Journal of Military History

Paths of Fire: The Gun and the World it Made is a fascinating and unconventional history of the gun’s direct and indirect influence on society and science since the 16th century. Andrew Nahum does not seek to address pervading questions in any particular field. Instead, he provides a kaleidoscopic rendition of how the gun has influenced the other sciences, such as physics and psychology. The purpose of this engrossing book is Nahum's assertion that the greatest progress in technology occurs under the pressures of war or threatened wars (p. 222).

Andrew Nahum is the principal curator of technology and engineering at the Science Museum in London and has written extensively on the history of technology, particularly in aviation and automobiles. Nahum provides an engaging and thought-provoking examination that offers readers “snapshots” of how the evolution of powder and ball relates to manufacturing, computing, artificial intelligence, and geopolitics (p. 222). 

Nahum commences his history of the gun by examining how ballistics afforded renaissance thinkers to scientifically critique classical and medieval theories of motion, as the cannon could do violent things to matter and elicit phenomena that had never been seen before (p. 15). Italian mathematician Niccolò Fontana Tartaglia published the first systematic treatise on ballistics, Nova scientia, in 1537. Nahum credits Tartaglia to being the first to truly upset Aristotelian soil, thus tilling the foundation for Galileo and Newton’s theories.

In his second chapter, Nahum engages with historian Simon Schaffer’s argument that Enlightenment thinking sought to divulge the secrets of craftsmanship to perpetuate the diffusion of knowledge. The chapter introduces readers to 18th-century French philosophers, gunsmiths, and engineers, such as Denis Diderot, Honoré Blanc, Jean-Baptiste de Gribeaubal, and Pierre-André Nicolas d’Angoult. It recounts their efforts to standardize production with the aid of government loans and conscription labor. As with many radical technical innovations," Nahum writes, "only weapons development seems to have the exceptional power to inspire the research needed and to underwrite the huge cost of such a speculative long-range project (p. 36). The U.S. government largely financed what was dubbed ‘the armory system” in America during the beginning of the 19thCentury. Nahum argues the American system of arms production was, in fact, a 'skill multiplier,' as precision tools, machines, and gauges required engineers to design them and skilled craftsmen to repair and maintain them. American arms production, backed by government subsidies, ushered in a new era of manufacturing standards and mass production, which were rapidly adopted by other industries and their leading producers, such as Singer Sewing Machine Company, McCormick Harvesting Machine Company, and Ford Motor Company.

Similarly, the remaining five chapters are dedicated to fascinating technologies and their tangential or peripheral relationship to the gun. Chapter three is essentially about the Royal Navy’s adaptation of the steam turbine, which proved to be a prerequisite to 15-inch naval guns. Those new guns required new fire control systems and required heavier armor protection. While technological advances solved technical dilemmas, they ran far head of command and control techniques (p. 95). Chapters four and five consider the development of anti-aircraft fire systems and range finding techniques, examining the various dilemmas of hitting a target in the air. Readers will enjoy the portraits of artillerymen, physiologists, and mathematicians, who created systems to overcome the complicated task of calculating enemy aircraft's altitude, direction, and speed. They factored in barometric pressures’ effects on shell trajectory and devised methods for firing on enemy targets at night. Ultimately these innovators produced incredibly complex electro-mechanical analog computers that could communicate with the guns, "telling" them fire solutions in order to shoot down enemy aircraft.  Nahum’s final chapters examine the relations between the massacre at Wounded Knee and the 1884 British Expeditionary force in Egypt. He examines the innovative Mikhail Kalashnikov and Eugene Stoner, relating their stories to their respective societies that developed the highly reliable AK47 and the malfunctioning M16.

Scholarly readers may be frustrated with the lack of argument. The text also does not overtly engage with any of the existing historiographies of the various subjects. This reviewer was disappointed only to find two pages of selected bibliography. However, the book's broad coverage and intriguing histories will introduce scholars, students, and the general reader to numerous marginalized technological histories and spark curiosity. The book is a clear, fast-paced demonstration of how arms development has actuated technological development and social change.  Nahum has uncovered and presented to his readers those less-considered tributaries of arms development through this fascinating and entertaining scientific examination of how our lives have been impacted by the gun (p 9).

  Army History

Men of Armor is a fast-reading, well-balanced history of tankers during World War II. As president of the American Historical Association in 1912, Theodore Roosevelt charged the historian to have "the power to embody ghosts, to put flesh and blood on dry bones, to make dead men living…to take the science of history and turn it into literature.”[1] Indeed, author Jeff Danby hits these marks in part one of Men of Armor, The History of B Company, 756th Tank Battalion in World War II, a multivolume endeavor that has already received high accolades, including the Army Historical Foundation’s Distinguished Writing Award for unit history in 2021.

        The first volume of Men of Armor is anchored to Charles M. Wilkinson, who will ultimately command B Company of the 756th General Headquarters (GHQ) tank battalion. Danby introduces the reader to Wilkinson, a graduating Second Lieutenant from Texas A&M’s ROTC 1940 class. He was promptly ordered to Ft. Knox, where he reported to the Divisions Officer Training Center (DOTC). Danby concisely narrates the the history of American armor up to that point, reviewing the familiar 1st Provisional Tank Brigade, Colonel Adna Chaffee, early light tanks, Colonel Daniel Van Voorhis, the mechanization of the 7th Cavalry Brigade, and the ambiguous mission of the Armored Force. After six weeks at the DOTC, Wilkinson hoped to land a position in one of the new armored divisions but learned he and his cadre would form the nucleus of one of the five new GHQ tank battalions. He started for Fort Lewis in Washington State to join the 756th Light Tank Battalion.

        Fort Lewis was home to numerous armor, infantry, artillery, and cavalry units within the Fourth Army’s IX Corps. With dewy forests and brick barracks of Ft. Lewis providing the backdrop, Danby describes the role of the GHQ tank battalions and their machines, which at the time consisted of a few M1 and M2 light tanks. Obsolete though they were, these machines proved a scarce commodity in the rapidly sprouting training facilities across the country. Having only six of these tanks, the 756th had to make do with BB guns and small wooden frames representing the back-ordered tanks. To on-looking infantry units, tank crews lumbering around with wooden frames in hand was comedic. As for the tankers, they “gained valuable and practical experience rehearsing roles, crew communication, and platoon and company coordination tactics” (29).  In the early chapters, Danby delivers a straightforward yet fascinating narrative of garrison life for tankers as they moved from California camps to Camp Picket, Virginia. Here, B Company welcomed the new sleek M5 light tanks. Danby recounts the tanker's curiosity about M5s armor, as evidenced by an unauthorized experiment where a lieutenant ordered a company cook to fire a truck-mounted .50-cal at one of the tanks. The battalion commander could not help but follow up his reprimand of the lieutenant with his own curiosity: “Did the rounds penetrate?” (67). The early chapters follow Wilkinson as he navigates emerging training programs, new machinery, and various personalities on his way to becoming the commanding officer of B Company.

        Chapters five through eight follow the battalion as it itches for combat across North Africa. If the first chapters of the book present garrison life, the middle chapters capture the curiosities, burdens, amusements, and duties of life in bivouac. His descriptions of tank maintenance, recreational barbeques, security activity, personnel rotation, sleeping conditions, road marches, and other minutiae give vivid insights often absent from most histories.

In North Africa, the 756th constantly prepared for a fight that always escaped them. However, battalion officers, including Captain Wilkinson, were sent to Tunisia to observe the 751st Tank Battalion, then working with the 34th Infantry Division to secure the Fondouk Pass. For the first time, Wilkinson encountered the noise of combat, the silent wreckage, and the ugliness of death. Scorched medium M3s and charred, mangled bodies left a humbling impression on the young commander, who knew he would eventually be tasked with leading his tankers into battle.

Wilkinson returned to his regiment with knowledge gained: commanders do not "button up" their hatches and must depend on their exposed eyes to identify threats; all crewmembers need to be savvy with compasses, maps, and nighttime navigation; high explosive ricochet fire was more effective than direct hits; continue hitting enemy tanks until they burn; the best officers lead from the front. Shortly after his return to the battalion, Wilkinson was temporarily promoted to Battalion S-3. His fortuitous appointment found him in the presence of the port commander at Bizerte Harbor, who reported that two LSTs were ready to transport available reinforcements to the newly established beachhead at Salerno, Italy. Taking advantage of his current rank, Wilkinson volunteered the 756th for action and the battalion was soon loading onto the LSTs.

        Chapters nine through fifteen delve into the battalion's combat experiences. For the remainder of 1943, the tank companies were divided amongst Army and Corps HQs to provide security, often in the form of manning roadblocks. The tankers correctly assumed that their peripheral function was due to their being a light battalion. Everything changed on 15 December with Fifth Army’s General Orders #107, calling for the unit to transform into a medium battalion. Within three days, B Company had swapped out all of its M5s for medium M4s. For the rest of the month, crews familiarized themselves with their new machines, working with R-975 engines, azimuth dials, and the much more powerful 75mm cannon.

After the New Year, the 756th was attached to the 34th Infantry Division and tasked with driving through the Mignano Gap towards Casino and the Gustav Line. Their sector was a two-mile stretch along the Rapido River, just north of Casino. On the western side of the river, the Germans had established a strong defensive network, utilizing two imposing hills and an Italian barracks complex. Dozens of machine gun emplacements with prepared fields of fire, surrounded by minefields and barbed wire, assured any American advances would be costly. From 21 January to 1 February, the infantry and tankers slugged it out with German positions. With the spotlight on B Company, Danby presents a virtual play-by-play of the company’s platoons and individual tanks. The battalion and accompanying infantry finally secure their sector and the final chapter ends with the tankers gearing up to make their drive on Casino itself.

Men of Armor will appeal to a broad audience, especially students and historians interested in the Mediterranean theater or American armor history. Armor historians will profit from the book's ground-level perspective of tank infantry teamwork, tactics, and leadership. Readers can nearly see officers scouting the terrain on their bellies, hear the reverb of artillery reports off the mountains, and smell the grease and cordite. That is not to suggest that the book carries a romantic flair or suffers from gratuitous passages. Instead, the author’s syntax effectively packages his exhaustive research on the leadership, sacrifice, skill, and courage of the men of B Company. The intimacy of the narrative is a fresh reminder of the individual human dramas of the war.

[1] Theodore Roosevelt, “History as Literature” (Annual address of the President of the American Historical Association, Boston, MA, December 27, 1912).  

The memoir A Machine Gunner’s War is mostly a successful balance of the personal narrative and a chronicle of the ETO from the perspective of a lowly infantryman in the First Infantry Division. As a whole, the book is an engrossing grunt’s eye view and provides a useful lens for understanding the life of a machine gunner and his tactical role on the battlefield during World War II. Ernest Albert “Andy” Andrews served as a gunner in the First Infantry Division from January 1944 through October 1945. The book chronicles the author’s day-by-day experience – examining the terrific, the absurd, and the mundane – and aims to examine the “profound ethical tension” many soldiers experienced during the war (x).

  Andrew’s prologue opens with a phenomenal recounting of the marshaling and embarkation operations during the week leading up to D-Day. When boarding the USS Henrico, he marveled at the fact that a boarding officer sounded off his name just as he stepped aboard the ship. He reflected, “with this truly amazing display of efficiency that belied its well-deserved reputation for screw-ups, the U.S. Army was demonstrating it knew the exact location of every one of its GIs” (9). The narrative is rich in absorbing details, such as his riveting four-page account of the perils of descending down the scramble nets into the jouncing Higgins boat below on D-Day. The first chapter concludes with the 20-year-old machine gunner dug-in on the bluffs of Omaha Beach.

     Chapters 2 through 5 cover Andrew’s life leading up to the war, enlistment, and training. In March of 1942, Andrew’s received his draft notice and reported to Fort Oglethorpe. Though he had requested a photographic unit in his processing questioner, he verbally let it be known to a clerk that he enjoyed hunting, fishing, camping, and hiking – thus sealing his fate to serve in the infantry. He soon began his training, which took him through Fort McClellan and Fort Meade before his ultimate embarkation camp - Camp Shanks. Specifically he trained on the M-1917A1 .30-caliber water-cooled machine gun.

After landing in Greenock Scotland, he traveled 450 miles by rail to Bridport, where he joined the 1st Infantry Division’s 16th Infantry Regiment, serving as a machine gunner in 2nd Battalion’s heavy weapons company - H Company. Heavy weapons companies contained two machine gun platoons and a mortar platoon. Andrew’s training in 2nd platoon was momentarily interrupted when he was drafted to be the chaplain’s assistant as his record indicated he played piano. Soon enough however, he was back to lugging a tripod and serving as primary gunner for his unit.

     Chapters 6 through 9 recount the division’s breakout from Normandy and drive towards Belgium. The narrative is anchored to the author’s perspective of digging foxholes, hefting 22-pound ammunition boxes, and constantly scrutinizing the hills, gullies, and roads beyond his machine gun for enemy activity.  Readers will appreciate the details of his experience. For example, he notes that many machine gunners were shot through the head “reflecting the fact that the gunner’s head was most exposed to enemy fire” (218). Thus he recalls monitoring his tracer fire by lowering his head to peer under the gun, to adjust his fire. He also describes the company’s use of jeeps and trailers to haul the heavy equipment, explaining how they were loaded, when they were used, and where the jeeps were relative to any action or front line positions. Exhaustion is frequently present, the author recalling the “mind-numbing fatigue left me apathetic to what might be happening around me, even when we came under fire” (143). Even crossing a few hundred yards of open ground near Aachen, the author remembers that his “legs involuntarily slowed to a walk…After expending all the energy we had, a passive resignation had set in.” (160)

     Chapters 10 through 15 trace the 16th Regiment’s operations in the Stolberg Corridor, the Siegfried Line, Operation Queen, and the Battle of the Bulge. One chapter is entirely devoted to the seizing and holding of Hill 232, a prominent hill that had a commanding view of routes towards Gressenich and Schevenhütte. Reading almost like a play-by-play, the chapter has the reader in the foxholes with Andrews as he meted out (and endured) deadly fire.  Artillery fire rained in as did numerous German counter attacks, endeavoring to dislodge the American’s from the commanding hill.

     The narrative has many expositional gems to topics often left out of other memoir works.  He addresses the aching muscles, burden of cleaning his glasses, and successfully harnesses language to describe sensations of fear, indifference, or exhilaration. Throughout the narrative is a sprinkling of the author’s reflection on Christian faith, which he relied upon throughout the war to help him deal with the personal loss, violence, and emotional trauma of the war.

     Overall, the book is a successful account of the war from behind a machine gun. Some readers, such as this reviewer, may opine that many scenes in the book teeter on the cliché, possibly drawing some influence from film or television rather than memory. There are also a handful of details that many readers will wince at, such as the author’s “choosing” to fight in the ETO rather than the Pacific, or the memory of spring-loaded German mannequins popping up during training. In any case, these types of details may be forgiven as they do not detract from the books overall aim to deliver “greater understanding of that war in which [so many Americans] gave their lives.” This reviewer did gain a better understanding of a machine gunner in World War II.

In Progress for Marine Corps History