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Forging the way: 1st Armored Division leadership from Oran to Bizerte, 1942-1943

Barry, Steven Thomas
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1406629802

Abstract Details

2006, Master of Arts, Ohio State University, History.
Combat is a frightening experience that both teaches and battle-hardens surviving soldiers for future engagements. The deadly part of this equation implies that some soldiers must die in order for an army to gain combat experience, but enough must live to apply their experience in future battles and to train future soldiers. Often leaders and historians attribute “greenness” as a cause for failure in a battle, but this intangible term is difficult to quantify. General Dwight Eisenhower listed four principal causes for the Allied failure at Kasserine Pass, and one of them was listed as “greenness,” intimating that later American divisions that had the benefit of a full year of “intensive training” would have done better against the Axis assault. Despite this claim, the evidence does not support Ike’s assessment at the level of battalion command in the 1st Armored Division in North Africa. How did the intangible qualities of combat experience and leadership combine with the more quantifiable components of armored doctrine and equipment differences to produce varied battlefield results among the tank battalions of the 1st Armored Division throughout the North African campaign? Sound leadership, with or without combat experience, overcame inferior American equipment. Competent leaders adapted effective armored doctrine to each battle regardless of the outcome; typically, German numerical superiority and poor command at the division level and higher, not troop greenness or poor leadership, contributed to battlefield losses, especially during the battles for Kasserine Pass and the later stages of the race for Tunis. The assertion that Americans had to pay in blood for enough combat experience in order to fight well is a spurious claim and suggests that soldiers from “soft” democratic nations do not possess the ability to fight bravely and competently unless they have taken their licks from their enemy. Additionally, the armor officers at the battalion-level of command possessed the ability to transition the infantry-assault-first-supported-artillery and armor mentality propagated by World War I era officers to mechanized operations more completely and quickly. The central thesis of this paper is that the battalion commanders of the 1st Armored Division possessed effective leadership throughout the North African Campaign and knew the essentials of field command before they began combat operations.
Allan R. Millett (Advisor)
John F. Guilmartin (Committee Member)
John L. Brooke (Committee Member)
133 p.
History

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Barry, S. T. (2006). Forging the way: 1st Armored Division leadership from Oran to Bizerte, 1942-1943 [Master's thesis, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1406629802

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Barry, Steven. Forging the way: 1st Armored Division leadership from Oran to Bizerte, 1942-1943. 2006. Ohio State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1406629802.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Barry, Steven. "Forging the way: 1st Armored Division leadership from Oran to Bizerte, 1942-1943." Master's thesis, Ohio State University, 2006. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1406629802

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1406629802
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© 2006, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.