Defending the Driniumor

Résumé du livre

The planning and maneuvering that brought Japanese and American forces to the Driniumor River serve as the focus for the first part of this study. As the battle raged, however, the respective commanders had to depend on the collective skills of their individual soldiers and hope that their operational deployments, training, and tactical doctrine would bring them victory. The tactical struggle, or second phase, then, was as removed from the strategic and operational phase as the experience of the officers and men on the front line was from the abstract map symbols that represented their units at higher headquarters. This paper seeks to integrate American and Japanese strategic, operational, tactical, and human dimensions into a narrative form. The focus is on the 112th Cavalry Regiment because that unit played a significant role in defeating a numerically superior Japanese force that tried to outflank an American covering force. Ultra adds the intelligence dimension to American decision making.