A Look Behind the Scenes

Corg Memorandum dated 26 Apr 1965 Page 49

Every now and then I like to stop, take a deep breath, and give you a look "behind the scenes," as it were. Sometimes it's the history behind what's going on in the book, sometimes it's where I'm going with the story or why I did something a certain way. Often it's just me, the author, needing to take a pause while I figure out where we're going next. But I do like to give you some insight into the background of this whole book endeavor.

The Internet has oodles of information about history, some of it very good, some of it okay but you need to take it with a grain of salt, and, of course, some of it just plain sucks. That is, it's inaccurate, I don't blame the person who wrote it and put it out there, as I grow older I've learned that not everything they taught us in school was accurate. But at least they tried, as anyone who has ever studied (or even just thought about) history knows, often the information floating around is not the whole picture.

The history of a battle, is not unlike the history of a ball. Some individuals may recollect
all the little events of which the great result is the battle won or lost, but no individual
can recollect the order in which, or the exact moment at which, they occurred,
which makes all the difference as to their value or importance.

The Duke was right you know. He said that in response to a question concerning the accuracy of all the books which had been written about the Battle of Waterloo in the years after that event. No one person knows the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about an historical event. Unless you witness a thing, you can't really be sure what someone else tells you is the unvarnished truth.

Anyhoo.

Having read quite a bit on World War Two in Europe, I think I'm able to discern truth among the many nuggets of information out there. When in doubt I can always check one of the many books I have on the subject. If more than one witness agrees on how a thing happened, then that's a pretty good indicator that that's what happened.

It's probably a fair bet to assume that I once drove by where that jeep is parked in the preceding photo. The town of Hürtgen isn't all that big...

Google Maps

The family and I motored down that way when I was stationed in Germany. My grandmother had asked me if I could go there and get some pictures for her brother, my Great Uncle John, who had fought in the area with the 4th Infantry Division. His war ended in the Hürtgenwald, he survived but having a German bullet go through the top of his helmet was enough to get him sent home.

Oddly enough, a German colleague of mine had a relative whose war ended in the Hürtgenwald as well. His father had been in the German Army and was captured during that battle. Small world.

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The minutiae of war has long fascinated me, though it's often driven The Missus Herself crazy when I used to make a habit of muttering things like, "They didn't wear those style uniforms at that period in time..." during TV shows and movies. I've learned that those details, while semi-important, aren't as important as the story itself. (One excellent, and woefully mistitled, series I've watched on Amazon, Generation War is an excellent story. But they have shown weapons being used early in the war which weren't introduced until later. Why is it mistitled? The title in the original German is Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter - in English, Our Mothers, Our Fathers. The idea being to show the modern day Germans what their predecessors went through. A much better title I thought.)

Anyhoo.

That graphic above depicts a standard German rifle platoon of the period I'm writing about. I also use this -

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It's a quick reference for the composition of a German unit from the squad up through an entire company. There is also one for the U.S. Army -

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Note that the squad's grenadier in that graphic still carries the M1903 Springfield rifle, as the grenade attachment for the M1 Garand wasn't widely available during the time period noted in the graphic (Apr '42 - Jul '43). While the Springfield was a very good rifle, it was bolt action. You couldn't put as many rounds down range as you could with the semi-automatic M1. That's me, the Minutiae King. Which leads me to this...

Sturmgeschütz III Ausführung G
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Sturmgeschütz IV
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Jagdpanzer IV
Guderian-Ente¹
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You may have seen some mention in the comments as to the types of assault guns currently assigned to Kampfgruppe von Lüttwitz and the number of road wheels on the different types. Also Scott mentioned the "Guderian Duck," so I included a picture of one of those as well. (The third vehicle in the series of photos above.) Yup, Kampfgruppe von Lüttwitz has a complement of StuG IIIs, I haven't specified whether or not it's the model with the Saukopf² (first photo), or the one with the more angular gun mantlet (which you can see here).

More minutiae indeed.

I introduced the Nazi version of the Commissar, the NSFO, to bring a little more tension to the story. They were introduced into the Wehrmacht in December of 1943. I guess Hitler and his ilk felt that the Army wasn't political enough. Unlike the Soviet political officers, the NSFOs had no command authority in the units to which they were assigned. No doubt they thought themselves upholders of National Socialism (hack, spit) but (no doubt) were looked upon more as tattletales. I'm not real sure how long the kid will last. You may have noticed that he's a bit of an asshole.

105 mm Howitzer M3 near Carentan, France, 11 July 1944.

Don McCollor brought up an interesting point the other day about the verbiage 1Lt Paddock et al were using to call in fire missions. To be honest, I was using modern day verbiage from the modern US Army Field Manual, FM6-30. I should be using the WWII version for forward observers which is FM6-135. The words used are a lot different. The modern version is, to me, a lot more understandable to the layman, which is why I used it. Now that I have acquired a copy of FM6-135 (like I said, the Internet can be a wondrous thing) I may update how the Americans call in artillery fire.

Maybe, it's all rather technical and the objective here is to tell a story, hopefully it's a good story.

As regards the howitzer in that photo, doesn't look like you expected, does it? Because that particular piece depicted above was issued to airborne units and the regimental cannon companies of U.S. infantry regiments. It was guns like these which slaughtered that German company in The Valley the other day.

I'll get back to the Front on Tuesday (unless Tuna decides he has something to say, Tuesdays are "his" by tradition, like last week).

In the meantime, keep your powder dry and remember, the Associated Press does not determine who wins elections. I hope you are enjoying reading this story as much as I am enjoying writing it. Cheers!

¹ "Guderian's duck" called this by their crews as the vehicle was very nose heavy and difficult to operate in rough terrain.

² Pig's Head, because it looks like one.

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