RICE UNIVERSITY THE INFLUENCE OF S.L.A. MARSHALL ON THE UNITED STATES ARMY by FREDERICK DEANE GOODWIN WILLIAMS A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE Master of Arts APPROVED, THESIS COMMITTEE: Ira D. Gruber, Professor of History, Chairman Thomas L. Haskell, Associate Professor «•p history F. 4/uilm'aTrtinL> Jr., Adjunct Professor \J of History Houston, Texas May, 1984 3 1272 00288 9804 Property of the United States Government. For use contact: Defense Technical Information Center ATTN : DDC.-TC Cameron Station Alexandria, VA 22314 ABSTRACT THE INFLUENCE OF S.L.A. MARSHALL ON THE UNITED STATES ARMY FREDERICK DEANE GOODWIN WILLIAMS Samuel Lyman Atwood Marshall, a journalist, influenced the United States Army in several ways beginning in 1943. First as a combat historian in World War II, then as a military critic, writer, lecturer, operations analyst, and consultant, he presented several practical and innovative ideas to the army. He pioneered the group after action interview technique for clearing up the confusing, often conflicting stories of participants in combat. As a result of his interviewing over 500 units in World War II, Marshall came to certain conclusions about what motivated Americans to fight. His subsequent experiences in other wars reinforced his theories. His ideas reached many soldiers and caused great controversy. Although he had great initial success in his efforts to reform the army, he spent his last years in a repetitious re-education process caused by such factors as institutional resistance to change. While some of his ideas have been incorporated into army policy, the most lasting influence has been through the education of the post World War II generation of junior officers who were stirred to articulate their ideas and experiences by their exposure to Marshall. These men are the key policy-makers o today's army. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Researching and writing this paper has been of enormous benefit to me both as a historian and as a professional officer. For this reason, I find it hard to express the depth of my gratitude to the many people who made it possible. Indeed I do not know where to begin. Since alphabetical arrangement would be too impersonal, I choose to acknowledge my thanks in chronological order, beginning with the man who stirred my concern for conducting effective combat training, Lieutenant General A.S. (Ace) Collins, who kindly offered to edit this paper, but who died before it was completed. Professor Ira D. Gruber, Head of'the Department of History at Rice University, provided extraordinary in-depth criticism and encouragement. His advice made this paper possible. The remarkable organizational abilities of Mr. Thomas F. Burdett, curator of the S.L.A. Marshall Military History Collection, made working at the Collection simple, and his friendly, helpful manner made working there a pleasure. The kindness and hospitality of Mrs. Cate Marshall enabled me to see the human side of General vi Marshall, while she very tactfully refrained from trying to influence the tone of the paper. Dr. Richard Sommers, Archivist-Historian of the United States Military History Institute, and Mr. Dennis Vetock, research Assistant at the Institute, both provided valuable assistance in locating materials in that collection. I would like to thank all those who allowed me to interview them in person or on the phone, for their kindness and frankness gave me both information and encouragement to carry on. Those who responded to my requests for information in the certain professional journals and in letters provided insights and information invaluable to this paper. Finally, I would like to thank Professor John F. Guilmartin for guiding me to many materials which rounded out my research. To these and all others who assisted in bringing this paper to birth, I am sincerely grateful. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page PREFACE viii CHAPTER 1. LAYING THE FOUNDATIONS Part I: Budding Journalist — 1900-41 ...... 1 Part II: Combat Historian — 1941-46 20 2. SOUNDING THE TRUMPET — 1946-50 Part I: Men Against Fire 57 Part II: The Soldier*s Load .92 3. LABORS OF SISYPHUS — 1950-77 Ill EPILOGUE 158 ENDNOTES 197 APPENDIX 241 BIBLIOGRAPHY 243 PREFACE The conclusions [about how American soldiers overcame their fears in combat] to which the American Historical Teams came, as a result of many thousands of interviews with individuals and groups fresh from combat, are now widely known. They form the basis of the magnificent American campaign histories and have been publicized in pungent, capsule form by the leading historian of the European Theatre, General S.L.A. Marshall. Marshall is, in a sense, an American du Picq. 1 So wrote John Keegan, eminent military historian and senior lecturer at the British Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. A keen student of the behavior of men in battle, Keegan made a point which might stir the mind, if not the heart of any American interested in the age-old question: "How am I likely to react in combat?" Keegan's pointing to S.L.A. Marshall as a source of knowledge of Americans in battle would lead one to believe that Marshall may have had an influence on the United States Army. Indeed, two pages later Keegan remarked: "His arguments were unusually effective, so that he has had the unusual experience, for a historian, of seeing his message not merely accepted in his 2 own lifetime but translated into practice." Yet curiously enough, while Marshall himself was a prolific writer (something in excess of 30 books on war and IX history, depending on how you define authorship) and the prevailing consensus in military and historical circles is that he had a marked influence on the post-World War II American military, there is no book or article which critically examines that influence or what nature it took. This paper is an attempt to coorect that situation. There are only two sources which even touch the subject of Marshall's influence. The first consists of the amorphous body of articles in professional military journals which refer rather uncritically to Marshall's accomplishments. Such explanatory articles (they might better be described as biographical sketches) were considerably more common in the late 1940's and early 1950's, when Marshall's reputation as an analyst and historian was first being made. Current literature (since 1970) virtually refrains from such comments, presumably because the editors assume their reading audience knows about Marshall. Indeed this assumption is not far wrong, for most soldiers have some idea of who he was and what he said. However, it has become obvious in the course of this research that there was more to Marshall and his ideas than is immediately apparent. The second source of knowledge about Marshall and his influence is an inherently biased one — his autobiography. X Although fascinating reading and, as far as I can tell from spot checking his stories, basically true, this book presents a distorted view of his influence. This tendency is, of course, not peculiar to Marshall and is common to most autobiographies, for they naturally put the author at center stage. All other parties to his life take on, at most, supporting roles and often play no more than bit parts. Shift the focus of attention by reading some biography of someone else in the cast, and you have what seems to be a totally different story. Obviously, then, an autobiography should not be taken too seriously when pursuing a balanced perspective of a person's influence. So what are we left with? There is no digested body of knowledge, such as a critical biography, which would give an idea of how Marshall fit into his time and what he accomplished of lasting value. Dr. Roger Spiller, formerly a research fellow at the Combat Studies Institute and presently the command historian for the United States Readiness Command, is doing research for a biography of Marshall. He has already edited a publication of the Combat Studies Institute: "S.L.A. Marshall at Leavenworth," which presents five lectures which Marshall gave at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College from 1952 to 1962. This booklet helps trace Marshall over perhaps his most xi influential years and as such provides an idea of how both his ideas and his personality developed during that period. Perhaps the largest single mass of material about Marshall is contained in the S.L.A. Marshall Military History Collection in the library of the University of Texas at El Paso. This collection consists of most of Marshall's papers, personal library, momentos, correspondence, and memorabilia, still in the process of being cataloged. The United States Military History Institute at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, has a small collection of documents relating to Marshall. Some of the interviews Marshall made in World War II are there, but most are in the National Archives or Library of Congress with the rest of the Historical Branch's source documents. Other than that, there is nothing. So how can prominent historians like Keegan say that Marshall was a success in his own time? There seems to be no one who has proven it. It is as if the statement were axiomatic — hardly the kind of thing an interested party would be satisfied with if he were trying to get some idea of Marshall's role in the history of the United States Army! As a professional soldier with more than a passing interest in military history, I came upon Marshall in a rather circuituous way. Encouraged by my company commander to do some extra reading on the subject of training soldiers x±i (and feeling a marked gap in that aspect of my own training), I bought a copy of Common Sense Training in the Post Exchange book section.