Marine Raiders

The Marine Raiders are special operations forces originally established by the United States Marine Corps during World War II to conduct amphibious light infantry warfare. "Edson's" Raiders of 1st Marine Raider Battalion and "Carlson's" Raiders of 2nd Marine Raider Battalion are said to have been the first United States special operations forces to form and see combat during World War II.
Despite the original intent for Raiders to serve in a special operations capacity, most combat operations saw the Raiders employed as conventional infantry. This, combined with the resentment within the rest of the Marine Corps that the Raiders were an "elite force within an elite force", led to the original Raider units being disbanded.
Four Raider battalions served operationally but all were disbanded on 8 January 1944, when the Marine Corps made the doctrinal decision that the Raiders had outlived their original mission. The changing nature of the war in the Pacific, with many large-scale amphibious assaults to come against well-defended islands, negated the requirements for small light units that could strike deep into enemy territory.
On 1 February 1944, the 1st Raider Regiment was redesignated the 4th Marine Regiment, thus assuming the lineage of the regiment that had garrisoned Shanghai in the interwar years and fought gallantly on Bataan and Corregidor. The 1st, 3rd, and 4th Raider Battalions became respectively the 1st, 3rd, and 2nd Battalions of the 4th Marines. The 2nd Raider Battalion filled out the regimental weapons company. Personnel in the Raider Training Center transferred to the newly formed 5th Marine Division. Leavened with new men, the 4th Marines went on to earn additional distinctions in the assaults on Guam and Okinawa. At the close of the war, the regiment joined the occupation forces in Japan and participated in the release from POW compounds of the remaining members of the old 4th Marines.
In 2014, the Marine Special Operations Regiment, serving under the United States Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command (MARSOC), was renamed the Marine Raider Regiment. This change was implemented as homage to the World War II Raiders. Marine special operators of the Marine Raider Regiment are once again called "Marine Raiders".
History.
Provisional Rubber Boat Companies.
One of the deficiencies of the Fleet Marine Force was a lack of fast transport ships that could keep up with a Naval fleet. Until fast attack transports entered the Navy, either the fleet would have to keep its speed down to the speed of the transport ships, or the fleet would have to split in two components; neither option was desirable. With the start of World War II in 1939, a group was formed to come up with a solution that could be rapidly implemented. The group found a large number of destroyers built for the First World War that were in the mothball fleet. These destroyers had four boilers and four smoke stacks and were fast enough to keep up with the fleet. The group discovered that by removing two boilers and smoke stacks room could be found to quarter a company of 130 Marines who would be landed by inflatable boats. These high speed transports were named APDs by the Navy. The APDs later had four Higgins boats attached to them.
In February 1941 one company ("A", "E" and "I") from each battalion of the recently formed 7th Marines were designated "Provisional Rubber Boat Companies" and participated in a Fleet Landing Exercises (FLEX-7) in 1941. After the exercise, General Holland Smith assigned the APDs and rubber boat function to the 1st Battalion 5th Marines.
Creation.
With America thrust into the war, President Franklin D. Roosevelt became interested in creating an American counterpart to the British Commandos and the Marine Corps was the natural place for this organization. Indeed, the commanding general of the 2nd Marine Division initially proposed the name "Marine Commandos". The Commandant of the Marine Corps, Major General Thomas Holcomb, was of the opinion, however, that "the term 'Marine' is sufficient to indicate a man ready for duty at any time, and the injection of a special name, such as 'Commando,' would be undesirable and superfluous." General Holcomb redesignated the 1st Battalion 5th Marines as the "1st Separate Battalion" and created the 2nd Separate Battalion to be commanded by Carlson in response to pressure from the President.
The debate over the creation of these elite units came to a climax when the new commander of the Pacific Fleet, Admiral Chester Nimitz, requested "commando units" for raids against lightly defended Japanese-held islands. The commandant selected the term "Raiders" and created two battalions. The 1st Raider Battalion was activated on 16 February 1942, followed by the 2nd Raider Battalion on February 19. Carlson was given a promotion to Lieutenant Colonel and placed in command of the 2nd Raiders, and Lt. Col. (later, Major General) Merritt A. "Red Mike" Edson, command of the 1st.
The Raiders were created by an order from President Roosevelt, acting on proposals from Colonel William J. Donovan and Major Evans F. Carlson. Carlson had been a soldier in the Punitive Expedition to capture Pancho Villa in Mexico and World War I, became a Marine officer during the American occupation of Nicaragua, and served as an Intelligence Officer of the 4th Marines in China. He had seen the tactics and strategy of Communist Chinese irregulars, Zhū Dé and the Eighth Route Army in particular, as they fought the occupying Japanese and became enthralled with their version of guerrilla warfare. In 1933 Carlson had commanded the Marine Detachment at the Warm Springs, Georgia vacation retreat of President Roosevelt, where he formed a close friendship with both Franklin D. Roosevelt and his son James. Carlson resigned from the Marines to speak to American businessmen to warn them against providing materials to Japan. Carlson rejoined the Marines in April 1941, gaining a commission from the Commandant as a reserve major. Carlson still had the President's ear as well as FDR's son James Roosevelt, who was now a Marine Captain and was his friend and protégé.
The Raiders were given the best of the Marines' equipment, and were handpicked from available volunteers. The two units approached their common mission from different directions. Carlson used egalitarian and team-building methods learned from the Communists during his years in China: he treated officers and enlisted men with minimum regard to rank as leaders and fighters, gave his men "ethical indoctrination," describing for each man what he was fighting for and why, and used the Chinese phrase "Gung-ho!" as a motivational slogan. He also eschewed standard Marine Corps organization, forming six rifle companies of two platoons each, and innovating 3-man "fire teams" as its basic unit. Edson's battalion, however, more closely followed standard Marine Corps doctrine in training, organization, and discipline.
Combat in the Central Pacific and Solomons.
Both Raider battalions were put into action at roughly the same time. On 7 August 1942, Edson's 1st Raider Battalion, assigned to the 1st Marine Division, landed on Tulagi in the British Solomon Islands Protectorate as the opening phase of the Guadalcanal Campaign. After the capture of Tulagi, the Raiders were moved to Guadalcanal to defend Henderson Field. One of their most notable engagements was the "Battle of Edson's Ridge", where the 1st Raiders, remnants of the 1st Parachute Battalion, and the 2nd Battalion 5th Marines scored a major defensive victory over Imperial Japanese Army forces on the night of September 13–14. Out of the action both Edson and Major Kenneth D. Bailey were awarded the Medal of Honor, the latter posthumously. The Marine Raiders battledress was the M1942 Frog Skin pattern. In 1942, the Marine Raiders were the first unit issued with the M1942 Frog Skin pattern, which was reversible with a five-colour jungle pattern on one side and a three-colour beach pattern on the other side.
Carlson's 2nd Raider Battalion boarded the submarines (SS-168, Cdr William H. Brockman, Jr.) and (APS-1, Cdr John R. "Jack" Pierce) and raided Makin Island on August 17–18. During the raid, Sergeant Clyde A. Thomason was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor and was the first Marine recipient of this honor during World War II. Unfortunately, nine men were unintentionally left on the island when the Raiders returned to the submarines. These men were captured and later beheaded at Kwajalein.
After the Battle of Savo Island, 1400 men in various support units of the 2nd Marine Regiment who had not yet landed on Tulagi were returned to Espiritu Santo after the transports they were on were withdrawn from the area. Deeming them "idle Marines", Admiral Richmond K. Turner decided to form them into a "2nd Provisional Raider Battalion" without consulting the Commandant of the Marine Corps. The unit was ordered created on 29 August 1942 but the order was superseded on 28 September 1942 by theater commander Admiral Robert L. Ghormley. Admiral Turner believed that regimental or larger sized Marine units were not suitable for Marine amphibious forces and desired that all Marine battalions be re-formed as Raider battalions, which may have influenced the Marine Corps to take a dim view of the entire Raider concept.
In the fall of 1942, two additional Raider battalions were created; the 3rd Raiders in Samoa, commanded by Lt. Col. Harry B. Liversedge, and the 4th Raiders at Camp Pendleton, California, commanded by now-Lt. Col. James Roosevelt. These battalions distinguished themselves in heavy combat alongside the 1st and 2d Raiders in the 1943 campaigns in the upper Solomons. On March 15, 1943, the four battalions were organized as the 1st Marine Raider Regiment at Espiritu Santo, with Liversedge as commander and Carlson as executive officer. Lt. Col. Alan Shapley was named commander of the 2nd Raiders a week later and immediately returned it to a standard organization.
The 1st Raider Regiment enforced a common organization among the battalions. Each had a weapons company, and four rifle companies composed of three rifle platoons and a weapons platoon. The result reflected a mixture of Edson's and Carlson's ideas. Carlson's 3-man fire team and 10-man squad organizations were adopted, first by the Raiders and then by the entire Marine Corps. Edson contributed the concept of a highly trained, lightly equipped force using conventional tactics to accomplish special missions or to fill in for a line battalion.
During the New Georgia Campaign, the 1st Marine Raider Regiment was task organized for a new mission with the 1st and 4th Raiders, and two attached battalions of the 37th Infantry Division, commanded by Liversedge. At the same time, the 2nd and 3rd Raider Battalions were temporarily attached to the 2nd Marine Raider Regiment (Provisional) under Shapley, for the invasion of Bougainville, the final combat action of the Raiders before their dissolution. PFC Henry Gurke of the 3rd Raider Battalion was awarded the Medal of Honor for actions of 6 November 1943, on Bougainville.
In December 1943 command of the 1st Raider Regiment passed to Lieutenant Colonel Samuel D. Puller. The regiment left New Caledonia on 21 January and landed on Guadalcanal three days later. The provisional 2d Raider Regiment disbanded and rejoined into the 1st, with the senior Shapley in command and Puller the executive officer.
Deactivation.
In early 1944 the Marine Corps had four divisions, with two more being formed. Even with nearly a half million Marines in service, the Corps had insufficient manpower to allocate to the new divisions, because of large numbers of men assigned to defense, parachute, raider, barrage balloon, amphibious tractor and other specialized units. With no further expansion of the Corps planned, the only way to add manpower to the new divisions was to obtain it from existing organizations.
The anticipated need for commando-type units had not materialized, and the development of the amphibious tractor and improved fire support had ended the need for light assault units. The Raiders had generally performed the same missions as line infantry battalions, either wasting their training and skills, or exposing the lightly armed Raiders to excessive casualties. There was also institutional opposition to the existence of an elite force within the Corps. Two senior officers who had been opposed to the Raiders on this basis advanced to positions where they could abolish the units. On 1 January 1944, Gen. Alexander Vandegrift became Commandant of the Marine Corps, and Gen. Gerald C. Thomas became the Director of Plans and Policies.
The previous Director of Plans and Policies had already proposed to disband the Raiders and the Paramarines as "handpicked outfits ... detrimental to morale of other troops." Admiral Ernest King, Chief of Naval Operations, concurred in the proposal, and Vandegrift ordered the change on 8 January 1944. Manpower from the deleted units and their stateside training establishments were redirected to the new divisions, and supply requirements were simplified by the increased uniformity. On 1 February 1944, the 1st Raider Regiment was redesignated the 4th Marine Regiment, and eventually became part of the 6th Marine Division. The 1st, 4th, and 3d Raider Battalions became respectively the 1st, 2d, and 3d Battalions, 4th Marines. The 2nd Raider Battalion became the regimental weapons company, lacking the manpower to form an entire Battalion after the costly fighting in the Solomons. Personnel of the Raider Training Battalion at Camp Pendleton transferred to the 5th Marine Division. Many of the men who were formerly assigned to Raider units went on to serve with distinction during 1944 and 1945. For example, Michael Strank, one of the six men in the iconic photograph of the flag raising at Iwo Jima was a former Raider.
During the war, a total of 8,078 men, including 7,710 Marines and 368 sailors, were assigned to Raider units. Raiders received a total of seven Medals of Honor and 136 Navy Crosses.
Post World War II.
According to the "Marine Corps Times", the 20 June 2003 activation of the Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command, which began with Detachment One, paid homage to the Marine Raiders. The Detachment's insignia, designed by Gunnery Sergeant Anthony Siciliano, incorporated the Raiders' famous knife, the United States Marine Raider Stiletto, and the Raiders' insignia as a tribute and link to the famed battalions, which existed for only two years after their 1942 inception.
Revival.
On August 6, 2014, Marine Commandant James F. Amos announced at a MARSOC change of command ceremony that all units within the parent command would undergo a name change. For example, the 1st Marine Special Operations Battalion would now be known as the 1st Marine Raider Battalion.
While the Critical Skills Operators within Marine Special Operations Command (MARSOC) have the title of Marine Raider, the Raider lineage can be traced through the 4th Marine Regiment (as mentioned above) and the Marine reconnaissance battalions. The 1st and 2nd Force Reconnaissance Companies provided the initial personnel when MARSOC was created.
Commanding officers.
List of commanding officers of all Raider units, as listed on the official website.
1st Marine Raider Battalion
2nd Marine Raider Battalion
3rd Marine Raider Battalion
4th Marine Raider Battalion
1st Marine Raider Regiment
2nd Marine Raider Regiment
Marine Raider Medal of Honor recipients.
List of Medal of Honor recipients who served in Raider units during World War II, as listed on the official website.


VII Bomber Command

The VII Bomber Command is an inactive United States Air Force unit. Its last assignment was with Seventh Air Force, based on Okinawa. It was inactivated on 31 March 1946.
Lineage.
Operational history.
Engaged in patrol operations from Hawaii until late in 1943. Afterward, served in combat in the Central and Western Pacific


Operation Semut

Operation Semut was a series of reconnaissance operations carried out by Australia's Z Special Unit in 1945, during the final stages of World War II. This operation was the part of the Borneo Campaign, and was undertaken in Sarawak, northwestern Borneo, in support of Allied operations to secure North Borneo. Another closely related operation codenamed Agas was carried out concurrently in North Borneo (present day Sabah). Both operations combined and relayed their intelligence through the Stallion Project to Australian forces and carried out guerrilla warfare against the Japanese in the region with the full support of the local population. A total of four operations were undertaken under the auspices of Operation Semut, concluding in September and October 1945.
Background.
Early in the Pacific War, the Japanese had landed in north-west Borneo and had quickly captured the area's vital oilfields, which had begun contributing to their war effort by 1943. Allied efforts to interdict the flow of oil had been limited largely to aerial bombing in the intervening period as Allied ground efforts had focussed upon the drive on the Philippines. Planning for covert operations in Borneo by Allied forces, had begun shortly after the Japanese had captured north-west Borneo in December 1941. A British intelligence officer, Second Lieutenant P. M. Synge, based in Oxford, suggested that "a force of 500 men or more if necessary, skilled in forest-craft, could be raised..." from among the local population "...and organised into an effective guerilla force". Synge then submitted a proposal of the operations, but by February 1942 the operation had been rejected because it was not feasible at that time.
In July 1942, Tom Harrisson, who had been an Oxford Sarawak Expedition leader in 1932, drew another similar proposal that put an emphasis on operations against Seria oilfields in Brunei rather than Miri oilfields in Sarawak. Meanwhile, Captain D. L. Leach proposed to use former Borneo civil servants to identify and contact locals and Chinese who were still loyal to the Allied forces, to organise them and to establish three main bases along the Baram River, in the Rejang basin, and upriver on the Rejang in preparation to support large scale Allied operations in the area.
While these plans were not acted upon at the time, throughout 1942 and 1943, British and Australian Army planning staff worked to exchange information and sought out personnel who might be suitable for operations in Borneo; meanwhile, the Allies established several organisations, such as Special Operations Australia and its military arm, Z Special Unit, to carry out covert operations in the Pacific.
Execution.
Allied operations to capture Labuan and Brunei Bay were scheduled for mid-June. To support this, Operation Semut – derived from the Malay word for ant – was launched in mid-1945 by the Australian Services Reconnaissance Department (SRD) with two main objectives: to gather intelligence and to train the indigenous people in launching guerrilla warfare against the Japanese. The operation was commanded by Major G. S. Carter, a New Zealander serving in the Australian Army, and was divided into three main parties: Semut 1 under the command of Major Tom Harrisson, Semut 2 under the command of Carter himself, and Semut 3 under Captain W. L. P. Sochon, who had previously served as a police officer in Sarawak before the war. All three had experience of the conditions in Borneo prior to the war, and understood the local culture and possessed some language skills. Japanese troops occupying the area were drawn from the 37th Army.
Semut 1 would operate in the Trusan Valley and its surrounds, Semut 2 in the Baram Valley and its surrounds, and Semut 3 in the Rajang Valley. Harrisson and his Semut 1 team were inserted by parachute into the Kelabit highlands, to operate around Bario, in March 1945; however, upon the completion of small airstrip in Bario by using local labour, he shifted his base to Belawit, which was located in the Bawang Valley, in Dutch Borneo. The Semut 2 team was also dropped by parachute around Bario in mid-April. After receiving support from the Kelabit people, the team was transferred to the Baram Valley where they established a base at Long Akah. Sochon then moved out from Semut 2's location and led the Semut 3 team to Belaga at Upper Rajang, with full support from the Kayan and Iban there. All the intelligence from these operations was relayed to General Thomas Blamey's Advanced Land Headquarters, locate at Morotai in the Halmahera. The Semut 2 team captured a Japanese communications station at Long Lama several days before the Allied landings around Labuan and Brunei Bay. On 9 June 1945, on the eve of the Australian landings at Labuan island, the Semut 1 team attacked a small Japanese garrison at Brunei Bay.
On 26 April 1945, a plan named Stallion was implemented to collect intelligence from Operations Semut and Agas regarding the Japanese positions at Brunei Bay. This information was passed by radio to the 9th Division headquarters on Morotai Island to support future operations in the area by elements of the 20th and 24th Infantry Brigades, which landed in north Borneo on 10 June 1945. Information gathered included troop dispositions, identification of transportation routes and staging points, information about Allied prisoners of war in the area, and the locations of Japanese airfields, food supplies and ammunition dumps.
Operation Semut 4 was split into two serials – 4A and 4B – which operated around Bintulu on the coast, having been inserted by sea, with the task of protecting the flank of the other three Semut parties. At Sarawak on 13 to 23 August 1945, Semut 4B sailed out of Labuan via and moored at Mukah. Party leader, Lieutenant Rowan Waddy, and Lieutenant Ron Hoey, paddling Hoehn folboats (collapsible canoes) journeyed along the Mukah River to engage, with the help of local natives, any remaining hostile Japanese groups. On the way they were threatened by a crocodile about the length of the folboat. Following the cessation of hostilities in mid-August, Semut operatives continued to work around Sapong under Harrisson until late October 1945, during which time they worked to secure the surrender of remaining Japanese troops who were engaged in fighting with local Bawang guerrillas. Throughout the operation, the inserted Semut personnel were resupplied by air by the Royal Australian Air Force's No. 200 Flight.
Aftermath and impact.
Assisted by the Agas and Semut operations, the Australian 9th Division was able to secure north Borneo, with major combat ending largely by July 1945. As the regular forces remained confined to the coastal areas, the Japanese moved inland and the irregular forces, particularly those assigned to Operation Semut, continued to play a role, calling in airstrikes on the withdrawing Japanese and working to restore civil administration. Following the cessation of hostilities, the regular Australian troops remained in north Borneo to restore law and order, and to facilitate the surrender of Japanese troops. Extensive civic actions began even before the end of the war, with efforts being turned to rebuilding the oil facilities and other damaged infrastructure, establishing schools, providing medical care to local civilians and restoring the water supply. Martial law was initially imposed, but eventually a civil administration was established under the British Borneo Civil Affairs Unit.
In analysing the operation, Ooi Keat Gin, writing in the "Australian War Memorial Journal", concludes that both Operations Agas and Semut "achieved considerable results within a short period", and greatly assisted the wider Allied effort to secure north Borneo. Specifically, Semut 1 and 2 were considered to have achieved "remarkable success". In June 1945, Semut 1's elements were spread thinly, covering the entire northern Sarawak region and had an outpost at Pensiangan and as far as Tenom in North Borneo. They had also established several bases in Dutch Borneo. Sourced solely from the local population, the Australians were able to obtain information regarding Japanese positions and movements in Brunei and northern Sarawak, and information regarding prisoners of war and civilian internees in the region. About 600 natives were trained and supplied with weapons and ammunition. Semut 1 also carried out operations to focussed on disrupting Japanese subsistence operations and prevent the local population from providing labour to them.
Semut 2 also expanded their operational area to Bintulu and Upper Rajang in central Sarawak and trained a 350-strong local guerrilla force. Semut 3 expanded their operational area to Kapit in central Sarawak. In 1959, Tom Harrisson, in summing up Z Special Units operations claimed that "[t]he unit had inflicted some 1,700 casualties on the Japs at the cost of some 112 white lives", stating that Semut 1 had accounted for over 1,000 of the total 1,700 Japanese fatal casualties. Jim Truscott places Japanese casualties as a result of Operation Semut at around 1,500 with 240 captured. These were inflicted by a force of around 82 Allied soldiers, and 200 local guerrillas. There were no casualties amongst the Z Special Unit members assigned to Semut, along about 30 local guerrillas were killed during the fighting.
The information relayed by the local population, however, was sometimes erroneous, and the progress of Australian Imperial Force (AIF) in the region was hindered by incorrect information regarding Japanese strength and dispositions. In this regard, it has been concluded that Allied interrogators failed to assess the reliability of the information gathered before passing it to their headquarters. The local population was unable to differentiate facts and opinions from rumours circulating the region and subsequently passed incorrect information to the Australian forces. Due to Japanese counter-intelligence efforts, European officials could not be inserted into the Semut and Agas intelligence network to supervise the intelligence gathering.


First Battle of Newbury

The First Battle of Newbury was a battle of the First English Civil War that was fought on 20 September 1643 between a Royalist army, under the personal command of King Charles, and a Parliamentarian force led by the Earl of Essex. Following a year of Royalist successes in which they took Banbury, Oxford and Reading without conflict before storming Bristol, the Parliamentarians were left without an effective army in the west of England. When Charles laid siege to Gloucester, Parliament was forced to muster a force under Essex with which to beat Charles' forces off. After a long march, Essex surprised the Royalists and forced them away from Gloucester before beginning a retreat to London. Charles rallied his forces and pursued Essex, overtaking the Parliamentarian army at Newbury and forcing them to march past the Royalist force to continue their retreat.
Essex reacted by making a surprise attack on the Royalist lines at dawn, capturing several pieces of high ground and leaving Charles on the back foot. A series of Royalist attacks led to a large number of casualties and the slow retreat of Essex's force, which was driven from the central hill and almost encircled; Essex succeeded in rallying his infantry, however, and pushed forward in a counter-attack. The slowing of this counter-attack in the face of the Royalist cavalry forced Essex to send for reinforcements, who, while marching to him, were attacked and forced to retreat. This left a hole in the Parliamentarian line, dividing the army into two wings through which the Royalists hoped to pass, splitting the Parliamentarians and allowing Charles's troops to encircle and defeat the enemy. In line with this, the Royalists moved forward to press the attack, but were forced to halt by the London Trained Bands. With night falling, the battle ended, and both exhausted armies disengaged. The next morning, low on ammunition, the Royalists were forced to allow Essex to pass and continue his retreat to London.
Reasons for the Royalist failure to defeat the Parliamentarians include shortage of ammunition, the relative lack of professionalism of their soldiers and the tactics of Essex, who compensated "for his much lamented paucity of cavalry by tactical ingenuity and firepower", countering Rupert's cavalry by driving them off with mass infantry formations. Although the numbers of casualties were relatively small (1,300 Royalists and 1,200 Parliamentarians), historians who have studied the battle consider it to be one of the most crucial of the First English Civil War, marking the high point of the Royalist advance and leading to the signing of the Solemn League and Covenant, which brought the Scottish Covenanters into the war on the side of Parliament and led to the eventual victory of the Parliamentarian cause.
Background.
When the war started, both sides expected it to be settled by one battle; by the end of 1642, it was clear this was not the case. After the inconclusive Battle of Edgehill in October, the Royalists advanced on London; after they were halted at the Turnham Green in November, Charles established his capital at Oxford. The Earl of Essex, commander of the main Parliamentarian army, was ordered to take Oxford, and on 27 April, captured Reading. Here he remained until mid May, claiming he was unable to advance further without additional supplies, and money.
Despite the stalemate outside Oxford, Royalist success elsewhere provided an opportunity for a decisive victory. In the south-west, Royalist commander Sir Ralph Hopton secured Cornwall with victory at Braddock Down in January, before inflicting a serious defeat on Waller's 'Army of the Southern Association' at Roundway Down on 13 July. Arguably the most comprehensive Royalist victory of the war, it isolated Parliament's garrisons in the west; reinforced by troops from Oxford under Prince Rupert, on 26 July they captured Bristol, gaining the second largest city in Britain.
Bristol.
Despite this, Royalist forces were significantly depleted by the battle at Bristol. Suffering over 1,000 men dead, and having exhausted their supplies, the armies were forced to regroup. Even considering this, the capture of Bristol is considered the high-water mark for the Royalist cause during the First English Civil War. With the city captured, however, an immediate dispute occurred over who was to govern it, and this led to Charles travelling there on 1 August to take personal command of the Royalist forces. Upon arriving he called his council of war together to discuss their next move, the primary questions at hand being "first, whether the armies should be united, and march in one upon the next design. And then, what the design should be". The western army, although still strong, refused to advance further to the east due to the presence of Parliamentarian forces within Dorset and Cornwall; the army's commanders felt that, if they tried to push for such a move, their forces would either mutiny or simply desert.
Because of this unrest, it was quickly resolved that the western army would remain an independent fighting force and remain in Dorset and Cornwall to "mop up" the remaining Parliamentarians. Accordingly, the western army, commanded by Lord Carnarvon, remained in the region, capturing Dorchester in a bloodless victory on 2 August. Prince Maurice left 1,200 infantry and approximately 200 cavalry to garrison Bristol before marching to Dorchester and personally taking command. The greater issues were what to do with the Oxford army and what the "next design" of the Royalist campaign would be. Rupert's strategy was to advance through the Severn Valley and capture Gloucester, which would allow Royalist forces in south Wales to reinforce Charles's army and thus allow for an assault on London. Another faction, however, argued that London could be captured with the army as it was, and that Gloucester would serve as a distraction from the main goal of the campaign.
By 6 August, it was clear that Rupert's strategy would be abandoned; instead, an alternate means of capturing the city was considered. During the early stages of the war, the loyalty of combatants on both sides, particularly that of professional soldiers, had been flexible. Gloucester was led by Edward Massie, a non-partisan mercenary who only took a job with the Parliamentarians after he was refused a significant Royalist command. At the same time, it was felt that there was "a strong if so far silent party of Royalist sympathisers in the city", while the governor of Sudeley Castle was reporting that Gloucester's soldiers had stated they would not resist a Royalist advance. Given this, the council of war decided to march on Gloucester – not to besiege it or capture it by force, but to capture it by having the governor betray the city beforehand. William Legge, who had served with Massie in the Bishops' Wars, contacted him and asked him to "surrender Gloucester to his lawful sovereign". Although this message was rebuffed, Legge's messenger reported that he had met Massie a second time in secret, and had been asked to tell Legge that Massie was willing to surrender the town to the King. As a result of this, on 7 August Charles and the Oxford army marched to Gloucester.
Gloucester.
Charles's main force began marching on 7 August and reached the village of Painswick a day later; however, Rupert's cavalry screen had already advanced and taken the village. Charles himself did not accompany the force, but instead rode across the Cotswolds to Rendcomb, where he met reinforcements from Oxford on 9 August. On the morning of 10 August, the Royalist army marched to Gloucester itself and besieged the city with approximately 6,000 infantry and 2,500 cavalry. With the force assembled, Charles sent a group of heralds, escorted by 1,000 musketeers, forward at approximately 2:00 pm, at which point they read out the King's demands to a meeting of 26 local council and garrison officers, including Massie. The King's announcement was that if the officers submitted, he would pardon all the officers, prohibit his army from causing any damage to the city, and leave only a small garrison behind. If they did not, he would take the city by force, and the inhabitants would be responsible "for all the calamities and miseries that must befall them". Despite earlier claims that Massie would surrender, he did not; a short time later, a refusal of the offer was drawn up and unanimously signed by the officers. The reasons for Massie's failure to surrender the city, despite the feelers he put out to Royalist contacts, are unknown.
At this point, Charles called another council of war to discuss the situation. It was resolved that it was crucial that Gloucester was still to be taken; if it was left in Parliamentarian hands, it would act as a break in lines of communication should the Royalists advance further east towards London. In addition, Charles's personal reputation had been sullied – travelling so far and yet not taking Gloucester would impact on the respect and prestige accorded to him, about which he was "notoriously sensitive". Based on reconnaissance, Charles's officers were confident that the garrison's food and ammunition would not last long; they argued that the city could be taken in less than 10 days, with Parliament lacking an effective army to relieve the city. If Essex's forces did not attack, the Royalists would take the city. If they did attack, they would be exhausted and, according to Royalist intelligence, far weaker than the Oxford army, allowing Charles to destroy Parliament's one remaining significant force.
Under the direct command of the Earl of Forth, the Royalists laid siege to the city; Rupert had suggested a direct assault, but this proposal was not adopted due to fears of high casualties. By 11 August, the Royalist trenches were dug and the artillery prepared, despite Massie's attempts to disrupt work with musket fire. With this work done, there was no way out for the Parliamentarians; the only hope was to delay the Royalists long enough for a relief army to arrive. To this end, Massie ordered raids under the cover of darkness, with James Harcus, his second-in-command, leading a raid on the artillery trenches. In revenge the Royalists attacked the east of the city, but were driven off by cannon fire. 12 August saw more raids, this time during the day, which cost the Royalists 10 men and a supply depot, with no Parliamentarian losses. Despite this, the assaults did not disrupt Royalist preparations and by the evening they were able to start bombarding the town.
By 24 August, the Royalists, suffering from shortfalls in their stocks of gunpowder and cannonballs, remained unable to breach the walls. Essex, in the meantime, had been urgently preparing his army, which thanks to disease, indiscipline and desertion numbered less than 6,000 infantry and 3,500 cavalry. This was not a force strong enough to defeat the Royalists, and so he demanded an extra 5,000 soldiers; Parliamentarians in London responded by mobilising a brigade of the London Trained Bands, which provided an additional 6,000 men. Taking into account additional problems and desertions, the eventual force was 9,000-foot soldiers and 5,000 cavalry. After being mustered on Hounslow Heath, the army began marching towards Aylesbury, arriving on 28 August. This force was formally mustered on 30 August, and after being reinforced by Lord Grey on 1 September at Brackley, marched to Gloucester. On 5 September, with heavy rain falling, the Parliamentarian army reached the town and camped on Prestbury Hill, immediately outside it; their presence forced the Royalists to abandon the siege given that neither army, wet and exhausted, was in a state to seek battle.
Pursuit.
Charles's cautious failure to directly assault the town, putting a higher priority on minimising losses than on victory, had cost the Royalists dearly; while claims for their number of dead and wounded men ranged from 1,000 to 1,500, only around 50 people inside the city were killed. Essex's force, on the other hand, was in relatively good shape; its one issue was the lack of supplies. If he stayed in the Severn Valley, Essex would be unable to get reinforcements or outside aid, the London elements of the army would demand to go home, and the one remaining significant Parliamentarian force would find itself pinned down, while Charles, with secure bases at Oxford and Bristol, would be able to starve them into surrender while other Royalist armies ran rampant through Britain. Because of this, Essex had no choice but to try to return to London. Travelling back across the Cotswolds, as he had done to reach Gloucester initially, would expose the Parliamentarians to Charles's cavalry on open ground.
The first alternative was to march southeast to the River Kennet and cross it, going through Newbury and returning to Reading's fortifications, thus evading the Royalists and allowing for a safe retreat to London. The disadvantage to this was the time it would take to cross the relatively open land between Essex's position and the Kennet. The second, and the option Essex initially took, was to go north, either to make battle in more advantageous circumstances or to evade the Royalists. If Essex was able to cross to the west bank of the River Avon, he could secure the bridges across it and prevent the Royalists from crossing it and confronting his army. His cavalry advanced to Upton to screen the main force from Royalist interference on 11 September, with the rest of the soldiers quickly following. The Royalists were left wrong-footed; Charles did not discover Essex's retreat for another 24 hours, during which the gap between the armies widened. The Royalists finally began to march on 16 September, with Rupert's cavalry streaming ahead to try to disrupt the Parliamentarian retreat.
By 18 September, Rupert's force had caught up to the Parliamentarians outside Aldbourne, Wiltshire. Essex had lost his advantage; Parliamentarian intelligence reports had convinced him that Charles was heading towards Oxford and had given up the campaign. In fact Charles was barely away, but the complacency such reports induced meant that one contemporary source stated the Parliamentarians were marching barely a day, allowing the Royalists to quickly catch up. Suitably chastened by the discovery of his error, Essex increased the pace of his retreat, with the Royalists pursuing closely. Both sides were heading for Newbury, on roughly parallel routes; the Royalists' route took them through Faringdon and Wantage, increasing the distance they would have to travel to while the Parliamentarians had to travel only 20. Charles reacted by dispatching Rupert and 7,000 cavalry in a flying column to disrupt and harass the Parliamentary retreat. Encountering Essex's forces at Aldbourne Chase, Rupert made battle; however, lacking enough troops to engage the Parliamentarians directly, he instead attacked a section of their army, causing chaos and crucially delaying Essex's march just enough for Charles's forces to close the gap.
The effect of Rupert's actions, even after his forces disengaged, was to force another delay in the Parliamentarian retreat; Essex spent much of 19 September looking after wounded soldiers and, when he finally managed to begin moving again, he was confronted with swampland and bog which further delayed him while the Royalists marched across the relatively open chalk downs above the Kennet. These hardships meant that the Royalists arrived at Newbury before Essex, with both armies settling down for the night outside the town, too exhausted to immediately fight.
Newbury.
Landscape.
The landscape of the area around Newbury was a significant factor in the tactics of both sides during the resulting battle. Though the land was mostly open country, a crescent-shaped escarpment known as Biggs Hill sat between the Royalist and Parliamentarian forces. To either side of Essex's army lay open fields, while the battlefield was bracketed by the River Kennet on one side and the River Enborne on the other, which neither side attempted to cross on foot. Essex's most obvious route of advance was to push past the Royalist forces, secure the bridge and return to London. Unfortunately, the open area approaching the bridge was a "killing ground"; soldiers would be entirely in the open and forced to march no more than six abreast, which would prevent Essex effectively deploying against a Royalist attack and leave the Parliamentarian's forces bunched up and subject to artillery fire. Even if Essex managed to cross the bridge, the other side of the river featured several hundred metres of waterlogged ground, which would slow his soldiers and leave them open to attack while necessitating the abandonment of the Parliamentarian artillery, a "major humiliation for a seventeenth-century army".
The only alternative to a bridge-based retreat would be to bypass Newbury completely by marching around the Royalists, but this would again involve moving through open fields and subjecting Essex's soldiers to the attacks of Royalist cavalry, who were described as greatly outnumbering the Parliamentarian cavalry. Confronting the Royalists directly would involve moving into ground described as containing "dense copses and unnumerable banked hedges with ditches flanking fields and lining sunken lanes"; while this would allow the troops to move in a concealed fashion, it would also make deployment difficult, and the numerous lanes would restrict movement in the heat of battle.
Order of battle.
There are no definitive orders of battle for Newbury, as official contemporary evidence is thin; it is possible to glean some information from both later official reports and contemporary accounts, which allow for a reconstruction of the likely disposition of each force. The Royalists were led by Charles I personally, with William Vavasour commanding the right wing, Prince Rupert the left, and Sir John Byron the centre. Artillery support consisted of 20 cannons in total: 6 heavy, 6 medium and 8 light. Initial Royalist and Parliamentarian estimates were of a force of around 17,000 men; modern estimates are of around 7,500 infantry, and 7,000 cavalry. Essex led the Parliamentarians, commanding both the entire force and, separately, the right wing; the left wing was commanded by Philip Stapleton. Artillery support was provided by two heavy cannons and around 20 light cannons; most of the heavy artillery was left at Gloucester to help defend the city. Estimates as to the total number of men vary between 7,000 and 15,000; John Barratt, noting the losses at Gloucester, estimates that Essex's force totalled around 14,000 men, with 6,000 cavalry and dragoons and 8,000 infantry.
Battle.
Essex attacks.
The battle began on 20 September; Essex's army was roused before dawn, and initial reports stated he had gone "from regiment to regiment...[putting] the question of a battle unto them". After consultation, the army advanced with "most cheerful and courageous spirits" at around 7 am. Divided into "three bodies of Foot, both lined and flanked with bodies of Horse", with a reserve behind them, the army was preceded by Stapleton's cavalry, which quickly cleared the Royalist pickets and allowed Essex's advance to Wash Common, a patch of open ground between the two forces. This march took approximately an hour due to the heavy clay soil being soaked from the previous night's rain; the open space before Biggs Hill, the objective of their march, allowed for a much welcome chance to regroup. Rupert had established a cavalry guard on Biggs Hill; while the size is unknown, it was large enough to attack the Parliamentarian horse head-on. Stapleton waited until the Royalists were close before firing, leading to the faltering of their charge and the advance of the Parliamentarian cavalry to drive them off with swords. The cavalry were unable to make further gains, having engaged only a small part of the Royalist horse and being unwilling to press their attack against the larger body.
Led by Philip Skippon, the Parliamentarian right flank attacked their main objective, nearby Round Hill; their account reported they "charged so fiercely that [they] beat [the Royalists] from the hill", but makes no mention of casualties or what happened to the Royalist guns which were allegedly deployed on the hill. The Royalists claimed the hill was undefended; the facts suggest this was closer to the truth and "the king and his generals had been caught napping". Its capture allowed Skippon to position 1,000 musketeers on top, who could fire down into any Royalist advance.
Royalist counter-attack.
As a result of this quick advance, Charles found his army in chaos, with Skippon's force organised and flanking them. The Royalist council of war reconvened to discuss the events, and accounts suggest the meeting was acrimonious, with the fall of Round Hill described as "a most gross and absurd error". Rupert decided to try to contain both Essex and Skippon. Leaving two regiments of horse with Byron, he led the remainder of the cavalry to Essex's position on the left flank. Byron, in the meantime, was commanded to support an attack by the Royalist musketeers on Skippon's force, drawing his regiments up behind the infantry "ready to second them in case the enemy's horse should advance towards them". Rupert's advance has been criticised by both Parliamentarian and Royalist sources; instead of a small engagement, the stubbornness of the Parliamentary resistance forced Rupert to commit more and more forces to the fray, eventually turning a series of small engagements into a full-scale battle, with reinforcements gradually being drawn in. The terrain limited the localised advantage Rupert's forces had in numbers, but after three attacks Stapleton's brigade crumbled, allowing Rupert to hook around Essex's left flank, stop his advance and capture five pieces of artillery. This came at a cost; the Royalists took heavy casualties, and failed to completely break Essex's infantry. The infantry instead stubbornly retreated, allowing the Parliamentary cavalry to reorganise behind them. Even though his advance had been stopped, Essex was not yet beaten.
Byron's attack on Skippon's musketeers in the centre also went poorly. Pushing three regiments of foot forward, the force suffered similarly high casualties in an attempt to take Round Hill; after the attack stalled, the cavalry had to be called in to force it forward. Despite heavy losses due to the only avenue of advance being a narrow lane lined with Parliamentarian musketeers, this move succeeded in allowing Byron to take Round Hill, forcing the Parliamentarian infantry back to a hedge on the far side. The attack eventually lost momentum, and although Round Hill was taken, Byron was unable to advance any further. On the right flank, William Vavasour attempted to overwhelm the Parliamentary flank with a substantial brigade of foot, which included a small amount of cavalry support. His initial attack was repulsed thanks to the Parliamentarian artillery opening fire, but a subsequent head-on attack forced Skippon's beleaguered force in the centre to send several regiments over to assist, with the fight turning into a bloody melee. Vavasour's force was eventually forced to retire, with the Parliamentarians failing to give ground.
Crisis and stalemate.
After heavy fighting, the Royalists had succeeded only in pushing Essex's forces briefly back; they had given ground but not retreated from the battle, and his main force of infantry remained strong. In an attempt to proceed, Essex waved his infantry and light artillery forward. Rupert's cavalry was too weak to defend against this advance due to its large firepower, and he instead ordered two regiments of foot commanded by John Belasyse to halt Essex. The Parliamentarian records report they were "hotly charged by the enemies' horse and foot", who succeeded in forcing Essex slowly back, although the fight took four hours. In response, Essex called for Skippon to send him reinforcements; Skippon obliged by ordering a Mainwaring's Regiment of infantry to remove themselves from his line and march to replace some of Essex's exhausted soldiers. As soon as they arrived, they were charged by two bodies of cavalry and a regiment of infantry under John Byron, who forced the regiment to retreat; the Royalists hacked down the fleeing Parliamentarians and, according to Byron, his force "had not left a man of them unkilled, but that the hedges were so high the horse could not pursue them". Although the Royalists failed to press this attack due to the difficulty of manoeuvring cavalry in the field, and Essex briefly retook the ground, the loss of this infantry regiment opened a gap in the Parliamentarian line. If Rupert was able to drive through this gap, he would break Essex's army into two wings and be able to encircle them. Recognizing this possibility, he began redeploying the Royalist force: two regiments of cavalry and a regiment of infantry under his command would occupy Essex, while two regiments under Charles Gerard would push through the gap in the Parliamentarian line.
Luckily for the Parliamentarians, Skippon saw this opening and ordered the Red and Blue Regiments of the London Trained Bands to close the gap. Although they succeeded in bridging the gap between the two wings of Essex's force, there was no cover, and a Royalist battery of eight heavy guns drawn up on high ground began firing on them. Unable to move because of the necessity of their position, they were left enduring close-range fire "when men's bowels and brains flew in [their] faces", resisting two attacks by Royalist cavalry and infantry led by Jacob Astley. Historian John Day notes that records show most Trained Band casualties were hit in the head, while a survivor boasted that the artillery "did us no harm, only the shot broke our pikes"; evidently, in the heat of battle, the Royalist artillery were firing too high. Despite this, the Royalist artillery fire had taken its toll, and the Trained Band regiments were forced to retreat. The Royalists pursued, and only close-quarters musket fire allowed the militia to regroup without substantial losses. After regrouping, the militia was again attacked by two regiments of foot and two of cavalry, who despite surrounding the Londoners and dragging away a cannon were unable to break them.
At this point, both armies began to draw apart; although sporadic fighting continued as night fell, by midnight both forces had disengaged completely. Both army councils met; Essex's plan to force his way past the Royalists seemed feasible, and many Parliamentarians, loathe to give up the ground they had taken, fully expected the battle to continue. The Royalists, on the other hand, were plagued by poor morale, heavy losses and a lack of supplies, having used 80 of their 90 barrels of gunpowder. Although Rupert argued for the battle to continue, he was out-voted, and the next morning Essex was allowed to bypass the Royalist force without issue and continue his retreat towards London.
Aftermath.
The Parliamentarian force, now free of Charles's army, retreated towards Aldermaston as quickly as possible and eventually made it to Reading and then London, where Essex received a hero's welcome. The Royalists, on the other hand, were forced to spend the next day recovering their casualties, finding more than a thousand injured soldiers who were sent back to Oxford. After they finished recovering their dead and wounded men, the Royalists left 200 infantry, 25 cavalry and 4 guns in Donnington Castle to defend their rear and then marched to Oxford, having buried their dead senior officers in Newbury Guildhall. Casualties at Newbury eventually came to approximately 1,300 losses for the Royalists, and 1,200 for the Parliamentarians. The loss at Newbury was due to a multitude of factors; Day gives credit to the greater ability of Essex to conserve his force through the campaign, which put the Royalists at a numerical disadvantage by Newbury, and notes the Royalist over-reliance on cavalry, with Essex "[compensating] for his much lamented paucity of cavalry by tactical ingenuity and firepower", countering Rupert's cavalry by driving them off with mass infantry formations. The Royalists infantry were also outperformed, Essex's force retaining a high level of cohesiveness while the Royalists were described as relatively unprofessional; both Day and Blair Worden also give the paucity of ammunition and gunpowder as an important (and endemic) deciding factor in the success or failure of Charles' campaign.
Although the attention of historians is normally on the larger battles such as Edgehill and Marston Moor, several historians who have studied the period consider the First Battle of Newbury to be the defining moment of the First English Civil War, both as the high point of the Royalist advance and as the "one bright period of [Essex's] generalship". John Day writes that "Militarily and politically, Parliament's position at the beginning of October 1643 was demonstrably far stronger than in late July. With hindsight, the capture of Bristol was the high tide of King Charles' war, his best and only chance of ending the conflict on his own terms". John Barratt noted that the Royalists had failed in "what might prove to have been their best chance to destroy the principle field army of their opponents, and hopes of a crushing victory which would bring down the Parliamentarian 'war party' lay in ruins". The high Parliamentarian feelings after Newbury led to the signing of the Solemn League and Covenant, bringing a powerful Scottish army down to assault the Royalists. "Thanks to the failure...to win a decisive victory there, the English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish subjects of all of King Charles' Three Kingdoms would henceforth play a bloody price in a steadily widening and deepening war".
Sources and historiography.
Malcolm Wanklyn has described the First Battle of Newbury as being "both the longest battle of the English Civil War and the one that historians have found the greatest difficulty in describing"; this is because there is no contemporary plan of the battlefield or record of the plans of each side while, conversely, there are diverse and contradictory accounts from both sides of the battle. An official Royalist account was written by Lord Digby on 22 September, which suffered from defects due to Digby's position away from the main fighting, and because it was designed "as a reflection on the battle's outcome, not a blow-by-blow description of what happened". Conversely, those written by officers who actively fought in the main arenas of the battle are very narrow in focus, for example, the accounts of Joshua Moone and John Gwyn, commoners who fought on Wash Common, and an anonymous tract from the perspective of a soldier who assaulted Round Hill.
On the Parliamentarian side, an official source was published a month after the battle; due to the circumstances of its publication and the high Parliamentarian morale after Newbury, it made no attempt to gloss over errors and was designed to "explain to a lay readership what had happened on the battlefield". A more narrow view was taken by Sergeant Henry Foster, who fought with the London Trained Band in their attempt to prevent the Royalists splitting Essex's army. The diary of Walter Yonge of Colyton also contains two reports written for the House of Commons by Essex's generals, including Stapleton, although the originals have been lost.


Operation Zitronella

Operation Zitronella (Operation Lemon Flavour), also known as (Sicily), was an eight-hour German raid on Spitzbergen, in the Svalbard Archipelago, on 8 September 1943. The battleships (in its only offensive action) and , plus nine destroyers, sailed to the archipelago, bombarded settlements in Isfjorden and covered a landing party. Six Norwegians were killed and 31 were taken prisoner; one German died of wounds and fifteen were wounded.
Background.
Svalbard.
The Svalbard Archipelago is in the Arctic Ocean, from the North Pole and a similar distance to Norway to the south. The islands are mountainous, with permanently snow-covered peaks, some glaciated; there are occasional river terraces at the bottom of steep valleys and some coastal plains. In winter, the islands are covered in snow and the bays ice over. To the west, Spitzbergen Island has several large fiords along its west coast; Isfjorden being up to wide. The Gulf Stream warms the waters and the sea is ice-free during the summer. In the 1940s, there were settlements at Longyearbyen (Longyear Town) and Barentsburg, in inlets along the south shore of Isfjorden, in Kings Bay (Quade Hock) further north along the coast and in Van Mijenfjorden to the south.
The settlements attracted colonists from many places; the treaty of 1920 neutralised the islands and recognised the mineral and fishing rights of the participating countries. Before 1939, the population consisted of about mostly Norwegian and Soviet workers in the mining industry. Drift mines were linked to the shore by overhead cable tracks or rails and coal dumped over the winter was collected by ship after the summer thaw. By 1939 production was about a year, split between Norway and the USSR.
Second World War.
During the Second World War, the Svalbard Archipelago was the scene of several military operations. In August 1941, British, Canadian and Free Norwegian Forces landed on Spitzbergen during Operation Gauntlet to destroy the coal industry, associated equipment and stores. No attempt was made to establish a garrison and the civilian population was evacuated. Nazi Germany set up manned meteorological stations in the Arctic to improve weather forecasts, vital for the warfare against Allied convoys from the UK to the USSR. Dr Erich Etienne, a former Polar explorer, commanded an operation to install a manned station on the islands. Advent Bay (Adventfjorden) was chosen for its broad valley, a safer approach and landing ground for aircraft. The subsoil of alluvial gravel was acceptable for an airstrip and the south-eastern orientation of the high ground did not impede wireless communication with Banak in Norway; the settlement of Longyearbyen was close by. The site received the code-name (from Banak and Spitzbergen Öya) and ferry flights of men, equipment and supplies began on 25 September.
The British followed events from Bletchley Park through Ultra and four British minesweepers were diverted to investigate and reached Isfjorden on 19 October. A {[lang|de|Wekusta}} 5 aircraft crew spotted the ships and the thirty men at Adventfjorden quickly were flown to safety by the aircraft and two Junkers Ju 52 transport aircraft. Adventfjorden was deserted when the British arrived but some code books were recovered; the Germans returned once the ships had departed. Dr Albrecht Moll and three men arrived to spend the winter of 1941–1942 transmitting weather reports. On 29 October 1941, Hans Knoespel and five weathermen were installed by the at Signehamna, a small bay on Lilliehöökfjorden, a branch of Krossfjorden in the north-western Spitzbergen. An automatic weather station () with a thermometer, barometer, transmitter and batteries arrived at Banak, to be flown to and the Moll party brought back. It took until 12 May for favourable weather and a Heinkel He 111 and a Junkers Ju 88 were sent with supplies and the technicians to install the . In April 1942, Operation Fritham the landing of a Norwegian force at Barentsburg to occupy the islands. The operation met with disaster but by the summer of 1943, the later Allied Operation Gearbox and Operation Gearbox II secured control of the islands.
Prelude.
The decided to evacuate the weather station during the summer of 1942, since the ice-free season made it vulnerable to Allied attack. The submarine (K Siegfried Strelow) was ordered to recover the six men. On 23 August 1942, Strelow took aboard the party at Ebeltofthamna in Krossfjorden on the Mitra peninsula, without Allied interference and arrived at Narvik on 31 August. After the replacement of (Grand Admiral) Erich Raeder by Karl Dönitz in January 1943, command arrangements in northern waters were changed. The posts of Flag Officer Northern Waters at Narvik was merged with Group North, which brought the commander of the German ships at Alte Fjord under the command of Otto Schniewind at Kiel. Dönitz persuaded Hitler not to scrap the surface fleet and made plans to demonstrate the value of the ships and raise the morale of the crews.
German plans.
The battleships ( (KzS) Hans Karl Meyer) and (KzS Friedrich Hüffmeier) and nine destroyers of the 4th (KzS Rolf Johannesson), 5th (KzS Max-Eckart Wolff) and 6th (KzS Friedrich Kothe) destroyer flotillas, with the Narvik class destroyers: Z27, Z29, Z30, Z31, Z33, and , , and , embarked a battalion of the 349th Grenadier Regiment, 230th Infantry Division. The ships sailed for Svalbard on 6 September. led , with , and providing an anti-submarine screen ahead, , Z27 and Z30 to starboard and Z29, Z31 and Z33 to port, as the ships sailed past Stjernsundet. By on 7 September, the force was half way to Bear Island. During the evening a message was received that a British reconnaissance aircraft had flown over Alte Fjord at when the ships were only from Svalbard, with the British fifty hours away, even at full speed.
Action.
At on 8 September, and the 5th and 6th Destroyer Flotillas landed troops in Advent bay, while and the 4th flotilla sailed to Barentsburg, flying a white ensign as a ruse. Just before the ships opened fire, a wireless message from Grønfjord was intercepted by the ships that three cruisers and seven destroyers had arrived; began to jam the frequency but could not tell if the message was blocked. At a reply from Reykjavik suggested that the message had been received and silenced the transmitter with shells from its main armament. Supported by the gunfire of the eight 15-inch guns of at Barentsburg (fifty-two 15-inch and eighty-two 5.9-inch rounds) and the nine 11-inch guns of at Longyearbyen, against the two 3-inch guns of the defenders, the destroyers landed the battalion of fortress troops. The Norwegian guns were put out of action and coal heaps, supplies of food, water and electricity generators were destroyed. When Z29, Z31 and Z33 manoeuvred into Grønfjord, to land troops at Barentsburg, they sailed in front of and the gunners of the two Bofors 40 mm guns took advantage and fired about at the destroyers, which moved aside to give a clear field of fire. Z29 and Z33 were both damaged, with Z33 having to be taken in tow. A broadside of twelve shells silenced the Bofors guns. fired its main guns at a coal mine at Heerodden and set it on fire. A message from Z29 led to sail further into Grønfjord, fire another twenty shells and at Johannesson reported that the troops had landed as planned.
The surviving Norwegians fled into the hinterland, using a blazing coal dump for cover as the landing party seized the installations at Barentsburg. Kummetz was apprehensive about the wireless message sent by the Norwegians, in case the Home Fleet was already at sea and wanted the infantry back on board his ships by had sailed further into Isfjorden to Longyearbyen and reported by that the Norwegians had been overrun and at , the infantry commander, Colonel Wendte, reported that the demolitions would be complete by After a methodical bombardment, the German ships re-embarked the landing party and their prisoners by and put to sea, firing another eight shells at ammunition and fuel dumps outside Barentsburg. Recovering the last of the floatplanes caused a delay to until and then the German ships left at The Norwegians repaired their wireless and got off a sighting report, which led to the Home Fleet sailing from Scapa Flow but too late to intercept the German ships, which reached port on 9 September.
Aftermath.
Analysis.
 was a qualified success; it brought no lasting benefit, since the Allies quickly re-occupied Spitzbergen island. On 19 October, the cruiser arrived at Barentsburg with relief and reinforcements for the Norwegian garrison. Samuel Eliot Morison, the official historian of the US Navy, described as a political move on the part of the , to show Hitler that the German surface fleet had some value. Morison judged the effort disproportionate to the results, suggesting that the same ends could have been achieved more simply. In 2013, Niklas Zetterling and Michael Tamelander called the operation insignificant, apart from useful training for the crews.
Casualties.
Sixteen German sailors were wounded, one dying of his wounds and six Norwegians were killed. Captain Morten Bredsdorff and 30 prisoners were sent to Oflag XXI-C in Schildberg in the annexed , joining officers interned there.
A German Leading Seaman from a destroyer was court-martialed and sentenced to death for cowardice (he had hidden on his ship rather than accompanying troops to the shore) and was executed on the quarterdeck of . This episode, along with a dispute over medal allocation, when the crew of received only 160 Iron Crosses against 400 for the crew of , exacerbated an already bad relationship between the crews.
Subsequent operations.
Under cover of the attack, the installed a weather station on Hopen Island. (Isolated for months after the Nazi German surrender in May 1945, the airmen on Hope Island gave themselves up in September 1945 to the captain of a Norwegian fishing boat.) A British–Soviet attack on and in Alta Fjord was being prepared when the ships had sailed for Svalbard. A Catalina flying boat of 190 Squadron, based at Sullom Voe in Scotland, was ordered to reconnoitre Isfjorden and took off at The crew was to fly to Svalbard, then south to a point off the Norwegian coast, turning east to make landfall at Murmansk. If the German ships were sighted, the Catalina crew were to shadow the ships until shot down or the prudent limit of endurance (PLE) was reached, then fly to Grasnaya on the Kola Inlet. The Catalina was filled with fuel and left behind its depth charges, flew to Sorkapp, then navigated up the west coast to Isfjorden and searched for signs of life around Cape Linhe, Barenstburg, Green Harbour, Grumantby and Longyearbyen, taking photographs and finding only destroyed buildings and smoke from the fires started by the Germans. (The aviators heard later that a survivor in the hills heard them and ran to the shore but was not seen.) The Catalina was flown towards Norway along the expected track of the German ships, assuming that they were making for Alta Fjord. Some oil was seen on the sea and a Ju 88 was spotted high up flying the other way but no ships. The Catalina landed as planned and the crew were told the flight was in support of Operation Source, an X-Craft (midget submarine) attack against the ships; their reconnaissance photos were to be flown to Britain for briefing material.


Greek resistance


Hunt Boat Company

Hunt Marine Service and Hunt Boat Company was a wooden shipbuilding company in Richmond, California. To support the World War 2 demand for ships Ackerman Boat Company shipyard switched over to military construction and built 13 craft for the US Army and five craft for the US Navy. These ships were assigned to the Pacific War where they transported supplies and personnel around the Island hopping campaign. The shipyard was located at the Richmond Inner Harbor in the same cannel as Kaiser Richmond No. 1 Yard. The address was 790 Wright Ave, Richmond on the Parr Canal. Hunt Boat Company was founded by R. J Hunt a Naval Architect. Before and after the war, Hunt built stock and custom-built speed boats and cabin cruisers. The stock boat was 30-foot cruiser.
Rescue Boats.
Built 42 foot Crash rescue boats for Army Air Forces Air-Sea-Rescue Boat design 221, gasoline-powered, with twin screws, built in 1943. These used two Hall-Scott/Hudson Invader Marine Engine or a Kermath Sea Ranger 6 Marine engine. This was the smallest size Rescue Boats, the large boats were 63 or 85 or 104 feet.
Patrol boat.
Built US Army 42 foot, Patrol boats and command boats, design 221-B, in 1944 (utility boats), same specs as Crash rescue boats:
Tugboats.
Built Army Transportation Service Tugboats Design 329, at 36 feet in 1943. U.S. Army Marine Tractors or Motor Towboat "MT":


Soviet invasion of South Sakhalin

The Invasion of South Sakhalin, also called the Battle of Sakhalin (Russian: Южно-Сахалинская операция, Japanese: 樺太の戦い), was the Soviet invasion of the Japanese territorial portion of Sakhalin Island known as Karafuto Prefecture. The invasion was part of the Soviet–Japanese War, a massive campaign of the Second World War.
Background.
In the Treaty of Portsmouth in 1905, control of the island was split, with the Russian Empire controlling the northern half and the Japanese controlling the portion south of the 50th parallel north. It was known in Japan as Karafuto Prefecture and the Northern District.
During the Yalta Conference of 1945, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin pledged to enter the fight against the Empire of Japan "in two or three months after Germany has surrendered and the war in Europe is terminated." This would create another strategic front against Japan, deemed necessary to end the war. As a result of their participation, the Soviets would be awarded South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, among other concessions. The United States would aid the Red Army in Project Hula, in preparation for the invasion.
On 5 April, the Soviet Union formally repudiated the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact.
On 9 August the USSR launched a full-scale invasion of Manchuria, beginning the Soviet–Japanese War. The invasion began three days after the United States atomic bombing of Hiroshima, and included plans to invade South Sakhalin. The main purpose of the invasion was to clear Japanese resistance and then — within 10 to 14 days — be prepared to invade Hokkaido, the northernmost of Japan's home islands.
Invasion.
Karafuto Line.
On 11 August, the Soviet 16th Army commenced the ground invasion from northern Sakhalin of the southern portion of Sakhalin Island controlled by Japan. The Soviet advance was halted by the strenuous Japanese defense of the Karafuto Fortress defense line. The Soviet 16th Army which consisted of roughly 20,000 men and supported by 100 tanks outnumbered the Japanese defenders 3 to 1. However the Soviet advance was minimal and held off for four days on the Karafuto line.
On 15 August, Imperial Japanese headquarters issued the order to halt all offensive combat operations and engage in a cease-fire dialogue; however, the 5th Area Army issued a contrary order to the 88th Division to defend Sakhalin to the last man. The same day 3,000 Japanese troops surrendered the Karafuto Line. Japanese military casualties were 568 dead.
Soviet naval invasion and blockade.
In order to speed up the invasion of Sakhalin island and relieve pressure on the ground invasion the Soviet Navy launched an amphibious assault operation against the key Japanese ports. A naval blockade of Sakhalin island was put into place to prevent the evacuation of Japanese troops. Civilian convoys were targeted by Soviet submarines in the Aniva Gulf.
On 16 August, the Soviet coast guard ship "Zarnitsa", four minesweepers, two transports, six gunboats and nineteen torpedo boats docked in Port Toro. Around 1,400 Soviet troops of the 365th Separate Marine Battalion and one battalion of the 113th Rifle Brigade landed in Toro (now Shakhtyorsk) and engaged a Japanese garrison of 200 men. Toro was captured and the next day they captured four populated areas and the port city of Esutoru (now Uglegorsk), Anbetsu (now Vozvrashcheniye) and Yerinai. Japanese casualties were 100 killed, 150 wounded and 30 captured. Soviet casualties were 12 killed.
On 20 August, 3,400 troops of the Soviet Navy combined marine battalion and the 113th Rifle Brigade landed in Port Maoka (now Kholmsk). The landing party was met with fierce Japanese defense. A few naval vessels were damaged which led to the Soviet response of intense naval bombardment of the city, causing approximately 600 to 1,000 civilian deaths. Maoka was captured on 22 August, with heavy Japanese resistance continuing throughout the city. Japanese military casualties in this battle were 300 killed and 600 captured. Soviet casualties were 60 army soldiers killed and 17 naval infantry killed.
On 25 August, 1,600 Soviet troops landed in Otomari (now Korsakov). The Japanese garrison of 3,400 men surrendered. The same day the remnants of the Japanese 88th Division surrendered to the 16th Army and the city of Toyohara was captured without resistance officially ending the Invasion of Sakhalin.
Aftermath and casualties.
Japanese casualties are approximately 700 to 2,000 soldiers killed and 3,500 to 3,700 civilians killed. Around 18,202 were captured and many of the Japanese prisoners of war in Sakhalin were sent to labor camps in Siberia and held after the war. At least 100,000 Japanese civilians fled Soviet occupation during the invasion. The capture of Sakhalin Island proved a necessary prerequisite for the Invasion of the Kuril Islands. Following the Japanese surrender Sakhalin island remained under the control of the U.S.S.R., and remains Russian territory to this day. It became part of Sakhalin Oblast.


Western Defense Command

Western Defense Command (WDC) was established on 17 March 1941 as the command formation of the U.S. Army responsible for coordinating the defense of the Pacific Coast region of the United States during World War II. A second major responsibility was the training of soldiers prior to their deployment overseas. The first Commanding General of WDC was Lieutenant General John L. DeWitt, who continued on in command of the Fourth U.S. Army. WDC headquarters were co-located at the existing Fourth Army headquarters at the Presidio of San Francisco. WDC's operational region covered the states of Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Utah, and Arizona, and the Territory of Alaska. However, until 11 December 1941, the command was little more than a planning agency. On that date the Army coast defense, antiaircraft, and fighter assets on the West Coast were placed under the command, which until 20 March 1942 was known as the Western Theater of Operations, then reverted to the previous name. From 11 December 1941 until 1 November 1943, Alaska Defense Command was controlled through WDC.
The initial subordinate commands of the WDC in December 1941 were Fourth Army, Second and Fourth Air Forces, and the Ninth Corps Area. However, in January 1942 the Second Air Force was moved inland and placed under Air Force Combat Command. In April 1942 the Ninth Corps Area was removed from WDC command. In September 1943 Fourth Army and Second Air Force were also separated from the WDC.
On 14 February 1942, Lieutenant General John L. DeWitt, commander of the Western Defense Command, sent a memorandum to Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson recommending that "Japanese and other subversive elements" be removed from the West Coast region. This led President Franklin D. Roosevelt to issue Executive Order 9066 on 19 February, which gave U.S. military commanders the authority to designate "military areas" and to then exclude any or all people from them. On 2 March 1942, General DeWitt issued a proclamation that designated the western halves of Washington, Oregon and California, and the southern third of Arizona to be military areas from which Americans of Japanese ancestry would be excluded from that area. The exclusion zone would later be expanded to include the entire state of California and Executive Order 9066 also encompassed Alaska in the process.
On 19 December 1941, General DeWitt had recommended to the Army's GHQ "that action be initiated at the earliest practicable date to collect all alien subjects fourteen years of age and over, of enemy nations and remove them to the Zone of the Interior." He initially felt very differently about the necessity and practicality of locking up citizens as well, in a telephone conversation with Major General Allen W. Gullion on 26 December. Regardless of this, following the Roberts Commission report of 25 January 1942 accusing persons of Japanese ancestry of widespread espionage in Hawaii prior to Pearl Harbor, along with his perception of public opinion as anti-Japanese, he became a proponent of internment of Japanese and initially German and Italian-descended persons.
The 44th Infantry Division (44th ID) was in the Pacific Northwest from February 1942 through February 1944, and was available for mobile defense through at least February 1943. The 35th Infantry Division (35th ID) was similarly available in California from December 1941 through March 1943. The 3rd Infantry Division was also available from December 1941 through August 1942. Several regimental combat teams, primarily regiments detached from divisions being "triangularized" (reducing from four infantry regiments to three), were also available to the WDC for mobile defense from early 1942. These included at least the 125th, 140th (detached from the 35th ID), 144th, 174th (detached from the 44th ID), 184th, and 364th Infantry Regiments, along with two 155 mm gun battalions of the 54th Coast Artillery Regiment and elements of the 56th Coast Artillery Regiment. This lasted at least through late 1943.
From June 1942 to August 1943, WDC was heavily involved in the planning and execution of the Aleutian Islands Campaign, which succeeded in expelling Japanese forces from their toehold in the American continent on the islands of Attu and Kiska. The operation to re-capture Kiska Island, Operation Cottage, involved both U.S. troops and a brigade of Canadian troops from Pacific Command.
Western Defense Command was disbanded on 6 March 1946.
Commanders.
The following men served as Commanding General, Western Defense Command:


Battle of Bothwell Bridge

The Battle of Bothwell Bridge, or Bothwell Brig, took place on 22 June 1679. It was fought between government troops and militant Presbyterian Covenanters, and signalled the end of their brief rebellion. The battle took place at the bridge over the River Clyde between Hamilton and Bothwell in Lanarkshire, Scotland. The battlefield has been included in the Inventory of Historic Battlefields in Scotland and protected by Historic Scotland under the Historic Environment (Amendment) Act 2011.
Background.
Following the Restoration of King Charles II, the Presbyterians in Scotland were increasingly persecuted for their beliefs, and a small armed rising had been put down in 1666. Although some Presbyterian ministers were "Indulged" by the government from 1669, allowing them to retain their churches without having to accept Episcopacy, the more hard-line elements continued to hold illegal outdoor meetings, known as conventicles. These were often broken up by squads of government dragoons, including those led by John Graham of Claverhouse. On 1 June 1679, Claverhouse had encountered such a gathering near Loudoun Hill, but his troops were routed by armed Covenanters at the Battle of Drumclog, and he was forced to flee to Glasgow. Following this initial success the Covenanters spent the next few weeks building their strength, as did the government. Charles' son James, Duke of Monmouth was sent north to take command, and the militia were raised.
The battle.
The Covenanters had established their camp on the south bank of the Clyde, north of Hamilton. The rebels numbered around 6000 men, but were poorly disciplined and deeply divided by religious disagreements. They had few competent commanders, being nominally led by Robert Hamilton of Preston, although his rigid stance against the Indulged ministers only encouraged division. The preacher Donald Cargill and William Cleland, the victor of Drumclog, were present, as were David Hackston of Rathillet and John Balfour of Kinloch, known as Burley, who were among the group who murdered Archbishop Sharp on 3 May. The government army numbered around 5000 regular troops and militia, and was commanded by Monmouth, supported by Claverhouse and the Earl of Linlithgow. The royalist troops were massed on the northern or Bothwell bank of the river Clyde on sloping ground that included a field that has since become known as the Covenanters Field - not because the battle was fought there but because for many years it was the venue for a covenanters conventicle organised by the Scottish Covenanters Memorial Association.
The battle centred on the narrow bridge across the Clyde, the passage of which Monmouth was required to force in order to come at the Covenanters. Hackston led the defence of the bridge and had some initial success in the initial skirmishes at the bridge itself. But his men lacked artillery and ammunition, and were forced to withdraw after around an hour. Once Monmouth's men were across the bridge, the Covenanters were quickly routed. Many fled into the parks of nearby Hamilton Palace, seat of Duchess Anne, who was sympathetic to the Presbyterian cause, and it was in this area that the final engagements took place. The numbers of covenanters who were killed varies widely with estimates ranging from 7 - 700 according to the Scottish Battles Gazetteer. Around 1200 were taken prisoner.
Aftermath.
The prisoners were taken to Edinburgh and held on land beside Greyfriars Kirkyard, an area now known as the Covenanters' Prison. Many remained there for several months, until the last of them were transported to the colonies in November. However, a later ship wreck allowed 48 of the 257 prisoners to escape. All those who had taken part on the Covenanter side of the battle were declared rebels and traitors, and the repression during this period has become known as "the Killing Time" in Covenanter histories. A core of hard-line rebels remained in arms, and became known as the Cameronians after Richard Cameron their leader. Cameron was killed in a skirmish at Airds Moss the next year, but his followers were eventually pardoned on the accession of William and Mary in 1689.
Memorials.
The battle is a central event in Sir Walter Scott's 1816 novel, "Old Mortality". Scott fictionalises the battle and the events leading up to it, introducing real people who were not actually present, such as General Tam Dalyell, as well as his own fictional characters. However, his description of the flow of the battle is considered accurate.
Letitia Elizabeth Landon's poem follows her reading of Scott, whom she greatly admired.
In 1903, on the 224th anniversary of the battle, a monument was dedicated on the site. This stands beside Bothwell Bridge, which was largely rebuilt in the 19th century.


328th Fighter Group


Battle of Broekhuizen

The battle of Broekhuizen, a small Dutch village near the Meuse, was a small battle which took place late in 1944 as part of the Allied campaign to liberate the left bank of the Meuse in the Netherlands (Peel marshes).
In the fighting, which took place near the end of November 1944, Castle Broekhuizen and the nearby village were liberated by the 15th Scottish Division, destroying the castle in the process. On the British side, of the 300 soldiers present, there were 43 killed and 140 wounded. On the German side 139 prisoners of war were made, while estimates for casualties range from 17 to 60 killed.


Battle of Newburn

The Battle of Newburn, also known as Battle of Newburn Ford, took place on 28 August 1640, during the Second Bishops' War. It was fought at Newburn, a village just outside Newcastle, situated at a ford over the River Tyne.
A Scottish Covenanter army of 20,000 under Alexander Leslie defeated an English force of 5,000, led by Lord Conway. The only significant military action of the war, victory enabled the Scots to occupy Newcastle, which provided the bulk of London's coal supplies.
The Treaty of Ripon agreed on 26 October allowed the Scots to occupy large parts of northern England, and paid them daily expenses of £850, which only ended with the August 1641 Treaty of London. Funding this forced Charles to recall Parliament, a key element in the events that ended in August 1642 with the First English Civil War.
Background.
The Protestant Reformation created a Church of Scotland, or 'kirk', Presbyterian in structure, and Calvinist in doctrine. Presbyterian churches were ruled by Elders, nominated by congregations; Episcopalian were governed by bishops, appointed by the monarch. In 1584, bishops were imposed on the kirk against considerable resistance; since they also sat in Parliament and usually supported Royal policies, arguments over their role were as much about politics as religion.
The vast majority of Scots, whether Covenanter or Royalist, believed a 'well-ordered' monarchy was divinely mandated; they disagreed on what 'well-ordered' meant, and who held ultimate authority in clerical affairs. Royalists generally emphasised the role of the monarch more than Covenanters, but there were many factors, including nationalist allegiance to the kirk, and individual motives were very complex. Montrose fought for the Covenant in 1639 and 1640, then became a Royalist, and switching sides was common throughout the period.
When James VI and I succeeded as king of England in 1603, he viewed a unified Church of Scotland and England as the first step in creating a centralised, Unionist state. However, the two churches were very different in doctrine; even Scottish bishops violently opposed many Church of England practices. Widespread hostility to reforms imposed on the kirk by Charles I led to the National Covenant on 28 February 1638. Its signatories vowed to oppose any changes, and included Argyll and six other members of the Scottish Privy Council; in December, bishops were expelled from the kirk.
An attempt by Charles to impose his authority led to the first First Bishops' War in 1639. The Covenanters defeated Royalist forces in Aberdeenshire, consolidating their control of Scotland, while the chaotic state of the English army meant they were no match for the more experienced Scots. While the two sides agreed the Treaty of Berwick in June, both saw it primarily as an opportunity to strengthen their position. In April 1640, Charles recalled Parliament for the first time in eleven years; when it refused to vote taxes without concessions, he dissolved it after only three weeks.
Despite this, Charles went ahead, supported by his most capable advisor, Earl of Strafford. As in 1639, he planned an ambitious three-part attack; an Irish army from the west, an amphibious landing in the north, supported by an English attack from the south. Once again, the first two parts failed, while his English troops consisted largely of militia levied in the south, poorly-equipped, unpaid, and unenthusiastic about the war. On the march north, lack of supplies meant they looted the areas they passed through, creating widespread disorder; several units murdered officers suspected of being Catholics, before deserting.
Lord Conway, commander in the north, focused on reinforcing Berwick-upon-Tweed, the usual starting point for invading England. On 17 August, cavalry units under Montrose crossed the River Tweed, followed by the rest of Leslie's army of around 20,000. The Scots bypassed the town, and headed for Newcastle-on-Tyne, centre of the coal trade with London, and a valuable bargaining point.
Battle.
By 27 August, the Scots were approaching Newcastle; supplying such a large army meant Leslie either had to capture it, or retreat. Given the strong defences north of the river, he decided to cross the River Tyne at Newburn, then a small village six miles outside Newcastle, which would allow him to attack its weaker, southern side.
On the evening of 28 August, Conway arrived at Newburn with 1,000 cavalry and 2,000 infantry, who began building defences on the south bank of the Tyne, supervised by Colonel Thomas Lunsford. They were joined next morning by Sir Jacob Astley, with another 2,000 infantry, but in addition to being heavily outnumbered, their positions around the ford were almost indefensible. Leslie's artillery commander, Alexander Hamilton, was an extremely experienced soldier, who placed his guns on high ground to the north; this provided a clear field of fire on the English troops below, while making them almost impervious to return fire.
Sir Jacob, also a veteran of the Thirty Years War, suggested withdrawing into woods further back, which would neutralise the Scottish artillery, but this advice was rejected. While waiting for low tide, Leslie asked Conway to allow his army across to 'deliver a petition to the king', which was refused; Conway then received instructions from Strafford, ordering him to prevent a crossing of the ford. In retrospect, retreat may have been a better option; taking Newcastle would take time, and English prisoners later reported the Scots had only enough rations for three days.
The battle started around 13:00 when a Scots officer who came too close to the ford was shot, initiating an artillery duel. Hamilton's guns were far more numerous and better situated; they rapidly dismantled the hastily prepared defences around the ford, and despite Lunsford's efforts to rally them, his troops abandoned their positions, allowing the Scots to cross. A counter-attack by the English cavalry was initially successful, but they were driven back, and their commander Henry Wilmot captured.
Since his cavalry and infantry withdrew in opposite directions, Conway was unable to reform his lines, and by early evening, the English were in full retreat towards Newcastle. Both sides suffered around 300 casualties, and Leslie ordered his troops to refrain from pursuit; already in secret contact with John Pym and the Parliamentary opposition, they wanted to avoid making it harder to agree terms.
Aftermath.
Despite this victory, the Scots still had to take Newcastle, but to Leslie's surprise, when they arrived on 30 August, Conway had withdrawn to Durham. One suggestion is he did not trust his ill-disciplined and mutinous troops, but morale in the rest of the army now collapsed, forcing Charles to make peace. Under the October Treaty of Ripon, the Scots were paid £850 per day, and allowed to occupy Northumberland and County Durham pending final resolution of terms. Funding this required the recall of Parliament, and the Scots finally evacuated Northern England after the August 1641 Treaty of London.
While defeat forced Charles to call a Parliament he could not get rid of, the 1641 Irish Rebellion was arguably more significant in the struggle that led to war in August 1642. Although he and Parliament agreed on the need to suppress the revolt, neither trusted the other with control of the army raised to do so, and it was this tension that was the proximate cause of the First English Civil War.
Victory confirmed Covenanter control of government and kirk, and Scottish policy now focused on securing these achievements. The 1643 Solemn League and Covenant was driven by concern over the implications for Scotland if Parliament were defeated; like Charles, the Covenanters sought political power through the creation of a unified church of Scotland and England, only one that was Presbyterian, rather than Episcopalian.
However, ease of victory in the Bishops Wars meant they overestimated their military capacity and ability to enforce this objective. Unlike Scotland, Presbyterians were a minority within the Church of England, while religious Independents opposed any state church, let alone one dictated by the Scots. One of the most prominent opponents was Oliver Cromwell, who claimed he would fight, rather than agree to such an outcome.
Many of the political radicals known as the Levellers, and much of the New Model Army, belonged to Independent congregations; by 1646, the Scots and their English allies viewed them as a greater threat than Charles. Defeat in the 1648 Second English Civil War resulted in his execution; failure to restore his son in the 1651 Third English Civil War was followed by Scotland's incorporation into the Commonwealth, a union made on English terms.