i'm happy to be here to be part of the celebration. hopefully the next time i see you, we will be in england beating the united states in lacrosse. thank you. [laughter] [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] if you are watching american history tv all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. to join the conversation, like us on facebook at c-span history. campaignof c-span's 2014 coverage. follow us on twitter and like us on facebook to get debate schedules, video clips of key moments am a debate videos from our politics team. c-span is ringing you over 100 senate come house, government debates and you can share your

reaction to what the candidates are staying. stay in touch and engaged by following us on twitter and liking us on facebook. up next on american history tv, a discussion of the soldier from independence, a sold -- he explores the story of truman's role as a field military battery commander in world war i. this event was cohosted with the thean library institute and national world war i museum. this is one hour. [applause] you, alex. would like to thank the truman library institute for setting up this first of many world war i events. especially the fine staff of the for having me

here this evening and presenting these and so many other wonderful programs in the community. it is often said that harry s truman saw very little combat during the first world war. this has long been accepted by fact as critics and supporters of the president and considered, and wisdom among most historians. hold that pretty much everything that could reasonably set about truman during world war i has indeed been said since little use for mace -- little useful information exists on truman's action during combat outside of one regimental history, some post or notes, truman's letters to his future

wife any opt repeating stories of battery members to remain lifelong friends. however, as a battery commander, truman was on the receiving end of all battalion and regimental orders. in addition, his unique position meant he was the man responsible for carrying out those orders. thisse examination of holding of the battery and battalion paperwork, including operations orders and reports reveals the material contained in these letters to his fiancée, thiswallace, upon which sum -- this assumption largely rests, those letters were highly sanitized. this won't come as a surprise to many here this evening.

it's pretty much the same for of the veteranr to cast votes for him in a series of county and ultimately federal elections who understood well their shared experiences and that they, too, pretty much sanitized the letters to their wives and girlfriends. with a close examination of approximately 200 pages of truman's notes written while he was still in uniform, the extensive world histories of the soldiers and records of other commanders in his thealion all set against 35th division's operations, and extremely rich picture emerges of the future president's time in combat. battery was gun

frequently employed well forward. he was detailed to provide fire support for then colonel george s patton's tank brigade. they engaged german field guns and was credited with either wiping out or forcing the abandonment of two german batteries. when firing on these and other targets, he disobeyed orders and fired "out of sector" against threats to his divisions. division am a national guard formation made up of units from missouri and kansas suffered grievously in that battle and the artillery battery of the man who would later order the dropping of the

atomic bombs was cited approximately 150 yards forward of where george patton was shot down and in an area referred to by one sheets -- by one soldier as a cemetery of unmarried dead. in all, the 27,000 men division lost nearly 7300 men. a total of 1100 36 killed or died of wounds, 4877 severely wounded, with the balance relatively lightly wounded or suffering from combat fatigue and ultimately returned to duty. these casualties suffered by the the division represented highest daily loss rate of any

u.s. division during the war. this is occurring within two or three miles of truman's artillery at her he as it is moving forward through the absolutely shredded battlefield and went about it deadly work. just how this loss rate came ofut was the subject interest in debate within local and national newspapers and army wide euros after the war and prompted a now forgotten congressional investigation. colleagues,truman's somewhere there's a man who is responsible for all of that. the buck can be passed just so far, but there is always a last man. sometimes yes, sometimes no. this reticular book began its search for a home on the late

afternoon of the plus two with her showing's move or else order to the 35th division commander. but i'm getting a little ahead of myself here. a brief explanation of what you have on these various maps that were put around would be useful right about now. bottomge numbers at the are the various combat divisions in truman's area. also, the divisional boundaries running north and south was very important to this story and note in particular the one between the 35th and 28 divisions, which theenerally align with course of the river. traditional boundaries and the firm directives to not fire

beyond them were taken extremely seriously because virtually all communication between divisions in forward areas during this time were limited to fragile telephone wires, men's feet and horses of. during the smoke and crashing confusion of battle, it would be painfully easy for units like truman's to accidentally fire on our own troops off to one side or the other. it was the job of the heavier artillery which are multi-division organization map artillery fire to where it was needed most of the the red dots indicate the position of truman's andriy at different times and observation posts. and iue dots are targets

will be referring to those as we move along. the map is bite into square kilometers. just under three miles. the three regiments of the 35th vision's artillery -- artillery brigade fire more than 40 thousand 75 millimeter and 155 millimeter shells during the opening bombardment. truman's position being that red dot at the very bottom. this was to saturate the defenses in and immediately adjacent to .1 and shift his 475 millimeter guns to the east

where he would fire what was called a rolling barrage ahead from point number two. after the rolling barrage reached the line, the 60th brigade's 275 millimeter 128 and truman's 120 night, each with two battalions of three for gun batteries. the lit out close to embattled months the infantry regiment and ahead of the expected traffic jams with truman's battery leading the column of all of these batteries at the very tip of the 129th. movement was steady but came to an abrupt halt at the first line of defense where retreating germans were divided huge crater

and blown a wide gap in the truman's point a which battery had approach from the side road. nightthe rest of the 120 turn around to make a short backtrack before taking off laterally across no man's land, truman's hattery which was directed to support patton stayed put as he and the second battalion commander waited the uper just a little further from where you see here. this bridge is several days later after army engineers have it intoance to get

reasonably good working order. truman and gates continued along the highway. eventually, they reached point b on the map overlooking moran -- veren from across the river. truman and his battery then followed the rest of this already --at had that had already started to cross no man's land and he was forced to pull his guns one at 12 forcesuble teaming instead of six to get them through the muddy minefields.

this was what it looked like from the truman side of the river when he was looking out and failing to find colonel patton. this was what truman saw at that time. it was 10:00 at night and raining. they were struggling through this wretched terrain and reached the bivouac at point c on the mac roughly halfway between the german's forward and main lines of defense. the next morning, and impossible to carry out fire mission was received and abandon for fear of .3.ing our own true at the second battalion

subsequently moved through the carnage of the main defensive northeast which to somerisingly close of the territory he had seen the day before. hidden along were a tree-lined road, but truman was directed to establish his online in a peach orchard to the left. truman and his communications out excepten ordered for now they were directed to liaise with some infantry who were attacking north. it included some runners and

communications personnel who were pulling this vulnerable telephone wire out behind them from behind these cards that could unspool the wire. he was unable to link up with anyone in the infantry regiment's headquarters. he had a hot seat at point e narrated unsuccessful tank assault juror -- near a reversible position at point for which along with another town were being shelled. it had shifting and straightening of the infantry truman's the result,

observation post and that being lineards in advance of the for the regimen it was supposed to support was forming. so intense that he and his small setting up the locations that they had not recognize the full-blown pullback in the smoke and wasusion and disaster prevented by one of the last infantrymen out that room ported the last move. apparently either direct revealed to truman that setting up the observation post high on the ridge would theuce blind spots along most likely aspect used by root reinforcements.

instead, truman selected a point somewhat down the slope and just west of the road where he could obtain both excellent observation of the entire length of the road and of importance to the story, the argonne forest all the wayterally up to the bluffs. they faced the division left flank. the germans out, principally used other routes for their final approach to the battlefield but there was plenty to keep truman busy to the west and the divisions sector. planners at the first the have long understood exception of small batteries

like truman's intended support of patent. there divisional artillery would be out of action after about 7:45 a.m. on d-day as it displays forward. for reaction ready on the second day of the battle just howot anticipate clogged most of the roads would become, even further delaying units that did not get out to the fast start of the 60th brigade plus 75 millimeter regiments. there was no way they could have imagined the bizarre series of events centering around some of which togethers with the mammoth traffic jams immobilize the bulk of this artillery for nearly three full days.

it was the third morning of the battle before one of the 12 75 millimeter long after truman's soldiers had departed the area to cut across no man's land and moveegiment was unable to until d+ three, the fourth day other fight will stop the 75 millimeter regiment reached , so town the night before they were able to finally get some artillery fire working in their area.

the thing that is so mystifying was that is not so much the traffic jam as much as the severe command problems. 28th battalionhe commanders "went to the hospital sick a half-hour after receiving ." his to push off replacement was relieved the following day for not getting and the moving regimental commander literally had to take over personally. to move the unit through and around the road congestion, command of the battalion of this particular battalion was one oflly turned over to

the battery captains until another senior officer could be brought up. to put it mildly, it was kind of a mess. road down medium artillery. it was not expected they could do some of the movement that the lighter 75 could but they pretty much moved up at a pace that was upected and worked their way the root national and deployed. allacteristically, while the moments of the 155 millimeter battalion were in p.m. thefiring by 5:00 mediums could 28 not supply a concentrated effort until d+ four.

it must also be noted that core artillery at this point of the offensive operated under the restriction that it could fire on targets no closer than four miles from the infantry's frontline positions which were often in question. so why is this important? assumeded command had whenermans would withdraw french and american formations respectively of the left and this massive past area of tangled growth and large trees. outas the romans had found 2000 years earlier and the next iteration of frenchmen and americans would learn in world war ii, the germans were not shy

about fighting in force. moving against them in 1918 whether the new york guardsmen of the 77th division, one of whose units would become cut off and become famous as the lost regimentswill stop to of the guardsmen, the third opposite theh was 35th division, they were fighting up the western side of the valley which had normal and they really ,hroughout all were operating they advanced abreast with the 35th division.

there was almost zero american artillery fire falling into the wide expanse of forest from the ever lengthening open left to d+ three. the german reaction? they poured 16 artillery hole ons into this huge d+ one and the less two. the second and third days of the battle. a few of these units were directed against the 25th division but the dastardly huns, displaying no respect for american divisional boundaries directed most of their murderous fire across the river. they frequently complained of being shelled by what they assume to be their own units because a significant amount of this german fire was coming from

behind them. back to truman's observation post. breaks in his telephone wire and the tramping of them ventured me -- by the tramping of infantrymen's feet caused goodby -- caused a good bit of trouble. but his line managed to keep communications more or less open . dayow, it was late in the and truman was third with the route national to the north but noticed an american reconnaissance aircraft had dropped the flare just to the west of this position turning glasses to the spot in the argonne forest across the river, he saw a german battery setting

up a little more than rifle .5 ande away at preparing to go into action at that very moment. fire on this out of sector manage -- out of sector menace would be against firm standing orders but the danger to the american infantry ahead of him -- it was so clear. no 28 division troops were anywhere near the unmolested herman artillery. atman directed his entry point d to fire on the enemy guns as soon as their horses had been pulled away, leaving them unable to escape the fire.

truman and his men returned when it became too dark to see and the rest of the second battalion gates'orders to a headline road about 300 yards at point g. back and from here over this one road and were literally at the top of this long ridge that extended up attack fromand the the previous day. they moved from here, back and over. it was a good call. commander battalion's believed the earlier gumline

with with the exception of battery d out of me open the peach orchard had been hidden along a tree-lined, typical of what you see here. he believed they had been fixed by a german aircraft. incidentallycraft had certainly seen battery d as it bombed truman's guns while he was at the observation post. a couple of soldiers suffered near misses. it's from one of the batteries anti-machine guns -- antiaircraft machine guns. shrapnel that had set off the telephone man who was in contact with truman. only some of the horses were killed.

thisis the second time happened with truman's battery. this was the second time this has happened and they considered themselves very lucky. they were thoroughly shelled after gates had gotten them out of there. it was very heavily bombarded on several occasions. the germans that they were still there. they were heavily bombarded over the next few days, particularly during the german counterattack on d lusk three. not beingome the killed by german artillery -- than the threat of not being killed by term and

artillery was the court-martial truman found himself getting from the regimental commander that night for firing in the neighboring 28 division's sector. there are other actions against truman and letters to his fiancée, but there's no record in truman's volume and is post writings,ous postwar only a dry note of irony in his too brief references. is truman left for his observation post position before first light the next morning. 9:00 a.m., he spotted the german observation post being

set up in an abandoned mill smack in the middle of the 28 six.ion sector at point he promptly called down battery fire with major gates' wholehearted permission and destroyed it. two hours later, he observed six german artillery pieces moving out of position at point seven added forced their permanent abandonment. after a short and very intense bombardment where he was able to gratifyingly watch the german artillery fully to the tree line they had pulled out of just about five minutes earlier. allnd waited till they were on the road and exposed before

he started shooting. so much for threats of court-martial. shortly after truman's foray to the left, a battery from the other 75 millimeter battalion guns and wasgerman and was present even if they did it. there is truman, by the way. he have always firmly backed up

and doing it as well. although truman and his men had removed -- we will use that word -- removed to batteries from the german's order of battle, the 35th division was suffering grievously. greatly concerned about the division situation. the commander all forces in france, general john j black jack pershing personally went observeon d plus two to for himself what that was going incidentallyich prompted mps in the 28 division sector to shut down nearly all road traffic for nearly three hours and along the division's lack of artillery support.

with the imposing figure of general purging in the presence of the mere mortals of the division staff, the 35th thesion commander detailed terrible flanking fire from the argonne forest and explained he was unable to respond because of the standing order which forbid divisions firing on point outside their own sector. urging responded "but surely you don't obey that order. [laughter] the division possum brain-dead adherents to a directive was relevant to what happened on the battlefield shocked pershing and we will just say changes were immediately instituted. senior't relieving any

commanders but he was very pointed that he wanted to be guns and engaged. from that point on, the 35th artillery was allowed to engage in observed fire in the 28 sector, meaning in this context that they could shoot when they could actually see a target was german and not american. done bydamage had been allowing german guns to deploy unhindered and enforced. the 35th the plus he assault was thrown back with great losses and german counterattack nearly succeeded in breaking the american lines. map -- thison the

is near the two dots near the top of the image. they very nearly succeeded in breaking through. battalion prepared -- the worst, shrapnel cells shrapnel shells were ready for use and the antiaircraft guns were arranged to cover the them lines of cannons. the german surge was stopped by a kansas city unit that had been thrown into the fight just north of the failed tank assault truman had witnessed two days earlier. the u.s. first division which replaced the 35th would suffer a thiser 6000 casualties in

killing field during the coming weeks. there were some 13,500 dead and wounded americans, most of them falling in a space roughly two miles wide by six miles deep. not much larger than that of the gettysburg battlefield. by far, the u.s. army possum bloodiest ground in the war. the fourths on about day of the battle, possibly fifth at a bond out church not far from where truman's battery conduct did it original the day bombardment near the bottom of the map. personneljuggle placed an empty stretcher

in order towounded provide the still living with a degree of psychological separation will stop both during the crisis of d+ three and the years thereafter, the division commander and artillery brigade commander would refer directly and indirectly to the actions of battery commander truman and the first battalion battery which also fired across the river, using them as a sort of shield to help ward off criticism. for example, after severe and prolonged criticism that the divisions infantry had received no fires ford on d-day which

traub was noth responsible for. what ends up doing is he counters in the kansas city post which was a large newspaper of the day in competition with the "times." he said the battery under cap harry truman was in action before noon and continued inaction throughout the day, wiping out machine gun nests and antitank machine guns on the slopes. truman's man and guns as you did not fire a shot during this time. truman never criticized his former division commander in public or in his writings.

have amake it a point to semi-official and unofficial accounts somewhat tone down defending the honor of division rhetoric and insurers these accounts were in line with eyewitness observations, including those from the 28 division. achievesngly, truman some notoriety among artillerymen of oath divisions because he was the only battery commander to have seen the targets his men were pummeling. cartoon drawn by a young corporal in france of the intrepid captain chasing down some of the kaiser's officers while armed with a battery commander's observation scope. timer truman's

experiencing air attacks, air and artillery attacks on his position, directing fire, setting up his antiaircraft guns during the german counterattack, all of this will tempt them to engage in a questionable psychoanalysis of how it must have affected his thinking on the atomic bomb. is psychobabble stuff and i'm not going to do it but i think i'm on safe ground with two simple observations. first, truman's activities during the war were far more interesting and complex than previously realized. later, the man who ordered the invasion of japan in the face of massive casualty

estimates understood exactly what he was asking of our soldiers, sailors and marines and understood it at a level most americans today would find unfathomable. truman knew it as only one who lived and thought for six days in a cemetery of unburied dead. [applause] i guess i am open for some questions. >> could we please come to the microphone?

>> i got the answer to that stop my question is how out there in the open land for us did they defined the division boundaries of they were supposed to respect them? bythey tried to do it recognizable terrain features or if there was a lack of recognizable terrain features, they would even go by that. boundaryse of the between the 28th and 35th division, they had an easy thing to go with. it was a sickly the river. was just an arbitrary distance they allow the for the regiments that

were moving up alongside of the one that was in the valley. up the wayts took the battle was conducted at that time. sortrange -- in a strange of way, they took up a predefined amount of space as they advanced forward. of the boundary between the 77th and 28, they marked it off on their maps and said those two regiments moving through the forest are going to take up this much frontage, so we are going to make the boundary between them and the --h which got nailed badly the new yorkers were terribly hit, but at a much slower rate and truman's division and with far fewer casualties. any casualties are bad enough

and in this case, they could not move. they had numerous people cut off , including a large group they called the lost battalion. back or you have the division between the 38th and 91st, they marched off -- there is a hill mass at this point. basically if you look at everything between your start point and the hill mass, everything to the right will end being the 91st division. everything to the left will belong to the 35th. there are very few 35th troops in that particular area. the 35th division and 91st division have extremely overworked aomori elements and runners going back and forth.

linkswere no direct wire in the regiments moving forward there. they had to get the information back to their respective division commanders who did have -- there wasations a very good reason for those orders to not shoot out of sector. they did not apply when you have someone severely outflanking you. >> i have several questions. answer whatever you want. sign up to go overseas or was he drafted? >> he signed up of stop he had originally joined the artillery been an enlisted -- basically he was in for six years and left because of

emily obligations. and here at -- and he regretted leaving but kept in close guardsmenth national from independents and some in kansas city. when the war broke out again, he immediately reenlisted. even a go again. he had bad eyesight and was functionally blind in his right eye and was given a pass on many occasions. one time he figured he was not going to get a pass to memorize the eye chart, the interesting thing about this is soldiers with glasses -- soldiers with glasses were looked upon as

being second class citizens. but he was real good. he thought he would be lucky to be voted in as one of the formedts of the newly regiment and he ended up being elect the as a lieutenant, which shocked them. he was given a lot of responsibilities very early on. officer radar o'reilly of sorts and it was very interesting. he was given problem children to finish -- to fix and it was when he was aty fort sill and doing training down there. despite operating equipment not designed for people to observe

who wore glasses, he was actually good at this. very interesting. that's why when gates had the rather important assignment of ,inding someone to support that the guy he picked in the guy who went with him to direct fire was the guy with glasses. this is very unusual. i cannot stress how unusual that was of the time. and he was picked for the other opd the next day. was truman basically being the eyes of the entire artillery regiment. for both battalions. >> you talk about this battle -- how many days in total was his battery in combat? they were in combat for six days but the final two days of

the u.s.re basically had more than 13,000 -- i was adding in the first vision. the u.s. had almost 8000 casualties in that area, which is a lot of casualties. had a verymans similar number. you've got 16,000 casualties over a very intensive four days of combat will stop including the german counterattack. both sides were pretty much spent at that point. truman poss battery continued with fire missions. there was a minor amount of probing, but the 35th division and evenht to be spent

the two divisions on its flanks would not reach that number of casualties -- to give you an idea of how fast this was, the 28th reached that numbers of casualties and was pulled out of aboutne at something like a little over a week, maybe a week and a half later. that gives you an idea, you get to a certain number of casualties and a yank you because you are a danger of being in combat and effective. there,t day truman was they kept the 31st poss artillery in place to cover the 31st leaving in the first infantry division coming up because the first infantry

division poss artillery could not move up fight as fast and what ended up happening is he was a sickly in support of the big red one is what happened. does that get to your question? >> unfortunately, no. during world war i, how many days total was his over the course of the war -- andis battery was in there was firing rounds right to the 11th hour of the 11th month. they were firing all the way to the end. they were put in a rest area to refit for a couple of weeks and then they were sent to the verdun front, the entire 35th they were because

going to be part of the next offensive, which was going to be so they straight east, were in the verdun area and it was in that battlefield where there was a also a mass. truman referred to it -- i've -- buried in dim it wask yard all stop not a pretty place and that is where truman -- how was where he was operating in the last perhaps month or so of the war. >> could you discuss the issues all the artillery had with regular army officer, including how he limited the fire of the guns because he thought they would overheat -- he did not use -- and they only

rested one third of their forces and meals at the start of the attack will stop i will address the last one first. mules, that was a big problem for the entire aef because we were rushing troops over there. we were pushing the troops really fast. french,dependent on the spainndant on buyers in for the horse flesh, the four-legged animals. the aef was always short, so they were trying to figure out how to make this work with the limitations they had. but it was actually worse than

that will stop officers who give their horses. -- iorces came across would have to look. i think it was about 100 and if you have a proper amount of supply,counting the they never had what they were supposed to have. army wide andally got more complex because horses that the french had pulled from service because they had and now had very limited lung capacity, the french turned some of those worse is over -- ended up being truman's unit was the one that got those substandard horses and

they had to baby them. took precedent over men at this point because without the horses, you could not move and i were too few of them and a lot of them were in stunningly bad shape. it is almost getting up to the proper numbers by the time they were coming up -- do we have time for one more? president of the english-speaking union here in kansas city. i had some interesting .nformation about colonel gates he was major gates when he was the commander. from all accounts.

come up to me afterwards. >> after the war ended, major gates who was promoted to lieutenant colonel gates came and in 1920, he founded the english-speaking union and was the first president of the kansas city branch. the organization has continued all of these years and i thought that was interesting. >> that is. >> thank you for letting me do this. in the summer of 1971, i was assigned as a student and got there early. -- when youthere get there early, my job was to up date the plan which was the funeral of harry truman because

supplied themth and i was so interested in president truman that for my thesis that year, i did the military career of harry truman. was published in military review in february of 1973. fax i have read it will stop a fine piece. >> i was fortunate enough to have a published by national guard magazine on the celebration of the 100 year of resident truman poss worth stop i have one regret this whole thing -- the gentleman from the truman library may tell me that i'm wrong, but as i look back, because president truman was in and earlyh in 1971 72, that i contacted the truman library, think i could have gotten a person-to-person interview with them.

as i think everybody knows, the maternal side of resident truman poss family had considerate leanings. you probably put on his blue uniform and went to see his grandfather. she said, don't you ever come here again with that uniform. [applause] thank you all for coming. military biographer -- is for sale. we will see you next time. >> you are watching american history tv, 48 hours of programming on american history every weekend