Chart from then Army Major Stephen Tate's brilliant CGSC thesis, "Human Powered Vehicles in Support of Light Infantry Operations"

Accession Number : ADA211795

Title : Human Powered Vehicles in Support of Light Infantry Operations

Descriptive Note : Master's thesis Aug 1988-Jun 1989

Corporate Author : ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLL FORT LEAVENWORTH KS

Personal Author(s) : Tate, Stephen T.

Handle / proxy Url : http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA211795 Check NTIS Availability...

Report Date : 02 JUN 1989

Pagination or Media Count : 188

Abstract : This study examines the suitability of using bicycles to enhance the mobility of U.S. light infantry units. Initially the study defines mobility problems encountered by U.S. light infantry units as a result of force design. The study presents historical examples of previous military cycling operations at the turn of the century, during both World Wars, and the Vietnam Conflict. The tactical use, mobility, speed, distance, and load carrying capacity of bicycle troops during each of these periods are discussed. The present use of three bicycle regiments in the Swiss Army is examined. The impact of recent technological improvements in the bicycle industry is examined for possible military application. Keywords: Bicycle; Light infantry; All-terrain bicycle, Mobility; Soldier's load; Vietnam, Swiss army; Strategy; Tactics; Derailleur; World War II; Logistics; Military operations.

Descriptors : *MOBILITY, *LOGISTICS, MILITARY OPERATIONS, MILITARY PERSONNEL, WARFARE, GLOBAL, INDUSTRIES, ARMY PERSONNEL, CAPACITY(QUANTITY), INFANTRY, TERRAIN, CYCLES, MILITARY APPLICATIONS, LIGHTING EQUIPMENT, ARMY, VIETNAM, SWITZERLAND.

Subject Categories : MILITARY OPERATIONS, STRATEGY AND TACTICS

Distribution Statement : APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE

Vietnam: Soldiers Overloaded

Today: Soldiers STILL Overloaded

After 11 years and 1,000+ web pages [www.combatreform.com/aesindex.htm] I guess we haven't been clear enough; so this time we'll try again to define what "Combat Light" is without pulling any punches and a little help from our dear departed friend, retired Colonel David Hackworth.

First, the planet earth has not changed that much that its not possible to have a solution that works from freezing to 100+ degrees, a "combat light" field living and fighting capability implying its light enough that you can move fast on your feet at 4-7 mph; with human or electric powered all/extreme terrain bikes that speed can increase to 25 mph. With global warming, when do we ever have winter? YES, you need hard shelters to survive on this planet spinning through space at 66, 000 mph and we propose we face this reality with our self-sustaining ISO container BattleBox system which should form our forward operating bases overseas and eliminate garrison buildings and lawn care mentalities here in the U.S. forever. Against cunning, 21st asymmetric-overmatch-seeking enemies who have "home field advantage" of being able to cache and hide their supplies amongst closed terrain and often sympathetic populace, U.S. forces projecting from CONUS have to carry everything they need to prevail in a fight. To beat the guerrilla at his own game of mobile, light infantry warfare David Hackworth-style we have to be significantly smarter and tougher than we are now through a holistic and honest bottom-up approach that leaves no stone unturned to rid every ounce possible from our Soldier's backs and places superior firepower and supplies on alternate transport platforms.

The following is our immediate solution and its worked for me for well over 10 years now in the field and it can work for YOU so that you can live in the field COMFORTABLY. The only exception is sub-zero temperature conditions where you must carry a full size sleeping bag and extra layers of insulating clothing. However, if you have to just stay ALIVE until morning in sub-zero temperatures, the set-up below will do this though you may not be COMFORTABLE.

I realize admitting that you want comfort is not allowed and a curse word ("snivel gear") in the who-has-a-bigger-penis ego-driven U.S. military; but let's stop playing games, get the "cat out of the bag" (face unpopular truths), admit that we are human beings with finite load carrying limits (no more than 1/3 of our own weight) and realize that these bloated rucksacks we see carrying comfort gear in PEACETIME are skewing our training focus and future TA-50 gear design resulting in us not performing well in actual combat as Afghanistan proved---when our entire focus should be centered on carrying COMBAT ammunition loads with the bare-minimum field living gear to survive so we can move as fast and as strong as possible. Some have termed this concept "eXtreme Soldiering" to use the vernacular of today.

IMMEDIATE SOLDIER'S LOAD FIX

1. Think Combat Light

ALL Soldiers should go to level "C" SERE training by stopping the BS initiation/harassment games at the end of basic training and incorporating survival training of 3 weeks so Soldiers can have skills to live off land's resources and not have to carry items to artificially create needed capabilities.

ALL Soldiers with laminated SERE cards in their BDU pocket.

Leadership "Combat Light" eXtreme Soldiering ethos:

D-R-O-P

Decide mobility level to accomplish mission

Reduce un-necessary gear

Organize transport means to carry unit gear

Police the ranks

Unit leaders should in mission planning have a list of the weights IN THEIR MIND'S EYE of all TA-50, weapons and ammo and add up the loads for their various Soldier assignments and make DRASTIC ADJUSTMENTS ACCORDINGLY. See: www.combatreform.com/combatjump.htm for actual Microsoft Excel spreadsheets for computing your Soldier's Load and March Speeds.

However, the following general SOP will get you "in the ballpark" for 99% of all situations except for extreme sub-zero arctic conditions.

Natick Labs even made a computer planning software tool similar to DROP called "LES" that strangely never got fielded (go to our combat jump web page for Natick's and 1st TSG (A)'s Microsoft Excel spread sheets):

www.dtic.mil/matris/ddsm/closed/ddsm0027.html

RECORD NO.: DDSM0027
OVERALL CATEGORY: Tool
STATUS: Terminated
UPDATE: August 1998

TITLE: Load Expert System (LES)

SPONSOR: Army Natick RD&E Center
POINT OF CONTACT: Dr. James B. Sampson / 508-233-4698, DSN: 256-4698

GENERAL OVERVIEW:

A computer-based expert system that guides unit commanders in determining a Soldier's appropriate combat load for a wide range of load, weather, terrain, and mission conditions.

LES was developed, in the long term, for use by unit commanders to assist them in the decision-making process of determining a Soldier's combat load. LES is to be used, in the short term, as a training device for junior commanders. LES will allow the junior commanders to "try out" various load configurations in different climates, terrain, and mission conditions. These commanders will then be able to receive immediate feedback on their decisions without leaving the classroom or requiring user troops.

While holding all other mission parameters constant, LES will calculate the maximum load a Soldier should carry, or the maximum velocity he can travel. LES also determines the Soldier's expected water requirement for the given mission. The commander then enters into a dialogue enabling him to adjust the combat load or modify other conditions which would lead to successful mission completion. LES then engages the commander in a dialogue designed to modify the Soldier's load or other conditions over which he has control (e.g., marching speed), in order to achieve a successful mission.

EQUIPMENT/SOFTWARE REQUIRED:

The equipment required for use is an IBM-PC or compatible with hard disk and 640K RAM.

INPUT/OUTPUT/PROCESSING:

The inputs required include basic information concerning the soldier (height, weight), the expected weather, the terrain, and mission conditions.

LES uses the heat-stress model developed at the Army's Research Institute for Environmental Medicine (ARIEM) to estimate the Soldier's core temperature and determine the likelihood that he will be able to complete the mission before becoming a heat stress casualty.

The output is a screen display that estimates the likelihood of mission success under given conditions.

DOCUMENTATION:

None.

STAGE OF DEVELOPMENT:

The initial prototype is available for others to explore for concept development.

VALIDATION:

The model continues to evolve, not in general structure, which we believe is correct, but in details and refinements. The model is supported by a variety of evidence that represents construct, convergent, and concurrent validity. The model has proven to be a rich source of insight in the analysis of complex designs for avionics architecture.

COMMENTS:

The Canadian Army is modifying LES for their equipment and mission. Variations of LES have been developed by Dynamics Research Corp, Willmington MA, using Windows and requiring more memory and a faster processor. LES has been modified for use in Natick's Integrated Unit Simulation System (IUSS).

HOW TO ACQUIRE:

To obtain, write: U.S. Army Natick Research, Development, and Engineering Center, ATTN: SATNC-YBH (Dr. Sampson), Natick, MA 01760-5020.

2. Your rucksack is a unit logpack not an individual's "mobile home"

www.defence.gov.au/budget/05-06/dar/volume_01/chapter_01/01b_year_in_view.html

An Air Force Loadmaster and three Australian Army Riggers deploy a helibox and a maxibox load from a C-130J Hercules as part of Exercise Pacific Airlift Rally in Thailand.

All rucksacks should carry is ammo, water and food in that order. Empty rucks should be able to be collected at any time and moved by unit transportation (cargo parachute or CopterBox airdrop) or sent back to be refilled and sent forward with ammo, water and food. If you have to move rucks using your own power, attach "wheels" to them and tow or push them as all-terrain carts or on all-terrain bikes. See:

www.combatreform.com/atac.htm and www.combatreform.com/atb.htm and www.combatreform.com/rucksack.htm

You do not fire & maneuver with your ruck on your back ("Combat Heavy") nor do you need your ruck to survive indefinitely in the field. Its just a means to move forward for the human back, a large amount of bulk supplies.

Whenever you get the even empty rucksack off your back---you shed at the very minimum 6 pounds of weight upwards to 100 pounds. This elimination of the 6-10 pound rucksack "pays" for the following "buttpack environmental field living module".

3. Live Combat Light Package at your buttpack

a. Army standard NSN 8405-01-416-6216 Eco-Tat Lightweight Sleeping Bag Multi-Purpose LWSB-MP (3.0 lbs)

b. Army standard NSN 8405-00-290-0550 Poncho with 550 cords to be a poncho-tent, hood tied into a knot (1.3 lbs)

c. Army standard NSN 7210-00-935-6665 OD Green space casualty blanket (0.6 lbs)

d. Army standard NSN 8415-01-228-1312 ECWCS Gore-Tex jacket (1.5 lbs)

__________________________________

6.4 pounds TOTAL

See:

www.combatreform.com/lwsb.htm

www.combatreform.com/tent.htm

www.rangerjoes.com/catalog/selection.cfm?category=main&id=892

That's it.

This is all you need to survive from the elements from freezing to 100+ degrees. Items b-d fit inside your buttpack or inside the Ecotat LWSB Multi-Purpose's stuff sack. Item a, the LWSB-MP straps on top of the buttpack or directly to your LBE rear and acts as a kidney pad or stuffs inside it. The weight you save by not carrying even the empty ALICE rucksack (6 pounds) essentially "pays for" the Live Light Package at your buttpack. Why carry 6 pounds of volume when you can carry instead 6 pounds THAT DOES SOMETHING FOR YOU; ie; allows you to live comfortably (YES!) in the field?

Live "Combat Light" in Closed terrains

If you are moving and it begins to rain, you put on your waterproof, but breathable GT jacket, otherwise you sweat in your brush-breaking BDUs and hopefully dry out by night's end. GT jacket also acts as windbreak, but must be treated with McNett.com water repellency Revivex treatments to remain effective. The GT jacket extends down far enough so that only a small part of your legs are uncovered but while you are moving these large muscles are getting hot so they will dry off any rain/dew on vegetation contacted so the GT pants are not needed.

How can you compress the GT ECWCS jacket so it can fit with the other Combat Light items?

Compress the GT jacket with a clear plastic vacuum bag from www.spacebag.com so it takes only a small part of the space inside your buttpack.

At night's end and you become stationary; you find two trees or bushes and tie your long poncho-tent cords to stretch them out. Cut branches to act as tent stakes and mash down into the ground. You now have a rain and wind break; 15 degrees of warmth gained. Unfold mylar blanket shiny side up to reflect your heat back to you (about 15 degrees F) so its not lost to the ground via conductivity and stretch out inside your poncho-tent as a floor.

Open up Ecotat LWSB-MP, pull over and around yourself; you can keep your boots on if you want---tighten shock cords around your feet above boot soles to keep mud out from inside your LWSB-MP. Close head shock cords to trap further heat and go to sleep, drying out your BDUs by the morning. Or if the situation is less threatening, remove your boots and socks and close lower end of LWSB-MP around bare feet for restful sleep. Use GT jacket as extra insulation or pillow for head by stuffing into unused LWSB stuff sack.

If you are in a 2-man fighting position (square hole in the ground to evade enemy observation/fires) and not on watch, unzip LWSB-MP so its a poncho-liner-like blanket (but warmer) and open head hole and stick head through it. Curl up and go to sleep but with weapon at the ready. If you have to go into action you are ready to shoulder weapon and return fire, to include running---you are not caught zipped up in a sleeping bag.

Combat Light in Open Terrains

The only variation is that in open terrains you don't have trees to tie your poncho-tent lengthwise cords to and material to cut stakes from, so you carry 6 tent poles and 6 x OD green plastic tent stakes---the stakes in your buttpack and the poles tied together into one unit attached to the LWSB-MP's stuff sack or on top of the buttpack.

You live the same as you would in closed terrain except that you erect 3 poles in front and 3 poles in the rear of your poncho-tent to erect it and let the tension from the stakes pulling on the cords to keep the tent standing.

Other benefits:

If you become a casualty, the mylar space blanket, LWSB-MP available on your person can be placed around you by a Combat LifeSaver so you stay warm to not go into shock and die. The poncho can be used to drag you like an expedient SKEDCO type MEDEVAC aid for 1 person rescue. Shiny side of mylar casualty blanket can be used as attention getter for rescues or aircraft recognition/marker panel for Close Air Support.

4. Hygiene Combat Light

Also in your buttpack would be a VERY SMALL HYGIENE KIT in ziplock plastic bag:

e. 2 pairs wool socks rolled up with small can foot powder

f. disposible razors with handles cut

g. small travel toothbrush or one with handle cut

h. small bar of soap

However, if the U.S. Army got smart, it would mold on the back of the MRE plastic spoon a toothbrush and rails to accept shaving cartridges (Spork Toothbrush Shaver) and supply a small packet of multi-use soap Soldiers wouldn't even need to find a "PX in Afghanistan" to obtain/carry the items described above except for the socks/foot powder.

Learn to shave with just water from your canteen cup, until then use soap for lather. In worse case scenario, you can clean teeth with wad of toilet paper from MRE and rinsing water in mouth.

Quick-Detachable Buttpack to carry the "Combat Light" Module

The following pictures show how you can rig your buttpack so it can be quickly attached or detached from the rear of your ETLBV or LC-2 Load Bearing Equipment (LBE) fighting load. You would have the option of jumping the buttpack with Combat Light module INSIDE your rucksack so you do not have a bulge at your rear in event of the likely rear PLF. However, at first opportunity you can in a matter of seconds clip the buttpack to the back of your LBE without fumbling around with flimsy ALICE clips and shed your rucksack at a cache point or into some form of unit transportation.

Use a buttpack like London Bridge makes with quick-release buckles for easy access when worn at your back

Anchor the female buckles of a pair of Blackhawk sternum straps to the buttpack

Anchor the Blackhawk straps' male ends to the pistol belt on the ETLBV or LC-2 LBE

Route a strap with or without buckles to secure top of buttpack to ETLBV

Use same procedures for LC-2 except route top strap thru the two rear metal snaphook horizontal openings

Of course, you could jump your buttpack attached to your LBE back and at first opportunity stuff the LWSB, poncho-tent, casualty blanket inside or strap them as a unit inside the LWSB stuff sack on top of the buttpack, leaving space inside for NVGs, a thin inslation layer of clothing like the field jacket liner or Brigade Quartermaster "Bivvy Wear Packable Thermals" proven recently by British Soldiers in Afghanistan since the current ECWCS insulation layers are too bulky and heavy to be carried along in a buttpack for staying warm after a long day's march.

Another good, larger buttpack that can be used is the SpecOps Brand "SOB" described on the link below:

Soldier's Optimized Buttpack

Problem: Soldier's have depended on Buttpacks for years. In theory, they are an excellent method of carrying much needed gear low and close to the body. Problem is, when they are attached to military web gear, it is nearly impossible to access contents without the aid of a buddy, or worse yet - removing your entire set of web gear. This wastes time and unnecessarily puts the Soldier at risk.

Solution: S.O.B. - Soldier's Optimized Buttpack. A workhorse built for the modern warrior: the modernization of an old standard: the Buttpack. This S.O.B. has 3 compartments with zippered entry to allow the Soldier instant access to critical gear while on the move. No more straps and flaps to fool with. The need to remove web gear or ask for assistance is gone. Larger, more rugged than conventional Buttpacks, this S.O.B. means business!

Features and Benefits of the S. O. B. :

Constructed from 1000D Cordura(tm).

Main body compartment has white 'DURA'-panel liner: provides added water resistance and increased visibility of contents.

Multiple gear loops for additional gear attachment points (works well with the X-System from Spec.-Ops. Brand).

No exposed stitching along seams.

Fully seam-taped interior, double needle stitched.

Dual side pockets with grommet drain holes allow the Soldier easy access on the move.

3 zippered compartments: main body compartment has "storm-fly" zipper cover for extra element protection.

4 welded mil.-spec. 'D'-rings for attachment to military web gear.

Carry/hang handle.

Color: Woodland, Olive Drab and Black.

Dimensions: 14" x 11" x 6"; 930 cu. in.

Retail Price - $49.95

Guaranteed for life, MADE IN TEXAS, U. S. A.!

5. Fighting Combat Light

a. One E-tool per every 2-man buddy team because only 1 can dig at a time while the other provides security and it must be on his ETLBV not his rucksack!

E-tools are parachute jumped on the rucksack for safety reasons. When rucksacks are ditched at the cache point or transported by air/ground vehicles the e-tools are removed and placed inside the buttpack top. Men with e-tools are these with M16/M203 grenade launchers that cannot attach a M9 wire cutter bayonet as currently configured. Same men also have a Leatherman or Gerber multi-tool type utility device to make up what was lost by not having a M9 WCB.

b. MOPP Gear should be in a modular roll that can be attached to the top of the LWSB-MP or if there is no threat kept with rucksacks which would have individual name/unit markings so if used as collective LOGPACKS can get the right sized MOPP suit/boots to the right Soldier.

c. Extra BDUs: are un-necessary; one set on your body can easily last 1 week or more. Dry out during the night in your poncho-tent. Even then extra material should be removed to improve cooling and shoulder sleeve pockets added.

d. Individual Fighting Gear sublimation: the two canteen covers on your ETLBV should be covered, multi-use pouches and the canteens themselves flexible, collapsible so if they are emptied of water can be stuffed in the buttpack and the pouches used to carry AMMO, grenades etc. for firefights. All M16/M4 magazines with pull cords to clip onto a snaplink to not get lost when emptied in a firefight.

See: www.combatreform.com/canteencover.htm

Two field pressure dressings taped to stock of weapon for entrance/exit wounds and to act as "cheek weld" for firing positions. Camel-Bak on your back puts 70 more ounces of water available on the move, and should have a purification filter so any water source can be used to pump fill the reservoir and the two 1 quart canteens. Night Vision Goggles or Binos held in chest pouch worn over top of body armor. Every Soldier with red lens small neck chain Photon fingertip-sized flashlight for map reading and general visibility if needed at night not large, bulky G.I. anglehead flashlights. Natick Stove/Canteen cup in your rucksack for parachute jump, transferred to your LBE for water boiling/hygiene at first opportunity.

See: www.combatreform.com/hotdrinks.htm

e. Unit Mission Gear sublimation: ropes, radios & batteries, claymores, MG spare barrel bags with tripods, Combat LifeSaver Bags etc. whenever possible are carried on back of designated Soldier by their own carry straps, avoid requiring the rucksack to carry FIGHTING LOADS; rucksack should be LOGPACK with generic extra supplies, and even then as a packboard is best configuration to carry heavy dense ammunition. The packboard shelf should be able to carry a wounded Soldier like Kifaru's cargo chair does.

6. Train Combat Heavy and Combat Light

We need to grow up and start taking war seriously which means every time going to the field carry actual live ammunition so we are carrying realistic loads so we don't use up rucksack volume with field living comfort gear done badly and having the trust and confidence that we treat our Soldiers like professionals so they return the ammo at exercise end and not go "postal". If we are not there yet, then we damn well better develop some actually-weighs-the-same-as-live-ammo DUMMY (cannot kill anyone) AMMO, grenades, bullets, rockets, missiles so we can train realistically as we should fight.

7. Test for Combat Heavy not Sports Illustrated

The current sports t-shirt, shorts and running shoes APFT should be junked in favor of a 6 mile march for time with full combat equipment; rucksack, LBE, basic load of ammo, helmet, BDUs, boots. If we can achieve 4 mph with "combat heavy" loads with rucks on our backs, then when we cache the rucks we should be able to go 4-7 mph "Combat Light".

LONG-TERM SOLDIER'S LOAD FIX

8. Future TA-50 Gear decided by Board of Soldiers not "Council of Colonels"

A "Council of Colonels" meets to decide gear for us grunts for the SEP program to "type classify" (tested to "perfection" to be declared Army kosher) when it should be the lower-ranking gear gurus who are actually humping (carrying) the machine guns, rockets and mortars from every Army command representing their specific climes/places/missons. This is why a lot of our gear sucks. Most Colonels I've run into are concerned more with form than function and are not technotactically oriented enough and candid. SGTs, LTs and CPTs should decide on our new gear from actual try-it-themselves testing.

The expertise of the natural "gear gurus" should be tapped and have them designated as a "Master TA-50 Specialist"---an additional skill identifier (ASI). These gear experts would go to Natick Labs and be school trained on the proper fit and wear of ALL Army equipment and have field living (Level "C" survival skills) taught to them so they can advise Commanders that a hot weather desert boot is NOT a mountain boot and how to properly size Soldiers for body armor so a bullet doesn't sneak by and kill them. The Army's Master TA-50 Specialists would also train the Soldiers in their companies how to wear and maintain their TA-50 as well as be pro-active about getting better gear. The Army is strangely an organization that goes "camping" yet hasn't trained itself how to "camp". Lay on top the need for combat mobility 4-7 mph which requires smart loading and constantly improved equipment, its clear that a Soldier from every Company in the Army should go to "gear school" to become a Master TA-50 Expert. To fund this we should cancel the un-needed lav3stryker deathtrap armored car purchases and upgrade superior tracked M113A3 Gavins into "IAVs" for the IBCTs and Light unit's Delta weapons companies and AT platoons since they can be parachute airdropped and airlanded by Air Force C-130s safely for long distances and flown by Army CH-47D/F helicopters for short distances and be fully autocannon and RPG protected. Call them tracked IBCTs or "Gavin Brigades".

An Army bureaucrat informs us that Company Commanders can buy with unit funds whatever gear they need for their men from the GSA Catalog and CTA 5900 (not Army "type classified" but available for purchase: "good enough" using Army funds) but this is something that's not pro-actively done and known about. Have you ever heard about this? GSA catalog is on CDs Supply Sergeants have so it takes a bit of looking when it should be on the www for all Soldiers to see.

What we need is a Soldier's Board of lower ranking gear experts who will review new gear, get it on the GSA Catalog/CTA 5900 and then publish an annual focused list throughout the Army encouraging Commanders/units/individuals to buy these items. Apparently its ok for units to fund-raise to build up a unit fund or this purpose, too so not having the money is not an obstacle. This list of authorized field gear on GSA/CTA 5900 should be placed on the Army Knowledge Online (AKO) secure web site so any Soldier can see what the Soldier Board recommends they get ASAP.

Every year, every Major Army Division (Airborne, Air Assault, Light, Mechanized, Armored etc.) and separate unit (2nd ACR, 172nd Arctic Brigade, SF, Rangers) has ITS SOLDIERS select by vote a field gear representative who will travel to Fort Benning, Georgia to decide for the rest of the Army what off-the-shelf Soldier gear to buy and what gear to develop. Every unit has at least one "gear guru" right for this job; a pro-active Soldier who studied field gear and on his own tinkers and tests what works and does not. THE CHAIN OF COMMAND DOES NOT SELECT THE GEAR BOARD SOLDIERS. Some out-of-touch Army General does NOT select some political yes-man to be on the board to keep the troops ill-equiped and "in their place". Some DA civilian with a ponytail going through perpetual mid-life crisis does NOT decide what items are bought or developed, THE SOLDIERS DECIDE. No "Council of Colonels". Its the individual Soldier's lives that are at stake not some bureaucrat in a comfy office with one retirement already under his belt longing for the good 'ole days when the equipment they had sucked and everyone liked it. What the Soldier TA-50 Board decides AUTOMATICALLY become AUTHORIZED Soldier optional wear/use items without the current kill-joy, politically correct "uniform board" having one say in their decisions. They do a great job keeping everyone miserable and without esperit de corps during garrison hours; the field Soldier's attire should be guided by FUNCTION decided by the mud-Soldiers. Each year a list of acceptible alternatives will be decided on by the Board for Soldiers to buy/use on their own option. Each year the board will decide on commensurate with the SEP budget what items will be bought/issued to enhance Soldiers immediately. And each year the board will see what industry and Natick Labs have "cooking" and provide feedback.

Summary/Conclusion

The U.S. Army should IMMEDIATELY---THIS MEANS RIGHT NOW DAMN IT--PURCHASE AND ISSUE ECO-TAT LWSB-MPs, MYLAR CASUALTY BLANKETS AND BUTT PACKS TO EVERY COMBAT ARMS SOLDIER TO SOLVE THE SOLDIER'S LOAD EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY. THEY ALREADY HAVE PONCHOS, JUST NEED TO ATTACH THE NEEDED 550 PARACORDS TO THEM.

Next, 3 weeks of Basic Training BS harassment games should be replaced with 3 weeks of in the field survival training by sending trainers to U.S. Army SERE Level "C" school at Camp MacKall, NC and then having them take-over the last 3 weeks of every cycle's training before graduation. Designated "Master TA-50" gear experts in every Army Company would also be sent immediately through SERE school and Natick Lab training to advise commanders/units and meet annually to determine the direction of Army SEP and R&D efforts.

The APFT needs to be changed to a "Combat Heavy" ruckmarch for time and from now on the Soldiers who actually carry gear into battle decide what gear is bought and how new gear is developed with ruckframes that become all terrain carts and folding human and electric powered bikes fielded in experimental light units as DoD Advanced Concept Technology Demonstrations (ACTDs) to quicken those dismount-centric units that will optimized to hold lodgments and move through the most restricted terrains and not be supplied with a high-technology, stealthy, band-tracked, C4I digitally-connected, air-transportable Air-Mech-Strike armored fighting vehicle (21st century tanks) that other mounted-centric units acting as shock action suppliers for mobile warfare through less restricted terrains should have.

Rethinking SLA Marshall's The Soldier's Load and the Mobility of a Nation (SLAMOAN)

The Soldier's Load and the Mobility of a Nation (SLAMOAN) is Marshall's most important book yet its also his most ignored. The book has two main ideas and one minor one.

Main Ideas

1. Soldier's Loads must be less than 1/3 his body weight so he can fight with the most biomechanical and psychological power on his feet, fear eats away at load-carrying totals in war

2. The mobility of the nation's war machines makes it possible for the Soldier's Load to be carried by them so he can be light on his feet

Minor Idea

That in event of ammunition resupply being cut-off from the nation-state war machine pipeline, ammo will be shared, taken primarily from the cowards who don't fire their weapons by those that do.

Of these ideas, SLAM is right on the first idea and wrong on the others. However, even on the first idea, he has failed to fix the American Army and marines Soldier's Load habits because of entrenched cultural narcissistic mentalities that he did not adequately attack and demolish.

Data versus Ego

SLAM argues in the book that whatever the great captains said about what was vital to carry by the Soldier should be over-ruled by DATA and FACTS drawn from EXPERIENCES. He misses the mark because its not just the officers who insist on overloading Soldiers because they think we are supermen, the enlistedmen themselves think they are supermen and it only gets worse once they start to get killed. An air of self-righteous victimhood is taken on by everyone involved. If you propose less weight be carried YOU ARE ACCUSED OF BEING A WEAKLING "pussy". SLAM also falls short of proposing TANGIBLE SPEED GOALS we need and the maximum weights for them that are possible. Without SLAM holding the Army to TANGIBLE mobility goals they can dismiss everything he says weight-wise as he's just being a "pussy", I CAN ROUGH IT (ICRI) syndrome etc. remaining the operative groupthink. So immobile, overloaded Soldiers are what we have today despite SLAM's book.

SLAMOAN is welcomed by lemming narcissists outfits like the USMC because it foists the lie that all the individual has to do is be a dumbass and subliminate himself into the organizational "borg" and all his ammunition, food and water needs would be met. According to SLAM, he could and should trust the organization to carry his rucksack for him by trucks and they will always get through to him. It took me a case of rain-soak-created hypothermia in the USMCR to teach me to not trust ANYONE to carry my rucksack holding life/death dependent warmth gear in sub-zero temperatures in Wisconsin. To ASS U ME that some mommy/daddy organization is going to take care of you in the face of enemy opposition is asinine. LCPL Jason Rother and thousands of others have paid for this naive outlook with their lives.

Disaster at Dien Bien Phu: Where was SLAM in 1954?

SLAM misses the "big picture" of the grand strategy and strategy of war. Nation-state wars are NOT the only form of conflicts, there are sub-national conflicts where THE INDUSTRIAL CAPACITY OF THE ENTIRE NATION-STATE IS NOT, REPEAT NOT GIVEN OVER TO RAIN SUPPLIES UPON FIGHTING MEN. The French in IndoChina had to make-do with WW2 left-overs from the Americans to fight a NON-LINEAR war without fixed fronts where there would be "safe" areas in the "rear" to run wheeled trucks up/down roads to resupply fighting men as SLAM retells again and again in SLAMOAN. SLAM ignores non-linear, sub-national conflicts and his entire construct to get weight off the individual Soldier collapses.

Thus, the French Paras entered the Dien Bien Phu valley overloaded and were soon cut-off from air resupply by VietMinh anti-aircraft guns. Sharing of ammo between shooters and cowards did not save them, either. They ran out of ammo. Next, SLAM's model of the lemming infantry "ant" was killed by "raid" artillery smashing its nests (forward operating bases) . So what was SLAM doing in 1954 when all of this was happening?

He certainly wasn't amending his thinking and his writings which continued to sing the praises of reliving WW2's total war footing inundating troops with supplies on mythical linear battlefields where they can easily reach them. SLAM contradicts himself constantly by saying tracked amphibious vehicles can carry the Soldier's load so he's light on his feet then says their development is not important, clearly he's confused since he lists them as needing roads when even in WW2 LVT-4 Alligators were cross-country mobile to be wherever the infantry wants to go. Thus, SLAM misses the ultimate solution to the Soldier's Load problem: having every Soldier embedded into a M113 Gavin light armored tracked tank THAT HE CAN SEE AND TRUST TO BE THERE BECAUSE IT IS THERE WITH HIM.

So How Do We Solve the Soldier's Load for the Non-Linear Battlefield?

Clearly, SLAM's "killer ants" that infest an area slowly on foot, supplied by "hives" is easily smashed by long-range artillery "fire beetles" since we in the west are not going to out-ant number Third World Countries in total war mobilization let alone limited wars where civilian life continues unabated. Using the insect kingdom as a model of efficiency what we need are:

21st Century Ground Army

Killer Bees

Killer Beetles

Killer Super Soldier Ants

Killer Nests

Killer Nest Flyer

Killer Bees

High overhead, the Killer Bees are STOL observation/attack planes owned and operated by the Ground Army that accompany them as they move from BATTLEBOXaircraft containers towed by the Killer Beetles; portable nests that exploit the ground for protection by burrowing.

Killer Beetles

The Killer Beetles are tracked TANKS that move the Killer Soldier-Worker Ants cross-country to include across water under a protective shell that can also stop and burrow to exploit the ground for protection. EVERY Soldier has at the minimum a M113 Gavin light armored track to move him at 60mph on roads and preferably cross-country with stealth and 30 days of supplies with complete armor protection. While in the FOB, beetles with long-range tube and rocket artillery insure the "hive" isn't demolished in a replay of the French Paras at Dien Bien Phu and nearly happened to our dumb marines at Khe Sanh.

Killer Super Soldier Ants

First, state our dismounted mobility levels and the maximum weights possible and stick to them. 4-7 mph for 20 miles should be the goal. Next, create self-sufficient troops that have SERE skills and lightweight equipments that will supply them water and climate-protect them against the earth WITHOUT NEED OF A RUCKSACK. The rucksack is the individual Soldier mobility killer. Rucksacks should be carried on/in the Killer Beetle M113 Gavins and when they can't on bikes/carts or rolled on their own wheels. He must be ready to shoot enemy ammo and weapons as captured. We must carry ALL of the ammunition and equipment you'd take to war NOW. Learn to live "combat light". The rucksack is a "LOGPACK" that can be passed to the FOB for filling up with supplies but not be seen as individually owned and kept. It has wheels to roll for hands-free towing whenever possible. Non-able bodied, wounded Soldiers can be towed on carts and bikes and SKEDCO plastic sheets. Bikes and carts enable dismounted and unarmored mounted maneuver away from the Killer Beetles as required.

Killer Nests

The Killer Bee/Killer Beetle/Killer Soldier Ant Force can operate for 30 days using trailer-towed supplies. For long-term operations a hardened FOB "hive" constructed of ISO container BATTLEBOXes can be linked together in myriad ways to form walled perimeters filled with dirt for hardening, buried underground etc. while holding vast amounts of supplies and protecting the Killer Bees/Killer Beetles/Killer Soldier Ants themselves. Power from wind and solar as well as water from the ground and/or ambient air are collected on the Killer Nest pods so only the minimum of fuel and ammunition has to be resupplied in some flow to the hive. There are no huge supply dumps languishing everywhere; the supplies start life in the Killer Nest pod and travel all the way to the FOB hive for use.

Killer Nest Flyer

To fly the Killer Beetles or Killer Nest modules would be a STOL/ESTOL/VTOL aircraft that would enable 3D maneuver against the enemy, escorted by the Killer Bees in the air. The Killer Nest Pods are LTG Gavin's KIWI pods concept finally fulfilled.

INTRODUCTION

Of the two score military books and manuals which I have written, this essay which first appeared in 1949 has had by far the most instructive history and consequence.

I was therefore delighted when the publishers of the new edition agreed with me that its genesis and aftermath must be made part of the story.

The basic theme is elementary and should be beyond argument: No logistical system is sound unless its first principle is enlightened conservation of the power of the individual fighter.

The secondary theme, in 1949 a radically new idea, as yet unsupported by incontrovertible scientific proof, is that sustained fear in the male individual is as degenerative as prolonged fatigue and exhausts body energy no less.

Today, this second proposition is commonly accepted in medical and military circles. As to the first proposition, we are doing better and everyone gives it lip service. But there remain too many jokers down the line who still haven't gotten the word.

About the evolution of the essay, and as to the course I ran, I am reminded of the Irishman whose horse ran last in a field of sixteen. When the animal finally passed him, he leaned over the rail and whispered: "Pray, what took you so long?" In July, 1918, I marched with my Regiment to the front on a balmy, starlit night and was astonished to see the strong men around me virtually collapse under the weight of their packs when we got to the fire zone after an 11-mile approach on a good road. They had been conditioned to go 20 miles under the same weight in a broiling sun. Then some days

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later, after our bath of fire and burials were done, we shouldered the same packs, marched rearward 32 miles in one day and got to our billets with no sweat, feeling light as a feather.

I should have seen the lesson then. But to my juvenile mind the experience signified only that it is a lot easier to move away from a battle than to go into one, which any fool knows. Many years went by. Then in the Pacific War in I early 1944, Major General Archibald V. Arnold gave me a tactical problem to solve. He wished to know why it was that in the atoll operations, if troops were checked three times by fire, even though they took no losses and had moved not more than a mile, their energy was spent and they could not assault.

As is fully explained in Men Against Fire, I was able to advance a tactical solution for the problem, though I still could not answer his question. The mystery grew until it haunted me.

Then after Omaha Beach, as is described in this essay, I dealt with companies whose battle experience had variously gone the whole gamut from utter defeat and mass panic to preserved order under heavy pressure, and distinguished achievement. When at last my field notes were complete, they said to me that there was one truth about the nature of fear which men had missed through the ages. Still, I hesitated to speak.

In 1948 I raised the question with my personal friend, Dr. Raymond W. Waggoner, chief of psychiatry at the University of Michigan and a sage in many fields. He was at first skeptical about the theory and s.aid that the physical effects of fear and fatigue

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might seem to be the same but he believed that the rebound from fear would be more rapid. When I stood on the documentation, he called in some of the biologists. They rallied to my side of the discussion, one of them saying: "We have been thinking along these lines for some years." After hearing them out, Dr. Waggoner warmed to the subject, gave me a private lesson in bio-chemistry and imparted the confidence which enabled me to proceed.

Since I am not a scientist, the organic reaction to fear is not a proper part of this statement. Such details do not stay in my mind and those who are interested in them have a plethora of learned writings to ponder. We simply found out that we were on the right track. After the theory was launched, medical laboratories in several of our main universities took it under study, and by varying tests proved it to be correct. One of them, I now recall, made its findings by examining men undergoing major dental surgery, as to the count of male sex hormones excreted through the urine before and after. Still later, during the Korean War, one of the research organizations serving the Army put scientists into the line to make comparable tests of fighters before and after combat, with general results, as I recall, doubly confirming what had already been substantially proved.

At about the same time there was a study in the University of Utah for some months to determine how long this truth had been kicking around underfoot; that is to say, that all of the basic evidence was in the hands of scientists, but none had bothered to add two and two to make four of it. I think these researchers concluded that there was no excuse for

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ignorance after the year 1890. If that's the wrong I date (or the wrong school) it's because I kept no file on the business, feeling no interest in the experiments.

What is said in the essay concerning optimum loading the Army took seriously. One Army board set up its own test apparatus, complete with treadmill, etc., to measure human stress under assorted, loads at varying distances. The Quartermaster Climatic Research Laboratory ran other parallel tests and published reports of same which continued into the late 1950s. The opening paragraph of the first study acknowledged that the research had been stimulated by this essay. From that same writing by Dr. Farrington Daniels, Jr., M. D. I quote only these words: "It is disturbing to speculate that since 1750 several hundred million men have gone into combat on foot carrying back loads, while during this time probably less than a hundred men carrying loads have been subjected to scientific study."

Programs were projected for lightening all line items which the infantryman must carry into battle. What came of all this motion in the end I cannot say.

Completed data often may point to the existence of a pressing problem, but within a bureaucracy thousands of minds must be in tune to evolve the technical solution affording the bettering of a system. As Admiral A. T. Mahan said, this is the great evil.

In Korea, when the scientists were double checking the laboratory data, I was viewing off-and-on the same problem in quite another dimension, and going on to a startling tentative conclusion. Here was a unique battlefield. With its high, ubiquitous ridges,

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limited foregrounds, climatic extremes and short duration fire fights, Korea gave us the best opportunity to measure combat stress that we will ever know. We took little advantage of it.

My field notes convinced me that we need to take a fresh look at the recovery interval which follows troop exhaustion. Man is better than we know; his tired body will rebound quicker than we think.

Take one example. After a wearing approach march and entrenching, two rifle companies went into perimeter on adjoining ridges. They were the same strength; the positions were about equal. Both units were dog tired. One commander ordered a 100 percent alert. The other put his men in the sacks and with a few of his NCOs kept watch. Thirty minutes later the Chinese attacked. The first company was routed and driven from its hill immediately. The second bounded from its sleeping bags, fought like tigers and held the position until finally ordered by battalion to withdraw.

Another incident is described in detail in The River and the Gauntlet. One company of the Wolfhound Regiment was flattened when overrun by a Chinese brigade. The unit looked utterly spent. The brigade charged on to take position atop a ridge blocking the route of withdrawal for the regiment.

The stricken company, after one hour in the sacks, was ordered to take the ridge. Even before the ascent started, every company officer was felled by fire.

Without a break the survivors swept the slope and carried the crest.

If these episodes mean what they say, then some of our security procedures when in the presence of the

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enemy need to be re-examined. Worn out men cannot fight or think. It is folly to press them beyond endurance when just a little rest will work a miracle of recovery.

A collateral proposition is best illuminated by citations from marine operations. When the 7^th Regiment emerged on the Koto-ri plateau in November, 1950, it was met with bitter cold and the first spark of enemy resistance simultaneously. Returning patrols showed every symptom of men in intense shock.

Pulse rates were abnormally low. The individuals gibbered, grimaced vaguely and could not articulate.

The puzzled doctors treated the empirically with a heavy shot of grog and bed rest. Eight hours later, they were normal.

On the other hand, the remnants of the 7^th Division elements, which 1^st marine division brought out over the ice of the Chosin in an heroic exploit, had been enveloped by the enemy for the greater part of one week. The cold, the privation and the suffering at the hands of the CCF had been extremely harsh throughout. In the case of these men, Major General Oliver Smith felt that at least 48 hours total rest was essential. At the end of that time, he concluded by personal inspection that the ones which I had escaped wounds and frostbite could march out with the column from Hagaru-ri and do normal duty.

There is only a suggestion here that the recovery period is in ratio to the duration of the extraordinary, pressure resulting in exhaustion. Appearances are not to be trusted. The unit knocked out by five hours of marching, digging and hard fighting may look no less down and dispirited than the unit saved after three

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days of envelopment and hand-to-hand combat on a hilltop. It does not follow that what the two require for recovery is at all alike. This subject requires far more attention than anyone has yet given it. There is more to be learned about man under pressure than we yet know and the areas for, profitable research which remain unexplored are wide indeed.

One trouble is that we are slow to alter our procedures even after ordeal by fire has shown where they are at fault; this is due to the drag of orthodoxy which is a quite different thing from tradition. Another difficulty is that the practical lessons that we learn in war and apply under the gun are too often obscured in the pursuit of some other object under the conditions of peacetime training.

Two anecdotes, both dating from 1956, both bearing directly on the thoughts expressed in this essay underscore my meaning. Israel's Army is exactly as old as is this small book. Right after publication, that Army translated the book into Hebrew and made its principles a part of operating doctrine for all troop leaders.

In the book Sinai Victory you will find this tale. Israel's general campaign into the Sinai wastes was to begin with a battalion attack on Queisima, not far from the oasis called Kadesh Barnea in the Bible.

H-hour for the whole campaign was determined by an estimate of when this troop body would close on the position. But the night advance through the dunes and into the wadis was a killer and the men staggered and stumbled. As the battalion got to within strike range of the target village, the Commander's watch told him that he was still on time but his eyes saw

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just as clearly that his men were spent. He could not get in touch with the High Command by radio. Even so, he made the decision to postpone for one hour this triggering assault while his men lay down in the sands in their great coats and slept.

The contrasting episode occurred at about this same time. I had flown via Naples to join the Israeli Army in the Sinai Desert. Over a weekend I was with the Sixth Fleet off Sicily. On Monday, there was to proceed a two-battalion exercise, an attack by marines on Sardinia, with the Navy doing its part. That Sunday morning, we gathered on the flagship and with Admirals Walter R Boone and Charles R. (Cat) Brown present, the full-dress briefing prior to attack perforce went as smoothly as a Broadway musical in its second year.

At the end, Admiral Boone asked: "Any questions, General Marshall?" I said: "Yes, one question. As I get it, the battalion attacking just after dawn gets in landing craft four miles out. The beach is defended at the waterline by about two companies, working heavy mortars and machine guns, along with small arms. Their bunker line is along that low-lying ridge 700 yards inland.

The battalion will take that by mid-morning. It will then go on to that first high range, marked 1,500 meters, where the enemy artillery is based. By sunset these same men are supposed to assemble on the range beyond that one where they meet the battalion coming up from the west coast. Now have you told the troops that if this were war they would be doing well if that first line of low ridges were theirs by the end of the day?"

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Boone was startled. He said to the two marine commanders: "Is it true?" They withdrew to consider the question, then returned to say: "We agree with him."

Boone asked: "Then why are we doing it this way?"

Someone replied: "Any smaller plan wouldn't give forces enough of a workout."

I said: "Fair enough. But you have not answered my question. Have you told troops, staff and everyone else that the plan is far over-extended,- that operations would not have this much reach if men were fighting?"

The answer was: "No".

I said: "That's the hell of it. No one ever does. Out of such plans and exercises in peacetime, when no precautionary words are spoken, we recreate our own myths about the potential of our human forces. Then when war comes again, men who discovered the bitter truth the hard way are all gone. Voila, we've got to learn all over again."

There is only one way to stop such drifting. Realistic training derives only from continued study of what happens in war. No system can go far wrong if leaders at every level know what is to be expected of their people under fire and are prepared to raise practical questions when planning staffs overlook elementary precautions. The first duty of the officer is to challenge whatever seems illusory.

The marine corps has a classic model on which to guide. As the analyst of General Smith's operation in the frozen north, I have long felt that its salient lesson is the Commander's deliberate conservation of

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his men's powers under utterly adverse conditions. Though the enemy vise steadily tightened, he still rested his troops till he felt they were ready to march and fight. Each day's movement was regulated by his measure of how far the column could go, short of exhaustion. Of this care, came the big payoff to him and to his people. At Koto-ri, after the hard day's fight, he felt worn down. Then outside his tent he heard some truckers singing the marine hymn and his heart leaped up. He had earned that great moment. A more precipitate, but less bold, leader would have started lunging from the hour when Hagaru-ri and Yudam-ni became enveloped and, 1^st marine division would never have come down the mountain to the sea.

Dherran Dhoun

Despite all that weight, the most salient, characteristic in operations by these forces was without "doubt the high mobility of all ranks. That was because" in most of them used common sense. They jumped heavy but they moved light. Once on the ground, most of them ditched every piece of equipment they considered unnecessary. They did this without order, and often before they had engaged any of the enemy or joined up with any of their comrades. It was a reflex to a course of training which had stressed that the main thing was to keep going.

The mainspring to the movement of these forces lay in the spirit of the men. They moved and hit like light infantry, and what they achieved in surprise more than compensated for what they lacked in firepower.

Further, at every point they pressed the fight hard, and the volume of fire over the whole operation proved to be tactically adequate, though supply remained generally adverse.

The 82^nd and 101^st Divisions jumped into one situation where for two days all their elements were engaged by the enemy and only those groups fighting close to Utah Beach had an assured flow of ammunition. Some

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of the groups got additional ammunition from bundles dropped either by the initial lift or by resupply missions.

But until the airborne front was passed through by the seaborne forces, many of these riflemen were completely dependent on the ammunition they had jumped into Normandy with-eighty rounds and two grenades.

Yet in the whole show, covering the five days of operation down to the crossing of the Merderet by the 82^nd and the capture of Carentan by the 101^st, there is only one instance of a detachment having to yield ground temporarily because it ran short of ammunition. That happened at Le Port Bridge near the mouth of the Douve River where for three days 84 men of the 506^th Parachute Infantry, under Capt. Charles G. Sheule, made one of the most courageous stands of the invasion. Their stand had the greatest strategic consequence, since this was the bridgehead where V and VII Corps were to ultimately link.

In the beginning Shettle's group survived without any loss of morale the temporary embarrassment caused by lack of ammunition. They simply fell back to the near side of the bridge. In the end they retrieved another ammunition bundle or two and recovered the lost ground.

All that happened to Shettle and his men deserves to be taken at face value. If, act by act, we could weigh out our whole infantry experience from the last war, we would discover a frequent repetition of the lesson of this small incident.

The moral is that we spend a great part of our time worrying about the wrong things.

Fundamentally there are two reasons for the chronic tendency to load the Soldier down with too much ammunition rather than take the opposite chance.

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No. 1 is the belief that it is good for his battle morale -that he is less likely to fight vigorously if harassed by the thought that his ammunition is running short.

This is a psychological fallacy. Soldiers' minds simply do not work that way.

The willing fighter will spend his last round if convinced that the tactical situation requires it. And he will then look around to see where he can get some mote ammunition.

No. 2 is the equally fallacious belief that ammunition shortages have often been a cause of tactical disarrangement in past wars, and are therefore to be avoided at all costs. It is hard to prove historically that this is untrue, because the history of all past wars becomes pretty blurred when it attempts to focus on the firing line.

But the closer we look at the details of the fire fight in World War II, the clearer it becomes that in the conditions of modem warfare, defeat because of an ammunition shortage is among the things least likely to happen.

The mobility of supply and the reticulation of communications make it a minimum hazard. Further, there are always reserves at hand. The Soldier who is always willing and eager to use his weapons has a reserve in the duty belt of the man next him who will go along into battle but will not fire. Likewise, the hard-pressed unit has an ammunition reserve on one or both of its flanks, since pressure is never distributed evenly along the length of a front and it is a responsibility of the less heavily engaged to make their supply available to the forces carrying the fight.

Possibly these ideas appear theoretical and impractical.

The fact remains that some of our most creditable operations have been sustained in just this manner. The prin-

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ciple of borrowing and sharing kept the defense alive during the defense of Bastogne. The defense, during the "eight days" of the encirclement, was on short supply for nearly all weapons. And all concerned knew it.

And though Brig. Gen. Anthony C. McAuliffe kept banging on VIII Corps' door and repeating that his lines were in danger of being overrun because of his ammunition shortage (a condition gradually eased by the air resupply missions) there was no operation of the last war in which American troops fought with higher morale and confidence. The marches were not pushed the less forcefully because many men were weaponless and ammunitionless until they were within a mile or two of the enemy.

The action of the artillery was not less intrepid and decisive because the guns were down to ten or twelve rounds per day. We miss some of the most important implications of Bastogne if we fail to weigh these facts in proportion and relate them to the largest problems of operating field forces with maximum economy.

To save the bone and muscle of soldiers toward the preservation of their fighting powers is probably as desirable an object as any we can seek to give us greater efficiency in the future.

But we have scarcely begun to move in that direction.

There is still no general awareness that the human carrier, like his former army mate, the mule, has a logistical limit, which if exceeded, will inevitably cause a loss of supply and mobility, and may produce complete breakdown.

In fact we have always done better by a mule than by a man. We were careful not to load the mule with more than a third his own weight. And the mule, so far as we know, was never a bundle of nerves. Unlike man, he never reacted to battle as did Belshazzar to the writing on

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the wall "so that the joints of his loins were loosed and his knees smote one against the other." The problem, and the conditions that call for a modern solution of it, were imaginatively stated to me by Gen. J.F.C. Fuller in a recent letter: "The Soldier cannot be a fighter and a pack animal at one and the same time, any more than a field piece can be a gun and a supply vehicle combined. The idea is wrong at the start. Yet it is always being repeated..."

Fundamentally only two great novelties have come out of recent warfare. They are: (1) mechanical vehicles, which relieve the Soldier of equipment hitherto carried by him; (2) air supply, which relieves the vehicle of the road.....

Machine guns are only quick fire and the atomic bomb is only a big bang-both are new only in quantity power and effect. But the above two novelties are of a new quality altogether so far as supply is concerned. It was only toward the end of World War II that the possible impact of these developments on future warfare was conclusively revealed."

THE WAY OF WASTAGE

To REFRESH our minds on certain of the portents of World War II, we might also think back to the beachheads. What is the lasting impression?

A scene of terrible litter, in which waste is even more apparent than confusion. The disorder is heightened by the presence of the dead and the waiting wounded.

The loosely assembled supply dumps while they are forming always look as if a great storm had just passed through.

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But to the eye trained to see through this seeming chaos and note the beginnings of a system, these things are routine. They will be there in any build-up in the face of the enemy. The more dismaying spectacle is the wastage of personal supply, the vast amount of packs, weapons and ammunition tossed away by troops already moving inland in search of the enemy.

There is nothing new or novel in these sights. You saw the same kind of wastage on the field of World War I, particularly in the Argonne where the pressure was almost unremitting. Eyewitnesses reported it of Gettysburg, saying, too, that of the thousands of rifle thrown away by Soldiers, by far the greater number had never been fired. Of Cold Harbor, one witness reported:

"Seeing what had been thrown away, I wondered how the battle had been fought." Probably there is no other characteristic more common to all the fields on which armies have contended than this one-inexplicable waste of essential equipment.

Yet it is strangely the fact that little thought has been directed toward this aspect of war by anyone, other than simply to note that it happens. The omission may be partly due to the circumstance that we conclude too easily that we cannot control it. At the top, where there are relatively few men who have ever carried sixty-five pounds into combat, there is a disposition to charge off this kind of wastage, saying that it is part of war's necessary expense, caused largely by the men in the ranks who are duty shirkers by nature.

While there is some substance for this belief, it is still only a segment of a large and more disturbing truth.

So long as we continue to tell troops that mobility is indispensable to success in battle, and preach that "safety lies forward," the most willing man who ever wore a

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Soldier suit will discard a weight he finds he cannot carry under the extraordinary stresses of battle. If, in addition to being willing, he is also intelligent, he will make that decision at once when the moment arrives that his only alternative is to surrender to his own physical weakness and quit the fight.

But this is one of the hardest decisions the dutiful Soldier is ever called on to make. It is so for the reason that by the time the decision becomes necessary, his physical condition is likely to be such that he cannot think clearly. Many will say, I know, looking back to their own experience in battle, that troops learned automatically to discard the things they did not need, and that therefore there is no problem. That may be true. But they only gained this kind of wisdom by hard experience, and it is invariably in the first battle that the greatest damage is done. About three-fourths of World II combat fatigue cases were broken the first time they went into action.

If those who have thoroughly observed the nature of the battlefield cannot accept the thought that the derelict Soldier is alone the great waster of materiel, then it must follow that the fault lies rearward. That the troops are the victims of bad loading and faulty estimates of the relationship of loading to soundness in tactics. When troops do not perform as expected there is always a good reason, and to charge it to human slothfulness is itself slothful thinking.

There can be true economy of men's powers in war only when command reckons with man as he is and not as it would like him to be.

That, then, is the root of the difficulty. At planning levels there has always been a general ignorance of the

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logistical limits of the human carrier under fire, and of the drag on tactics which comes of weighting him too heavily.

HISTORY OF THE PROBLEM

WHAT is needed is a modem cure for a problem as ancient as the history of war. The historical antecedents have been well set forth by the Hygiene Advisory Committee of the British Army, which in the 1920's researched the subject of how soldiers have been loaded through the centuries, and published its findings in a pamphlet called The Load Carried by the Soldier.

J.F.C. Fuller was a member of that commission, and it was from discussing the subject with him at about the time our forces went into Normandy that my attention was first drawn forcibly to the problem.

The work of the commission was scholarly though unimaginative. Other thal1 establishing the direct con-

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nection between the excessive weights men carry in war and the high incidence of heart disease, kidney complaints, ailments of the circulatory system and the lungs, and augmented blood pressure among veterans, it drew no medical conclusions. It did not trace a connection between overloading and mental and physical collapse in battle. The report was not refreshed by combat data from World War I which would have contributed to knowledge of the psycho-organic changes occurring in men under fire as the consequence of being too heavily weighted. It is probable that no such information was available to the British Army, or to any other at that time.

There are many areas of combat knowledge, we have hardly begun to explore, and We are informed least of all about the nature of the combat line. ' But what the commission did show clearly was that generals in all ages have been no respecters of the limitations of the human animal, either in or out of combat.

In this they have been consistent, from Marcus Aurelius down to Marshal Montgomery. The Roman legionary recruited usually at twenty and selected from the peasantry on a basis of sturdy strength rather than height, carried eighty pounds on his body when he went marching on the smooth Roman roads.

Though that seems brutal, we should at least add the footnote that 2,000 years after the Legion, the American Army dropped men from Higgins boats and onto the rough deep sands of Normandy carrying more than, 80 eighty pounds. The French soldier at the time of the Crimean War carried an equipment of seventy-two pounds. The British Redcoats carried eighty pounds when they stormed our Bunker Hill. At Waterloo British infantrymen carried sixty to seventy pounds, the French about fifty-five.

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Our infantry carried weights comparable to these during World War I. Conditioning soldiers to march with the heavy pack (about sixty pounds) was a training requirement. In combat more rations and munitions were added and very little of the training load was eliminated, at least by official order.

The commission found that with few exceptions, the armies of the past had honored the principle that lightness of foot in the individual produced buoyancy in the attack more in the breach than the observance.

Philip of Macedon was a notable exception. He achieved his mobility around a light infantry-the hypaspistes.

Oliver Cromwell made his Roundheads fast of foot by reducing their equipment to less than forty pounds. Stonewall Jackson created an infantry which maneuvered fast by keeping the individual working load to a minimum. His men did not carry extra clothing, overcoats or knapsacks. They marched with rifles, ammunition and enough food to keep going. Each man carried one blanket or rubber sheet; he slept with a comrade for extra warmth. The cooking was done at a common mess with frying pans and skillets. The skillet handle was spiked so that on the march it could be stuck in a rifle barrel.

The commission found that in general, armies through the past 3,000 years have issued equipment to the Soldier averaging between fifty-five and sixty pounds, and have tried to condition him to that weight by long marching. Finally, it reached the absolute conclusion that not in excess of forty to forty-five pounds was a tolerable load for an average-sized man on a road march. More specifically, It stated that on the march, for training purposes, the optimum load, including clothing and personal belongings,

Page 25

is one-third of body weight. Above that figure the cost of carrying the load rises disproportionately to the actual increment of weight.

These were the main points. However, the commission mildly suggested that there might be a radical difference between the weight-carrying ability of a Soldier on a march, where he is thinking only of putting one foot in front of the other, and his limits in a fight-where his life depends on his quick wit. It raised an eyebrow at the military thinkers for never having given serious consideration to that probability.

Necessarily then, we must go on beyond the commission's work, if there is to be any better conclusion than that simply because the Romans and Hoplites did it, it is good enough for us today. .

In the material given on page 25 I am following what the British paper says about the weight carried by the Roman legionary. There is reason to think, however, that the British research was in error on this finding. My friend and colleague, Col. Hugh M. Cole, has checked most of the ancient sources on this subject and has been guided largely by the reasoning and conclusions of Delbrueck, the great German military historian. Delbrueck worked according to the principle that what the sources said about operations should be challenged if they did not square with "physical possibility"; this means applying to history the same rule by which we measured the phenomena of the battlefield in Europe and Central Pacific, and which I now say should be applied to all that we do logistically. Delbrueck was well acquainted with the German test marches of 1896 and what they indicated as to the limits of men's powers. He held that the Roman Legion must have operated within these weight limits, else it would have been impossible to explain its extraordinary mobility.

Even this was a generous conclusion, since we know now that the Mediterranean man of that period was smaller in weight and in frame than modern man.. Working with a seminar of German officers, Delbrueck found that many of the classical texts had been misinterpreted, as to what they purported to say about the Legion's weight carrying ability. As one example, Livy's text had been corrupted from "supply for a few days" to "supply for 30 days" this referring to the rations carried by one man. Al1d again, the much cited single reference to a man load of 80 pounds refers to a specific punishment march, like the British sand bag drill. By the time he

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had completed his research, Delbrueck had decided that the legionary carried only his arms, an iron ration and a stake, used for fortifying the camp. Such things as hand-mills, cooking utensils, tentage and entrenching tools were carried in the trains. In other words, it was soundness in logistics, and lightness in the individual, which made the Legion the most mobile force the world has ever known.

The Roman carried so little excess into battle that he was able to engage in bodily physical combat, man to man, for an entire day. No foot formations since have ever marched as far and fought as many battles in so short a time as did the veteran legions at the height of Roman power. And the secret of their mobility as a force came of that exquisite combination of discipline and economy which kept the Roman individual light of foot and united to his comrades.

By a series of calculations which need not be here explained, Colonel Cole has concluded that the individual weights carried within the legions were as follows:

Total for road marching 57.21bs.

Total for approach march 44 lbs.

Tactical load in combat zone 33 Ibs.

THE LIGHT THAT FAILED

AT least one serious attempt was made in the modern British Army to cope with the problem though in the end the effort was wholly frustrated.

When shortly after the close of World War I, Captain B. H. Liddell-Hart was called in to recast the Infantry Training Manual, he felt very strongly about the need for lightening the infantryman's load, and was given the backing of General Maxse, who had been inspector-general of training in the last year of the war. Hart went to the Small Arms School to work on his doctrine for infantry weapons, and there found in General Dalby, the assistant commandant, a man who was ardent for the same idea. Many experiments took place, accompanied by demonstrations of what an infantryman, stripped for action like an athlete, would look like, and how

Page 27

quickly he could move. The ranks developed a tremendous enthusiasm for these ideas.

Then unfortunately a slump set in and the question was postponed. To some extent the simultaneous struggle for the development of mobile armored forces tended to obscure the need for making the foot Soldier more mobile. Leading advocates of tank warfare were inclined to argue that the reform

of infantry equipment did not matter, as tanks would dominate the future battlefield and leave little place for infantry. When in 1925, the new Chief of the Imperial General Staff Designate, General Milne (an artilleryman by origin) became a convert to armor, he went so far as to say that it would be a waste of time and effort to make the infantry more mobile. Subsequently, Milne began to shy away from armor, despite the efforts of J.F.C. Fuller to hold him to the mark. In fact, Milne's influence on British theories of warfare appears to be noteworthy only as a depressing example of the chief, who having reached the top rung of the ladder, is all too ready to forget everything that really counts on the field of war.

Despite many of the criticisms of Hart, coming mainly from those who between wars bothered to read only partway into his theories, history will credit him with being, in the period between World Wars, Britain's most indefatigable opponent of the closed military mind. Eventually there was a revival of interest in his idea that infantry had to be given a new mobility. General Campbell (a cavalryman) was in command at Aldershot. Influenced by Hart's book on W.. T. Sherman, he undertook to carry out tests of how equipment of every kind could

Page 28

be lightened-in the division as a whole, as well as in the infantry unit. On his proposal, the General Staff agreed that the training season of 1931 at Aldershot should be devoted to what was called a "Sherman March," looking to the lightening of the burden of field forces. It produced some startling results, pointing to a general conclusion that all of the combat arms were victims of over-loading.

That autumn the General Staff was moved to order the creation of committees in all principal commands to extend the Aldershot experiments. Hart became a general consultant. All of the reports were highly progressive and drastic. The most forward-looking came from the Aldershot Committee, where Dalby had moved in as President. Its detailed recommendations brought the total weight of the Soldier's clothing, arms, ammunition and equipment (including rations and water) down to 31 lbs., 10 oz.

The following year extensive trials were carried out by the Army during the annual maneuvers by formations carrying a much reduced scale of equipment. While the reduction could not be carried quite as far as had been recommended, because that depended on the manufacture of various new items of equipment, the load was brought down to 34 lbs. in some brigades and to 35 lbs. in others.

When World War II came along, the very practical nature of these experiments and their conclusions became forgotten, and the load started creeping up again, because of abnormal staff pressures and fears, and the general failure of the Army to lay a sound logistical basis for the reform during the period of peacetime training.

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FEARS OF THE STAFF

IF A YOUNG and inexperienced company commander is ignorant about what happens to men so heavily loaded they have no fair chance for movement and survival in combat, he will not ruin the army. The probability is that he will not even hurt his own company. Some higher-up, with a slightly wiser head, will straighten him out.

But when a staff is ignorant on this subject, then woe to the fighting line! The damage will not be undone, for a price will certainly be paid. This truth was repeatedly proved during World War II. We killed men unnecessarily because of our faulty appreciation of this.

The staff tended always to load the combat Soldier according to its own view of every possible emergency that might confront him. With every member of a staff trying hard to think of every possible contingency, and

Page 30

No one above the staff enforcing a rigid weight limit to protect the Soldier's back, the loads frequently became unsupportable.

With what results? The excess weights were simply not moved forward, mobile firepower was smothered.

The combat line faltered and sometimes foundered under bangalore torpedoes that were never exploded, gas equipment that was never used and ropes for scaling that might have proved useful had the battalion landed next to a cliff. The inertia thus begun was increased farther down the line by commanders who permitted their men to be killed with kindness instead of firmly insisting that they make the weight required for the contest.

These twin evils were subject to control. Our tactical power and general battle efficiency could have been increased had we:

(1) Established an absolute weight limit for men in combat.

(2) Enforced it by a rigid system of inspection.

We did neither. In this one particular, we acted less wisely than the ancient Scots who at Bannockburn went into battle with each fighting man feeling as light as air because his weapon had been carried up to battle by a porter. (It is of record that the battle turned on this fact.

The English saw the mob of porters moving over Gillies Hill, mistook it for a fresh reinforcing army, and fled the field.

We should take a somewhat more careful look at the detail of this overloading, if only to realize how silly we can get under the press of active operations.

Going to France in World War I, a marine officer was advised to carry along 1 bedding roll, pillow and mattress, 1 clothing roll, 2 blankets, 1 overcoat, 2 blouses winter field, 2 trousers winter field, 2

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breeches winter field, 1 coat sweater, 4 flannel shirts, 2 cravats, 1 small rubber boots, 1 hip rubber boots, 3 pairs shoes with extra laces, 1 high lace leather boots, 3 pair shoes with extra laces, 1 high lace leather boots, 1 puttees spiral, 1 puttees leather, 1 cap, 1 campaign hat, 2 khaki coats, 2 khaki trousers, 1 canvas leggings, 2 khaki breeches, 12 handkerchiefs olive drab, 2 wrist watches, 1 note book, 2 pajamas woolen, 1 canvas bucket, 1 rubber sponge, 1 thermos bottle unbreakable, 1 nest aluminum cups, 1 poncho, 1 housewife, 3 pillow cases, 4 sheets, 6 socks heavy, 6 socks light, 4 suits underwear heavy woolen, 6 suits underwear light woolen, 6 suits underwear light summer, 2 garters, 2 belly bands, 1 Romeo slippers, 4-towels face, 2 towels bath, 2 soap face, 2 soap shaving, 2 tooth brushes, 2 toothpaste, 1 raincoat, 1 bathrobe, 1 manicure set, 1 set of brushes, 1 polished mirror, 1 knife, 1 compass, 1 whistle, 1 field glass, 1 leather gloves buckskin, 1 jar tobacco with pipes and water-tight matchbox, 1 amber glasses, 1 can opener and corkscrew, 1 Elliott ear protector, 1 flashlight with extra batteries. The official memorandum adds somewhat brightly that in addition to FSR, the officer should carry along whatever books he thinks he might need, But the marines did better as they went along. In Pacific operations throughout World War II, they outstripped the Army in getting down to the bare essentials.

When the 153^rd Infantry Regiment went staggering ashore against the supposedly Japanese-held base at Kiska in the Aleutians, it was an A-1 exhibit, not of fighting power, but of how the uncontrolled fears

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of the staff are sometimes permitted to destroy the mobility of fighting bodies. Its load requirements was so extraordinary that members of the Regiment preserved the list that in later years they might boast of the unusual trials of Soldiers to their disbelieving civilian friends. This was what each man carried:

Underwear

240 rounds ammo

Flashlight Shirt (w/o tie)

Rifle

Maps

Pack board

Pocketknife

trousers Kersey lined

Sleeping bag

Change of clothing

Alaskan field jacket

2 shelter halves

Wire cutters

Helmet, steel

12 cans "C" rations

pole lamp; pins

Waterproof matchbox

Helmet liner

Raincoat

Cook stove

identification panel

Poncho

2 cans sterno

Ruck sack

Extra shoes

Long knife

4 chocolate bars

Rifle belt

Entrenching tool

3 signal panels

6 grenades

Bayonet

Compass

And just to make things rosey all around and keep this mule train in good spirits, the last item on the list was "Book of Battle Songs." One lieutenant of infantry who went ashore with 153^rd pronounced the only judgment possible on this stupendous piece of folly: "Had the enemy been there with only two machine guns, we would have been repelled; had we landed in a fighting situation, we could not have advanced one foot." Yet there were also instances in the Pacific war of the American staff officer advocating a bold solution of this problem, and by submitting his reasoning to battle proof, providing an example which all others can well afford to remember.

Just prior to the invasion of Aitape by Task Force 705, Lieut. Col. H. C. Brookhart loaded himself with every thing which the order had said that the Iine infantryman was to carry during the landing.

Page 33

The burden, exclusive of helmet and uniform, weighed approximately 46 pounds. Thus decked out, Brookhart presented himself to the commander, Brig. Gen. Jens Anderson Doe.

"What in hell have you got on?" asked Doe.

"This," replied Brookhart, "is what we say should be in the rifleman's load." "Then for God's sake get rid of part of it!" So instructed, Brookhart cut back the load to include the following items:

change of underwear

light woolen sweater

handkerchief

2 canteens of water

extra socks

aid pack

2/3 of one ration

rifle

poncho

30 rounds of rifle ammo

He arranged that troops would put into a B-bag these items-mess gear, change of shoes, remainder of ration, clean uniform, change of underwear, change of socks-which would be brought forward by first-line transports. Toilet articles had been included in the packload. Otherwise, this was all that the line formations carried.

Brookhart kept careful check of the results of this experiment. Looking back at it, he felt that he might have risked halving the ammo load which was hand carried. His check showed that only a minor number of riflemen had expended as many as 15 rounds on the first day.

LESSONS FROM OMAHA

IN THE INITIAL ASSAULT waves at Omaha Beachhead there were companies whose men started ashore, each with four cartons of cigarettes in his pack-as

Page 34

if the object of operations was trading with the French.

Some never made the shore because of the cigarettes. They dropped into deep holes during the wade-in, or they fell into the tide nicked by a bullet. Then they soaked up so much weight they could not rise again.

They drowned. Some were carried out to sea but the greater number were cast up on the beach. It impressed the survivors unforgettably that line of dead men along the sands, many of whom had received but trifling wounds. One man said of this sight: "They looked like wax: I thought of Madame Tussaud's."

There are no final death statistics on Omaha. If any are in time published, they will be at best a rough approximation. No one can say with authority whether more men died directly from enemy fire than perished because of the excess weight that made them easy victims of the water.

But when I had concluded my work with the survivors of the companies which had landed during the initial Omaha assault, the impression was inescapable that weight and water-directly or indirectly-were the cause of the greater part of our losses at the beach.

Believing that this was the great lesson of the Omaha operation, and that it was more strongly illuminated there than in other landings during WorId War II because of the decisiveness of that operation and the numbers engaged, I feel that the tactical facts deserve even closer scrutiny than those questions of higher strategy on which we differed with the British or among ourselves.

The fundamental error was a simple one. We overestimated the physical strength of men in the conditions of combat. This almost cost us the beachhead. Since it is the same kind of mistake that armies and their com-

Page 35

manders have been making for centuries, there is every reason to believe it will happen again.

The mistake can be blamed only in part on the staff.

In war our treatment of any basic problem reflects in large measure our thinking on the same problem during peace. It was so in this case. The general correctives needed could only have been applied by concrete thinking on the problem well in advance of war.

The root of the trouble lies here. We do lip service to the principle that the aim in logistics is not simply to support and supply the men on the fire line, but to relieve them of all unnecessary strain and tension. But it is lip service only.

We are reluctant to believe absolutely, that 5,000 relatively fresh fighting men will defeat 15,000 worn-out men in the opposing line any day in the week.

In the hour of decision, the strength of an army cannot be counted in bodies but in the numbers of men who are spiritually willing and physically able to pick up and move on forward fighting.

At Omaha Beachhead our count of such men was extremely low. Certainly fear of death played a part in the paralysis of some of the men who couldn't get over the sands. However, we would be selling short our own human material, and would once again be guilty of gross ignorance about the underlying causes of terror among men who fight, if we took it for granted that the only reason so many men collapsed at Omaha was because they had to go through bullet and she]] fire once they hit the shore. To say that they would all have made it had they landed on a dry run exercise doesn't mean a thing.

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EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT

ON D-DAY, Capt. Richard F. Bush landed with the assault waves at Omaha Beach. He was a field artilleryman. He went in on the same mission as the late Lieut. Col. "Moon" Mullins, one of the immortals of that great undertaking. Their task was to prepare the way for the landing of their own guns. But the guns didn't arrive. Again, someone's excess caution defeated the end in view. The guns were to be brought in on DUKWs. But somebody decided that the DUKWs and their cargo would be vulnerable to fire from the shore. So each DUKW was protected with a rampart of eighteen sandbags. Between this weight and the roughness of the water, every gun save one was drowned at sea.

SIDEBAR: Americans Refused Hobart's Funnies Engineer Tanks on D-Day

So it was that Bush and Mullins spent their morning trying to persuade demoralized infantrymen to resume

Page 37

their duty. Mullins was killed while trying to lead friendly tanks against German pillboxes punishing the American flanks. There is no braver story in our history than the action of this one man on that particular morning.

This is what Bush-Mullins's companion-'said of the men among whom he moved: "They lay there motionless and staring into space. They were so thoroughly shocked that they had no consciousness of what went on, Many had forgotten they had firearms to use. Others who had lost their arms didn't seem to see that there were weapons lying all around them. Some could not hold a weapon after it was forced into their hands. Others, when told to start cleaning a rifle, simply stared ,as if they had, never heard such an order before. . Their nerves were spent and nothing could be done about them.. The fire continued to search for them, and if they were hit, they slumped lower into the sands and did not even can out for an aid man." Words almost identical with these were written by Captain Hoenig back during the Franco-Prussian War. He had seen the rout of the Prussian 38^th Brigade on the field of Mars-la-Tour. It had lost fifty-three per cent of its strength in a few hours. He noted of the survivors that their eyes stared but saw nothing, and if their ears heard they conveyed no message to the brain. He said of them: "I saw madness in these men, the madness that arises fre»n bodily exhaustion combined with the most abject terror."

It is unfortunate that such scenes from war are rarely understood in their full significance. Among Soldiers, it is traditional to think of this condition of acute battlefield shock as occurring in a body of men only after a terrible defeat, when all hope is fled. From such a super-

Page 38

ficial conclusion can be drawn no more profitable moral than that in war, as elsewhere, it is prudent always to be on the winning side.

Because there is much more than that to be learned, I turn back to my original notes on the operation, at Omaha Beachhead for values which received only passing notice in the official published account, although that account was based on these same notes.

This one passage tells a small part of what happened to Company E of the 16^th Infantry, on the morning of June 6, 1944:

Altogether the company lost 105 men during the day.

But of that number, only one man was killed during the advance from the top of the beach inland. Most of the others were lost in the water. Many who were wounded on leaving the boats got only as far as the edge of the sand. They collapsed there and were overtaken and drowned by the tide, which moved at the pace of a men in a slow walk. In attempting to save some of these men, others were knocked down by enemy fire, and they too were drowned by the tide. The wounding of a man at the water's edge usually meant his death.

The company line, on leaving the boats, halted just beyond the water, and the men immediately dropped to the sand. Sergeants Fitzsimons, Ellis and Toth, among others, tried to rally the line and get it to move forward.

They realized, they said, that they were in a death trap and that the only way to save the company was to get it across the beach.

And so the leaders shouted to the men. But on arising they found that they were stopped by their own physical weakness. The three sergeants said that after dragging themselves forward a few steps at a time, they had to drop because their legs wouldn't support them. They said,

Page 39

also, that they and the others would probably have remained inert had not the tide kept moving behind them so that they had to advance to escape being drowned.

Fitzsimons saw two of his men-Privates Walch and Spencer drop onto the sand, and saw their bodies blown into the air again. They had been killed outright by dropping on mines. Such incidents did not affect the, halting pace of the company. It continued to go forward at the speed of the tide until the high-water mark was reached. There for a time it halted.

Though the company lost more men to the water behind it than to the fire from in front, it required one hour to cross 250 yards of beach.

These facts were established at a company critique which included all surviving witnesses. What went into the record was read to the company for their free comment. It therefore comprises as accurate a statement as is, within human means. Many of the men were seasoned veterans, already accustomed to the sights and sounds of combat. Without doubt, heavy shock, resulting from unusually hard initial losses, was partly responsible for their semi-paralyzed advance.

And that is the point! Through research conducted during World War II, our medical service now knows more about the effects of