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Decision in the Desert

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 The Strategy & Tactics of World War II

Number 11
Apr/May 2010

Features
6
6 Campaign in the Desert, 1940-42:
Organizational & Tactical Factors
Axis & Allied forces clash in the Western Desert as Erwin
Rommel leads the Afrikakorps
by Joseph Miranda

20 Romania in World War II

Romania was Hitler’s most important, and most reluctant, ally
in the war.
20
by Blaine Taylor
Features

26 Savo Island:
Night of the Cruisers
The US Navy’s daylight dominance after Midway was chal-
lenged at night off Guadalcanal.
by Kelly Bell
26
54 Overview & Analysis:
World War II German Airborne Operations
German airborne doctrine was revolutionary, but they never
perfected it.
by George Larson

54
4 #11

WaW11 Issue.indd 4 2/11/10 4:26:34 PM

 columns
18 Design Corner:
Afrikakorps: Decision in the Desert
Joseph Miranda

Publisher:
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Mysteries Revealed
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 Campaign in the Western
Desert, 1940-42:
Organizational & Tactical
Factors
By Joseph Miranda

As
World War II broke out, North Africa as well as the Middle East were the scenes of international
interest. Several of the European powers had colonies or other holdings there—France in Morocco,
Algeria and Tunisia, Italy in Libya (actually two colonies, Cyrenaica in the east and Tripolitania in
the west), Great Britain in Egypt and the Sudan. Farther east, Syria and Lebanon were French while
the British held Palestine and Trans-Jordan. The British also had imperial interests in Iraq and Iran as well as throughout
the Arabian peninsula, those regions having petroleum resources vital to both the war effort and the maintenance of
British power. At the fulcrum of the Middle East was the Suez Canal, lifeline of the British Empire.
Despite all that, the outbreak of World War II didn’t immediately involve fighting in North Africa. Italy was neu-
tral, and Germany lacked the navy to project power there. When France collapsed beneath the German blitzkrieg in
June 1940, however, Benito Mussolini brought Italy into the war. France’s surrender changed the balance of power in
the Mediterranean, turning its colonies from Allied bases into regions of neutrality and, under the Vichy government
installed in France, the colonial administrations tended to favor Germany. With French North Africa out of the Allied
lineup, Libya’s western flank was covered.
In the summer of 1940, Britain’s power was at its nadir following the evacuation of its army from Dunkirk and
with the Luftwaffe assaulting the home island. From Mussolini’s perspective, the situation appeared ripe for an Italian
campaign in North Africa, one in which he could seize the Middle East as well as link up with Italian colonial forces
in East Africa. While the Royal Navy was still a factor in the Mediterranean, the Italian high command believed its
numerous airbases in southern Italy, Sicily and various small islands could negate that British sea power. All that was
needed was a drive by Libyan-based Italian forces into Egypt to take Alexandria and then Suez.
6 #11

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 The Course of the Campaign
Numbers refer to the map.
1) September 1940. Italian Tenth Army, under command of
Marshal Rodolfo Graziani, launches an offensive into Egypt. The
Italians advance to Sidi Barrani, where they stop and fortify.
2) December 1940—February 1941: Operation Compass.
British Western Desert Force (WDF), commanded by Gen. Rich-
ard O’Connor, launches a counteroffensive out of Egypt. WDF
is an entirely mechanized/motorized formation, and it quickly
outmaneuvers Tenth Army, forcing the surrender of numerous
Italian formations. O’Connor continues his offensive into Libya,
taking the vital ports of Tobruk and Benghazi, only stopping
at El Agheila as the WDF outruns its line of communications.
Churchill pulls strong units out of North Africa for commitment
to Greece and East Africa.
3) January—March 1941: German Reinforcement. The
Germans send Luftwaffe units to Sicily while Gen. Erwin Rommel
lands in Tripolitania with the Deutsches Afrikakorps (DAK). A
primary target of Luftwaffe attacks will be the island-fortress of
Malta, the British base for attacks on Axis trans-Mediterranean
shipping.
4) March—May 1941: Rommel’s First Offensive. DAK,
reinforced with some mobile Italian units, retakes Cyrenaica. The
British fall back on Tobruk and the Egyptian frontier. The Axis
besiege Tobruk, but are unable to take it.
5) May—July: Middle East Ferment. The British switch forces
to suppress a pro-German coup in Iraq and to defeat pro-Axis
Vichy forces in Syria.
6) June 1941: Operation Battleaxe. The British launch an
offensive against Rommel, but superior German tactics repulse
WaW11 Issue.indd 7
them. The following months also see several British command
shake-ups, conducted in an attempt to find a general who can win a
decisive victory.
7) November-December 1941: Operation Crusader. British
forces, reinforced, re-equipped and renamed Eighth Army, attack
again. This time they succeed in pushing Rommel back to El
Agheila. Meanwhile, Malta-based aircraft attack Axis shipping.
8) January—June 1942: Rommel’s Second Offensive. Rom-
mel, reinforced with air and ground units, attacks and again out-
maneuvers the British, who fall back across Cyrenaica. He breaks
through at Gazala, forcing the British to retreat into Egypt. Tobruk
falls to a quick Axis lunge in June.
9) July 1942: Operation Hercules. The Axis prepare for an
airborne-amphibious assault to take Malta and thus secure their
central Mediterranean line of communication. The operation is
cancelled when Rommel requests, and gets, for his invasion of
Egypt the support of the Luftwaffe aircraft that would’ve otherwise
been committed against Malta.
10) June-August 1942: Rommel Drives On, Deep Into
Egypt. With the British falling back in disorder, Rommel pursues.
Italo-German forces make a desperate attempt to reach Alexandria,
the pyramids and the Suez Canal, only to be stopped at Alam Halfa
by a revitalized Eighth Army under Gen. Bernard Law Montgom-
ery.
11) September-November 1942: El Alamein. Both sides build
up, but the British, closer to their Middle East bases, win the race.
Montgomery launches his great counteroffensive in October and,
by the end of the year, Rommel is in retreat to Tunisia.
World at War 7
2/11/10 4:26:39 PM

On to Suez: Erwin Rommel with German officers.
On 13 September 1940, Italian forces crossed the
frontier into Egypt. It was the beginning of over two
years of fighting in the Western Desert, a campaign
that would see the clash of Italian, British and German
forces in vast sweeping maneuvers, desperate battles of
attrition, and reckless pursuits from El Agheila to the
gates of Alexandria. It would also see the rise and fall
of the legend of the Deutsches Afrikakorps (German
Africa Corps).
The British Army
The British went into the war in North Africa with
several advantages. One was that they had the resources
of a vast empire on which to build their armed forces.
They could bring in divisions from India, South Africa,
The Desert Fox is that way: Gen. Law Montgomery with British officers.
8 #11
WaW11 Issue.indd 8
Australia, New Zealand and other commonwealth na-
tions, colonies and protectorates, as well as various
contingents formed from volunteers who’d escaped
Axis-occupied Europe. Many of those forces had experi-
ence in fighting in desert environments, albeit in their
own countries with their own peculiarities.
The British also had the advantage of their indus-
trial base at home, as well as a relatively secure source
of petroleum in the Middle East. Both the industrial
capacity and the petroleum could be supplemented by
additional resources from the United States. While the
US was officially neutral until 7 December 1941, it
nonetheless already provided much industrial capacity
to the British war effort via the Lend-Lease program.
British forces in Egypt in mid-1940 amounted to
several divisions whose total numbers were fewer than
those maintained by the Italians in Libya. Nonetheless,
those divisions were highly trained and had considerable
numbers of tanks. Transport was usually mechanized,
including large numbers of trucks, armored cars, and even
light tracked vehicles (the Universal or Bren carrier).
Those vehicles provided an advantage in mobility by
allowing the infantry and support arms, at least in theory,
to keep up with the tanks. Just as critically, supplies
could be moved forward rapidly, further enabling mobile
operations. The British also held an edge in that they
were the only ones who had a fully organized armored
division in the theater at the outbreak of hostilities with
Italy.
On paper, the British armored division in 1940 ap-
peared to be a powerful formation. It had two armored
brigades with six tank regiments (regiments in the British
system being the equivalent of a battalion, outside of
2/11/10 4:26:42 PM
 the infantry). The divisional organization was based on
interwar theories of armored warfare. The idea was the
tanks would be committed en masse to fight the deci-
sive battle using their speed, protection and firepower.
Other arms were considered obsolete. The division
had a brigade-sized support group with some artillery,
infantry and other formations. While theoretically the
support group was supposed to work with the tanks,
in practice they trained separately and, as is the usual
case, armored divisions fought as they trained. In battle,
the tanks acted independently of the other arms. That
worked well enough against the ill-prepared Italians in
1940, but it proved disastrous when tried against the
Germans (and improved Italians) in 1941.
The British developed several types of tanks. The
“cruisers,” such as the Crusader, were fast and well
armed, and were expected to exploit gaps in the enemy
line, drive deep, and engage enemy armor. The “infantry
tanks,” such as the Valentine, were slower and heavily
armored. Their mission was to directly support the in-
fantry. That specialization of tanks for different missions
led to difficulties in the field. Cruisers were normally
issued only anti-tank ammunition on the theory they
were only there to fight enemy tanks; high explosive
rounds had to be specially requested. That meant the
cruisers were often caught short when forced to fight
‘soft’ enemy targets, such as infantry or anti-tank gun
positions.
Still, the armored division concept worked in the
1940 Compass offensive in which the 7th Armored Divi-
sion (nicknamed the “Desert Rats”) routed the Italians.
That outcome was, however, largely owing to the nature
of the Italian army in North Africa at the time: it was a
force made up almost entirely of foot-mobile infantry
divisions that lacked the armor to fight and the trucks to
move. Moreover, the 1940 British victory was also due
to their two well-trained and fully motorized infantry
divisions that ran rings around the relatively static Ital-
ians.
In 1941 the tables would turn, first in Rommel’s
spring offensive in Libya, and then during the disas-
trous British Operation Brevity and Battleaxe counter-
offensives, when they went up against a much better
prepared enemy. British tank units frequently sped ahead
of their supporting infantry and artillery, only to be shot
up when they ran into enemy anti-tank positions. The
British not only initially failed to appreciate the tactical
acumen the Germans brought to North Africa, they also
underestimated the Italians who, in 1941, managed to
commit two good mobile divisions.
One symptom of British organizational shortfalls
was the development of “Jock Columns” (named after
Lt. Col. “Jock” Campbell of 7th Armored Division).
Those units were originally formed from support
group elements as a means of giving them a combat
role while the tanks were fighting their own battle. A
typical Jock Column might have one or two companies See page 17 for unit symbol descriptions.
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Armor in the desert: Panzer IIIs advance.
of truckborne infantry, one or two batteries of artillery,
some armored cars, engineers, and whatever else was
available. The columns would drive into the desert, find
a ‘soft’ enemy unit, such as a truck column or infantry
detachment, harass it with fire, and then break off and
return to ‘laager’ before the enemy could counterattack.
While those tactics did on occasion inflict losses on Axis
forces, they were incapable of winning battles. They
also contributed to the dispersion of British strength,
similar to the results of the brigade group concept (see
next page).
The British command soon came to recognize their
organization wasn’t working, and they sought to address
the shortfall by reorganizing. The number of tank bri-
gades in the armored divisions was cut from two to one,
while the infantry and artillery strength of the support
group were increased, creating a better balance between
armor and the other arms. In 1942 the armored division
was again reorganized, with the support group being
10 #11
WaW11 Issue.indd 10
dispensed with altogether and replaced with a proper
motorized infantry brigade plus an artillery group.
Tactics were also changed. While the one tank plus
one infantry brigade organization was maintained on
paper (being more efficient for logistics), training em-
phasized pairing up tank, motorized infantry and recon
units into task forces that fought as teams.
Another factor that improved British armored ef-
fectiveness in the desert was the appearance of large
numbers of US Lend-Lease tanks. They included the
M-3/5 Stuart, M-3 Grant (called the Lee by the British),
and the M-4 Sherman. One of the major advantages
of the American tanks was in their high level of me-
chanical reliability. They broke down less, and could be
maintained more easily, than British tanks. That made
a critical difference in the desert where sandstorms,
dust and extreme weather played havoc with engines,
tracks and suspensions. The American tanks also had
the advantage of being issued with both anti-tank and
explosive ammunition. That meant they could be used
for both anti-armor and anti-infantry missions, thereby
overcoming the over-specialization of British tanks.
British infantry division organization remained
generally consistent throughout the campaign, and that
organization was standardized for all imperial forces,
thereby enhancing command and logistics since higher
headquarters and support echelons had to deal with only
one type of formation. An infantry division consisted
of three infantry brigades, divisional artillery, plus a
plethora of support units.
One advantage the British had was a high level of
motorization throughout their armed forces. Transport
and logistics were by trucks and other vehicles. A distinc-
tion the British made was to apply the term “motorized”
to units that had sufficient organic vehicles to lift all its
components simultaneously.
2/11/10 4:26:44 PM
 A concept the British used in 1941 was the “brigade
group.” That consisted of the infantry battalions of the
brigade plus divisional support units directly assigned
to that brigade headquarters: artillery, recon, anti-tank,
engineers, etc. The idea was to place support units up
front where the brigade commanders needed them. It
was, in theory, also supposed to deal with the shortfalls in
coordination caused by poor communication across vast
desert spaces. While the brigade group concept looked
good on paper, and did generate some local successes,
in the longer run it proved inefficient. As with the Jock
Columns, it enhanced the trend toward the dispersion of
power, making it difficult to concentrate divisional fires
at decisive points. One of the innovations Montgomery
implemented when he took command of Eighth Army
in August 1942 was to abolish the groups and require
the divisions to fight as divisions. The result was, by
the time of his El Alamein offensive in October, British
divisions were capable of a wide range of missions. Soldiers of the 8th Bersaglieri Regiment with captured submachine
The Italians guns after the Battle of Gazala (1942).
The Italians entered World War II with an army
unprepared for the type of campaign it would fight
in North Africa, and it took the disaster of the British
Compass offensive in the winter of 1940-41 to force
change. Many of the Italians’ problems went back to
World War I. Their armed forces and people had made
an overwhelming effort in seemingly endless offensives
on the Isonzo Front against Austria-Hungary, racking up
hundreds of thousands of casualties and gaining little in
return. Then the Central Powers’ Caporetto offensive of
1917 shattered the Italian armies, and while the Italians
would rebuild and win a year later, the casualties and
expenditures did much to psychologically and materially
exhaust the nation.
The rise of Benito Mussolini and fascism in the 1920s
seemed to mobilize Italy in a new wave of militarism,
but behind the façade there remained serious shortfalls.
One came from the fact Italian industry wasn’t up to the
demands inherent in sustaining modern armed forces.
There were insufficient motor vehicles to support
mechanized operations, and Italian tanks were woefully
under-armed and ill-designed. Added to all that was a
lack of sufficient petroleum production and reserves,
making the creation of a mechanized army impossible. ernize. Theoretically, the combat experiences of the 1930s
Indeed, on bringing Italy into World War II in June 1940, should’ve produced a pool of veteran commanders, but the
Mussolini had to turn to Germany for petroleum, and Italian military system was unable to assimilate those les-
given the Wehrmacht’s high demand, that put the Italian sons.
military’s needs on the back burner.
Qualified personnel were held back by an antiquated
Italy’s entry into World War II found its armed promotion system, and training remained inadequate. The
forces still recovering from several years of continuous Army was at the bottom of the priority list for recruits, be-
engagement in the preceding years. An Italian army hind the Air Force and Navy. For example, infantry recruits
had conquered Ethiopia in 1935-36, while several Ital- frequently came from rural areas where illiteracy remained
ian divisions and numerous air units had been actively widespread, a situation that did little to produce the technical
engaged in the fighting on the side of the Nationalists personnel needed for a modern army. The Italians also failed
in the Spanish Civil War. By 1940 the wear was show- to produce a sustainable cadre of well-trained and experi-
ing in terms not only of casualties, but also the spent enced junior officers and NCOs of the type who provided
resources that otherwise could’ve been used to mod-
World at War 11

WaW11 Issue.indd 11 2/11/10 4:26:46 PM

 the foundation of the German, British and US armies,
which limited their tactical operations.
Nonetheless, the Italians attempted to form a mobile
army. Their armored division appeared on paper similar
to the German panzer division, but a closer examina-
tion shows it was a much less efficient organization.
For one thing, the unit, with only 6,500 personnel, was
only about half the size of its German counterpart. The
1941 Italian organization lacked the extensive support
units the German divisions had, such as an armored
reconnaissance battalion.
There was also the matter of doctrine. The panzer
division was used as an assault and exploitation force.
The Italian armored division was intended to be a re-
serve and exploitation force, with the infantry divisions
breaking gaps in the enemy line that tanks would exploit.
That approach was, at least in part, necessitated by the
poor quality of Italian tanks, which were both lightly
armored and armed. They were also poorly constructed,
with their riveted armor often coming undone when hit
by enemy fire. Mechanical reliability was dismal, and
it was reliability that proved the critical factor in the
desert war.
By 1942 the Italian armored divisions had been
upgraded owing to the experience of 1941. Equipment
was also improved. That included self-propelled guns,
especially 90mm pieces that doubled as tank destroyers.
New legions: Italian machinegun team.
12 #11
WaW11 Issue.indd 12
In addition, there was also some good motorized infantry,
notably the Bersaglieri regiments. As a result, Italian
XX Corps, which controlled the mechanized units, was
able to make a major contribution to Rommel’s drive
into Egypt.
Italian infantry division organization suffered from
being set for the wrong war. Pre-war Italian plans had
envisioned campaigns in the Alps, the Balkans and in
East Africa. Consequently, they built an army with a
large infantry component and with a bewildering array of
divisional types. There were motorized, “auto-transport-
able” (trained to operate with trucks but lacking organic
vehicles), infantry, alpine (actually light infantry), and
colonial divisions, as well as Fascist Party militia for-
mations (“CCNN” camicie nere, the “blackshirts”).
The infantry divisions were generally organized
along binary lines, with two maneuver regiments and
minimal combat support. That organization was tailored
for mountain warfare, having been found to be flexible
in obstructing terrain. The infantry divisions were to be
deployed as part of corps of several divisions, and the
corps echelon would provide the engineer, reconnais-
sance and armor support. That concept might have been
feasible in a large-unit war in Europe, but in the mobile
situation in North Africa in 1940, it proved disastrous,
at least until the Italians sent armored and motorized
units in 1941.
2/11/10 4:26:48 PM
 Germans
The Germans had the advantage of entering the war a tank of average quality, it had several advantageous
in North Africa with an already proven mobile warfare characteristics. One was that it carried both anti-tank
doctrine, as well as an efficient panzer division organi- and high explosive ammunition, giving it a tactical
zation. Both the doctrine and the organization had been flexibility British tanks lacked. Another was that it was
refined during the campaigns in Poland and the West. mechanically reliable. That was critical in desert warfare,
The unit the Germans initially committed to North where the number of “runners” (operational vehicles)
Africa was the 5th Leichte (Light) Division. As that or- made the difference in terms of quickly bringing combat
ganization diagram shows, it was similar to the standard strength to the field and maintaining it during battle. In
panzer division, but with a smaller motorized infantry desert operations, losses due to mechanical breakdowns
component and enhanced divisional weapons, including and environmental conditions often exceeded those in
self-propelled anti-tank guns as well as numerous anti- combat, thus a dependable mediocre tank was superior
aircraft (flak) units. (Incidentally, the Germans used the to a much better AFV that had a tendency to throw a
term “light” for several types of formations: when the track or whose engine had to be regularly overhauled
war opened they had some “Light” mechanized divisions in a rear area depot. The Germans backed up that reli-
that were found unsuitable and quickly dissolved. There ability with an efficient tank recovery organization,
were also light infantry divisions, later called Jaegers, which pulled damaged friendly and captured enemy
meant for operating in rough terrain. The term “light” tanks off the battlefield, swiftly repaired them, and then
in North Africa, however, generally referred to specially sent them back into combat. That meant the Germans
organized armored and motorized formations.)
The 5th Light was quickly followed by the 15th Panzer
Division, and together they formed the Deutsches Afrika-
korps (DAK). The 15th Panzer entered North Africa with
a standard organization of one panzer, two motorized
infantry and one artillery regiment, plus divisional recon,
anti-tank, pioneer (combat engineer), and other units.
Standard German panzer division organization had two
tank and four motorized infantry battalions (sometimes
with a fifth motorcycle battalion), which meant the tank
units were actually outnumbered by the infantry. That
was found to be the optimal mix of maneuver arms,
since the infantry were vital to clear enemy anti-tank
guns and hold terrain seized by the armor.
The mainstay of German armor in the Western Desert
was the Panzer III tank. It was a general-purpose me-
dium armored fighting vehicle (AFV), equipped with a
50mm gun. While the Panzer III seemed, at best, to be Rommel’s men: Afrikakorps soldiers pose for a photo.

World at War 13

WaW11 Issue.indd 13 2/11/10 4:26:50 PM

 echelon and break through the enemy line.
A second wave, possibly similar to the first, which
would reinforce a successful attack or mop up enemy
strongpoints.
A rear echelon, with reserves, artillery and support
units.
A critical aspect of German tactics came from the
fact tanks weren’t expected to be the primary tank
killers. Rather, their main mission was to open a gap
in the enemy line and then drive into the enemy rear
area, attacking command posts, artillery positions and
logistical units. Their destruction would cause enemy
combat forces on the front to collapse for lack of control
and support.
The Germans used their anti-tank guns as their
primary tank killers. That gave the added advantage of
keeping their own tanks from losing too many vehicles
in engagements with enemy armor. The DAK brought
some self-propelled anti-tank guns to Africa, the Pan-
zerjaeger (tank hunter) Ib, armed with a 47mm gun.
They were useful in forming a mobile anti-tank screen
that engaged enemy armor, thereby reducing enemy
could continue fighting at or near full strength while numbers prior to the main engagement. The Germans
their foes’ combat power was weakening. dealt with enemy anti-tank guns by calling in suppressive
Also present in North Africa were Panzer IIs, a light fires from artillery, or by having their infantry close in
tank that was obsolete by 1941 but that was kept on and destroy them.
the rolls owing to a lack of sufficient numbers of other One of the more famed weapons of the Afrikakorps
types. It was still useful as a recon vehicle. There were was the 88mm flak gun. That was originally an anti-
also Panzer IVs, but in 1941 they were equipped with aircraft weapon but was found useful as an anti-tank gun
a short-barreled 75mm gun and intended for use in the when provided with the appropriate ammunition. It was
infantry support role. In 1942 some Panzer IVs with accurate and had good optics. (Optical equipment was
long-barreled 75mm guns appeared. Those guns were
superior to anything the Allies could field at the time,
though there were never enough to make a decisive
difference.
What gave the Afrikakorps panzer divisions their
advantage wasn’t simply the dependability of their
tanks. It was that the Germans specialized in combined
arms tactics. Divisions were trained to fight as complete
entities, with each arm supporting, and being supported
by, all the others. The on-paper organization was there
mainly for logistics and administration. For combat, the
divisional command would form battlegroups (Kamp-
fgruppen) composed of mission-oriented task forces
drawn from the various sub-units. The German system
worked because they constantly trained for combined-
arms warfare and had staffs who worked smoothly in
that environment.
To give a general idea, a panzer division on the attack
might organize itself as follows.
A reconnaissance echelon that would advance ahead
of the rest of the division, probing for weak spots in the
enemy line.
A first wave, consisting of tank units accompanied
by anti-tank, flak, infantry and pioneers. They would
attack the weak spots found by the reconnaissance
14 #11

WaW11 Issue.indd 14 2/11/10 4:26:52 PM

 a German specialty, and it gave their direct-fire guns an mount heavy weapons, anti-tank guns and flak pieces
edge in both range and accuracy.) Its long range made it on halftracks to provide direct support to assault units,
effective in the open conditions of desert warfare, where and 1942 saw the appearance of large numbers of tank
they were often able to dominate the battlefield. destroyers, which were self-propelled anti-tank guns
The demands of the Western Desert campaign soon with added armor. In North Africa they were mainly
lead Rommel to reorganize his panzer divisions. The the Marder, armed with captured Soviet 76mm guns.
5th Light became the 21st Panzer Division, and both it Over the summer of 1941, Rommel also organized a
and the 15th switched their motorized infantry regiment motorized infantry division, both to support his panzers
structure from two regiments of two battalions each to and fight in static situations such as the siege of Tobruk.
one regiment of three battalions. That was in part to It was initially formed from miscellaneous units in-the-
make up for shortfalls in German manpower, but was ater, but quickly became a full-fledged division, at first
also owing to the peculiarities of desert warfare. The called the Afrika Division, then later the 90th Light Afrika.
open nature of the battlefield required a higher propor- Operations in 1941 demonstrated the usual infantry
tion of heavy weapons than normal, especially anti-tank structure of three rifle and one heavy weapons company
guns and flak pieces. per infantry battalion wasn’t optimal for desert warfare.
Another advantage the panzer divisions possessed
was in their halftrack AFV. They were well suited to
desert conditions, effective at negotiating the roadless
tracts that were inhospitable to all-wheel vehicles. Their
armor also allowed them to accompany the tanks on the
offensive. The Germans used their halftracks as infantry
transports, recon vehicles, mobile command posts and
ammunition carriers. The problem was there were never
enough of them.
Throughout 1941 and into 1942, the Germans
upgraded the Afrikakorps panzer divisions. That was
part of a general German up-gunning of units based on
combat experience. Panzer divisions received an organic
anti-aircraft battalion, though that simply recognized the
practice in the field of putting flak in direct support of
the panzers. There was also an increase in the number
of self-propelled guns. One German practice was to
Tank killer: German 88 ready for action.
World at War 15

WaW11 Issue.indd 15 2/11/10 4:26:53 PM

 Afrikakorps & Eighth Army
The Germans entered the war in North Africa with the arrival of Gen. Erwin Rommel and the
Deutsches Afrikakorps (DAK) in the spring of 1941. The DAK was initially the command for two
panzer divisions, though over the course of the campaign it came to include several other units. In
August, Rommel was appointed commander of Panzergruppe Afrika (Panzer Group Africa), which
included both German and Italian formations: the DAK alongside Italian XXI and XX Corps, the
latter a mechanized formation. In January 1942, Panzergruppe Afrika was upgraded to Panzerar-
mee Afrika (Panzer Army Africa). The Italians would add their X Corps.
British forces in North Africa were initially under the Middle Eastern Command, whose span
of control included North Africa, the Middle East and the eastern Mediterranean. The divisions in
the 1940 campaign were designated the Western Desert Force (WDF), a corps-sized formation.
WDF later became XIII Corps. The XXX Corps was added, and Eighth Army was made the higher
command for the Western Desert in September 1941. The X Corps came in later. Eighth Army went
through a series of command turnovers as the British attempted to find a winning general, finally
settling on Montgomery.

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 So the battalions were reorganized into four uniform
companies with plenty of heavy weapons, making the
90th Light into what amounted to an anti-tank division.
The divisional recon battalion used the same organization
as in the panzer division, and there was also supposed
to be a tank battalion assigned; however, it didn’t arrive
in North Africa until November 1942, too late to make
a difference in the Western Desert campaign.
North Africa was the only theater of operations in
which the Germans fielded a force that was (more or
less) entirely motorized, and the mobility engendered
did much to enhance the DAK’s operations.
In Sum
To no small degree, the ebb and flow of victory and
defeat in the Western Desert reflected the organizational
strengths and weaknesses of the armies that fought
there. The British initially held a large advantage over
the Italians, but it wasn’t enough to defeat the Germans
in 1941. The German organization maintained tactical
ascendancy until well into 1942, exploiting victories
and keeping defeats from being turned into disasters.
All the armies learned as they fought. The Ital-
ians made attempts to improve their organization and
their weaponry, but they lacked the industrial capacity
to create a modern mechanized army. The Germans
were already at high levels of efficiency in 1941, and
the reorganizations of the following year had further
good effect. The British learned the most and changed
the most. By late 1942 the British had improved their
organization sufficiently to win at El Alamein and thus
end the Axis threat to the Allied position in the Middle
East.

at

Sources
Battistelli, Pier. Rommel’s Afrika Korps. Oxford: Osprey, 2006. Osprey has
been publishing some excellent analyses of armed forces. This, along
with the Griffith and Moreman books, provides lots of information on
organization and the “nuts and bolts” of tactics.
Forty, George. The Armies of Rommel. London, Arms & Armour, 1997.
Rommel’s various commands in World War II, with a decent section
on North Africa.
Greene, Jack & Alessandro Massignani. Rommel’s North African Campaign.
Cambridge: Da Capo, 1994. Jack Greene is a familiar name to wargamers.
This book is his take on various aspects of the North African campaign,
with some new perspectives on the Italian armed forces.
Greene, Jack, Alessandro Massignani & Ulrich Blennemann. Mare Nos-
trum, 1990. A look at the overall war in the Mediterranean, with lots
of orders of battle and some good, if brief, information on the air and
naval aspects of the campaign.
Griffith, Paddy. World War II Desert Tactics. Oxford: Osprey, 2008.
Moreman, Tim. Desert Rats. Oxford: Osprey, 2007.
Tessin, George. Verbande und Truppen die Deutschen Wehrmacht und
Waffen-SS. Osnabruck: Biblio Verlag, 1977. Epic work on the entire
World War II German order of battle.
History of the Second World War: The Mediterranean & Middle East, Vols.
I-IV. London: HMSO. The British official history. It covers the war
from the ground, air and naval perspectives, with lots of discussion of
organizational and logistical factors.

World at War 17

WaW11 Issue.indd 17 2/11/10 4:26:56 PM

 Afrikakorps:
Decision in the Desert, 1941-42
By Joseph Miranda
One reason I designed Afrikakorps: Decision
in the Desert, 1941-42 (AKDD) was to create a
simulation of the campaign that reflected criti-
cal factors I feel have been neglected in other
wargames on the topic. Chief among those was the
chaotic nature of the whole thing. Command-con-
trol issues, limited intelligence, and undependable
logistics combined to create a situation in which
the extremes of total victory and total disaster
were always close by. That also meant a design
approach different from the systems used in those
other North Africa wargames. At the same time,
I didn’t want to overwhelm players with a lot of
special rules.
I therefore ended up using the system I origi-
nated in They Died With Their Boots On. It divides
each army into several sub-commands. Those
sub-commands are activated for movement and
combat by random marker draws. That works to
smoothly integrate the aforementioned factors into
Design Corner
a single system. Most importantly, it puts players
in the position of Rommel or the various British
Western Desert commanders: they have to make
their plans on both the literal and figurative shift-
ing sands of war. Victory goes to the player who
best exploits the chaos. To use current US military
jargon, this is an effects-based simulation, show-
ing the outcomes of various military operations
without bogging down the players in procedural
nitty-gritty.
AKDD has sub-systems that at first seem odd.
Take logistics as an example. As part of my design
analysis, I looked at how much fighting was done
in the Western Desert campaign, from the time
Rommel arrived to Montgomery’s final offensive
at El Alamein. The answer was—not much. Out
of a 100 or so weeks in the campaign, perhaps
25 percent of the time was spent in major combat
operations. What the armies mostly did was train,
refit and rebuild shattered units, all in preparation
for the next offensive. That had to be shown in
the game. In order to activate a command, players
must expend supply, and there is always only a
18 #11
WaW11 Issue.indd 18
limited amount of it available. Further, supply also
has to be used up for other functions, such as replac-
ing eliminated units. That creates a trade-off between
front-line offensive capability and building up your
overall order of battle. That produces the desired
effect without a lot of detailed rules to force the situa-
tion.
The air war has also often been a neglected part of
the North Africa campaign. Airpower proved decisive
on at least two occasions. One was when Rommel
launched his counteroffensive starting in late 1941.
Axis air reinforcements at that time gave him the
combat power to not only push back the British, but
also take Tobruk. Later in 1942, as Rommel was
driving into Egypt, the Royal Air Force was able to
slow him down by interdicting Axis logistics enough
to allow Eighth Army to gather itself for a stand at El
Alamein.
One of the things that has always bothered me
about wargames is that, generally, gamers often know
all their own future reinforcements as well as those of
their opponent. That, of course, isn’t how it works in
reality. The reinforcement system in AKDD is based
on randomized factors. Just like your historic coun-
terparts, you don’t know exactly which units you’re
going to be getting, or exactly when they’ll arrive,
and that leads to a more realistic kind of decision
making.
Finally, there was the very nature of the armies
that fought in the Western Desert. The Germans,
Italians and British all learned lessons during the
campaign, and they reorganized their forces accord-
ingly. The armies of 1942 were better, both quali-
tatively and quantitatively, than those of 1941, and
that’s modeled via the game’s upgrade rule. Again, it
uses simple mechanics to show complex processes:
units of upgraded armies increase their stacking limit
and can take advantage of combined-arms combat
technique.
2/11/10 4:26:57 PM
 Decision in the Desert!

The Afrika Korps: Decision in the Desert,

1941-41 (AK), uses that system to simu-
late the campaigns in the Western Desert
in which Italo-German forces under the
command of Erwin Rommel took on the
forces of the British Empire.
The game map shows the Egyptian/
Libyan coastal area as it was in 1941-42.
Each game turn represents one month.
Each hexagon on the map represents 12.5
miles (20 km). There are two scenarios,
short (May-November 1941) and long
(May 1941 to November 1942). AK is
a two-player game of intermediate com-
plexity. The rules contain about 15,000
words, meaning experienced players can
finish the short scenario in about four
hours. Solitaire play is doable.
Rules cover such things as: high com-
mand bulletins, unit refits, supply, fog of
war, pursuit and pursuit combat, fortified
boxes, airpower, naval bombardment
and transport, unit upgrades, off-map
bases, major operations, special forces
and tactics, coastal shipping, battlefield
salvage, appeals to Berlin, capture of
the Western Desert Force headquarters,
amphibious landings, the Qattara De-
pression, port interdiction, anti-aircraft
fire, air transport, aerial supply, airborne
assault, oases, reconnaissance, heavy
armor, 88s, and Malta.

To purchase the game that covers the battles featured in

this issue send your name and address along with:
$30 US Customers
$36 Canadian Customers All prices include postage for first class or airmail shipping.
$38 Overseas Customers CA residents add $1.98 sales tax. Send to:
Decision Games
ATTN: WaW Game Offer
PO Box 21598
Bakersfield CA 93390
World at War 19

WaW11 Issue.indd 19 2/11/10 4:27:00 PM

 Romania in World War II
By Blaine Taylor

Wearing their distinctive helmets, Royal Romanian Army troops are seen in action on the eastern front.

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 all the countries the Third Reich controlled during the Second World War, without a doubt
Romania was the single-most important to its overall war effort. Indeed, Germany got half to
two-thirds of all its oil from Romania, as well as grain and timber. The oil alone amounted to
1.5 million tons a year. To protect that vital source of oil, and the petroleum products derived
from it, Hitler ordered the airborne invasion of the Greek island of Crete to deny it to the British Royal Air Force
as a base from which to potentially bomb Romania in May 1941.
The Kingdom of Romania had fought with the Allies in the First World War, against Imperial Germany. After
that war the country was expanded by the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. In the two decades between the World Wars,
the country’s main foreign policy goal was to retain those territorial gains, while its rulers’ principal fear was that
Romania—as happened to Poland in September 1939—would be partitioned between a resurgent Nazi Germany
and a rapacious USSR.
Despite that historic closeness to the Allies, however, the German defeat of France and neutralization of Brit-
ish power in 1940 led to Romania joining the Tripartite Pact of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan
that autumn. Thus Romania, out of practical necessity, chose alliance with Hitler’s Reich instead of being divided
up between Germany and the Soviet Union. There were five people who ultimately helped bring that about: two
kings, the mistress of one of them, a fascist party leader, and a pro-Allied general destined ironically to become
one of the Fuehrer’s close military confidantes. It is, all in all, a strange and fascinating tale.
Romania had been formed from the Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia in 1859, after which it won its
independence from the Ottoman Turks in 1877. King Carol I ascended the throne as Romania’s first ruler in 1889,
which was also the year of Hitler’s birth. Carol was the great-great uncle of the later King Michael V; pro-German,
he died in 1914, the year of the start of the Great War in Europe, and was succeeded by King Ferdinand I.
In 1913, Romania had invaded and defeated Bulgaria. In 1916, German Field Marshal August von Mackensen
defeated the Romanian field armies with a combined force of Germans, Austrians and Turks, then rode in triumph
through the streets of conquered Bucharest. The end of the war in 1918 ultimately found Romania on the winning
side and, as a result, she received 60,000 square miles of new territory as a reward. Transylvania was annexed on
11 January 1919, while Bucharest’s takeover of Russian Bessarabia was recognized by treaty in October 1920.

World at War 21

WaW11 Issue.indd 21 2/11/10 4:27:05 PM

 In 1927, King Ferdinand I died and a regency was
formed until his grandson Michael, then six, would
come of age to rule. His father, Crown Prince Carol, was
passed over for the succession. Carol (1893-1953) was
the son of Ferdinand and Queen Marie (1875-1938), a
princess of Great Britain, she being the person largely
responsible for bringing Romania into the First World
War on the side of the Allies.
Carol was rebellious, left his regiment during World
War I, and impulsively married the daughter of a com-
mon Romanian officer, renouncing his rights to the
throne. That marriage to Zizi Lambrino was annulled,
and he was then forced to marry the sister of the King
of Greece. Their son Michael was born on 25 October
1922.
Carol was unfaithful to the Crown Princess, however,
and had several public mistresses. In 1925, Carol was
in Milan when he received a telegram from his political
opponent, Prime Minister Vintila Bratianu, to return to
Bucharest immediately and without bringing along his
latest mistress. That he refused to do, and the prime
minister was then able to convince the ruling council
to accept that refusal as Carol’s abdication.
Upon his father’s death, then, Carol’s son Prince
Michael ascended the Romanian throne on 7 July 1927,
remaining there for three years as King Michael V. In
1928, the Crown Prince’s wife divorced him. Meanwhile,
he and his mistress were living in a garden-enclosed
villa in the Parisian suburb of Neuilly. Then, on 8 June
1930, the Crown Prince’s plane landed unexpectedly
at Bucharest airdrome and he proclaimed himself King
Carol II, thus displacing both his royal son and the boy’s
mother, Regent Queen Helen. The new king’s main
support had come from Premier Juliu Maniu and his
King Carol II of Romania. When Antonescu refused to
kiss the hand of his Royal mistress, Magda Lupescu, the
King fired him.
22 #11
WaW11 Issue.indd 22
Peasant Party, who were happy to depose the foreign-
born Queen-Regent.
In June 1933, the king opened diplomatic relations
with the USSR following Hitler’s appointment as Ger-
man Reich Chancellor on 30 January. Despite that,
however, Stalin kept the Romanian gold reserves that
had been sent to Imperial Russia during the Great War for
safe keeping in 1916 as Field Marshal von Mackensen
advanced on Bucharest.
The situation fueled the Fascist Iron Guard’s Party’s
campaign to push Carol toward the Third Reich. After
one of its operatives assassinated the prime minister,
Carol took punitive measures against the Guard, but
simultaneously attempted to mollify it with the appoint-
ment of a new anti-Semitic premier. Meanwhile, Iron
Guard political agitation continued to increase, leading
Carol to take dictatorial powers in February 1938 in a
suddenly one-party state, making Armand Calinescu
Premier.
In November 1938—two months after the signing of
the Munich Pact, which had heralded the dismember-
ment of Czechoslovakia—Carol paid diplomatic visits
to London, Paris, and then on to Hitler at the Berghof,
the Alpine chalet at Berchtesgaden in the Bavarian Alps.
All three visits ended in failure, for what Carol wanted
most he didn’t get: ironclad assurances for the security
and independence of his country.
On 1 September 1939, Hitler invaded Poland and
the Western Allies declared war on Germany two days
later. On that same date, Carol moved to curtail the Iron
Guard, and he declared his country’s neutrality in the
new war. The Iron Guard retaliated, assassinated Prime
Minister Calinescu, and also attempted a coup. Thus the
situation in Romania remained tense until the Russo-
Finnish War of late 1939. Fearing the Soviets would
next attack Romania, Carol asserted: “Romania will
fight as one living wall if we are invaded. Bessarabia
will remain Romanian.”
In March 1940, Hitler asked for a purchasing mo-
nopoly on all Romanian foodstuffs, and also that the
king declare a general amnesty for the imprisoned Iron
Guardsmen. Feeling ever more isolated, Carol reluc-
tantly agreed on 25 April. Despite the fact his premier
was pro-Allied, Carol also agreed to meet with the Iron
Guard’s leaders to formulate a new policy that favored
the Axis.
When France fell to Germany, and the British Ex-
peditionary Force recrossed the Channel to England in
hasty flight, Carol felt forced to form a new “Party of
the Nation,” which tilted even more toward Berlin and
gave the Iron Guard a far larger political role domesti-
cally. The new policy was publicly endorsed by Iron
Guard leader Horia Sima.
Despite all that, however, when, in accordance with
the secret provisions of the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggres-
sion Pact, the Red Army marched into Bessarabia on 28
2/11/10 4:27:06 PM
 The arrival of His Majesty King Carol II of Romania at Hitler’s Obersalzberg mountain chalet, the Berghof. The
King is at center in the dark overcoat, with Hitler at right. Following behind them are German Foreign Minister
Joachim von Ribbentrop (left) and Reich Chancellery State Secretary Dr. Otto Meissner (right.)
June 1940, Hitler did nothing to stop it. The next day,
Romania officially ceded Bessarabia and Northern Bu-
kovina to Stalin, while the Iron Guard blamed Carol for
those territorial losses. Hungary’s government, smelling
Romanian blood in the water, then began demanding
the cession to it of Transylvania.
Hitler, of course, was severely vexed by the move-
ment of the Red Army ever closer to the all-important
Romanian oilfields at Ploesti, and he therefore began
pushing for a more fully pliant government in Bucharest.
Thus, on 4 July 1940, Prime Minister Tatarescu was
replaced by Ion Gigurtu, a man with strong pro-Nazi ties
in Germany. The Iron Guard’s Horia Sima also entered
the government as minister of culture, a role similar
to that of Nazi Germany’s Minister of Propaganda Dr.
Josef Gobbels at Berlin, with other Iron Guardists also
given key cabinet posts.
Carol was thus caught in the unenviable middle,
between Moscow’s Red Army on his borders and the
fascist Iron Guard at home. Meanwhile, his 18-year-old
son Crown Prince Michael was biding his time, antici-
pating his return to the throne he’d lost at age eight a
decade earlier.
The German and Italian foreign ministers met in
Vienna on 30 August 1940 to mediate all the various
WaW11 Issue.indd 23
conflicting territorial claims by the smaller Axis powers.
As a result, Romania lost 92,743 square miles and over
6 million people under the provisions of the infamous
Vienna Diktat, as the new settlement came to be called.
Romania was forced to give two-thirds of Transylvania
to Hungary and a large strip of Southern Dobrudja to
Bulgaria. As a result, Carol’s loss of personal prestige
was too much, and his second abdication followed less
than a week later, on 6 September. His 10-year reign
was at an end, but not his life.
Carol turned over his government to a man who
was publicly an Iron Guard sympathizer, but who
remained pro-Allied in private: Gen. Ion Antonescu.
As his majesty’s train, with his mistress also aboard,
neared the Yugoslav frontier, Carol narrowly escaped
an assassination attempt by elements of the Iron Guard.
The couple survived, however, and ultimately reached
exile in Franco’s Spain, where they then shortly found
themselves under house arrest at the formal request of
the Antonescu government. The general also froze the
ex-king’s financial holdings, demanded his extradition,
and prepared to place him on trial on the charge of hav-
ing “squandered public funds.” The couple eventually
escaped to Portugal, and then moved on to Brazil where
they married.
World at War 23
2/11/10 4:27:06 PM

Marshal Antonescu right (wearing cloth garrison cap) on military
maneuvers with the Royal Romanian Army in the company of
young King Michael V (left), who deposed him on 23 August
1944 and ordered his execution in June 1946.
Born in Transylvania and nicknamed “Red Dog,”
Antonescu had served in the Romanian Army during
World War I, and he was initially pro-Allied, but was
forced by events to switch his allegiance to the Nazis.
On 10 October 1940, he allowed German troops to enter
his country, and on 23 November he journeyed to Berlin
to sign the Tripartite Pact, which made Romania part
of Hitler’s grand design to invade the USSR.
As a reward, on 14 January 1941, while Antonescu
was visiting at the Berghof, he was told by Hitler, in
reference to Horia Sima and the Iron Guard: “I don’t
need fanatics! I need a healthy Romanian Army,” thus
giving the Romanian dictator the moral authority to rein
in the Iron Guard.
After the start of the German invasion of the USSR
later that June, all former Romanian territory was retaken
by 27 July. Following the capture of the Soviet Black Sea
port city of Odessa on 15 October, Antonescu awarded
The Romanian marshal (center) and his staff officers meet with
German Field Marshal Ewald von Kleist (second from right) on
the eastern front, summer 1941.
24 #11
WaW11 Issue.indd 24
himself the baton of a marshal of Romania. His follow-on
decision to move Romanian forces into Russia-proper
was a policy that proved immediately controversial at
home. The three-year war against the Soviets would
cost 350,000 Romanian lives, and, after the disaster at
Stalingrad (initially brought on by the collapse of Ro-
manian arms on that front), an underground resistance
movement began. King Michael V, the only monarch
in history to both precede and succeed his own father
to a throne, was a member of that movement. During
a secret meeting of plotters over 13-14 June 1944, the
removal of Antonescu and his government was decided
upon by Michael.
As the resurgent Red Army had advanced on Roma-
nia in March 1944, Antonescu sent envoys to neutral
Turkey to begin negotiations with the Allies, even as
the bulk of his troops were bottled up in the Crimea.
In May, Allied air forces destroyed the oil refineries at
Ploesti, and the nascent peace negotiations broke down
in July.
The rule of Antonescu was about to end and the real
reign of King Michael V to begin when, on the night
of 23 August 1944, His Majesty launched a coup that
sought all at once to depose the marshal, break with
the Germans, and switch sides in the war. Michael had
finally made his decision to strike as a result of the
August 1944 Red Army advance onto Romanian soil,
and Antonescu’s arrest was made only when he refused
to either conclude an armistice or to resign. The coup
was announced by Michael in an address over Radio
Bucharest, and war was declared against Germany and
Hungary on the 25th.
Thus the anti-Soviet war ended, and there began a new
war against the former Axis allies on the side of the Red
Army. The king named Gen. Constantin Sanatescu as the
new chief of government and marshal of Romania. The
new cabinet contained members of all three major leftist
parties: liberal, socialist and communist. An armistice
was officially signed on 13 September. The Red Army
entered Bucharest on the 31st, and by then most of the
rest of the country had also been liberated.
On 6 October 1944, a joint Soviet-Romanian of-
fensive liberated northwest Transylvania and Hungar-
ian territory up to the Tisza River. On 18 December,
248,000 Romanian troops in 16 divisions crossed the
Czech-Hungarian frontier heading west. In all, during
the period 23 August 1944 through 8 May 1945, some
540,000 Romanian soldiers fought against the Axis,
with 170,000 officers and men killed or wounded. That
meant Romania actually ended up fielding the fourth
largest army that fought against the Nazis during the
final phase of the war. During that same period, though,
some 130,000 Romanian soldiers and officers, who
were deemed politically unreliable, were arrested and
deported to camps in the Soviet Union. Deposed Marshal
Antonescu was also turned over to the Red Army when
it entered Bucharest in August 1944. He was charged,
2/11/10 4:27:07 PM
 Romanian cavalry on the eastern front, 1942.
tried, and convicted of war crimes by the communists,
along with three of his associates, on 2 June 1946. The
firing squad used automatic rifles.
At Bucharest, meanwhile, the Romanian Communist
Party also began its rise to power under the aegis of the
reign of King Michael V, and it was no doubt a shock
for many to see Red leader Ana Pauker speaking under
a giant portrait of the King, but not for long. The party
grew in membership from 35,800 in March 1945 to
803,831 in December 1947. They moved against his
government when His Majesty left by rail on the 30th of
that month to attend the wedding of his cousin, Queen
Elizabeth II, in London.
The return of King Michael V, aged
70, (waving at center) of the House
of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, to
Bucharest on 26 April 1992.
WaW11 Issue.indd 25
Forced to abdicate a second time, Michael thus became
the last ruler to come from the House of Hohenzollern-
Sigmaringen. It all became official on 3 January 1948, when
he was but 26, and he exchanged the palace in Romania for
a private residence in Switzerland.
From 1947 to 1989, the Romanian communists ruled
their country with an iron hand, mainly through longtime
dictator Nicolai Ceausescu and his wife Elena. In 1989 that
regime was overthrown by its own people as the Cold War
ended, and the fleeing Ceausescus were captured, hastily
tried, convicted, and then immediately shot.
at
World at War 25
2/11/10 4:27:08 PM
 Savo Island:
Night of the Cruisers
By Kelly Bell
It
had been just nine months since the US
Navy was taken horribly by surprise at
Pearl Harbor. The fleet commanders vowed
the enemy would never again sneak up on
them in that way, and at first that resolve held true. At
Midway it was the Japanese who were caught off-guard
and sent reeling. Yet one facet of that great US triumph
was overlooked during the euphoria that followed: that
clash was fought on and above a sun-washed seascape
where visibility extended to the curved horizon.
The US Pacific Fleet’s forces were quickly learning
the new doctrine of aircraft carrier dominance, but that
change distracted them from an older but still potent
doctrine. That is, one of the most significant battles
of the war was shaping up off the contested Solomon
Islands, where the flotilla providing critical offshore
artillery support for Maj. Gen. Archer Vandergriff’s
just-landed Marines would be challenged—at night.
26 #11
WaW11 Issue.indd 26
Like the rest of the US Navy, that task force was
less experienced than its Japanese counterpart. The
USN’s prewar core of seasoned men had been scattered
throughout the far-flung fleet when wartime expansion
created a need for those ‘old salts’ to train hordes of
rookies. Getting the newcomers battle-ready as soon
as possible left little time for night training. America’s
sailors therefore simply didn’t know how to fight in
darkness. That shortcoming would cost them in the
initial stages of the Guadalcanal campaign.
On the other hand, Japan’s Navy had a long tradition
of night fighting. Its men were meticulously trained in
it, and they were also aware of the US deficiency. At
the same time, the Japanese understood they were also
outgunned. Their commander, Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto,
didn’t intend to send his warships into the pulverizing
firepower of Nimitz’s battleships in daylight.
2/11/10 4:27:12 PM
s
Apart from superior Japanese training, another critical
factor in the choice of tactics came from the advanced
state of some of their weaponry. Following extensive
post-World War I experimentation with various types
of torpedoes, their naval technicians had discarded the
then standard air-powered propulsion systems. They
instead began manufacturing torpedoes with engines fed
by pure oxygen. By 1933, their Type 93 “Long Lance”
torpedo was being mass produced. It could push a 1,090
lb. warhead along a straight, wakeless, 11-mile track at
49 knots.
By contrast, the US Mark XV torpedo had a far
smaller warhead and was limited to just three miles at
45 knots. Further, its notoriously unreliable depth-setting
mechanism and magnetic influence exploder resulted in
few successful attacks. The US torpedoes usually passed
harmlessly under their targets, exploded prematurely,
or failed to explode at all.
WaW11 Issue.indd 27
At the start of the war, US tacticians still regarded a
warship’s deck guns its main armament, and preached a
doctrine of advancing to within firing range and open-
ing accurate shellfire while still outside the presumed
reach of enemy torpedoes. The Americans had yet to
encounter the Long Lance, and those fearsome weapons
would prove terrible not only in their effect, but in their
numbers.
The Japanese fleet approaching Guadalcanal at the
beginning of August 1942 was laden with vast stores
of the Type 93, and its sailors were expert in their use.
The US/Australian naval task force guarding the Ma-
rine beachhead carried few torpedoes. Those they did
have were of inferior quality and the seamen weren’t
proficient in night combat. For a navy eager to sustain
the momentum of its recent victories at Coral Sea and
Midway, a disaster was in the works.
World at War 27
2/11/10 4:27:16 PM
 Imperial Japanese seapower: Furutaka class heavy cruiser.
Vice Adm. Gunichi Mikawa began assembling his
Cruiser Division VI on 7 August. His four heavy cruis-
ers were joined by the elderly light cruisers Yubari and
Tenryu and the equally aged destroyer Yunagi. From
aboard his flagship, the heavy cruiser Chokai, Mikawa
had dispatched the old transports Meiyo Maru and Soya
with 519 rifle-armed sailors in hope of reinforcing the
land forces straining to shove the Marines from their
tiny perimeter and back into the Pacific. That small troop
convoy chanced into Lt. Commander Henry Munson’s
submarine S-38. That boat had been built in 1909 and
was therefore armed with older, but reliable, Mark X
torpedoes that featured simple and dependable contact
detonators. When Munson put one of his torpedoes into
Meiyo Maru, she sank swiftly, taking 373 with her.
Victor through Seapower: Vice Adm. Gunichi Mikawa.
28 #11
WaW11 Issue.indd 28
That was just one foreboding factor Mikawa had to
consider before moving to battle with his main force.
Another came from the fact that, though the crews of
Division VI’s heavy cruisers were a sharply honed team,
the other ships in the hastily gathered assembly were
strangers to each other and were therefore unlikely
to perform harmoniously together in combat. Also,
Mikawa’s shortage of destroyers would leave his force
vulnerable to the fate of Meiyo Maru. Without those
smaller craft to screen the more ponderous vessels
from enemy subs, the flotilla was susceptible to having
its presence detected and betrayed by those undersea
prowlers. Apart from Yunagi, however, there simply
were no other destroyers available. In what was an
uncharacteristic move for the Japanese Navy, Mikawa
decided the risk was acceptable.
On the morning of 8 August, Japanese reconnaissance
aircraft flying out of Rabaul located the US supply ship
anchorage off Guadalcanal. The airmen also counted
three heavy cruisers, several destroyers and 13 cargo
carriers moored off the small adjacent island of Tulagi.
Moving his command to an out-of-the-way location east
of Bouganville, he catapulted three floatplanes aloft later
that same morning. Those craft spotted more ships off
Lunga Point, on the opposite side of Tulagi from the
other vessels.
At that moment a twin-engine Hudson bomber
buzzed the Japanese ships. Chokai’s anti-aircraft gunners
opened up and drove it away. Knowing his ships had
been reported, and would therefore soon be attacked,
Mikawa dispersed them and made ready to defend against
torpedo planes. In a never-solved mystery, however, the
Hudson’s aircrew either didn’t report their sighting, or
sounded the alarm only to have it somehow ignored. It’s
possible the airmen thought friendly vessels had mis-
takenly fired on them. Either way, a delighted Mikawa
soon thereafter watched the onset of darkness without
having sighted any other enemy planes.
2/11/10 4:27:16 PM
 He also turned his fleet south at 24 knots, and though
still troubled by his ignorance of the American aircraft
carriers’ whereabouts, he made his approach into New
Georgia Sound. By 6:30 p.m. all his warships were fully
battle-ready, and he sent a blinker signal to his crews:
“In the finest tradition of the Imperial Navy, we shall
engage the enemy in night battle. Every man is expected
to do his utmost.”
The Americans and Australians had set up a multi-
layered defense grid of long-range search aircraft
and radar-equipped picket destroyers. A mixed inner
perimeter of cruisers and destroyers was also in place
to provide a screen of floating artillery to shield the
vulnerable beachhead and supply ships in case the Japa-
nese should penetrate that far. On paper it appeared the
patterns the search planes were flying couldn’t help but
cover the whole region. In practice, the patterns proved
half-blind. Plotting the course: Rear Adm. Turner.
US Navy Catalina “flying boats” patrolled the sea malfunctioned. Those technical failings were an open secret
north and northwest of Guadalcanal, watching for any throughout the Allied command; so not all commanders
Japanese vessels that might approach from Truk. Hud- believed the air net was adequate to scan all passages that
sons flown by Royal Australian Air Force pilots from might accommodate an enemy strike force.
airfields around Milne Bay, New Guinea, covered the One such skeptic, Vice Adm. Frank Fletcher, com-
south and southwest sectors. Twenty 11th Bomb Group manding carrier Task Force 61, recommended the planes
B-17 Flying Fortresses watched the western approaches. patrolling above New Georgia Sound should time their
The Catalinas and Fortresses were equipped with new searches so they reached the end of their outbound flights
ASE surface-search radar sets. Those new devices could at dusk, which would’ve allowed for both visual and ra-
detect surface craft from as far away as 25 miles, but dar scans of the area. Nobody acted on Fletcher’s advice,
there were still bugs their systems and they frequently however; so on the afternoon of 8 August, Mikawa’s fleet

World at War 29

WaW11 Issue.indd 29 2/11/10 4:27:18 PM


eluded Allied aerial reconnaissance. Fletcher was also
unaware his request for enhanced reconnaissance had
been ignored. He assumed planes were thoroughly
patrolling this most likely route of approach; so, when
he received no reports of danger he believed there truly
was none.
Amazingly, several non-reconnaissance aircraft
sighted Cruiser Division VI, but their reports went
unheeded. As Mikawa’s cruisers began their high-
speed advance, they were spotted by B-17s returning
from a raid on Rabaul, and sometime later a second
B-17 flight noted the Japanese flotilla churning down
St. George’s Channel. Most significant was a dispatch
from S-38 about what had sounded to her skipper like
two destroyers and three heavy cruisers passing by 7:42
p.m. No one informed Guadalcanal’s Allied naval forces
commander, Rear Adm. Richmond Kelly Turner, of any
of those reports.
At the same time, an area the Americans called “Sec-
tor II” was left entirely uncovered by search planes that
night due to bad weather, and it was that tract Mikawa
used to make his final approach. Precisely as Fletcher had
feared, the raiders neared their destination at 5:00 p.m.
Japanese heavy cruiser Chokai, Mikawa’s flagship.
30 #11
WaW11 Issue.indd 30
As the attack took shape, then, the Americans
and Australians were caught unwary and
vulnerable in the gathering twilight.
Early that afternoon Fletcher had
received a report that twin-engine Japanese
torpedo bombers had been spotted over
Guadalcanal at noon, and he had therefore
made the most critical error of the many
Allied miscues leading up to the battle.
Americans had first come to dread those tor-
pedo-carrying planes at Pearl Harbor. They
also wrought mayhem during the Battle of
Coral Sea, when they sank the aircraft carrier
Lexington, and when they bagged the carrier
Yorktown at Midway. Learning the feared
“Betty” torpedo planes were prowling his
vicinity unnerved Fletcher, and he ordered
his carriers to withdraw southeast to a safe
distance from air attack. With those flattops
no longer present to provide air cover, the
transports and their remaining guardians were even
more vulnerable to the coming assault.
Yet another chance had been missed when the pilots
of two Milne Bay-based Hudsons, which overflew the
Japanese at 10:25 and 11:00 a.m., respectively, failed
to broadcast immediate radio reports of their sight-
ings, instead waiting until they landed back on New
Guinea to sound the alarm. Even when they did give
their belated report, they also seriously underestimated
the speed of the vessels they’d seen. It was dark by the
time Turner got word of those sightings and, since the
dispatch indicated the ships were moving at just 15
knots, he calculated they wouldn’t reach Guadalcanal
that night. Lastly, the airmen also got wrong the task
force’s heading, leading Turner to conclude it likely
wasn’t even coming his way.
Nevertheless, the overall situation struck him as suf-
ficiently worrisome to summon Vandergrift and British
Rear Adm. Victor A.C. Crutchley, the latter in command
of Cruiser Task Force 44 (Hobart, Chicago, Canberra
and Australia) to his flagship McCawley to discuss the
situation. With Fletcher already having departed with
his carriers, the conference meant every senior Allied
commander was away from his unit.
As the Japanese steamed down Savo Sound, still
remaining undetected by hiding behind the 1,673 foot
height of Savo Island, Crutchley positioned Australia,
Canberra and Chicago to the south to watch for raiders
that might approach from the west. The northern pas-
sage was staked out by Vincennes, Quincy and Astoria.
Crutchley failed to make certain the captains of those
northern and southern groups were aware of each other’s
positions. He then also set out his nine destroyers as
anti-submarine pickets seaward of the transports, except
for two he placed as additional sentinels west of the
cruisers.
2/11/10 4:27:19 PM
 When one of his staff told him the new radar sets’
effective detection range was really only 12 to 14 miles,
Turner ordered his ships to make 6.5 mile patrol pat-
terns that weren’t synchronized with each other. That
worked to leave gaps in the coverage the radar operators
wouldn’t be able to scan. In fact, those mechanisms’ truly
dependable range was just four to 10 miles, but even
that area was further shrunk due the nearness of Savo
Island. Close proximity to land caused false returns, but
that fact was unknown to their operators.
At 11:30 p.m. the usual late-night thunderstorms
formed east of Savo Island and drifted directly into the
path of the onrushing attackers, further cloaking them
from aerial and shipboard spotters. Apart from superior
training, weaponry and tactics, the Japanese strike force
was thereby further blessed by fortunate weather.
As the raiders hurtled down the passage the USS
Blue, an old picket destroyer, chanced to cut directly
in front of them, but the lookouts were concentrating
on navigation landmarks to the east and didn’t notice
the fleet bearing down from the opposite direction. Mo-
WaW11 Issue.indd 31
ments later, at 12:43 a.m., the Japanese passed unnoticed
just behind the destroyer Ralph Talbot, one of the few
torpedo-armed Allied ships in the area.
The Japanese had gone to full battle stations at mid-
night, and accelerated to 26 knots while moving into
final attack formation. From Chokai, Mikawa led Aoba,
Kako, Kinugasa, Furutaka, Tenryu, Yubari and Yunagi.
Minutes before 1:00 a.m. on the morning of 9 August,
the squadron was still undetected as it passed south of
Savo Island. At 1:33, Mikawa broke radio silence to
order his captains to increase speed to 30 knots, then
yelled into his microphone: “All ships attack!”
Surging from a curtain of rain, Chokai uncorked
four torpedoes at the Australian cruiser Canberra, with
Furutaka and Aoba swiftly following. That trio also
opened fire with their guns at the white-painted cruiser
and quickly set her ablaze despite all their torpedoes
having missed.
Seaman Burt Warren was four levels below Can-
berra’s deck when she absorbed 24 direct hits. He
World at War 31
2/11/10 4:27:19 PM
 later recalled clambering up through the ship’s hellish
interior. The black, smoke-filled, sweltering confines
were far more terrifying than anything could have been
on the exploding topside. He said: “To get some fresh
air was of prime importance. To not only survive, but
to breathe.”
Within five minutes Canberra was dead in the water,
her crew decimated and her radios inoperable. Strain-
ing against her 30-degree starboard list, the survivors
watched in horror as their attackers sped past them, guns
still blazing, deeper into the harbor.
At 1:46 a.m., Chicago’s helmsman jerked her hard
to port to dodge two torpedoes lookouts had spotted
approaching, but seconds later another torpedo ripped
open her starboard bow. Capt. Howard Bode turned
his wounded ship west to face the Japanese and pres-
ent them with the smallest possible target. Searching
wildly for the still-invisible enemy, Chicago’s gunners
managed to discern some unfamiliar vessels attacking
the destroyer Patterson. Opening up with his five-inch
rifles, Bode killed 23 of Tenryu’s sailors with a direct
hit, but then held to a static position west of the harbor
as the fighting moved south. Even more puzzling, he
failed to broadcast a radio report of the battle; how-
ever, by this time the Patterson’s skipper, Commander
32 #11
WaW11 Issue.indd 32
Frank Walker, was desperately filling the airwaves with
shouts of: “Warning! Warning! Strange ships entering
harbor!”
Walker’s gunners gamely cut loose on Tenryu, Yubari
and Kinugasa, pumping five-inchers at them until 2:10
a.m., when he received a radio message from Crutchley
telling him to disengage and rendezvous with the Allied
destroyer contingent.
After just seven minutes, Turner’s southern cruiser
force was blazing wreckage, and Mikawa turned north.
The rainsquall was still roiling between the Allied south-
ern and northern cruiser anchorages. That downpour,
with its incessant lightning and thunder, had concealed
the raiders’ approach and masked the cannonades,
muzzle flashes and explosions when Mikawa assaulted
the southern group. As the Japanese moved away from
their crippled and sinking victims to re-enter the storm,
Furutaka, Tenryu and Yubari became separated from the
rest of the fleet and emerged from the weather in single
file slightly west of their sister ships. That unplanned
positioning placed the attackers on parallel courses
that would trap their quarry between them in a killing
crossfire.
At 1:48 a.m., Mikawa lined up his forward torpedo
tubes on Vincennes and fired a four-shot spread from
2/11/10 4:27:20 PM
 12,000 yards. Those shots missed, but seconds later
Vincennes, Quincy and Wilson were caught in the blind-
ing rays of searchlights from Chokai, Kako and Aoba.
At 1:51 that trio began firing their main batteries on
their startled victims. After just four minutes, the Al-
lied warships were hurt and no longer in condition to
retaliate, but by that time their attackers had begun to
lose formation, making it difficult for both sides to tell
friend from foe.
Astoria’s crew remained unwary, and most were still
sleeping when Chokai fastened her spotlights on their
ship. By coincidence, gunnery officer Lt. Commander
William H. Truesdell was near the main battery direc-
tor when Mikawa’s first salvo roiled the water around
the US cruiser. Truesdell instantly rang the bridge and
recommended general quarters, but watch supervisor
Lt. Commander James R. Topper did nothing. Realizing
time was waning, Truesdell independently ordered the
main batteries to begin firing. Astoria’s skipper, Capt.
William G. Greenman, stumbled half-asleep onto the
bridge and asked Topper who’d given the order to fire.
When his subordinate professed ignorance, Greenman
said: “Topper, I think we are firing on our own ships.
Let’s not get too excited and act too hasty. Cease fir-
ing!”
An instant later, Truesdell came back over the
intercom, shouting: “For God’s sake give the word to
commence firing!”
With shell splashes surrounding Astoria and Quincy,
Greenman then cryptically remarked: “Whether our
ships or not, we have to stop them,” but four minutes
had already passed since the Japanese had opened fire.
It was too late.
At 2:16 a.m., Astoria was too badly damaged to still
be a threat, and it was safe for Kinugasa to give away
her own position; so she turned her light on the burn-
ing ship to make it easier to finish her. Lt. Commander
Walter B. Davidson climbed onto number two turret
and verbally directed a final salvo. Using the last of the
electric power, the gunners trained their five-inchers
on Kinugasa and fired their ship’s last volley, missing
their intended target but scoring a direct hit on Chokai
behind her. Mikawa’s main battery turret was pulver-
ized, killing or wounding 15. Seconds later Astoria’s
power fizzled and she coasted to a halt, her amidships
an inferno of oily flame.
Just before the shelling started, Quincy’s radio
operators had picked up Patterson’s wireless warning
of the oncoming strike force, and Capt. Samuel Moore
didn’t hesitate to sound general quarters. As the enemy’s
searchlights stabbed through the blackness, Moore
received radio orders to steam to 15 knots and fire on
the lights, but his main battery wasn’t yet ready. Before
the gunners could get off their first shot, Quincy was
struck by a blizzard of shellfire from Aoba, wrecking
her bridge and fantail. One round hit a floatplane in the
well deck and splattered the area with flaming gasoline
WaW11 Issue.indd 33
US light cruiser Honolulu.
from that aircraft’s fuel tank.
Furutaka and Tenryu joined in the attack, trapping
Quincy in a three-pronged crossfire. Realizing he was
sandwiched between two enemy columns, Moore or-
dered his helmsman to turn hard to starboard to avoid
colliding with Vincennes. That maneuver set Quincy on
a direct heading for the eastern group of Japanese cruis-
ers, earning her instant admiration from the Japanese
for what they called her crew’s “great spirit.”
At 2:04 a.m., two Long Lances from Tenryu slammed
into Quincy, while Moore’s gunners fired a final broad-
side at Kako. In another incredible fluke, that salvo
also missed its intended mark and crashed into Chokai.
Mikawa’s chartroom was destroyed and 36 more of his
men killed or crippled.
At 2:10, Moore and his bridge staff were killed by
a direct hit, and at 2:16 a torpedo from Aoba holed
Quincy’s port side. With that the Japanese ceased firing
on the plainly sinking ship, and at 2:38 she sank bow
first. She became one of so many warships on the sea
floor there that the sector would be forever after known
as “Iron Bottom Sound.”
Aboard Vincennes a befuddled Capt. Frederick L.
Riefkohl tried to raise Crutchley on the radio to get
some information on the chaos and advice on what to
do. At 1:53 Kinugasa had trained her searchlight on
Vincennes, and Kako then shot at her with both main and
secondary batteries. Turning from the sinking Quincy,
Chokai joined in the shelling as Mikawa maneuvered
his eastern group to aft of the row of reeling Americans.
He was attempting the ancient naval tactic of “crossing
the T,” to align his ships across the sterns of their foes,
placing him in a position to cut loose full broadsides at
the Allies, who would in turn be unable to reply except
with their aft turrets.
With the darkness by then fully banished by fire,
muzzle flashes, flares and searchlights, Riefkohl had
no trouble making out his opponent’s intention. After
calling for 20 knots, he ordered his helmsman to turn
40 degrees to port. He next yelled for his gunners to
fire on Kinugasa. The second US volley knocked out
World at War 33
2/11/10 4:27:20 PM
 Meanwhile on the beaches: US Marines land on Guadalcanal.
the Japanese steering gear and convinced her crew to
switch off their searchlight. Not that they really needed
it anyway, for Vincennes was already burning violently.
Still, Riefkohl had disrupted Mikawa’s T-crossing
stratagem.
At 1:55, realizing what a conspicuous target his
flame-covered vessel had become, Riefkohl turned her
to starboard and asked for 25 knots in an effort to split
up the savaged group of warships, making them smaller
than one fat, inviting target. Before Vincennes could get
underway, though, a Long Lance from Chokai shattered
her forward port hull, and Tenryu and Furutaka opened
fire on her with their deck guns. At 2:03 Yubari drilled
a torpedo into her number one fire room, killing every
man there and silencing her last operable battery.
Still wondering if he was possibly coming under
friendly fire, Riefkohl ordered a different set of colors
hoisted. That confused the Japanese into thinking they
were pummeling one of their own ships. For seven
minutes they ceased fire, but by 2:13 Mikawa and his
officers realized all their boats were accounted for and
resumed hammering Vincennes. At 2:30 Riefkohl gave
the order to abandon ship. At 2:58 she slipped to the
bottom.
After finishing that latest victim, the Japanese pin-
cers resumed closing toward the northeast. At 2:18 the
destroyer Ralph Talbot had slipped alongside Yubari
in hope of staying unnoticed long enough to loose a
spread of torpedoes, but the cruiser’s crew instantly
34 #11
WaW11 Issue.indd 34
spotted the shadow beside them and wrecked her with
five direct hits. Only the storm saved the Talbot as she
lurched under the cloud cover, eventually making her
way to a shallow anchorage off Savo.
While Yubari’s gunners were crippling the Talbot,
Mikawa gathered his command staff. Despite his
squadron’s having sustained no serious damage, and its
having plenty of ammunition remaining, it had totally
lost formation. The admiral and his officers estimated
it would take two hours to re-assemble and deploy for
an attack on the transports. That would leave only one
hour of darkness and, if the American carriers were
already en route back to the area, the dreaded Dauntless
dive-bombers that had wrought such havoc at Midway
would likely intercept the raiders before they could
reach a safe distance. There was also the possibility
that, if they departed right away, the attackers might
use themselves as bait to coax the vengeful American
carrier commander into following them to within range
of torpedo planes based on Rabaul.
There was no disputing they had already won a
smashing victory. Further, the overconfident Japanese
Army commander on Guadalcanal, Lt. Gen. Harukichi
Hyakutake, had assured Mikawa his land forces could
easily defeat the Marines even if the US transports were
spared. Hyakutake’s main worry had been that Turner’s
offshore artillery would support the Americans fighting
on the island, and that threat had been eliminated. The
surviving Allied heavy ships had quit the area and were
steaming east at best speed.
2/11/10 4:27:21 PM
 At 2:20, then, Mikawa ordered his fleet to withdraw.
That flabbergasted some of his captains, who’d never
dreamed their admiral would fail to perform the final,
vital, and relatively easy task of destroying the helpless
enemy supply flotilla. Those half-full freighters were in
fact much more significant than Mikawa and Hyakutake
realized, and their being spared would prove the omission
that tilted the overall campaign against the Japanese.
Though he grudgingly complied with the order to
come about and head west, Kinugasa’s Capt. Masao
Sawa shot every one of his starboard torpedoes from their
tubes in a futile effort to strike the transport anchorage
13 miles away. Aboard Chokai, Capt. Mikio Hayakawa
pleaded vainly with Mikawa to stay and destroy the
cargo ships. By 3:40 a.m., though, all the raiders had
regained formation and set out for home.
As Cruiser Division VI neared Kavieng on the morn-
ing of 10 August, it was intercepted by US submarine
S-44. Lt. Commander John Moore stalked to just 700
yards from Kako and pumped three old-model torpedoes
into her at 9:10 a.m. Five minutes later she went down
along with 71 of her crew. Despite that setback, Mikawa
had mauled the Allied naval force off Guadalcanal with
all the ferocity of a second Pearl Harbor, and he’d done
so at a cost to his command of just 129 killed and 85
wounded.
In the debris-choked waters around Savo Island,
Quincy and Vincennes were already on the bottom. The
fires on Canberra were held somewhat in check by the
pounding rain, but Turner soon realized the mangled
vessel was beyond salvaging; so at 8:00 he had the
destroyer Ellet sink her with a torpedo.
The deluge also delayed Astoria’s last rites. Her
blazing topside was largely extinguished by the storm,
but internal fires continued to spread. With her insides
wracked by explosions, the last of her men evacuated
at 12:05 p.m. Ten minutes later she rolled onto her port
side and sank stern first.
Like his Japanese counterpart, Fletcher also disre-
garded good advice from his officers. His subordinate,
Adm. Leigh Noyes, strangely refused to forward reports
of the cruiser engagement to him until after it was over.
Even after Fletcher finally saw the battle dispatches,
after 5:00 a.m., he declined to come about to pursue
the Japanese, citing his fear of enemy airpower from
nearby Rabaul. He wasn’t swayed by arguments he
could launch dive-bombers and torpedo planes against
the withdrawing strike force while retaining most of
his fighters in case Japanese aircraft appeared. The US
carriers Mikawa had so feared kept a timid distance.
Fletcher also refused to return to Guadalcanal to
provide air cover for the continued unloading of the
transports. At 2:15 p.m. on the 10th he turned over to
Turner his position as Expeditionary Force Commander.
Though the aircraft carriers were long gone, the new
commanding admiral made a gutsy decision to return
and furnish whatever protection he could to the freight-
WaW11 Issue.indd 35
ers despite his destroyers and remaining cruisers being
dangerously vulnerable to air attack.
Though heavily damaged, Jarvis escaped the combat
zone and steamed to what her crew assumed to be the
safe distance of 130 miles southwest of Savo. At 7:40
a.m., however, she was attacked and sunk by 31 planes
from Mikawa’s 25th Air Flotilla. It was actually a triumph
for the hapless destroyer, which went down with all
hands. Her presence distracted the Japanese from the
transports, which were again crucially spared. On that
evening of 9 August, Turner assembled the remnants of
his task force and shepherded the now-empty merchant-
men eastward.
Vandergriff’s Marines were now alone and encircled,
but they had just enough arms, food and medical sup-
plies to sustain them until help could again arrive. The
Japanese land force engaged against them would soon
be defeated in battles at the Tenaru River and the heights
overlooking Henderson Airfield. When the Japanese at-
tempted an offensive to assault the American perimeter
from the interior of the island, large numbers of their
troops became lost in the jungle and wandered aimlessly
until they succumbed to starvation and tropical diseases
or were killed or captured by Vandergriff’s men. Had
Mikawa finished his assignment, those Marines would
have had insufficient ammunition to defend themselves
and would almost certainly have lost Guadalcanal.
Japanese over-caution saved the Allies.
A total of 1,077 Americans and Australians died
in the Battle of Savo Island, while another 700 were
wounded. When Jarvis went down later that morning,
she took with her 233 more. In November, further sea
combat dumped more hundreds of thousands of tons of
wrecked warships into Iron Bottom Sound. More than a
half-century later, undersea explorers are still shocked
at the number of dead vessels littering the sea floor.
Roar of guns: cruiser delivers a broadside.
World at War 35
2/11/10 4:27:22 PM

Night action: muzzle blast illuminates the night.
When a beaming Mikawa made it home, he was
stunned to learn Yamamoto wasn’t pleased with his
incomplete triumph. Yamamoto understood his navy’s
reverses in the recent battles of Coral Sea and Midway
had given the initiative and momentum to the Americans.
Off Savo Island, Mikawa could’ve reversed that while
also securing the Solomons as a base of operations for
resurgent Japanese air and sea offensives.
Following the battle, the US secretary of the navy
ordered Adm. Arthur J. Hepburn to convene a board of
inquiry to clarify the causes for the humiliating defeat.
Hepburn dug tirelessly into every aspect of the affair.
After his comprehensive review, he summarized the
overriding reason for the tragedy as: “The complete
surprise achieved by the enemy.”
He in turn blamed the fleet’s being taken unaware
on its poor state of readiness for night combat, the com-
mand structure’s failure to react to repeated sightings of
enemy forces, along with an over-reliance on obviously
inadequate radar, inefficient communications and insuf-
ficient aerial reconnaissance. Hepburn also cited the
departure of the carriers as an inexcusable action in that
it made it impossible to strike back at the withdrawing
enemy.
36 #11
WaW11 Issue.indd 36
After Crutchley’s departure the evening before the
battle, Capt. Bode was left in charge of the southern
cruiser group. Rather than position his vessel Chicago
at the head of the line of warships, as was customary for
an element’s command ship, Bode left Chicago moored
behind Canberra. He wanted to avoid tricky nighttime
maneuvering, and nobody had bothered to tell him
Crutchley wouldn’t be returning. By not being at the
head of the line, Bode was unable to effectively com-
mand his cruisers when the shooting started. Hepburn
also castigated him for maintaining a static position west
of Savo Island as the fighting moved south, and for not
broadcasting radio reports of the developing attack.
Last, late in the battle, Bode misidentified a vessel he
saw ahead of him as he moved Chicago into the combat
zone. Bode had his gunners open fire on that ship after
it failed to respond to three signals. It turned out to be
the USS Patterson, which was picking up survivors
from Canberra, and whose crew was too preoccupied to
notice the signals from Chicago. Fortunately the salvo
missed.
After Hepburn concluded his investigation and sub-
mitted his findings to Adm. Nimitz, Bode’s sins became
public knowledge. Unwilling to face a court-martial, he
committed suicide, thus becoming the final casualty of
the Battle of Savo Island.
Mikawa’s raid worked to permanently banish the last
vestiges of American complacency and overconfidence.
The US Navy thereafter grimly set to cautiously and
resolutely defeating a determined, skilled enemy they’d
only tardily learned to respect. Savo Island was the last
major Japanese naval victory of the Second World War.
There would doubtless have been more were it not for
the lessons the US Navy command ruefully learned that
dark and stormy night.
at
Sources
Ballard, Robert. The Lost Fleet of Guadalcanal, Madison Publish-
ing, 1993.
Congdon, Don (ed.) Combat: Pacific Theater, Dell Publishing,
1958.
Frank, Richard B. Guadalcanal: The Definitive Account of the Land-
mark Battle, Random House, 1990.
Hammel, Eric. Guadalcanal: Starvation Island, Crown Publishers,
Inc., 1987.
Manchester, William. Goodbye, Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific
War, Dell Publishing, 1979.
2/11/10 4:27:26 PM
 CeLeBraTinG 35 Years!
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WaW11 Issue.indd 37 2/11/10 4:27:27 PM

 World at War No. 13:
Game Preview Guards Tank: The Battle of Prochorovka, July 1943
Guards Tank: The Battle of Prochorovka, July 1943
(GT), designed by Joseph Miranda, the first of our
new East Front Battles Series (EFBS), will be the
game appearing in issue number 13. The EFBS
will present operational simulations of medium-to-
large-sized battles fought on that front. There will
be two players in each game, and solitaire play is
easily doable.
There are two general types of units in the
counter-mix: maneuver (non-artillery) and artillery.
In addition, certain units are classed as “armored.”
Individual units vary in organizational size from
companies to regiments.
The action in GT is focused on the Kursk
offensive’s southern front, as the SS Panzer Corps
breaks through the Soviet main line of resistance,
held by elements of 6th Guards Army. The German
spearheads are then met by a counterattack from 5th
Guards Tank Army. What followed was one of the
38 #11
WaW11 Issue.indd 38
more controversial battles of World War II. There’s
still historical debate about its significance. Some
claim German tank losses here made it the turning
point of the war in the east. Others say German losses
were exaggerated; it was the Red Army that suffered
massively, and the Germans actually called off the
offensive for strategic reasons. Here is your chance to
explore those interpretations.
Each hex in GT represents one kilometer (0.62
miles) from side to opposite side. Each game turn
represents a day. There’s a nine-turn short scenario
and a 13-turn long scenario. The rules weigh in at a
little under 14,000 words. Two experienced players
can complete the short scenario in about four hours.
Rules cover such items as: reinforcements, replace-
ments, command-control, zones of control, adjacent
and ranged combat, first and second wave combat,
suppression, anti-tank fire, airpower, weather, fog of
war, supply, untried units, and special tactics.
2/11/10 4:27:28 PM
 I Remember
Charles Darrow
I was born in Toronto in 1922 who I really respected. Their danger.
and was raised through the hard arrival on the scene in December You left your parachute in the
times of the Depression, when 1943 changed everything. Those cockpit the night before you were
dinner often consisted of corn- planes could range all over Ger- scheduled to fly. The next morn-
meal pancakes with butter. Times many, strafing Luftwaffe planes on ing you went for a briefing well
were tough, but in many ways the ground and wiping them from before dawn, and you got into
I think it prepared me and my the skies. They also escorted the your plane when it was still dark.
generation for the war that lay heavy bombers into every corner You took off, returned for a quick
ahead; we weren’t pampered and of the Reich and back again. By bathroom break and smoke, and
we were used to sacrifice. I stud- the time I arrived, I therefore then repeated the routine.
ied machine shop in a technical hardly ever saw German fighters. One time I returned from my
school and was lucky enough to The attrition of war, the effects second mission of the day and
get a job at DeHavilland Aircraft of round-the-clock bombing, and was told by the ground crew my
in Toronto, making parts for Tiger the over-whelming numbers of parachute needed to be repacked;
Moth trainers and other airplanes. the Allied aircraft had ended the so they gave me a new one.
When World War II broke out Luftwaffe as a viable force. When I returned again later, the
in 1939, I immediately wanted Because of that lack of enemy ground crew told me someone
to join the Air Force and be- fighter opposition, we of 416 had actually packed my first chute
come a fighter pilot, but severe Squadron spent most of our time with blankets. Parachute silk was
sinus trouble prevented me from patrolling, dive bombing and extremely valuable; so someone
initially being accepted into the strafing. We flew on alternating had stolen it during the night. I
pilot program. I had to spend days, generally three missions per imagine someone’s fiancé got a
six months getting my sinuses day. Flying became a routine but, nice silk wedding dress. It was a
drained before the Air Force even though German aircraft were good thing I didn’t need to bail
deemed me fit to fly and would rarely encountered, there was out.
allow me to undergo the training still always a strong element of
to get my wings. While I success-
fully completed pilot training,
I didn’t get a commission as an
officer; so I was sent overseas as
a “Sergeant Pilot.” To my eternal
joy, I was assigned to fly the
Spitfires of 416 Squadron, out of
Bornemouth, England.
The Spitfire was a beautiful
aircraft, and its maneuverability
and ruggedness saved me more
than a few times. I had one shot
to pieces, and still it managed to
get me home. That’s how solid the
Spitfire was. She was a lady to fly.
I didn’t see my first action un-
til after D-Day, by which time the
Luftwaffe had been chased from
the skies over France. A lot of
that was due to the P-51 Mustang
pilots of the US Army Air Force, Battle over Britain: Spitfires fly in formation.
World at War 39

WaW11 Issue.indd 39 2/11/10 4:27:29 PM

 Worse, the Air Force wanted
me to pay for the missing para-
chute, since technically it was still
part of my “personal gear.” There
was no way I was going to do
that. Thankfully, our airfield was
strafed by German planes around
that time, and I was able to write
off the ‘chute as having been
“destroyed in the attack.”
I’ll admit I was scared a lot
during the war, but I reasoned
if everyone else could perform
despite their fear so could I. It
also helped that I flew with some
intrepid guys, men whose heroism
inspired me. Their professional-
ism and fearlessness made me
want to live up to their standards
in order to do the squadron proud.
That motivation allowed me to get
past most of the fear. Still, there
were moments of sheer terror that
proved impossible to forget and
which remain vivid to this day.
There was one time I was
scared as hell. I remember it like
it was yesterday. We were escort-
ing American Marauder bombers
into Germany when the number
two aircraft in our formation
called and said he couldn’t switch
to his main tank from his drop
tank. That meant he was going to
run out of gas during the course
of the mission. Our commander
told him to return home and also
ordered me to go back with him
as escort.
We turned for France and
made for the quickest route out
of Germany. We could just see
the River Rhine and the French
border in the distance when my
wingman said: “I’m not going to
make it.”
He was running on empty and
losing altitude fast. He was going
to have to bail out over German-
controlled territory, and there was
nothing we could do about it.
40 #11
WaW11 Issue.indd 40
Then things got a lot worse.
We were just under 1,000 feet
when two anti-aircraft guns
opened up on us. I didn’t want to
attack the guns, since my wing-
man was going to go down nearby
and I didn’t want them to take
revenge on him; so all I could do
was try to evade the artillery. The
guns had me in a crossfire; so it
was a hairy three minutes. Shells
were screaming around as I slid
and jinked, but they never got
me. I was just out of their range,
back up at 1,200 feet, when I flew
over another group of flak guns.
Once again I was surrounded by
a hail of bullets, but I somehow
managed to get out of range of
them as well. When I got home,
I kissed the ground. That was the
closest I came to dying.
Despite hundreds of hours
of flight time, I was only ever
in one dogfight, and it was near
the end of the war. I was part
of a four-plane patrol when we
saw six Focke-Wolfe 190s in the
clouds above us. We climbed
toward them and were about to
engage when I saw the glint of
six more 190s in the sun above
us. I saw the flashes from their
machineguns as they opened fire
on us, and I had just enough time
to react. I called a warning and
turned into the enemy. One of the
bullets hit my radio, just missing
my head.
By that stage of the war, Ger-
many’s pool of experienced pilots
was almost drained; so we were
facing young and hastily trained
men. Their tactics were poor and
they lacked the confidence to take
us on; so they fled after a few
moments. We chased them over
Hamburg, but our Spitfires had
little chance of catching Focke-
Wolfe 190s, and we were eventu-
ally forced to turn back when flak
batteries opened up on us. When
we landed I made sure to extract
that bullet from my radio as a
souvenir of my only dogfight, and
I still have it today.
Despite the fear I felt at the
time, those close-run experiences
didn’t sour me on flying. In fact,
after the war ended, I joined a
reserve squadron in Toronto and
became its commanding officer,
eventually retiring as a wing
commander. I got to fly several jet
planes, including the Voodoo, but
nothing ever compared to the ex-
perience of flying Spitfires. It was
simply one of the most beautiful
planes of all time.
Even today, many years later,
I’m still passionate about flying,
about fighter aircraft, and about
the men with whom I served.
Serving in the Royal Canadian Air
Force during World War II, flying
Spitfires, and fighting alongside
those great guys was something
I’d happily do again.
~Charles Darrow, as told to
Andrew Hind
Attention readers: We’re always look-
ing for authors for FYI for Strategy &
Tactics and Observation Post for World
at War. If you’d like to try your hand
at writing short (under 2,000 words),
pithy articles for this column, on virtu-
ally any aspect of WWII military his-
tory, contact Ty Bomba, FYI editor, at:
WhiteRook@att.net.
2/11/10 4:27:29 PM
 True Action Adventure
HMS Li Wo
When recalling the fighting of
early 1942, one often thinks of the
desperate struggles for Singapore
or the Philippines, the inexorable
triumph of the Japanese as they
overran poorly protected colonies
and defeated ineffectual Allied
navy units, such as at Java Sea.
Most accounts don’t appreciate
the gallantry of the Allied person-
nel thrown into those desperate
situations, who often rose far
above what anyone could reason-
ably have expected of them. One
of those remarkable tales was
that of HMS Li Wo, a ship in the
wrong place at the wrong time.
Originally named the SS Li
Wo, she was a riverboat, a 1,000-
ton passenger vessel designed to
face the rapids of the Upper Yang-
tse Kiang River. Shallow draught,
Li Wo had never been intended as
an ocean-going vessel. When Ja-
pan declared war on the Western
powers, she and her captain, Tom
Wilkinson, a native of Widnes,
Lancashire, and the son of Capt.
William Wilkinson, were pressed
into service. He was made a
temporary lieutenant in the Royal
Naval Reserve, and the ship was
re-commissioned as HMS Li Wo.
The ship was given arma-
ment of a single four-inch gun
and two machineguns, and was
manned with an assortment of
people, many of them civilians:
34 Europeans, 10 Malayans and
six Chinese. The rest of the crew
was made up survivors from other
ships and services: some were
from the disastrous reinforcement
of HMS Repulse and HMS Prince
of Wales, along with 19 other
Navy ratings, five Army and two
RAF.
WaW11 Issue.indd 41
The small steamer made a
breakout from Singapore and was
traveling toward Australia when
it ran into two Japanese invasion
forces heading to the island of Su-
matra. Off the port bow they spot-
ted a force of eight transports, the
cruiser Sendai and four destroy-
ers. Off the starboard they saw the
cruiser Chokai, four destroyers
and another 14 transports. Li Wo
was already in poor shape, having
been shot at during the previous
24 hours by no fewer than 58 air-
craft during four separate attacks.
Both the hull and superstructure
were full of bullet holes, and the
radio room was barely function-
ing. Even at the best of times they
would’ve been hard-pressed to
make a successful run for it.
Realizing escape was impos-
sible, Wilkinson called the crew
together and told them he intend-
ed to do his duty as an “officer in
the proper navy” and close with
the enemy. More specifically, he
meant to get as close to an enemy
transport as he could and then
sink it. The crew readily agreed.
They worked frantically to get the
boilers to as high a steam pressure
as they could, setting a course
directly toward the lead transport,
steaming straight past the leading
escorts.
The Japanese seemed to take
no note of the little riverboat until
it unfurled the battle ensign of
the Royal Navy and started firing
its four-incher. It was only then
the Japanese realized something
was up, but not until after the
lead transport had taken a number
of direct hits and was set afire.
Incredibly, the entire engagement
lasted an hour, and survivors
reported they saw Wilkinson still
standing when the Li Wo was
finally sunk by being rammed.
The Japanese, seldom merciful
at even the best of times, contin-
ued to fire at all those in the water
and in lifeboats. The lead destroy-
er then charged through Li Wo’s
wreckage, attempting to run down
any further survivors. Neverthe-
less, eight survivors did get away,
all crammed into one lifeboat,
along with three others who clung
to a large piece of wreckage.
Eventually they landed on Baka
Island, where the Japanese later
captured them and sent them off
to a POW camp. Seven survived
that ordeal, and thus were able to
tell their tale after the end of the
war. The men of the Li Wo were
eventually officially recognized
for their bravery, and a complete
list of citations for the action is as
follows.
Victoria Cross
Temp. Lt. Thomas Wilkinson, RNR
Distinguished Service Order
Temp. Sub-Lt. Ronald G. G. Stanton, RNR
Conspicuous Gallantry Medal
Acting Petty Off. Arthur William Thompson
Distinguished Service Medal
Leading Seaman Victor Spencer
Distinguished Service Medal
Able Seaman Albert Spendlove
Mentioned in Despatches (Posthumously)
Temp. Lt. Edgar Neil Derbridge, RNZNV,
Temporary Sub Lieut. J. G. Petherbridge,
Malaya RNVR, Able Seaman Desmond
Palmer
Mentioned in Despatches
Acting Chief Petty Officer Charles Halme
Rogers, Leading Seaman William Dick
Wilding, Able Seaman John Smith
~David March
World at War 41
2/11/10 4:27:30 PM
 Mysteries Revealed
Surprise Attack at Clark Field
One of the many mysteries of
World War II was the near total
destruction of the Philippine Air
Force on 8 December 1941. Sev-
eral hours after the surprise attack
on Pearl Harbor, Japanese aircraft
caught US Army Air Corps
bombers on the ground, despite
messages received from Hawaii
stating hostilities had begun. The
question then arises: how could
Gen. MacArthur’s primary strike
force have been destroyed at
almost no cost to the attackers?
As with many historical myster-
ies, the answer is woven into a
complex web of politics, finance,
ego, and errors in judgment.
Having acquired the Philip-
pines as a protectorate following
the Spanish-American War in
1898, the US was obligated to
defend them until their planned
independence in 1946. As ten-
High altitude raiders: B-17s and contrails.
42 #11
WaW11 Issue.indd 42
sions mounted between the US
and Japan, America’s leaders were
confronted with the challenge of
protecting a territory that seemed
indefensible. The American
populace was isolationist and in
no mood to spend millions of dol-
lars and its soldiers’ blood to deter
hostile action thousands of miles
away from the homeland. Further,
the US military had just begun to
rearm and expand in 1940, and
there were few trained men and
little modern equipment to spare
for remote bases.
President Roosevelt therefore
chose to garrison the Philippines
with a minimum of forces, antici-
pating they would be expendable
if war came. According to the
American military’s “Rainbow”
war plans, in the event of a Japa-
nese attack in the Pacific, the Phil-
ippines would hold out as long as
possible and, if conquered, would
later be the target of an amphibi-
ous counteroffensive conducted
after the US Navy had fought its
way back across the Pacific.
That picture changed, how-
ever, when new B-17 four-en-
gine bombers became available.
Airpower advocates within the
military touted the new plane as
a weapon powerful enough to
call for a change in strategy. The
new idea called for the US to use
the heavy bombers to dominate
vast areas of the Western Pacific
from Philippine bases. It was
henceforth expected the Army
Air Corps would be able to inflict
heavy casualties on the Japanese
if they attacked anywhere near the
Philippines. That mission accom-
plished, the planes would then be
sent against the Japanese home
islands to directly punish the ag-
gressors.
Accordingly, in late 1941 a
build-up of US aircraft in the
Philippines was begun. B-17s
were flown across the Pacific as
fast as groups could be formed at
the factories. New fighters were
crated and shipped to the islands
on transport vessels. Pilots, fresh
out of training school, were
dispatched to fly the new aircraft.
At one point during that build up,
the majority of all heavy bombers
in the US inventory were slated
for service in the Philippines. The
latest-model radar sets were also
sent.
Unfortunately, there was little
infrastructure to support the new
arrivals. Airfields were still be-
ing lengthened even as the large
bombers arrived. There were few
dispersal parking areas. Aircrews
2/11/10 4:27:30 PM

Air commander of the Philippines:
Gen. Lewis Brereton.
had to be billeted in tents in a
tropical environment, which did
little for morale. There were few
anti-aircraft guns available, and
the shortage of 50 caliber ma-
chinegun ammo was so great the
guns on the newly uncrated fight-
ers weren’t even test fired.
Most importantly, though,
there was no urgency in day-
to-day operations. Gen. Lewis
Brereton had arrived on 4 Novem-
ber 1941 to take command of the
new US-Philippine Air Force. He
anticipated it would be at least
the spring of 1942 before his new
command had to be combat ready,
and he paced things accordingly.
Of course, as it turned out, he had
only a little over a month.
The setting was thus primed
for disaster. Starting the week
prior to the Japanese attack, of-
ficial “war warnings” had been
sent to Gen. MacArthur. Yet, even
when the Pearl Harbor messages
arrived on the day of that attack,
MacArthur wasn’t prepared to
discuss the situation with Brere-
ton until five hours after that air
force commander first went to see
WaW11 Issue.indd 43
him. It seems MacArthur was so
agitated by the news he simply
wasn’t able to make decisions
prior to that time.
A golden opportunity was
therefore missed to catch the
Japanese air strike force that
remained grounded by fog on
Formosa all that morning. That
force was made up of Imperial
Japanese Navy (IJN) land-based
aircraft, which were kept sitting,
loaded with fuel and bombs in
line for take off, waiting for the
local weather to clear. Had the
B-17s been dispatched when the
Pearl Harbor warning first came
in, they might well have changed
the course of the opening round of
the war in that part of the Pa-
cific. Instead it was the American
bombers that were later caught on
the ground.
When American radar picked
up targets heading for Clark Field,
the main American airbase in the
Philippines, fighters were dis-
patched and bombers were sent
clear of the field, but then the en-
emy wasn’t spotted. The radar had
picked up two Japanese recon-
naissance planes from Formosa,
which had been sent to report
target weather conditions. The B-
17s were then recalled to prepare
for the attack mission MacArthur
had just belatedly ordered. The
fighters landed and refueled.
Another radar warning was
received just before noon. That
was the main Japanese strike
force heading for Clark and Iba
Fields. Some American fighters
were again sent aloft, but two
squadrons were held in reserve on
the ground. In a series of bungles,
the interceptor group commander
ordered his planes to head south
to protect Manila instead of the
airbases farther north. He also
failed to pass any warning to the
bomber group commander.
When the Japanese arrived
over Clark Field, they found
American planes crowding the
base on the ground but none in
the air. While some fighters tried
to take off during the attack, none
were able to reach the 20,000-foot
altitude of the Japanese bomb-
ers. The US fighters to the south
were recalled too late to catch the
bombers.
There was then a second act
to the battle: the Japanese fighters
that had escorted the bombers to
the target airfields were released
to strafe once the bombers got
safely away. The American fight-
ers coming back from the south
pounced on them, hoping to
avenge the destruction they’d wit-
nessed on their airfield. To their
immediate dismay, though, the
American pilots discovered the
Japanese Zeros were superior to
their P-40s. They also found the
Japanese pilots were skilled and,
of course, their guns had been
tested.
Against 12 B-17s and 34 P-
40s destroyed, the Japanese lost
seven Zeroes and one bomber.
At the same time, most of the
Americans’ hangers and mainte-
nance facilities were also turned
to rubble and the only operational
radar station was destroyed. The
Americans thereby lost the ability
to take offensive counter-actions
against the Japanese due to the
effective neutralization of their
bases and the support structure for
launching such attacks. MacAr-
thur’s forces were thereby sud-
denly and inescapably returned to
the status of being expendable.
~Ken MacFarlane
World at War 43
2/11/10 4:27:31 PM
 Behind the Lines
Operations Island Dash & Body Snatch
On 20 November 1944,
Adolf Hitler left his eastern front
headquarters at Rastenburg for
the last time. Two days later, he
ordered Field Marshal Keitel to
prepare a plan to destroy strategic
facilities in the path of the Soviet
advance. Those locations included
the headquarters at Rastenburg,
the German Army headquarters
in the Steinnorter forest, and the
Tannenberg memorial in east
Prussia. The plan for destruction
was codenamed Fall Inselsprung
(Operation Island Dash).
The Tannenberg memorial had
been built in the mid-1920s to
commemorate that 1914 German
victory over the Russians. The
ground was raised into a mound,
with a stone octagon 325 feet
across surrounded by 20 foot
walls. Eight 75-foot towers an-
chored each wall. In the center of
the octagon was an underground
tomb holding the remains of un-
identified German soldiers killed
in the battle.
In 1933 the new Chancellor
of Germany, Adolf Hitler, visited
Modern Monoliths: Rendering of the Memorial.
44 #11
WaW11 Issue.indd 44
the site. He took the occasion to
evaluate the monument for future
use, and decided to expand the
memorial into a shrine to National
Socialism. After the death of
Field Marshall Hindenburg, Hitler
ordered the monument altered.
A crypt was built for Hinden-
burg, the entrance to which was
guarded by two 13-foot statues of
German soldiers. Inside, a living
guard was posted 24 hours a day.
Hindenburg was buried there in
an elaborate ceremony in 1935.
In January 1945, the Germans
were in full retreat. As the Soviets
advanced across the East Prus-
sian border, Operation Island
Dash was put into effect. On the
20th a German Army convoy was
dispatched to Tannenberg; the re-
mains of Hindenberg and his wife
were disinterred and moved by
truck to the Baltic coast. During
the night of the 21st the memorial
was destroyed by Army engineers.
On 25 January, Lt. Gen. Eduard
Hauser, in overall charge of the
mission, reported the “special
locations” in East Prussia had all
Tannenberg Memorial: Entrance
guarded by 13 foot statues.
been destroyed. On 27 January
the Red Army reached Rasten-
burg.
The convoy delivered the Hin-
denburgs into the custody of the
Kriegsmarine near Danzig. The
remains were placed on the light
cruiser Emden, which steamed
west. Witnesses described a
perilous voyage, with the bodies
kept on deck watched over by an
Army honor guard. The bodies
were later moved by truck convoy
to Potsdam, and were then stored
at the Luftwaffe headquarters in
Kurfurst. There they were joined
by two other illustrious corpses,
those of Frederick William I and
his son Frederick the Great. The
two Fredericks had been removed
from the Garrison Church in Pots-
dam in order to protect them from
Allied bombing raids.
As the Soviets continued to
advance, the decision was made
to again move the bodies. A
special unit was organized to take
them, along with all the preserved
artifacts of Fredrick the Great,
2/11/10 4:27:32 PM
 and transport them by truck out
of the Berlin area. On 13 March
the convoy reached Bernterode in
Thuringia, where the bodies and
artifacts were stashed in a deep
salt mine.
As Allied forces overran Ger-
many, care was taken to identify
secret locations that might contain
weapons, valuables or military
secrets. The large salt mine com-
plex outside Bernterode was soon
discovered. The mine had over
14 miles of tunnels loaded with
munitions and stolen treasure.
Attention soon focused on a side
tunnel that could be seen to have
been freshly sealed. After tunnel- The High Command: Tannenberg Memorial ceremony in 1938.
ing through, US Army engineers
discovered a large collection of 1991, the Fredericks were again reburied, this time in Sanssouci Palace
artifacts related to Frederick the outside Berlin. The Hindenburgs remain in Marburg in St Elizabeth’s
Great and four heavy lead coffins. Church, where the congregation recently voted to discontinue maintain-
The identification of each corpse ing a light shining on the Hindenburgs’ crypt due to rising utility costs.
was scrawled on the coffin lids in ~Roger Mason
red marker.
The information about the
discovery was transmitted up
command channels all the way to
Washington. The Army thought
Future issues of World at War
it best to hand over jurisdic- Issue # Month Feature Articles
tion to the State Department,
12 Jun 10 1940: What If Hitler Turned East?
but the State Department passed
Yelnia, 1941: Two Analyses
the responsibility back to the
Matapan: Italian Naval Fiasco
Army. Gen. Lucius Clay, military
Arming the Free French
governor of the US occupation
zone, therefore assigned three of- 13 Aug 10 Red Armor at Kursk
ficers to locate a suitable place to 1945 Manchurian Front
rebury the coffins. The somewhat Willie & Joe: Immortal Cartoons
gruesome codename given to that Hurtgen: Vicious Forest Fight
project was “Operation Body 14 Oct 10 What If: Pearl Harbor Invasion
Snatch.” Greek Civil War: Prequel to Cold War
The first plan was to find a Bzura Counteroffensive, Poland
burial location related to the Ho- Japanese Production Strategy
henzollerns, the closest relatives 15 Dec 10 Soft Underbelly: Italy, 1943
to Frederick the Great. Those British MI-5 in WW2
locations, however, all lay in 7th Air Force in the Pacific
the French and English zones of Spanish Division in Russia
occupation, and permission for
16 Feb 11 Partizan! The War in Yugoslavia
reburial was denied by those mili-
tary governors. The bodies were Sangshak: Bloodbath in India, 1944
finally buried in St Elizabeth’s Battles for Malta
Church in Marburg. In August
World at War 45

WaW11 Issue.indd 45 2/11/10 4:27:33 PM

 This Mega-feedback is longer than our usual survey, as it’s time to update Internet Usage (12-14)
our reader demographic data. We appreciate your assistance in helping us 12. How many hours do you spend
collect those data. Please be assured your name and contact information on the Internet each week?
will be kept separate from the data itself. On-line form available at: a) None
www.strategyandtacticspress.com, click Mega Feedback in left-side bar. b) 1-5
c) 6-10
1. Gender: (6-11) How much did you spend on d) 11-20
a) M b) F the following in the past year? e) 21 or more

2. Age: 6. Travel: 13. How many purchases did you
a) 19 and under a) None, make on the Internet in the past
b) 20-29 b) $1-500, year?
c) 30-39 c) $501-1,000, a) None
d) 40-49 d) $1-5K, b) 1-10
e) 50-59 e) $5K or more c) 11-20
f) 60-69 d) 21-30
g) 70 or better 7. Tours: e) 31 or more
a) None,
3. Household Income: b) $1-500 14. What percentage of your
monthly purchases are made over
mega feedback

a) $50K and under c) $501-1,000

the Internet?
b) $50-99K d) $1-5K
a) 0%
c) $100-149K e) $5K or more
b) 1-25%
d) $150-199K
c) 26-50%
e) $200K or more 8. Memorabilia:
d) 51-75%
a) None,
e) 76-100%
4. Net Worth: b) $1-500
a) under $250K c) $501-1,000
Reading Habits (15-18)
b) $250-499K d) $1-5K
15. Please list any other history
c) $500-749K e) $5K or more
magazines you subscribe to or read
d) $750-999K regularly.
e) $1M or more 9. Technology/Software:
a) None,
16. On average, how many mili-
5. Occupation b) $1-500 tary history books do you read per
a) Professional/Management c) $501-1,000 year?
b) Business Owner/Self-em- d) $1-5K a) None
ployed e) $5K or more b) 1-5
c) Academic/Education c) 6-10
d) Blue Collar/Trade 10. Games of all types: d) 11-20
e) Retired a) None, e) 21 or more
f) Other b) $1-500
c) $501-1,000 17. How long do you keep past issues
d) $1-5K of World at War or S&T?
e) $5K or more a) Discard after reading
b) A year or less
11. Investments: c) 1-5 years
a) Less than $1K d) 6-10 years
b) $1,000-9,999 e) 11 or more years
c) $10,000-24,999
d) $25,000-49,999 18. On average, how many others
e) $50,000 or more read your copy of World at War or
Strategy & Tactics?

46 #11

WaW11 Issue.indd 46 2/11/10 4:27:33 PM

 Game Proposal Section In sections A through D, you will find six proposals per
category. Please rank the proposals from first to sixth, corre-
Please take a few minutes to review the game pro- sponding to the proposal you would most like to see published
posals below and select the ones you would like to see being ranked first (1) and to the game you would least like to
us publish in future issues. This feedback is the most see published being ranked sixth (6). Please use each rank-
important source for determining what games we will ing, one through six, only once per category and use all six
be working on for future issues of World at War. We’re rankings.
also seeking your input on additional ideas we’re con- West/Mediterranean Theater
sidering.
(mark 1 to 6)
The World at War game line-up currently looks like
A1. Go For Broke! Rescuing the Lost Battalion. As the US
this: 7th Army advanced through southern France in the fall of 1944,
they found themselves mired in a slugfest with the infantry,
12 1940: What If? armor and artillery of German 19th Army in the rugged Vosges
13 Guards Tank (EFB#1) Mountains.  Nothing exemplified the confusion and savagery
of those battles more than the plight of the “Lost Battalion” of
14 Invasion Pearl Harbor
the 36th Infantry Division. Trapped behind enemy lines, 300
15 Soft Underbelly men held out for almost a week, as other US forces battled
16 Partizan! ferociously to relieve them. Ultimately it was the Japanese-
17 Leningrad ‘41 American Nisei of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team who
broke through at tremendous cost. Amazingly, at the same time,
18 South Seas Campaign a pocket of Germans trapped behind US lines nearby were the
19 Hardest Days target of relief attempts by German forces. So confused was the
20 Rhineland Crisis fighting, one soldier woke up in his foxhole to find a German
sleeping next to him. Go For Broke! simulates that extraor-
21 Minsk (EFB #2) dinary situation using a new company-level system designed
22 Pacific Battles #1 for small unit actions over extended periods of time. Scenarios
23 Sedan allow two players to focus on either relief effort or to play out
an entire week of the campaign in multi-impulse game turns,
24 Keren each representing one day of action. Map scale 500 meters
25 Race to the Reichstag per hex and 176 counters. John Butterfield.
A2. Norway 1940 will use the Red Dragon Rising system
The games in issues 12 through 17 are printed and to simulate the German offensive into Norway in 1940. Each
awaiting their magazines. The games in issues 18 player conducts operations using naval, air and land forces,
through 25 are in various stages of development and alternating actions based on their level of command control.
artwork—there may be some changes to the schedule, That will recreate the chaotic situation in the original cam-
but those games are expected to appear. This survey paign, in which the Germans were able to seize Norway in
the face of superior Allied sea power. Each side will have its
will determine what games will be going into issues
own advantages: the Allies their fleets, the Germans, airpower
26 through 33. plus airborne forces. All that will produce fast and furious
actions in which the victor won’t be known until the final
Christopher “Doc” Cummins turn. Joseph Miranda.
Publisher A3. Nordkapp will be a simulation of convoy battles in the
Arctic in 1942-45. The game uses a beefed up Victory at
Midway system with a special system to simulate submarine
versus convoy escort battles. The game is played in scenarios.
Scenarios included are PQ-17, the Battle of North Cape, the
Battle of the Barents Sea, and several others. There will be
228 medium-sized counters and two identical half-maps.
Javier Romero.
A4. Accolade. In September 1943, Churchill launched “Op-
eration Accolade,” the seizure of the Italian-held Dodecanese
Islands, in hopes of generating a stronger hand against the
Soviets in the post-war Balkans.  What he didn’t count on was
Germany wasn’t prepared to concede the islands, and would
launch a major counteroffensive to reclaim them.  Accolade
is a solitaire game simulating the German counterattack into
the Dodecanese Islands in September and October 1943, their
last Mediterranean offensive.  German air and naval opera-
tions, as well as well as random events, will be determined by
chits.  The British player will attempt to withstand repeated
attempts to dislodge those forces hanging on to the islands,
despite the fact they’re left with limited air and sea forces due

World at War 47

WaW11 Issue.indd 47 2/11/10 4:27:33 PM

 to the simultaneous Salerno landings in Italy.  Optional rules
will allow the inclusion of the fictitious “Navarone” and its
formidable guns, as immortalized by the Alistair MacLean’s
novel and the subsequent movie. Darin Leviloff.
A5. Tunis 1943 is a solitaire game simulating the final Allied
drive on Tunis.   It uses a similar system to Victory Point
Games’ Israeli Independence, using chits to track army move-
ment and random events.  The player is placed in the unusual
position of controlling German forces, attempting a holding
action with remnants of the famed Afrikakorps and relief troops
under the command of Gen. von Arnim. As Free French, British
and American forces close in on the Eastern Dorsal, the player
must hold Allied advances long enough to secure permission
to evacuate North Africa, while withstanding a deterioration
of supplies and air power.  The task is tricky but, with playing
time under an hour, replay ability and value are high.  There
will be 228 medium counters. Darin Leviloff.
A6. Tripoli ‘41. Historically, after their Compass offensive
had cleared the Italians from the Western Desert in early 1941,
the British halted their offensive, giving the Axis a reprieve in
North Africa. Tripoli ‘41 assumes Churchill instead ordered
the Western Desert Force to continue its drive in order to take
Tripoli, the main Axis base in Libya. That presents all kinds
mega feedback
of interesting possibilities. The British would be approaching
Tripoli at the time Rommel and the Afrikakorps were arriv-
ing, but before they had time to organize. The WDF would
also receive additional units representing forces historically
diverted to fight in Greece, but then the Germans would get
their 7th Airborne Division, since it wouldn’t have been shot
up on Crete, as well as additional airpower. Units would be
brigades, regiments and battlegroups, with air strikes as well
as markers representing Rommel and O’Conner. There would
also be a random events table to show the outcome of other
operations in the Mediterranean that would impact on the
situation in Libya. The game map would go from Tobruk to
Tripoli. Joseph Miranda.
Eastern Theater (mark 1 to 6)
B1. Vistula-Oder-Berlin will be a corps-army (for the So-
viets) and divisional (for the Germans) simulation of the last
five months of the war in the east in Poland, Czechoslovakia
and eastern Germany. There will be nine turns, from January
to May 1945, at 12.5 miles to the hex. The map covers from
Memel to Dukla Pass, and from Lublin in southern Poland
to Leipzig and Rostock in Germany. One large-hex map, 228
medium counters. Rules will cover maskirovka, Soviet break-
throughs, Fuehrer orders, Festungs, German in-depth defense,
Kriegsmarine naval support. There will be a campaign game
plus several scenarios: Red Storm on the Reich (the January
offensive), fight for the flanks (clearing operations at Prus-
sia, Silesia and Pomerania, February-March), the Last Battle
(the final offensive on Berlin) and Race to Prague (May).
To win, the Soviet player must conquer as certain number
of VP cities before they’re occupied by the Western Allies.
Javier Romero.
B2. The Tigers are Burning. This redesign would model
the campaign for the Ukraine from July 1943 through April
1944. It would basically be a systemic and graphic update of
the first edition (published in S&T 118). The action would be
fast and furious throughout, with the German player always
just one step ahead (or maybe not) of a Soviet “sudden death”
victory. Ty Bomba.
B3. Stalingrad: The Pocket Battle. This design would cover
the pocket battle fought in and around Stalingrad in the autumn
48 #11
WaW11 Issue.indd 48
and winter of 1942, using a derivation of the system originally
created for Command magazine’s Wave of Terror. Units of
maneuver would be battalions and regiments for the Germans,
and divisions for the Soviets and Romanians. Extensive use
of data recently made available in the Red Army’s official
after-action report on this campaign would be used to create a
savage yet easy to play game. A what-if “Breakout Scenario”
would also be included. Ty Bomba.
B4. Jackboots in the Caucasus. In the summer of 1942 the
Germans launched their great eastern offensive to seize the
Soviet Caucasus oilfields. The campaign came crashing to a
disastrous finale at Stalingrad later that year. Caucasus will
use the They Died with Their Boots On system to simulate
this campaign. It uses a chit system that randomly selects
sub-commands for operational impulses. Certain chits will
give players one time bonuses, such as the Soviet Operation
Uranus. Others will provide Hitler and Stalin directives, setting
objectives players must obtain that turn, such as the city of
Stalingrad. Axis units will be corps, with some mechanized
division breakdowns. Soviet units will be infantry armies
and mechanized cavalry corps-level formations. Airpower is
represented by air strike markers. Joseph Miranda
B5. Budapest Bulge. This will use Ty Bomba’s redesign of
the Bulge system to simulate the last German offensive on
the eastern front: the attack of the 6th SS Panzer Army around
Budapest and the Lake Ballatin oilfields. German units will be
divisions; Soviets will be corps. Options include German jets.
Victory is via a point system in which players try to do better
than their historic predecessors. There will be 228 medium
counters. Joseph Miranda
B6. Beilski Otriad. This solitaire game simulates the struggle
of Jewish partisans with the “Beilski Brothers” and their
Byelorussian forest refuge, as recently featured in the mo-
tion picture “Defiance.”  The player attempts to maintain
his enlarging community of refugees by providing resources
from raiding nearby farms, capturing German supplies, or
obtaining outside assistance.  The player will need to placate
Soviet partisans by participating in acts of sabotage or mili-
tary operations against German forces, while withstanding
the inevitable Nazi “clearing operations” against a series of
relocating shelters.  Navigating those challenges will be dif-
ficult, but with a playing time of less than an hour, the replay
value will be high. Darin Leviloff.
Pacific Theater (mark 1 to 6)
C1. Midway Solitaire. This will use the Coral Sea Solitaire
system to model the great aircraft carrier battle of June 1942.
The player would control American forces, while the game
system would run the Japanese. The Japanese have superior
numbers of carriers and capital ships, but they’re moving in
several separated task forces. The player would have the ad-
vantage of superior intelligence from ULTRA, which he can
use to defeat the foe in detail. The game would give players
the option of using advanced tactics, such as stacking their
combat air patrol at different altitudes. Joseph Miranda.
C2. Bloody Ridge. This design would use an evolution of
the First Blood system seen in S&T #248 to cover the most
dramatic day of fighting during the ground portion of the
Guadalcanal campaign in 1942: the Japanese attempt to break
through to Henderson Field across the geographic feature that
came to be known as Bloody Ridge. The fight pitted Japanese
flesh and fanaticism against steely American will and massive
firepower: a near-run thing. There will be 176 large-size iconic
counters. Ty Bomba.
2/11/10 4:27:34 PM
 C3. Seventh Fleet vs. Kurita (25 October 1944). This game
examines whether the US Seventh Fleet, consisting of old
battleships, could’ve defeated the Japanese Central Force of
surface ships during the Battle of Leyte Gulf. The game would
cover both a meeting engagement outside Leyte Gulf and
the  Seventh Fleet forming a battle line near its entrance. Rules
would include air strikes, limited ammunition for US ships,
US radar advantages, leadership effects such as Adm. Ugaki
replacing Kurita, the ability of US ships to fire on the Japa-
nese from within Leyte Gulf, and an attempt by the Japanese
to force their way into the Gulf.  A more powerful Japanese
force, including battleships Musashi and Mutsu and the cruis-
ers sunk approaching Leyte Gulf is also provided. Counters
would include 60 rectangular ships measuring 1x0.5 inches,
and smaller square counters for leaders and air strikes. Two
maps, one for a blue water engagement and one of the Leyte
Gulf area. Otto Reichardt.
C4. Olympic. This will be an update of the S&T classic soli-
taire game of the intended invasion of the southern Japanese
island of Kyushu. The Japanese OOB, as well as the island
topography, will be more accurate and provide players with
a more historical challenge than the original game. Variants
will be included allowing for alternate invasion sites and the
possibility of Russian intervention. Should this proposal be
accepted, a sequel game, Operation Coronet, covering the
proposed April 1946 invasion of the Kanto Plain near Tokyo
will be published either eight or 12 issues later. Doc Cum-
mins/Joe Youst.
C5. Pacific Subs covers the WW2 US submarine campaign
in the Pacific at the strategic level game. Cutting Japan off
from her supplies of vital materials while supporting invasions
and sinking the surface combatants forces the US player to
juggle different goals for the most gain. Area movement map.
Strategic level game with counters equaling “wolf packs” of
3 to 5 subs. George Valaitis.
C6. Last Voyage of the Yamato. This will be a solitaire
game in which the active player will be the commander of
the Japanese super-battleship Yamato during its final sortie
against US forces invading Okinawa in 1945. The player will
have operations points with which he can “purchase” various
types of ship modifications, ammunition, elite crews, escort
ships and air cover. He then will sail from the Yamato’s base
to Okinawa while the system will generate various types of
Allied interception efforts. If the Yamato reaches Okinawa,
the player has won. Joseph Miranda.
Other Proposals (mark 1 to 6)
D1. Plan Gertrud, 1942 is a two player “what if” simula-
tion of a German invasion of Turkey during 1942. Originally
conceived by OKW over fear Turkey might join the Allies,
the game presumes the Germans actually attack Turkey, in
order to relieve pressure on the Italians, threaten Syria and
Iraq and open a southern front against the Caucusus oil fields.
The scale will be division-level with support from the Italian
navy as they can pass through the straight of the Dardanelles.
Soviet and British as 10th relief forces may also appear in or-
der to aid the Turks. Large-hex map with 176 large counters.
David March 
D2. Ghost Column is a tactical-level game with a twist.
The title comes from a night attack the Germans made at
Rezhavets during the Battle of Kursk. The game is solitaire,
with the player in control of an armored column attempting to
penetrate Soviet lines. The Soviets are played using a simple
agent-based system designed to react to the presence of enemy
WaW11 Issue.indd 49
forces. The player will have to make decisions about what
types of equipment and personnel to assign to his force and,
once the action begins, about movement paths and when to
engage in combat. Units are platoons and companies. Stealth
and command decisions are emphasized, but when the shooting
starts you will have an array of weapons to utilize. The system
can be used for future scenarios, including: the crossing of
Meuse River by Rommel’s 7th Panzer Division in 1940, the
British commando raid on Tobruk in September 1942, and a
fantasy scenario of Skorzeny’s commandos driving American
tanks during the Battle of the Bulge. Complexity is low to
moderate. Roger Mason.
D3. Strike North: Japan Attacks the USSR. One of the
great “what-ifs” of World War II, a hypothetical Japanese
invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. The assumption is the
Japanese decide to forego their offensive in the Pacific and
instead invade the USSR. Units will be divisions and corps,
including air units. There will be different CRT to demonstrate
Japanese and Soviet tactics. Joseph Miranda.
D4. 1939: Hinge of Fate. This design would model historic
and what-if campaigns of the first month of WWII. Two
players can play the historic German invasion of Poland in
September, or they can examine the what-ifs inherent in the
never-launched French push to the Ruhr that same month,
or they can link the two scenarios for a combined what-if
covering both. The scales are one turn equals two days, one
hex equals 16 miles. Ty Bomba.
D5. Kommando Skorzeny. This will be a solitaire game
covering German commando Otto Skorzeny’s special opera-
tions: the rescue of Mussolini, the Hungarian coup of 1944,
and Panzer Brigade 150 and the special units infiltrated into
American lines during the Battle of the Bulge (the game will
include two of those operations). The game will include a
mini-map for each scenario. Units will be team-level. Planning
will be critical. At the start of a scenario, the German player
will expend Command points will be used to buy operations
markers representing intelligence, training, deception and other
things thing you can use to execute the mission. The system
will respond by throwing up various obstacles the player will
have to overcome by using operations markers or by fighting
through with combat units. Joseph Miranda.
D6. Gallabat. One of the forgotten battles of the Abyssinian
campaign. The strategic town of Gallabat was attacked by the
Italians in July 1939; however, in November 1940 the British
10th Indian Infantry Brigade launched an attack that, though
initially successful through the use of Matilda tanks, the Ital-
ians then threw back by concentrating massed airpower and
competent leadership. The ground units are companies and the
air units are flights. Individual tanks are used, but they break
down easily in the rocky shale of the area around Gallabat.
Large hex-map and 176 large counters. David March
Continues 88
Please use the form on page 51
or visit the online form at:
www.StrategyAndTacticsPress.com
World at War 49
2/11/10 4:27:34 PM
 Special Editions
We are running Special Edition issues (games with two
maps, two counter sheets, and 32 pages of rules) in S&T.
The first one will appear in S&T #267 (an update/expansion
of Russian Civil War). We are considering running Special
Editions in World at War as well, to allow for some larger
WWII game topics. Please indicate your interest in Special
Editions for World at War.
E1. How often we should run Special Editions?
a) Once a year
b) Once every other year
c) Once every three years
d) Only when readership votes for specific
game proposals
e) Never
E2. Topics/formats:
a) Two-map games only
b) Multiple scenarios (for example, quadri-
games, any game with two or more separate
maps)
c) Prefer two-map but multiple is OK
mega feedback
d) Prefer multiple scenario but two-map is OK
e) Either is fine
f) No interest
Please rank the Special Edition proposals in E3 through
E7 as first (1), second (2), third (3) fourth (4) and fifth (5)
choice.
E3. Guards Armor (Famous Divisions Series). Famous
Divisions is a new Quadri-game system featuring a specific
division in battle against opponents at four points of WWII.
Guards Armor scenarios include: Operation Goodwood,
Joe’s Bridge, Operation Veritable and Bonning Hardt Ridge.
John Schettler
E4. Gross Deutschland (Famous Divisions Series). Famous
Divisions is a new Quadri-game system featuring a specific
division in battle against opponents at four points of WWII.
Gross Deutschland scenarios include: Kursk, Mischurin Rog,
Akhtyrka and Lutchessa Valley. John Schettler
E5. Panzers East: Units are primarily divisions for both
sides, with some separate brigades, regiments and battalions.
Germans are multi-step, Soviets are one-step with unknown
strengths. The map covers the border to Moscow at 16 miles
per hex. No ZOC, special rules for Guderian, Rollbahns,
Hitler’s interference, variable phase sequences, supply at-
tenuation, airpower, the Stalin Line. Can you take Moscow
before Hitler turns AGC south? Ty Bomba
E6. Operation Downfall: Olympic & Coronet. This would
be the proposal described in C4 done in one special edition.
E7. Miranda Double Feature. This would be two regular
Miranda magazine games in one issue. Race for Stalingrad
would cover the Soviet double envelopment of Stalingrad in
the winter of 1942-43, using a modified form of the classic
SPI Battle for Germany system. Each of the two players would
command one wing of the Soviet forces racing to envelop the
Sixth Army. Each would also command Axis forces facing the
other player. Each player must race to be the first to reach his
operational objectives on his side of the map, thereby gaining
50 #11
WaW11 Issue.indd 50
recognition from the Kremlin, as well as possible additional
reinforcements all generated by a random events table. That
table will also generate various levels of German response
depending on how well the Soviets are doing. Units will
be divisions and corps with airpower. The game would use
the latest information about the Red Army in World War II,
including the use of deception operations and their resurgent
mobile warfare doctrine.
The second of the two games is Boots Sicily which will
use the They Died With Their Boots On system to model the
Allied invasion of Sicily in the summer of 1943. This was a
remarkable campaign in which a German panzer corps fought
a successful delaying action against two Allied armies, led
by two of the best Allied generals, Montgomery and Patton.
The system uses chits to generate operations for individual
sub-commands as well as various random events.
Boots Sicily will give additional chits for German Gen.
Hube, giving the Axis player the opportunity to outmaneuver
his much stronger Allied opponents. Units will be regimen-
tal-sized kampfgruppen for the Germans, and divisions for
everyone else, with some specialized brigades/regiments.
Special rules for airborne operations by both sides, Allied
deception operations, Italian morale, and the Axis evacuation
to the mainland. Random events will include everything from
Allied airpower being diverted to attacking the mainland to
Patton’s famous soldier slapping incident. Joseph Miranda.
Sections F and G ask a few additional questions that will
help guide us. Please answer as indicated in the questions.
Please indicate which article types you would like to see
and how frequently.
F1. Leader profiles
a) Every issue
b) 2-3 times per year
c) Once a year
d) Rarely or Never
F2. Military Equipment
a) Every issue
b) 2-3 times per year
c) Once a year
d) Rarely or Never
F3. Sidebars detailing unusual or interesting facts within
and as it relates to a specific article
a) Every issue
b) 2-3 times per year
c) Once a year
d) Rarely or Never
F4. Shorter articles (i.e. two shorter articles in lieu of one
feature length article)
a) Every issue
b) 2-3 times per year
c) Once a year
d) Rarely or Never
F5. Letters to the editor
a) Every issue
b) 2-3 times per year
c) Once a year
d) Rarely or Never
2/11/10 4:27:35 PM
 F6. Personal or First-person accounts G. Please list any article topics you would like to see in
a) Every issue future issues.
b) 2-3 times per year
c) Once a year
d) Rarely or Never

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World at War 51

WaW11 Issue.indd 51 2/11/10 4:27:35 PM

 Windows Edition
War in Europe is a computer-moderated simulation of the European Theater
of Operations in World War II.  There’s no computer/AI player in the game;
players make all the critical decisions. You decide on production schedules,
declare war on neutral nations, and control the ground, air, sea and strategic
forces of the Axis, Allied and Soviet powers in order to change or recreate
the events of the war. The game is a division-level simulation, with some
brigade and corps-sized ground units. Play takes place on a 159x133 hex
map of Europe and North Africa. Naval power and air power are abstracted
as points rather than on-map units, including: surface fleet, U-Boat,
transport, amphibious assault, tactical air and strategic bomber points.

F Battle on three fronts—War in the West (two-player, Allies versus

Axis); War in the East (two- player, Soviets versus Axis); and
War in Europe (three-player, Axis versus Allies & Soviets).
F Select from 10 scenarios (shorter games focused on a single major
offensive), or 16 campaigns (the whole war from a specified date
through May ‘45 or the defeat of one side).
F A unique “tabbed” map display allows each player to define his
own set of map views, while also allowing one-click switching
between areas of interest.
F Multiple map overlays show the supply net, territory ownership,
air range, and zones of control.
F Fully integrated PBEM mode, with autosend, inbox, browse mode
and multiple file load/save tracking.
F Support for any screen resolution; multiple customizable map sets
and customizable icons.
F Fully featured game editor for creation of new scenarios and
campaigns; create new units, new setups, and edit the data tables
used in the game. $59.95
Shipping Charges (Rates are subject to change without notice.)
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System requirements :
34 3 Europe, South America, Asia OS : Windows 98/ME/NT/2000/XP/Vista (XP/Vista recommended)
CPU : Pentium III 800Mhz (Pentium 4, 1.2Ghz recommended)
36 5 Australia
RAM : 128 MB (256 MB recommended)
Screen : Minimum resolution 1024x768, 16 bit color
Name HD : 50MB free space
Windows Compatible Sound Card and Mouse
Address
City/State/Zip
Country
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Signature PO Box 21598
Bakersfield CA 93390
Phone # 661/587-9633 • fax 661/587-5031 • www.decisiongames.com
52 #11

WaW11 Issue.indd 52 2/11/10 4:27:38 PM

 Back Issues Available
Complete list of
available issues
on our website
including
Strategy &
Tactics issues.

P.O. Box 21598

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World at War 53

WaW11 Issue.indd 53 2/11/10 4:27:42 PM

 Overview & Analysis:
World War II German A
By George A. Larson

54 #11

WaW11 Issue.indd 54 2/11/10 4:27:43 PM

:
n Airborne Operations

The
Treaty of Versailles, on 28 June 1919, stripped Germany
of most of its armed forces. Article 198 completely for-
bid them to have any kind of military air arm. During
the 1920s and 1930s, the Weimar government began
circumventing those restrictions by funding sports glider clubs. After Hitler came
to power in 1933, glider pilots switched to powered aircraft, forming the core
of the Luftwaffe. Herman Goring, future commander of the Luftwaffe, actually
boasted to newspaper editors at the time how Germany was to throw off the
military restrictions:
Our future is in the air. And it’s by air power that we are going to recapture
the German Empire. To accomplish that, we will do three things. First,
we will teach gliding as a sport to all young men. Second, we will build
up German commercial aviation. Third, we will create the skeleton of a
military air force.

On 10 March 1935, he went the next step, officially announcing the existence
of the Luftwaffe, which was an overt violation of the Treaty of Versailles. Even so,
that proclamation elicited no response from either England or France. In October
1938, the 7th Flieger Division (7AD) was created as a paratroop unit, commanded
by Maj. General Kurt Student. It was to have been organized similarly to a standard
German infantry division, but by September 1939 it still only consisted of only
two parachute rifle regiments.
Col. Freiheer von de Heydte, who became the most experienced German air-
borne combat commander, summed up the Luftwaffe’s airborne assault doctrine
as follows:
In every landing there are two separate phases. First, the strip of terrain
must be captured from the air; with an airhead established. Second, the
objective of the air landing must be captured or held during the follow-
ing ground battle.

The 7AD’s overall role, then, was to capture objectives by parachute jump,
glider assault and the direct air landing of troops in transports. The 22nd Infantry
Division was soon converted into an “airlanding” formation in order to be able to
assist 7AD in the second part of its mission, once an initial airhead had had been
established.

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WaW11 Issue.indd 55 2/11/10 4:27:44 PM

 German airborne operations came to be of two types.
One form of attack involved sending an advance airborne
unit to capture important terrain features, bypassing
obstacles and holding against enemy counterattack until
supporting ground troops arrived. That type of opera-
tion included: Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and
Norway in 1940, Corinth in 1941 and the Ardennes in
1944. The second form of airborne operation centered
on the all-out assault of large areas, such as Crete in
1941 and Leros in 1943, without the assistance of con-
ventional ground forces.
There are many considerations when determining
the objectives to be seized in any airborne operation.
First, in respect to numbers, and based on equipment
and training, the airborne force to be committed must
match the assignment. Second, all such operations
require at least local air superiority, even if only tem-
porary. Third, pre-launch surprise must be maintained
in order to protect airborne forces when they’re most
vulnerable: at the time of their insertion into enemy held
territory. Fourth, accurate aerial reconnaissance, both
before and during the operation, is needed to allow for
the best use of terrain and the identification of enemy
defenses. Fifth, once airborne troops are on the ground,
communications in and out of the airhead need to be
set up and maintained in order to be able to best direct
combat operations, arrange for follow-on supply drops
and the arrival of reinforcements, as well as coordinated
close air combat support strikes.
German use of airborne troops began in April 1940,
during the attack on Norway. The operation involved
using Ju-52 aircraft to make surprise landings at Olso’s
Fornebu Airfield. Paratroops were dropped at Dumbas,
but were soon captured by Norwegian forces. A parachute
drop at Narvik was made to reinforce ground troops at-
tacking that port. Altogether in Norway, the Luftwaffe
committed some 500 Ju-52s, which was probably the
ideal size for an operation intended to seize limited and
specific objectives in support of a large ground force.
Airborne assault: German glider troops disembark.
56 #11
WaW11 Issue.indd 56
The invasion of France and the Low Countries began
with paratroops dropping on three Belgian bridges:
Vroenhoven and Veldwezelt (captured) and Schechter
(destroyed by Belgian troops). The 7AD also completed
a crucial operation, conducting a gliderborne assault
against Fort Eben Emael that, among other firsts,
inaugurated the combat use of the DFS-230. German
airborne troops were committed to the Netherlands to
capture The Hague, thereby removing the center of
Dutch resistance and securing critical bridges to permit
advancing mechanized forces to spearhead the main
ground attack. (Much the same as the Allies would
attempt during Operation Market Garden in 1944, but
failed one bridge short of the overall objective.)
The airborne invasion of Crete in May 1941, resulted
in heavy losses, estimated at 7,000 KIA or missing out of
22,000 airborne troops committed. That operation, and
its echo effects, had the following major repercussions
for German airborne operations during the rest of the
war.
1. No German parachute division-sized force was used
again as an integral combat unit in the airborne
role.
2. Airborne replacements received a shortened training
cycle due to the worsening combat situation.
3. The 7AD was committed on the eastern front as an
elite infantry unit where it was often used to stop
Soviet breakthroughs, acting as the “Fuehrer’s Fire-
men.”
4. Paratroops henceforth jumped carrying their personal
weapons, so as not to be targeted while unarmed and
retrieving airdropped weapons.
5. Eventually 11 airborne divisions were formed, but by
the summer of 1944 only 30,000 of those 100,000+
men had any actual airborne training.
6. Constant commitment to conventional ground fight-
ing worked to reduce the number of trained airborne
troops below the critical operational threshold.
7. The heavy attrition in the junior officer and NCO
cadre reduced its close combat and independent
command skills.
8. Training was somewhat expanded to include the
operation of captured enemy weapons.
Late in 1943 the Germans conducted two very differ-
ent airborne operations. Italy’s dictator Benito Mussolini
was taken into custody by Italian troops who’d defected
to the Allied cause. He was held in the mountains east
of Rome, in the Hotel Campo Imperatore. In a daring
rescue operation, DFS-230s were released from Ju-52s
and landed at an altitude of 6,000 feet above sea level.
Those paratroops, led by the infamous Otto Skorzeny,
quickly subdued Mussolini’s guards and then flew out
the dictator in a light reconnaissance aircraft. That
2/11/10 4:27:45 PM
 7th Flieger Division, September 1939 7th Flieger for the Crete Airborne
1 Parachute Rifle Regiment (consisting of three
st
Invasion, May 1941
battalions). 1st Parachute Regiment
2nd Parachute Rifle Regiment (consisting of two 2nd Parachute Regiment
battalions). 3rd Parachute Regiment
Four companies in one battalion (standard organi- 7th Artillery Battalion
zational strength). One company consisted of 144
7th Anti-Tank Battalion
men. Two battalions in one regiment (standard
organizational strength). 7th Flak Battalion
One glider company consisted of 12 DFS-230s. Machine Gun Battalion
Each DFS-230 could carry one pilot and nine combat Pioneer Battalion (engineers to prepare
for air landing troop aircraft/gliders)
troops. That accounted for 120 glider troops per
company. Four glider companies were assigned Division Headquarters
per battalion Parachute Signal Unit
Parachute Medical Unit
Parachute Supply Unit
Attached: Sturm Regiment

World at War 57

WaW11 Issue.indd 57 2/11/10 4:27:47 PM

 The Ju-52
The Ju-52 short-range tactical transport was used by the Luftwaffe from the Spanish Civil War to the end of the war
in Europe. It served in all combat theaters in all weathers. Interestingly, after the war a French aviation company
built 400 more of them, and a company in Spain built another 170.

Wingspan 95’ 11”

Length 61’ 8”
Tail height 14’ 9”
Empty weight 14,430 lbs.
Combat weight 23,120 lbs.
Cargo Combinations 8,000 lbs. or 18 fully equipped troops
Tow capacity 1 DFS-230 glider
1 Go-0242 glider
Crew 2 pilots
1 gunner/radio operator
Power Plant 3 830 hp BMW 132T-2 nine cylinder air
cooled engines
Maximum Speed 183 mph
Cruising Speed 142 mph
Altitude 18,000 feet
Armament Three .303 caliber machineguns
Number Built 4,835
Operational at End of War 50

demonstrated the surprise effect a properly executed

glider attack can have when used to capture a specific
and limited objective via shock and unexpected offensive
action.
In 1943, an airborne operation was conducted to
dislodge British troops from the island of Leros in the
Aegean. There the Germans first conducted an amphibi-
ous operation, followed by a drop of 400 paratroops from
Ju-52s on 12 November 1943, cutting the island into
two and helping to secure the invasion beaches. That
was followed by the drop of another 400 paratroops the
next day. By 16 November the island had been secured
by the combined amphibious and airdropped forces. The
Leros battle surprised Allied planners, who believed
the Germans could no longer conduct such operations
after their defeats in North Africa, Sicily and mainland
Italy.
Then came the Battle of the Bulge. As part of the
surprise winter counteroffensive against a lightly de-
fended sector in the Ardennes, German paratroops were
to capture two bridges across the Meuse River and con-
duct various disruptive operations in the American rear
area. German airborne forces were committed using 112
Ju-52s in an early morning paradrop on 17 December
1944. The paratroops ended up scattered over a wide
area, however, because of heavy cross winds and poor
visibility. No force capable of mounting a cohesive Into the air: German paratroopers board a Ju-52.
58 #11

WaW11 Issue.indd 58 2/11/10 4:27:47 PM

 The DFS-230 Glider
The DFS-230 was a light-weight combat glider
that could be towed by the Ju-52. Its first flight was
in 1937. Allies later referred to it a as a “modern-day
Trojan Horse,” delivering troops silently and unnoticed
behind the lines. After Crete it was turned into a cargo
transport, especially for German troops in North Africa.
It had wheels for take-off, which then dropped off and
the glider landed on skids, slowed by it extra-large wing
flaps, Many were abandoned on airfields overrun by
Allied troops.
Wingspan 72’ 1”
Length 36’ 10”
Tail Height 8’ 11”
Empty Weight 1,890 lbs.
Combat Weight 5,600 lbs.
Cargo Combinations 1 pilot
9 fully equipped troops
or 3,500 lbs. of cargo
Maximum Tow Speed 180 mph
Cruising Tow Speed 130 mph
Maximum Glide Speed 112 mph

ground attack managed to assemble on the ground, and
the wasted effort added little to the overall German at-
tack.
Even had the German landing gone better, the
dropped airborne force was simply too small to affect
the outcome of a battle the size of the one fought in the
Ardennes. At the same time, jump-training among most
of the troops committed varied from non-existent to
merely inadequate. Further, the Ju-52 pilots were unable
to locate the drop zones due to the poor visibility. The
drop had to be made under those conditions, though,
because Allied air superiority in clear weather would’ve
simply prevented it. There were also no concrete plans
for supporting or linking with the main German ground
force.
An issue never finally determined by the German
experience with airborne operations had to do with the
effectiveness of glider delivery of troops relative to
that of parachute entry. Luftwaffe Field Marshall Albert
Kesselring commented on parachute versus glider inser-
tion:
Parachute landings are widely scattered; so
assembly takes time. Gliders can deliver men
as a unit, ready for combat. But once used, they
are written off… . Crete showed the tactical
disadvantage of troops landing without their
Aerial armada: Luftwaffe Ju-52 transports fly in
formation.
weapons, except pistols and grenades, [having]
to locate dropped armaments [while] vulnerable
to enemy ground fire.
Another aspect of that question for airborne doc-
trine was: should gliders be used in conjunction with a
parachute drop or in independent actions? The lessons
learned at the time indicated that, provided an operation
was small enough (as in the Mussolini rescue), it was
likely ideal for an independent glider operation. In larger
offensive operations, though, glider landings needed to
be melded with some kind of outside troop support, as
was done during the invasion of the West in 1940. On
Crete, the airborne assault was to have been supported
by an amphibious landing, but that was turned back by
the Royal Navy. Additional troops were flown in via air
transport.
Another doctrinal problem wrestled with by the
Germans concerned the proper tactical mix of glider
troops and paratroops. The Germans’ only large airborne
operation was Crete, where five percent of the airborne
force was inserted by gliders. Of the remaining airborne
troops, 5,300 were landed in Ju-52s. Interestingly, during
World at War 59

WaW11 Issue.indd 59 2/11/10 4:27:48 PM

 Aerial workhorse: Gotha-242 glider

The Go-242 the later assault on Leros no gliders were available for
The Go-242 was designed and developed as a replacement for the Germans.
the DFS-230. It could be towed by either the Ju-52 transport or the
Gliders were ideal for use in terrain consisting of
He-111 bomber. With a rear cargo door between twin-boom tails,
moderately soft ground with grass, or ground covered
oversized cargo and weapons could be delivered into a forward combat
with tall grass, as well as cleared cropland, and sandy
area. With over 1,528 built, it was the most widely used glider in the
ground. It wasn’t advisable to commit gliders to rocky
Luftwaffe inventory. It was used extensively on the eastern front and
or uneven ground, swampy or wooded ground, or
to deliver troops to North Africa. Later, 133 of them were modified
terrain with any amount of thick vegetation, ditches,
into twin-engine supply transports, the Go-244B-1. Photo: Luftwaffe
stonewalls, hedges or fences. Gliders were best used to
historical photographic archives.
deliver troops at night, into lightly or undefended areas
of acceptable terrain. That same terrain, once secured,
Wing Span 80’ 4.5” would allow Ju-52s to bring in follow-on troops.
Length 51’ 10” German gliders were slow and easily hit targets.
They were most vulnerable to anti-aircraft and small
Tail Height 14’
arms when the troops inside them were exiting the glid-
Empty Weight 7,000 lbs. ers once they were on the ground. After Crete, German
Combat Weight 14,900 lbs. airborne forces were increasingly no longer in a position
to commit to large glider operations because of the loss
Cargo Combinations 21 troops or 7,000 lbs. of cargo or one
of air superiority to the Allies.
small vehicle or one light artillery gun
Crew 2 pilots
at
Maximum glide 180 mph
speed
Armament Four .303 caliber machineguns

Further Reading
Enzo, Angelucci. The Rand McNally Encyclopedia of Military Aircraft:
1914 to Present. New York: Galley Books, 1990.
Buell, Hal, ed. World War II Album, The Complete Chronicle of the
World’s Greatest Conflict. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal
Pubs., Inc., 2002.
Mondey, David. The Concise Guide to American Aircraft of World
War II. New Jersey: Chartwell Books, Inc., 1964.
Taylor, Michael J.H., ed. Janes Encyclopedia of Aviation. New York:
Crescent Books, 1993.

60 #11

WaW11 Issue.indd 60 2/11/10 4:27:49 PM

 The Me-321 Gigant
The Luftwaffe developed a heavy transport glider
for supply operations on the eastern front. It had a
framework of steel tubing covered with fabric, and Wing Span 180’ 5”
nose-mounted clamshell doors that were opened from
the inside. The wheels were jettisoned on take-off, which Tail Height 33’ 4”
was assisted by wing-mounted rockets for added lift due Length 92’ 4’
to heavy cargo weight. Towing this monster was a great Empty Weight 27,300 lbs.
problem. The Ju-90 originally was originally intended
Combat Weight 75,800 lbs.
to tow the glider, but it was underpowered and proved
to be an inadequate. The next alternative attempted Crew 2 pilots
was using three Me-110s, which proved dangerous for Cargo 130 fully equipped troops
all involved. The final alternative was a hybrid, with Combinations or 23 tons of cargo
two He-111s joined together, along with a fifth engine Tow Speed 100 mph
fastened between the two sections. That aircraft could
get the large glider airborne, but at an extremely slow
towing speed. Later a further modification was made,
adding six engines to the glider and thereby creating a
large powered transport. Many were shot down when
trying to run supplies and troops to North Africa.

Victorious, at least for now: German airborne troops after the capture of Eben Emael.

World at War 61

WaW11 Issue.indd 61 2/11/10 4:27:49 PM

 New Solitaire Games
RAF: The Battle of Britain, 1940
England stands alone against Germany, defended only by the Royal
Air Force. Hitler orders his Luftwaffe to destroy the RAF in preparation
for the invasion of England. You command the RAF or Luftwaffe in
history’s greatest air campaign—the Battle of Britain. Improving on
his award-winning solitaire classic, designer John Butterfield ramps up
the historical accuracy, tension and play options with three complete
games.
RAF: Lion puts you in control of Fighter Command, responding
to German raids. The game’s system generates targets and forces,
which remain hidden until you commit your squadrons. Scenarios
range from one day, taking an hour to complete, to the full cam-
paign, playable in 12 hours.
RAF: Eagle puts you in control of the Luftwaffe raiding England.
You schedule raids and assign missions to your bombers and fight-
ers, attempting to deliver the knockout blow. The game controls
the RAF response.
RAF: 2-Player allows for two-players, one controlling Fighter
Command and the other the Luftwaffe.
Features include: German priorities, close escort, free hunt, the
Channel Patrol, day and night bombing, radar, the Observer Corps,
weather, ULTRA intercepts, squadron patrols, “big wings,” altitude
advantage, ace squadrons, and flak. Each game turn equals a “raid day”
with six two-hour segments. Units are British squadrons and German
groups. On the map, one inch equals 20 miles (32 kilometers).

Contents: 176 Die cut counters, 165 Cards, 3 34” x 22” Map, Rule booklets, Histori-
cal Study Booklet, Player Aid cards & display, 2 Dice and Storage bags.

D-Day at Omaha Beach, 6 June 1944

D-Day at Omaha Beach recreates America’s most bloodiest day
of World War II. In this solitaire game from the designer of RAF and
Ambush, you control the US 1st and 29th Divisions landing under fire
and struggling to establish a beachhead. The game is for two playing
cooperatively, each controlling a division.
Units include assault infantry, tanks, artillery, rockets, engineers
and HQ. The system controls the German defenders. US forces that
break through the beach defense must then contend with German
mobile reinforcements in the hedgerows. The combat rules highlight
unknown enemy deployments and the importance of the right tactics.
Event cards keep the action flowing while controlling German strategy.
The game takes into account intangibles such as leadership under fire
and the initiative of American GIs.
Scenarios: The First Wave (two to three hour playing time) introduces
the basics in a recreation of the initial assault. Beyond the Beach (four
to five hours) picks up on the high ground and adds rules for German
tactics. D-Day at Omaha Beach (seven hours) covers the entire day.
Each game turn equals 15 minutes in the basic game or 30minutes in
the extended game. Units are companies for both sides. On the map,
each hex equals 275 yards.

Contents: 352 5/8” Counters, One 34x22” Full-Color Map, 55 Event Cards, Rules
Booklet, Historical Study Booklet, and Player Aid Cards.
62 #11

WaW11 Issue.indd 62 2/11/10 4:27:55 PM

 Struggle
for the
Galactic Empire
In the far future, when mankind has gained the means to transit
space, a human wave extends across the galaxy. Communi-
ties of worlds form alliances; alliances become federations,
and eventually a galactic empire is born. That empire exists
for millennia, growing and consolidating, bringing most of
the inhabited worlds under its control. Despite its size and
apparent success, though, all is not well. There are rebels,
usurpers, those who want to create empires of their own,
and aliens of every imaginable form. Over the long millennia,
even the form of man is taking a new shape with genetic
engineering.
Struggle for the Galactic Empire is a solitaire science fiction
game. You assume leadership of the empire as it strives to
maintain and expand while fighting the forces of chaos. You
make decisions to deal with threats, keep the empire stable,
and still expand and bring new glory through discovery, colo-
nization and conquest.
The map shows the entire galaxy divided into sectors. Production
creates starships and other weapons. Units have two com-
bat values: weapons and morphogenetic systems. Weapons
destroy the enemy, while morphogenetic systems change
them into friends. Loyalties switch back and forth.
Threats are generated by chaos markers, including: rebels,
usurpers, independent empires, invaders and alien forces, as
well as technological, economic, social, political and military
events. You also launch expeditions to gain new knowledge
and technology. Other rules allow you to use psychosocial
warfare and propaganda to repress rebellions.

Contents: 176 Die cut counters, 1 34” x 22” Map, Rule booklet, Player Aid cards, 1
Die and Storage Bags.

QTY Title Price Total

RAF: Battle fo Britain $75
D-Day at Omaha Beach $55
Struggle Galactic Empire $50
Shipping
Total
PO Box 21598
Bakersfield CA 93390
Name 661/587-9633 • fax 661/587-5031 • www.decisiongames.com
Address
City/State/Zip Shipping Charges (Rates are subject to change without notice.)
Country 1st unit Adt’l units Type of Service
$12 $2 UPS Ground (USPS PM add $5)
V/MC # Exp.
24 3 Canada
Signature 34 3 Europe, South America, Asia
Phone # 36 5 Australia
World at War 63

WaW11 Issue.indd 63 2/11/10 4:27:58 PM

 Turning the Pages of History
Strategy & Tactics magazine covers all of military history and
its future possibilities. The articles focus on the ‘how’ and
‘why’ of war, and are richly illustrated with maps, diagrams
and photos. Use the subscription card or order online.
Don’t miss a single issue!

In-Depth Analysis

Detailed Maps

Orders of Battle

P.O. Box 21598

Bakersfield, CA 93390-1598
ph: (661) 587-9633 • Fax: (661) 587-5031
www.StrategyAndTacticsPress.com
64 #11

WaW11 Issue.indd 64 2/11/10 4:28:01 PM