Latest / Generals of WWII: The Art of Command / Creighton Abrams: Patton's tank ace (with Kris Thompson) | Ep 17

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Creighton Abrams: Patton's tank ace (with Kris Thompson) | Ep 17 · Generals of WWII: The Art of Command

0:06
Welcome to generals of World War 2, the art of command.
0:09
I am your host, John Viscardo. With me today is the great Chris
0:13
Thompson, joining us all the way from Reno, NV.
0:16
Hello, Chris. Hi, how are you doing?
0:18
I'm good. How are you?
0:19
Good, good, good. For those of you who don't know,
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our episode today is on Crate and Abrams.
0:25
And before we get into it, can you kind of give your background
0:27
in military? Chris?
0:29
Yes. Sir.
0:30
So I'm a retired full Colonel, United States Army.
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About half my career was active duty and about half in the Army
0:38
National Guard of commanded units from platoon through
0:42
regimental level. I've gone to all the Army
0:46
Service schools, including the Senior Service School of the US
0:50
Army War College. I worked for John Abrams, who's
0:53
the son of Creighton Abrams. More about him later.
0:57
I know the daughter and I've met the the other two sons and I
1:01
have so much respect for them. So this is a personal topic.
1:06
Yeah, I'm super excited to get into it.
1:08
So yeah, great. Creighton Williams Abrams was
1:13
born on September 15th, 1914 in Springfield, MA into a military
1:19
minded family with strong discipline and work ethic.
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What do we know of his childhood?
1:24
So he he grew up in a in a village outside of Springfield
1:28
called Agawam and his father was a mechanic on a short line rail
1:34
between Boston and Albany, NY as a very tight knit family.
1:40
The mother also was employed as an estate caretaker on a local
1:45
estate. And so that from the biographies
1:48
and the information, you get the feeling that this is a very kind
1:53
of a hard working family. All the kids had part time jobs,
1:57
very tight knit. They grew up in their in their
2:02
junior high and high school years, kind of been in the midst
2:04
of the Great Depression. So hard work was the was the
2:09
word of the day in that household.
2:11
Lovely. Yeah, yeah.
2:12
As you mentioned, he was the son of Creighton Williams Abrams
2:15
senior and Nellie Abrams, and they kind of grew up, like you
2:18
said, Great Depression time frame.
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What do we know about Creighton Junior's personality?
2:24
So he was, he wasn't afraid to be different.
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He, he was, he'd sometimes he'd wear kind of a blue SERDS suit
2:33
to school when others were wearing sweaters.
2:37
He was the oldest of the kids in the family.
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And this is amazing. So his high school record, he
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was class president, editor of the class paper, class orator,
2:51
president of the honorary society and captain of the
2:55
championship football team for Western Massachusetts that went
3:00
undefeated and unscored upon for an entire season while averaging
3:05
26 points a game. So he was a natural born leader.
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You know, from the from the get go, he had a great sense of
3:12
humor. He's well known for that.
3:14
And just reading between the lines and what he did in high
3:18
school, he must have had a very high energy level and been a
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very busy guy day in and day out.
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Yeah, sounds like a pretty good resume.
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Just in high school. From there, in 1932, we received
3:33
his appointment to the US Military Academy at West Point.
3:37
He participates in athletics and develops A reputation for
3:40
determination and strong leadership skills.
3:44
I've always wanted to figure this out at West Point.
3:47
How does a cadet stand out there when everyone is trying to be a
3:50
leader? So it's great point, I'm not a W
3:55
pointer, but I've had I've commanded West Point officers
3:59
and I've worked for West Point officers on active duty.
4:03
And you know, the thing people have to realize it's just
4:06
getting into West Point is so competitive.
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So you have all the 18 year olds, high school seniors out
4:13
there and it takes the very best to even go to your Congress
4:18
member or your senator for entry.
4:22
And in Abrams case, he got a scholarship at Brown University,
4:27
but he couldn't go there because the family couldn't afford it
4:29
even with the scholarship. So he went to his local
4:33
congressman and with there were three other competitors at the
4:37
time and he scored the worst on the congressman's internal test.
4:45
But then the other two competitors failed the West
4:49
Point entrance exam and he passed it.
4:52
So just getting into West Point, you know, it was kind of the
4:56
stars aligned for him. And I talked to a buddy of mine
4:59
who I talked to weekly and who's a W pointer and he told me that,
5:06
you know, you can see the IT factor in these guys at West
5:11
Point and, and, and women and men and, and, and you know, the
5:15
cadets run their own units at West Point as they as they
5:19
progress through the program and it kind of carries over whether
5:23
they go to military or to or to the civilian life.
5:28
And you know, Abrams graduated from West Point at the in the
5:32
lower of the class, kind of like a Grant.
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And there are some similarities, I think early on between Ulysses
5:41
S Grant, when you read about his campaigns and kind of his how he
5:44
kind of adapted tactics and in kind of an unknown environment
5:49
with not a lot of doctrine out there.
5:51
And you see a lot of the same thing with Creighton Abrams
5:54
early in his career where he was adapting tactics with new forms
5:58
of warfare. There really wasn't a lot of
6:01
accepted doctrine. And so you had to think
6:03
practically about what works. But even in the lower third of
6:09
the class, by the time you're good enough to apply, good
6:14
enough to get appointment, good enough to get into West Point,
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even the lower third of the class at West Point is, is, you
6:22
know, the top .1 of .1 at 1% of potential military leaders in
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the US. And the rankings at West Point
6:32
were, you know, at that point in time were based on GPA and based
6:36
on pure rankings and, and physical.
6:39
Fitness, yeah. And I like that you call out the
6:42
IT factor, which is hard to describe, but it's like, you
6:45
know, do people gravitate towards them?
6:47
Do they do the job somebody else wants to do?
6:49
Do they help their superior commander?
6:51
Like it's, it's a whole bunch of little things.
6:53
Yeah, exactly. And, and Abrams fills the bill.
6:57
He's that high school leader, class president, the center and
7:01
captain of a football team. And that just naturally
7:05
progresses into West Point where they, you know, fight, you know,
7:08
they they hone those leadership skills.
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And you know, the great thing about West Pointers that that I
7:14
always found on on active duty and Abrams fits them all
7:17
perfectly, is West Pointers when they show up at a unit, they are
7:22
they hit the ground running. I mean, they spent four years in
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a very regimented military program.
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They spent their summers in the field with active duty.
7:32
They are ready to rock as a second Lieutenant, you know,
7:35
when they get there. And I think for a guy like
7:38
Abrams, well, you know, when it when he reports to his first
7:41
units, that kind of constant leadership training really paid
7:45
off. Yeah, he graduates from West
7:47
Point in 1936, commissioned second Lieutenant in the US
7:51
Army. What was his first posting?
7:54
So he went to the famous 7th Cavalry and you know the
7:58
Custer's old unit and it was in Fort Bliss, TX.
8:02
And so keep in mind 1936, he is still horse cavalry.
8:07
They still are a horse cavalry regiment.
8:12
Keeping in mind the year before 1935, Germany formed and
8:18
equipped its first Panzer division.
8:21
So this is how far, you know, behind we are.
8:24
There was a great incident that says a lot about Abrams command
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style. You know, when you talk about
8:29
Arctic Command, Abrams was well known for getting his commanders
8:34
and his NCO's, not Commission officers around and pointing out
8:38
what somebody did wrong or somebody did right and what to
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learn from it. And one of the best anecdotes
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from this period of time when he was this platoon leader in Sub
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Cab is one of the first things you do is you take supplies on
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your on your horses and every cab trooper has a lead pulling
8:58
two horses filled with ammo or supplies behind him and you go
9:03
out in the desert. And so this one trooper in
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Abrams platoon, he went one way on a on a on a sand dune.
9:11
His two cargo horses went the other way, pulled him off the
9:14
horse, dragged him through Mesquite and cactus.
9:19
So Abrams got the platoon together and the and the kid
9:22
thought, oh, my Private Sanborn was his name.
9:25
The kid thought, oh, I'm in for it now.
9:28
He's going to RIP me. But Abrams, you know, true to
9:31
this form about good, good, good humor that he called out the the
9:36
trooper and he said, you know, Private Sanborn pulled off his
9:39
horse, didn't wouldn't properly lead him.
9:42
Key point is, you know, men. He didn't let go of his horses.
9:48
And so Sanborn says, here I was. I had Mesquite and cactus thorns
9:52
in my backside, but I felt like $1000 after Abrams complimented
9:57
me for, not for not giving the horse.
10:00
Another incident that occurred that really affected at
10:03
Creighton Abrams was after a successful tour as a platoon
10:08
leader, he was put in charge of the commanding general's mess
10:12
for the Calvary Division. And this general was very full
10:18
of himself and he always had this big mess with white linen
10:22
and silver and China. And Abrams had to send runners
10:26
out to get special forms of salmon.
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And that really did not sit well with Crate Abrams.
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He didn't like the officious nature of this, of this general
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and kind of the arrogance of it and the difference, you know,
10:44
between himself and the treatment of the soldiers.
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And I think you see, he loved to be with the troopers and with
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with his soldiers, you know, from that point forward.
10:54
Yeah, I'm starting to see why Patton liked this guy.
10:56
You know, Patton liked to intermix with the soldiers as
10:59
well, so during the late 1930s he trained in emerging armored
11:04
warfare, concepts that would soon become important in modern
11:08
combat. We often hear Patton was one of
11:12
the first to recognize St. warfare's importance.
11:15
Was Abrams one of the first as well?
11:18
He was indeed. You know, it is kind of
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surprising. I mean, he he kind of got into
11:25
West Point. Lining up the stars comes from
11:29
somewhat hardscrabble upbringing.
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You would think he'd kind of go with the flow and be a an
11:34
establishment kind of guy. But early on when they were
11:39
forming the armored divisions, 19381939, Abrams was one of the
11:45
first to volunteer and he was warned by senior officers in the
11:50
horse Calvary. Good.
11:52
If you do this, you you are writing yourself off for future
11:56
promotion. And nobody's quite sure if armor
11:59
is going to be the way to go. I mean this is as of 1938.
12:05
Craig Abrams of the Still at the Horse Calvary Unit Kudarian
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published Octoon Panzer, which is the Blitzkrieg Bible the year
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before. Armor.
12:17
Armor still a relatively new technology, right?
12:19
It is. And even though there were tanks
12:21
World War One, they were really not tanks as we know them today.
12:26
But but you know, his wife said his wife's quote was he didn't
12:31
want to be caught short in the horse Calvary because he knew
12:36
that armor was the thing coming. And that shows to me that shows
12:41
a lot of foresight on his part. And the interesting part is when
12:45
he got to this kind of startup armored division, they still had
12:51
horsemanship on the officer evaluation forms, right?
12:56
So his first eval in the in the armored division was
12:59
horsemanship, unknown, horse mastership, unknown,
13:03
mechanization excellent. And so you know, but but this
13:06
shows again, a willing to be think outside the box, a willing
13:11
to innovate. He's not.
13:13
He's not tied to dogma, which I think really comes to full
13:18
fruition later in his career. Yeah, there's a great quote from
13:21
Patton that says, quote, I'm supposed to be the best tank
13:24
commander in the Army, but I have one Pier Abrams.
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He's the world champion. End Quote.
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Yeah. And, and Abrams, you know, he
13:32
was from that point in point in time in the late 30s and early
13:37
40s, you have to keep in mind we really didn't have field
13:41
manuals. We had we really hadn't studied
13:44
armored warfare at the at a major level.
13:49
We had no core maneuvers, no division maneuvers.
13:53
But Abrams was in at the ground floor kind of in the same unit.
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And so, and he was a hardcore trainer in the field.
14:03
And so out of all the American officers, maybe besides Patton
14:07
and maybe Adna Chaffee, Abrams was one of that initial core
14:12
group. And, and just to show you know
14:14
how far behind you know, we were the first M4 tank wasn't fielded
14:22
until September 42 and the and it went, whereas the first Tiger
14:27
tank was fielded the month before.
14:30
And that first Sherman tank, of course, was a 75 Finley armored.
14:34
And the Tiger was the epitome of the of the heavy tank
14:37
technology. Just shows how far behind we
14:40
were and what Abrams had to do to try to get caught up with his
14:43
unit. Well, that does kind of lead me
14:45
into my next question. You know he transfers to armored
14:48
units within the First Armored Division.
14:52
Why was the Army expanding tank forces during peacetime?
14:56
Yeah, they saw in 1939 you saw the armored blitzkrieg in
15:00
Poland, 1940 you saw the blitzkrieg in France.
15:05
And even though the, the President Roosevelt running for
15:10
re election in 1940 promised we would not be involved in, in a
15:16
European war, I think that time frame after the defeat of France
15:21
1940 to 1942, all of a sudden the the factories get engaged,
15:28
the tank technology starts ginning up here.
15:30
Because at that point it was clear that Germany was a was a
15:34
major threat to a global stability and and a major threat
15:38
to the, to the global economy. And so we written, we really had
15:43
a lot of ground to make up with technology wise, training wise,
15:47
personnel wise. We went from about 160,000 of an
15:51
Army up to 1.8 million within 24 months, right.
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So a lot of work to do on our end for that.
16:00
Also in 1936, he marries Julia Bertha Harvey, who later become
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became well known for supporting Soldiers families during
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Abrams's career. What do we know of his personal
16:11
life? So quite remarkable, like
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everything is with this man's. Craig Abrams had six children, 3
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girls, 3 boys. I believe he is the only general
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officer ever in the history of the United States to have three
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sons, all of whom became general officers.
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And I think he is the only man in the history of the US, only
16:36
four-star general to have two sons that also made four-star
16:41
general John, who I worked for, and then and then a son, Robert.
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And, and you know, the family, it is quite amazing.
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All three sons devoted their adult lives to the Army,
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obviously. And the daughter, Jean I, I
16:58
actually served on the same post as Jean and John when I was in
17:03
when I worked for John. Jean was a doctor.
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She had married a armored cab officer who went who was on our
17:11
post. So Jean served in full in the
17:14
full the gap on the same post as John.
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I actually called a medical professional that worked with
17:21
her back in those days on our post.
17:24
And he said that Jean was the favorite of the of the wives and
17:28
the daughters, the dependents in our unit, that they really loved
17:32
how she how she dealt with them. And so the one thing you can say
17:35
about those children is, is that the whole family lived and
17:41
breathed United States Army. And then I guess the other the
17:46
other thing you can say about the kids is kids, generals, the
17:50
generals is that is that, you know, in the Army, just like the
17:54
NFL, there are coaching trees in the Army and who you work for
17:59
and who they work for. And so Creighton Abrams sons,
18:03
all general officers all had, and two of them were armor
18:08
officers and Creighton junior was field artillery officer, but
18:12
all of them influenced a lot of Officer John Abrams influenced
18:15
me for sure. More about that, more about that
18:18
later. But what a remarkable family of
18:22
dedication to the US. Yeah, for sure.
18:25
And I, I appreciate their service.
18:26
But I also want to call out, you know, it's hard to become a
18:29
general officer. It, it, it takes a lot of, I
18:31
mean, there's some luck to it, but that takes a lot of hard
18:33
work, right? I mean, it's a very difficult
18:34
position to achieve. I mean, just having one general
18:38
family would be hard and they've got 4, you know, and, and three,
18:42
four stars. I've met them all at one point
18:46
or another and they were all highly successful.
18:51
More about that when we talked about Creighton Abrams legacy
18:55
toward the end here. OK, as getting back to Abrams's
18:58
story, as tensions increased worldwide in the late 1930s, he
19:03
continues his professional military training as the US
19:06
prepares for potential involvement in global conflict.
19:10
Where was he assigned at the start of World War 2?
19:13
So he went to 4th Army Division, was activated at Camp Pine, New
19:18
York. And so that's when they when he
19:20
was volunteered for service in the Armored Corps.
19:24
That's where he went at 1st. And picture this, they had about
19:27
3600 troopers that showed up there in New York and the whole
19:33
division had 20 tanks for training and his battalion had
19:40
1-2 tank, no main gun, no cannon, just machine guns.
19:47
I mean how do you train with that?
19:49
So what Abrams did is he would put his troopers in jeeps,
19:54
little M5 once the whole crew put it, you know, two guys in
19:58
the front but the driver and the bow gunner.
20:00
The TC, the loader and the gunner in the in the back of the
20:03
Jeep and he would train platoon maneuver with his people a
20:08
loaded into jeeps. He he then July 42, he took
20:14
command of a company 60 days later he was made a Lieutenant
20:18
Colonel and a battalion command. So that shows how fast, you know
20:23
that the that the force was increasing.
20:27
September 42, they went to the Cumberland Mountains for
20:30
training. Then they went out to the Desert
20:33
Training Center in California that Patton had started.
20:37
And then September 43, he officially became the commander
20:40
of the 37th Tank Battalion. A Christmas 43, he shipped out
20:44
from Massachusetts to England. But the one thing that all his
20:50
troopers remember, and you know what, I was just rereading
20:53
sources to prepare for this interview.
20:56
I was having flashbacks. But the one thing that that with
20:59
his son, but Creighton Abrams was a just a monster on tank
21:04
gunnery. And he broke he and his people
21:07
in England while they were training, broke all the division
21:11
gunnery records. And he, I mean, he had to vote
21:14
all kinds of innovative, unusual, outside the box ways to
21:19
train gunnery. And I'm sitting there thinking,
21:21
my God, that's his son John. John did the same with our
21:25
Calvary squadron and tank gunnery.
21:27
The other thing Abrams did that, you know, you talked about the
21:30
art of command, is Abrams was always in the front on tank
21:35
gunnery. And at the time, you know,
21:38
battalion commanders coming out of World War One, we're kind of,
21:41
I'm in the headquarters, you know, back in a trench for the
21:43
radio or something. Abrams was his own tank for the
21:47
tank gunnery, and that has carried over in the armored
21:50
corps. These days, battalion
21:53
commanders, company commanders are the first ones down range
21:56
for gunnery, and a lot of that, you know, emanates from the
21:59
Abrams in his stop. Well, I like the innovation of
22:02
it. I mean, when you say to me
22:03
there's one battalion and to me that's 500 troops, then there's
22:08
one tank per battalion. You know, when you show up for
22:11
training, he's like, well, we can't just have the other, I
22:13
don't know, 495 people standing around.
22:16
So he innovative with those jeeps to figure out maneuvers
22:19
and shooting and all that kind of stuff.
22:21
Yeah, well, exactly. And his son who did the same
22:24
thing with us, you know, put on a big football field and and
22:28
lined up, you know, put objectives, our practice
22:31
maneuver. But this thing with Abrams
22:33
innovating and finding, don't want to keep soldiers busy, but
22:38
#2 to get meaningful training when you don't have the gas or
22:43
the equipment. I mean, that is a true art form
22:46
of command. And he was very good at that.
22:49
Yep. So yeah, he's tank officer in
22:53
the 37th Tank Battalion within the 4th Armored Division.
22:56
Which battles or which front was he involved in?
23:00
So he was in on the Western Front, the US operations, you
23:06
know, coming out of Normandy. It was basically Operation
23:10
Cobra. And, you know, I think the
23:12
battle, it's easy to remember. We'll get into it here a bit.
23:16
But he's remembered mainly for the relief of Bastille that got
23:20
so much press. But for my money, the Battle of
23:25
Eric Corps is is his is his finest album.
23:31
The Battle of Air Court was the biggest tank battle on the
23:35
Western Front in the history of the war.
23:39
It doesn't get a lot of press. It kind of came at the end of
23:42
the big sweep through France for Operation Cobra.
23:47
So here's the situation that Abrams was in.
23:50
They had just come about 506 hundred miles across France from
23:56
from Saint Louis, from the Normandy bridgehead.
24:01
They crossed the Moselle River by Nazi in France and their goal
24:07
was to get to try to get to the German Siegfried Line before it
24:12
was occupied. Patton was going all out to get
24:15
to the Siegfried Line quickly and get through it before it
24:19
could be adequately defended. So they had crossed the Moselle
24:22
by Nazi S Anosi and and they had established a a penetration of
24:28
the German defenses shaped like a thumb.
24:31
And the 37th was at the tip of that thumb just 60 miles from
24:36
the Siegfried Line. Patton was so close he could
24:40
taste it and he was putting the spurs on 4th Armored to get out
24:44
there. And so while 4th Armored was
24:47
kind of in this thumb shaped penetration, the Germans sent
24:53
two Panzer brigades and the 11th Panzer Division to attack it
24:57
basically from all all three directions on all sides of the
25:01
thumb. Now these Panzer brigades were
25:04
were just created in the late summer of 44 and the and the
25:10
11th Panzer Division was a full strength Panzer division.
25:14
And so, you know, here you are your 4th armored, you got 37th
25:17
tank out there really only one combat command, but he's got
25:21
about 50 to 60 tanks at that point that are operational.
25:24
Abrams does. And so you're arrayed against
25:27
you are about 200 and 52170 tanks.
25:32
But the outcome of the battle tactically was a decisive
25:37
victory for the Americans. The Germans lost a total of 79
25:41
tanks. Abrams own battalion destroyed
25:45
55 of those tanks for a loss of 14.
25:48
Now these Panzer brigades had had Mark force, one battalion
25:53
and one battalion of Panthers. So you know, most, most people
25:59
would think, well the Sherman's have no hope, right?
26:02
They were still mainly Sherman 75.
26:04
But there's an interesting thing that Abrams and his troopers
26:08
did. First off, the Panther has very
26:13
had very wide tracks on the tank.
26:16
It was built mainly for the mud in Russia, so it's about twice
26:20
as wide as the sermon. So one thing that Abrams and his
26:23
tankers would do would be to detract or to bust the track on
26:27
the Panthers, and that would make it stationary.
26:29
The other thing that the other advantage that Abrams and his
26:34
guys took advantage of was the Sherman had vertical
26:37
stabilization on the main gun. Panthers and Mark Forest had no
26:42
stabe on their cannons and so. What does that mean?
26:47
So the stabilization on the main gun means that when the tank is
26:51
on the move, there's a gyro in the turret that keeps even if
26:56
the tank is going over rough ground.
26:59
The vertical stabe keeps that gun tube level and so the the M
27:04
fours with their 70 fives would maneuver and be shooting on the
27:08
move. They get around to the flank of
27:11
these disabled Panthers. And so it was very innovative.
27:16
And you know, that scene in the movie Fury with the with Brad
27:20
Pitt where he's getting around the side of the of the German
27:24
tank, very realistic. The other thing that that Abrams
27:28
identified was the turret traverse on the Sherman was
27:32
twice as fast as it is on the Panther.
27:35
So they could you know, you detract that Panther, you move
27:38
around the flank that Panthers going to have a hard time
27:41
getting his gun around. And so Abrams was very good at
27:45
that maneuver. It was it was a hard fought
27:50
battle. Different views of the Germans
27:53
thought it was a success a success because the penetration
27:57
stopped but it stopped because Patton ran out of fuel and you
28:01
know Eisenhower gave strategic priority in Montgomery.
28:05
Patton had to stop everything but the Germans thought they had
28:08
won. But clearly at the tactical
28:10
point, Abrams and his boys just really tore up the Germans.
28:15
And if I might, Arctic command, right is the theme of this
28:20
podcast. Abrams wrote a letter to his
28:23
wife after four days of vicious combat.
28:27
And I think for any former commander or former leader, just
28:34
when I read this, it kind of it gave me kind of chills here.
28:38
And he was he was no sleep. He had seen his own people
28:41
killed, wounded. They were maneuvering.
28:43
I mean, when you read, you look at the maps and the official
28:46
army histories. You can't describe it because
28:48
there's arrows and maneuvers all over the place.
28:51
Furious battle. So after it was done, here's
28:54
what he wrote his wife. I am all right and still going
28:57
on. My heart and soul have been torn
29:00
and seared by so many things already, by losses, by
29:04
frustrations, by errors. Things have been most pressing.
29:09
The pace has been furious. The attack is ferocious.
29:12
And this, over a period of weeks, is fatiguing.
29:15
I haven't had my clothes off. I haven't been dry.
29:18
I haven't been warm. Except for quick naps.
29:21
I haven't slept for two weeks. There's no time to eat right.
29:24
There's no time to think. It's attack, It's attacked.
29:27
It's attacked. That's why I don't write more
29:30
that that. That's why there's no rest.
29:33
And that's why you get so tired and so weary that you almost
29:37
don't care anymore. When things are that way, The
29:40
men, God bless them, have got to be LED.
29:44
Someone has to be cheerful, confident and intelligent.
29:48
Someone has got to be first. I mean, that strikes through.
29:53
That is the very essence of command.
29:56
That's a master class in command, and that was to his
29:58
wife, but that could have been to like a graduating class at
30:01
West Point. Yes, exactly.
30:04
And it's just you feel for him. You know, people forget it's
30:08
easy to show up with us 14 tanks as compared to enemy 55 tanks,
30:13
whatever. But in those 14 tanks are men,
30:16
most likely those are men, soldiers, not Commission
30:20
officers, maybe lieutenants, maybe captains.
30:23
That he do very well, that he had been through a lot with
30:27
already and the hurt inside. But still he had the fortitude
30:33
to continue to lead, be of good humor, be confident and lead
30:37
these guys. I mean, it's just it's quite
30:39
remarkable. The other thing that I thought
30:42
was pretty cool is he came up, he came up with one of his
30:47
favorite is his famous sayings came out of this battle and
30:51
again, keeping his men in good spirits.
30:54
And he said during the middle of the fighting, they, you know,
30:58
the officers came in. They told the enemy, we're all
31:00
around 1 Brigade, Panzer brigade on one side, another Panzer
31:04
brigade on the other side. And he says, well, they have us
31:07
surrounded again, the poor, you know what, you know that kind of
31:12
that kind of, you know, deadpan humor.
31:14
He also, we talked for many years, including Korea, Vietnam,
31:19
about the parable of the good Sergeant.
31:21
And that was his kind of foggy that time of year.
31:25
And Eric Court, one of his company commander, sent out a a
31:29
Sergeant with two tanks, two put out an outpost on a road while
31:34
the rest of the tank company logged up.
31:36
And Abrams told the story that this tank section Sergeant, he
31:40
went out on his own, put one tank hidden in a barn and
31:45
another off to the side in a haystack.
31:48
He sent a soldier about 150 yards down the road with a
31:53
telephone, a radio telephone, you know, and the wire stretched
31:57
out from the back of the German to give a warning.
31:59
And it was foggy. And so the guy called in.
32:03
He says, we've got tanks coming down the road, German tanks
32:06
coming out of the fog. And this section Sergeant had
32:09
put his tanks at an angle where the German tanks could not give
32:14
their frontal armor to vote. And so this section and this
32:18
Sergeant wiped out seven of the 10 enemy tanks on his own.
32:24
But Abrams told that story to make the point.
32:27
You know, you talk about training a camouflage and
32:30
concealment, you talk about you talk about security and posting,
32:35
posting an outpost, you talk about flanking fire.
32:39
This Sergeant really internalized all that and Abrams
32:43
thought that was the best example of good non commissioned
32:46
officer work he saw in the whole war.
32:49
Yeah, I love that. That's good stuff.
32:52
OK, so by the early years of World War 2, Abrams has
32:55
established himself as a skilled armor officer whose leadership
33:00
in tank warfare would soon earn widespread recognition in
33:03
combat. How integral was Abrams in the
33:08
bow of the Bulge and the relief efforts around the surrounded
33:11
American forces invest on. Abrams is the best, the best
33:16
known figure I think in the entire Army, maybe except for
33:19
patent on the relief of Bascom. And so to set the stage, you
33:25
know, you had the Germans attacking through the Ardens,
33:29
They surrounded the 101st Airborne and Bastone.
33:34
They and they were totally surrounded.
33:37
No, no ground supply, no supply of ammunition that was available
33:41
to them on the ground. And 4th Armored Division in
33:44
Abrams Army was 120 miles away at the time and his companies
33:51
were all dispersed out to various infantry battalions at
33:56
the time as they were continuing their move to the east.
34:00
So on the 20th of December Patton pulled them out.
34:04
Abrams had to reassemble his companies into his battalion and
34:08
then begin the March N They covered about 100 miles in 15
34:14
hours of Rd. marching. Now this is in winter time and
34:19
so these tanks have rubber track pads and rubber on icy roads is
34:27
not easy, right? It essentially turns a Sherman
34:30
tank into a 40 ton hockey puck right.
34:33
And so trying to keep it on these on these country roads and
34:37
it was foggy and it was cold. And by 20, by the 23rd of
34:42
December, they're about 15 miles out from Baston and you have the
34:49
4th Armored division. You have comeback command A
34:51
going down the middle, combat command B going down the right
34:55
side straight up due N to Baston to come at command R, which is
35:00
where Abrams and his guys were supposedly recuperating after
35:05
the Lorraine campaign were in the reserve.
35:08
He they first ordered CCR comeback command R with Abrams
35:13
and an armored infantry battalion to the right side.
35:16
Then they maneuvered him back to the left side of the division,
35:20
which is just a complicated as a maneuver as as as they had
35:24
moving N. So Abrams is on the left side of
35:27
the division coming in from the southwest of Bastogne.
35:32
The interesting part to me is that Abrams and his his
35:37
counterpart with the armored infantry battalion, Lieutenant
35:40
Colonel kind of had to agree on what they were going to do,
35:44
right. And Abrams and the AIB
35:48
commander, there was a village heavily defended called Sea Bray
35:53
between them and Bastow. And so these, the combat
35:58
command, our commander and ordered them to take Sea Bray as
36:03
a precursor to getting into Bastow.
36:06
Well, Abrams, you know, all across France they'd always
36:09
attacked the weak spot, and so he and the AIB commander decided
36:14
to go up this lightly defended country Rd. disobeying the
36:20
direct order of the CCCC ARC commander.
36:25
So they get up to this village, just got a few Bulks, Renegars
36:28
in it. And Abrams gives a great call
36:31
for fire to the artillery. He had a lot of artillery
36:34
supporting him. And the call for fire was, was
36:38
concentration #9 play it soft. We is what is what the is what
36:44
the radio trend quite different than a normal call for fire,
36:48
right? But yeah, what what what this
36:50
exposes is we had a in Germany, we had a a tank platoon leader
36:58
from the German World War 2 Tiger, a tank battalion come in
37:02
to talk to us name was Dieter yen.
37:05
And we brought him down to our squadron to talk to our officers
37:09
about for officer professional development.
37:12
And we and we asked Dieter yen what's the difference between
37:15
fighting the Russians and the Americans?
37:19
And he said, well, on the Russian front, we get our Tigers
37:23
on a low rise and the Russians would tanks would come and we
37:27
just started the front picking them off.
37:29
And you know, from the, from the nearest to the forest, because
37:32
they kept coming. We got to the American front in
37:35
1944. The American tanks would come
37:38
out of the wood line and we'd start at the front.
37:41
And we'd, we'd, we'd hit a few of the lead tanks and often the
37:46
rest of them would go back in the wood line and we'd pop our
37:49
hatches. You know, these American,
37:51
everything we heard about the Americans is true.
37:52
The old they're not, they're not tough fighters.
37:55
But then 10 minutes later, oh heck would break loose.
38:00
P40 sevens coming in, artillery rounds coming in, the whole
38:05
world turned upside down. And and yet artillery, you know,
38:08
for Abrams and the P40 sevens played a big part.
38:13
But I don't want to, I don't want to understate how much
38:19
Abrams and his own battalion did.
38:22
I mean, the tanks that they killed, the airport with those M
38:25
fours where it was magnificent. Abrams himself and he put his
38:30
staff officers into tanks as well.
38:33
So we had kind of little headquarters platoon.
38:36
They were great, you know, tankers on their own.
38:39
And Abrams going into Bastogne made what one of his officers
38:44
says was the best tank shot that he saw during the entire scope
38:49
of World War 2 when Abrams took out an anti tank position.
38:53
So yeah, Abrams, they broke through this, this town on this
38:57
lightly defended country Rd. got to Bastogne and much to the
39:02
elation of the 101st Airborne. Yeah, and much to the chagrin of
39:06
the Germans, yeah, he's a Colonel by the end of April
39:08
1945. Without getting too deep into
39:13
his later assignments, what what did he do in Korea and Vietnam?
39:18
So in Korea, he came over kind of at the end of the war.
39:21
He worked at on the staff of of General Bruce Clark with I core.
39:28
It had to be a little bit of a depressing environment with the
39:31
war winding down. He then goes to War College.
39:35
He wrote a paper at the War College, my alma mater, on
39:40
firepower versus mobility. And his his position was that we
39:46
should decrease the number of tanks supporting infantry,
39:51
increase the number of armored units in the Army and create
39:55
armored corps as opposed to divisions that are kind of
40:01
armored divisions that are kind of piece mealed out to the
40:04
various infantry corps. And so then he goes to Vietnam.
40:08
He was General Westmoreland's second in command for a couple
40:13
years. And Abrams had such the
40:16
reputation at World War 2. Westmoreland, I think, was his
40:20
West Point classmate. Westmoreland often times would
40:23
defer to Abrams and at the end of every meeting he would, he
40:27
would turn and say, what do you think, Abe?
40:30
You know, he wanted to make sure he had Abrams buy in.
40:32
And then Abrams took command himself.
40:36
A lot of friction over some incidents with the CIA and
40:44
Special Forces that were Abrams stood his ground against Nixon,
40:49
Alexander Haig and and Henry Kissinger on a couple issues,
40:54
but it just shows that you know what the man was made of.
40:57
Yeah, and he must have done an OK job with Nixon cuz in 1972
41:03
he's made Chief of Staff of the US Army by President Nixon and
41:07
serves until his death in 1974. We've been talking about his
41:12
legacy most of the episode. His work in World War 2 is
41:16
phenomenal. You know, he he did some
41:18
interesting things in Vietnam. What do you think his legacy is?
41:21
So it means legacy is so, you know, tied to Bastone.
41:26
It'll always be tied to Bastone. But, but to me it's, it's, you
41:30
know, battalion commander being in his tank, being in there with
41:35
his with his guys. His tank was called Thunderbolt
41:40
was he put the name on on the side of his tanks and he had 7
41:43
tanks. He's got a strong legacy at West
41:47
Point. They have a a Thunderbolt 7 tank
41:52
outside of Abrams gate at West Point, which is painted to be
41:58
like his. The motto of the US Army Armor
42:01
School to this day is forged the Thunderbolt.
42:06
And I know many, there are a lot of tank battalion commanders
42:08
running around who used Thunderbolt 6 as their call
42:12
sign. One thing that I saw, you know,
42:16
that surprised me is when Abrams made Chief of Staff of the Army,
42:21
there was still the Women's Auxiliary Corps separate
42:25
completely from the Army. Abrams doubled and then doubled
42:30
again the size of the Women's Army Corps from about 6000 up to
42:36
50,000. And so he was the precursor to
42:40
expanding the role of women and females in the Army.
42:44
That actually came in and in 1978, the other thing he did was
42:48
kind of transition the Army to an all volunteer force.
42:52
He focused on armor and mobility and did a lot of things that
42:56
were kind of the precursor to air land battle, which was the
43:01
was the prevailing way of warfare for the for Desert Storm
43:06
and the two Iraq and the Iraq war.
43:08
As well. Yeah, it's interesting on his
43:10
World War 2 service, Like, you know, you think tank commanders
43:13
and you think, oh, Rommel and Patton and Gadarian and then
43:17
Abrams. For whatever reason, maybe just
43:18
because he wasn't a full general yet, he doesn't get the exposure
43:21
that he should. He doesn't and but I think the,
43:25
again, if anyone wants to read about armored war, you know,
43:30
Rommel in North Africa was genius to be sure.
43:36
But Abrams and Eric Corp, anybody that's interested in
43:40
armored warfare, read about Eric Corp and Abrams.
43:44
I mean, it is. He had an inferior tank in many
43:48
ways, heavily outnumbered, maybe 4:00 to 1:00, a tough terrain
43:54
and he still came out on top. I mean it was a master stroke of
44:00
of armored unit. Command Interesting.
44:03
Yeah. So all my listeners, please
44:05
check out that battle and of course, the great Creighton
44:07
Abrams. And yeah, Chris, this is
44:10
phenomenal. I really appreciate it.
44:12
Thank you. It's an honor to be on here.
44:13
I'm an avid listener of both your Siri.
44:16
Oh, I thank you very much. Yeah.
44:17
For our listeners, we have a Patreon now.
44:20
Please check out patreon.com, Generals of World War 2, and of
44:24
course, subscribe to us on Facebook, YouTube, and anywhere
44:28
you hear podcasts. And we thank the great Colonel
44:32
Chris Thompson for joining us, and we hope you come back soon.
44:36
Thank you, Sir. Appreciate it.
44:37
Thank you.