve. Be it armored combat engineers, you know, various recce units. They all depend very much on the activities. The initial attacks of the British infantry battalions supported massively by artillery programs that are very, very sophisticated. But this is very much set piece attacks. These are set piece attacks rather than fluid unscripted warfare conducted by armored commanders operating over the radio. While that does occur, the British attacks very much have phases, have objectives that should be consolidated upon and defended in a matter that is not radically different, I argue from 1917 and 1918. The British infantryman, you know, somewhat looks somewhat similar, fights somewhat in a similar manner, but has, you know, the enablers in the way of new artillery technology, new tank technology, you know, machine gun mortar technology, fighter bombers that's supporting him. But, but the British battle plan, you know, it's not in the way of 1918 where they wanted 1917. They wanted to create a breakthrough or to chew their way through for the British using the British infantry brigades, after which the horse mounted cavalry would be unleashed in 1944. It's the armored regiments of the British armored brigades that would be unleashed by. But only after the infantry battalions had chewed their way through and absolutely destroyed the enemy in a crumbling fashion, where they slowly but surely chew their way through the wall of German defenses and defeat any relevant or powerful German counterattacks at the very same time. And then, and only then, are the British armored regiments released. And you see some challenging times for the British armored regiments due during Operation Epsom, where they are arguably unleashed before the Germans are completely defeated. And German armored reserves are present which engage the. The tank division or tank armored brigades and armored regiments and inflict heavy losses on them. So that that ability of the, the British to fight the decisive armored battle in a way that they do during Operation desert storm in 1991, is that really present due to limited Allied tech technology. The Allied Sherman, the Allied Churchill tanks, their Cromwell tanks, They're not exactly decisively superior or dominant when it comes to the very good armor or the very good armament in the way of a high velocity tank gun to engage and destroy the German tanks in a battle of fire and maneuver. Of course, the motto of the Royal Armored Corps today, you know, to destroy the enemy through fire and maneuver warfare to destroy them. But it's certainly, you know, if you look at the motto, it doesn't say anything there about holding ground. That's what is the job of the infantry. And very much the British second Army in Normandy depends very much upon the British infantry brigades and battalions within those brigades to capture and hold the ground and destroy the German infantry at the same time. Hopefully that answers your question.
- [43:32]
B
Yes, it actually does. It's, it actually explains a lot to me and I'm hoping that the audience will also have the question answered as well, because we're moving now to something which is interesting to me as a meta question and unfortunately, you know, every time you and I meet there's some kind of, there's more wars going on in the background of our, of our discussions and the war. The world is a less peaceful place than it was when we were laughing there together. And unfortunately it seems like military knowledge is more relevant than it ever was. And your boss, your both a military officer and a professor. And you know, very few people have both of these credentials at once in. Mark Bloch, the historian of course, was both a French army captain and, and a very influential historian. Tolkien of course, was a British officer and he studied as you know, linguistics. So because you have these two insights and maybe you can tell us what are the lessons of this book that modern military commanders, modern military science can derive from These events in 1944, regarding
- [44:58]
A
the Normandy campaign, it was very much an artillery battle. And to support an artillery war, you of course need the artillery pieces, the systems, and to replace those systems when they're destroyed or need repair. But also the constant logistic flow through a secure transportation network to fight the artillery war. If you look to the combat in the Ukraine, for every number of Ukrainian shells that are fired at the Russian positions, the Russians fire back something like a much greater amount. And so you have to have that defense industrial capacity, but not only that capacity of that your defense industrial complex at home within your industrial heartland to build the, the, you know, construct the artillery shells to produce them, but to actually have the logistics system to securely deliver them to the battlefield in order to continue these artillery wars, these endless bombardments to destroy the enemy. And this becomes more, the sophisticated military industrial complex becomes even more important as the weapon systems become more sophisticated due to, you need the ability to replace your weapon systems that are destroyed by the enemy and to multiply the number of weapon systems you have. There has to be an understanding of where I get another one from if mine has been destroyed. And if a country doesn't have that, you know, that plan or that capacity, they're in a tremendous amount of trouble and will begin very rapidly to lose. You know, an artillery war, a war of materiel. You see, the United States currently, they have almost endless, it seems, munitions to unload upon their various enemies. But the ability to refill their stockpiles is absolutely, absolutely essential. As wars become more driven by technology and embrace technology, the enemy, of course, is also present and can attack or destroy your weapon systems. So there has to be the, the, the ability to, for a commander to employ massive force, to make mistakes, to take losses, but at the same time to have those losses replaced. And there has to be a, a capacity to, to build new and more impressive pieces of technology in order to, to further the technological battle with more destructive weapon systems, Then these weapon systems also have to be produced in very, very large numbers. And also the munitions that are needed to feed them also have to be present. Now, you also see situations on certain battlefields where the average age of soldiers is getting older and older. There has to be a plan for training, for organization, for movement, for allowing soldiers to survive long enough to become very, very good at their jobs. And if losses occur within an infantry battalion or infantry company, for those, those lost personnel that have been swept away by attrition in the way of, you know, disease, battlefield wounds, being taken prisoner or simply just killed, there has to be a method to, to replace those or replenish those units in the field so that that particular unit can continue to do its job, to attack, to defend, to conduct that decisive attack that might win a war or crush the enemy in a certain sector of the front. This war today, as it was in the year 1944, it's tremendously, tremendously adept at consuming resources at a ridiculous rate so that the very deep pockets, the material battles that the Germans encountered and could not even begin to cope with that material battle, a nation has to be ready to fight it and to have enough reserves, resources, a replenishment and training plans in order to feed the machine. So the machine continues to operate and the enemy continues to be destroyed. Hopefully that helps you.
- [49:44]
B
Yes, this is, I, I think this is very much in tune with some of the problems which we see governments which are at war today are facing. We are continuously having discussions every day in the media of how this weapon system or that weapon system is running out or how it's going to be procured and how certain things, you know, how the understanding which we had before these wars in Ukraine and in the Middle east of how we were going to source material. Some of, some of the ideas were wrong, some of them have been proven right. And so how do we replace our weapon systems during a conflict is very much a big and important question which is continuously being re litigated both by the general public and by military planners, I hope you'll agree.
- [50:38]
A
Oh yes, very much so. And of course, in democracies, the politicians have to vote, have to be elected, governments have to have the will of the people behind them in order to spend the money is the, it takes the money to build the factories, to build the munitions, to train the soldiers, to conscript the soldiers. The political will has to be there or you're not gonna, you're gonna run out of whatever you need. If that M1 Abrams tank plant in the state of Michigan is not running. Where exactly will these new tanks be procured from? That sort of thinking, that understanding of the costs of modern war and you know, the potential losses that could occur to these brand new weapon systems that are being invented, it seems on a daily basis, how do we keep our military machines running? You know, exactly, you know, what happens when an F35 fighter is shot out of the sky? You know, God forbid that should ever happen. But you know, what is the production rate to get a new one or repair one that has taken significant battle damage? These are all very, very interesting questions because it's often not about maneuver, but having the sheer combat punch in the way of the number of weapons systems you have, or the, the ability of those sophisticated missiles or missile defense systems to operate and keep firing to, to, for, effectively for the Iron Dome in the state of Israel to keep firing the defensive missile barrages to intercept the enemy missiles that are raining down on areas of Israel so that the defense can be maintained at all costs. These, of course, these are your key questions. If your country is to be defended or your military objectives are to be secured.
- [52:38]
B
Okay. And this is something which I think is going to be with us for a long time, both with military thinkers and, you know, citizens who want to understand what the decisions government are making are all about. And I'd like to transition to, you know, a traditional question. You know, we are creatures of tradition here. We always ask, we don't always start with the same question. We always end on the same question. And the question I'd like to end on is, can you tell us a little bit about books which you are reading right now about your own reading journey? Maybe is there something you'd like to recommend to our audience there's two books.
- [53:20]
A
One is on the First World War and one deals with the Roman Empire. The first one, I guess, dealing with the First World War. It's written as the first book by my PhD student at the Royal Military College of Canada and the War Studies program, retired Lieutenant Colonel of the United States Marine Corps, Peter F. Owens, to the Limit of Endurance, A battalion of Marines in the Great War. And this of course deals with the deployment of American forces, the U.S. marines to France and how the bloodshed and the carnage of the First World War battlefields of going over the top, exiting the trenches to attacking the German defensive positions with the barbed wire and the concrete bunkers and the machine guns. How exactly the United States Marine Corps tackled these tactical problems and the losses and attrition they, they of course were forced to, to deal with and overcome in the pursuit of victory over the, the, the forces of, of Germany on the, the French front in the last year and a half of the. Of the war. Yes, this is first book and because I'm interested in attrition warfare, of course this appeals to me. And the second book is by a professor called Colin Elliott and it's called the Pox Romana, the Plague that Shook the Roman World. Of course, we're all veterans of the, the COVID 19 epidemic, but this is what is thought to be, you know, some form of influenza that hit the Roman Empire was brought back from the Parthian campaigns by the Roman legions as they retreated back to Roman territory. And the sudden sickness struck the legions then laid waste to cities, including Rome itself. This talks about the, this again attrition or losses which fascinates me as a military historian is how the, the Roman Empire, obviously the, the in Europe anyway, the light of the world, the light of the known world, had its empire, you know, damaged and badly, badly hurt by this influenza epidemic that killed thousands of people, destroyed the economic power of the Roman Empire, that weakened it militarily as well as destroyed its international trade and placed severe challenges on the Roman Empire emperor of the time, Marcus Aurelius, you know, the last of the several good emperors and how he dealt with this, this massive plague that of course, due to, you know, medical services and understanding of diseases in the times of antiquity, the Romans had basically no comprehension of what it was doing or how it trans. How it was transferred from person to person. And there's very, very little in the way of historical evidence for, you know, what exactly this, this mysterious pandemic was. But Colin Elliot, as a researcher using archaeological research and evidence as well as historical accounts, paints the most accurate picture, I think, yet we have of this mysterious pandemic. What it was and how badly it hurt the Romans at the Roman Empire, which was at its height during the reign of Marcus Aurelius. And, yeah, those are the two books that I'm trying to read right now. As a history professor, I have too many books.
- [57:10]
B
Professor Gulixon, I'm very happy to have had you here on our show. And once again, when not if, but when you write your next book, I will be very happy to have you on our show once more.
- [57:25]
A
Oh, thank you very much for having me, Boris. It was a pleasure as always. Sorry for some of my long winded explanations there. Hopefully that gives the people listening the information they wanted to hear. And yes, my final book, which I'm writing right now on the Normandy campaign, will be the defeat and attrition of the 12th SS Panzer Division. But Volume 3, which will cover operations totalized, tractable, and the final destruction of the division within the Falaise pocket and its escape of some of its remnants as the German front collapses in Normandy. So that's my next book. And thank you very much for having me on.
- [58:09]
B
Thank you for being with us today, Professor Wilson, and go ahead. Had you here.