MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History Spring 2021

opening round

In the late 1920s, the U.S. Army began to explore the idea of using mortars in its light infantry units. It turned to Edgar Brandt, whose Paris-based ironwork and armaments company, Établissements Brandt, was already finding success with its Modèle 27/31 mortar, an 81mm weapon developed from the Stokes trench mortar that British and American forces used in World War I. While the U.S. Army’s Ordnance Department would later license the Brandt design for its M1 mortar, it also wanted a smaller, more portable weapon for its frontline infantry regiments and airborne troops. The Brandt company came up with a 47mm prototype, but after concluding that it wasn’t powerful enough, the army ordered eight 60mm models, subjected them to extensive testing, and ultimately purchased a license from the Brandt company…

flashback

comments patton redux

Double Trouble I’m writing to point out two issues with the answer to a reader who asked whether Lieutenant General George S. Patton Jr. believed in reincarnation (“Ask MHQ,” Winter 2021). First, both the answer and the caption of the photograph that appeared with it misidentify Patton as a lieutenant general. He was promoted to general on April 14, 1945, a fact confirmed in the photograph by the insignia on the front of his command car. Second, Patton died on December 21, 1945. So if the date of 1946 in the caption is accurate, he was reincarnated once more to participate in the parade. Lieutenant ColonelPaul F. Conrad (Ret.) Cincinnati FROM THE EDITORS: Our slipped digit triggered quite a few letters like yours. The “welcome home” parade in Los Angeles for Patton, Lieutenant…

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Summer of ’42 It was wartime in the nation’s capital, and fear was everywhere. Were Nazi submarines landing saboteurs on American beaches? By Bill Hogan Search Online Visit HISTORYNET.com, with more than 13,000 articles and exclusives MHQ Subscriptions PRINT, TABLETS, and READERS Shop at SHOP.HISTORYNET.com KINDLE AMAZON.com NOOK BARNESANDNOBLE.com ZINIO ZINIO.com Follow MHQ FACEBOOK FACEBOOK.com/MHQMAG TWITTER TWITTER.com/MHQMAGAZINE E-NEWSLETTER Sign up at: HISTORYNET.com/NEWSLETTERS…

laws of war revolt in the ranks

The 1915 court-martial of Lieutenant Colonel Lewis E. Goodier Sr. is a little-known but significant chapter in the history of the U.S. Air Force. The trial laid bare the U.S. Army Signal Corps’s mismanagement of military aviation and seriously embarrassed the army. The fallout from the scandal put Captain William “Billy” Mitchell in charge of army aviation, where he was able to promote his advanced ideas on air power—namely, that aircraft would be the key to winning future wars. Although the Signal Corps had bought its first airplane in 1908, by 1915 it still had no coherent plan for developing aviation beyond reconnaissance. From 1908 to 1914, in fact, airplanes had been used to support ground troops on only two occasions. The Signal Corps also had serious personnel problems. Lieutenant Colonel…

experience nightmare on the western front

In 1918 Arthur M. Schlesinger, a young history professor at the Ohio State University, was appointed the chairman of the Historical Commission of Ohio, which Governor James M. Cox had created to collect and preserve a wide variety of records relating to the state’s role in World War I. For much of the next two years, Schlesinger, with the help of a colleague on the Ohio State faculty, sent letters to former students serving overseas with the American Expeditionary Forces, asking them to relate their experiences in the war. One of Schlesinger’s correspondents in this effort was Private E. Allen Pastelnick, then in France with the 140th Ambulance Company of the 110th Sanitary Train. Pastelnick, who was born in Russia in 1895, had grown up in St. Louis and attended the…