Tag Archives: military

03.19.24
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ATTEN-hut!

Readers of historical fiction or nonfiction are not always familiar with military life and customs. 

A cavalry battle scene by Philips Wouwerman. Public Domain.

So here is a short primer. If you already know this stuff, check back next Tuesday, when we’ll be up to something completely different.

If you are still here, fasten your seat belt.

Military Organizations

An army—American or foreign, present or past—breaks down into smaller units. Speaking in a general way, these are:

Squad: Four to twelve soldiers.

Platoon: Thirty to forty.

Company: A hundred or more, usually.

Regiment: Roughly a thousand.

Brigade: Two to five thousand.

Division: Ten to forty-five thousand.

Corps: Twenty to eighty thousand.

(Note: The plural of corps is corps, and the -ps is silent in both cases, so it’s pronounced core. Also, the word “corps” sometimes denotes not the large unit between a division and an army, but rather the whole group of people dedicated to a certain function, as in the Marine Corps, the Signal Corps, or the Medical Corps. The only way to avoid confusion is to consider the context.)

Army: Fifty thousand up to half a million men.

The Army—that is, a nation’s whole army: May comprise several smaller armies, operating in different regions.

The actual numbers vary a lot, depending on nation, historical period, organizational doctrines, recruiting and retention success, and attrition during war operations.

Grant’s Army of the Tennessee numbered 48,000 at the Battle of Shiloh, April 1862. And it was only one part of the whole Union Army. Illustration by Thure de Thulstrup  (1848–1930). Public Domain.

Each unit contains a few of the next smaller-sized unit. Thus, a company may be four platoons plus a handful of command and staff personnel; a regiment may be ten companies plus command and staff. In some armies, at some times, there have also been battalions of several companies within a regiment—but that’s a pettifogging detail. Also, in the American Civil War Confederate regiments were about half the size of Union regiments—in other words five hundred troops rather than a thousand. 

The point, for purposes of reading fiction: Squads and platoons engage in small firefights. It takes regiments, brigades, and divisions to fight a large battle. And if you have officers discussing the movements and operations of whole corps and armies, they are probably in a major command headquarters or a national capitol, pushing markers around on a map or sand table, far removed from actual fighting. 

Pulling Rank

Rank indicates both authority and status within the military. Rank is a complex topic, partly because there are two separate, overlapping, simultaneously operating systems of rank.

A simple way to put it is that the large body of enlisted men is commanded by commissioned officers but overseen, guided, and led by noncommissioned officers who are themselves drawn from the body of enlisted soldiers.

Commissioned officers and their insignia of rank, from bottom up, are:

Second Lieutenant (gold bar)

First Lieutenant (silver bar)

Captain (two silver bars)

Major (gold oak leaf)

Lieutenant Colonel (silver oak leaf)

Colonel (silver eagle)

Brigadier General (one silver star)

Major General (two stars)

Lieutenant General (three stars)

General (four stars)

General of the Army (five stars)

Oy vay! What a mess. 

Perhaps you noticed that three different levels of rank are designated “lieutenant.” But they are not the same. A lieutenant is the lowest form of life among commissioned officers, but a lieutenant general is one of the lords of the army. A lieutenant colonel in somewhere in between. 

If you must simplify the title of a lieutenant colonel, call him “colonel” rather than “lieutenant.” The same goes double for a lieutenant general.

Two different ranks have “major” in their titles. 

You may address any of the general officers as “general,” but don’t call any of them “lieutenant” or “major.” You will be demoting them, at least in speech. They will not appreciate it.

A major outranks a lieutenant; but a major general is beneath a lieutenant general. 

That’s the army for you.

The main thing is that higher ranks command larger units than lower ranks. A lieutenant might command a platoon; a colonel might command a regiment; a major general might command a division, and so forth. Over the history of warfare, there have been many exceptions to these rules of thumb, but higher rank normally denotes greater power. 

So if you read a work in which a general commands only a company of troops, all I can say is there has been terrible attrition in his ranks. On the other hand, if a captain commands a division, all the higher-ranking officers must have endured mass slaughter. Such extreme disjunctions of rank and authority seldom if ever occur.

So, Who Runs the Army?

That’s easy: The noncoms run the army. Everybody knows it and all acknowledge it. 

Noncommissioned officers are drawn from the privates and work their way up. The lowest level noncom is called a corporal; he may lead a squad. The next level up is called a sergeant—pronounced SAR-jent. The rest of the noncoms are all sergeants, but there are many levels of them. The way you can tell them apart is by the number of chevrons and “rockers” on their sleeves.

Specific nomenclature varies with time and place, but here are the noncommissioned ranks in today’s U.S. Army:

 Chevrons, rockers, and star denoting a sergeant major.

Corporal

Sergeant

Staff Sergeant

Sergeant First Class

Master Sergeant/First Sergeant

Sergeant Major

Command Sergeant Major

A Master Sergeant and First Sergeant in today’s army are the same thing, only with somewhat different job responsibilities. There is a rank called “Command Sergeant Major of the Army,” but it is simply a special case of the Command Sergeant Major, whose job is to be the senior enlisted advisor for a particular (large) unit. 

As with commissioned officers, noncommissioned officers of higher rank have wider responsibilities. A corporal or sergeant may lead a squad—too small a unit to have a commissioned officer in command. At the platoon level, a commissioned officer, a lieutenant, is the commander; but there is also a sergeant, or a staff sergeant, who is the “platoon sergeant.” He advises the platoon commander on decisions to be made, and once those decisions are made, he delegates particular squads, teams, or soldiers to carry them out. Platoon sergeants do a lot of coaching, helping soldiers perform their tasks as ordered. 

In lower-level units—platoons and companies—the unit NCO usually has more experience and practical knowledge than the relatively junior officer in command. Therefore, young lieutenants are advised to be guided, even in combat decisions, by their sergeants. 

In larger units such as brigades and divisions, the commanders do not rely so much on their command sergeants major for advice, but they do lean on them heavily to anticipate, prevent, or iron out problems of discipline, morale, or training among the enlisted troops.

Thus, command of units is generally a cooperative venture of commissioned and noncommissioned leaders. In European armies well into the twentieth century most of the officers were members of the titled aristocracy: dukes, earls, viscounts, barons, and knights. The private soldiers were drawn from the serfs on the aristocrats’ estates, and the more capable and aggressive among them were appointed as corporals and sergeants. Today, in most armies, the class distinction is more along educational lines. Commissioned officers come into the army with college degrees.

The arrangements sketched above for the army generally hold true for the marine corps and the air force as well. The units may be described differently, but the names of the ranks are similar to those of the army. In the U.S. Air Force today, privates and corporals are known as airmen. But they are ruled by lieutenants, captains, majors, colonels, and generals—whose orders are mediated by various kinds of sergeants—just as in the Army.

What About the Squids?

The Navy is a whole different thing. They have their own way of talking.

The principal fighting unit around navies are organized is the ship. The number of sailors depends on the size of the ship. An aircraft carrier is like a brigade or division in the army. A whole fleet of ships may equate to an army corps. A destroyer or other small ship may be something like a company or regiment.

Most naval terminology is unique. Floors are decks, walls are bulkheads, stairs are companionways, and so forth. Likewise, naval ranks are denominated by mostly different terms.

Ensign

Lieutenant Junior Grade

Lieutenant

Lieutenant Commander

Commander

Captain

Rear Admiral Lower Half

Rear Admiral Upper Half

Vice Admiral

Admiral 

Fleet Admiral

The insignia for these ranks are the same as those for the same-level rank in the army—gold or silver bars, oak leaves, eagles, or stars—but the navy also has sleeve insignia that denote the ranks by gold rings around the cuff.

Even where the navy uses the same words as the army, they mean different things. A lieutenant in the U.S. Navy is equal in rank to a captain in the Army; a captain in the Navy is equal to a colonel in the Army.

Noncoms in the Navy are not sergeants but petty officers.

Petty Officer Third Class

Petty Officer Second Class

Petty Officer First Class

Chief Petty Officer

Senior Chief Petty Officer

Master Chief Petty Officer

Fleet/Command Master Chief Petty Officer

Odds and Ends

I have outlined only the generality of military organization and command hierarchy. In reading, you will encounter numerous exceptions in different countries and historical periods. 

The U.S. Naval officer today known as a Rear Admiral Lower Half was once called Commodore. 

At the beginning of the U.S. Civil War, the highest-ranking naval officers were called flag officers, the designation changed back to admiral partway through the war.

In the British Army, what we call lieutenants are known as subalterns. It’s worth noting that, when the British do call their lieutenants lieutenants, they pronounce it LEF-tenant, unlike us colonials, who pronounce it LOO-tenant.

And the British equivalent of a U.S. five-star general (General of the Army) is called a field marshal.

George C. Marshall, the first five-star general. Public Domain.

When the United States instituted the five-star rank, partway through the Second World War, one thought was to follow the Brits’ practice and call it field marshall. But our chief general was George C. Marshall, and it was thought that “Field Marshal Marshall” would just sound silly. So they made it General of the Army. Only five men, to date, have worn that rank:

George C. Marshall

Douglas Macarthur

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Henry H. Arnold

Omar Bradley

All were World War II leaders of world stature.

Fleet Admiral William Halsey Jr. in 1945. Public Domain.

Five-star fleet admirals in the Navy, created about the same time, were:

William Halsey Jr.

William D. Leahy

Ernest King

Chester W. Nimitz

No U.S. officers of any service branch have been appointed to that rank since. 

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Enough soldier and sailor talk for now. Check in next week for something equally riveting.

Blessings,

Larry F. Sommers

Your New Favorite Writer

11.12.19
by

Memoirs of Millie Marie Gunsten Sommers, Part I

This is a guest post by Millie Sommers (1889-1971), my grandmother. In 1969, at my request, she wrote a memoir of her life, mostly telling about her early days, around 1900. She wrote 13 pages, in clear, crisp longhand. I have broken it into three parts for easy reading. It is verbatim, straight from her pen, except for a few additions of my own, in [square brackets].

Grandma’s Narrative:

I was born Aug. 8 – 1889, at Greenview, Menard Co. Illinois. I was the oldest of 10 children. My father & mother were running a resturant [sic] in Greenview. But when I was about a month old, we moved to a small farm, about 10 or 12 miles from there.

Millie, age 5, and her sister Mabel, 3.

My father’s name was John Oliver Gunsten, and his folks were Norwegian, altho he was born in this country. My mother’s name was Sarah Elizabeth Foster. My father did not farm, but was a carpenter as were quite a few cousins of two other Gunsten families who lived near by.

They all worked together, with my father as Boss Contractor. He never had but little education, but was an excellent carpenter, and drew all his plans and then had them blueprinted. He also made a lot of our furniture, such as dressers, desks etc.

Several years later we moved to Lincoln, Logan Co. Illinois. There was a Feeble-minded Institution there, and they always kept several carpenters for repair jobs & other work that needed to be done. So my father was Boss Carpenter there.

School Days

I also had my first two years of school in Lincoln. Then we moved to Middletown, also in Logan Co, and about 25 miles from Springfield.

Later quite a few of my fathers relatives moved there, as did a few other Norwegian families.

My mother’s folks still lived in Greenview, about 10 miles away, but quite a trip in horse & buggy.

I finished my schooling in Middletown, which had 8 grades, and 2 yrs. High School, as most small towns had.

This was all one 2-room building – one downstairs and one upstairs, with two teachers.

I even taught several times in the lower room, when the teacher was sick or had to be away.

I was large for age and also rather quick to learn, so I suppose that was the reason I was chosen.

In those days only the “well-to-do” tho’t of going away to High School or College.

Small Town Life

After finishing school, we moved to Lowpoint, Ill. a very small town in Woodford Co. But it was a very important town, and was practically owned by three brothers. They had a large general store, lumber yard, elevator, coal, etc.

Millie, age 18.

They always kept a Carpenter for their house building etc. thru out the country, so that was my Dad. The telephone exchange was in the middle of the General store, and there were wires extending from there to different parts of the store for the cash boxes. So I was the telephone and cashier there.

There was a blacksmith, but he was independent, and let everybody know it.

Several years later we moved to Springfield. My mother’s sister lived there, and later most of the rest of her family moved there. 

The older ones lived there until their deaths. I still have one sister living there. My mother’s father lived to rather a good age, and her mother [Martha Elizabeth Smith Foster] lived to be 100. She was in good health always and able to get around rather well altho her hearing was not too good. She was knitting a suit for one of her grown up grand-daughters, and finished it soon after.

But she seemed to give up at 100 years, and 6 mos. later she died.

Marriage and Family

William P. Sommers, around age 30.

I worked as telephone operator in Springfield for awhile, then later did office work, until I was married on May 29, 1912 to Wm P. Sommers of Metamora, Illinos. He and his father [Peter Anton Sommers] owned and operated the Telephone Exchange in Metamora, as in those days most of Telephone Exchanges were privately owned.

My husband was a Telegraph Operator, and railroaded since quite young (14 yrs.) Those days they worked as apprentices ˆ(and general roustabout) in a station until they learned Telegraphy and then they were on their own.

One of Grandpa’s telegraph keys, an unusual Foote, Pierson & Co. “Twentieth Century” key from the early 1900s, popularly known as a “Pump Handle Key.” Larry F. Sommers photo.

We lived in Metamora 23 yrs. Our 5 children (4 boys & 1 girl) were born there. My husband was station agent there for awhile, then he went to work for Sinclair [Oil Corporation]. At that time they dispatched their oil [on their oil pipeline] by telegraph, and had pumping stations every 40 miles (I believe). He had to work as relief Opr. at different places at vacation time until a permanent place was open. Finally we moved to Dahinda, Knox Co., Ills. We lived there 8 yrs. but as the children had to drive 10 miles to High School, we moved into Knoxville where we still live (or at least I do.) My husband died Jan. 1957. He had retired from Sinclair after 16 yrs. The children all live away now.

Our children all graduated from Knoxville High School. The oldest Edward went to University of Washington 2 yrs. Then enlisted in the Naval Cadet Program, which was being pushed at that time on account of W.W. 2 looming up. After 4 yrs in Navy, he went with Pan American Airway where has been [sic] ever since. 

He married Mary Nelson of Knoxville, and have three children and 3 grandchildren.

Next oldest is Mabel, who married Robert Hiler of Knoxville, who is mechanic for United Airlines in California. They have one son.

The third was Stanley, who went to Knox College 2 yrs. & then enlisted as Aviation Cadet. He became a Pilot and 2ndLt. He married Mary Parkins of Galesburg just before going overseas.  

He was killed in So Pacific. Dec-1st 1942.

The youngest Franklin was also a pilot and 2nd Lt. He was killed in France at age 20 years. Sept 2 – 1943.

The next to youngest was Lloyd went into the Army, just after High School.

He spent 3½ yrs. in So Pacific and came home in fairly good shape. He then went to Knox College for 4 yrs, and taught H. School for 3 yrs. [Mistaken: Actually 2 years.]

He is now Chemist for Johns-Manville in Waukegan, Ills. He married Barbara La Follette of Knoxville, and they have two children. Cynda, the youngest is in first yr. college.

Larry who is overseas with Army Air Corp [actually, U.S. Air Force], works as interpeter [sic] of Communist broadcasts, for one thing.

Millie Sommers, 1950s

He went to a Chinese language school & studied the Chinese language. Since being in Okinawa part of the time, he has studied Japanese language. He is the one who gave me the idea of writing these memoirs. He wanted me to write of some of the things we did differently in the days when I was young, and what we did for fun. So I will try and think of some things that might be interesting.

Next Week: Fin-de-Siècle Pastimes

Blessings,

Larry F. Sommers, Your New Favorite Author