S.L.A. Marshall

S.L.A. Marshall
Nickname(s)	Slam
Born	(1900-07-18)July 18, 1900 Catskill, New York
Died	17 December 1977(1977-12-17) (aged 77) El Paso, Texas
Place of burial	Fort Bliss National Cemetery
Allegiance	United States of America
Service/branch	United States Army
Years of service	1917–1960 (non-consecutive)
Rank	Brigadier General
Unit	90th Infantry Division (WWI) Eighth Army (Korean War)
Battles/wars	World War I St Mihiel; Meuse-Argonne Offensive; World War II Korean War
Awards	Legion of Merit Bronze Star Medal (2) Combat Infantryman Badge
Other work	author journalist

Brigadier General Samuel Lyman Atwood Marshall, also known as Slam, (July 18, 1900 – December 17, 1977) was a military journalist and historian. He served with the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I, before leaving to work as a journalist, specialising in military affairs.

In 1940, he published Blitzkrieg: Armies on Wheels, an analysis of the tactics used by the Wehrmacht, and re-entered the U.S. Army as its chief combat historian during World War II and the Korean War. He officially retired in 1960 but acted as an unofficial advisor during the Vietnam War. Marshall wrote some 30 books about warfare, including Pork Chop Hill: The American Fighting Man in Action, which was made into a film of the same name.

His most famous work was Men Against Fire: The Problem of Battle Command, which concluded fewer than 25% of men in combat actually fired their weapons at the enemy. While the data he used to support this claim has been challenged, his overall conclusion - a significant number do not fire their weapons in combat - has been verified by multiple studies performed by other armies, going back to the 18th century.^[1]

Why this is so remains contested; Marshall argued that even with their own lives at risk, the resistance of the average individual “...toward killing a fellow man" was such that "he will not...take life if it is possible to turn away from that responsibility and at the vital point, he becomes a conscientious objector".^[2] Others argue so-called 'low fire' is a function of training and discipline, and is a positive attribute.^[3] These debates continue since understanding is crucial to overcoming them through training, as well as dealing with actual or potential combat-stress disorder.

Personal biography[]

Marshall was born in Catskill, New York on July 18, 1900, the son of Caleb C. and Alice Medora (Beeman) Marshall. He was raised in Colorado and California, where he briefly worked as a child actor for Essanay Studios; his family relocated to El Paso, Texas where he attended high school.^[4]

He was married three times, first to Ruth Elstner, with whom he had a son before divorcing; his second wife, Edith Ives Westervelt, died in 1953 and he had three daughters with his third wife, Catherine Finnerty. Marshall died in El Paso on December 17, 1977, and was buried at Fort Bliss National Cemetery, Section A, Grave 124.^[4]

Career[]

Service in WWI and career pre-1942[]

Marshall enlisted in the US Army on November 28, 1917, joining the 315th Engineer Battalion, part of the 90th Infantry Division. Based initially in Camp Travis, near San Antonio, Texas, his division transferred to France with the American Expeditionary Forces in June 1918 and Marshall was promoted sergeant.^[4] The 315th took part in the Battle of Saint-Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne Offensive.^[5] Shortly afterwards, Marshall was selected to take the entrance examinations for the United States Military Academy, part of an initiative to promote exceptional soldiers from the ranks.^[6] He subsequently attended Officer Candidate School, was commissioned in early 1919, and remained in France to assist with post-war demobilization.^[7]

After his discharge, he remained in the United States Army Reserve, and attended the Texas College of Mines, now the University of Texas at El Paso.^[8] In the early 1920s, he became a newspaper reporter and editor, first with the El Paso Herald, and later The Detroit News. As a reporter, Marshall gained a national reputation for his coverage of Latin American and European military affairs, including the Spanish Civil War.^[9] In 1940, he published Blitzkrieg: Armies on Wheels, an analysis of the tactics developed by the Wehrmacht prior to World War II, and used during its invasion of Poland and Czechoslovakia.^[10]

World War II combat historian[]

Marshall collected data using the small group debrief or After action review, a technique still employed by modern armies

During World War II, Marshall was an official Army combat historian, and came to know many of the war's best-known Allied commanders.^[4] He conducted hundreds of interviews of both enlisted men and officers regarding their combat experiences, and was an early proponent of oral history techniques, using the process known as After action review, a technique still employed by modern armies. He would gather surviving members of a front line unit and debrief them as a group on their combat experiences of a day or two before.^[4]

His best known and most controversial work was published in 1947; titled Men Against Fire, it claimed 75% of troops engaged in combat never fired at the enemy for the purpose of killing, even under direct threat.^[4] Marshall argued conscripts were so conditioned by civilian norms against taking life that many could not bring themselves to kill, even at the risk of their own lives and the Army should therefore devote its training to increasing the percentage of soldiers willing to engage the enemy with direct fire.^[4]

While his data collection methods were later challenged, his conclusions were verified by similar studies performed in other armies.^[11] There remains significant debate over the reasons why, since understanding them is key to training, but many of his ideas were incorporated by the US military; Marshall reported far more men fired weapons during the Vietnam War.^[12]

Less well known, but perhaps more significant, was Marshall's effort to assemble German officers after the war to write histories and analyses of battles in all theatres of the European war. At the height of the project, over 200 German officers participated, including Heinz Guderian and Franz Halder. Hundreds of monographs were written based on this data project, of which three are available in commercial print.^[a]

Later military service[]

Marshall was recalled in late 1950 for three months' duty as a Historian/Operations Analyst for the Eighth Army during the Korean War. He collected numerous Korean combat interviews with Americans in Korea into a treatise analyzing U.S. infantry and weapons effectiveness, Commentary on Infantry and Weapons in Korea 1950–51. The Army classified his findings as restricted information, later incorporating them into a plan to improve combat training, weapons, equipment, and tactics.^[13]

Following his retirement from the Army Reserve in 1960, with the rank of brigadier general, Marshall continued to serve as an unofficial adviser to the Army.^[4] As a private citizen, he spent late 1966 and early 1967 in Vietnam on an Army-sponsored tour for the official purpose of teaching his after-action interview techniques to field commanders, in order to improve data collection for both the chain of command and the future official history of the Vietnam War.^[4] The Army Chief of Military History's representative on the tour, Colonel David H. Hackworth, collected his own observations from the trip and published them as The Vietnam Primer, with Marshall credited as co-author.^[14]

Legacy[]

The University of Texas at El Paso library has a special collection built around his books and manuscripts.^[15]

Marshall appears as a character in Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood, a video game released in 2005.^[16]

The series 3 Black Mirror episode, "Men Against Fire" (2016), was partly inspired by Marshall's Men Against Fire: The Problem of Battle Command and explores the same themes.^[17]

Later controversies[]

Some veterans and historians have cast doubt on Marshall's research methods, challenging the data collection methods used to support his ratio-of-fire theory.^[18] These were initiated seven years after Marshall's death in 1977 by Harold Leinbaugh, a former WWII infantry veteran who viewed the concept as a slur on the fighting ability of American soldiers.^[19] In fact, the suggestion many soldiers did not fire in combat was verified by separate studies conducted at the same time in the British and Soviet armies. It was so widespread Russian officers suggested inspecting rifles after combat, and court-martialling those found with clean barrels.^[11]

Despite questions on methodology, exact percentages and adjustment for context, the basic principle is accepted and much of the continuing debate surrounds reasons for 'non-firing', attributed by Marshall to social conditioning. This was partially supported by historians like Omer Bartov, who suggests deliberate brutalisation as one reason for the Wehrmacht's higher combat performance compared to other armies. Social norms against killing were weakened by a combination of the long-standing German military doctrine of wide scale reprisals against civilians and Nazi propaganda describing opponents as "sub-human". However, Bartov identified other elements in overcoming this reluctance, the strongest being loyalty to the group; paradoxically, the enormous casualties suffered by the Wehrmacht led to an increased focus on sections of 4-6 'comrades', which were far better at maintaining morale and fighting ability.^[20]

David H. Hackworth, previously a collaborator and admirer, later a critic of Marshall's methodology

While agreeing with his overall conclusion, some argue group loyalty and weapons training are the biggest factors in increasing rate of fire and that creating sections of 4-8 men was the single biggest reason for improved performance in Korea and later Vietnam.^[21] A minority reject his claims in their entirety, perhaps his fiercest critic being Hackworth, originally an admirer of Marshall and his collaborator in Vietnam. In his 1989 memoir, About Face, Hackworth described him as a "voyeur warrior", for whom "the truth never got in the way of a good story",^[22] although Hackworth has been dismissed by some as an unreliable witness.^[23] The debate is of continuing interest to militaries in order to determine training solutions and how to manage issues like post traumatic stress disorder.^[24]

Arguments over Marshall's reliability expanded to include challenging details in his account of D-Day, although similar criticisms have been directed at American historian Stephen Ambrose.^[25] Leinbaugh contended Marshall was simply wrong, and since no "front-line veteran" would ever make such claims, descriptions of his experiences must therefore be false. Based on his research, he concluded Marshall fabricated details such as his whereabouts on Armistice Day, while the 315th Engineers were a rear-echelon unit and he did not see combat.^[26]

In 1993, his grandson John Douglas Marshall wrote a book analysing his grandfather's war service, using army records and letters written to family during the Meuse-Argonne offensive. He also discovered a scrapbook complied by his grandfather and dedicated to a colleague in the 315th killed in action on November 8, 1918. In the preface, Marshall wrote of being present when his friend was shot near Bantheville; records show he was in fact hit by artillery fire, while Marshall himself was absent taking the West Point entrance exams that day.^[27]

However, the scrapbook was intended for others to read, including the family of the individual killed. Casualties from artillery fire often suffered severe trauma and the description is consistent with a pattern of veterans suggesting they directly observed comrades suffering a 'clean death' to comfort relatives.^[28] John Marshall concluded the vast majority of his grandfather's wartime experiences are independently verified by his service record, while A Company alone lost nine dead and fifteen wounded in six weeks of front-line service.^[29] He suggested any exaggerations are minor and irrelevant in assessing the validity of his later work.^[30]

Medals and decorations[]

Combat Infantryman Badge

	Legion of Merit and "V" Device
	Bronze Star Medal with one Oak Leaf Cluster and "V" Device
	Army Commendation Medal with four Oak Leaf Clusters
	World War I Victory Medal with four Battle Clasps
	Army of Occupation of Germany Medal
	American Campaign Medal
	European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with four service stars
	World War II Victory Medal
	Army of Occupation Medal
	National Defense Service Medal
	Korean Service Medal with three service stars
	Armed Forces Reserve Medal
	French Croix de Guerre 1939-1945 with Palm
	United Nations Korea Medal

Bibliography[]

• Blitzkrieg (1940)
• Armies on Wheels (1941)
• Bastogne: The Story of the First Eight Days... (1946)
• Men Against Fire: The Problem of Battle Command (1947)
• The Soldier's Load and The Mobility of a Nation (1950)
• The River and the Gauntlet (1951)
• Pork Chop Hill: The American Fighting Man in Action, Korea, Spring, 1953 (1956)
• Sinai Victory: Command Decisions in History's Shortest War, Israel's Hundred-Hour Conquest of Egypt East of Suez, Autumn, 1956 (1958)
• Night Drop: The American Airborne Invasion of Normandy (1962)
• Battle at Best (1963)
• World War I (1964)
• Battles of the Monsoon (1965)
• The Vietnam Primer (1967) (with David H. Hackworth)
• Swift Sword: The Historical Record of Israel's Victory, June 1967 (1967)
• Ambush (1968) (The battle of Dau Tieng)
• Bird; the Christmastide battle (1968)
• The fields of bamboo : Dong Tre, Trung Luong, and Hoa Hoi, three battles just beyond the South China Sea (1971)
• Crimsoned Prairie (1972)
• Bringing Up the Rear: A Memoir (1979) (posthumous autobiography)

Notes[]

References[]

Sources[]

• Bacevich, AJ. "Saving Face: Hackworth's Troubling Odyssey" (PDF). U.S. Army War College. Retrieved 4 October 2020.
• Bartov, Omer (2001). The Eastern Front, 1941–1945: German Troops and the Barbarization of Warfare. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0333949443.
• Beevor, Antony (2009). D-Day: The Battle for Normandy. Viking Books. ISBN 978-0670021192.
• Burdett, Thomas F (2010). "Biography: Marshall, Samuel Lyman Atwood". Handbook of Texas Online. Texas State Historical Association. Retrieved May 13, 2018.
• Elsby, Kevan (October 29, 2003). "The Royal Navy on Omaha Beach". WW2 People's War. London, UK: BBC. Retrieved May 13, 2018.
• Engen, Robert (2011). "S.L.A. Marshall and the Ratio of Fire History, Interpretation, and the Canadian Experience" (PDF). Canadian Military History. 20 (4).
• Hackworth, David (1989). About Face. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-671-52692-8.
• Hackworth, David H.; England, Eilhys (2002). Steel My Soldiers' Hearts. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-7432-4613-2.
• Holmes, Richard (2003). Acts of War: The Behaviour of Men in Battle. Orion. ISBN 978-0297846680.
• Jones, Edgar (2006). "The Psychology of Killing: The Combat Experience of British Soldiers during the First World War". Journal of Contemporary History. 41 (2): 229–246. doi:10.1177/0022009406062055. S2CID 145518638.
• Jordan, Kelly C (2002). "Right for the Wrong Reasons: S. L. A. Marshall and the Ratio of Fire in Korea". Military History. 66 (1): 135–162. doi:10.2307/2677347. JSTOR 2677347.
• Marshall, John Douglas (1993). Reconciliation Road: A Family Odyssey of War and Honor. Syracuse University Press. ISBN 978-0815602743.
• Marshall, SLA (1947). Men Against Fire: The Problem Of Battle Command In Future War (2012 ed.). Literary Licensing. ISBN 978-1258041182.
• Marshall, SLA (1940). Blitzkrieg: Its History, Strategy, Economics and the Challenge to America. Morrow.
• Marshall, SLA (1951). Commentary on Infantry and Weapons in Korea 1950–51. Operations Research Office (ORO), U.S. Army.
• Millinder, Lindy (1921). A Year and a Day; History of "A" Company, 315th Engineers (PDF). 90th Division Association.
• Smoler, Frederic (1989). "The Secret Of The Soldiers Who Didn't Shoot". American Heritage Magazine. 40 (2).
• Spiller, Roger (1988). "SLA Marshall and the Ratio of Fire". RUSI Journal. 133 (4): 63–71. doi:10.1080/03071848808445332.
• Williams, Major FDG (1990). SLAM, the Influence of S.L.A. Marshall on the United States Army (2015 ed.). Office of the Command Historian United States Army Training and Doctrine Command. ISBN 978-1508436553.
• United States War Department (1920). Battle Participation of Organizations of the American Expeditionary Forces. Government Printing Office.

External links[]

Wikiquote has quotations related to: S.L.A. Marshall

• The short film The Big Picture: Wars End (1955) is available for free download at the Internet Archive
• The short film WAR'S END (1959) is available for free download at the Internet Archive
• S. L. A. Marshall Photograph Collection at US Army Heritage and Education Center
• S.L.A. Marshall at Find a Grave