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Posted on 06/18/2004 12:00:34 AM PDT by SAMWolf
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 are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
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| Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should feel free to address their specific circumstances or whatever issues concern them in an atmosphere of peace, understanding, brotherhood and support. The FReeper Foxhole hopes to share with it's readers an open forum where we can learn about and discuss military history, military news and other topics of concern or interest to our readers be they Veteran's, Current Duty or anyone interested in what we have to offer. If the Foxhole makes someone appreciate, even a little, what others have sacrificed for us, then it has accomplished one of it's missions. We hope the Foxhole in some small way helps us to remember and honor those who came before us.
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One of America's greatest engineering feats of the modern era, the construction of the Alaska Highway, celebrates its fiftieth anniversary this year. Compared in scale and logistical difficulty to the building of the Panama Canal, the highway was constructed in less than a year. Weather conditions reaching sixty below; short supplies; permafrost; muskeg; and swarms of mosquitoes, black flies, and no-seeums challenged the 11,000 army personnel and 7,500 civilians who blazed a pioneer trail through 1,600 miles of northern wilderness to create what we now call the Alaska Highway.  In the eighty years preceding the construction of the highway, ideas for a route connecting the territory with the lower forty-eight states ranged from a Western Union Telegraph line to William Gilpin's (first territorial governor of Colorado) grand vision of a cosmopolitan railway stretching from the U.S. to Alaska across the Bering Strait through Siberia and finally connecting with European railways. In 1938 President Roosevelt created the Alaskan International Highway Commission which developed two surveyed routes to Alaska. Despite years of debate, the highway project remained on hold until the shock of Pearl Harbor destroyed the American myth of isolationism and a panic-stricken nation and government rushed into action. Fearful that the Japanese Navy would seize control of the shipping lanes in the North Pacific and cut off supplies to Alaska, Roosevelt finally approved the building of a highway on 11 February 1942. Construction began the following March.  Dawson Creek, British Columbia, the beginning of the 1,522 mile road. The sign marks mile 0.0. Ignoring the Highway Commission's recommendations, U.S. Army engineers ran the Alaska Highway along an unsurveyed route from Dawson Creek in British Columbia to Fairbanks, Alaska. The primary purpose of the highway was the defense and resupply of the "Alaska Skyway," a string of WWII airfields. The army selected the route by connecting the dots on a map marking existing airfields. The highway was built under much protest from the Highway Commissioners who disapproved of the route chosen by the Army. Thomas Riggs, commission member, engineer, and former governor of Alaska, wrote that the route "is so absolutely out of the picture insofar as a highway to Alaska is concerned as to seem utterly absurd." The military justified their choice by pointing out that it was far enough inland to be safe from enemy attack and that pilots could follow the road to avoid getting lost.  Construction of the highway began simultaneously in five separate places with the goal of pushing through a pioneer road in a single season. Through the summer of 1942, engineers driving a fleet of twenty-ton bulldozers covered about six miles a day through the subarctic forest. Speed was the only measure of success. Crews attacked the trail, building without grades or curves, cutting a path wherever a bulldozer could go with reasonable ease and speed. The trail was not built for cars or trucks but for bulldozers. Surveyors using aerial photographs to mark a rough trail through forest and across muskeg (grassy bog) barely managed to keep ahead of bushwackers and bulldozers. The heavy machinery was followed by gangs of soldiers who widened the road, laid culverts, and built small bridges.  The greatest construction hazard occurred during the summer when surface vegetation was removed from the frozen earth. Exposed to the sun, the permafrost melted into a black sludge, turning dry trails into impassable ditches that swallowed trucks and bulldozers alike. The only way to pass over the permafrost was to lay down a road of timber and brush, thus insulating the frozen ground so it would not melt. When the formal completion of the pioneer road was celebrated on 20 November 1942, the road was all but impassable to any vehicle besides bulldozers. In 1943 the trail was developed into a standard highway by the U.S. Public Roads Administration and civilian contractors. Rebuilding nearly the entire trail, workers graded and blasted 25.4 million cubic yards of earth, straightening and shortening the route in the process by nearly 200 miles.  One of the original BSA motorcycles ridden over the proposed Highway route between Fairbanks and Seattle in 1939 to prove that it was a viable passage to the North It took two men seven months to complete the 2,000 mile trip. When the highway was built three years later it took a different route. University of Alaska, Fairbanks Highway repairs were almost nonexistent in 1946, and wartime travel restrictions remained in effect. Only travelers with legitimate business in Alaska or elsewhere along the road received permits to drive the highway. People who used the road were required to carry a supply of tools and spare parts including: two spare tires and tubes, tire chains, tire gauge, car tools, axe and shovel, spark plugs, distributor coil and points, condenser, brake fluid, tube repair kit, tire pump, jack, tow rope or cable, first aid kit, fan belt, light fuses, fuel pump kit, axle, generator brushes, and clutch parts. In 1948 travel restrictions were lifted, and scores of WWII veterans and their families traveled to Alaska to stake out homesteads in the northern frontier. Despite the influx of civilian traffic rugged conditions persisted, and the entire stretch of highway on Alaskan soil wasn't paved until 1960.  The highway forever altered the political, economic, social, and cultural life of America's northern frontier and its construction, linking Alaska with the lower forty-eight states, ended the isolation of the Territory and played an important part in helping transform Alaska into a state in 1959. 10,607 U.S. soldiers built a road 1,522 miles long in 8 months. 3,695 of these soldiers were Black men.  Back Row (l-r): Lt. Rives, Capt. Land, Lt. Rice, Lt. Lavelle Front Row: 1st Pt. Sgt.McGee, Mess Sgt. Salter, 1st Sgt. T.C. Barnes, 1st Pt. Sgt. Spretley, Sup. Sgt. James Smith, 2nd Pt. Sgt. Witmore Military policy during World War II decreed that Blacks would not be sent to northern climes or active duty, but after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the need for an inland route to Alaska appeared vital. Manpower was scarce, and segregated troops were shipped north under the leadership of white commanders... despite protest from the U.S. Army commander in Alaska, Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner, son of a Confederate general whose negative attitude toward Blacks was legendary.  93rd Engineers: The first of the three black regiments, the 93rd were led by Colonel Frank Johnson. Beginning their work at Teslin, they helped Lyon's 340th Engineers on the road to Whitehorse.(Picture from Twichell) The construction of the 1,522 mile long road from Dawson Creek, British Colombia, to Fairbanks, Alaska through rugged, unmapped wilderness was heralded as a near impossible engineering feat. Many likened it to the building of the Panama Canal. There was much praise for soldiers who pushed it through in just eight months and twelve days. However, Black battalions were seldom mentioned in publicity releases, despite the fact that they numbered 3,695 in troop strength of 10,670.  Lt. Rice and Sgt. Barnes with Highway Platoon- Company A, 95th Engineers. According to the testimony of their commanders, these men did an exceptional job under duress. Ill housed, often living in tents with insufficient clothing and monotonous food, they worked 20 hour days through a punishing winter. Temperatures hovered at 40-below-zero for weeks at a time. A new record low of -79 was established. The majority of these troops were from the South; yet, they persevered. On the highway's completion, many were decorated for their efforts and then sent off to active duty in Europe and the South Pacific. The veterans of the Army's Black Corps of Engineers were members of the 93rd, 95th, 97th and 388th units.  97th Engineers: Colonel Stephen Whipple led the 97th, the last of three black regiments, who accounted for 10,607 of the workers on ALCAN. The 97th worked in the northern third, helping the PRA and the 18th between Whitehorse and Big Delta, Alaska. (Picture from Twichell) Due to the fine showing of these Black troops and others, the U.S. military integrated all units during the Korean Conflict, becoming the first government agency in the United States to do so.  Temperatures were often 30 or 40 degrees below freezing. A record -79 was set this year. "We wore three pairs of socks at times, with rubber galoshes instead of shoes, because the leather would freeze. We had adequate clothing-- lined parkas, pants, mittens and heavy underwear, but it was still might cold. But I was a young man who felt he had a job to do, and I did it." -Alexander Powel, Crane Operator, 97th Engineers The road, originally called the Alaskan-Canadian Highway quickly adopted the shortened name Alcan Highway. Today, this road, known as the Alaska Highway, still provides the only land route to Alaska. (Black Archives Research Center Museum, Florida A & M University)
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Morning Tax-chick. I'll bet that's a relief to you. How'd Carolina scout take it?
French Cuirassier charge a British square
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The world's first delta-winged bomber to reach operational service, the Avro Vulcan was one of the cornerstones of Britain's nuclear deterrent during the height of the Cold War. In later years it was adapted for conventional bombing and saw active service in the Falklands War. It's final career was as an airshow star, a role in which it excelled - and may do so again.
The origins of the Vulcan lie in an Air Staff Requirement formulated a year after the end of World War 2. OR 229 called for a high-altitude, high-speed, strategic bomber capable of delivering a single 10,000 lb (4536 kg) nuclear weapon to a target 1725 miles (2780 km) distant. No British atomic bomb existed at the time, and so both the aircraft and weapon would need to be developed in parallel. After some discussions with industry, detailed specification B.35/46 was formally issued in early 1947. Innovative aerodynamic and structural design were required to meet the exacting requirements of this specification and the clear favourite to emerge from the contest was the Avro Type 698, later known as the Vulcan. As an insurance, the runner-up design, the Handley Page HP.80 was also selected for further development (becoming the Victor).
Although unusual in appearance, the Avro design was of conventional design structurally. The delta wing plan-form allowed the engines, undercarriage, fuel and bomb load to be enclosed in a low drag shape which gave good high altitude and high speed performance. The four engines were located in pairs and fed by 'letterbox' inlets in the wing root leading edge. The short fuselage, merging into the wing root, was a relatively late addition which gave extra space for internal equipment and the pressurised crew compartment. A single large vertical fin provided directional stability.
An order for two prototype Type 698s was signed in June 1948. A short while later, an additional order was placed with Avro for the development of the Type 707 series of research aircraft. The Avro 707 was intended to investigate the low and high speed characteristics of delta wings, for application to the 698 design. In the event, development ran almost parallel to the Type 698 and only a small amount of useful data was obtained.
The first Type 698 prototype (VX770) took to the air for its maiden flight on 30 August 1952. Development of the intended Bristol Olympus engines was running behind schedule at the time, and so the first aircraft was fitted with four 6,500 lb (2,948 kg) thrust Rolls-Royce Avon R.A.3s. A year later the Avons were replaced by 7,500 lb (3,402 kg) thrust Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire A.S.Sa.6s. The Olympus Mk 100 engine of 9,750 lb (4,423 kg) thrust was first installed on the second prototype (VX777), which was initially flown on 3 September 1953. VX777 featured a 16 in (0.41 m) longer fuselage to increase fuel capacity and accomodate a longer nose leg, a ventral blister for visual bomb aiming and an improved crew compartment. In the meantime, the first production Vulcan B. Mk 1 order had been placed, and the first of these aircraft (XA889) flew on 4 February 1955. XA899 was principally used for engine development, flight testing each upgraded version of the Olympus as it was produced. The B. Mk 1 was successively fitted with Olympus Mk 101, 102 and 104 engines.
Avro test pilot Roly Falk caused a sensation at the 1955 Farnborough Air Show by slow-rolling the second production aircraft during its display. Thus giving a clear demonstration of the control and stability of the still strange-looking aircraft. Flight testing showed that the application of g at high altitude at high Mach numbers could result in aerodynamic buffeting (high frequency vibration), which posed a fatigue problem in the outer wings. This was remedied by reducing the sweep angle on the central portion of the wing, giving a kinked leading edge instead of the previously unbroken 52º sweep. This Phase 2 wing was first flight tested on the second prototype in October 1955 and progressively retrofitted to early production aircraft.
On 31 May 1956, No.230 Operational Conversion Unit (OCU) was formed to train Vulcan crews for Bomber Command. The first crews went on to form No.83 Squadron which received its first aircraft on 11 July 1957. A total of six squadrons were eventually equipped with the B. Mk 1.
In 1956 design work began on a Mk 2 version of the Vulcan. The new variant featured a redesigned wing which was optimised to take advantage of the substantial increases in engine thrust that were expected from new versions of the Olympus engine. Of markedly thinner section, the new Phase 2C wing featured much increased span and area and introduced a kinked trailing edge for the first time. The separate outboard ailerons and inboard elevators of the original wing were replaced by four-section elevons on each side. The second prototype (VX777) began flight testing of the new wing on 31 August 1957. Other changes for the B. Mk 2 included enlarged air intakes and ducting to match the more powerful engines, shortened landing gear, the addition of a gas turbine APU and a new AC electrical system installed. A flight refuelling probe was also added in the nose, an autopilot fitted and an ECM suite installed in the tail cone.
The production line switched over to the Vulcan B. Mk 2 version on the 46th and subsequent aircraft. The first production B. Mk 2 (XH533) flew on 19 August 1958 with Olympus Mk 200 engines, and the first delivery to 230 OCU occurred on 1 July 1960. A substantial improvement in operational altitude and the ability to pull higher g levels was soon demonstrated. From 1960, Olympus Mk 201 engines of 17,000 lb (7,711 kg) thrust were introduced. By 1963, Olympus Mk 301 engines of 20,000 lb (9,072 kg) thrust were being fitted (from aircraft XH557), but no engine retrofit for earlier B. Mk 2s was attempted.
While the Vulcan B. Mk 1 had been designed to deliver a free-fall nuclear bomb (initially Blue Danube and later Yellow Sun) from high altitude, advances in air defence technology were expected to make this approach far too hazardous. Accordingly, the B. Mk 2 was designed to be the launch platform for a new generation of 'stand off' nuclear weapons. The first of these was the Avro designed Blue Steel, a rocket-powered supersonic cruise missile with a nuclear warhead, which could be launched 100 miles from the target. Only 57 Blue Steels were produced, and Vulcans equipped to carry it were designated B. Mk 2A. The first such aircraft was delivered in September 1961, and full operational capability was achieved in February 1963. The remaining Vulcan B. Mk 2s were scheduled to receive Skybolt (a US-designed missile with a range of up to 1000 miles), but this programme was cancelled by the USA in December 1962, leaving the RAF without a Blue Steel replacement and facing the eventual demise of its nuclear deterrent role. In 1963 the British Governement opted to procure Polaris nuclear missile submarines instead. In the interim, the British WE177B parachute retarded nuclear weapon was adopted for use on Vulcan B. Mk 2s.
From 1959, many B. Mk 1s were equipped with in-flight refuelling capability. Between October 1960 and March 1963 all the surviving B. Mk 1s received an equipment upgrade which included Olympus Mk 104 engines and the incorporation of an Electronic Counter Measures (ECM) suite in a new enlarged tailcone featuring a prominent radome. The modified aircraft were designated B. Mk 1A. The same tailcone was also used on production B. Mk 2 aircraft.
During 1963 the mission capability of the B. Mk 1A was extended to include low-level 'under the radar' mission profiles. The B. Mk 2 followed suit in early 1964. A special terrain following radar was fitted in a nose 'pimple' to the latter variant in 1966.
In 1968 the Royal Navy's Polaris missile equipped submarines took over the role of Britain's Nuclear Deterrent. The Blue Steel missile was subsequently withdrawn from service and the Vulcan B. Mk 2 switched to the tactical bombing role with conventional and nuclear weapons. The last Vulcan B. Mk 1As were all withdrawn from service by 1968 and the three remaining squadrons re-equipped with the B. Mk 2.
After retirement from squadron service, several B. Mk 1s were used for engine manufacturers flight trails. The Vulcan being ideal for this duty because of its high performance and good ground clearance. A pod containing the test engine was fitted over the bomb bay area and fuel lines etc plumbed in. The TSR 2, Concorde and Tornado programmes all benefitted from this type of testing.
The run-down of the nuclear deterrent force freed up Vulcans for other duties. Nine aircraft were assigned to the long range maritime radar reconnaissance role, replacing the Victor B/SR. 2. Designated B. Mk 2(MRR) these aircraft were modified with the addition of LORAN C navigation equipment and the removal of the terrain following radar thimble in the nose. No.27 Squadron used the aircraft between 1 November 1973 and 31 March 1982. In the mid-1970s, the tips of Vulcan fins acquired fore and aft antennae for an ARI 18228 radar warning receiver.
By 1982 the Vulcan had been in service for far longer than had been originally envisaged. Its replacement, the Panavia Tornado GR.1, started to enter RAF squadron service in January 1982. The run-down of the Vulcan force began with the closure of No.230 OCU in August 1981 and continued with all the Scampton-based units having disbanded by March 1982. Waddington-based units were expected to continue flying the Vulcan for a couple more years but this plan was soon abandoned for economic reasons.
Following the Argentinian invasion of the Falkland Islands in early 1982, five Vulcan B. Mk 2s were earmarked for possible offensive operations. These aircraft were fitted with a Westinghouse AN/ALQ-101 jamming pod under the starboard wing, and an Inertial Navigation System and refurbished flight refuelling probes. Operating from Ascension Island in the South Atlantic - the nearest available base - the Vulcans launched a series of high-profile attacks on the occupying forces on the islands, under the codename Black Buck. Refuelled by Victor tankers, the first raid, Black Buck 1, took place on the night of 30 April/1 May 1982, when XM607 released 21 1,000 lb (454 kg) bombs on the runway at Port Stanley Airport. The result was only a partial success and further bombing sorties were flown. Three other missions were also flown, using AGM-45A Shrike anti-radar missiles to target Argentinian radars. Argentina recognised the potential threat to mainland targets posed by the Vulcan's ultra long-distance strikes and redeployed its fighter forces away from the south to defend more strategically important parts of the country.
The South Atlantic conflict caused only a short delay in the retirement of the bomber force, the last B. Mk 2 unit disbanding on 31 December 1982. However, the acute shortage of tanker aircraft which arose from the Falklands campaign led to six Vulcans being converted to the air-refuelling tanker role. Designated Vulcan K. Mk 2 - initially B. Mk 2(K) - these aircraft had the ECM suite removed and a Mk 17B hose-drum unit fitted below the tail in a crude box fairing. The bomb bay was filled with three auxiliary fuel tanks. No.50 Squadron operated these aircraft between 21 June 1982 and 31 March 1984. Thus becoming last RAF squadron to operate the Vulcan.
Upon its final retirement, the RAF chose to retain two Vulcans purely for air display purposes. In December 1986, the Vulcan Display Flight was reduced to one aircraft as a cost-cutting measure. Further funding cuts finally forced the last airworthy Vulcan (XH558) into retirement in late 1992. The aircraft was sold to C. Walton Ltd and delivered by air to Bruntingthorpe on 23 March 1993. Subsequently, the aircraft was kept in a serviceable condition for fast taxi runs along the huge runway at Bruntingthorpe. In 1999 agreement was reached between the CAA and the manufacturer (now British Aerospace) as to the civil certification requirements needed to allow the aircraft to fly again. A dedicated organisation, The Vulcan Operating Company, was established to manage the required work and raise funds to pay for it. Donations are still actively sought. As of early 2002, work is progressing well and a return to flight is forecast for early 2003.
Specifications:
Manufacturer: A.V. Roe & Co Ltd (From 1963 Hawker Siddeley Aviation Ltd)
Main Role: Long range strategic medium bomber
Country of Origin: United Kingdom
Current Status: Out of Service, Out of Production
Crew: 5
Engine(s): Four Bristol Olympus 101 turbojets of 11,000 lb thrust, or Olympus 102 of 12,000 lb (5443 kg) st or Olympus 104 of 13,000 lb thrust
Nicknames: Iron Overcast; The Tin Triangle
Number Built: 134
Number Still Airworthy: None, but one is planned to return to airworthy status soon.
Dimensions:
Length: 97 ft 1 in
Height: 26 ft 6 in
Wing Span: 99 ft 0 in
Wing Area: 3554.0 sq ft
Weights: Empty (including crew) 83,573 lb / Maximum Take-off 170,000 lb
Performance :
Maximum level speed: Mach 0.95 (625 mph) at 39,375 ft
Cruising speed Mach: 0.92 (607 mph) at 50,000 ft
Service ceiling: 55,000 ft
Range: 3000 mi
Armaments:
No defensive guns.
Conventional or free-fall nuclear bomb-load carried internally.
Maximum bomb-load 21,000 lb (9,526 kg).
These pictures supplied by John Nickolls, ex-Vulcan ground crew. They are free for personal use, if you wish to redistribute them or make any other use of them you must contact him for his permission. These pictures were during his time with the Akrotiri Wing at RAF Akrotiri on the island of Cyprus in the sunny Med. Click here for many more collections and Falklands "war stories" of this plane: Avro Vulcan
Good morning, just a drive by posting, have tons to do today. We finally settled on a day for our support the Troops rally..Aug 14th.
Wasn't that the plane stolen in the Bond movie "Thunderbolt"?
Lessons of Wellington
By Victor Davis Hanson
The New Criterion Vol. 21, No. 4, December 2002
http://victorhanson.com/Curiosities/Wellington.html
Perhaps with the exception of Churchill, England has produced no more a remarkable man of action than the Duke of Wellington, who put an end to the Napoleonic Wars at Waterloo—nearly six million dead and twenty-three years after France’s mad genius first declared war against Austria in 1792. He was as effective an organizer and logistician as Lords Roberts, Wolseley, and Kitchener. But unlike his successors he crafted a method of war for his times that transcended the theater of his command, and so could prove as deadly to European adversaries as to colonials.
Born Arthur Wesley to a shaky aristocratic family (which later changed the spelling to Wellesley), the future duke showed no unusual talent as a student. His early military commissions were the results of purchase and family connections, culminating in a command in India granted largely through the interventions of his talented brother Richard, the Governor-General. Indeed, after borrowing to buy a captaincy, majority, and colonelcy, he found himself in debt to almost everyone from close family members to his boot maker.
Yet when he was at last in a position of authority, Wellington immediately showed the hallmark signs of brilliance that would characterize the next twenty years of his military career, resulting in the costly, but dazzling victory over the Marathas at Assaye, followed by further wins at Argaum and Gawlighur that crushed most resistance in British India. In less than a decade, from 1796 to 1805, he provided the muscle to enforce his brother Richard’s brilliant organizational and political craft, cementing the foundations of the British Raj for the next century, through a series of rapid constabulary actions and decisive battles where he developed his trademark attention to defense and logistics.
Recalled to England in 1805, he married, and within three years he was off again to Portugal and Spain. There he kept the Grande Armée at bay in the Iberian Peninsula off and on for a decade, before meeting his destiny at Waterloo in 1815. Conventional odds were against him in Europe since England’s strength was in her navy, with only a small professional army trained for colonial skirmishing, one hardly equipped to face modern continental forces that were blessed by superior technology and bolstered by a vast levée en masse.
No matter—Wellington never really lost to the French, whose generals drew on a population pool nearly three times as large as England’s and claimed they sought empire for the brotherhood of man. In retirement as the Grand Old Man, the Duke finished out the last thirty-six years of his long life as Prime Minister, Chancellor at Oxford, Commander-in-Chief of the army, and acclaimed senior spokesman of British aristocracy. He died peacefully at eighty-three in September 1852—with Napoleon’s nephew Louis poised to stage a coup and declare himself emperor of France. At his funeral at St. Paul’s, a list of well over fifty honors and titles were read aloud—Knight of this, Earl of that, Duke so and so, with a generous splash of Rangers, Masters, Governors, Grandees, and Lords.
All biographers dwell on his contradictions, both personal and professional. Austere and often cold, respected but not liked, his competence and dependability nevertheless won him real loyalty from his men —whom he felt for the most part were the dregs of the earth. Properly married, he was rumored to have enjoyed several mistresses. Scrupulously honest, Wellington nevertheless came home from India a wealthy man as a result of his own lion’s share of the spoils of battle. Without an aristocrat’s classical education, he wrote more polished English prose than most scholars, spoke a number of languages, and read voraciously.
In an age of the emergence of growing staffs, Wellington attended to almost all his business first-hand. If Napoleon’s head was stuffed with grand ideas of empire and huge continental armies, all as a means to establish a Europe based on post-revolutionary principles, Wellington’s mind was instead full of logistical problems in moving a few thousand men in and out of battle, and setting them in defensive positions on reverse slopes where in relative safety they could blast apart columns of infantry approaching with real revolutionary élan. Waterloo proved the latter’s experience and expertise to be the more valuable in the greatest battle of the nineteenth century, leaving military historians in a quandary ever since as to what properly constitutes real prerequisite battlefield genius—prior command of two-thirds of a million troops all over Europe or years at the front with 75,000 in a local theater.
Wellington was not prone to flashy aphorisms like Napoleon, but on occasion his reasoned remarks are more apt to stay with us. “They came on in the same old way, and we sent them back in the same old way,” he scoffed of the destruction of the Old Guard at Waterloo. And when refusing a suggestion to target Napoleon across the battlefield, he barked, “I’ll not allow it. It is not the business of commanders to be firing upon one another.” Wellington rarely lost and never lost big. Before he assumed command, the British army was a beaten force of little repute, a mere ancillary to the grand navy; after him, it proved that man for man it was the best in the world. He was utterly unshakeable throughout Waterloo when his army often tottered on the brink: “I looked oftener at my watch than at anything else. I knew if my troops could keep their position till night, that I must be joined by troops from Blücher before morning.”
Gordon Corrigan’s life of Wellington[1] is very laudatory—“the greatest British general of any age”—and very British, written by a former officer and so mostly focused on Wellington as a great captain of the army. In Corrigan’s see-no-evil, hear-no-evil hagiography, rumors about Wellington’s women are ill-founded; widespread enmity was usually without cause and the wages of envy. In short, Corrigan reminds us that “In an age where self-interest was the norm and morality a middle-class responsibility, Wellington’s life shines out.”
Wellington may well have been a prig of sorts, but his poorly disguised contempt for the English poor in the great age of British reform politics is more than balanced by his sterling character. Look to what he did, not what he said, Corrigan reminds us. Repeatedly he ensured that his men were fed and well taken care of. He wept at news of his army’s battle losses—twenty-seven percent casualties at Assaye and twenty-eight at Waterloo—and defined compassion through his own military competence that ensured his men won and were treated well in victory. The very idea that he would enter a warm carriage to abandon a freezing English army in Russia or flee a mess in Egypt as did Napoleon (“In war men are nothing: it is a man who is everything”) is preposterous. At Waterloo he lamented, “I do not know what it is to lose a battle, but certainly nothing can be more painful than to win one with the loss of so many of one’s friends.” His officers returned his affection, one writing that the mere sight of the Duke’s long nose was worth more than 10,000 reinforcements. This was a man, after all, who could write sterling prose nonstop to dozens of subordinates and then jump on his horse and ride eighty miles in two days, all cross-country through a difficult landscape. At Waterloo Wellington was as robust as a man thirty; the similarly forty-six-year-old Napoleon was in sorry shape and as lethargic as a man three decades his senior.
If Corrigan sometimes sees a one-dimensional Wellington as an embodiment of English virtue, his military history nevertheless makes fascinating reading and is a tribute to the old-fashioned narrative art that looks at deeds and concrete achievements rather than motivations and inner angst. We also glean invaluable knowledge about the distinctions between grape and canister shot, careful tutorials about loading and shooting muskets, and Wellington’s remarkable constitution that allowed him little sleep while riding vast distances nearly nonstop for hours on end. The prose is engaging, the historical judgment sober and skeptical, and the documentation reliable—in short, precisely the sort of biography that reflects the best of traditional English military scholarship of a half century past.
Andrew Roberts is far trendier and presents a gossipy dual biography[2] of Wellington and Napoleon that offers juxtaposed narratives of their respective lives from birth to their dazzling funerals as he flips back and forth until their climactic meeting at Waterloo, and then chronicles their divergence again during Napoleon’s last exile. Often his reliance on rumor and braggadocio would appall Corrigan—like the young French stage-actress Marguerite Josephine Weimer’s purported respective scoring of Wellington and Napoleon in bed: “Monsieur le Duc était de beaucoup le plus fort.” Roberts uses the superficial similarities between the two—same year of birth (1769), aristocratic background, lack of real formal education—as a backdrop to show how radically different men they were. He attributes much of the divergence to the difference between British and French national character that trumped their similar class and common European experiences.
Roberts dispels misconceptions of their much publicized mutual pique, and in its place shows how much more complex the rivalry was. Napoleon in retirement deprecated Wellington while privately admiring his talents—even as the latter was too much the gentleman to reveal how little he thought of the exiled megalomaniac, a man who once remarked, “At twenty-nine years of age I have exhausted everything. It only remains for me to become a complete egoist.” If Napoleon thought it wise to scoff at the man who beat him, the far more critical Wellington wisely realized that to magnify Napoleon only cemented his own accomplishment. Or as Lucien Henry warned, “Those who would libel Napoleon rob Wellington of half his glory.”
If Roberts is not so overt as Corrigan in his efforts to offer up Wellington as the embodiment of English virtue, his subtle comparisons with the more mercurial, exciting—and less moral—Napoleon nevertheless achieve that affect. As for the excuses that Napoleon was sick at Waterloo with an array of ailments from hemorrhoids to bladder obstruction, or that by 1815 he had lost his best men in Russia, or that General Comte Guyot had ignored orders, or that loose-cannon Marshal Grouchy was in the wrong place at the wrong time, or that the crazy Ney sent his lancers and cuirassiers in prematurely without orders, Roberts, like Corrigan, will have none of it. The real explanation for Waterloo was far simpler: after delaying for critical hours in the morning when the British and Prussians were confused and hardly ready to fight, Napoleon then sent columns and horsemen en masse against disciplined shooters well protected either on reverse slopes or in solid squares. Napoleon—neither chance nor his marshals—lost the battle. And still, as Wellington pointed out, it was “the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life” that might have still worked had not the Duke galloped over the lines steadying his men for hours on end. Napoleon, remember, not Wellington, had the more uniform, skilled, and veteran army.
Roberts demonstrates how Wellington utterly lacked anything of Napoleon’s flair. Byron deprecated him and worshiped Napoleon, presaging the liberal creed of admiring those who profess a liking for humanity but hate people. The imperator emeritus himself wrongly blamed Wellington for his bleak exile on St. Helena, not appreciating that it was precisely Wellington who made sure his theatrical nemesis was not killed. While professing it was the humane influence of his own British Protestantism that had spared the tyrant, Wellington more likely possessed an astute sense of postbellum realities: it was key to the French disappointed sense of self that their emperor be defeated and exiled in shame rather than be killed in battle or executed as a martyr by haughty British.
Napoleon bore that magnanimity heavily, and made arrangements in his will to reward with 10,000 francs a failed assassin of Wellington. How hard it must have been to accept that Wellington beat him so badly, the sepoy general whose rope-a-dope strategy grew out of chronically small armies—and less lethal artillery, with few heavy lancers and no array of subordinate flashy marshals. Indeed, Wellington’s armies were often scarcely a third English, and he never had more than 100,000 men under his total command. As Roberts shows, it is understandable that a genius like Napoleon would become exasperated with a perfectionist like Wellington who “had his number”—not unlike flashy table tennis stars who are finally worn down by mechanical opponents who for hours can methodically return even rocket serves back across the net.
Roberts ends by noting the irony that the grandiose plans of the European Union in Brussels represent the defeated Napoleon’s vision of a united borderless Europe, without class frictions and joined by a common government—as if moderns have far less resonance with the parochial British victor and his aristocratic cronies. As he reminds us, Waterloo was fought a mere twelve miles from Brussels, the center of European collectivism, and thus history has perhaps come full-circle.
But that verdict, I think, is not quite in yet. And the very eccentric qualities that both Roberts and Corrigan note and praise in Wellington—aloof and detached analysis, willingness to fight alone and for principle, a firm unapologetic sense of national purpose and faith in Anglo exceptionalism—we Americans at least seem to appreciate the more. And so in our present crisis it is no accident that the United States finds far more dependable and moral the competent children of Wellington than it does the continental Europeans with all their grand utopian but ultimately empty moral pretensions.
Notes
1. Wellington: A Military Life, by Gordon Corrigan; Hambledon Press, 400 pages, $30.
2. Napoleon & Wellington: The Battle of Waterloo and the Great Commanders Who Fought It, by Andrew Roberts; Simon & Schuster, 349 pages, $27.
All copyrights reserved by Victor Davis Hanson
Consider yourself pinged.
He and Anoreth were disappointed, but since the boys have been at Day Camp, they didn't have time to think about it much. One of our fish died this week, too - the stupid catfish wouldn't stay away from the Betta! It's through these little tragedies that we grow stronger :-).
Awwwwww thanks Sam, great feather.
The soldiers are probably the 79th (Cameronian) Highlanders or 92nd (Gordon) Highlanders. The Tartan is certainly not that of the Black Watch. (42nd Highlanders)
The Clancy Brothers did a song about that ... "The Tartan of the Gallant Fourty-Twa."
Watching all the country girls working at the hay,
I really was delighted and he stole my heart awa'
When I saw him in the tartan of the gallant Forty Twa.
Mornin' PE, lovely Flag-o-gram. Thank you.
hmm... I think you mean "ThunderBALL" ?
I don't honestly know, Thunderball is one of the few Bond movies I haven't seen a bazillion times.
The Tartan of the Black Watch (Gallant Forty Twa)
Wasn't another "Immelmann" manuever one where the pilot started a semi-steep climb, then kicked the rudder hard over and the plane basically pivoted 180deg and came back down the way it came?
That's the picture I've always had in my brain of an "Immelmann"
When I posted my bump earlier this morning it was only drizzling, about 15 minutes later we got about an inch of rain in about 15 minutes. Glad I am on a hill.
With a little luck it will dry out...next week,he he
Regards
alfa6 ;>}
Worked up that way on siesmic survey for Bendix United Geophysical out of California....Um...we got our butts kicked .....like regular : )
Never been involved in more truck wrecks in my life,...yes..you can survive 4 truck wrecks..the 5TH is unknown.
Vanity/comedy story:
To get to the otherside of a shallow frozen river....we would have to do a box drive of about 4 miles each leg.
Its decided then..that we will go downhill and cross the river instead.
New line driver at the wheel.
Well..we broke thru the ice..and went forward a few feet.
but the drive train did not..it was torn off.
The next choice was to winch out...
that failed too...cables slung around groups of 6-8" Poplar tree's....all broken and tipped over.
It looked like a war zone with toppled tree's and wrecked truck.
Suddenley..and out of nowhere..is the Party Boss or Job Push..standing on the wrecked truck pointing...."Who ever drove this unit is fired"!
Lucky for us.....a Kenworth Frac/injection truck was nearby to winch the wreck up the hill.
On a scale of wrecks..this was just a 4....I survived an 8.
10 is head on collision on a hiway.
Charged by Bulls...charged by Horses..attacked by Mosquito's as big as your thumb....these suckers are tough.....Kevlar I think.....cuz they live until late October.
I am not Catholic....but was considering a plastic Jesus for the dash : )
The men who built the Alcan really earned it.
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