Task Force Butler:

A Case Study In The Employment Of An Ad Hoc Unit In Combat Operations, During Operation Dragoon, 1-30 August 1944

Major Michael J. Volpe

• Publisher: Lucknow Books
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781786256553
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

On 15 August 1944, an Allied army launched a second amphibious landing against the coast of southern France. The Allies, having shattered German defenses around the beachhead, decided to exploit the chaos in the enemy camp. On 17 August 1944, Major General (MG) Lucian K. Truscott Jr., with no mobile organic strike force assigned to his VI Corps, ordered the assembly of and attack by an ad hoc collection of units roughly equivalent to an armored brigade. This provisional armored group (Task Force (TF) Butler) experienced remarkable success despite a dearth of planning, no rehearsals, and no history of working together in either training or combat. This case study examines the success of TF Butler from the perspectives of doctrinal development in the United States (U.S.) Army, the unit's unique task organization, and the leadership's employment of the unit in combat. The use of ad hoc formations to meet unforeseen situations was not unique to World War II; American units currently serving in the Middle East are regularly assigned units they have no habitual relations with to conduct combat operations. This case study may prove useful in preparing contemporary military leaders for the types of challenges they will face conducting operations in the contemporary operational environment.

CHAPTER 1—INTRODUCTION

“Few persons will understand me, but I write for the connoisseurs, trusting that they will not be offended by the confidence of my opinions. They should correct them; that is the fruit I expect from my work”.{1}—Field Marshal Maurice Comte de Saxe, My Reveries, 1732, translated by Phillips, 1940

Prelude to the “Second D-Day”

In the early morning hours of 6 June 1944, Anglo-American Forces assaulted the beaches at Normandy. The attack, code-named Operation OVERLORD, created the long awaited third front against Nazi Germany. Despite initial success in establishing a shallow beachhead, Allied forces made little headway in the coming weeks. Almost every subsequent operation failed to achieve its initial mission objectives. During the seven weeks following the landings, offensive progress was more often measured in yards than in miles gained. Allied failures were brought upon by a combination of factors including the skill of the defenders, the inexperience of most Allied divisions, the difficulty of the terrain, and logistical limitations imposed by the existing port infrastructure. The rapid landing followed by swift exploitation inland that had characterized most Allied amphibious landings (Operations TORCH, HUSKY, and AVALANCHE) had eluded the Allies at Normandy.

A second assault had also been planned for southern France. Operation ANVIL (later renamed DRAGOON) was planned as a supporting operation to the Allied main effort in Normandy.{2} Its purpose was twofold: (1) to force the German forces in France to fight in two directions, and (2) to give Allied forces access to the vital port facilities at Marseilles and Toulon. Allied planners intended this operation to occur subsequent to OVERLORD; but the timing of the operation in relation to OVERLORD remained undetermined.{3} In late March 1944, Allied leaders selected 10 July 1944, as the date for the assault on southern France; however, a number of external factors conspired to further delay ANVIL.{4} Finally, on 2 July 1944, despite numerous delays and cancellations, 15 August 1944 was pinpointed as date of the amphibious assault.{5}

The situation facing the Allies at this time was still somewhat grim. The Allies had been facing stiff German resistance for almost a month and had yet to achieve some of OVERLORD’s initial operational objectives (Caen and St. Lo). The German Army confronted the slowly expanding Allied beachhead by reinforcing its forces in Normandy with units drawn from southern France and Germany.{6} Operation ANVIL was six weeks away, and German resistance in and around Normandy showed no signs of collapse. The Allies could not wait for ANVIL to fulfill its intended purpose to act.

Allied leaders needed to prevent the German Army from massing a large force against the Allied beachhead in Normandy. The Allies believed that it was necessary to keep continuous pressure on the German Army to both maintain the initiative and to prevent the massing of a force capable of driving the Allies back into the sea. Continuous offensive operations were planned to chew-up German units and force them to employ forces as they arrived in Normandy to replace divisions that had been eroded by Allied offensive operations. Allied leaders anticipated that unremitting attacks might eventually produce a weakness that could be exploited and allow a breakout from Normandy.

To achieve the desired breakout and restore mobility to the front the Allied Command planned several major offensives. A series of British attacks were conducted along the Allied eastern flank to draw German panzer divisions away from a selected breakout site in the west. Second, a planned breakout would strike the weakened Germany western flank, penetrate their defenses, and launch an exploitation force to strike deep into German held territory. It was hoped that these operations would restore mobility to combat operations in northern France. The first of these offensives commenced in mid-June 1944.

Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery mounted several armor heavy offensives in the British and Canadian sectors designed to draw German Panzer Divisions east. The two most important offensives, Operation EPSOM (25 June to 1 July 1944) and Operation GOODWOOD (18 to 21 July 1944), were intended to be rapid eastern thrusts aimed at threatening the vital crossroads at Caen and Falaise respectively.{7} Though the British never achieved their tactical goals, their repeated armored thrusts did cause the German Army to shift enough combat power (namely tanks) to set the conditions for a successful American breakthrough in the west.

On 25 July 1944, the 1st American Army launched Operation COBRA.{8} Lieutenant General (LTG) Omar Bradley’s 12th Army Group (which included LTG George Patton’s 3rd Army) achieved such stunning success that it completely unhinged the German defenses, and forced the Germany army to begin retreating. Operation COBRA penetrated German defenses and restored mobility to Allied operations in northern France. More significantly, the offensive resulted in the transfer of several experienced German divisions (including one panzer division) from the south of France.{9} It was against this reduced defensive line that the invasion of southern France was launched twenty days later.

Operation ANVIL: Biography of an Operation that Almost Wasn’t

Operation ANVIL, the invasion of southern France, was one of the most controversial and most successful operations of the war. It is also one of the least studied. This operation was initially proposed during the Trident Conference, in Washington, DC, May 1943.{10} This meeting between the American Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) and the British Chiefs of Staff (BCS) tabled discussions on ANVIL in favor of the British proposed invasion of Italy. The British strategy, championed by Prime Minister Winston Churchill, was designed to knock the Italians out of the war and fix German forces in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations (MTO). The JCS yielded to the British strategy when it was determined that landing craft were not available in sufficient numbers to build and sustain the force level needed to guarantee a successful cross-channel invasion of western Europe. The Allies, rather than wait the year projected to amass the required landing craft, agreed to use available military forces to keep pressure on Axis forces.

The Trident conference had been extremely successful from the British point-of-view. Not only had the BCS secured American agreement on their Italian strategy, but also they believed that they had successfully set aside the invasion of southern France. Operation ANVIL, however, proved far more resilient than Churchill and the BCS had hoped.

Prior to the August 1943 Quadrant Conference, the JCS decided once again to formally support the invasion of southern France.{11} It was proposed as a smaller supporting effort to Operation OVERLORD. At the conference, the JCS was able to attain BCS agreement in theory to the American invasion of southern France.{12} The JCS wanted a firm agreement to their proposal and despite resistance the Americans succeeded in obtaining British agreement to the operation.

Operation ANVIL was frequently revisited over the next twelve months. Since its inception, Operation ANVIL proved a divisive issue between the Americans and their British allies. The Americans supported it. The British did not. Their divergent strategic goals and the limitation of resources available to meet these goals resulted in frequent changes of course for ANVIL. It was both ordered and cancelled on several occasions. It was planned as a three-division assault, a two-division assault, a division sized demonstration, and a threat.{13} It was not until 2 July 1944, that General Sir Henry Maitland Wilson, the Supreme Allied Commander, Mediterranean Theater, was ordered to launch ANVIL as a three-division assault on 15 August.{14}

An Armor Task Force for Major General Truscott

On 15 August 1944, US and French Soldiers conducted an amphibious assault on the southern coast of France, now called Operation DRAGOON.{15} The assault force, composed primarily of the US VI Corps, landed with little resistance. All VI Corps units either met or exceeded their initial objectives in the first two days of the operation. German resistance crumbled. On 17 August 1944, ULTRA intercepts passed to Major General (MG) Lucian K. Truscott Jr. (VI Corps Commander) confirmed the German Nineteenth Army had received orders to retreat and establish a defensive line along more favorable terrain in the interior.{16} The situation was rapidly becoming fluid. To Truscott, a career cavalryman, this was an opportunity to exploit success and perhaps prevent withdrawal of an intact enemy Army.

On 17 August, the only force he had available with the mobility and firepower to rapidly exploit success was a provisional (ad hoc) task force under the command of Brigadier General (BG) Fred W. Butler, the Assistant VI Corps Commander. The provisional unit, called Task Force (TF) Butler, was not one of the modular units designed by MG Lesley J. McNair, head of Army Ground Forces and responsible for organization and doctrine of ground combat troops. It was the ad hoc organization cobbled together to meet a Corps commander’s professed need for an armor force.

Truscott, the VI Corps Commander, requested the attachment of an armored combat command numerous times during planning. He believed this force would give his Corps the ability to provide responsive support to subordinate units, and if opportunity permitted, to exploit success. It was quickly ascertained that no US armor units could be spared in the MTO, and that none would arrive in time to participate in the operation. Truscott asked LTC Alexander M. Patch, the Seventh Army Commander, to assign him French MG Aime M. Sudre’s combat command (CC Sudre) currently training near Oran, Algeria.{17} Truscott was assured that he could use the French Combat Command during the initial landings; however, Seventh Army could not guarantee the attachment of the CC Sudre beyond D+3. This failure led Truscott to create an ad hoc armored task force from VI Corps units.

On 1 August 1944, Truscott called a staff meeting and instructed the VI Corps staff to form a provisional armored group, to be commanded by BG Butler.{18} This mobile, combined arms strike force was to be built around the corps cavalry squadron, from units within the corps.{19} The units designated to compose the provisional organization needed to be able to mass in vicinity of the town of Le Muy, any time after D-Day. On 16 August, Truscott ordered Butler to establish TF Butler effective 17 August and to commence offensive operations the following morning.

This case study aims to examine what factors were decisive in determining the success of TF Butler in exploiting the initial success of the amphibious landings in the French Riviera. In studying this campaign, three factors stand out: doctrine, task organization, and leadership. First, American doctrine employed at the time of the operation was mature and sufficiently well-developed to allow the task force’s disparate elements to effectively integrate into a powerful combined-arms organization. Next, the Task Force’s unique task organization effectively replicated an armor combat command—the unit Truscott sought to secure for VI Corps. Finally, despite its unique task organization, TF Butler’s leadership employed the subordinate units in a doctrinally appropriate manner. This will provide a more detailed examination of the leadership provided, and the relative impact on the overall performance of the unit in battle. Command of ad hoc units, especially those not composed of units with habitual working relationships, is extremely challenging. It was its leadership’s understanding of the US Army’s doctrine, and its ability to employ the assigned combat power in accordance with that doctrine that ensured TF Butler’s success.

CHAPTER 2—DOCTRINE

“A Doctrine of war consists first in a common way of objectively approaching the subject; second, in a common way of handling it, by adapting without res...

Table of contents

• Title page
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• ABSTRACT
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• ACRONYMS
• ILLUSTRATIONS
• TABLES
• CHAPTER 1-INTRODUCTION
• CHAPTER 2-DOCTRINE
• CHAPTER 3-TASK ORGANIZATION
• CHAPTER 4-LEADERSHIP
• CHAPTER 5-CONCLUSION
• BIBLIOGRAPHY