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Revisiting the Alamo
Exodus from the Alamo: The Anatomy of the Last Stand Myth. Phillip
Thomas Tucker. Casemate Publishers.
432 pages; map; black-and-white photographs and illustrations; index; $32.95.
By COL Cole C. Kingseed
U.S. Army retired
N
o event in American history has
been surrounded by more myths
than the fall of the Alamo on March 6,
1836. In Exodus from the Alamo, author
Phillip Thomas Tucker contributes yet
another provocative interpretation of
the never-ending controversy that set
the stage for the birth of the Lone Star
Republic. Tucker ’s work challenges
the most sacred of all Alamo myths,
the famed last stand of a small band
of Texans against thousands of Mexican soldiers.
Primarily a Civil War historian who
specializes in regimental history, Tucker has written Burnside’s Bridge, The
1862 Plot to Kidnap Jefferson Davis (ed.)
and The Final Fury: Palmito Ranch, The
Last Battle of the Civil War. Subtitled The
Anatomy of the Last Stand Myth, Exodus
from the Alamo challenges virtually
every aspect of one of the most iconic
episodes in the history of Texas. Rather
than fighting to the last man, Tucker
contends that the majority of the Alamo’s defenders “unhesitatingly chose
life when they attempted to save themselves by escaping a certain death trap
in the cold, late winter darkness.”
In no uncertain terms, Tucker opines
that the traditional heart of the Alamo
story is false, based on fantasy rather
than historical fact. Using a plethora of
Mexican primary sources, including
wartime diaries, official military records and vintage newspaper reports,
Tucker claims that the defense of the
Alamo was hardly the “well-organized,
tenacious defense” frequently cited in
American history books. Indeed, Tucker
views the battle as a “surprisingly brief
clash of arms” by a totally unprepared
garrison “caught in its sleep by a well-
conceived night attack” that took the
defenders by complete surprise.
In presenting this controversial interpretation, Tucker hopes to present a
“more honest and realistic version of
the events of March 6, 1836, than has
ever been presented before.” In his
view, the battle was a largely self-induced fiasco attributed to shockingly
faulty leadership by Alamo commander William Barret Travis and Texas
Army GEN Sam Houston, who abandoned the garrison to their fate by refusing to march to their relief.
Why the “distortion” in many of
our history books? Tucker states that
most authors deliberately ignored
Mexican accounts of the battle due to
national chauvinism and a strong
xenophobic feeling toward the United
States’ southern neighbor. A mythical
Alamo “justified a sense of moral supremacy and righteous entitlement to
Texas at the expense of the Indian, Tejano and Mexican people.” Rather
than credit a sound attack by Mexican
GEN Antonio López de Santa Anna,
Texans created the heroic last stand at
least in part because “a moral triumph was necessary to maintain a
posture of [Anglo-Celtic] cultural and
racial superiority” over a “mixed-race
people of the Catholic faith.” Here
Tucker ’s argument is more suspect
than his analysis of the battle itself.
One of Tucker’s “revelations” is
that most Texans died outside the
Alamo walls, cut down by Mexican
lancers positioned to ensure that none
of the defenders escaped. As evidence,
Tucker notes that two main funeral
pyres that Santa Anna constructed following the battle were external to the
Alamo compound. Contrary to Tucker’s claim that this is a novel interpretation, renowned historian William C.
Davis reached the same conclusion in
his seminal work Three Roads to the
Alamo: The Lives and Fortunes of David
Crockett, James Bowie, and William Barret Travis published a decade earlier.
Where Tucker does offer a fresh interpretation lies in his assessment of
Mexican casualties. Tucker concludes
that the majority of Mexican casualties
resulted from fratricide. Unlike Alamo
historians, including T.R. Fehrenbach
(Lone Star: A History of Texas and the Texans), Jeff Long (Duel of Eagles) and Walter Lord (A Time to Stand), Tucker accepts the casualty figures of COL Juan
Almonte of Santa Anna’s staff, who
recorded the Mexican casualties as 288,
including 65 dead and 223 wounded.
If half of these losses were the result
of fratricide, the Texan defenders accounted for less than 150 casualties,
maybe only 100. These figures are
surely low, considering that Tucker
claims that the Alamo defenders numbered not the traditional 182 men, but
quite possibly 253 men.
Given his penchant for debunking
the Alamo’s many myths, Tucker does
posit a new interpretation of Davy
Crockett’s demise. After examining all
the evidence, Tucker concludes that
Crockett may have stayed inside the
Alamo compound and refused to join
the 62 defenders who attempted to escape the predawn attack. Nor was
Crockett among the five defenders
who surrendered and sought mercy
before Santa Anna directed their execution. Tucker admits his evidence is
strictly circumstantial, but he contends
June 2010 ■ ARMY 81
that it is possible that Crockett died a
death “even more heroic” than normally attributed in that he stayed inside the compound to buy time for
those members of the garrison attempting to escape.
What really happened that March
morning in 1836 may never be known.
Myths play a significant part in any
Varied Fare
Whirlwind: The Air War Against
Japan, 1942–45. Barrett Tillman. Simon
& Schuster. 336 pages; maps; black-andwhite photographs; index; $28.
In April 1942, LTC James H. Doolittle piloted his twin-engine B-25 over
Japan, leading 15 other bombers in the
first American air attack on the Japanese home islands in World War II.
Though “the Doolittle Raid amounted
to little more than a pinprick” in terms
of actual damage, “its psychological effect was profound on both sides of the
Pacific,” writes Barrett Tillman in his
AUSA’s
2010
nation’s history.
Still, it is refreshing for historians to
challenge the conventions of history,
even if their interpretations only contribute to the existing controversy.
COL Cole C. Kingseed, USA Ret., Ph.D., a
former professor of history at the U.S. Military Academy, is a writer and consultant.
colorful retrospective of the joint warfare carried out in the skies over Japan.
American planes wouldn’t attack
the home islands again until 1944, but
the Doolittle raid foreshadowed the
air war to come. “During the last year
of the war in the Pacific, the U.S.
Army Air Forces, Navy and Marine
Corps, and British Royal Navy conducted a relentless air assault against
the Japanese home islands,” led by
Army Air Forces chief GEN Henry H.
(Hap) Arnold and Chief of Naval Operations ADM Ernest J. King. For airmen, fighting in the Pacific Theater
“was especially daunting, requiring
the routine reliability of a commercial
airline for lengthy combat missions,
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ANNUAL MEETING
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October 25-27, 2010
Washington, D.C.
82 ARMY ■ June 2010
Starting July 1,
you can go to www.ausa.org and
register online. It’s easy and quick!
Click on the Annual Meeting link
Fill out registration form
Click “Submit”
Print your confirmation
Bring it with your government-issued photo ID
to the Registration Desk to pick up your badge
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Association of the United States Army
new operating procedures, and unerring navigation on flights spanning
hundreds of miles over open water.”
The Pacific Theater also required
many new bases and new equipment.
The need for a “very heavy bomber”
led to the invention of the B-29 Superfortress, a plane designed to fly twice as
far as the B-17 and with a greater payload. After his spectacular service in
Europe and the China-Burma-India
Theater, fast-rising MG Curtis E. LeMay took over the entire B-29 program
under the umbrella of XXI Bomber
Command in January 1945, replacing
BG Haywood S. Hansell Jr.
The Army Air Forces didn’t go it
alone. Though carrier aircraft were
more vulnerable than Army planes,
Navy aviation was integral to the war.
Tillman argues that “the United States
could not have successfully prosecuted the war without” the Essex class
carriers. The Marine Corps played an
important role as well, presenting
“the Army Air Forces with a precious
gift”—Iwo Jima, the site of an airbase
midway between Guam and Tokyo.
The turning point in the air war
came on March 9, 1945, when American B-29s firebombed Tokyo, leading to
some 84,000 killed and 40,000 injured.
More than a quarter-million buildings
were destroyed. On the American side,
“about 90 fliers died that night, and at
least six more later perished in captivity.” The bombing devastated Japan’s
industry and diminished its people’s
will to continue the war. While Japan’s
factories were “increasingly blasted
into rubble or starved of essential materials, America’s remained unmolested
Vulcan’s forges, churning out ever
greater numbers of aircraft.” Damaging
as the Tokyo firestorm was, the Japanese didn’t surrender until after U.S. aviators dropped atomic bombs Little Boy
and Fat Man in August.
“Airpower forced the capitulation
of a desperate, tenacious enemy,” Tillman asserts, thus making unnecessary the planned invasion of Japan,
which would have resulted in prolonged bloodshed and many thousands of deaths. The success of the B29 program, though costly, proved
airpower’s effect upon the enemy’s
ability to wage war and set the stage for
the creation of the Air Force in 1947,
which LeMay later commanded. Whirlwind presents a multifaceted view of
this groundbreaking period in the history of modern warfare.
—Sara Hov
In the Footsteps of the Band of
Brothers: A Return to Easy Company’s Battlefields with Sergeant
Forrest Guth. Larry Alexander. New
American Library. 336 pages; blackand-white photographs; index; $24.95.
In this interesting memoir-cumtravelogue, Larry Alexander, the author of Biggest Brother and Shadows in
the Jungle, retraces the steps of Company E, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute
Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division (the Screaming Eagles)—the
famed “Easy Company” of Stephen
Ambrose’s Band of Brothers—accompanied by original Easy Company veteran Forrest Guth. Their travels took
place over the course of two weeks in
late fall 2008, more than 60 years after
the World War II battles in which the
Band of Brothers earned their reputation for courage and tenacity.
After a trip to Toccoa, Ga., where the
original Easy Company soldiers trained
in the shadow of Currahee Mountain to
become paratroopers—and where, under the harsh training regimen devised
by 1LT Herbert Sobel, they formed the
close bonds of camaraderie that led to
their nickname—Alexander and Guth
head to Aldbourne, England. It was
here that the Band of Brothers awaited
action in France, which finally came
when they were dropped 5 miles inland
from Utah Beach on D-Day with orders
“to seize and hold the causeways leading inland from the beach.” The two
men follow, visiting Marmion Farm in
Normandy, which was held by Germans before Easy Company overtook it
on D-Day, and Brecourt Manor, tracing
the company’s path to Carentan.
The next stop is Holland, where
Easy Company served in Operation
Market Garden, at one point charging
and defeating a superior number of
troops. After the Netherlands, Easy
Company fought in the siege of Bastogne, Belgium; Guth and Alexander
84 ARMY ■ June 2010
return there, visiting the soldiers’ foxholes in the Bois Jacques and their attack field into Foy. Along the way, Band
of Brothers fans and other grateful people greet the travelers at nearly every
stop to extend their thanks and admiration of Guth. It seems that Easy
Company’s sacrifices are not forgotten.
Though this territory is well covered, In the Footsteps chronicles a
unique experience, weaving the story
of the two men’s 2008 journey with
the memories of those who fought
their way through Western Europe in
the final years of the war. Making this
journey with Guth, who died in 2009
within a year of their return, “was not
only a once-in-a-lifetime chance to
visit these battlefields with a man
who was actually there, hearing his
remembrances and sharing his emotions,” Alexander writes, “it was also
an opportunity to see the effect, or
legacy, if you will, of what Forrest and
his comrades put their lives on the
line for, on the people living in the
path of the war.”
—Sara Hov