Tracking Tank Evolution in 2 Volumes
US Battle Tanks 1917–1945. Steven Zaloga. Osprey Publishing (An AUSA Title). 272 pages. $35
US Battle Tanks 1946–2025. Steven Zaloga. Osprey Publishing (An AUSA Title). 272 pages. $35
By Lt. Col. Mark Reardon, U.S. Army retired
Author Steven Zaloga’s latest offerings will come as a pleasant surprise to longtime students of warfare and technology who have come to believe there is nothing new to offer on the subject of U.S. battle tanks.
Organized chronologically into two illustrated volumes, the first, US Battle Tanks 1917–1945, begins with the American entry into World War I, followed by an examination of the stultifying impact on armor development of two decades of interwar parochialism and Depression-era budgets.
The bulk of the book is devoted to World War II, with a lengthy account of how American tankers tackled the Herculean task of defeating Adolf Hitler’s panzers. Although Zaloga touches upon amphibian tanks and armor in the Pacific, this volume’s operational narrative focuses on northwest Europe—an understandable choice, given that the Army suffered 6,085 tank losses in that theater of operations, compared with 812 battling the Japanese, Zaloga writes.
The second volume, US Battle Tanks 1946–2025, takes up the story in 1946 as U.S. armor institutions struggled to extrapolate a future course of action from wartime experience while grappling with the novel prospects of facing superior numbers on an atomic battlefield. Moribund budgets and demobilization proved costly, with American M4A3E8 Sherman medium and M24 Chaffee light tanks being roughly handled by North Korean-manned Soviet T-34/85 medium tanks during the opening months of the Korean War.
The “tank scare” of 1950 jump-started a decade of frantic research and development that produced the M41 light tank, the short-lived M103 heavy tank, a quartet of medium tanks named after Gen. George Patton Jr. (M46, 47, 48 and 60) and a host of experimental designs. The M41, as well as the Patton series, if one includes the M60 Armored Vehicle Launched Bridge and M728 Combat Engineer Vehicle variants, subsequently saw combat during the Vietnam War.
The search for a battle tank that could deliver victory on battlefields where Americans were expected to fight outnumbered and win culminated in the late 1970s with fielding of the M1 Abrams. Zaloga captures that saga in eye-popping detail while devoting attention to the Army’s search for a light armored vehicle compatible with rapid power projection needs.
Although the Cold War ended without Abrams crews confronting Soviet-manned tanks flooding through Germany’s Fulda Gap, the battles that followed the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 cemented the M1’s reputation as a world-class battle tank. American tankers knocked out over 400 T-72s and hundreds of other armored fighting vehicles, but lost no M1s to enemy fire during the ensuing Operation Desert Storm.
That reputation has remained untarnished for more than three decades despite the unique challenges faced by Army tank crews after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Zaloga’s hybrid approach to collecting information on American battle tanks has paid off handsomely.
By combining an impressive amount of new research on modern battle tanks with relevant data extracted from almost 40 other Osprey Publishing books, Zaloga has penned an incomparable reference that includes information not only on battle tanks, but also on all types of armed and armored direct fire systems, including tank destroyers, amphibian tanks, armored reconnaissance vehicles and Stryker mobile gun systems.
Each volume is replete with cutaway drawings, illustrations detailing camouflage and markings, and numerous photographs, many of which have never been seen. The impressive graphics package, when combined with the author’s relentless pursuit of facts and cogent analysis, offers a persuasive argument in favor of acquiring both volumes.
Lt. Col. Mark Reardon, U.S. Army retired, is a professional historian who served 26 years in the military. He is the author of Victory at Mortain: Stopping Hitler’s Panzer Counteroffensive and co-author of a multivolume account of Operation Enduring Freedom, Modern War in an Ancient Land: The United States Army in Afghanistan, 2001–2014. He is working on an account of training and equipping the Iraqi army that will be published next year.
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No Safe Haven, Either Deployed or at Home
Fire in the Hole: Tales of Combat with the 1st Engineer Battalion in Vietnam. Mike Guardia. Magnum Books. 158 pages. $17.95
By Command Sgt. Maj. Jimmie Spencer, U.S. Army retired
The war in Vietnam is one of the most troubling chapters in American history. In later years, many Americans blamed the veterans for a war they didn’t start. But initially, the war was perceived by the public as a clear case of the good guys versus the bad guys. The bad guys were the communists, and the U.S. military was charged with liberating the oppressed and delivering the precious gift of freedom to the Vietnamese people.
Mike Guardia’s Fire in the Hole: Tales of Combat with the 1st Engineer Battalion in Vietnam is set during those early days, focusing on one of the first combat units to deploy to Vietnam.
The term “fire in the hole” is used to announce that an explosion is about to take place. It is shouted three times, loud and clear, as a warning to take cover. The U.S. Army’s 1st Engineer Battalion used the term extensively while clearing minefields, opening fields of fire and building roads. The engineers also dug defensive positions, built bridges across water obstacles and supplemented the infantry when needed. They were critical members of the fighting force.
This story opens with the 1st Infantry Division preparing for deployment to Vietnam. The soldiers of Company C, 1st Engineer Battalion, were about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime. The company’s first year in the Republic of Vietnam is told from the perspective of four Charlie Company veterans, three enlisted and one officer, each with his own unique point of view.
Readers will find stories about dealing with a hostile environment and an even more hostile enemy, featuring feats of physical endurance and extraordinary acts of valor; dealing with the loss of friends and colleagues; enduring sleepless nights surrounded and outnumbered; and a few amusing situations that brought a brief moment of relief from the stress and strain of combat.
Danger lay in wait behind every hill and bend in the road while on combat operations, but returning to base camp was no safe haven. One Charlie Company soldier remembered, “There was lots of civilian traffic, bicycles, motor bikes, ox carts, and three-wheel scooters designed for two people but with five or six on board. There were people on foot, along with buses [packed with livestock] that looked like zoos on wheels.” As Guardia notes, “considering that the enemy was lurking in and amongst the population, every passing car or overcrowded scooter might be carrying a suicide bomber.”
Guardia follows up with the challenges the four faced after returning home. It was different than when they deployed and getting worse. There were no parades or welcome home ceremonies; no “thank you for your service” or welcoming handshakes from a grateful public. Protests against the war were becoming commonplace. The evening news on television covered the protests as they became increasingly numerous and violent. War coverage was a nightly occurrence in America’s living rooms, courtesy of an increasingly polarizing press.
American soldiers became targets, and as a result, many, if not most, veterans simply did not want to talk about their experiences. To add insult to injury, some veterans’ organizations did not acknowledge these Vietnam veterans. It is a chapter in American history that we must not let happen again.
Fire in the Hole gives voice to the Vietnam veterans who have been reluctant to speak publicly about the war. Nearly half a century later, we as a nation are recognizing those veterans for their service, valor and sacrifice. This is a story that needs to be told.
Command Sgt. Maj. Jimmie Spencer, U.S. Army retired, held assignments with infantry, Special Forces and Ranger units during his 32 years of active military service. He is the former director of the Association of the U.S. Army’s NCO and Soldier Programs and is an AUSA senior fellow.
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Attention Turns to Fighting in Philippines During WWII
The Luzon Campaign, 1945: MacArthur Returns. Nathan Prefer. Casemate. 336 pages. $37.95
By Edward Lengel
With a few exceptions, the Pacific campaigns of World War II have generally not attracted as much popular interest as the European Theater. Important recent works—trilogies all—by Richard Frank, John McManus and Ian Toll have accomplished much in refocusing attention on the Pacific.
Earlier this year, however, the commemorations of the 80th anniversary of D-Day were more lavish than those for the 80th anniversary of Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s return to the Philippines at Leyte on Oct. 20, 1944.
Likewise, it’s probably safe to say that commemorations of the beginning of the Battle of the Bulge on Dec. 16, 1944, will overshadow those for outstanding moments during the struggles for the Philippine Islands, which lasted through the summer of 1945.
Even within the Pacific Theater, the U.S. Army’s operations in the Philippines have been understudied relative to the exploits of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. As far as the battles in the Philippines themselves are concerned, the defeats of 1941–42 are better known than the bloody and hard-won victories of 1944–45. Moreover, the sprawling Philippine campaigns—not least, the fight for the island of Luzon, which lasted from January 1945 until the end of World War II in August—resist simple operational analysis.
The importance of the land campaigns in the Philippines, which lasted from October 1944 to September 1945, is nevertheless undeniable. In terms of scale, the struggle for Luzon was the biggest and bloodiest campaign of the Pacific War, sucking in 10 Army divisions, along with innumerable smaller formations.
Estimates of military casualties on Luzon total approximately 40,000 for U.S. and Allied forces, and 225,000 for the Japanese. However, as James Scott has shown in Rampage: MacArthur, Yamashita, and the Battle of Manila, Filipino civilians suffered the most, with some 140,000 deaths on Luzon alone, often as victims of Japanese atrocities.
Author Nathan Prefer’s The Luzon Campaign, 1945: MacArthur Returns does not delve deeply into either strategic considerations about the campaign’s necessity, or the scale of military and civilian casualties. It is an operational study pure and simple, analyzing the course of fighting almost exclusively from the American perspective.
Military professionals and students are sure to find the content instructive from multiple points of view. The U.S. 11th Airborne Division conducted airborne drops, albeit not on the same scale as in Europe. And the apocalyptic Battle of Manila marked the only example of large-scale urban combat in the Pacific Theater.
Most of the Luzon campaign consisted of infantry-on-infantry combat across the island’s varied terrain, and although it was unglamorous and moved at much too slow a pace for MacArthur’s liking, it contains much of interest for tactical study.
As a straightforward chronicle of this understudied campaign, Prefer’s account is adequate. Based almost exclusively on American secondary sources, it has sparse endnotes and maps that leave room for further research. The dense prose relegates this volume to the role of shelf reference. In other words, it’s a start for finally giving the Philippine campaigns the attention they deserve.
Edward Lengel is a historian and battlefield tour leader. He is the author of 14 books, including To Conquer Hell: The Meuse-Argonne, 1918 and Never in Finer Company: The Men of the Great War’s Lost Battalion. He holds a doctorate in history from the University of Virginia.
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Officer’s Life Revolved Around Academy
MacArthur and West Point: How the General and the Academy Shaped Each Other. Sherman Fleek. Texas A&M Press. 368 pages. $45
By Brig. Gen. John Brown, U.S. Army retired
A majority of West Point graduates alive today resided in MacArthur Barracks, the largest of the cadet barracks, while at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York. No person has more statuary, plaques, artifacts or other memorializations at West Point than General of the Army Douglas MacArthur.
In this fine book, MacArthur and West Point: How the General and the Academy Shaped Each Other, author and retired Lt. Col. Sherman Fleek, until recently command historian and an instructor of military history at West Point, captures the long interplay between the academy and MacArthur as they influenced each other.
After an introduction and chapters on West Point history and MacArthur’s family origin, Fleek recounts MacArthur’s life chronologically in 14 chapters. Two focus on his time as a cadet and three on his tenure as academy superintendent. The chapters covering periods away from West Point give ample attention to continuing connections: relationships with fellow graduates, dissemination of values inculcated at the academy, mentorships and the give-and-take of deliberations concerning professional development.
MacArthur’s extraordinary academic record, athletic achievements and service as first captain are generally known. Less familiar is the brutal hazing he endured, largely because of his father’s distinguished status as a Civil War hero and major general at the time Douglas MacArthur was a cadet. MacArthur also noted the rote and rigidity he encountered during much of his instruction. Hazing and the academy curriculum would stick in his memory. That said, a classmate recounted “that next to his family, he loved West Point.”
MacArthur was commissioned as an engineer and progressed through assignments that included daring adventures in the Philippines and Mexico. When the U.S. entered World War I, MacArthur was handling public relations for Secretary of War Newton Baker. He famously recommended the organization of the “Rainbow Division” (the 42nd) and became chief of staff and then a brigade commander in it. He ended the war as a brigadier general and a war hero.
World War I devastated West Point, as accelerated graduations sped cadets through to commissioning with increasingly less preparation. At war’s end, only freshmen were left, and educational standards had virtually disappeared. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peyton March selected MacArthur to fix the academy’s many problems.
Fleek provides a stirring account of MacArthur’s performance in this crisis. Not only did he restore pride, confidence and a four-year cycle of leader development, but he also thrust the curriculum into the 20th century, curtailed hazing and laid the groundwork for programs and facilities still in use today.
Next to Col. Sylvanus Thayer, who served as academy superintendent from 1817 to 1833 and became known as the “Father of West Point,” MacArthur arguably was West Point’s most consequential superintendent. His experiences there echo through Fleek’s subsequent chapters covering the interwar years, World War II, the occupation of Japan and the Korean War. The interplay between the general and the academy continued, enriching both.
One endearing aspect of all this was MacArthur’s passion for the Army football team and for academy athletics in general, a sentiment that translated into an emphasis on physical fitness throughout the Army.
In his final chapter, Fleek covers MacArthur’s continuing contributions to West Point after he retired. Perhaps the most famous was his iconic “Duty, Honor, Country” speech when receiving the Sylvanus Thayer Award in 1962. It represents the zenith of a long and profound relationship.
In an epilogue, Fleek discusses the many memorializations of MacArthur at West Point and elsewhere. Fleek’s text is ably supported by photographs, endnotes, a bibliography and an index.
I strongly recommend MacArthur and West Point to all interested in MacArthur, West Point, American military history or education in general. It is an excellent account and a fascinating read.
Brig. Gen. John Brown, U.S. Army retired, served 33 years in the Army, with his last assignment as chief of military history at the U.S. Army Center of Military History. The author of Kevlar Legions: The Transformation of the U.S. Army, 1989–2005, he has a doctorate in history from Indiana University.