ISBN 0-7006-0958-X
xiv + 346 pages

Acknowledgments; Introduction; photos; maps; tables; Glossary; Notes; Bibliography; Index

   The University Press of Kansas continues to turn out some of the most important military history being published in the waning years of the twentieth century. Peter Mansoor's The GI Offensive in Europe upholds that UPK tradition of scholarly, thought-provoking works on topics simultaneously of historical interest and contemporary applicability.
   In this assertive book, Mansoor argues that American infantry divisions in North Africa and Europe, for years considered by most military historians to have been inferior to their German opponents, actually proved themselves superior to the best that Hitler and his generals could throw at them. The book opens with a review of the literature that gave the US Army its poor reputation, notably S.L.A. Marshall's Men against Fire, Trevor Dupuy's Numbers, Prediction and War, Russell Weigley's classic Eisenhower's Lieutenants, and Martin van Creveld's Fighting Power. Mansoor then follows the backlash against those and other "brute force" interpretations as a new wave of military historians began to paint a different picture of American prowess in combat. Foremost among this new wave of re-interpretations were Closing with the Enemy (also from UPK) by Michael Doubler, When the Odds Were Even by Keith Bonn, and Draftee Division by John Sloan Brown.
   On one side of the debate reside mostly academics and British authors while on the other side, interestingly enough, mostly professional U.S. Army officers, of which Mansoor himself is one. Although the American officers also brandish impressive academic credentials (Mansoor, for example, received his Ph.D. in History from Ohio State and for a time taught military history at West Point), this coincidence is something that can never be completely forgotten when measuring the soldiers' arguments. While their education and experience make them uniquely qualified to evaluate and interpret the Army's performance in Europe, there remains the nagging sensation that in some cases they see only what they have been trained to see.
   Of Mansoor's book in particular, it can be said that it appears to have been written not so much to uncover and carefully weigh all the evidence but rather to present material that proves a specific point. There is also something vaguely dogmatic about the author's approach, especially in the early pages where he repeatedly emphasizes the inherent virtues of "democratic" armies in much the same way doctrinaire Soviet historians at one time touted the superiority of "people's" armies. While these tactics in some cases undermine the conclusions, overall the arguments are persuasive, the value of the work is quite high, and The GI Offensive in Europe certainly proves worthy of careful study.
   At the heart of Mansoor's thesis rests the conviction that American infantry divisions proved supremely capable of learning from their mistakes and emerging from each setback—thanks in large part to a flawed but war-winning replacement system which granted them far greater resilience than their opponents—stronger, smarter, and more competent than their previous incarnations. While he mostly neglects to discuss how well or how poorly the infantry divisions of other nations performed such on-the-job-training, readers will find his high rating for the Yanks in this respect repeated on page after page.
   Following the lengthy Introduction devoted to the competing schools of thought regarding American combat performance, the book reviews the War Department's standardized "Mobilization Training Program" for new divisions, the program of study and practice designed to transform hordes of unruly civilians into interchangeable components within standardized, mass-produced infantry divisions. Mansoor is not reluctant to point out flaws in the system:

   Too many of these exercises focused on training senior leaders and their staffs at the expense of the combat soldier....

   The Army of the United States lacked appropriate training methods for small units....

   The [types of] units that required the most supervision received the least detailed guidance on how to prepare for combat....

   Divisions rarely met the optimistic timetable of the Mobilization Training Program, for personnel turbulence severely disrupted their training....

   The provision of new, untrained personnel who arrived at spasmodic intervals to fill the division's shortages disrupted the training cycle....

   Lack of equipment and ammunition also hampered the training of new divisions....

   The centralized nature of the training system in the AGF [Army Ground Forces] also sapped the initiative of junior officers....

   Thirteen divisions never participated in division-level maneuvers; as a result, the first time the commanders of those units had a chance to maneuver their force as a whole was in combat....

   The combat effectiveness of even the best units degraded during overseas movement....

   Mansoor covers much the same ground and reaches many of the same conclusions as John Sloan Brown in Draftee Division. Here, though, the overall effect is a bit more extreme and US infantry divisions are portrayed almost as though—through no fault of their own—many of them reached battlefields in North Africa, Italy, and France mostly unschooled in the requirements of their trade.
   The harshest words are reserved for the Army's replacement system, a system resulting in part from the "ninety division gamble."
   Although planning originally intended that the Army would be built up to the rather ambitious figure of 215 divisions, by late 1942 that target had been significantly reduced by industry's manpower requirements, shipping limitations, the need for service troops, and other factors. By July 1943 the "troop basis" had been lowered to a hundred divisions, with the final twelve to be deferred until 1944. In the event, various pressures and demands limited the Army to eighty-nine divisions at war's end. Coupled with the need for units in the Pacific, the result was a constant shortage of divisions in Europe, a shortage which in turn contributed to increased losses among combat troops.

   The ninety-division gamble was a decision that cost the lives of numerous servicemen—primarily infantry replacements—in Europe in 1944 and 1945. Divisions were so scarce that American commanders routinely employed them at the front long after they should been withdrawn to retrain and integrate new replacements. The lack of divisions meant the units had to accomplish these tasks at or near the front, which resulted in a high rate of casualties among the new personnel. Some divisions literally fought themselves out in constant operations; even the best American divisions, such as the 1st and 9th Infantry Divisions, experienced collective exhaustion when they had been in the line too long. Additional divisions would have allowed for more frequent unit rotations, but due to a series of crucial decisions made by the War Department in 1943, by the end of 1944 no more divisions were available in the strategic reserve.

   As with the mobilization system, Mansoor reviews and criticizes the replacement system in considerable detail. Among other points, he damns the poor utilization of men from the Army Specialized Training Program. These high-scoring draftees—diverted into college for later assignment to highly skilled military positions—for the most part were unceremoniously dumped back into the ranks due to the replacement crisis and fed into infantry battalions as "warm bodies" in mid-1944 just to fill the need for riflemen, a decision which prevented most of these gifted soldiers from rising to the levels of leadership and responsibility for which they were suited.

   By the end of the war, the replacement system had become the focus of endless recrimination and bitterness on the part of soldiers who endured its workings.

   To illustrate the practical application of Army policies as it affected the three different classes of forces, the author then turns his attention to the activation, training, and overseas deployment of two Regular divisions (1st and 9th), two National Guard divisions (29th and 30th), and three "draftee" divisions (90th, 104th, and 106th). According to this assessment, competence of the divisional commander, overall quality of officers, percentage of cadre drawn from regular units, and amount of disruption caused by stripping away trained men for the replacement pipeline and as cadres for other units proved to be among the most important indicators for success in combat.
   With chapter four, Mansoor moves from describing mobilization and training to describing the actual combat experience of American divisions. He begins with the Torch landings in North Africa and the brief struggle with the Vichy French defenders. Beyond the landings, Mansoor takes up the story of Kasserine Pass which he labels "the worst defeat suffered by American ground forces in World War II." For this dubious honor Kasserine Pass might not actually withstand comparison with the loss of the Philippines at the beginning of the campaign in the Pacific, but in any event Kasserine did serve to sully the Yanks' fighting reputation in the minds of many allies as well as opponents. Further American failure at El Guettar and Fondouk Gap also damaged the American reputation. Mansoor writes that U.S. forces performed better after their initial efforts: They "would put these lessons to use...with much-improved results" during their final offensive operations in the far northern sector of the Tunisian front where they captured Bizerte.

   The 1st Battalion, 60th Infantry, forced the Germans off the key terrain of Djebel Cheniti on 6 May by attacking in the best fashion of the Great War with bayonets fixed one hundred meters behind a rolling barrage, thereby opening the way to Bizerte. On 7 May the first American units entered the city, only to withdraw again to allow French units to claim the liberation. On 8 May French forces entered Bizerte, and the North African campaign came to a close.

   The Yanks were indeed successful there, WWI tactics and all, but it's also true that by the time these operations occurred at the tail end of April and beginning of May 1943, the German defenders were severely depleted and suffered extensive shortages of equipment and ammunition. It should also be noted that the American thrust was basically a diversionary attack against a light screen of forces while the main offensive, not mentioned in the text, was carried out by other Allied divisions farther south toward Tunis (capturing the city on 7 May) against the bulk of the German defenses which had been concentrated in that area as a result of Axis successes in signals intelligence.
   If American divisions paid for their schooling in Africa, they would do so again in Sicily. Once more Mansoor lauds the men and officers for gaining valuable experience and learning new lessons to apply to upcoming battles. As for the conduct of operations on Sicily itself, despite the best efforts of the Allies, the results are aptly summed up at the end of the chapter: "Three German panzer grenadier divisions..." all understrength divisions, at that "...managed to delay two Allied armies for over a month in the mountainous terrain."
   After the campaign in Tunisia and the invasion of Sicily, the war in Italy would prove to be yet another series of learning experiences for the U.S. Army.

   The Army of United States exhibited both strengths and weaknesses during the Italian campaign. Achieving the mission of seizing terrain and destroying enemy forces was difficult at best against an enemy who proved extremely adept at carving out defensive positions in the mountains of the Italian peninsula. Poor tactics led to high casualties in some operations such as the assault by the 36th Infantry Division across the Rapido River in January 1944. The senior American commander, Lieutenant General Mark Clark, proved unable or unwilling to use success to destroy the German army in Italy when the opportunity presented itself during Operation Diadem, instead opting for a symbolic victory in the seizure of Rome in June 1944.... For the Allied divisions involved, the Italian campaign was an endless morass of mud, mountains, and frustration. Locked in a seemingly interminable struggle against both the elements and the enemy, American infantry divisions in Italy adapted as best they could to the exigencies of the moment.

   As Mansoor chronicles the progress of American divisions in Italy, he devotes a significant portion of his text to describing the continued problems with the replacement system as well as ongoing efforts to improve that system. He also explains how, time after time, individual American divisions suffered from poor training, weak leadership, and inadequate preparation as they were thrown into battle for their first combat experience. As his evidence indicates, the fact that one division participated in combat and managed to learn its lessons did not mean such experience was automatically imparted to other American divisions. In fact, it seems each division had to gain competence through its own school of hard knocks. "[I]n World War II," the author explains "the Army of the United States usually adapted itself to combat at the division level." To a certain extent, this divisional experience and skill was fragile, short-term memory in the sense that critical combat lessons could be lost or forgotten due to lack of action, lack of ongoing training, or the constant attrition of seasoned men and officers. This phenomenon is also dealt with extensively by John Sloan Brown. And, like Brown, Mansoor praises the efforts of the "draftee" U.S. 85th and 88th divisions during Diadem for "the pressure exerted" in their subsidiary operations against the German defenders despite suffering over 3000 casualties in six days. (Other historians, it should be noted, credit the French Expeditionary Corps with performing the decisive part of Diadem while suffering fewer casualties.)
   The GI Offensive in Europe abandons its analysis of American infantry divisions in Italy at the moment they captured Rome. Almost all the remaining pages of the book are devoted to operations in France and Germany in 1944 and 1945. The first chapter of the second half covers Normandy and the author's conclusions are offered in his first paragraph: "D-Day was the greatest triumph of the American mobilization system to date. It showed that an army of democracy, citizens turned into soldiers in a short period of time, could improvise and prevail against the supposedly superior military system of the Wehrmacht." On the other hand, referring to Omaha Beach in particular, he also notes that "Only the initiative of a few officers and noncommissioned officers prevented the Germans from hurling the invasion force back into the sea and saved the American forces from a devastating defeat." Bloody schooling continued when the Yanks attempted to enlarge their hard-won beachhead. "On 9 June the 2nd Battalion, 115th Infantry lost 150 men in a German ambush due to poor security in its night defensive positions." (Joe Balkoski provides further details in Beyond the Beachhead.)
   The benefits of combat experience are clearly highlighted in this section. The veteran 9th Infantry Division performed well in Normandy. The green 90th Infantry Division, on the other hand, performed so dismally it was nearly broken up and used as a source of replacements for other divisions. Mansoor describes how it took a change in command, the hard school of battle, and the deadly process of natural selection to harden the 90th into a veteran division with competent leaders. Again, this process seems to have taken place on a division-by-division basis.

   Although AGF sent observation teams overseas, the American army in World War II never fully centralized nor formally institutionalized a system for gathering lessons from the field, digesting them, and then disseminating them back down to lower levels. The lessons-learning "system" therefore left much discretion in the hands of local commanders.... The key leadership in this regard was at the division level.

   In little over a page Mansoor sketches the outline of what some analysts consider the core deficiency of attacking U.S. infantry versus defending German infantry in tactical combat at the squad, platoon, company, and even battalion level. The U.S. unit with its miserly allotment of automatic weapons simply could not produce sufficient firepower to overcome the plentiful automatic weapons brought to bear even by understrength German infantry formations. (For a fuller explanation, and one cited by Mansoor, again see Joe Balkoski's excellent Beyond the Beachhead.) Mansoor's approach to this tactical disparity leaves some points undiscussed and some questions unanswered, and in places alludes to exactly the phenomena that have caused others to question the combat effectiveness of American infantry and to label the Allied war-making technique as "brute force." For example, according to one paragraph, "From 12 to 14 July, the German defense in front of XIX Corps stiffened; American units ground out advances measured in yards, at high cost to both attacker and defender. Between 11 and 13 July, the German 3rd Parachute Division lost 4,064 men killed, wounded, and missing. The Americans could replace their losses; the Germans could not."
   Clearly the Yanks could inflict casualties on the Germans. But they also, as so often discussed in the text, suffered casualties themselves, often in copious numbers, especially while undergoing on-the-job training. Despite flaws in their replacement system—flaws Mansoor highlights in every chapter—fresh, untested GIs were always available to be fed into the battle. Thus, as more than one historian has pointed out, Normandy became a huge battle of attrition. How much finesse did that battle of attrition demonstrate on the part of American divisions and their commanders? Did the ultimate victory in Normandy really depend more on Allied tactical skill than an overwhelming superiority at providing sufficient quantities of manpower to feed into the line? Did that advantage in numbers and equipment mean U.S. divisions were as able as their opponents? Or did it have less to do with divisional competence than the balance of national resources in 1944? Finally, what would have been the result and how would Mansoor have rated American divisional skill had there been insufficient replacements available? Or if the Germans had been able to replace their losses as readily as the Americans? This is one chapter in particular where Mansoor's optimistic, almost preordained conclusions don't always seem to fully match the operations and outcomes he describes.
   Mansoor also heaps praise upon the performance of American divisions in the pursuit from Normandy, across the Seine, and toward the German border, using this as evidence of their mastery of mobility. Similarly, he holds in high regard the performance of General Patch's Seventh Army during its pursuit of withdrawing German forces from southern France in August 1944 after the Anvil-Dragoon landings. It was "...as spectacular in terms of ground gained as the Allied breakout and pursuit from Normandy.... As at Falaise, however, the American forces were not able to seal the trap. The German Nineteenth Army largely escaped to fight again in Alsace...."
   At the end of the pursuit across France, the campaign returned to the hard slugging that more closely resembled the bitter, costly phases of the Battle of Normandy. Mansoor notes the success of 1st and 30th Divisions at Aachen. Of the operations in the Huertgen Forest conducted by the 9th Division—earlier noted as one of the "most effective" American divisions—the author is less complimentary, blaming the army and corps commanders for nearly destroying the unit. The 28th Division was also shattered, and the 1st, 4th, and 8th fared little better in that battle. Huertgen was another classic example of attacking American riflemen colliding with defending German infantry.

   By fighting in the forest, the Americans gave up most of their advantages in terms of close air support, tank and tank destroyer support, and artillery firepower. The forest fighting was an infantry-against-infantry slugfest— the type of combat in which the tactically competent German forces, fighting on the defensive in prepared positions, excelled.

   The same chapter explicates the ugly and bloody campaign by Patton's divisions at Metz (see also Rickard's Patton at Bay), operations marked by early failures and ultimate success in line with Mansoor's theories about the ability of the U.S. armies to learn from their mistakes. The chapter is very critical of SHAEF's strategic vision in handling U.S. Seventh Army and 6th Army Group in the Vosges but seems more impressed with the tactical prowess of American infantry fighting with "...lack of priority..." even though, as elsewhere, "[c]ombat in the Vosges seemed to be turning into a war of attrition that would be won by the side that could sustain its strength and will to fight the longest," illustrating again that, flawed though Mansoor proves it to be, the flow of replacements was, as in many other instances, one of the most important keys to American success.
   The book devotes a solid chapter to the Bulge, largely to the loss of the green 106th Infantry Division which was virtually annihilated and never reconstituted: "...the only American division destroyed as a unit by the German army in World War II." (Mansoor also calls the loss of the division's 422nd and 423rd Regiments "the largest mass surrender of American forces in World War II"—amounting to about 6800 men—but forgets about the surrender of approximately 12,000 US troops at Bataan.) Blame is laid squarely on the divisional commander. The author speculates that, given the same opportunity to acclimate and learn its lessons in a more forgiving situation, the 106th would have matured into a competent fighting machine. The performance of another green division, the 99th, proved more praiseworthy. Likewise, the veteran units which stopped the "Wacht am Rhein" operation and regained all the lost ground (despite an unimaginative strategy ordered by higher headquarters) lived up to their training and experience, as did those units which halted the secondary "Nordwind" offensive.
   The end of the Ardennes battle also marked the end of the learning period for American forces in Europe. By January 1945 the replacement crisis had been remedied, more divisions were available in theater, and almost without exception the divisions were thoroughly trained, equipped, and—most of all—experienced to conduct the final assault on Germany, a victory Mansoor dubs "the American blitzkrieg."

   By the winter of 1945, the Army of the United States was nearing the height of its combat effectiveness. Equipment and supplies were plentiful, personnel shortages were abating, and combat experience had produced seasoned veterans by the hundreds of thousands in its combat divisions. American leaders had adjusted to the hard realities of combat. Senior commanders displayed skill both tactically and operationally in devising and executing the last major offensives of the war in Germany and Italy. The attacks that encircled the Ruhr and led Allied forces into the Po River Valley led to the destruction of hundreds of enemy divisions and the capture of hundreds of thousands of prisoners, bringing Allied forces into the very heart of the Third Reich. These campaigns led to few new innovations in tactics, techniques, and procedures, for the American army had learned its lessons well over the past months and years. The final triumph in Europe was its ultimate and well-deserved reward.

   Several examples of American proficiency are cited to support this transformation: In Operation Grenade, the 84th Infantry Division executing a major river crossing and advancing forty-five miles in ten days; the 9th and 78th Infantry Divisions capturing Schmidt and the Schwammenauel Dam; the seizure of the Ludendorff Bridge and exploitation across the Rhine; the 5th Infantry Division's crossing of the Rhine; and the Fifth Army's final offensive in northern Italy.

   Crushed by the superiority of Allied power, the Third Reich succumbed to the inevitable on 8 May 1945. Only eleven months had elapsed since the great invasion of Normandy, but in that short space of time the Army of the United States had matured into a veteran military organization. The final offensive that swept Allied forces into the heart of Germany produced few new insights in American doctrine, tactics, techniques, and procedures; what the campaign did display was the ultimate effectiveness of the American fighting machine in its prime. Indeed, American divisions displayed a great capacity to learn from their early mistakes and an enormous resilience that kept them combat effective despite the sacrifices they endured. In the spring of 1945, the Army of the United States reached the zenith of its power and effectiveness as it helped to destroy the last remnants of the once-vaunted Wehrmacht, a fitting tribute to the vision of General George C. Marshall and the other senior leaders who had worked to realize it. America's army had come of age.

   The author goes on to restate his contentions in a final chapter entitled "The Combat Effectiveness of the Infantry Divisions in the Army of the United States." In it, he lists some areas of American strength, but in doing so seems to misconstrue the term "kampfgruppen" and German use of such forces when he criticizes them as "small units formed from the fragments of divisions or regiments that had once been at full strength," rather than—as he in turn describes the American task force concept—"a powerful, mobile, flexible, self-contained, combined arms organization" assembled for a specific task. (See, for example, the U.S. Army's German Military Dictionary or Battle Group! German Kampfgruppen Action of World War II by James Lucas.)
   In the concluding chapter Mansoor also crosses swords with most of the works he originally lists in his Introduction as at variance with his own conclusions.
   Evaluating the expertise of American senior leaders above corps level, Mansoor throughout the text highlights their numerous shortcomings. In the concluding chapter he reiterates that theme and dissects failures such as Valmontone Gap, the Falaise Gap, and Huertgen Forest. Here, however, he also goes on to say "In the final battles to encircle the Ruhr Basin and exploit into the Po River Valley, senior American leaders displayed operational excellence. This speaks highly of their ability to learn from past mistakes." This is quite possibly correct, but it's also quite possibly correct to note that by this point the German defenders were only a shadow of their former selves. The "brute force" proponents consider it little exaggeration to say that the strategy of most American senior leaders mostly involved continuously firing artillery and dropping bombs until Germany had no one left to put into uniform except ten-year-olds and seventy-year-olds.
   Indeed, the German replacement system, which Mansoor excoriates for being unable to sustain its combat formations, according to other analysts actually performed extremely well until, bled white by the Russian front and then by the Russian front in tandem with the western Allies, the system simply ran low on suitable manpower and was forced to rely increasingly on Osttruppen, "stomach" battalions, old men, and young boys. "Over time," according to the last chapter "the Army of the United States developed into a more combat-effective force than the Wehrmacht because of the ability of the United States to sustain its forces at a relative high degree of combat effectiveness over an extended period of time." True enough, especially if one measures June 1944 through May 1945 as that "extended period of time," rather than September 1939 through mid- to late-1944.
   The author also refutes Weigley's contention that U.S. infantry divisions lacked firepower by pointing out that those divisions were habitually reinforced by corps artillery assets, tank battalions, tank destroyer battalions, massive airpower support, and so on. Even while praising the infantry, though, Mansoor's examples seem to indicate that in many instances the infantry divisions alone could not be successful unless they were powerfully supported by those extra formations with their additional firepower.
   Similarly, Mansoor debates Martin van Creveld's thesis that the German Army was in general more effective than the American army largely by stating "the average German infantry division could not defeat an American infantry division in battle" which seems true enough—especially given that Mansoor's definition of an American division includes abundant close air support, attached tank and tank destroyer battalions, additional artillery, and a steady stream of replacements—but also seems to miss the thrust of van Creveld's analysis which has little or nothing to do with measuring performance at the division-versus-division level. The nature of the comparison clearly has an impact on the conclusions: Is this really a measurement of national resources against national resources, military system versus military system, division against division, or of a German platoon with its MG42's defending against an American platoon with its BARs? Mansoor's "triumph of American infantry divisions", right or wrong, is quite a different matter, and perhaps a bit more artificial, than van Creveld's equations.
   These assessments of the arguments and omissions found in The GI Offensive in Europe are not intended to refute everything contained in what is in sum a very valuable and thought-provoking book. They should serve, however, as a reminder that in some ways it is surprisingly one-sided and even one-dimensional in comparison to books like Beyond the Beachhead and Draftee Division which have less of an investment in proving a particular point.
   Without denigrating the patriotism and self-sacrifice of any fighting soldier, it remains possible to disagree with portions of Mansoor's work. That doesn't mean U.S. infantry divisions in Europe were incompetent, nor does it mean all of the author's conclusions are incorrect. However, on page after page Mansoor thoroughly describes an ongoing series of setbacks, accompanied by heavy casualties, befalling American infantry at the tactical level while he simultaneously places those setbacks in the best light by explaining how the units learned their lessons from defeats and emerged as seasoned, combat-savvy units. This process, he asserts as his main theme, created for the Yanks highly competent, constantly improving divisions which eventually outclassed their opponents and by early 1945 were able to blitz through the German defenders. While that assertion might be correct, Mansoor never quite proves—and in fact seldom questions—how much of this eventual superiority should be attributed to the radically improved combat skills of American forces as opposed to the gradual disintegration of the Reich and its armed forces under hammer blows from not only the Allied armies in the West, but also from the unrelenting day and night bombing campaign and the Soviet steamroller on the Eastern front.
   An important work and highly recommended, but a book to be read carefully, thoughtfully, and with eyes wide open to certain omissions and debatable judgments.
   Available from online booksellers, local bookshops, or directly from University Press of Kansas.
   Thanks to UPK for providing this review copy.