Reframing Chicago's Memorial Day Massacre, May 30, 1937 (original) (raw)

Slap Heard around the World": George Patton and Shell Shock

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters, 2019

This article addresses the motives behind General George Patton slapping two soldiers in Army field hospitals during the Sicily campaign. With a more comprehensive understanding of the evolution of mental health conditions associated with combat trauma, the complexities of battlefield leadership become clearer. O n a hot August day in 1943 along the northern Sicilian coast, Lieutenant General George Patton slapped a soldier. Arriving at the 15th Evacuation Hospital for an inspection, the general moved along the ward. There he met "the only arrant coward" Patton claimed to have seen in his army "sitting, trying to look as if he had been wounded." When Patton asked about his injury the soldier replied he "just couldn't take it." As one of the doctors remembered, "The General immediately flared up, cursed the soldier, called him all types of a coward, then slapped him across the face with his gloves, and finally grabbed the soldier by the scruff of his neck and kicked him out of the tent." 1 A week later, Patton repeated the scene at the 93rd Evacuation Hospital (also in Sicily) where he slapped another seemingly uninjured private. 2 These episodes, collectively known as the slapping incidents, are among the most well-known facts about Patton's career. Yet little is known about what Patton actually knew about shell shock. Most of his contemporaries, and subsequent historians, simply claim the general did not believe it existed. Dwight D. Eisenhower, for example, wrote Patton "sincerely believed that there was no such thing as true 'battle fatigue' or 'battle neurosis.' " 3 And in General Omar N. Bradley's opinion, Patton "could not believe that men could break under an intense mental strain as a result of [the] hardships endured in war." 4 Patton's daughter, Ruth Ellen Patton Totten, agreed her father "honestly did not believe in battle fatigue," while his nephew Fred Ayer Jr. claimed throughout Patton's

The Nanking Atrocity: Still and Moving Images 1937–1944

Abstract: This manuscript investigates the facts of publication of the images of the Nanking Atrocity (December 1937–January 1938) in LIFE and LOOK magazines, two widely read United States publications, as well as the Nanking atrocity film clips that circulated to millions more in American and Canadian newsreels some years later. The publishers of these images were continuing the art of manipulation of public opinion through multimodal visual media, aiming them especially at the less educated mass public. The text attempts to describe these brutal images in their historical context. Viewing and understanding the underlying racial context and emotive impact of these images may be useful adjuncts to future students of World War II. If it is difficult to assert how much these severe images changed public opinion, one can appreciate how the emerging visual culture was transforming the way that modern societies communicate with and direct their citizens' thoughts.

Fire and Maneuver: The 2nd Infantry Division’s Assault on Korea’s “Punchbowl”

2018

There must be effective fire combined with skillful movement." 1 In war there may not be authoritative rules to follow, but there are nuggets of wisdom, and the lead sentences of this chapter comprise one of them-commanders disregard the synergy between fire and combinedarms maneuver at their (and their Soldiers') peril. An attacker advancing against a prepared enemy resorts to various expedients to dislocate or degrade defensive fires. Obfuscation by darkness, smoke, or fog is one effective method, as is the exploitation of surprise, or the utilization of covered and concealed avenues of approach. But sometimes the terrain or the nature of the defenders' array precludes these methods. In these situations, fire must be fought with more effective fire, and the most effective fires are those that support aggressive maneuver. 2 Army doctrine for large-unit operations during the Korean War was prescribed by Field Manual (FM) 100-5, Operations, published in August 1949. Its foundational experience was of course that gained from World War II, revealing the art of "leading troops in combat and the tactics of the combined arms." 3 The Foreword to this edition of FM 100-5 noted that "while the fundamental doctrines of combat operations are neither numerous nor complex, their application sometimes is difficult." 4 This chapter examines the experience of the 2nd Infantry Division in the Korean War, during the so-called "stalemate" period (1951-1953), conducting offensive operations against a dug-in, motivated, and competent enemy. The division struggled to adapt doctrine to generate fire superiority that enabled decisive maneuver. The result was a poor exchange of high casualties for little terrain. "Numbers cannot be used as a substitute for fire," counsels the 1939 edition of Infantry in Battle. "If the attack lacks surprise or superior fire power, an increase in men will merely mean an increase in casualties" without a decision or appreciable effect on the enemy. 5 This doctrinal prescription remains fundamental to offensive operations as described in FM 3-0 (2017), where "fire superiority allows commanders to maneuver forces without prohibitive losses." 6 Achieving fire superiority to complement decisive maneuver is as essential in modern war-where excessive casualties can have strategic effectsas it was during larger conventional conflicts of the mid-20th Century.