Hamel 4th July 1918

"The little known Battle of le Hamel near Amiens in France was a dramatic turning point in the First World War. It was one of the first bloodings of the newly-arrived American Expeditionary Force in France and was also to be one of the most contentious. On finding out that the Australians and British intended to use 2,000 men of the newly arrived US 33 Infantry Division to give them 'some training experience in battle,' a furious US C-in-C demanded they be recalled. But too late: a few disappointed American and Australian commanders turned a Nelsonian blind eye and at least four companies of the 131st and 132nd Infantry Regiments helped spearhead the dawn attack on key German strongpoints. In the process they earned themselves well-deserved battle honours and a Congressional Medal of Honor for Corporal Thomas A. Pope of Chicago for his single-handed capture of a German machine gun nest. The lessons of Hamel were to unleash a military phenomenon, 'Blitzkrieg,' or 'Lightning War,' that still casts a long shadow to this day. From this limited experimental offensive by British, Australian and American troops has come the whole modern war-fighting concept of combining all arms in the attack; infantry, artillery; airpower; tanks; deception and, above all, surprise. Hamel's success and its subsequent impact paved the way for all future Blitzkriegs. Hamel showed how the muddy stalemate of trench warfare could be broken, with devastating results. This experimental test tube of a battle paved the way for Allied victory and the final defeat of Kaiser Wilhelm's Second Reich in the bloody global war that had begun four years earlier. It also gave us a blueprint for modern warfare"--Back cover.

שנה

2018

שפה

English

הוצאה

Unicorn Publishing Group

מהדורות

1

עמודים

163

ISBN

9781911604426

מקור הנתונים: Wikidata