Post by quincannon on Aug 4, 2015 2:24:47 GMT
One of the benefits of discussing the Custer phase of LBH is that you can hold darn near any view you wish, as long as it is within the realm of possibility, and there are few alive that can dispute what you say and have the means to back it up with any great degree of authority. Such is the case here.
I think everyone here including myself and Montrose would like to believe that Keogh was out there doing his job commensurate with his status as a commissioned officer with responsibility to both accomplish the given mission and look out for the welfare of the soldiers in his charge. I know that I do. It gives no pleasure to fault a man to this degree.
To that end:
If Keogh was wounded on the ridge, and there was sufficient time to give him immediate aid, and remove him back to the reserve position, then that wounding must have occurred early, very early, in a quick fight.
1) How early is early, and if it was very early and on the ridge, such an incapacitating wound must have been reported to the next ranking officer, Calhoun, and Calhoun would have assumed command.
2) How quick is quick? How rapid is rapid? It was slow enough for Company L to occupy three different and successive skirmishing positions, backing itself up the face of Calhoun Hill. It was slow enough for someone to make the deliberate decision to take Company C down Calhoun Coulee and fight a company sized engagement seven to nine hundred meters off the ridge top position, and the remnants to retreat back to that ridge top.
3) There is the further possibility that Keogh was wounded back in the swale position, well before Companies C and L were overrun, and no one in Company C or L was notified due to the conditions existing between those two companies and the position of Company I. In this we have lost focus on possibilities again, assuming that Keogh could have only been wounded early on the ridge top. Any Indian with a rifle could have wounded him or anyone else in Company I. While Wolf Tooth and those scattering of Indians did not pose a great threat at that time, they were still armed and capable of shooting, and it only takes one.
We look at this as being time phased, one action following another in orderly progression. That is somewhat of an error I think. While time phased orderly progression is how we measure and evaluate the larger events, we cannon forget concurrency of actions and events. As an example, nothing would break down command and control in this particular sector faster than Keogh being wounded back with Company I, Indians running at will between the two elements of the battalion on their bravery runs, limiting or cutting off communication, and those other two companies facing the greatest threat unaware that anything was happening in their rear. A loss of centralized direction, with no means to restore it, is a critical cause of defeat, regardless of battle or location.
This kind of stuff happened all the time in Korea, during the early days, and during the Chinese intervention starting in November 1950. The only US people that met this test were the Marines, and very few Army units. The rest fell apart like Keogh's battalion, because the Chinese, and NK's despite the human wave horse hockey you have heard about fought in the style of the American Indian, infiltrate into, cut communications between, cut them up.
I think everyone here including myself and Montrose would like to believe that Keogh was out there doing his job commensurate with his status as a commissioned officer with responsibility to both accomplish the given mission and look out for the welfare of the soldiers in his charge. I know that I do. It gives no pleasure to fault a man to this degree.
To that end:
If Keogh was wounded on the ridge, and there was sufficient time to give him immediate aid, and remove him back to the reserve position, then that wounding must have occurred early, very early, in a quick fight.
1) How early is early, and if it was very early and on the ridge, such an incapacitating wound must have been reported to the next ranking officer, Calhoun, and Calhoun would have assumed command.
2) How quick is quick? How rapid is rapid? It was slow enough for Company L to occupy three different and successive skirmishing positions, backing itself up the face of Calhoun Hill. It was slow enough for someone to make the deliberate decision to take Company C down Calhoun Coulee and fight a company sized engagement seven to nine hundred meters off the ridge top position, and the remnants to retreat back to that ridge top.
3) There is the further possibility that Keogh was wounded back in the swale position, well before Companies C and L were overrun, and no one in Company C or L was notified due to the conditions existing between those two companies and the position of Company I. In this we have lost focus on possibilities again, assuming that Keogh could have only been wounded early on the ridge top. Any Indian with a rifle could have wounded him or anyone else in Company I. While Wolf Tooth and those scattering of Indians did not pose a great threat at that time, they were still armed and capable of shooting, and it only takes one.
We look at this as being time phased, one action following another in orderly progression. That is somewhat of an error I think. While time phased orderly progression is how we measure and evaluate the larger events, we cannon forget concurrency of actions and events. As an example, nothing would break down command and control in this particular sector faster than Keogh being wounded back with Company I, Indians running at will between the two elements of the battalion on their bravery runs, limiting or cutting off communication, and those other two companies facing the greatest threat unaware that anything was happening in their rear. A loss of centralized direction, with no means to restore it, is a critical cause of defeat, regardless of battle or location.
This kind of stuff happened all the time in Korea, during the early days, and during the Chinese intervention starting in November 1950. The only US people that met this test were the Marines, and very few Army units. The rest fell apart like Keogh's battalion, because the Chinese, and NK's despite the human wave horse hockey you have heard about fought in the style of the American Indian, infiltrate into, cut communications between, cut them up.