Filed under: Gettysburg, Understanding Battles | Tags: Battle of Brandy Station, Bud Hall, Craig Swain, Eric Wittenburg, Sam Elliot
Yesterday, I was able to walk parts of the Brandy Station battlefield with Clark “Bud” Hall, Eric Wittenburg, Craig Swain and 150 of my closest friends. The Loudon County Civil Roundtable arranged the tour.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, there is no better way to understand a battle than to walk the ground. Sam Elliot, who played John Buford in “The Movie” (as we called it in the Gettysburg Discussion Group) understood this and knew walking the ground would help him get into character. When we stood on Buford’s Knoll with Bud Hall, he related the story of guiding Sam Elliot on the battlefield. Elliot asked where Buford stood during the battle and so, Bud pointed around them and said that Buford had been on the knoll. Sam wanted something more specific, so, Bud tells us, he picked a spot and Sam went and stood there. For a few minutes, they stood in silence, Sam examined the ground and getting into character as Buford. It was as though he was commanding the battle silently, watching his orders unfold. I need to re-watch Gettysburg to see Sam Elliot talking about the ground and the troops marching. I think he truly felt it, for Bud says he turned to him after standing on that spot and said, simply, “Hot damn.”
The folks from Civil War Trust were there, and, often during the day, we talked about their ongoing efforts for battlefield preservation.
Sadly, I had to head back to Washington early and missed being on Fleetwood Hill and an evening of conversation with my friends and fellow historians. It was a good day, but too short due to my prior commitments.
Filed under: 101st, 506th, Band of Brothers, Gettysburg, Normandy, Operation Dragoon, Veterans | Tags: C.C. Sprinkle, Farnsworth, Mario Patruno
I really enjoyed the scene in Band of Brothers when a paratrooper rides up to Easy Company on a white horse. If memory serves, the soldier’s name is Farnsworth, linking in my mind with Brigadier General Elon J. Farnsworth who died at Gettysburg. Turns out that they may have been channeling Mario Patruno of F Company, 3/506th. Patruno visited the Military Museum of North Florida in February to pose with his own mounted likeness. There’s another, more extensive article on Patruno that was published in 2011 in the Mayport Mirror, which starts, “Army Pfc. Mario Patruno was 23, tough and fit. He’d fought in the ring as a youth boxer, and in the streets of Holyoke, Mass., with a brawling gang called the Bond Street Rovers.” Those paratroopers are an interesting bunch!
Of note, one of the other attendees was “C.C. Sprinkle, 91, who was the co-pilot of a B-26 Marauder during World War II and took part in Operation Dragoon, the invasion of South France in August 1944.” Hopefully, we’ll be able to get C.C. up to Washington for the Operation Dragoon Commemoration and Seminar in August.
Filed under: Gettysburg, Marines, Navy, Understanding Battles | Tags: Naval Academy
Spot on. Great to see midshipmen actually on battlefields….
Filed under: Bizory monument, Gettysburg | Tags: Monuments, Royal British Legion, Vandalism
The Royal British Legion had put up a bronze statue of a soldier in memory of all those from Tidworth who had fought and died in World War II. Unfortunately, with metal prices soaring, two men spent 40 minutes removing the statue one night, putting it in their car, likely to sell off as scrap metal.
I’ve written about Mark Patterson’s vandalism of the Bizory monument before. There is some good news there: when I asked another visitor to check for the vandalism, they couldn’t find it, so it may either have been repaired or been worn down to unnoticeable levels after 18 months. Mark’s was at least trying to make a point with what he had done. This act makes that seem miniscule, but the problem is that when even those dedicated to preserving the memory of WWII feel free to disrespect the monuments, how can we expect the average person to hold them sacred?
I worry for Gettysburg, where there are so many monuments and a history of damage and theft.
Hat tip to Paul Woodadge for posting about it on Facebook.
I remember when I was a teenager, going to the library and they would have various activities to keep kids busy. One time, we were sitting, listening to someone give a talk when suddenly someone burst into the room, ran to the front, shot a squirt gun at the speaker and ran out. Then, they had us recount what we thought happened. Of course, everyone saw something slightly different, remembering different details, or even inventing new ones. As more people contributed, people’s stories also changed somewhat, to meet the group consensus. It was a great lesson in understanding perspectives.
History is no different than that crime scene witness exercise. Every witness has a different story and it’s by reviewing all of the perspectives that you have an opportunity to understand what really happened.
When I was last in Normandy, I was thinking about this. Touring with Allan, Dale and Paul, especially when visiting the German cemetery at La Cambe, you definitely realize that the common perspective we have doesn’t usually include anything about the German soldier’s experience.
I had never realized that when studying the American Civil War just how blessed we are to be able to see many perspectives. When you stand on Little Round Top near General Warren’s statue, you can look out and see where the Confederates were spotted advancing toward the high ground. If you’re lucky, Tom Desjardin, who wrote Stand Firm Ye Boys from Maine: The 20th Maine and the Gettysburg Campaign
If you read Eric Wittenburg’s or David Powell’s blogs, you get to see a lot of evaluations of sources. Recently, Eric wrote about the four cannons firing at Brinkerhoff’s Ridge at the start of Stuart’s visit to the East Cavalry Field that provides a good example of this kind of evaluation. Dave performs a similar task at Chickamauga in this post.
In much of my reading and touring of the Normandy battlefields, while we sometimes are able to discuss a variety of Allied accounts of the action, the Germans often have no voice. So, I picked up a few new books written from the German perspective. When I’m back in Normandy in the fall, I might see if any of our three intrepid guides has been able to put together a “German Highlights Tour” or maybe I’ll ask if they have a day where we could get together and discuss that, to add it to their separate repertoires.
The other day, I was driving out to Camp Highroad for a Boy Scout event and I smiled, because my drive was taking me through the Aldie battlefield. The Battle of Aldie was a rather smallish affair, with just two cavalry brigades involved (2000 Union and 1500 Confederate soldiers). Having been to the battlefield a few times now, it makes more sense how the charges up the Snickersville Turnpike could both be so deadly and be repeated. The twists and turns of the road, the tightness of the walls and the suddenness of the elevation changes all generated confusion and created opportunities for ambushes.
When one reads about battles without visiting them, it is very easy to misunderstand what happened and why. Many times, I’ve been out on a battlefield and looked around, feeling the light bulb inside my head flick on as the movements suddenly made sense. Until I walked the ground and saw what they saw, the actions of the various commanders and soldiers didn’t always make sense. Often, it’s about what can be seen and not seen. Sometimes, it explains why an advance was either easy or difficult.
A fine example is on the first day’s battlefield at Gettysburg. I’d been on the battlefield dozens of times from the early 1990s until 2007, when I organized a training hike for my Philmont crew. I’d never walked the Confederate approach from Chambersburg to GeneralBuford’s lines on McPherson Ridge. I’d driven it dozens of times, but since my Scouts needed some training on ground that was a little “bumpy”, we hiked from the first shot marker eastward. As we cleared Willoughby Run and began hiking up the slight incline, with light packs on our backs, I realized that the slight incline felt a whole lot steeper than “slight”. I’d only looked at it from the top of the ridge (from Union lines) and it never seemed that steep. However, carrying gear and walking up it while imagining musket and cannon fire cleared up a great deal about how Buford’s troops were able to hold the Confederates off that morning.
Similarly, when I was on Omaha Beach in Normandy, it was an eye-opener. Standing on that wide beach, with a perfect curve to it, I realized what a killing field that they landed on. Going to the extreme right of the German line, up on the heights at the east end of the beach, you can visit (if you get the right guides, like Paul, Dale and Allan) WN60 – the German resistance net up on those heights. When you look down across that vast expanse, it’s a wonder the invasion didn’t fail right there.
There is no substitute for walking the ground. Looking at maps or even sampling Google Earth’s views might give you some ideas, but nothing like the stunning effect of standing where the men who fought did. As General Buford said in the movie, it was lovely ground.
Eric Wittenburg, is not only a great writer, but also a man who clearly recognizes good writing when he sees it. He posted some battlefield reflections from his friend, Dave Lingenfelter, which are definitely worth reading.
Filed under: Gettysburg, Normandy, Tours | Tags: Gettysburg, Guides, Normandy, Tours
Recently, the folks who run Segway tours of Washington, D.C., complained to the Washington Post about the requirement for guides to be licensed in DC. I was surprised that there was any guide licensing, but I am a strong proponent of it. The rules strike me as pretty reasonable: pass a basic exam on DC history and pay a $ 200 fee. They see it as a conspiracy to keep the tour business in the hands of a few companies, rather than as a way to ensure that guides actually know what they’re talking about.
What are the arguments of those who oppose licensing of tour guides in DC?
- It’s a violation of free speech to prohibit them from referring to themselves as tour guides. This is like saying that it would be a violation of my right to free speech to tell people I’m a cardiologist. Anyone could claim expertise, but when you start charging for the use of that expertise, it’s no longer about speech, but about commerce.
- The tour guides from Segs in the City are experts anyway. Sadly, they probably aren’t. The guide interviewed for the story claimed she’d only been wrong once recently, in referring to the “founder of the Smithsonian” as Jonathan Smithson, when his first name is actually James, though she corrected herself shortly thereafter, and “it didn’t ruin anyone’s day” that she’d been wrong. Well, she did get his name right the second time, but she was wrong in identifying him as the founder. It was his money that started it, but it was 7 years after he died that it was founded. That she can’t remember being wrong isn’t proof of the extent of her knowledge. In fact, if you’re very confident when you’re wrong, people will think you’re right. If you’ve seen Slumdog Millionaire, you know that such confidence could earn you loads of money giving tours of the Taj Mahal even if you know nothing about it. Her complete lack of concern about being wrong galls me. It also wouldn’t ruin anyone’s day if she mixed up the names of the monuments, but it would still be wrong. Bill Main (the other owner of Segs in the City) stated that the Dred Scott decision “was on the books for a long time before it was changed, too,” though it was never actually overruled and was rendered moot with the passing of the 14th Amendment a mere 11 years after being written. Interestingly, I am told this same group made the same claim in Gettysburg, and failed the guide exam miserably.
- Some tour guides would only work one month, so the fee and background check is excessive. This is exactly the kind of people that are better off NOT charging money for tours. You have a bunch of college kids who generally haven’t lived in DC and don’t know the area, let alone have any depth of knowledge about it. Why should they be claiming to be experts and giving tours? The trouble for the unlicensed tour companies is that the fee and background check would either discourage young people from applying for the jobs (if they have to pay it) or reduce the company’s profits (if the company pays it). If someone only works as a tour guide for a month, what expectation is there that they know anything about the city? Heck, it sounds like the guides they hire are just doing it on a lark. Do we really want people who come to our nation’s capital expecting a serious, knowledgeable tour guide to be greeted by someone who only plans on doing it for a month before they go start their “real jobs”? Or do we want tours to be given by people who are professional and serious about it?
I think giving tours is a serious business and it’s one that’s incredibly easy to fake. All you have to do is be confident, talk fast and move quickly. Why is it easy?
- Tourist openly admit their ignorance. The tourist is in an incredibly vulnerable position. By seeking out a tour guide, one openly admits to lacking knowledge about the area. If the tour guide is very confident, but simply inventing facts, only a knowledgeable tourist would notice.
- In a busy enough location, reputation is irrelevant. If tourists are constantly arriving, you don’t have to worry if some of them think your tour was useless. They’ll go away and you’ll never see them again. Also, new customers will replace them immediately. Guide books or websites might help someone find a good guide or avoid a bad one, but when there’s another sucker born every minute, who cares?
So, I think licensing of guides is important and useful. What is the major benefit of guide licensing?
Some knowledge is guaranteed. Depending on how difficult you make the exam, you guaranteeing at least some level of knowledge in every guide. Gettysburg’s exam is intensely difficult, such that people devote years to studying for it, while the DC exam is apparently easy, with 91% of those taking the 100-question exam passing it. I’ve always been in favor of technical certifications because they ensure that the holder of the certificate at least knows the basics. If you have have to pay for your license, as well as pass an exam and a background check, you’re obviously going to be committed to it. It’s not something you do on a whim for a month. It makes the guiding business a career not a summer job.
Of course, what it really means is : The public can be certain they aren’t being ripped off.
I think having guide licensing would be very advantageous in Normandy. Tourists would be assured of at least a minimum quality for their guides and history wouldn’t get mangled by people who mean well but don’t know what they’re talking about.
Filed under: Gettysburg, Normandy | Tags: Angoville, Gettysburg, Normandy, Preservation
I was just posting a note to the Easy Company re-enactors about the Gettysburg casino and it morphed into a discussion of preservation and licensing of battlefield guides. As I neared the end of the post, I realized it was really something I ought to post here.
Having spent a number of years becoming familiar with American Civil War battlefield preservation and with the Gettysburg battlefield in particular, I’d been surprised when touring the Normandy battlefields for the first time that there are no French laws about battlefield preservation in Normandy. In theory, you could build whatever you want, wherever you want.
This gigantic silver-winged woman is supposed to represent peace
Having spent a number of years becoming familiar with American Civil War battlefield preservation and with the Gettysburg battlefield in particular, I’d been surprised when touring the Normandy battlefields for the first time that there are no French laws about battlefield preservation in Normandy. In theory, you could build whatever you want, wherever you want. One case in point is the 30-foot tall statue that China donated to Grandcamp-Maisy for the 60th anniversary of D-Day. It dominates the surrounding terrain (nothing else is over half it’s height) and especially the monument to the National Guardsmen who fought there. Of course, as we saw at Gettysburg, even having rules would likely not have prevented this well-intentioned monstrosity (though the locals may have rejected it had they seen it in advance). When talking with Paul Woodadge at the time, he felt that one of the good things about having no areas marked legally off-limits to development is that every piece of ground could be considered historically significant and worthy of protection. That is, if you mark only certain areas as protected, you lose the right to oppose development on areas not specifically protected. If I recall correctly, this very problem has occurred in Antietam, where someone put up several statues on their own land that may not fit in with typical battlefield interpretation. In Gettysburg, it’s lead to arguments over whether to allow a casino to be placed near the battlefield or even on non-protected battlefield land. Eric Wittenburg, who is an eminent civil war cavlary historian has noted that even preservation groups might end up supporting this nonsense.
Fortunately, Normandy is in the middle of nowhere from a French perspective (three hours from Paris, mon dieu!) with minimal industry and not a lot of job growth. Being so far from Paris makes it off the beaten track for any internationalists out there and without a lot of infrastructure that developers crave. The population of France is growing slowly – about half a million more people per year, I think – so there isn’t a high demand for new housing. Also, Utah and Omaha beaches are not particularly warm and delightful, even in summer (you see more French vacationers further east, near Honfleur and Le Havre). I’m guessing that if you’re a beach-lover, you end up with choices close to the beaches in Normandy if you want them. So, there’s not a lot of pressure to put new housing or resorts in Normandy. Melissa and I love it there and hope it never changes significantly.
Having seen what can happen when you do have demarcation lines in Gettysburg – that is, some people will think that anything outside the lines is fair game – I wonder if Paul is right. I would think that identifying the battlefield in Normandy might well be an impossible task because…. the whole of Normandy was the battlefield.
That said, I know that the southern end of the causeway into Carentan is far more densely built than it was in 1944. Similarly, Easy’s assault into Carentan, as shown in the series, approached the edge of town in 1944 (open fields on either side of the road) and now proceeds through an industrial and residential section of town. Carentan is likely the most changed part of the battlefield, since it has some light industry and has grown in population over the last 65 years.
If you wander back north, visiting Angoville-au-Plain, you’ll find that the commune has around 40 residents, just as it did in 1944. The town changed hands several times and I would venture that not a foot of ground couldn’t be labelled battlefield ground. How, then, would you regulate or legislate what these people could do with their land? All of Normandy suffered dearly for being a battlefield, with many civilians killed and wounded, others homeless and all scarred by what they endured. Would it be fair to rule that they and their descendants be again bombarded, this time by regulations? Or should we work to keep the history alive, the appreciation in the hearts and words of the French people and the love of that place alive in Americans? I’m not sure what the right plan is, but I know I want to be involved in ensuring Normandy can remain tranquil and beautiful, a monument to the people and to the soldiers who fought there.
Filed under: Band of Brothers, Bizory monument, Gettysburg, Normandy | Tags: Bizory, Easy Company, Gettysburg, Longstreet, Monument
This summer, I learned that one of the monuments in Belgium was desecrated by someone who scratched on more unit designations, since it was a monument to only one company. Of course, since Band of Brothers brought so much fame to E/506, it has also generated some resentment, since anything for them is more easily funded and more widely known.
It’s not hard to find people who either think that Easy Company was the best unit in the war, or those in the opposite camp, that think it despicable that the rest of the 101st Division or the rest of the Army gets so much less credit than these men. The individual who comitted the desecration falls into the latter camp and used to be the co-moderator of a forum on airborne history.
This individual felt compelled to modify the monument because he didn’t agree with it (he has publicly apologized, for what that’s worth). I’ve run across this attitude before – people who feel compelled to change the monumentation on a battlefield to better suit themselves. I would say that it’s to better explain the battlefield, or commemorate the deeds of the warriors, or to somehow enhance the value of the battlefield, but my impression of these people is that it’s rarely about anything but themselves.
In Gettysburg, the only Corps commander on either side who had no monument was General Longstreet. While it was odd and perhaps unfair, no monument had been made for the General while he was alive or in the early 20th century when the last veterans of the battle attended the last reunions. As such, to me, the lack of a monument to Longstreet was a story of the battlefield itself. Mentioning that he had no monument allowed one to explore why General Lee’s right hand wouldn’t have had a monument, leading to a discussion of reconstruction politics in the south, the relationship between Longstreet and Grant, as well as, perhaps, a discussion of the ‘Lost Cause’ movement. So, to me, the very fact that Longstreet had no monument was an integral part of the battlefield.
General Longstreet's monument in Gettysburg
However, a number of people worked very hard to get a monument built to General Longstreet. Unfortunately, they succeeded in putting up what some refer to as the ugliest monument on the battefield, taking away the interesting story about Longstreet not having a monument and replacing it with a story of how a bunch of hobbyists were able to band together and put up a monument to their hero. Longstreet had long been abused by the Lost Cause for a variety of invented reasons, but now, he has a monument on the greatest battlefield of the war. He must feel better! Except, he’s been dead a long time and the monument put him at ground level, on a diminuitive horse and his proportions look neither herioc, nor completely human. The artist also ensured that it would ‘violate’ the typical rules of military monumentation – often, the number of hooves off the ground on the horse is an indication of whether the rider was wounded or died in battle. (see note below on “folk wisdom”) At Gettysburg, all the equestrian monuments follow this guideline (there is no written rule) and it feels to me as though this was done because it was different and because it would stand out. So, we have a bunch of hobbyists working to make a name for themselves by putting up a monument and an artist who makes a silly-looking monument that defies convention, giving the impression he wants the monument to say something about the artist, more than something about Longstreet. So, for me, despite the fact it is nominally a monument to the man, all I can think about is the people who put it up.
In Belgium, Mark Patterson wished to make a statement by scratching unit numbers onto the Easy Company monument in Bizory. While I think we all would agree that every unit that fought there deserves a monument, it happens that because of Band of Brothers, getting money to put up an Easy Company monument is probably simpler than putting up a monument to F/501. That said, scratching the numbers on a monument and letting people know you‘ve done it, and done it more than once, is not about recognition for those other men who fought there. If you wish to honor the others who fought there, gather money, get the veterans out and put up a monument to them. Walking around pretending to be the champion of the unrecognized heroes by desecrating Easy Company’s monument is not about honoring the other units, but entirely about one’s own image. Fortunately, almost everyone I’ve seen write about this finds his actions reprehensible.
Sometimes, when listening or reading someone’s revisionist theories about a battle or a war, I also get the same impression. That it’s not about understanding, but rather about the speaker or author wanting you to notice that they have figured out something noone else has. They wish you to be dazzled by their brilliance, rather than being concerned with whether the theory actually matches with the evidence. Some of these theories are concocted by starting with a theory and then hunting down bits and pieces of evidence, sometimes out of context that support the theory. The worst cases require that you first ignore anything you know about tactics or strategy.
If you want to see the opposite of these actions, check out the work of the Stoy’s (CPT Monika Stoy and COL Tim Stoy). This August, they again took money out of their own pockets to fund the commemoration of Operation Dragoon. This year, the conference ran for 3 days, with several authors giving talks and about 20 veterans attending. The Stoy’s also travel around Europe, working to get monuments to these warriors installed or repaired in small towns throughout France and Germany. Often, their work brings remembrance of a debt owed to these men, and the towns celebrate them. It doesn’t tear someone down to build someone else up, or attempt to draw attention to themselves. It’s about the veterans and about what they did.
Note on “folk wisdom”: Check the comments for a discussion about the hooves on the Longstreet statue. Neither the Gettysburg Battlefield Monument Association nor any other organization has ever wrote any guidelines on the hooves in equestrian monuments. At Gettysburg, the hooves on the monuments do seem to represent the riders fate, but outside of Gettysburg, it is merely coincidental that sometimes this is the case. Check the Snopes article by Barbara Mikkelson for a good explanation of the failure of this “folk wisdom”. Thanks to Craig Swann for prompting the clarification.
We're not lost, Sergeant, We're in ... France 