Military History Buffs

[homersapien 11,396]

I thought Memorial Day would be a good time to post a good book references and a podcast show covering the South Pacific campaign in WWII.

The first is a podcast I've been watching on Youtube, called "Unauthorized History of the Pacific War Podcast" - Youtube.  This is a series of lectures conducted by Seth Pardon, Bill Toti and the occasional special guest.  Seth is Each podcast typically covers a particular action in that theater and lasts a little over an hour.  Even though they are essentially lectures with limited graphics and photos, I have found them immensely entertaining and highly recommend them.  Although some of the later episodes include map graphics, I strongly suggest you have a map handy when listening.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzEcARkk8d1XdLbo2koY_UA/videos

[AUloggerhead 2,246]

Well, here we are on June 6, the 79th anniversary of D-Day.  When Saving Pvt Ryan came out in 1998, it piqued my interest, and I checked out a bunch of books on D-Day from my local library.  One that made a big impression on me was The Desert Fox in Normandy by Samuel W. Mitcham, Jr.  It's a fascinating take from the German perspective.  Highly recommended reading.  If you don't want to read the whole book, you can read this article.  As terrible as Omaha beach was, it could very well had been worse if Rommel was completely in charge:    

Quote

 

... Two relatively small incidents, one in which Rommel’s superiors overruled him and the second where a subordinate deliberately disobeyed his direct orders, played a major role in the successful American landings on D-Day. In the first case, Rommel requested permission to move the fanatical Hitler Youth volunteers of the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend to Carentan, which unknown to the field marshal was to lie equidistant between the American landing beaches of Omaha and Utah. In that position, the SS division would have been ideally placed to intervene against either of the American landing areas. Even if they had failed to stop the landings, the Germans would have made the linkup between the American beaches extraordinarily difficult. This request was not granted.

The second incident had to do with the commander of the 352nd Infantry Division, which had responsibility for the sector where the American 1st and 29th Infantry divisions and other supporting units would land on D-Day. One of the great myths of World War II has been that the 352nd Division’s presence in the area of Omaha Beach was a surprise to Allied intelligence. It was not. In fact, while the 352nd was responsible for defending the area to the north and northwest of Bayeux, the division commander, Maj. Gen. Dietrich Kraiss, held most of his infantry battalions back from the beaches as a counterattack force—an approach again in accordance with basic German doctrine.

When Rommel arrived in the area in early May, he was upset at the division’s dispositions and immediately ordered Kraiss to move more of his force up to defend the beaches. Supported by his corps commander, Lt. Gen. Erich Marcks, who had been one of the early planners for Operation Barbarossa, Kraiss ignored Rommel’s order. Of the 10 infantry and five artillery battalions that Kraiss had available, he placed only one artillery battalion and two infantry battalions along the Omaha Beach sector. This decision makes even less sense when one realizes that he deployed two-thirds of his force in reserve or in position to defend the western sector of his area of responsibility—where no amphibious landing could possibly take place.  ...