General Starry Reflects on Leadership: The International Commander’s Wall

As you enter the foyer of the Patton Museum of Cavalry and Armor at Fort Knox, you see several framed portraits-prints mounted on a black cloth background along the wall. The prints are the work of Jody Harmon, long time staff illustrator for Armor Magazine. The wall is called the International Commander’s Wall.

The International Commander’s Wall at the Patton Museum of Cavalry and Armor.

The wall, created by the Armor Association and the Patton Museum Foundation, recognizes the boldest and most innovative Armor leaders. It bears witness to their courage, skill and tactical genius, and recognizes the contribution to the art of war reflected in operations of modern mechanized forces – armor and cavalry of the 20th Century.

These leaders are recognized simply by name, and while they fought many battles, one of the most noteworthy for each appears on his print. They are: General Field Marshall Erwin Rommelat the 1942 siege of Tobruk; Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr. at the 1943 battle of El Guettar; Lieutenant Colonel Creighton W. Abrams, Jr. at the 1944 battle to relieve Bastogne; Major General Israel Tal, Israeli Defense Force, as commander of the “Steel Division” in the 1967 Six Day War; Major General Moshe “Musa” Peled, Israeli Defense Force, leading his division attack along “The Road to Damascus” in defense of the Golan Heights, in the1973 Yom Kippur War.

Their legacies are both varied and lasting. They were all profound students of the art of war and skilled commanders of armored forces. Their unique approaches to warfare provide lessons for future generations of armor leaders.

Field Marshall Rommel’s legacy begins with his book, Infantrie greift an, (Infantry Attacks) drawn from his experience as an infantry battalion commander in the First World War. Here he sets forth concepts for seizing the initiative-maneuver and fire in the attack, which formed the basis for his own World War II operations with Panzer Armee Afrika, and were the genesis of the best operational doctrine for armor in the US Army in World War II, and at the heart of the operational concepts for what became US Army Air Land Battle doctrine post-Vietnam.

General Patton, himself a horse cavalryman, became, as a Lieutenant Colonel in World War I the head of the AEF Tank School at Langres, France. There, Tank Corps recruits became tank crewmen for most World War I US Army tank units. Later he led, on foot, American tanks in the famous attacks in the Saint-Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne offensives of September 1918. Post World War I, absent the Armored Force, here turned to the cavalry, only to reemerge as the premier leader of armored forces in European campaigns of the US Army in World War II.

In post-World War II Germany, General Patton’s son George and I served together in 1949-1950 in a tank battalion commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Abrams. Later we would serve on a task force evaluating armor and mechanized operations in Vietnam; later still he would be Assistant Commandant of the Armor School when I was Commander of the Armor Center and Chief of Armor. Our most treasured recollections of the Patton family are of George’s mother Beatrice Ayer Patton. She would visit Germany frequently in those early days in Lieutenant Colonel Abrams’ battalion, and she would frequently appear at our quarters at the appropriate time to read bedtime stories to our two very young boys. Not at all aware of whom she was or of her many accomplishments, they simply thought of her as the best bedtime story teller ever.

Lieutenant Colonel Abrams, later a General, also a horse cavalryman, was barely out of West Point when horse cavalry mechanized. He too mechanized, soon commanding the 37th Tank Battalion, 4th Armored Division, among whose best known exploits was relief of beleaguered US units in encircled Bastogne in the bitter winter of 1944. Post-war he would distill the lessons of that war into new doctrine, command another tank battalion in US Army Europe (1949-1950), command the 3rd Armored Division and V US Corps in Europe, the US Military Assistance Command in Vietnam and become Chief of Staff of the US Army from 1972 until his untimely death in office in 1974.

His legacies were legion; many of us served for him several times and in many capacities; he was a remarkable teacher, and taught but a few carefully thought out, time-less lessons; lessons about soldiers, leaders, training of people and units. As commander 3rd Armored Division in the early 1960’s in Germany he conducted a series of terrain walks with battalion and brigade commanders and staffs. They were exercises in which everyone had a chance to talk through with the boss how each one intended to fight his battle should war come to us in Europe. As S3 of a 3rd Armored Division brigade I was a perennial note-taker at these events. Shortly he would return to command V Corps where he used the same terrain-walk technique as a teaching device. By this time I commanded a battalion in the 3rd Armored Division; my earlier S3 notes were most useful. Later I myself would move from command of the Armor Center to command of V Corps in Germany. There I found a dispirited organization that begged for a sense of direction. To overcome that, as well as test new doctrine, which would become part of Air Land Battle, I instituted terrain walks taking things a step further by providing each battalion commander a computer assisted game to use as an aid in talking his company team commanders through how to fight their battles. As with General Abrams much earlier, there was no tutorial by the Corps Commander, we just taught ourselves – all of us. Everyone thought it a novel idea; perhaps, but it was one I learned twice over from a master of the art many years before.

His insights were many: from his own study of Rommel, but also from his experiences in General John Shirley Wood’s 4th Armored Division, in General Patton’s Third Army in Europe in World War II. General Patton would comment that he himself had only one peer in the armored force – a Lieutenant Colonel named Abrams.

Israel Tal, a teenager at the time, fought as a sergeant in the Jewish Brigade with British forces in Italy in World War II. He would leave that war just in time to participate in the Israeli War of Independence, and again in the 1956 War, and again as a division commander in the Six-Day War (1967). Then as the Israelis struggled to separate themselves from dependence on foreign equipment, General Tal set about to design and produce a tank, a tank for the unique combat circumstances faced by the Israeli Defense Force. The Merkava was the result and is by all odds the best of the world’s tanks in terms of most nearly meeting the requirements set forth for it by the user – the Armoured Corps of the Israel Defense Force. In every detail it is Tal’s tank. Its capabilities include, among other things, the ability to provide crew and vehicle survivability at levels never dreamed of before its design. Syria’s attempt to divert water away from the Jordan River from the snow melt run-off on the slopes of Mount Hermon on the Golan Heights prompted the Merkava’s capability for long range gunnery. That run-off was a critical source of water into the Jordan. Having failed at political persuasion with the Syrians, Israel called on its Armoured Corps to solve the problem. Tal and his tanks opened fire across the border onto the Syrian bulldozers digging trenches to divert the water. The Syrians backed up the mountain; the tanks opened fire at greater range. After several such episodes, the digging stopped, not to be resumed. The Armoured Corps became world class long-range tank gunners and the water continued to flow into the Jordan.

Musa Peled, son of a farmer, and a farmer himself, was one of his country’s most remarkable soldiers. The survival and independence of the state of Israel were his passion. To those ends he would come from the farmer’s life to fight in all his country’s wars. Platoon and company commander in the War of Independence, he would later study armor operations at the US Army Armor School at Fort Knox, command the Israeli Command and General Staff College, command a division on the Golan Heights in the Yom Kippur War and command the IDF Armoured Corps.

On military retirement, Musa would become head of Rafael, the premier Israeli research and development activity, and later an Assistant Minister of Defense. Post-Yom Kippur, Musa provided the United States with the Israeli analysis of their recent war, to include the tactical, operational and strategic lessons they learned. He also included recommendations as to what Israel should do to prepare for what might come next. That forth-right analysis, statistically correct as well as tactically and operationally enlightening, formed the basis for evaluations by the US Army as to what we needed to do next as we disengaged from Vietnam in the early 1970’s. One of his former soldiers said it best. The man told me he had fought in Musa’s division on the Golan in the Yom Kippur War. Whereupon I observed, “He is a great soldier.” To which the soldier responded, “That is true. But to those of us who fought with him, he is Israel!”

Despite differences in age, nationality, experience, and temperament, these great warriors shared some remarkable similarities. All were profound students of the history of the art of war at tactical and operational levels. From their studies they all had formed quite clear concepts of what needed to be done in order to fight successfully and win the first and succeeding battles of the next, not the last, war. They were all convincing advocates-teachers of what they had learned and concluded from their studies; they recognized the need to persuade the many of what the few had learned the hard way.

Finally, they all saw training and education of leaders as critical. Both Musa Peled and General Abrams said to me many times that soldiers are a constant; they will do about what they have been trained to do, and do it about as well as they have been trained to do it. If something goes wrong, look to the leaders. The International Commander’s Wall stands as a silent testament to their foresight and courageous leadership. It also offers timeless lessons for the leaders of tomorrow who dare to follow in their footsteps!

Patton encourages troops on his inspection tours between September and November 1944.

General Donn A.Starry, USA Retired

General Donn A. Starry, USA Retired, began military service as a private in World War II. Commissioned, he commanded armor units from platoon through Corps, (notably the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment in Vietnam and Cambodia), the Armor Center, TRADOC, and US Readiness Command. Post-Vietnam he was among a small group who focused on the Army’s most urgentproblems and set in train the doctrine, equipment developments, organizational changes, and training programs that produced the magnificent Army forces that serve the nation today.

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Armor: On The Ground In Afghanistan
By Colonel Reese

Fort Knox and the Armor Center are playing key roles in support of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. Since January, I have been here working as the Chief of the Afghan National Army Design Team. The mission of the team is to design and oversee the fielding of a new Afghan Army (known as ANA). A fellow officer from the ROTC Command at Ft. Knox, LTC Dallas Plumley, has been sent here to be the logistics planner for the team.

A number of nations are playing key roles in the rebuilding of Afghanistan–Germany is training the police, Italy is creating a justice system, the UK is working on counter-narcotics missions and Japan is in charge of the disarmament and reintegration of Mujahideen forces back to civilian life. The U.S. is responsible for rebuilding the armed forces. The UN oversees all these areas and provides humanitarian relief along with dozens of other humanitarian organizations. Amid this activity, Afghanistan is still a combat zone. A sizeable joint task force is still in the country conducting combat operations to destroy the remnants of the Taliban and Al Qaida.

Aminullah speaks to a Tribal Council at the Kabul Military Training Center.

The U.S. has taken the lead in creating the Afghan Army. The ANA’s ultimate mission will be to defend the country. Its more immediate task is to extend the reach of the Afghan government, headed by President Karzai, from Kabul outwards across this vast, extremely rugged country. After 23years of Soviet occupation and civil war, the new government and the international community here are starting literally from scratch. The scope of the task is immense–to create a functioning government and armed forces from the ruins of war in a country that has never known an efficient, centralized state apparatus that has been accepted by the various tribal groups that occupy this land.

The ANA Design Team is a truly international effort with five Americans working together with one British, two Romanian, two Canadian, and one French officer. The Kabul Military Training Center is the Ft. Benning, Ft. Knox, and Ft. Leavenworth of Afghanistan rolled into one. It is run by American Special Forces soldiers augmented with conventional troops. We call it “Task Force Phoenix” to symbolically identify the Afghan Army as it rises from the ashes of two decades of civil war. The U.S. runs basic training and oversees the whole program. The U.S. provides a new private $30 a month while in basic training and $70 a month after graduation. Getting the proverbial “three hots and a cot” in the Army makes their standard of living the envy of many of their neighbors. They are a proud people and the soldiers reflect that in their daily routine.

The ANA is getting good reviews as it begins to conduct operations with coalition forces in areas away from Kabul. As one tribal leader put it, “When we first saw these soldiers we thought they were Turkish or British because of their discipline and professional behavior. ” For many people, the ANA is the first military force they have encountered that has not in someway abused them, or worse. Overtime the Army will expand in size and capability. “Quality over quantity” is the principle guiding our work here. Creating an ethnically balanced force, loyal to the central government and free of factional ties is the goal. By June 2004, the first of four major commands, the Central Corps, will be up and operating. Since June 2002, eight of the Corps’ 15 battalions have been fielded, along with two of the three brigade headquarters.

The Patton Museum will soon benefit from Operation Enduring Freedom. A USAR Special Forces Major from Colorado, intrepid history buff and former Armor officer Bob Redding, discovered two WWI-era, French FT-17/18tanks (which resemble the Renault tank inside the entrance of the Patton Museum) in Kabul. The country is littered with thousands of destroyed Soviet pieces of equipment (as well as pockets of working Soviet vehicles still used by the warlords). The main U.S. training base is located on the outskirts of Kabul adjacent to a destroyed military depot. The depot is a literal grave-yard of military equipment dating from the 1800’s to the present day. Major Redding noticed the two tanks and sent some digital pictures that made it to the Patton Museum last fall.

These are extremely rare pieces and Major Redding knew he had to get them to Fort Knox. Frank Jardim and crew worked through a myriad of military and civilian hurdles to get authorization to add the tanks to the Museum’s collection. As of this writing, both vehicles are sitting at the U.S. air base at Bagram awaiting shipment to Ft. Knox and the Patton Museum. We hope to have them flown to Ft. Knox by the Kentucky Air National Guard once their current airlift commitments elsewhere are completed.

As the saying goes, we live in interesting times. Fort Knox, the Armor Center and the Museum share in those times. During this time of war, keep our soldiers in your thoughts and prayers.

Tojours L’adauce!
COL Tim Reese

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A Lasting Legacy: Martha Davis, Trailblazer and Armor Champion

Whether they know her as a singer, teacher, civic leader or advocate for people living on post, Martha (Graham) Davis has touched the lives of the many people who have been fortunate enough to meet her.

Those who don’t know her need only look at the Patton Museum to see living proof of her important contributions. Her tenure as president of The Patton Museum Foundation, from 1975 to the mid-1990s, helped the museum build a solid foundation on which to grow and allowed it to join the ranks of professional museums.

At 92, she remains interested and active in her dual passions, the arts and the military people who are her neighbors. “I fell in love with Fort Knox, and I am still in love with it,” said Davis.

She had achieved a lot before moving to the post after marrying her husband, businessman Emert L. “Red” Davis, in 1958.

Davis was born in the Owensboro area and first attended Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green before studying voice at University of Louisville and The Julliard School. She graduated from Chicago Musical College and returned to the University of Louisville where she taught singing. An accomplished singer, she traveled the state performing.

When she married Davis, she gave up teaching and singing and joined in him the family businesses. The couple owned and operated Knox Service Center, a taxi service, a concrete business and Redmar shopping center.

“My husband adored Fort Knox. He thought he was in the military. I didn’t have the heart to tell him he wasn’t,” she said, with a laugh. Red Davis joined The Patton Museum Foundation in the late 1960’s and was a champion for improvement of the museum. According to John A. Campbell, former Patton Museum director and Patton Museum Foundation secretary, Davis’ first contribution to the museum was to help COL Wes Cowley, post engineer, with site selection for the museum.

When Red Davis died in 1973,Martha Davis joined the board of the museum. “Red’s enthusiasm for the museum quickly passed to me,” said Davis. After his death, she contributed to the library, which is named for her husband. In 1975, as the second phase, which included the Davis Memorial Library was completed, the Foundation asked her to join and serve as president.

Davis is a woman of many firsts-first woman to serve as a board member of First Citizen’s Bank in Elizabethtown, first female member of the Radcliff Chamber of Commerce, and first woman president of the Armor Center Civic League. “I loved every minute of it, and never felt I was any different than the men,’ said Davis. She served the museum for twenty years raising funds and public support for the museum’s mission.

During her tenure the museum was accredited by the American Association of Museums (1978) and Certified by the US Army Center of Military History (1979). During this period the museum met and exceeded its 1971 plan for development, building the planned buildings, secure storage space and adding an unplanned auditorium, the Abrams Auditorium, which seats up to 300.

“She was a real consensus builder. During her tenure as president, I never saw a negative vote cast. We had retired Army Colonels who were used to being followed. When there was disagreement, she would wait till there was agreement,” said John Purdy, who worked as a museum curator from 1971 to 1985 and museum director from 1985 to 2001.

One of her proudest moments was when her grandson Lee Hill, now grown, visited the museum as a child with his school class. Davis is also proud of the growing public support for the museum. “I can’t imagine people not coming to Fort Knox to view the collection, just as I can’t imagine people not visiting the Speed (Art) Museum,” said Davis.

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Virginia Museum of Military Vehicles Reflcts The Value of Veterans

Since he opened the Virginia Museum of Military Vehicles in 1989, Allan D. Cors has experienced an evolution in his interest in military vehicles.

“What began as a personal collection has grown into something much more,” said Cors. A personal pursuit has grown into a crew of dedicated mechanics and volunteers operating a “tank farm” in Prince William County in northern Virginia that holds 100 plus vehicles, from motor-cycles to 60 ton tanks. Armor makesup 80 percent of the collection.

After building his collection and sharing it with the public, Cors recognized the power of the vehicles as “a medium for telling a story.” “Our mission is to help educate the public about the experiences of the veterans who served their country. In particular, we want the future generations to know and understand their demonstrated values of service, duty, loyalty, sacrifice and dedication to each other and their nation,” said Cors.

Cors, a former counsel for the House Judiciary Committee in the 1960s and retired senior vice president and director of governmental affairs for Corning Inc., began collecting historical artifacts such as firearms, uniforms and documents in the late 1950s. He bought his first vehicle, a jeep, in 1982. Dodge command cars, weapons carriers, GMC and White trucks followed.

As luck would have it, Allan met fellow collector, Fred Ropkey, in1984. Ropkey shared his knowledge about collecting, including how to find parts to restore older vehicles, and offered critical support and guidance. Cors acquired his first tank in 1985, a Stuart M1A5 light tank, and his collection of operational military vehicles has grown dramatically ever since.

The collection includes a Swedish S Tank model 103C, thought to be one of two such vehicles in the entire United States. The tank, which has no turret, features a155mm gun fixed in the hull manipulated by a hydraulic system operated from the driver’s seat.

The museum typically holds two open house events yearly, in early fall and late spring. Last fall’s open house, which included a veteran speaking about his experiences on Omaha Beach on D-day, drew1,500 people to the museum. In addition to speakers, between 60 and 80 vehicles are on display and special events are held, such as a firepower demonstration by the U.S. Marine Corp Historical Company.

Other special programs are provided for current members of the armed services, veterans groups, research organizations, youth groups and charitable institutions by special request. The collection is shared with the public at air shows, parades and veteran reunions.

The vehicles have also shown up in more than 15 films including Rules of Engagement, Godzilla, and Mars Attacks. Cors is a firm believer that handling and getting close to the vehicles gives people a better understanding of history and the solders who made history.

“Vehicles are kept in or restored to original operational condition so that current and future generations will have an opportunity to see, touch, hear and even smell these important pieces of military history. Hopefully, this equipment will give our visitors a clearer personal understanding of the events and conditions experienced by those who used them in battle,” said Cors.

Allan Cors serves on the Board of Trustees of The Patton Museum Foundation.

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