Last Stands from the Alamo to Benghazi by Frank Wetta Martin Novelli

Author:Frank Wetta, Martin Novelli [Frank Wetta, Martin Novelli]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, United States, General, Military, Wars & Conflicts (Other), 20th Century
ISBN: 9781317591924
Google: EHKuDQAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-12-08T16:19:53+00:00

Rogers was not exaggerating. In truth, frontier warfare was exceptionally vicious (on both sides). Here historian John F. Ross describes an Indian raid in New Hampshire in 1749 and Rogers’ retaliation:

The raiding party fired six houses and a barn, killed twenty-three cattle, one more item in a growing tally of dozens of homes and hard-won crop fields immolated along the frontier. The Indians tore out the fat-rich tongues of the livestock they slaughtered to devour on the trail. Dozens of colonists were scalped or borne off to uncertain fates in New France . . . By playing the enemy’s own game of waging fast, surprising, and destructive small-unit warfare, Rogers was gambling that he could take the teeth out of the Indians’ will to continue their alliance with the French. It was a bold gamble.3

The movie follows Rogers’ own account of the attack accurately: “At half an hour before sunrise I surprised the town when they were fast asleep, on the right, left, and center, which was done with clarity by both officers and men, that the enemy had not time to recover themselves, or take arms for their own defense, till they were chiefly destroyed, except some few of them who took to the water. About forty of my men pursued them, destroyed such as attempted to escape that way, and sunk them and their boats.” Rogers claimed to have killed 200 Indians (and the screenplay repeated the claim). But the number may have been much lower—30 in all, including 22 women and children. The third act of the film recounts the disastrous retreat as the French and Indians chase the raiders through the forest. Exhausted, pressured by the enemy, and running out of food the raiders break up into four separate bands. It is all misery and starvation—some even resorted to cannibalism. Others were killed, captured, and tortured, or went missing. One can see in the film how the racist views towards Native Americans would, once the U.S. entered the World War II, become the view of the Japanese—a vicious and savage enemy. But the film was reasonably reflective of the history.

In the film, Rogers is pictured as an uncomplicated adventurer—a representative of America’s Manifest Destiny, an interpretation in tune with wartime propaganda. In truth, he was a very complicated person—more mercenary than patriot. Ironically, despite Rogers’ decidedly mixed military reputation, today “Most of the veteran Rangers speak fondly of the 1940 MGM film Northwest Passage. ” Perhaps, historian John F. Ross states, “It may at first be hard to understand how the tradecraft of the modern-day special operator, parachuting into the Hindu Kush after the Taliban, or a lighting strike force pushing into the dangerous Pakistani borderland, could echo the efforts of men from the preindustrial community struggling through New England winters.”4 Nevertheless, “Rogers’ Rules of Ranging”—28 guidelines—still apply for special operations in the age of asymmetrical warfare: the victory just over the ever receding horizon of American destiny. The attack on St. Francis was no significant military achievement and the aftermath was a disaster for the Rangers.

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