S. L. A. MarshallReseñas

A pretty good history of the first stage in Operation Overlord. Marshall had been an infantryman in WWI in France, and had been commissioned from the ranks. Between the Wars he had been a military analyst, and a relative pioneer in the field. Recalled to duty in WWII, he was a keen proponent of after action reports as a service to historians and analists. This is his account of an operation that is heavily interested in his areas of command and control, and of increasing firepower in actual combat. It has been cited a good deal since its publication, by the current authorities in the field. It is worthy of a read.½

Much of the commentary on this page is erroneous. In Korea, Marshall was not a reporter or a journalist, but the U.S. Army's chief combat historian. His book was written primarily from official after-action military reports. That certainly doesn't guarantee their accuracy -- indeed, some of Marshall's other wartime writing has come under attack concerning its accuracy -- but he was not an ignorant newspaper reporter unfamiliar with military matters.

I note that I read this book as the Middle east was tuning up for another Arab-Israeli war. The 1956 war itself was a complex struggle stemming in part from the last gasp of European colonialism in Egypt, the nationalization of the Suez Canal by Egypt, and, a bit of Israeli opportunism. As a campaign description, Brigadier General Marshall does a bang up job. The actions are accurately described, and the maps being adequate.

A good psychological book about battle command, weak statistics

This book is a classic in military history — one of the most popular analyses of morale in the US WW2 soldier. Unfortunately some of the main statistics in the book (primarily that only 10-25% of soldiers fire their weapons in combat) were probably never true, and are definitely not true with current training systems, but the rest of the book’s insights about the psychology of both commanders and the commanded remain true.

It was interesting to me just how different WW2-style war is from the “low intensity conflict” I’ve seen up close — primarily in an urban environment, sustained for years, and without decisive force or the same kind of clear territorial objectives. While both kinds of war are terrible, I hope we never see total war of the WW2 style again.

Some of the insights from this book seem applicable to civilian leadership, but it probably isn’t a particularly good resource for that, being both very dated and kind of specific to a certain kind of challenge (even if it weren’t military).

Unvarnished insight into this terrible time of killing populations and young soldiers.

This book was an analysis of the behaviour of American soldiers under combat conditions. The third printing, the one I read, had been revised after the Korean conflict, as some of Brigadier Marshall's theories had been field tested since the original edition of 1947. The book is essential to the study of the military art in the twentieth century, and should be followed by a reading of Col. David Grossman's books "On Killing" and "On Combat".½

Rather than an a strict account of battles, the author stresses the conflict between two disparate cultures.

Detailed account of squad level fighting. Lots of names to keep track of, but there are plenty of maps. SLAM states he did multi hour debriefings on site after the battle, with entire units. Great book so far. There is really detailed information here, and it grows on you a you progress through the book.

Trying to decide how large of a pompous ass this guy was, and what his role in the US Army actually was. How does a General also act as a war corespondent or researcher?

This was a little dry, but the subject matter was interesting. Ended on a note which is still very applicable today as our country transitions from two wars - that we need to cultivate a civilian population that would be willing to defend our country or in a few years we will face the consequences. Definitely a worthwhile read.

S.L.A. Marshall stands alone in modern mil. history. he was/is the 1st one to try and check on what the average soldier in ranks sees, feels, uses weapons, regards leaders, terrain, etc. He went to all front line fox holes, etc. to learn. S.E.L.

I’m not a military history buff; keep that perspective in mind. Picked it up some time ago and meant to take a look after seeing the movie on TV. The movie, to my recollection, gives the wrong impression of the actual events which can be characterized via the old military term SNAFU. The book is more a collection of pieces, not a single continuous narrative. Historically, this is a near contemporary account (1956) of 1953 military action occurring toward the end of the Korean conflict, some time after China entered and effectively took over for the North Koreans, more specifically when negotiations were taking place at Panmunjon that would shortly end the fighting that began in 1950. At that point, the military situation appears to resemble the type of trench warfare associated with WWI: both sides are elaborately fortified and the fighting consists of night time probes by the Chinese communist military that attempt to breach the UN fortifications. The UN forces are generally fighting only on the defensive. Geographically, all of the events take place at or in the vicinity of Pork Chop Hill, but the PCH conflict figures in only the last 4 chapters in Part 1. The main chapters are indeed about the Pork Chop Hill fight, but the first two chapters describe fighting at the Arsenal and Erie Hills and the Dale Outpost, which by the map appear to be rather distant from PCH. Part II is a series of independent pieces describing successful and unsuccessful patrols that took place nearby. The Chinese military tactics were a lot more rational than the Western tactics during the first World War, where the generals were still fighting the musket wars of Napoleonic times with human wave frontal attacks, resulting in massive casualties due to the machine gun and more advanced artillery. It is noteworthy that in the Korean fighting the determining factor for the UN forces is the accuracy and volume of artillery fire rather than small arms wielded by soldiers, and that most of the hand to hand killing is done with grenades rather than rifles, which are often jammed or simply not fired by the terrified GIs. The Chinese military were much better fighters than the Americans, the principal UN combat troops. For some reason, US personnel were rotated out of combat every 19 days, which meant the routine loss of experience under fire; the Chinese fighters were not rotated, at least at that frequency. Their tactics resemble Native American fighters of the frontier period, lightly armed and thus able to move silently; I suppose they handed on their experiences to the North Vietnamese military. Due to lack of experience, the US commanding officers communicated poorly both to their superiors and the soldiers under their command, and were often lost, confused, and made bad decisions. Marshall has 2 chapters on the UN Ethiopian battalions that had no more experience than the Americans but had far better fighting skills and discipline. Hopefully the US military learned something from this book and was able to put out better trained personnel in later conflicts. Criticism: the chapters are relatively barebones reports culled from the reporter’s interview notes. Lacking literary skills, most of the participants described by the author come across as just names. As a result, who’s who can be a problem, as well as where’s who—following the geography is difficult unless you’re a military buff, even with the help of the maps. Where the area is relative to Korea as a whole is also unclear.½

Very good clear narration, gives the story in small unit actions with many personal accounts.

Gen. Marshall is a very good writter indeed. While this volume retraces several famous battles, the real story is an explanation of why the two cultures could not coexist. Read the book for the culture wars not just for the military battles.½

Indeholder kapitlerne "Forord - af Carl Sandberg", "Prolog", "Første bog. Mod Merderet", "1. Ned i sumpene", "2. Heldig landing", "3. Turnbulls deling", "4. Punkt 30", "5. Almindelig forvirring", "6. Levy og hans patrulje", "7. Skønne spildte kræfter", "8. Intet bedre sted at dø", "9. Tilbageslag på Punkt 20", "10. En flok løsgængere", "11. Skæbnens lange finger", "12. Gennem vadestedet", "13. Punkt 30 og Millsaps' patrulje", "14. Storm over dæmningen", "15. Gennembruddet", "16. Brohovedet udbygges", "17. Elendighed og storhed", "Anden bog. Overgangen over Douve", "18. Pat Cassidy og hans afdeling", "19. Roser hele vejen", "20. Summers ved WHYZ", "21. Vejspærringerne ved Foucarville", "22. Les Droueries", "23. Pouppeville", "24. Andre faldskærmsgrupper", "25. På vej mod vest", "26. Artilleristøtte", "27. Helvedes forpost", "28. Ukoordineret angreb", "29. Rekognoscering", "30. Nærmemarch", "31. Den lange, lange nat", "32. Storm", "33. Livet på gården", "34. Forstærkning", "35. Kålmarken", "36. Flugt", "37. Krise", "Epilog".

Glimrende bog. Den beskriver den plan der var for nedkastning af faldskærmstropper over Normandiet inden D-Dag, hvor presset planlægningen var tidsmæssigt, hvordan udførelsen gik i vasken pgra unøjagtigheder i nedkastningen og massive oversvømmelser i målområdet, og endelig hvordan de nedkastede tropper reagerede på dette.
Fejltagelser og tilfældigheder spiller en stor stor rolle.
The fog of war.
Vi følger de første par dage af kampene tæt ved Utah stranden. Floderne Merderet og Douve løber sammen nær Carentan og de oversvømmede marskegne med lange og forvirrende markskel er en livsfarlig kampplads. Vi følger kun amerikanerne, selv om man hurtigt begynder at spekulere over hvordan tingene ser ud fra tysk side.

Meget underholdende og lærerig bog

A very readable book about an almost forgotten battle in almost forgotten war.S.L.A. Marshall went to Korea as a war correspondent . At the request of the army he spent his time intereviewing the troops as they came back from patrols and battles to analyze our methods to see if they were working (this is the same thing he was doing in WW2). This book is the result of those interviews and gives an almost minute by minute account of the battle. A must read for any military history buff.½

About halfway through this book I realized I had read it before - as a boy of eight, checking it out of the library. S.L.A. Marshall's book is fine so far as it goes, but it is outdated and far better books have been written about World War I since.½

A collection of seven combat stories of WWII and the Korean War as told by the military historian, S.L.A. Marshall. They tell of extraordinary actions, leadership, heroism. Also included some personal tales about Hemingway and the taking of Paris.

A moderately detailed look at the battles in WWI if not the forces that led to them.½