S. L. A. Marshall

Marshall was born in Catskill, New York, on July 18, 1900, the son of Caleb C. and Alice Medora (Beeman) Marshall. He was raised in Colorado and California, where he briefly worked as a child actor for Essanay Studios; his family relocated to El Paso, Texas, where he attended high school.{{sfn|Burdett|2010}}

He was married three times, first to Ruth Elstner, with whom he had a son before divorcing; his second wife, Edith Ives Westervelt, died in 1953 and he had three daughters with his third wife, Catherine Finnerty. Marshall died in El Paso on December 17, 1977, and was buried at Fort Bliss National Cemetery, Section A, Grave 124.{{sfn|Burdett|2010}} The University of Texas at El Paso library has a special collection built around his books and manuscripts.University of Texas at El Paso, [http://academics.utep.edu/Default.aspx?tabid=40850 The UTEP Library's Special Collections Department], Description, S. L. A. Marshall Collection, retrieved March 7, 2014

Marshall enlisted in the US Army on November 28, 1917, joining the 315th Engineer Battalion, part of the 90th Infantry Division. Based initially in Camp Travis, near San Antonio, Texas, his division transferred to France with the American Expeditionary Forces in June 1918 and Marshall was promoted to sergeant.{{sfn|Burdett|2010}} The 315th took part in the Battle of Saint-Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne Offensive.{{sfn|United States War Department|1920|p=37}} A 1921 history by of A Company 315th Engineers from formation to the end of 1918 shows that from 22 August to the Armistice, Marshall's company lost eight dead and fifteen wounded out of 165 men.{{sfn|Millinder|1921}}

Shortly after the Armistice, Marshall was selected to take the entrance examinations for the United States Military Academy, part of an initiative to promote exceptional soldiers from the ranks.{{sfn|Marshall|1993|pp=50–57}} He subsequently attended Officer Candidate School, was commissioned in early 1919, and remained in France to assist with post-war demobilization.{{sfn|Marshall|1993|p=184}}

After his discharge, he remained in the United States Army Reserve, and attended the Texas College of Mines, now the University of Texas at El Paso.{{sfn|Williams|1990|p=10}} In the early 1920s, he became a newspaper reporter and editor, first with the El Paso Herald, and later The Detroit News. As a reporter, Marshall gained a national reputation for his coverage of Latin American and European military affairs, including the Spanish Civil War.{{sfn|Marshall|1947|p=2}} In 1940, he published Blitzkrieg: Armies on Wheels, an analysis of the tactics developed by the Wehrmacht prior to World War II, and used during its invasion of Poland and Czechoslovakia.{{sfn|Marshall|1940|p=1}}

File:After Action Review during CSTX 86-17-03.jpg, a technique still employed by modern armies]]

Following American entry into World War II in December 1941, the United States Army created the "Center of Military History", whose role was to "gather historically significant data and materials" for the benefit of future historians, an organisation that still exists.{{cite web |title=US Army Center of Military History |url=https://history.army.mil/fieldHistorians/index.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200409080638/https://history.army.mil/fieldHistorians/index.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=April 9, 2020|website=history.army.mil|access-date=26 March 2022}} This initially consisted of 27 officers, including Marshall, although he viewed himself as a military analyst, rather than a historian.{{Sfn|Grossman|2004}} His first combat assignment was the Battle of Makin in November 1943, during which he used the oral history technique known as After action review, a process still employed by modern armies. He would gather surviving members of a front line unit and debrief them as a group on their combat experiences of a day or two before.{{sfn|Burdett|2010}}

Marshall later claimed he did so to resolve a dispute over who had been responsible for holding off a number of Japanese counter-attacks. By interviewing individual participants, each with a slightly different perspective, he created a considerably more detailed and accurate picture of the action than was possible previously. His experience as a journalist, and use of standard questions, allowed him to quickly produce large numbers of reports. These were used by the Army to identify tactical lessons; for example, Marshall found tanks called in to support infantry often withdrew even when their help was still required. To overcome this problem, they were made subordinate to the local infantry commander for the duration of the action.{{sfn|Burdett|2010}}

His interview techniques were quickly adopted throughout the US Army, and in 1944 Marshall was transferred to Europe where he ended the war as chief combat historian.{{cite magazine |last1=Baum |first1=Dan |title=The Price of Valor |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/07/12/the-price-of-valor |magazine=The New Yorker |date=4 July 2004 |access-date=26 March 2022}} In 1947, he used these interviews as the basis for his best known work Men Against Fire, whose most notable conclusion was that 75% of individual riflemen engaged in combat never fired at an exposed enemy for the purpose of killing, even when directly threatened.{{sfn|Burdett|2010}}{{Efn|Much of the criticism later directed at him missed an important qualification. Marshall concluded key weapons, such as flamethrowers, usually fired and crew-served weapons like machine guns almost always fired, while the rate increased greatly if a nearby leader demanded it. His argument was that if unguided, the great majority of individual combatants throughout history appear to have been unable or unwilling to kill.{{Sfn|Grossman|2004}}}} Marshall argued civilian norms against taking life were so strong many conscripts could not bring themselves to kill, even at the risk of their own lives, and suggested changes in training that would increase the percentage willing to engage the enemy with direct fire.{{sfn|Burdett|2010}} Many were incorporated by the US military; Marshall reported far more men fired weapons during the Vietnam War.{{cite web | url=https://www.historynet.com/men-against-fire-how-many-soldiers-actually-fired-their-weapons-at-the-enemy-during-the-vietnam-war.htm | title=Men Against Fire: How Many Soldiers Actually Fired Their Weapons at the Enemy During the Vietnam War | first=Russell W. | last=Glennt | date=April 2002 | work=Vietnam Magazine | via=HistoryNet | access-date=November 12, 2021}}

Less well known, but perhaps more significant, was a post-war project led by Marshall that employed former German officers to produce analyses of all battles fought in Europe from 1939 to 1945. At its height, over 200 participated, including Heinz Guderian and Franz Halder (who used his position to vet the monographs and promulgate the myth of the clean Wehrmacht.{{Cite book |last1=Smelser |first1=Ronald |author-link1=Ronald Smelser |url=https://archive.org/details/mythofeasternfro0000smel |title=The Myth of the Eastern Front: The Nazi-Soviet War in American Popular Culture |last2=Davies |first2=Edward J. |author-link2=Edward J. Davies |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2008 |isbn=978-0-521-83365-3 |location=New York |page= |url-access=registration}}) Hundreds of monographs were written based on this data project, including the 1994 publication Anvil of War: German Generalship in Defense of the Eastern Front, edited by Peter G. Tsouras.

Marshall was recalled in late 1950 for three months' duty as a Historian/Operations Analyst for the Eighth Army during the Korean War. He collected numerous Korean combat interviews with Americans in Korea into a treatise analyzing U.S. infantry and weapons effectiveness, Commentary on Infantry and Weapons in Korea 1950–51. The Army classified his findings as restricted information, later incorporating them into a plan to improve combat training, weapons, equipment, and tactics.{{sfn|Marshall|1951}}

Following his retirement from the Army Reserve in 1960, with the rank of brigadier general, Marshall continued to serve as an unofficial adviser to the Army.{{sfn|Burdett|2010}} As a private citizen, he spent late 1966 and early 1967 in Vietnam on an Army-sponsored tour for the official purpose of teaching his after-action interview techniques to field commanders, in order to improve data collection for both the chain of command and the future official history of the Vietnam War.{{sfn|Burdett|2010}} The Army Chief of Military History's representative on the tour, Colonel David H. Hackworth, collected his own observations from the trip and published them as The Vietnam Primer, with Marshall credited as co-author.{{sfn|Hackworth|England|2002|p=53}}

File:David Hackworth.JPG, once an admirer and collaborator of Marshall, Hackworth would later criticize Marshall as a liar and profiteer {{sfn|Hackworth|1989|p=581,583-586}} ]]

Although his conclusions were widely accepted during his lifetime, after his death in 1977 Marshall's approach was questioned by scholars such as Roger Spiller and Kelly Jordan, who claimed the interviews used to support his ratio-of-fire theory either did not exist or were fabricated.{{sfn|Spiller|1988|pp=63–71}}{{sfn|Jordan|2002|p=137}} However, some of his original field survey notes which are held by the US Army Military History Institute were reviewed by Fred Williams in 1990. When comparing a sample of Marshall's claims from 31 pages of his books to what was written in his original notes, Williams found that while he "occasionally increased the numbers of men or the distances involved by twenty to fifty percent", in general his books followed "the sequence of events and the vast majority of the facts faithful to the testimony as he recorded it".{{Sfn|Williams|1990|pp=28–30}} Williams said of Marshall though that "Not a true historian in the trained professional sense, Marshall would muster facts and figures in support of what were to him obvious truths."{{Sfn|Williams|1990|pp=28–30}}{{efn|Williams makes no analysis of the sources of the fire ratio number}} The official US historian of the 1944 Battle of the Bulge also wrote that Marshall's oral interviews with participants in the battle aligned with testimony from other sources.{{Sfn|Cole|1994|p=vi}}

His former collaborator, Hackworth, described Marshall as "less a military analyst than a military ambulance chaser," and "more a voyeur than a warrior",{{sfn|Hackworth|1989|p=568}} and although Hackworth's own veracity and reliability as a witness has been questioned by reviewers, one concluded that "Others had already begun to cast doubt upon Marshall's methods. Hackworth delivers the coup de grace."{{sfn|Bacevich}} Marshall received similar criticisms from Harold Leinbaugh, an ex-FBI employee and WWII infantry veteran, who considered his conclusions a slur on the fighting ability of American soldiers and labelled them "absurd, ridiculous and totally nonsensical".{{sfn|Smoler|1989|p=5}} Doubts as to whether Marshall's conclusions derive from a reliable and “systematic collection of data" remain even among those who support his conclusions, {{Sfn|Holmes|2003|p=13}} while Canadian military historian Robert Engen claims Marshall "wilfully disregarded important evidence" that did not align with his preconceptions.{{sfn|Engen|2011|p=46}} Antony Beevor wrote that some of Marshall's analysis was shown to be "very dubious" even though he agreed with the overall premise that in a conscript army only a few soldiers shot at the enemy.{{sfn|Beevor|2009|pp=xxi–xxii}}

Despite this, Grossman argues "Marshall's fundamental conclusion that man is not, by nature, a killer" is confirmed by data from other armies and different historical periods. These include studies conducted by the 19th century French military theorist Ardant du Picq, Paddy Griffith's 1989 book Battle Tactics of the American Civil War, which analyses the "extraordinarily low killing rate" among American Civil War regiments, and in Acts of War; The Behaviour of Men in Battle by British military historian Richard Holmes of Argentine soldiers during the Falklands War.{{Efn|Though Holmes notes that for British soldiers in the Falklands, firing their weapons was demonstrative of the aggressive nature of 2 Para and all soldiers fired their weaponsHolmes p235-236}} The claim was also supported by FBI studies into non-firing rates by law enforcement officers in the 1950s and 1960s.{{Sfn|Grossman|2000|pp=9-10}}

Surveys of after action reports conducted during WWII in the British and Soviet armies showed low firing rates were common in both{{Citation needed|date=May 2024}}; Russian officers suggested inspecting rifles after combat, and executing those found with clean barrels.{{sfn|Beevor|2009|pp=xxi–xxii}} Engen argues contemporary Canadian evidence does not support Marshall's or Grossman's claims of the universality of the ratio due to an innate resistance to killing",{{sfn|Engen|2011|p=45}} although Grossman suggests this may be the result of training techniques that pioneered realistic marksmanship training.{{Sfn|Grossman|2004}}{{Efn|Engen offers several reasons why fire might be withheld - fear, fatigue, lack of opportunity, "live and let live" attitude, not wanting to bring return fire, and in the case of Canadian doctrine of the time training in fire discipline - to conserve ammunition and shoot only when it will be effective.Engen p44-45}}

Leinbaugh, who viewed Marshall's claims as "maligning" American infantrymen and admitted that he took them personally, {{sfn|Smoler|1989|p=5}} also queried details of his World War I service. He argued significant parts of Marshall's service record were not substantiated by independent evidence, including his claim to have been the youngest commissioned officer in the US Army or to have commanded troops in combat.{{sfn|Smoler|1989|p=6}} Grossman challenged the suggestion that these amounted to fabrications.{{Sfn|Grossman|2004}}

In response, John Douglas Marshall, who was disowned by his grandfather after receiving an honorable discharge from the Army as a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War, wrote a memoir about his grandfather ("Reconciliation Road") in 1993. He analyzed his grandfather's WWI service, using official army records and personal letters written during the Meuse-Argonne offensive. He also discovered a scrapbook compiled by his grandfather and dedicated to a colleague in the 315th killed in action on November 8, 1918. In the preface, the elder Marshall wrote of being present when his friend was shot near Bantheville, although records show he was in fact part of a road repair gang hit by artillery fire, while Marshall himself was absent taking the West Point entrance exams that day.{{sfn|Marshall|1993|pp=181–182}} John Marshall ultimately concluded the vast majority of his grandfather's wartime experiences were independently verified by his service record and any exaggerations were minor and did not undermine the validity of his later work.{{sfn|Marshall|1993|pp=282–284}}{{Failed verification|date=May 2024|reason=Note stated on the pages given. Pages mention SLAM legacy but not with interpretation given}}

File:Paper target 789.jpgs for firearms training in the US Army and law enforcement agencies was based on a recommendation from Marshall]]

One of Marshall's suggestions for improving rates of fire was to use realistic man-shaped targets rather than bullseyes,{{Sfn|Williams|1990|pp=79-80}} a practice which is now standard among militaries and law enforcement agencies.{{Sfn|Grossman|2004}} Much of the ongoing discussion regarding his research centres on reasons for "non-firing" and is of continuing interest to militaries in order to determine how to optimise training and manage issues like post traumatic stress disorder.{{sfn|Engen|2011|pp=47–48}} Engen suggests Marshall's work led combat psychologists to identify the act of killing as a major factor in PTSD, not just an individual's personal experience under fire or the deaths of their comrades.{{sfn|Engen|2011|p=48}} This factor has been identified as the most significant driver of PTSD among remote drone operators, who may never directly come under fire.{{cite news |last1=Press |first1=Eyal |title=The Wounds of the Drone Warrior |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/13/magazine/veterans-ptsd-drone-warrior-wounds.html |access-date=11 April 2022 |work=The New York Times Magazine |date=June 13, 2018}}

Marshall's contention low firing rates were a function of social conditioning against killing has been partially supported by historians like Omer Bartov, who suggests weakening these norms through deliberate brutalisation was one reason for the Wehrmacht's better combat performance in WWII compared to other armies. Bartov argues achieving this came from the long-standing German military doctrine of wide scale reprisals against civilians or those accused of supporting partisan operations and Nazi propaganda describing opponents as "sub-human".{{sfn|Bartov|2001|pp=89-90}}

However, he identified other elements in overcoming this reluctance, the strongest being loyalty to the group; paradoxically, the enormous casualties suffered by the Wehrmacht led to an increased focus on sections of 4–6 'comrades', which were far better at maintaining morale and fighting ability.{{sfn|Bartov|2001|pp=91-92}} It has been argued the incorporation of this small group doctrine into infantry training was the single most important factor for improving the ratio of fire metric in Korea and later Vietnam.{{sfn|Jordan|2002|pp=135-138}}

In his assessment of Marshall, military historian John Keegan wrote:{{Sfn|Keegan|1986|p=291}} {{blockquote|[Marshall's] ultimate purpose in writing was not merely to describe and analyse - excellent though his description and analysis is - but to persuade the American army it was fighting its wars the wrong way. [He was convinced] success in battle depended upon structuring the army correctly...In arguing his case for a new structure [he was] undoubtedly guilty of over-emphasis and special pleading. His arguments were consonantly effective so that he has the unusual experience, for an historian, of seeing his message not merely accepted in his lifetime but translated into practice}}

Meanwhile, military historian Roger Engen concluded the following: {{blockquote|[C]ompelling evidence shows that Marshall was factually incorrect in his assertions that only 15-20 percent of riflemen fired their weapons in the Second World War. Even if he was wholly correct, his interpretation of the meaning of this phenomenon does not stand up well to scrutiny. .. [T]o universalize Marshall’s findings beyond the specific subjects he studied is premature.{{sfn|Engen|2011|pp=47–48}} }}

• Blitzkrieg (1940)
• Armies on Wheels (1941)
• Bastogne: The Story of the First Eight Days... (1946)
• Men Against Fire: The Problem of Battle Command (1947)
• The Soldier's Load and The Mobility of a Nation (1950)
• The River and the Gauntlet (1951)
• Pork Chop Hill: The American Fighting Man in Action, Korea, Spring, 1953 (1956)
• Sinai Victory: Command Decisions in History's Shortest War, Israel's Hundred-Hour Conquest of Egypt East of Suez, Autumn, 1956 (1958)
• Night Drop: The American Airborne Invasion of Normandy (1962)
• Battle at Best (1963)
• World War I (1964)
• Battles of the Monsoon (1965)
• The Vietnam Primer (1967) (with David H. Hackworth)
• Swift Sword: The Historical Record of Israel's Victory, June 1967 (1967)
• Ambush (1968) (The battle of Dau Tieng)
• Bird; the Christmastide battle (1968)
• The fields of bamboo : Dong Tre, Trung Luong, and Hoa Hoi, three battles just beyond the South China Sea (1971)
• Crimsoned Prairie (1972)
• Bringing Up the Rear: A Memoir (1979) (posthumous autobiography)

{{notelist}}

{{Reflist}}

• {{cite web |last1=Bacevich |first1=AJ |title=Saving Face: Hackworth's Troubling Odyssey |url=https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a528395.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201008111058/https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a528395.pdf |url-status=live |archive-date=October 8, 2020 |website=U.S. Army War College |access-date=4 October 2020}}
• {{cite book |last1=Bartov |first1=Omer |title=The Eastern Front, 1941–1945: German Troops and the Barbarization of Warfare |date=2001 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |isbn=978-0333949443}}
• {{cite book|last1=Beevor |first1=Antony |title=D-Day: The Battle for Normandy |date=2009 |publisher=Viking Books |isbn=978-0670021192}}
• {{cite web|last=Burdett|first=Thomas F|title=Biography: Marshall, Samuel Lyman Atwood |date=2010 |website=Handbook of Texas Online |publisher=Texas State Historical Association|access-date=May 13, 2018 |url=https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fmagg }}
• {{cite book|title=Introduction to SLAM; the Influence of S.L.A. Marshall on the United States Army|first=Hugh |last=Cole |publisher=Office of the Command Historian, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command|year=1994|editor-last=Cannedy|editor-first=Susan}}
• {{cite journal|last1=Engen |first1=Robert |title=S.L.A. Marshall and the Ratio of Fire History, Interpretation, and the Canadian Experience |journal=Canadian Military History |date=2011 |volume=20 |issue=4|url=http://www.canadianmilitaryhistory.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/4-Engen-Marshall-under-fire.pdf}}
• {{cite journal|last1=Grossman |first1=Dave |title=S.L.A. Marshall Revisted? |journal=Canadian Military History |date=2004 |volume=9 |url=http://www.journal.forces.gc.ca/vo9/no4/18-grossman-eng.asp}}
• {{cite book|last1=Grossman|first1=Dave |editor-last=Chambers|editor-first1=Jonathan Whiteclay|title=Aggression and Violence in The Oxford Companion to American Military History|publisher=OUP |date=2000|isbn=978-0195071986}}
• {{cite book|title=About Face |first=David |last=Hackworth |authorlink=David Hackworth | publisher=Simon & Schuster|year=1989|isbn=0-671-52692-8}}
• {{cite book |last1=Hackworth |first1=David H. |last2=England |first2=Eilhys |date=2002 |title=Steel My Soldiers' Hearts |publisher=Simon & Schuster |isbn=978-0-7432-4613-2 |author-link=David Hackworth}}
• {{cite book |last1=Holmes |first1=Richard |title=Acts of War: The Behaviour of Men in Battle |date=2003 |publisher=Orion |isbn=978-0297846680}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Jones |first1=Edgar |title=The Psychology of Killing: The Combat Experience of British Soldiers during the First World War |journal=Journal of Contemporary History |date=2006 |volume=41 |issue=2|pages=229–246 |doi=10.1177/0022009406062055|s2cid=145518638 }}
• {{cite journal |last1=Jordan |first1=Kelly C |title=Right for the Wrong Reasons: S. L. A. Marshall and the Ratio of Fire in Korea |journal=Military History |date=2002 |volume=66 |issue=1 |pages=135–162 |doi=10.2307/2677347|jstor=2677347 }}
• {{cite book |last1=Keegan |first1=John |title=The Face Of Battle: A Study of Agincourt, Waterloo and the Somme|publisher=Dorset Press |date=1986|isbn=978-0880290838 |orig-date=1976}}
• {{cite book |last1=Marshall |first1=John Douglas |title=Reconciliation Road: A Family Odyssey of War and Honor |date=1993 |publisher=Syracuse University Press |isbn=978-0815602743}}
• {{cite book |last1=Marshall |first1=SLA |title=Men Against Fire: The Problem Of Battle Command In Future War |date=1947 |publisher=Literary Licensing |isbn=978-1258041182 |edition=2012}}
• {{cite book |last1=Marshall |first1=SLA |title=Blitzkrieg: Its History, Strategy, Economics and the Challenge to America |date=1940 |publisher=Morrow}}
• {{cite book |last1=Marshall |first1=SLA |title=Commentary on Infantry and Weapons in Korea 1950–51|date=1951 |publisher=Operations Research Office (ORO), U.S. Army}}
• {{cite book|last1=Millinder|first1=Lindy |title=A Year and a Day; History of "A" Company, 315th Engineers |date=1921 |publisher=90th Division Association |url=http://www.90thdivisionassoc.org/History/UnitHistories/PDF/WW1/315%20Eng%20A%20Co.pdf}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Smoler |first1=Frederic |title=The Secret Of The Soldiers Who Didn't Shoot|journal=American Heritage Magazine|date=1989 |volume=40 |issue=2 |url=https://www.americanheritage.com/secret-soldiers-who-didnt-shoot#6}}
• {{cite journal|last1=Spiller |first1=Roger |title=SLA Marshall and the Ratio of Fire |journal=RUSI Journal |date=1988 |volume=133 |issue=4 |pages=63–71 |doi=10.1080/03071848808445332}}
• {{cite book |last1=Williams |first1=Frederick Deane Goodwin |title=SLAM, the Influence of S.L.A. Marshall on the United States Army |date=1990 |publisher=Office of the Command Historian United States Army Training and Doctrine Command |isbn=978-1508436553|edition=2015}}
• {{cite book|last=United States War Department|title=Battle Participation of Organizations of the American Expeditionary Forces|year=1920|publisher=Government Printing Office|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7LYsAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA37}}

{{Wikiquote}}

• {{Internet Archive short film|id=WarsEnd|name=The Big Picture: Wars End (1955)}}
• {{Internet Archive short film|id=gov.dod.dimoc.30120|name=WAR'S END (1959)}}
• [http://cdm16635.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/search/searchterm/s.l.a.marshall%20photograph/order/nosort S. L. A. Marshall Photograph Collection] at US Army Heritage and Education Center
• {{Find a Grave|9685}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Marshall, S. L. A.}}

Category:1900 births

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Category:20th-century American historians

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Category:Historians of the Korean War

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Category:Recipients of the Legion of Merit

Category:American recipients of the Croix de Guerre 1939–1945 (France)

Category:People from Catskill, New York

Category:Historians from New York (state)