The history of war is littered with communication failures that resulted in the loss of thousands of lives. Here is a list of examples. 1. WORLD WAR ONE 1914 -18 In August 1914 at the Battle of Tannenberg between the Russians and the Germans, the Russians lost 30,000 dead or wounded, all of their equipment and guns and had 100,000 prisoners taken. During the run-up to the battle, the Russian radio signallers did not use code and broadcast all the plans in Russian, which the Germans picked up and used. The Russian commander Samsonov shot himself. 2. WORLD WAR TWO 1939-45 a. Before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, 7 December 1941 the Americans had successfully decoded all of the Japanese diplomatic messages through their Magic System. On 6 December the Japanese sent a 14-point Ultimatum to their embassy to deliver to the US government, which the Americans had decoded before the Japanese! The l4th point meant war BUT the Americans did not have a direct telegraph line to Pearl Harbour, so had to use the Western Union Telegraph Company! Since it was a Sunday the offices were closed and because of the delays the message warning the fleet actually arrived during the bombing’. b. In the weeks before the biggest military campaign the world had ever seen — the Nazi invasion of Russia in June 1941 (Barbarossa) — Stalin, the Soviet dictator, received many warnings from the British and from his own spies in Japan and Germany that an attack was coming. However he was so suspicious of everything and everybody that he ignored the warnings and threatened to have anyone shot who persisted in telling him that the Nazis were about to invade. Barbarossa took the Soviet Army completely by surprise and in the first few months they lost a million men dead, wounded or taken prisoner. c. During the defence of the Malayan Peninsula and Singapore in January and February 1942, The British military made several fatal errors: (i) They did not regard the Japanese as good fighters, even though the Japanese Army had been conquering China for the previous four years. (ii) They refused to believe that the Japanese could get tanks down the jungle roads, even though the local rubber planters had been using lorries on them for years. (iii) They were obsessed with an attack from the sea, even though there was overwhelming evidence that the Japanese were coming from the north, down the Malay Peninsula. (iv) When the Japanese arrived in the northwest, all of the defence supplies were moved to the northeast because they thought the Japanese were bluffing and an attack would come from the northeast! 130,000 British and Commonwealth troops were captured, 9,000 were killed or wounded. The Japanese lost less than 10,000 killed or wounded. This was the biggest disaster in British military history. (d) In September 1942 a German Panzer Army of 120,000 men reached the city of Stalingrad in the Russian Caucasus. Its supply lines were stretched and it was exhausted, but it was told to capture and hold the city at all costs. It took most of the city with bitter fighting and heavy casualties. It became obvious to the German General Staff that the Russians were building up a huge force behind Stalingrad to prepare a counter attack on each side of the city to surround it. Hitler refused to heed any warning and would not allow a withdrawal, sacking any general who suggested it. The Russian attack surrounded the city easily and trapped the entire German Army that surrendered in February 1943. It was the biggest disaster of the war and Germany never recovered. Of the 100,000 men captured, only 8,000 ever got back to Germany. (e) Operation ‘Market Garden’ the attempt to capture the Rhine Bridges in North Holland in late September 1944 by paratroopers, was a failure, even a disaster. Of the more than 10,000 British troops that took part, less than a quarter managed to get back safely. What went wrong? For a start the radios carried by the paratroopers did not work and this was known even before the drop took place! XXX Corps, the armoured relief force was scheduled to drive up a single lane road for 64 miles that was heavily defended by the Germans. Local Dutch intelligence was ignored when they said this was a foolish idea. Aerial photographs and Dutch underground reports told of the presence of two SS panzer divisions in the Arnhem area, but the British Command ridiculed this. The intelligence officer who alerted the Command with the photographs was put on medical leave because they thought he was mentally exhausted! 3. THE KOREAN WAR 1950-3 In October 1950 American Intelligence experts reported that the Chinese had over 200,000 soldiers in Manchuria just over the border to Korea. The Allied Armies had just driven the North Koreans back to the Yalu River just south of the Chinese-Korean border. The Chinese began to filter into North Korea in their thousands and although it was very skillfully done at night, reports were coming in that large bodies of Chinese troops were over the Korean border. Nothing was done since the Americans were convinced that the Chinese would not invade a foreign country. At the end of October the Chinese swamped the United Nations forces who had to retreat desperately to stop themselves being overrun. 4. THE VIETNAM WAR 1946-75 In January 1968 things seemed to be going well for the American Army in Vietnam. They were killing the communist Viet Cong in a ratio of at least 4-1 and sometimes 10-1 in their favour and the North Vietnamese Army was being driven back to the borders of Laos and Cambodia. There were rumours of a big offensive being planned by the Viet Cong but since it was the Buddhist New Year of TET and they had never attacked during the holidays, the Americans relaxed. On 30 January all the major cities in South Vietnam were attacked suddenly by a total of 50,000 infiltrating troops. It took weeks of heavy fighting to defeat the attack and although it was a victory for the Americans and their allies, the psychological impact was serious on the American people who believed the Vietnam War was not winnable. 5. THE YOM KIPPUR WAR 1973 In 1967 the Israeli attacked and smashed three Arab armies (Syrian, Jordanian and Egyptian) many times its size and captured the east bank of the Jordan, the Golan Heights in Syria and the Sinai Desert up to the Suez Canal. The Arabs were thirsting for revenge. In October 1973 they planned a surprise attack on the Golan Heights and across the Suez. The timing was perfect; 6 October was the Jewish Holiday of Yom Kippur when many Israeli soldiers would be at home. The Israelis spotted the military build up of the Egyptians and Syrians but thought they would not attack during a holy day! The initial attack cost the Israelis dear, even though they managed to win in the end. 6. THE FALKLANDS WAR 1982 The troopship Sir Galahad was heading for Bluff Cove to land Welsh Guardsmen, but instead put into Fitzroy just down the coast. The beach-master who was a Royal Marine major, warned the colonel in charge of the troops that the ship would be attacked by the Argentine air force. The colonel refused to move the men from the ship to the shore 200 yards away saying his destination was Bluff Cove. The next morning the ship was hit and 50 lives were lost and many were severely burned. 7. THE GULF WAR 1990 Over 40 soldiers both British and American were killed by friendly ‘blue-on-blue’ fire from aircraft during the Gulf War. An American Congressional committee after the war freely admitted that it was still not possible to differentiate properly between friendly and enemy forces from aircraft even when the vehicles had a ‘V’ painted on their roofs and reflective tape stuck all over them. 8. KOSOVO 1998 According to a confidential report drawn up by Colonel Paul Gibson of the 1st Battalion Parachute Regiment, there were several serious communication problems involving British troops in Kosovo. (i) The Army’s radios were not secure and the Serbs could hear everything that was said. The British had to resort to nicknames and slang whilst radioing in an attempt to confuse the Serbs. (ii) Despite having many aerial pictures of the Kosovo Region, NATO did not hand them over to the commanding officers in the field! (iii) The headquarters of K-For commander General Mike Jackson were too far away from troops on the ground, which resulted in ‘confusion and delay.’ Colonel Gibson stated that good communications were essential to any army in the field and claimed that if the Serbs had decided to put up a fight, the outcome could have been disaster. [Food for thought for tabletop encounters where communications are always 100%! Is there a recurring theme here? Kenn] Back to Table of Contents -- Lone Warrior # 142 Back to Lone Warrior List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 2003 by Solo Wargamers Association. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com