Losing at War: Battlefield Blunders and the Men who Made Them 

On the Psychology of Military Incompetence by Dr Norman Dixon, MBE, RE, (1976). Most valid analysis of the military mind over a century.

31:41 my uncle John Sanford would be one of those American pilots flying "the Hump" in Burma, but not from Assam. He would lose his life flying supplies for Christian missionaries in the mid 1960's. The China - Burma - India theater is one of the most overlooked of WWII history discussed in America, these days

It has to be mentioned that Nikita Chrustshew himself openly acknowleledged that the Soviet Union would have lost the war without the suplies of material from the US and Great Britain. And he must have known what he said because he was part of the innermost cercle around Stalin in this crucial time. Therefore Barbarossa was a blunder of Germany that still could have resulted in victory.

Probably the best and most insightful comprehensive overviews of WW2 ever! Ty very much! 💛💛💪🏻💪🏻

Many of these blunders were only considered that after the war had ended, when it became clear what their wider implications were. There had been reasonable justification to make the decision at the time.

*I think this is the single greatest title of a lecture in modern history.*

You've got to admire the approach of James Holland, kicking off a US event, and makes all his opening examples from the first half of WW2, during which the US hasn't yet entered the war. Even the notion that the term "Allies" predates US involvement might trigger some of the audience members.

Brilliant job and fascinating!

The most interesting thing I found was James Holland’s revisionist view of Mark Clark Something for me to read up on

To fully understand the German military self-inflicted gaping wound called "The Eastern Front", one should read Martin van Creveld's superb book - "Supplying War".

Good stuff guys. Very interesting.

Really fascinating information gentlemen. Keep throwing out those good book recommendations. Highly appreciated.

Brilliant!!!!!!

The Me262 was delayed by the engines. It was put into production with 3500 test flight hours not conducted. All German fighters were supposed to be able to serve as fighter bombers. That was Luftwaffe strategy. Whether bomb racks was fitted to the Me 262 depended on supplies. Italy was a point of attrition which was supplied by German troops from the Soviet Union. In the end there was one million Germans there and 600 000 German casualties.

James Holland is great. I love listening to him. He constantly cuts to the quick. I would take issue with one point he made--how important was the loss of German aircraft in the Mediterranean. More important was the loss of the air crews.

Enjoyed the talk 🇦🇺

There is story about an American colonel sent back home right before D Day. He complains to Ike that he just called his counterpart a “bastard.” Ike responded that the guy is a bastard but “you called him a ‘British bastard’ and I can’t have that.”

Very interesting talk 👍🏽

I would suggest that Eisenhower was not an inept tactician who would have never made it past Lt.Col. in a modern US Army. He was just never given an opportunity to be a major or colonel with a combat organization in time of war. Ike was a very smart guy who never had a chance to learn at the colonel level. In WWI he was a trainer who never saw combat. In the 1930's when the Patton's of the world were honing their craft, he was writing speeches for MacArthur. Ike didn't choose that, the army did. In spite of what Douglas MacArthur later said about Eisenhower when Ike had completely eclipsed Mac, MacArthur highly regarded eisenhower and wanted to keep him. Ike also impressed two other very important generals, Fox Connor, and Marshall, the later of which raised him from obscurity. The North African campaign was not run well until Eisenhower replaced Lloyd Fredendall. Were mistakes made by Ike. Yup. He should have fired Fredendall much earlier, and he probably interfered at the beginning too much. But you also have to bring the enemy into this as well. The US Army in North Africa was completely untested at the beginning of Torch, facing Rommel. In spite of Ike learned though, eventually won, and Sicily went a lot better right from the start.

that was fantastic!!!

“Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!”

Wonderful.

The gentleman claims that the U.S. Army didn't mistakes twice, however individual commanders did. General Omar Bradley refused to take advice from an officer that had saved in the Pacific and observed the ineffectiveness of direct fire by battleships on coastal fortifications. Bradley refuse to have the battleships supporting the Omaha landings assume positions father offshore so that their gunfire would be in a arc with the shells hitting the coastal fortifications in an downward arc. Bradley showed his stubbornness later in the Battle of the Huegen Forrest where he ordered American units to continue to attack entrenched Germans troops instead of bypassing the forrest. The units involved suffered over 100% casualties and contributed to the the American Army having to put green divisions in the line before the German counter offensive in December 1944.

My favourite quote about any ‘blunder’ is Talleyrands opinion on the Haitian genocide of white French “it is worse than a crime, it is a mistake”

Chiang Kai shek is who initiated the Battle of Shanghai and there's plenty of evidence for that, his son's book notwithstanding. His top military leaders have made it clear that the Nationalists confronted the Japanese Garrison of 5000 there in response to Japan's occupation of parts of north China south of the Manchurian border. They hoped for a quick victory before reinforcements arrived by virtue of what they thought were overwhelming numbers of the Army's best German trained troops. Several theories of why the Industrial Coastal city was chosen includes drawing Japanese troops away from their Russian logistical supply line and Chiang Kai shek wanted the war in sight of the western foreign settlements in hopes of support from the west. So it was the first of Chaing Kai shek's battlefield blunders. . The second was breaching the dams along the yellow river to slow the Japanese advance to Wuhan in 1938. The resulting flood all the way to the coast, was the worst ecological disaster of WW2 and killed Chinese in 5 figures or more either directly or by rendering China's most fertile agricultural region to be useless for years.. It was also a huge source of recruitment for Mao Zedong. The Japanese entered Wuhan a month later from a different direction. . His third was not getting rid of Stillwell when Marshall gave him the chance. His usually astute wife counseled against forcing any turnover in the American military hierarchy. They both came to regret missing that opportunity. Guadalcanal was Admiral King's risky idea not MacArthur's. Good thing Admiral Mikawa didn't know our carriers were out of range during the Battle of Savo Island or he would've ruined our first offensive of the Asian Pacific War. I'd agree that Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor was a pretty big blunder. And Kudos to the guy who nominated the 8th AAF bombing campaign in '43 with no fighter escort into Germany.

@55:00 Such an excellent question, with a regrettably anemic answer.... 😕

7:52 The Prussians didn't crossed at Sedan in 1870, they crossed at the border between Germany and France, Sedan borders Belgium. The Germans didn't specifically crossed at Sedan in 1914 either.

“In the end, historians are always going to win.” So I changed my mind, and am now glad my son studies history.

Nice channel jacket Mr. Holland.

The Germans lost the war at dunkirk. Adolf galland states in his book that the delay in employing me 262s was poor engine performance. Even when they were improved to the point of utility they were only getting 10 hours from them. Now the german 4 engine bomber apparently had design issues because of unrealistic requirements. Supposedly it had to also function as a dive bomber. I dont know if they ever figured that out or dropped it. But from what I've read it resulted in a poorly designed plane with many maintenance issues.

The lesson that Guderian tried to teach Hitler: A nation which could not provide adequate number of basics, like steel track pins, to it's forward units, had no business conducting an all out offensive.

I do think it's funny that one of the panelists thinks the book about Omaha beach and the author's criticism is too much about hindsight when the three of them have just spent almost an hour doing the same thing. 😕 That being said, I loved the video and enjoyed hearing the thoughts of all three men.

When they were discussing the German's problem of capturing Baku, Russia for its oil, what can they do with it then, as they had no way to transport that oil back to Germany where it was needed. This reminded me of the line said by The Joker to hospital patient, Harvey Dent in the movie, The Dark Knight, "I'm like that dog that chases cars. I don't know what I would do if I ever caught one." The German's had no way to transport the captured oil if they did win, just as the Japanese had no way to ship their captured oil and rubber from their island capturing in the South Pacific and Southeast Asia.

The real blunder of the U.S. strategic bombing campaign was the use of the Norden bombsight which was an overhyped piece of garbage. Sperry had designed a high altitude bombsight, which was far and away a more accurate bombsight than the Norman. But with the Norden corporation's false advertising campaign and the connivence of the U.S. Army Air Corps. Norden received the contract instead of Sperry.

The strategic impacts of in theater decisions would become a ... theme for nearly all German operations in WWII. Then those German officers would blame "crazy Hitler" for lack of strategic foresight in the overall planing and field execution, in their ( heavily edited by Model for U S Army history division ) after war memoirs.

I loved the discussion on “blunders “. BUT MOST OF THE BLUNDERS SEEM APPARENT AFTER THE FACT 😗

Fascinating discussion gentleman, how a small blunder can escalate with catastrophic consequences. Here’s an off the wall one to consider, the possibility the Heinkel He 280 jet fighter being available in 1943 in significant numbers. Luftwaffe dogma and cronyism “ Heinkel you only make bombers” blunder denied the Luftwaffe of a jet aircraft in 1943. Yes there are arguments about the engines, however if it was available in 1943, it would have been dominant and it and the engines would become the strategic imperative. Therefore, it potentially would have at least limited the CBO strategy particularly big week attacking the railway network with the catastrophic consequences for overlord. Overlord was inevitable but would it have been delayed or the battle outcome of losses been significantly higher.

14:55 we often come back with all these criticisms of the french, of putting their tanks into "penny packets" etc... But actually it's a bit of a cruel criticism because the french were doing what most armies were doing at that time and what every country did even for the rest of the war. 44% of the french tank force was in specialized units in 1940, yet later on the soviets also had 44% of their armor only in specialized units, and the americans even had 56% of their tanks put in support to the infantry and not in specified armor division.

But.... the Rapido crossing wasn't left up to the divisional commander. Walker was micromanaged from above about the whole attack.

5:40..Animal House / Belushi reference obviously lost on this crowd

6:53 my guy on the right felt that 😂

Hello Can anyone copy the captions of this video for me?

I had hoped some mention of 1) Allies failure in Sicily to immediately target Messina and thus trap the German forces holding the island. 2) Allies failure to simply bypass Pelileiu and mop up there later.

If Halsey was at Marianas what would Willis Lee's fears have been realized and they ran into the Japanese surface fleet and been massively mauled delaying other invasions?

The biggest blunder Hitler made was his own impatience. The initial idea before Poland was to continue building Germany's military might until 1946 which was the initial projected date for the beginning of the war. If he would have waited who knows what would have happened?

What about the failures of the US Corps commanders' blunders at the Hurtgen Forest?

I'll have to seriously reconsider my opinion of Mark Clark now.

Wow! I had to listen very fast!

Rear Admiral Carleton Wright at the Battle of Tassafaronga. No justification for his blunder at all. And those commanders he led continued on with the blunders. Utter debacle.

How about a bigger table? Other than that, a pretty good discussion.

My biggest 'what if' is if Hitler had the strategic sense to have made a complete, overly generous treaty with France, including removing all troops from France? If they would have waited until the British attacked the French fleet, then made the treaty, guaranteeing that Franch wouldn't allow British troops on its soil during this conflict. The implications of that would have been wide ranging, including the Japanese invading French possessions.

As much as I admire James Holland, I would take issue with something he said. He said "if you can't produce" speaking of German tank production compared to the number of tanks produced by the Soviets and Americans. In fact, the Germans could have produced far more tanks than they did. The Germans had a massive steel industry, far larger than the Soviet steel industry. And steel is the primary material in building tanks. The Germans could have produced more. They were not forced into the 'quality' mode. It is a choice they made. It is just that German industrial processes were so incredibly inefficient. They made tanks in basically craft shops while the Soviets thanks to American-designed factories, mass-produced them. The Germans also went for craftsmanship, while the Soviets and Americans understood that tanks had limited life spans on the battlefront and produced tanks that were not finely crafted machines. Another factor here is the War in the West. Cast amounts of steel and other metals were diverted to fight the air war and the Battle of the Atlantic. The Russians today think the War in the West was a sideshow. In fact, more than half of German industrial production went to support the war in the West. If more had gone to support the Ostheer the outcome of the Ostkrieg might have been very different.

There were no conscripts in the Canadian armed forces until very late in the war because of political reasons. They were often undermanned.

Did they forget about Lt. Gen. Lloyd Ralston Fredendall? Or was the Kasserine Pass just too obvious a blunder for this audience?

Classic “if it works it’s genius, if it doesn’t work he’s an idiot”. The biggest blunder was the French and British not hammering Germany after the earliest annexations of Chechloslovakia (spelling) and Sudetenland. Would’ve been a whole different thing if they’d not appeased and fought before Fermany was really ready

"What happened if the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor" is hilarious.

Is Keselring as good a tactician as they say ? Anyone

no mention of how the allies breaking the german enigma code was the main contribution of Rommel's defeat and the German defeat in general. Bletchy Park made a greater contribution to ending WWII then Eisenhower, Patton, Montgomery, Eaker combined.

MacArthur was a fool in the Philippines.

I noticed that James Holland failed to include Winston Churchill's blunders in his list. Churchill's ill conceived operation to land troops in Norway was a disaster, and his sending of a portion of the British Fleet to support the Free French at Dakar, while the German invasion scare was very real.I'm just including Churchill's blunders up to the summer of 1940. There were many more later in the war. Don't get me wrong, I have the greatest respect for Winston Churchill as a politician and orator, but on the whole he was a very bad strategist.

The M10 tank destroyer, ~6400 produced, and the whole U.S. tank destroyer doctrine qualifies as a blunder.

Losing, not loosing.

The Ukes use precision artillary & missiles to wipe out Rus units firing 10x ammo w/ 3x artillary pcs... guess that kills Stalin's quantity vs quality maxim

Yeah but we all fantasise about driving a tiger or panther

At Pearl Harbor, the attrition of the Japanese aircraft were increasing, so the Japanese were quitting while they were ahead.

Diep?

Another speaker who uses "you know" as a replacenent for a comma in written text. A momentary pause is all right but some of these excellent historians could use and benefit from some public speaking coaching. A moment of silence can lend drama and timing to their lectures.

No Crete discussion? No strategic importance.

Murray Spearber hated Bobby Knight because Bobby Knight is a bully. However, Murray never won anything. ever. Right now we have a military set up for the worst debacle known to man due to stupid thinking. When it happens tell them that you heard it here first on roller derby

Hyper-discussion pitched as one-liners that was extremely difficult to listen to. Slow down a bit, so the rest of us can absorb the points you are making.

Hitler's blunder was not invading Poland, but surrounding himself with incompetent yes men like Von Ribbentrop. It was von Ribbentrop as foreign minister that advised Hitler that Great Britain would not declare war on Germany over England's grantee to Poland.

17:15 19:57 "A little more GUMPTION!" 24:45 "Fill her up"

The gentleman's comments about Douglas MacArthur's decision to meet the Japanese own the beaches are completely wrong. The Philippine Army didn't have the training, equipment and the leadership necessary to successfully defeat the Japanese landings. If MacArthur really believed in this policy, he would have committed the U.S. 31st Infantry and 4th Marines to the beach defense and given the American officer advisors to Philippine Army units command responsibility.

Democracies learn faster in war because we are independent minded and can admit mistakes. Totalitarian regimes think they are superior and are too arrogant and top down to learn..quickly. The Germans said that Americans learn fast.

Did not much discus strategic blunders (except Hitler's decision to invade Poland). For the allies: what about the very costly sideshows of the Italian campaign (Churchill's "soft underbelly") and the campaign to retake the Philippines for McArthur's PR.

Hopefully general Mary Miley doesn't plan and fight a battle

Wait a minute! Everybody stop! What did that guy say? "The Army does a lot more amphibious assaults than the Marines". Oh really? These dudes apparently don't really know anything about the Pacific Island battles of WWII. Tarawa. Iowa Jima. Okinawa. Guadalcanal. Peleliu. Just to name a few.

James argument about irritating personal characteristics versus results regarding Generals applies exactly to Donald Trump! 😁

is this a comedy show where one comedian tries to out do one another. i was hoping for some serious discussion.

This is a very ironic subject as America has NEVER actually won a war !

WW2 the last war america won and russia won it for them😅