War as I Knew It

by George S. Patton

  In small operations, as in large, speed is the essential element of success. If the difference between the two possible flanks for envelopment is so small that it requires thought, the time wasted in thought is not well used. Remember that the life of the infantry squad depends on its capacity of fire. It must fire.

  When a small unit disposes both 60 mm. and 81 mm. mortars in an attack, the 60 mm. mortars should fire on the front line of the resistance while the 81 mm. fire for depth and to hit the supports and heavy weapons.

  Fighting in Woods: The best way for infantry to go through woods in the daytime is to advance in a skirmish line on a distant direct point, if such is available, or, more probably, on a compass bearing. The skirmish line should be at reduced interval, and should move straight forward through the wood, using marching fire. If this is done, it will be surprising how little resistance will be encountered, because, if the enemy attempts to fire through the woods, his rifles, which are always less effective than ours, will not penetrate through the trees, while ours will penetrate and so get him.

  In fighting through European woods, which are intersected at right angles every thousand meters by lanes, do not walk down the lanes, and be careful how you cross them—cross them fast—because the enemy usually has them swept with machine guns.

  81mm. Mortar

  Night Attack in Woods: It is not necessary or advisable to attack through woods at night. In the first place, ; the woods themselves give the cover which the darkness does in the open. In the second place, it is almost im- ! possible to move through woods at night except in column on roads.

  Tanks and Infantry: The question of whether infantry or tanks lead in attacking is determined by the character of the ground and of the enemy resistance. Whenever the ground permits tanks to advance rapidly, even the certainty of a loss from mine fields, they should lead. Through dense woods or against prepared positions or unlocated anti-tank guns, infantry leads, followed closely by the tanks, which act as close supporting artillery. But, irrespective of the foregoing, some tanks must accompany the infantry when they reach the objective. These tanks are for the purpose of removing enemy weapons which emerge after the passage of the leading tanks.

  Pillboxes: Pillboxes are best attacked by the use of prearranged groups. A satisfactory group consists of two Browning automatic rifles, a bazooka, a light machine gun, two to four riflemen, and two men with the demolition charge. Sixty pounds of TNT is ample. Before initiating an attack on a pillbox area, a reconnaissance should be made to determine which boxes are mutually supporting. Those in such a group must be attacked simultaneously. The best results are obtained by a silent night attack, which places the assault groups in position close to their respective pillboxes at dawn. The apertures, are immediately taken under fire and silenced. When fire is achieved, the demolition charge, covered by riflemen and light machine guns, is placed against the door at the rear of the pillbox, the fuse is lit, and the men withdraw around the comer of the building. As soon as the charge is exploded, riflemen throw in grenades—preferably phosphorous. Any enemy emerging are killed or captured, according to the frame of mind of the enemy.

  When circumstances prevent a night operation, similar but more expensive results are obtained by advancing close in the wake of an artillery concentration.

  Another adjunct to the attack on pillboxes is a selfpropelled 155 mm. gun where conditions permit its use. At short range the effects are very satisfactory.

  BAR

  Street Fighting: Street fighting is simply a variation of pillbox fighting. A similar group, but reinforced with more riflemen, is effective. The additional riflemen are split on opposite sides of the street so as to take under fire enemy personnel appearing in the upper stories on the side across from them. When a house offers resistance, the windows are silenced by fire as in the case of pillboxes, and under cover of this immunity a bazooka crew fires one or two rounds at the corner of the house about three feet from the ground. When a hole has been made by this means, phosphorous or high-explosive grenades are thrown into the lower floor and cellar to discourage those operating there. The demolition essential in pillboxes' is really not needed in street fighting.

  In street fighting, it is very essential to avoid hurrying. One group, as above described, can usually clear a city block in twelve hours. When tanks are available, they replace the bazookas in blowing holes in the walls of the lower floor. However, they must be buttoned up to avoid grenades from the upper floors, and should be further protected by riflemen to keep the enemy from the windows. Self-propelled 155 mm. guns are extremely useful in cities against moderate masonry construction. One round with delayed fuse will breach all the houses on one side of a city block if fired at a very obtuse angle.

  Two-Way Attack: Wherever possible, beginning with the squad, use a base of fire and a maneuvering element. The maneuvering element should be the larger of the two forces, and should start its attack well back from the point of contact of the base of fire. The maneuvering force must proceed sufficiently far beyond the hostile flank to attack from the rear. As soon as the enveloping attack, or, better, the rear attack, has progressed sufficiently to cause the enemy to react, the base of fire transforms itself into a direct attack along the original axis of advance.

  River Crossings: In river crossings or assault landings, there is a high probability that the boats containing a company or even a platoon will not all land at the same point. Therefore, each boat should be organized on a boat-team basis and contain means for producing a

  base of fire and an encirclement. These boat teams should practice as such before embarking, and each boat team in the assault wave must be informed of the geographical feature to which the assault wave is supposed to penetrate. This geographical feature, preferably a road or railway, should be far enough from the water’s edge to prevent small-arms fire bearing on the beach. No beachhead can be considered at all sure until it has advanced to a perimeter at least eight thousand yards from the beach and/ or occupies the controlling terrain features. In a night landing, desperate efforts must be made to gain this distance before daylight.

  Hill Fighting: During fighting in hilly or rolling country, platoons get widely separated. The best practice is for the support and reserve squads of an attacking platoon to envelop on the uphill side. When you have once gained a ridge or a hogback, do not lose altitude.

  Never attack along the bottom of a valley unless you have the heights on both sides in your possession. In all valleys there are geographical features which form obstacles to a direct advance, and subject those on the valley floor to observed fire from the heights.

  Open Country: In open country with isolated groups of trees, avoid occupying the trees, because they will invariably be attacked by the enemy artillery and air. In this type of country, use dispersal in open fields. You may be able to use the woods as a decoy to draw enemy fire by the emplacement of bad camouflage along the edge, but do not get into the woods yourself.

  By the same token, do not occupy as a Command Post the only house on a hill, as I have seen done, and do not put your Command Post, as I have also seen done, in the immediate vicinity of a monument located on the map, and which could be seen for several kilometers.

  Large radio sets should not be in the immediate vicinity of a Command Post or of each other. They should be separated, camouflaged, and communicated with by telephone. Otherwise, the enemy air will home on them and get the Command Post.

  Fire on Infested Areas: Owing to the pernicious traditions of our known distance rifle marksmanship, we are prone to hold our fire until we see targets. In battle

  these are seldom visible. When any group of soldiers is under small-arms fire, it is evident that the enemy can see them; therefore, men should be able to see the enemy, but seldom are. When this situation arises, they must fire at the portions of the hostile terrain which probably conceal enemy small-arms weapons. I know for a fact that such procedure invariably produces an effect and generally stops hos
tile fire. Always remember that it is much better to waste ammunition than lives. It takes at least eighteen years to produce a soldier, and only a few months to produce ammunition.

  Surrender: Any soldier who surrenders with arms in his hands is not doing his duty to his country and is selling himself short, because the living conditions of the prisoner of war are extremely bad. Also the prisoner of war is apt to become the unintended victim of our own air and artillery bombardment.

  If the enemy indicates a desire to surrender, make him come to you with his hands up. Don’t advance toward him, and do not stop shooting until he does so surrender himself. When the enemy has surrendered, he must be treated in accordance with the rules of land warfare.

  III

  Battle Tricks

  Bridges: In river crossings, all bridges must be one way—toward the enemy—until the situation has steadied. Prior to that time, wounded and empty transportation come back in ferries.

  In building an assault bridge over rapid water, put the anchor cable as high as possible—at least ten feet above the water. This will prevent the floats from submerging.

  Mines and Barbed Wire: Do not use mines or wire on the defensive except in the form of booby traps, to give warning of enemy prowlers. Mining and wiring a position has a very bad effect on the morale of our troops. As a feint, however, mining and wiring may be useful. For example, we could put light wire in a dummy mine field across a section of the front over which we intend to attack and ostentatiously leave other sections of the front unwired; then, when the attack starts, we need not bother about the dummy mine field and the wire can be got rid of rapidly.

  Methods of Attack: If, in a unit the size of a division, the attack is not going well four hours after it starts, it is necessary to make a careful personal reconnaissance and see if it may not be necessary to change the emphasis; because four hours of fighting should produce substantial effects. This does not mean that a man should be wobbly about continuing in the face of uncertain victory, but it does mean that, after four hours, one should know whether the thing is going to be a go or not, and if it is not, he should slow up his attack on the old line while implementing it in a new direction.

  Frontal Attacks: Do not try a sneak frontal attack at night or in the daytime against a dug-in enemy who has been facing you for some time. He will have ultimate bands of fire arranged. Therefore, he must be pounded by air and guns before you attack. This does not apply to a pillbox line. If the enemy is occupying the pillboxes and not the trenches outside them, a sneak attack is quite all right with the purpose of getting the troops in the immediate vicinity of the pillboxes just at dawn. If the enemy is occupying trenches outside the pillboxes, he must be pounded consistently to make him take shelter in the pillboxes, where he is much less dangerous than outside.

  Use of Telephone Wire: In all attacks, make the maximum use of wire lines and use every effort to keep it up with the advancing units. Radio, while theoretically efficient, is not so good as wire, and should be considered as a secondary means of communication. On one occasion we actually launched a tank attack by quite a large number of tanks at the end of seventeen miles of wire.

  Place to Attack: Never attack where the enemy expects you to come. It is much better to go over difficult ground where you are not expected than it is over good ground where you are expected. This remark applies to units to include the division. For corps and larger units an exception is necessary, in that such units must take ground where roads and railways permit the establishment of lines of supply. These roads and railways will probably be defended. The point is that the division must secure them by attacking over hard ground and not by going up the railway or road.

  Fire and Movement: The policy of holding the enemy by the nose with fire and kicking him in the pants with movement is just as true as when I wrote it, some twenty years ago, and at that time it had been true since the beginning of war. Any operation, reduced to its primary characteristics, consists in moving down the road until you bump into the enemy. It may be one road or it may be several roads. When you have bumped, hold him at the point of contact with fire about a third of your command. Move the rest in a wide envelopment so that you can attack him from his rear flank. The enveloping attack should start first. The initial nose attack starts to move forward only when the enemy has properly reacted to the enveloping attack. Then the direct attack can go in easily and fast.

  Time Fire: Either proximity or normal time fire is very efficient as a means of covering a tank attack and will frequently prevent the enemy from manning his antitank guns. Tanks can move with perfect impunity under time fire provided by either 105 mm. or 155 mm. projectiles. Proximity fuses in woods are wasteful, because the projectile explodes above the top of the tallest trees and the fragments are absorbed in the woods before they get down to where they will have much effect on the enemy.

  In shelling woods to produce casualties, use slight-delay fuses so that they will not burst until they hit a reasonable size limb or tree trunk.

  Envelopments: Vertical or horizontal envelopment for tactical effect should not go too deep or be too large. The best results are attained when the envelopment arrives in or just back of the enemy’s artillery positions. Here you disrupt his supply and signal communications and his guns, and are close enough to the troops advancing along the axis to be sure of making contact in a reasonable time.

  Cemeteries: Do not place military cemeteries where they can be seen by replacements marching to the front. This has a very bad effect on morale, even if it adds to the pride of the Graves Registration Service.

  Haste and Speed: There is a great difference between these two words. Haste exists when troops are committed without proper reconnaissance, without the arrangement for proper supporting fire, and before every available man has been brought up. The result of such an attack will be to get the troops into action early, but to complete the action very slowly.

  Speed is acquired by making the necessary reconnaissance, providing the proper artillery and other tactical support, including air support, bringing up every man, and then launching the attack with a predetermined plan so that the time under fire will be reduced to the minimum. At the battalion level four hours spent in preparation for an attack will probably insure the time under fire not exceeding thirty minutes. One hour spent in the preparation of an attack will almost certainly insure time under fire lasting many hours with bloody casualties.

  Covering Detachments: Make the maximum use of mechanized and armored reconnaissance and covering detachments. In actual war, these merge into each other. In general, they should consist of a reconnaissance troop reinforced by at least a platoon of medium tanks with infantry riding on them.

  Maximum Use of Vehicles: In a modern infantry division, if every available vehicle—tanks, armored cars, gun carriages, AA guns and trucks—is utilized, no soldier need, or should, walk until he actually enters battle. While the sight of a division moving under this system is abhorrent to the best instincts of a Frederickan soldier, it results in rapid advance with minimum fatigue. Units so mounted are dismounted by placing a sign, or even a guidon, on the side of the road indicating the dismounting point.

  Miscellaneous Notes

  During mobile operations it is better to use secondary roads for the axis of advance than primary roads. In the first place, the secondary roads are less apt to be thoroughly guarded, and, in the second place, there will be fewer demolitions on them. The primary roads must be repaired as promptly as possible behind the fighting front to secure efficient supply lines.

  Obstacles and demolitions, unless defended, are of little value. It is not necessary to sit on a demolition or obstacle in order to defend it, because the enemy will place fire there. These points are best defended from a distance of several hundred yards for small arms and from normal artillery range for that arm.

  Administrative discipline is the index of combat discipline. Any commander who is unwilling or unable to enforce administrative discip
line will be incapable of enforcing combat discipline. An experienced officer can tell, by a very cursory administrative inspection of any unit, the caliber of its commanding officer.

  The more senior the officer, the more time he has. Therefore, the senior should go forward to visit the junior rather than call the junior back to see him. The exception to this is when it is necessary to collect several commanders for the formulation of a co-ordinated plan.

  In that case, the juniors should report to the superior headquarters.

  There is a very great danger in making retrograde movements at night, even when these movements are for a continuation of the tactical offensive, because troops not involved hear or see them and become worried to the extent of panic. If a unit must be withdrawn, see that all soldiers along the line of withdrawal are informed why it is taking place and when it will occur.

  Hospitals should be set up in the open so that the enemy has no excuse for thinking them other than what they are. They must not be placed in the vicinity of dumps or air strips.

  Never halt on the near side of a river or mountain range. Secure a bridgehead in both cases, because, even if you do not intend to exploit the crossing, the possession ' of a bridgehead on the far side cramps the enemy’s style.