Williamson Murray Quotes

It costs nothing to learn from other people’s experience.

intermixed with an exceedingly high level of competence on the tactical and operational side was a complete inability to see a relationship between means and ends on the level of grand strategy.

However, as American scholar Williamson Murray had written, “One of the foremost attributes of military effectiveness must lie in the ability to recognize and adapt to the actual conditions of combat, as well as to the new challenges that war inevitably throws up.” It was probably one of her favorite quotes. She often pondered this idea.

The evidence points, first of all, to the importance of developing visions of the future.

For the German fighter pilot, there was no magic number of sorties or hours, the completion of which guaranteed a return home. He was already home, and in the skies over the Reich he faced an opponent who enjoyed overwhelming superiority. If he survived the first missions and his skills reached those of his opponents, he would fly until fatigue and strain led to a mistake that was more often than not fatal.

In the east in the summer of 1942, the Germans embarked on a strategy to break the back of the Soviet Union by conquering the Caucasus and large portions of southern Russia. The resources available for such wide-ranging aims were completely inadequate.

There were no decisive moments or clear-cut victories. Rather, the American pressure put the German fighters in a meat grinder battle of attrition both in terms of pilots and of matériel. It was the cumulative effect of that intense pressure that in the final analysis enabled the Western Powers to gain air superiority over Europe; that achievement must be counted among the decisive victories of World War II.

In practice, often 12 political officers, 100 British soldiers, and 800 paramilitary personnel controlled 10 million people, with the nearest regular force lying 1,000 miles away. From 1924 to 1937, 10,000 regular personnel and 200 aircraft controlled half the Middle East; 8,000 colonial troops governed British Africa; and only 45,000 European soldiers garrisoned India. Never