Toughest battle in American History

[IF_Common_29]

Just name battles that you think were the toughest.

 

[JG 4 President]

the first would probably be the first drop of us marines on lz x ray of the 7th cavalry during the Vietnam war. pretty much the movie "we were soldiers"

 

[manu1959]

antietem....

 

[PoliticalChic]

Just name battles that you think were the toughest.

Feb 16, 1804: U.S. Navy Lt. (future commodore) Stephen Decatur sails a captured Tripolitan ketch he renames USS Intrepid into the harbor at Tripoli. There, Decatur and a volunteer force of sailors and Marines board the frigate USS Philadelphia (the second of six so-named American warships), which had been previously captured by Tripolitan pirates. After a brief but violent close-quarters struggle -- in which several pirates but no Americans are killed -- Decatur orders the Philadelphia burned.

In time, Decatur will be referred to as “America’s Lord Nelson,” an affectionate comparison to Britain’s legendary Admiral Horatio Nelson. In fact, when Nelson himself learns of Decatur’s action at Tripoli, he says it is “the most bold and daring act of the age.” And contemporary British historian John Keegan will describe Decatur as “the most dashing of the frigate captains whom the Corsair and 1812 Wars produced.”
Military Milestones from America’s Lord Nelson to an Earth-Orbiting Marine - HUMAN EVENTS

 

[dilloduck]

Okinawa

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Every battle the marines participated in in World War II.

They were landed on an enemy beach and basically cut off till they beat the Japanese back enough to open the Beach.

At Tarawa an entire Regiment waded across a wide open clear lagoon for 1800 yards to reinforce the beach. All the time under murderous fire from dug in Japanese defenders.

At Iwo Jima the beach was shut down just hours after the first couple waves landed and remained closed for almost 3 days. It was so littered with destroyed and wrecked armor and landing craft they had to bring in the engineers to clear our own destroyed equipment so the beach could reopen.

From what I understand Omaha? Beach was pretty much like that as well, the Army was pinned down and unable to move until A General gathered some troops and launched an attack against a dug in well defended German corridor to open the beach.

And lets not forget the Airborne. Dropped behind enemy lines and at D-Day so scattered as to be crippled if they were not Airborne. They gathered themselves together where ever they met and the senior officer present lead the motley crew to what ever objective was closest.

At the Battle of Bladdenburo the Navy and Marines earned the respect of the British force intent on burning Washington DC. Outnumbered and abandoned by the militia they fought a retreating action.

Marine Corps lore is that the reason the Marine barracks at DC was one of only a few buildings not burned was because of that battle.

Bella Wood France. The first action by Americans in WW1. The Germans were thrusting for Paris and no one seemed up to the task to stop them. At Bella Wood the Marines met and drove back the Germans. Takeing horrendous losses in the process. The regiment was so depleted by the fighting an Army unit took over and held the positions the Marines had won. 30 days later the Marines were back and where no one had advanced for 30 days, the Marines once again advanced and drove the Germans back.

Then there are Merrill's Marauders. Again WW2. Read up on THEM some day.

 

[Xenophon]

Lot of tough ones.

Chosun resovior for the Marine Corps in Korea.

San pietro in Italy during WWII for the Army.

Midway in WWII for the Navy.

Ploesti in WWII for the Air Force.

Just to name a few.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Most people are not aware the US High Command wrote of the 1st Marine Division at Chosin. They were surrounded by 7 to 12 Chinese divisions and if they had not basically disobeyed The Army order to split their Regiments 2 days before the battle they probably would have been over run.

Those 2 Regiments fought their way back to Chesty Puller's Regiment carrying out their dead and wounded and bringing out all their equipment or destroying it in place.

A single Company, Fox, held the pass they had to go through to do it , for 3 days against everything the Chinese threw at them. I believe when they were relieved only 8 men were unwounded. The Marines also brought out a lot of Army personnel that had managed to retreat to Marine Positions.

British Marines also fought with the Marines.

The retreat path was down a single dirt road all the way to the port.

Chesty Puller told his men, when they were surrounded and out numbered that he finally had the enemy where he wanted them, he could shoot in any direction to kill them.

An Army commander ask Puller what the line of retreat was from the Airfield they held awaiting the other 2 Regiments. Chesty Puller got on the second phone so the Army Commander could hear him, called his Artillery, gave them the Coordinates of the Army position and ordered them to open fire if they saw any retreat occurring. He then ask the Army Commander if he understood what hold at all costs meant.

 

[IF_Common_29]

One of my favorite battles throughtout American history is the battle at Point Du Hoc. Idk if you could consider it one of the toughest battles, but it played a very key role in the succession in the D-Day invasion.

Army personel had to scale a 100 foot rock wall, and locate...i think it was 6 French artillery weapons that could reach the landing zones on omaha and utah beaches.

In my mind this was a pivitol point in the invasion

 

[JG 4 President]

To much call of duty 2 for you Common

 

[mightypeon]

What exactly do you mean with toughest? An incredibly tough battle would be one were the odds are stacked against you, which usually happens if you are attacked (and people tend to attack you precisly when they outnumber you) since attacking America is a bit uhhmm difficult for any nation without a huge navy, the US will have less 300 like battles than other nations like Russia or Germany.

On the western front in WW2, the US usually had aireal and numeric superiority over German opponents, i am therefor inclined to believe that the "thougher" battles were against the Japanese who were more likely to outnumber their foes.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

What exactly do you mean with toughest? An incredibly tough battle would be one were the odds are stacked against you, which usually happens if you are attacked (and people tend to attack you precisly when they outnumber you) since attacking America is a bit uhhmm difficult for any nation without a huge navy, the US will have less 300 like battles than other nations like Russia or Germany.

On the western front in WW2, the US usually had aireal and numeric superiority over German opponents, i am therefor inclined to believe that the "thougher" battles were against the Japanese who were more likely to outnumber their foes.

Actually we had air, sea and numerical advantage in all the Pacific battles as well.

However we had to drop a small force on the beach to clear it for the larger force to support them. Those first couple days or hours depending on the size of the battle saw a real chance for the Japanese to cut off and destroy the landing force.

The same was true at D-Day in Europe. And of course there was Bastogne and the whole Ardennes German offensive that weather negated for a week Air power.

In the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 we fought Britain which was far superior to us and won. In the Civil War the South was out numbered the entire 4 years. And the North had horrible military leaders.

In World War one, when we arrived in France we arrived just in time for the Last major German offensive reinforced by a million troops from the Russian Front.

I would hardily call all the battles one sided. Or easy or lacking in intensity or lacking in being tough.

 

[editec]

The continuous bombing raids over Germany during WWII probably.

Overall the Army air corps lost over 10% (79 K out of 718K) of its total personnel.
source

I've hear however, that some of the bomber wings lost as many as HALF their personal during that period!



Statisitically, the unsafest branch of the (sort of ) service to enter during WWII was actually the merchant marines.

They lost 3.9% (overall) of all the men who served during that conflict. source. that's a much higher rate than any of the combat branches during WWII.

Of course the question can be asked if the air war and supply wars were really battles.

According to this source the deadliest single battle ever fought by US forces was Battle of Meuse-Argonne World War I, where 26,277 were lost.

I guess the only real way to determine this question is to know how many combatants fought in any particular battle versus how many were killed or wounded.