How artillery beat Rommel after Kasserine

FA Journal,  May-August, 2002  by Robert C. Baldridge

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(16.) "Thorough technical, psychological and physical training is one protection and one weapon that every nation can give its soldiers before committing them to battle...."Dwight D. Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1948), 175. "Eisenhower had learned much. He was going to make it a fixed rule, he promised, that until the war was won, no unit in his theater will every stop training, including units on the front line." Stephen Ambrose, The Supreme Commander: The War Years of General Dwight D. Eisenhower (Garden City. NY: Doubleday, 1970), 175.

(17.) Interview with Connolly and Birum, both of whom are mentioned in Samuel Zaffiris' Westmoreland (New York: Morrow. 1994), 51-3.

(18.) Interview with Connolly.

(19.) Waller, 99; interview with Winsch and Lubin.

(20.) Interview with Connolly.

(21.) Ibid.

(22.) Dr. Boyd L. Dastrup, King of Battle: A Branch History of the US Army's Field Artillery (Fort Monroe, VA: US Army Training and Doctrine Command, 1992), 210.

(23.) Blumenson, 273-4.

(24.) Eisenhower became famous for understanding the problems allies had in their relationships with each other and his success in solving them

The author interviewed the following people for this article:

Leon Birum, Union City, Indiana--First Lieutenant Executive Officer of B Battery, 34th FA Battalion, later a Major

George Connolly, Marblehead, Maine--Second Lieutenant Reconnaissance Officer in B Battery, 34th FA Battalion, later a Colonel (USA, Retired)

Donald Harrison, Colorado Springs, Colorado--First Lieutenant Forward Observer (FO) in B Battery, 34th FA Battalion, later a Colonel (USA, Retired)

John Lannon, Pawtucket, Rhode Island--First Lieutenant Anti-Tank Platoon Leader and FO in B Battery, 34th FA Battalion, later a Captain

Aaron Lubin, Fresh Meadows, New York--Private First Class in the Anti-Tank Platoon, then a Sergeant in the Fire Direction Center of Headquarters Battery, 84th FA Battalion

Sheldon Stoddard, Portsmouth, New Hampshire--First Sergeant of B Battery, 34th FA Battalion, received Battlefield Commission to Second Lieutenant

Bert Waller, Poway, California--First Lieutenant Communications Officer in Headquarters Battery, 9th Infantry Division Artillery, later a Lieutenant Colonel (USA, Retired) (Now Deceased)

Edward Winsch, Garden City, New York--Scout Corporal and FO in C Battery, 84th FA Battalion, later a First Sergeant

Robert C. Baldridge is a World War II veteran with service in the 34th Field Artillery, 9th Infantry Division in England, France and Germany. He received a battlefield promotion to Second Lieutenant and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for his actions as a Forward Observer with the 9th Infantry. Mr. Baldridge graduated from Yale in 1948 and is now retired from the textile industry. He is the author of Victory Road, his World War II memoirs. He also authored the article "Atomic Annie: First Nuclear Cannon" that was featured in the December 1996 Military History magazine. Mr. Baldridge, who is 77, is a member of the US Field Artillery Association, The 9th Infantry Division Association, The Association of the US Army, The Army Historical Foundation, Inc., The Council On America's Military Past and is a member of The National Order of Battlefield Commissions. He resides in Lawrence, New York.

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