Troop Concentrations Research Articles

GORDON LYALL PAVER (1913–1988) AND 42ND GEOLOGICAL SECTION, SOUTH AFRICAN ENGINEER CORPS: MILITARY GEOLOGY AND GEOPHYSICS IN WORLD WAR II SUPPORTING BRITISH ARMY OPERATIONS: PART 1, THE EAST AFRICAN CAMPAIGN 1940–1941

ABSTRACT 42nd Geological Section of the South African Engineer Corps was a unique unit that supported British armed forces during World War II. It was co-founded and led for most of the war by Gordon Lyall Paver (1913–1988), one of the few ‘British’ officers serving specifically as geologists during the war to achieve the rank of major. Born in South Africa at Johannesburg and in his early years educated there at St. John's College, from 1926 Paver was educated in England, at Charterhouse School until admitted in 1931 to Pembroke College in the University of Cambridge, where he studied chemistry, geology and mineralogy. He graduated in 1934 and returned to South Africa, being appointed to the Geological Survey of South Africa as one of its first geophysicists and contributing to magnetometric and gravimetric surveys in the Transvaal region, expertise used in 1938 to 1940 to draft his thesis for a PhD degree (awarded in 1942). Although married in 1939 and briefly employed as a consultant geophysicist, in August 1940 Paver was one of the first three geoscientists to be mobilized as officers to found 42nd Geological Section, at Zonderwater near Pretoria in South Africa. After only a month's military training, at the end of September the Section and its vehicles deployed by rail and sea to a base near Nairobi in Kenya for operational service in East Africa, with ‘Acting Captain’ Paver as its Second-in-Command. Detachments from the Section were widely deployed in Kenya and later in Italian and British Somaliland (present-day Somalia) and also in Abyssinia (present-day Ethiopia) for surveys by means primarily of electrical earth resistivity but also vertical force magnetometer. These guided drilling of wells by another unit of the South African Engineer Corps to abstract potable groundwater— thereby facilitating troop concentrations and forward movements in arid or semi-arid regions during the ‘British’ Army's East African Campaign. Members of the Section also compiled geological maps of Kenya at scales of 1:1,000,000 and 1:2,000,000 and pioneered a military geological unit created within the East African Engineers that supported British forces in the region from 1941 to 1945. The Campaign drew to a victorious close during 1941 and, from the end of August, the Section was re-deployed northwards to a base near Cairo in Egypt. It continued to serve within the British Army's Middle East Command but with leadership now by Paver, promoted ‘Acting Major’ from 31 August and in December ‘mentioned in despatches’ for his earlier distinguished service in East Africa.

The Greek army at Troy and its logistics . Based on the “Catalog of ships” called “Boeotia” from the second book of Homer’s Iliad

The author showed a fragment of the Iliad referred to as the Catalogue of Ships, also called Beotia (Bojotia). The name of this part comes from the Beots, whose troops, arriving at Troy, were listed in the Catalogue as the first. The list contains in-formations about the Greek armed forces, rulers and chiefs of the Greek peoples who took part in the naval expedition and the war against the Trojans. It also determines the number of ships brought by the Greeks to Troy. Eager to go to war, they put themselves in Beocia near the city of Aulis where, on the Strait of Eurypus, a large port was located. It can also be assumed that the Catalogue of Greek troops begins with the army of Beocia because the ports of this land were chosen as the place of concentration of troops for the expedition against Troy. A collection of works called the Trojan Cycle was also characterized, which includes 29 books and from which only small fragments (epitomai) and summaries in the so-called Chrestomatia have survived. Despite such poor literature, they are an important source in reproducing the content of the Trojan cycle. The passage showing the Achaean army at Troy, which is a list of Greek nobility, is often omitted in the editions of the Iliad. However, for those studying the art of war, it is an extremely important record of Europe’s past.

BRITISH MILITARY CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE GEOLOGY OF MALTA, PART 2: THE SECOND WORLD WAR, 1939–1945

ABSTRACT During the Second World War, the central Mediterranean island of Malta was famously besieged by the Italian navy and intensively bombed by Italian and later German air forces, from June 1940 until Allied victory in North Africa in May 1943 brought an end to the siege. It was then scheduled as a staging post to support the Allied invasion of Sicily from North Africa in July 1943 and of mainland Italy from Sicily in September. From 1941 until 1945, two Tunnelling Companies Royal Engineers, overlapping in succession, excavated underground facilities safe from aerial or naval bombardment. In 1943 and then 1944–1945, two Boring Sections Royal Engineers in succession drilled wells to enhance water supplies, initially for increased troop concentrations. Borehole site selection was guided in 1943 by the Director of the Geological Survey of Great Britain (Edward Battersby Bailey: 1881–1965) and by geologists Captain Frederick William Shotton (1906–1990) and Major Gordon Lyall Paver (1913–1988). In 1944, it was guided by geologist Captain Howard Digby Roberts (1913–1971), leading a detachment from 42nd Geological Section of the South African Engineer Corps that pioneered earth resistivity surveys on the island. Overall, these military studies generated a new but unpublished geological map of the island at 1:31,680-scale and refined knowledge of its geological structure: a much faulted but otherwise near-horizontal Oligo-Miocene sedimentary sequence. Further refinement was achieved as a consequence of the 1944–1945 drilling programme, led principally by geologist Captain Thomas Owen Morris (1904–1989) of the Royal Engineers. By 1945, this had helped to develop an improved water supply system for the island, and plans to develop groundwater abstracted from a perched upper aquifer (in the Upper Coralline Limestone and underlying Greensand formations, above a ‘Blue Clay’) as well as from the main lower aquifer, near sea level (in the Globigerina Limestone and/or underlying Lower Coralline Limestone formations).

The War Worth Fighting: Abraham Lincoln’s Presidency and Civil War America ed. by Stephen D. Engle

Reviewed by: The War Worth Fighting: Abraham Lincoln’s Presidency and Civil War America ed. by Stephen D. Engle Stephen Maizlish The War Worth Fighting: Abraham Lincoln’s Presidency and Civil War America. Edited by Stephen D. Engle. Alan B. Larkin Series on the American Presidency. (Gainesville and other cities: University Press of Florida, 2015. Pp. [viii], 268. $31.95, ISBN 978-0-8130-6064-4.) The War Worth Fighting: Abraham Lincoln’s Presidency and Civil War America is a collection of essays that are broadly, though not exclusively, devoted to Abraham Lincoln and his presidency. Many of the contributions were originally presented as papers at a symposium held at Florida Atlantic University and were intended for a general audience. As a result, many of the nine essays are overviews of previously treated topics. However, four essays stand out for their originality and deserve special attention. Mark Grimsley’s essay, “Lincoln as Commander in Chief: Forays into Generalship,” accepts the consensus view of Lincoln as skillful in directing the Union’s war policy, though Grimsley dissents from the accepted opinion that Lincoln consistently excelled in commanding the operational aspects of the war. Specifically, Grimsley is critical of Lincoln’s involvement in the Shenandoah Valley engagements in the spring of 1862, and especially of his decisions to divert the forces under the command of General Irvin McDowell from General George B. McClellan’s Peninsula campaign and to reassign some of McClellan’s other troops. According to Grimsley, Lincoln failed to see that adequate numbers of Union solders were already available to defend Washington, D.C. Additionally, Grimsley contends that Lincoln did not grasp the diversionary nature of Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson’s movements in the Shenandoah or appreciate the critical importance of the quality of roads, the need for unity of command, and the difficulty of establishing simultaneous troop concentrations. At least in this instance, Lincoln did not prove to be a master general. [End Page 443] In “Legalities in Wartime: The Myth of the Writ of Habeas Corpus,” Mark E. Neely Jr. argues that the writ of habeas corpus has not always stood for individual liberty. Neely finds that during the Civil War, the writ was largely used to release underage soldiers from service in the army and to obtain child custody. In neither of these types of cases was imprisonment involved, and in neither was the issue of individual rights a question. Neely calculates that in only one of the fifty-six cases he studied was freedom of speech involved. The writ, he concludes, “had less to do with liberty than was previously thought” (p. 122). The Democratic Party created the myth that the writ involved individual freedoms for its own political purposes. Kate Masur’s thoroughly researched and comprehensively argued essay, “Emancipation in Washington, D.C.: Battleground for Freedom and Reconstruction,” concentrates on African American history in the nation’s capital during the war. Masur first reviews the debates over emancipation both in Congress and among Washington residents. She describes Lincoln’s perspective on emancipation in the capital and especially his unrealized hope that emancipation would come only after a referendum of Washington citizens. Masur’s analysis of the capital’s African American community is her most important contribution. She recounts the community’s resistance to the Fugitive Slave Act and describes fully residents’ cultural life, including their relief work in behalf of freed and escaped slaves and their efforts at military recruitment among the black population. Finally, Masur tells the story of the African American community’s fight for equal treatment. The volume’s focus on Lincoln is best realized in Richard J. Carwardine’s superb essay, “Lincoln as Leader: The Visible Hand of Leadership at Home and Abroad.” A prizewinning authority on Lincoln, Carwardine argues that Lincoln’s concerns about his presidency were overcome “by his strong sense of self-worth” (p. 154). Carwardine identifies four major areas of Lincoln’s responsibility as a leader: the establishment of a vision for the Union, the maintenance of a policy to reflect that vision, the implementation of the policy, and finally, the ability to communicate that vision to the citizenry. Lincoln excelled in all of these areas, but...

Dynamics of positional warfare malaria: Finland and Korea compared

BackgroundA sudden outbreak of vivax malaria among Finnish troops in SE-Finland and along the front line in Hanko peninsula in the southwest occurred in 1941 during World War II. The common explanation has been an invasion of infective Anopheles mosquitoes from the Russian troops crossing the front line between Finland and Soviet Union. A revised explanation is presented based on recent studies of Finnish malaria.MethodsThe exact start of the epidemic and the phenology of malaria cases among the Finnish soldiers were reanalyzed. The results were compared with the declining malaria in Finland. A comparison with a corresponding situation starting in the 1990's in Korea was performed.Results and discussionThe malaria cases occurred in July in 1941 when it was by far too early for infective mosquitoes to be present. The first Anopheles mosquitoes hatched at about the same time as the first malaria cases were observed among the Finnish soldiers. It takes about 3 – 6 weeks for the completion of the sporogony in Finland. The new explanation is that soldiers in war conditions were suddenly exposed to uninfected mosquitoes and those who still were carriers of hypnozoites developed relapses triggered by these mosquitoes. It is estimated that about 0.5% of the Finnish population still were carriers of hypnozoites in the 1940's. A corresponding outbreak of vivax malaria in Korea in the 1990's is similarly interpreted as relapses from activated hypnozoites among Korean soldiers.The significance of the mosquito induced relapses is emphasized by two benefits for the Plasmodium. There is a synchronous increase of gametocytes when new mosquitoes emerge. It also enables meiotic recombination between different strains of the Plasmodium.ConclusionThe malaria peak during the positional warfare in the 1940's was a short outbreak during the last phase of declining indigenous malaria in Finland. The activation of hypnozoites among a large number of soldiers and subsequent medication contributed to diminishing the reservoir of malaria and speeded up the eradication of the Finnish malaria. A corresponding evolution of Korean malaria is anticipated with relaxed tensions and decreasing troop concentrations along the border between South and North Korea.

The Soviet Union and the Outbreak of the June 1967 Six-Day War

The Soviet Union's transfer of false information to Egypt about alleged Israeli troop concentrations facing Syria in May 1967 is still considered a major factor in the outbreak of the June 1967 Mideast War. Soviet motivations and expectations, however, remain a topic of dispute. New information has become available over the past fifteen years, primarily through interviews and memoirs but also through the release of some important Soviet documents, including correspondence and reports of meetings between Soviet and Egyptian of ficials at the highest levels. A careful analysis of the circumstances and events during the period immediately before the 1967 war substantiates the conclusion that the Soviet Union did not initially expect or want war to break out between Israel and the Arabs. Soviet leaders made efforts to moderate Egyptian actions and considered at least one proposal for averting war. By the first week of June, as Egypt and Syria mobilized for an attack on Israel, the Soviet Union apparently expected an Israeli preemptive strike. Soviet actions during and immediately after the war indicated an interest in reducing the risks of the con flict, even in cooperation with the United States, although Soviet leaders seem to have held differing views about this matter.

Mitochondrial DNA Diversity in two populations of Taiwanese macaque (Macaca cyclopis)

Current genetic composition of a population is influenced by site-specific demographic history. We compared genetic diversity in two populations of Taiwanese macaques (Macaca cyclopis) with different site characteristics. Mitochondrial DNA variation in 145 individuals from one central, continuous population (Yushan) and one peripheral, isolated population (Shoushan) was ascertained by sequencing and PCR–SSCP of the 5′ end hypervariable segment of the control region amplified from hair and fecal samples. All the samples from Yushan were of the same haplotype whereas those from Shoushan fell into 13 haplotypes. The mtDNA homogeneity in Yushan may indicate a “local concentration of troops” status of the population or the result of population bottleneck in the recent past by severe hunting. The relatively higher genetic diversity in the Shoushan population was contributed by released or escaped captive macaques. In addition, a simple method for preserving fecal sample as a DNA source is also recommended in the study.

The New Face of War: How War Will Be Fought in the 21st Century

From the Publisher: As American and coalition troops fight the first battles of this new century -- from Afghanistan to Yemen to the Philippines to Iraq -- they do so in ways never before seen. Until recently, information war was but one piece of a puzzle, more than a sideshow in war but far less than the sum total of the game. Today, however, we find information war revolutionizing combat, from top to bottom. Gone are the advantages of fortified positions -- nothing is impregnable any longer. Gone is the reason to create an overwhelming mass of troops -- now, troop concentrations merely present easier targets. Instead, stealth, swarming, and zapping (precision strikes on individuals or equipment) are the order of the day, based on superior information and lightning-fast decision-making. In many ways, modern warfare is information warfare. Bruce Berkowitz's explanation of how information war revolutionized combat and what it means for our soldiers could not be better timed. As Western forces wage war against terrorists and their supporters, in actions large and small, on several continents, The New Face of War explains how they fight and how they will win or lose. There are four key dynamics to the new warfare: asymmetric threats, in which even the strongest armies may suffer from at least one Achilles' heel; information-technology competition, in which advantages in computers and communications are crucial; the race of decision cycles, in which the first opponent to process and react to information effectively is almost certain to win; and network organization, in which fluid arrays of combat forces can spontaneously organize in multiple ways to fight any given opponent at any time. America's use of networked, elite ground forces, in combination with precision-guided bombing from manned and unmanned flyers, turned Afghanistan from a Soviet graveyard into a lopsided field of American victory. Yet we are not invulnerable, and the same technology that we used in Kuwait in 1991 is now available to anyone with a credit card and access to the Internet. Al Qaeda is adept in the new model of war, and has searched long and hard for weaknesses in our defenses. Will we be able to stay ahead of its thinking? In Iraq, Saddam's army is in no position to defeat its enemies -- but could it defend Baghdad? As the world anxiously considers these and other questions of modern war, Bruce Berkowitz offers many answers and a framework for understanding combat that will never again resemble the days of massive marches on fortress-like positions. The New Face of War is a crucial guidebook for reading the headlines from across our troubled planet.

Neural network parameters affecting image classification

The study is to assess the behaviour and impact of various neural network parameters and their effects on the classification accuracy of remotely sensed images which resulted in successful classification of an IRS-1B LISS II image of Roorkee and its surrounding areas using neural network classification techniques. The method can be applied for various defence applications, such as for the identification of enemy troop concentrations and in logistical planning in deserts by identification of suitable areas for vehicular movement. Five parameters, namely training sample size, number of hidden layers, number of hidden nodes, learning rate and momentum factor were selected. In each case, sets of values were decided based on earlier works reported. Neural network-based classifications were carried out for as many as 450 combinations of these parameters. Finally, a graphical analysis of the results obtained was carried out to understand the relationship among these parameters. A table of recommended values for these parameters for achieving 90 per cent and higher classification accuracy was generated and used in classification of an IRS-1B LISS II image. The analysis suggests the existence of an intricate relationship among these parameters and calls for a wider series of classification experiments as also a more intricate analysis of the relationships.

Desert storms, deadly connections

The destruction of Iraq's technological infrastructure with the fusillades of Tomahawk cruise missiles and the brutal devastation of Iraqi troop concentrations with fuel‐air explosives have focused attention on the use of sophisticated conventional weapons in future warfare. Far less consideration has been given to how the United States and Britain used their nuclear arsenals during the 1990—1991 war and what this means for the future. The most obvious nuclear dimensions of the Gulf War are President Bush's manipulation of popular fears in the United States of Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons program and the subsequent destruction of the Iraqi nuclear weapons development infrastructure. It was the Bush administration—and to a lesser extent the Major government in Britain—that repeatedly used their nuclear arsenals during the war.

Korea's Future-Four Perspectives: An Introduction

As THE END of the Korean War approaches its 25th anniversary, the de facto division of this proud and ancient Asian nation cuts deeply into the consciousness of its 50,000,000 people. Yet no Korean under the age of forty has known national unity or been without the sense of seemingly irreconcilable conflict between communism and capitalism. The dilemma of division is compounded by the degree to which the fate of Korea remains subject to decisions in distant capitals, or in some instances the neglect of non-decisions. The Korean peninsula contains the most intensive concentration of troops, weaponry, and political conflict of any area in the world. The three largest nuclear powers, the United States, the Soviet Union, and the People's Republic of China are committed by treaty to defend one or the other of the two Korean regimes if it is attacked. Incidents between North and South Korea occur intermittently. In 1976 and 1977 four American soldiers died at the Demilitarized Zone from North Korean attacks, two of them clubbed with axes. Against this grim background of volatile confrontation, contrary images flicker across the international scene. In 1976 North Korean premier Kim Il-song visited Peking where his bellicose rhetoric won no support. His subsequent extensive tour failed to include Moscow. In 1977 President Carter announced his intention to withdraw all American ground troops from the South by 1982. Meanwhile Washington reverberated with unproven rumors and confirmed revelations of Seoul's past attempts to influence dozens of Congressmen with bribes, trips, and social favors. In short, neither Korea was in full harmony with its ally while the major powers showed no visible concern over the prospect of war in the peninsula. Except for unilateral statements from the various capitals, mainly demands or proposals that had no chance of immediate acceptance, little serious or systematic attention has been given to the Korean problem since the flurry of activity which followed President Nixon's 1971

Intertroop relationships among Japanese monkeys

Intertroop relationships among Japanese monkeys, which have been paid only scant attention for the past 20 years, are examined from several points of view. Japanese monkey troops are generally distributed in such a way as to concentrate locally, that is, to form a local concentration of troops (LCT). About 20% of the nomadic ranges of the troops within LCT's overlap; but in their natural state, they seldom approach but rather to avoid one another. From observations of intertroop encounters at Takasakiyama, where three troops are provisionized and use the same feeding place, it has been found that there exists a dominant-subordinate relationship among troops, that monkeys of each troop have a clear consciousness of belonging to their troop, and that monkeys of different troops rate one another on the basis of their capability. The frequency of male transfer between troops within LCT's is by far higher than between LCT's. In Japanese monkey society, a troop only is a social unit and a social order higher than a troop is not seen; however, it is not impossible to consider an LCT a consanguineally connected group by reason of the transfer of males among the troops within it.

Biological Warfare and Its Defense

By way of definition, biological warfare is the intentional use of living micro-organisms or their toxic products for the purpose of destroying or reducing the military effectiveness of man. Man may also be injured secondarily by damage to his food crops or domestic animals. The military objective, of course, is to reduce the will or capability to wage war. It has sometimes been said that BW is public health practice and procedure in reverse. This is an erroneous conception. BW is the deliberate use of natural disease agents whose inherent potential has been exploited by scientific research and development resulting in the production of BW weapons systems. Military campaigns and troop concentrations have always provided a fertile field for nal, urally occurring epidemic disease. Infectious disease has often been the critical factor in the outcome of a military campaign. Bubonic plague was said to have stopped the Crusaders at the very gates of Jerusalem. Dysentery probably caused more casualties in Napoleon's Grand Army than enemy firearms. Typhoid fever and dysentery played no favorites among the opposing forces in the Civil War, the Boer War, and the Spanish-American War. The new science of bacteriology was in its infancy around 1900. Even during World War I, infectious disease was a controlling factor in some campaigns. It is quite clear that typhus fever prevented the Germans from carrying through their Balkan campaigni. In spite of all our modern sanitation and preventive medicine, infectious disease contributed a large share to the cost and difficulty in World War II. Malaria ranked high as an enemy, both in the Mediterranean and in the Southwest Pacific, and scrub typhus caused some 7,000 casualties in the latter area. Anid finally, it seems almost yesterday that enteric infections, Japanese B encephalitis, and hemorrhagic fever were bedeviling us in the Korean conflict. In the past, a number of crude, unscientific, and purely local efforts were made to utilize infectious disease for military purposes. Alexander attempted such exploitation by catapulting the bodies of dead men and animals over the walls of besieged cities. It is reported that smallpox was started successfully among the American Indians during the French and Indian War by distributing blankets contaminated with purulent smallpox material. In World War I the Germans infected with glanders horses that were consigned from this country to the Roumanian cavalry. During World War II a number of units of the German Occupation Forces, particularly in Eastern Europe, were said to have been the target of local sabotage efforts with bacteriological agents. Dr. Fothergill, scientific adviser to the Chemical Corps, Fort Detrick, Md., delivered this paper at a joint meeting of the Nevada State Medical Association and the Reno Surgical Society, at Reno, August 1956.

An outbreak of primary pulmonary coccidioidomycosis in Los Angeles County, California.

Excerpt INTRODUCTION Concentration of troops in the southwestern United States during World War II resulted in the knowledge that areas other than the San Joaquin Valley are endemic for coccidioido...

The Role of the Chemical Corps In National Defense

IN gathering here we are paying tribute to the extremely fine spirit of cooperation which has existed between the AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY and the Chemical Corps since its foundation. As I am a newcorner to this field, I would like to confine my remarks to an examination of the over-all program of the Chemical Corps. I will try to give you a comprehensive picture of our mission, its technical objectives, the goals of our mobilization planning program, and the extent of civilian assistance in the so-called unconventional fields of warfare. Biological, radiological, and toxic chemical warfare are usually considered together because they are all aspects of unconventional warfare. They also have many common characteristics. Incendiaries rained fire and destruction on the Nazis and the Japs. Flame-throwers smoked out the enemy where-ever he was hidden. Smoke screens effectively concealed our beachhead operations, ports, river crossings, and troop concentrations on all battlefronts of the world. ...

Some Notes on the Me. 110

AFTER viewing the Messerschmitt Me. 110, one is impressed by the fact that here is an aeroplane provided with terrific striking power, but with practically no defensive armament or armour. The four machine‐guns and two cannon, tightly packed into the nose of the fuselage, provide heavy lire power, and contrast sharply with the single flexible machine gun supported on a primitive mount in the aft cockpit. A quickly detachable, external bomb rack designed to carry two bombs, apparently of the 500 lb. class, is provided for use on missions where attack of ground objectives, such as troop concentrations, would be the principal purpose.