Impossible Victories Read online

  IMPOSSIBLE

  VICTORIES

  TEN UNLIKELY

  BATTLEFIELD SUCCESSES

  B R Y A N P E R R E T T

  First published in 1996 by Arms and Armour, then by

  Cassell Military Paperbacks in 2000 and reprinted in 2000, 2001, 2002

  Republished in this format in 2015 by

  PEN & SWORD MILITARY

  An imprint of

  Pen & Sword Books Ltd

  47 Church Street, Barnsley

  South Yorkshire

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  Copyright © Bryan Perrett 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2015

  ISBN 978 1 47384 749 1

  The right of Bryan Perrett to be identified as Author of this work has been

  asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is

  available from the British Library

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or

  transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical

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  ALSO BY BRYAN PERRETT

  Desert Warfare

  Tank Tracks to Rangoon

  Canopy of War

  The Czar’s British Squadron

  A History of Blitzkrieg

  Tank Warfare

  Soviet Armour Since 1945

  Knights of the Black Cross: Hitler’s Panzerwaffe & Its Leaders

  Liverpool: A City at War

  Weapons of the Falklands Conflict

  Last Stand!

  At All Costs!

  The Battle Book

  Seize and Hold

  Iron Fist

  Against All Odds

  The Taste of Battle

  The Changing Face of Battle

  Gunboat!

  Cassell Military Paperbacks

  Cassell & Co

  Wellington House, 125 Strand, London WC2R OBB

  First published by Arms & Armour 1996

  This Cassell Military Paperbacks edition 2000

  Reprinted 2000, 2001, 2002

  © Bryan Perrett 1996

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced

  or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or

  mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any

  information storage and retrieval system without permission

  in writing from the Publisher.

  British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data:

  a catalogue record for this book is available from

  the British Library

  ISBN 0-304-35458-9

  Designed and edited by DAG Publications Ltd.

  Designed by David Gibbons; layout by Anthony A. Evans

  Edited by Gerald Napier

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by

  Cox & Wyman Ltd., Reading, Berks.

  Contents

  Introduction

  1. ‘That Astonishing Infantry’

  The Albuera Counter-Attack, 16 May 1811

  2.  Scarlet and Grey

  The Battles of Chippewa and Lundy’s Lane, July 1814

  3.  Mission Impossible

  The Reliefs of Lucknow, 1857

  4.  The Taking of the Taku Forts, 1859 and 1860

  5.  Dargai, 20 October 1897

  6.  The Storming of San Juan Ridge,

  Cuba, 1 July 1898

  7.  Mounted Action

  The Charges at Beersheba and Huj, Palestine, 1917

  8.  Leading the Way

  US Rangers at the Pointe du Hoe and Omaha Beach,

  D-Day, 6 June 1944

  9.  Crown of Thorns

  The Struggle for Hill 112, June/July 1944

  10. Dak To

  Ngok Kom Leat and Hill 875 – South Vietnam,

  1967

  Bibliography

  Index

  Acknowledgements

  I should like to express my sincere thanks to the following for their kind advice, assistance and encouragement, without which it would have been impossible for me to start, let alone finish, this book: Louise Arnold-Friend, Reference Historian, US Army Military History Institute, Carlisle, Pennsylvania; Lieutenant-Colonel John Bullen MSc, ARMIT, Weston Creek ACT, Australia; Major John Carroll, Curator, The Keep Military Museum, Dorchester; Mr T. J. Clement, Librarian, The Kippenberger Military Archive and Library, Waiouru, New Zealand; Lieutenant-Colonel P. A. Crocker, Curator, The Royal Welch Fusiliers Regimental Museum, Caernarfon Castle; Lieutenant-Colonel C. D. Darroch DL, Honorary Archivist, The Royal Hampshire Regiment Museum, Winchester; Mr S. A. Eastwood BA AMA, Curator, The Regimental Museum of the Border Regiment, Carlisle Castle; Colonel A. Fender TD DL, The Queen’s Own Warwickshire and Worcestershire Yeomanry Charitable Trust; Brigadier A. I. H. Fyfe DL, The Light Infantry Office, Taunton; Mr Donald E. Graves of Almonte, Ontario, Canada; Captain Colin Harrison, Regimental Headquarters The Highlanders (Seaforth, Gordons and Camerons), Aberdeen; Mr Ian Hook, Keeper, The Essex Regiment Museum, Chelmsford; Mrs Penelope James, Curator, The Queen’s Royal Surrey Regiment Museum, Guildford; Mr J. P. Kelleher, Chief Clerk and Archivist, City of London Headquarters, The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, HM Tower of London; Colonel H. J. Lowles CBE, Curator, and Lieutenant-Colonel C. P. Love, Honorary Archivist, The Worcestershire Regiment Museum Trust; Mr William McKale, US Cavalry Museum, Fort Riley, Kansas; Mr John Montgomery, Librarian, Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies; Major J. H. Peters MBE, Curator, and Major P. J. Ball, The Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire Regiment (Salisbury) Museum; Mr Kenneth Reedie MA AMA MILAM, Curator, The Royal Museum & Art Gallery, Canterbury; Major John C. Rogerson and Major C. J. D. Haswell, respectively Curator and Honorary Historian, The Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment and Queen’s Regimental Museum, Dover Castle; Katie Talbot, Librarian, The Patton Museum of Cavalry & Armor, Fort Knox, Kentucky; Colonel J. P. Wetherall, Curator, The Museum of the Northamptonshire Regiment; Colonel D. E. Whatmore, Regiments of Gloucestershire Museum, Gloucester; and W. H. White, formerly Curator of The Regimental Museum of the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry, Bodmin.

  Bryan Perrett

  Introduction

  In his book At Duty’s Call, dealing with the motivation leading to the huge expansion of the British Army’s strength in 1914, the late Dr W. J. Reader made the interesting point that while every town and village has its own war memorial dedicated to those who made the ultimate sacrifice in both World Wars, there were actually very few memorials erected to those who fell in earlier conflicts, and that most of these honoured well-known local figures. In one respect this is surprising, for throughout the nineteenth century the wars against Re
volutionary and Napoleonic France, lasting over twenty years, were regarded as being the United Kingdom’s greatest-ever military undertaking. In another, it is not, for while his officers were considered to be socially acceptable, the Victorian soldier and his predecessors were regarded as despised figures by the public at large. The apparently sudden change of heart, of course, was the consequence of men from every walk of life serving together during the World Wars in a truly national effort. Again, collective grief following the terrible loss of life produced an understandable desire to perpetuate the memory of those who had fallen. The dead of the First World War, in particular, became known as the Lost Generation, of whom it was said they were lions led by donkeys.

  If there is one thing that the study of military history teaches us, it is that not all soldiers are lions and not all generals are donkeys. Nevertheless, in this study of the motivations which led to the snatching of victories from the jaws of apparently inevitable defeats, there are a surprisingly large number of incidents in which it was the troops who won their generals’ battles for them.

  At Albuera, the bloodiest battle of the Peninsular War, the Allied army was commanded by Wellington’s deputy, Lieutenant-General Sir William Beresford, an excellent administrator and second-in-command, but an indifferent field commander. His opponent, Marshal Nicolas Soult, had him out-manoeuvred from the beginning and by all the rules should have won a stunning victory. In the end, he was driven off the field by a determined counter-attack in which several British regiments were all but destroyed. This was the more remarkable since the French were, as always, at their most formidable when victory lay just within their grasp. In the final analysis, it was the unbelievably stubborn refusal of the British infantry to give their hereditary enemies best that won the battle.

  Three years later, during the War of 1812, two equally stubborn battles were fought between small British and American armies along the Niagara river. Until then, the Americans had not fared well against the British regulars. It took Brigadier-General Winfield Scott to knock such disciplined drill and musketry into his brigade that at Chippewa it was the British who withdrew from the field. Shortly after, at Lundy’s Lane, the Americans, despite heavy losses, persisted in their attack and actually succeeded in capturing the British artillery. They had, however, fought themselves to within an inch of destruction and, believing that his troops could not withstand another counter-attack, their commander, Major-General Jacob Brown, relinquished all his gains. In the view of many, the modern United States Army has its roots more firmly embedded in Chippewa and Lundy’s Lane than in earlier events.

  During the Indian Mutiny the troops detailed to relieve the besieged Residency at Lucknow were required to fight their way deep into hostile territory where they were repeatedly opposed by a disciplined, well-equipped enemy who outnumbered them many times. Their chances of getting through were, to say the least, remote, yet they did so, not once, but twice, partly because they were fighting for their own survival, and partly because they were driven by a burning desire for revenge against a merciless foe who had savagely butchered their children and womenfolk.

  In 1859 a flotilla of Royal Navy gunboats attempted to fight its way past the Taku Forts at the mouth of the Pei-ho river. Despite there being no lack of courage on the part of those involved, the affair was badly bungled and ended in a humiliating reverse. The following year a further expedition was mounted against the forts, which were to be assaulted from the landward side. In the meantime, the Chinese had considerably strengthened their defences with numerous obstacles but, such was the attackers’ determination, reinforced by rivalry between the British and French contingents, that all were overcome and several Victoria Crosses were won as the walls were stormed.

  There were few years when trouble was not brewing somewhere along the wild North-West Frontier of India, but in 1897 the entire province exploded in revolt. Large scale and protracted operations were required before order was restored. In many areas fighting was severe, but none more so than on the dominant Dargai Heights. Having been captured from the rebel tribesmen, they were then abandoned on the orders of higher authority. They were promptly re-occupied by the tribesmen and it became necessary to take them again. Several regiments tried and failed with heavy loss. It was then the turn of the 1st Gordon Highlanders, whose commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel H. H. Mathias, knew just how to get the last ounce of effort out of his men. Their assault, pressed home regardless of loss, carried all before it and provides a shining example of the Scottish soldier’s formidability in the attack.

  In 1898 the United States found itself at war with Spain over the issue of Cuban independence. The decisive battle of the war was fought at San Juan Ridge, near Santiago de Cuba. On the American side the sketchy planning for the battle was made without adequate reconnaissance and on the day of the battle itself the army commander and his deputy were both ill, leaving the troops to fend for themselves. The Americans sustained twice the casualties of their opponents and it was thanks entirely to inspired junior leadership that the latter were driven from a strong fortified position. The dramatic charge of Lieutenant-Colonel (later President) Theodore Roosevelt and his Rough Riders up Kettle Hill became an American legend.

  By the spring of 1917 it had begun to look as though the Palestine Front was locked solid along the line Gaza-Beersheba. However, General Sir Edmund Allenby, a former Inspector General of Cavalry, believed that it might be possible to turn the Beersheba end of the line, using Lieutenant-General Harry Chauvel’s Desert Mounted Corps. The operation required careful planning, since it would be carried out in semi-desert, and Beersheba itself would have to be secured before the Turks could destroy the town’s wells, without which it would be impossible to advance further. Turkish resistance was more protracted than had been anticipated but was ultimately broken by the epic charge of the Australian 4th Light Horse Brigade, which swept over the enemy trenches and into the town before the Turks’ demolition parties could do their work. A week later the 5th Mounted Brigade, a yeomanry formation, made an equally epic charge which destroyed the Turks’ hope of making a stand at Huj, to the north. Together, these two actions foreshadowed Allenby’s great victory at Megiddo the following year, the last occasion in history when cavalry proved to be the decisive arm on a major battlefield.

  To some extent, the US Army’s decision to form Ranger battalions, based on the British Commando model, was marred by field commanders using these highly trained specialist troops as conventional line infantry, with tragic consequences. However, on D-Day the Rangers were set an objective which accorded with their training – the elimination of a coast defence battery located above the towering cliffs of the Pointe du Hoe, capable of firing directly onto either Utah or Omaha Beaches. From the outset almost everything went wrong but in spite of every difficulty the Rangers stormed the cliffs and destroyed the guns, which they discovered had been moved inland from their original position.

  Hill 112 was the most bitterly contested piece of ground in Normandy. Like Dargai Heights, it was captured and then abandoned, albeit for sound tactical reasons. It was then partially captured by the 43rd (Wessex) Division, the battalions of which became locked into a mutually destructive battle with several Waffen SS formations, little quarter being given or received by either side. Perhaps more than any other event during the campaign, the struggle for Hill 112 fulfilled Montgomery’s intention of focusing German attention on the British sector of the Normandy beachhead while the Americans prepared for their decisive breakout to the south.

  One of the communists’ ambitions in South Vietnam was to trap and destroy a major American unit, not simply because of the physical loss it would cause, but, more importantly, because of the effect it would have on public opinion within the United States. A prominent feature would be occupied and when the Americans probed the defences they would be ambushed and cut off. The much larger force sent to their relief was the communists’ real target, and it was this they sought to dest
roy. This was the scenario in which the crack 173rd Airborne Brigade found itself heavily engaged at Ngok Kom Leat and on Hill 875, The result was a bloody contest of wills which ended with the Americans not only breaking the enemy’s grip but also driving the communists out of their own carefully prepared positions.

  The reader will wish to draw his own conclusions regarding the motivations evident in each chapter. He will probably agree that the one factor present in all was the will to win, at all costs.

  CHAPTER ONE

  That Astonishing Infantry’ –

  The Albuera Counter-Attack,

  16 May 1811

  It was Napoleon himself who referred to the Peninsular War as the ‘Spanish ulcer’ which, for the seven years between 1807 and 1814 constantly gnawed away at the strength of his Grande Armée and absorbed thousands of French troops which he could have put to more productive use elsewhere in Europe. Recognising that Great Britain was the most implacable of his enemies, his initial intention had simply been to tighten up the Continental System by which, since 1793, France had attempted to deny mainland Europe to British trade. Because of wholesale smuggling the system leaked like a sieve, to the extent in fact, that at any one time a large part of the Grand Armée was said to march on boots manufactured in Northampton. Smuggling, however, was one thing, flagrantly flouting the system quite another. Portugal provided an open market for British goods, which were then shipped onwards to the rest of Europe, and in Napoleon’s judgement Portugal must be taught a sharp lesson. In November 1807 a French army under General Andoche Junot invaded Portugal from Spain and occupied Lisbon. The Portuguese royal family escaped to Brazil, then a colony, leaving behind a Council of Regency which requested British assistance. This was promised the following year.

  In March 1808 Napoleon allowed an attack of hubris to cloud his judgement. Marshal Joachim Murat was sent into Spain at the head of a large army and, having taken King Charles IV and his son prisoner, installed the emperor’s brother Joseph on the Spanish throne, where he was to be kept by French bayonets. To Napoleon’s surprise, the Spanish people would have none of it; corrupt and ineffective as their own monarchy was, it was preferable to the rule of foreigners, and the French occupation was a bitter blow to their pride. Risings took place in May, quickly spreading across the entire country. In July General Pierre Dupont’s army was forced to capitulate at Baylen, many of its members being subsequently massacred. The following month the promised British assistance, an expeditionary force commanded by the then Sir Arthur Wellesley, later the Duke of Wellington, reached Portugal, defeating Junot at Roliça on 17 August and again at Vimeiro four days later. Following this, a convention was signed under the terms of which Junot’s army was transported home in British ships.