Grognards. PH. Midway. Phillipines

[bradfordkay]

"Well at the beginning of WWII this Samurai mindset led them to victory after victory. In the age of machine guns. "

No, being a nation prepared for war when their opponents were entirely unprepared is what led them to victory after victory, IMO. The Samurai mindset may have given the Japanese some advantage in local situations, but I do not believe that it was the reason for their string of victories.

[LoBaron]

You are right. Preparedeness for war surely was the dominant factor. Though I could say that the Samurai spirit is nothing else
than a continuous preparedness for war. In Saburo Sakai´s biography he mentions several times that it held a special place
in the rigid command system of the Japanese services.
 
One of the reasons for the fast Japanese advance was the ferocity of their offensives. This was, not exclusively but also, due to this mindset.
 
Please do not mistake my next comment as a comparision. It is not.
But ferocity is always a useful weapon for the worse equipped or outnumbered side.
Whether this is a Japanese Samurai in WWII, a suicide bomber in the modern age, a christian fanatic in the Roman Empire, or some Spartans beating back
the Persians does not make much difference.

[xj900uk]

yet the Western Democracies allied themselves with arguably just as nasty a nation in the Soviet Union. And after the war, the Soviet Union was in fact almost as repressive to many "liberated" countries as the enemy had ever been. Stalin killed as many, if not more of his own people, than what the Germans had done.

Over here in the UK Stalin at the end of the war was officially viewed as a 'very nice man' and completley trustworthy. That is why our politicians sent back all the Polish, Czech and Ukranian refugees that had taken up over here, sometimes at gunpoint, and were largely never heard of again. Reports vary but I can remember my father talkign about it - at the wars end in early '46 he was wiating to be demobbed and one of his jobs was to get involved in the 'forced repartriation' of a lot of Eastern Europeans back across the Iron Curtain that was springing up - he told me of mroe than one case where British troops handed a load back at the checkpoints (my father said it was a convoy of about 5,000 Poles, many of them crying and pleading not to go back) where the Russians took the males aside, identified any who had been in military service and marched these round the back of the sheds and shot them out of hand. My father said that there were several members of the Polish Parachute Brigade which had fought bravely at Arnhem which were particularly singled out by teh Soviets for summary execution. The sobbing women and children were herded into, ironically, cattle trucks and just disappeared off into E Germany never to be seen again. My father and his fellow squadies agreed that they were probalby 'off to teh salt mines in Siberia' and 'poor buggers', but nobody seemed much inclined to challenge the orders of their superiors/politicians who had agreed to hand all of the refugees back. If anything they jsut carried on doing it.
Funnily enough,a lthough these events definitely occurred and have passed into history, there has been a curious lack of examination of the treatment of compulsorily repatriated refugees at wars end back into the Eastern block. I can remember back in the early 90's after the Berlin Wall came down, just before my father died a couple of Poles getting in touch with him as they were trying to get enough eye-witness accounts to publish a full and proper book re the massacres/treatment of their countrymen. Don't know what became of the book they were trying to publish, although a few years ago one of our national newspapers investigated the case where a large number of Czech and Hungarian refugees were handed back at wars end, possibly in Austria in 45/46 and what became of them (very few survived at the hands of the Soviets)

One of the reasons for the fast Japanese advance was the ferocity of their offensives. This was, not exclusively but also, due to this mindset.

Agreed. A lot of the Japanese training and indoctrination was based around the 'attack irrespective', although later on in the war the IJA learned an awful lot about defence and fortifications in some of the most bloodiest fighting immaginable on the Pacific Islands and in NG.
Interestingly, in the IJN the training was based more about fast in-and-out hit-and-run tactics (usually at night) and they trained their sailors accordingly, even designed their ships with powerful stern armament as often they would be getting out fast of a sticky situation with the oppostion in hot pursuit. The result was that in 41-42 their navies and sailors were amongst the best int eh world when it came to fast hit-and-run night fighting combats, as the Allies found out to their cost in the waters around the Solomons

[mike scholl 1]

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

No, being a nation prepared for war when their opponents were entirely unprepared is what led them to victory after victory, IMO. The Samurai mindset may have given the Japanese some advantage in local situations, but I do not believe that it was the reason for their string of victories.

Thanks Brad..., couldn't have said it better myself. Though "LoBaron" missed my point entirely..., which was that a mindset that substituted "human bullets" for the real thing was out of date in an age of mass production of firepower.

[Grit]

The more I read about the Japanese soldier and their Samurai Spirit and Bushido Code and Kamikaze the less impressed I become. The idea that it was honorable to die for the Emperor was a bunch of crap. You win wars by making the other guy die for his country. Not you dieing for your Emperor.

If Patton had been a Japanese general when he was relieved of his command (for an equivalent grievous offense) in Sicily he probably would have stuck a sword in his gut. For losing face and disgracing himself. Think about what a waste that would have been.

The entire Japanese society from top to bottom was flawed. They simply weren't equipped to fight on the modern battlefield of 1941-1945. They also weren't equipped economically or diplomatically to deal with a modern world.

With the help of America they were able to turn it around and become world economic power. It did help that they were a homogeneous society and some of the things that hurt them in the war helped them later. When applied to a peaceful purpose.

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: mike scholl 1

Thanks Brad..., couldn't have said it better myself. Though "LoBaron" missed my point entirely..., which was that a mindset that substituted "human bullets" for the real thing was out of date in an age of mass production of firepower.

Nah I got your point. [:'(]

That mindset you are referring to, was move forward in situations where survival instinct would tell you to do the exact opposite. That this mindset is, after some time, negated by overwhelming firepower is a no brainer.
Without such or a similar mindset no larger military operation would have been possible in any war. No Okinava, no D-Day, no landing on Sicily, pick your battle.

What I was trying to point out was that at the beginning of the war the Bushido code and the aggressive offensive mentality and training of the Japanese troops made an impact against equally armed opponents,
while the Allies had to learn the same through battle experience. You can say that this was due to lack of preparedness but that doesn´t change anything about what I was trying to explain.
This is why I was referring to the beginning of the war and not its end in case you missed that detail.

The Grit:

You can swap the Bushido Code with anything else of your liking. There are always ways to make someone, who does not directly profit from the abstract value you present him, die for your cause.
Whether thats Bushido, the "superior German race", Allah, God and country in general, an abstract "freedom" or the emperor does not really matter. Its a motivation thing.

The underlying cause for wars in most instances are of economical nature. This is something that is hard to sell though. Who wants to die for a BIP? So you need a substitute but thats often quite easy to get.

A good recent example is the war in ex-Yugoslavia, where thousands of civilians spend day after day on the Danube bridges in Belgrade to defend "their leader" against the "NATO aggression".
It needed only a couple of months to "produce" loads of fanatics out of a industrialized nation that has known nothing else than peace since WWII.
I have a Serbian friend, a quiet intelligent guy, who witnessed this developement and later told me that it was nearly impossible not to be drawn in the same direction just because of 24/7 propaganda.

[Nikademus]

It is too much to say of Homma, as H.L. Mencken did, that MacArthur slew "the man who beat him in a fair fight on Bataan." There was nothing fair about either the Japanese conquest of Luzon or the American reconquest of it; war is never evenhanded.

- William Manchester American Caesar

[:)]

[mike scholl 1]

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

ORIGINAL: mike scholl 1

Thanks Brad..., couldn't have said it better myself. Though "LoBaron" missed my point entirely..., which was that a mindset that substituted "human bullets" for the real thing was out of date in an age of mass production of firepower.

Nah I got your point. [:'(]

That mindset you are referring to, was move forward in situations where survival instinct would tell you to do the exact opposite.


Actually I think you've still missed it. To advance when common sense says not to is the duty of a soldier. To charge wildly into a barrage of machinegun fire screaming and hollaring with no supporting fire is just lunacy.

Perfect example: The "Battle of the Tenaru River" on Guadalcanal. 900 Japanese infantry land, and with no real information and limited reccon, simply scream "Banzaii" and assault 18,000 Marines. That's just nuts.

[LoBaron]

Yes I agree on that.

But on the occasions these things happened the driving force was to die for the emperor in a position where the battle was already lost and hope for
victory was gone. People do strange things in those moments I guess, even more if the come from a culture that was so different to the European/American
mindset. The Japanese often preferred death over surrender because surrender meant loss of honor and the neglection of fullfilling ones duty to the final breath.

You have to admit that these BANZAI screaming Tenaru river situations exclusively occured when the battles were already long lost. In true offensive action the mindset had another
purpose. To overwhelm the enemy with aggression and demoralize him with a seeming ignorance to death.
Psychologically this worked on many instances. I remember inteviews of US Marines describing the feeling of frustration, anger and fear of an opponent who never stopped
attacking. That this was not enough is clear.

[Torplexed]

ORIGINAL: Grit

The more I read about the Japanese soldier and their Samurai Spirit and Bushido Code and Kamikaze the less impressed I become. The idea that it was honorable to die for the Emperor was a bunch of crap. You win wars by making the other guy die for his country. Not you dieing for your Emperor.

I think one of the best quotes I ever heard about the WWII Japanese soldier was from a British officer who called them "first-class soldiers in a third-class army". They were stoic, brave and capable of enduring incredible privations in the field. A Japanese infantryman carried barely half the load of his American counterpart, because he lacked all but the most basic equipment. During the course of the war, it became quite normal for them to fight in a constant condition of semi-starvation without much compliant. However, all these good qualities were lost in army increasingly unequipped to fight a modern enemy and suspicious of any generals and officers that dared to substitute inquiry, analysis and imagination for mindless martial fervor.

The greatest weakness of the culture of bushido was that no one was allowed to say what they really thought. Even if an officer knew in his heart that a plan of attack was flawed and doomed to fail, he simply stoically went ahead with it. Doing his part and sticking with a plan, even a bad plan and probably dying along with the plan, became a mechanism whereby the Japanese individual could personally absolve himself of the shameful responsibility for a defeat.

[mike scholl 1]

ORIGINAL: LoBaron


You have to admit that these BANZAI screaming Tenaru river situations exclusively occurred when the battles were already long lost. In true offensive action the mindset had another purpose.

Actually, the "Battle of the Tenaru River" was the very first engagement of the Guadalcanal operation. The situation was not only not "already long lost", it was barely understood by the Japanese command.

In any rational Army, Ichiki's unit would have scouted out the Marine's positions and strength and reported the true situation back to Rabaul. In the Japanese Army, they simply threw their lives away to no purpose whatsoever.

[Remenents]

Japans lack of transport vessels (military and resource) would have ended her eventually around 44-45. The US Submarines would wreaking havoc on them and Japan was finding it harder and harder to transport materials and oil back to mainland. She started the war already lacking the oil. Even if the US Carriers were in port in Pearl, even if the Japanese had sent another 4 waves to attack Pearl and the oil reserves, even if Japan had gone ahead and invaded Pearl, she still would have been in trouble by 44-45. Japan never could get her merchant fleet going and the Army and the Navy were constantly bickering. (One Army merchant ship would leave Japan full, make it to Java, and come back empty.) The supply lines were stretched past the breaking point. All the US had to do was bide its time, gather the resources and build the warmachines. Japan would have eventually ruined itself on her own.

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: mike scholl 1

ORIGINAL: LoBaron


You have to admit that these BANZAI screaming Tenaru river situations exclusively occurred when the battles were already long lost. In true offensive action the mindset had another purpose.

Actually, the "Battle of the Tenaru River" was the very first engagement of the Guadalcanal operation. The situation was not only not "already long lost", it was barely understood by the Japanese command.

In any rational Army, Ichiki's unit would have scouted out the Marine's positions and strength and reported the true situation back to Rabaul. In the Japanese Army, they simply threw their lives away to no purpose whatsoever.

Ok understood.
By my definition Guadalcanal was lost for the Japanese the moment the IJN failed to destroy the transport ships. So we disagree here.

We sadly do not have too many informations on the Japanese side on Guadalcanal, at least by no way as detailed as for the Allies.
Its extremely hard to guess to which extent Haruyoshi was aware on the size of the landing, the possibility of evacuation or reinforcement
of their own troops, or the chances to keep supplies coming. But I am sure he was aware of the potential gravity of the situation and I BET
that his personal assessment differed from his official position.

Based on the assumption that Guadalcanal was the first situation in the SWPAC where the Japanese crack troops where opposed by equally crack Marines, so an ammount of
resistance that was not witnessed by the Japanese until then, to attack and throw the invaders back into the sea is surely not the best possible, but an understandable
decision, when they where under the impression that the thick Jungle allowed for close range combat only, anyway.

[xj900uk]

Even if an officer knew in his heart that a plan of attack was flawed and doomed to fail, he simply stoically went ahead with it. Doing his part and sticking with a plan, even a bad plan and probably dying along with the plan, became a mechanism whereby the Japanese individual could personally absolve himself of the shameful responsibility for a defeat.

You aslo have to remember that IJ officer (and squaddie) training was to blindly follow orders without question, no matter what personal circumstances, local observations or even plain common sense may say otherwise. It was ingrained into the Japanese nation from birth as 'obey your Emperor', only needed a bit of tending to modify this dictum to 'obey your superior'. At the Naval and Army officer training academies any idea of personal aptitude or 'lateral thinking' was severely frowned upon & discouraged. OK there were still a few unorthodox oddbals around (like Genda, who had a well-deserved reputation for thinking 'outside the box' and was larely shunned by his colleagues as a result) but not many and certanily not as few per se as in the US military. Thus when faced with an unusual or apparently insurmountable problem there were few radical or different ideas as to find a solution, so often as not the only recourse was to 'go fixed bayonets and Banzai'
Contrast this with Kenney and how he ran the 5th Air Force in Australia in 42-44. He was well known for keeping unorthodox officers around him (like those in the 'chuck it out brigade' who could often find unusual and radical solutions to problems that no amount of training could have prepared them for.

I remember inteviews of US Marines describing the feeling of frustration, anger and fear of an opponent who never stopped
attacking. That this was not enough is clear.

Agreed. Morale amongst even the toughest Marine units, and also on Naval ships faced with yet another Kamikaze attack in '45, was definitely starting to crack. Some men broke down in uncontrollable weeping, others just threw themselves overboard - they had reached the end of their line. Ugaki who commanded the Kamikaze units in '45 hoped this might well happen, but the US military rather wisely covered this up at the time and prevented information that morale was getting close to the cracking point from ever getting out, even to the US press.

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: xj900uk
Agreed. Morale amongst even the toughest Marine units, and also on Naval ships faced with yet another Kamikaze attack in '45, was definitely starting to crack. Some men broke down in uncontrollable weeping, others just threw themselves overboard - they had reached the end of their line. Ugaki who commanded the Kamikaze units in '45 hoped this might well happen, but the US military rather wisely covered this up at the time and prevented information that morale was getting close to the cracking point from ever getting out, even to the US press.

Must be nice making pronunciamento from a soft, comfy, easy-chair. You have obviously never talked to a Marine.

When troops are interviewed, they tend to tell the truth; and for combat veterans, truth is they feel fear, rage, fear, frustration, and fear. Likely Sargon's troops felt the same way. But to conclude that this implies the Marine's morale was cracking indicates that you should perhaps learn a bit more about combat/conflict dynamics. Being afraid is good, in certain circumstances.

In any nominal combat unit, there are 3 classes of individuals:

5% are hysterical ostriches - they jump overboard, hide, run about shouting - basically interfering with useful activity, frightening and irritating everybody else, and generally making a nuisance of themselves.

5% are hard, cold, and wicked - they have sublimated their fear and turned the emotional energy into focus and purpose.

90% are trained, know what to do, and do ok, but need a kick in the pants to do better (need to be led and directed). Normally, it's the Hard 5% that are the leaders (officially and unofficially), so the 90% will do what is necessary, and what they were trained to do under that prompting. It's a psychological trust thing.

Sometimes, you may get a ship/unit where the Hysterics outnumber the Hard, and swamp the leadership principal. A real witch for the poor 90% pukes; but because it was unusual, it got reported; NOT because it was normal. For Marines, I would guess 2% Hysterics and 8% Hard.

So please don't do contemporary psychobabble when speaking about morale in the mid 1940s. It is both much simpler and more complex than you can imagine.

[Nikademus]

you sound like SLA Marshall. [;)]

[Rankorian]

Hmmm....looks like I asked the right group of people those questions.
 
Q-ball may be correct in that any approach at PI would have brought the Americans into the war.
 
 
But, if I were an American traitor in 1941, my suggestion to the Japanese would have been:
 
1.  Don't attack Pearl Harbor.
 
2. Poor everything on PI (as far as American territories), in the hopes of making it a quick battle.  Style yourself as a liberator--freeing an Asian territory from Western domination.  Film and reports will take longer to get to the US.  One could counter-PR it.  Claim US losses were exagerrated.  Offer compensation (after some negotiations, which take time, of course).  Unlike not attacking PI at all, you now have a strong base of operation to give pause to even those inclined to fight.
 
3.  Claim the resources in the area were vital to Japan's survival, justly needed.
 
4.  Hope the US population goes back to...its usual life.
 
5.  Cut a deal with the US: Let Japan live, we won't go east of PI.  Have a great European war, if you wish.
 
 
Reading about Operation Torch in North Africa, I am impressed with how poorly prepared, psychologically, America and the American soldier was, even at that time.  If one could keep casualties down, it is just unclear to me (though I certainly can withstand correction) that the US would gear up its economy to defend PI.  And if it does not gear up its economy and put it on war footing?......producing lawn chairs in Cleveland is not going to get a war won.
 
 
 
But, of course, this all presumes the Japanese were different, psychologically, at the time.  That they did not have disdain for others [Memo to High Command: smiling shots with Filipino natives is going to be a winner!  Pictures of Japanese nurses tending to wounded US soldiers--smilesome!]
 
 
I....just....come...away....from a PH strike....even a good one...............with, meh, not sure I did much.......
 
 
For WITP AE2: a discrete "quit meter" for the US, dependent on...a lot of factors--because that was the only way Japan was going to win.  [And, quitting a war, to be more controversial, is perhaps sometimes the right thing to do]

[Torplexed]

ORIGINAL: Rankorian

But, of course, this all presumes the Japanese were different, psychologically, at the time.  That they did not have disdain for others [Memo to High Command: smiling shots with Filipino natives is going to be a winner!  Pictures of Japanese nurses tending to wounded US soldiers--smilesome!]

Not just psychologically different, but culturally as well. The warped ethos of Bushido the Japanese operated under before and during the war would make this scenario virtually impossible. To Bushido, surrender was a sin and the sinners had to be punished. You had too many firebrands in the field (like the infamous Colonel Masanobu Tsuji) who would have ignored any "go easy on them" orders from on high as they historically did. Even if Japan had nixed the "Day of Infamy" and confined itself to just grabbing the Philippines, the atrocities would likely have gone on with it, enough to create outrage back in the US.

It is fascinating speculation how events might have evolved if the US and it's Philippines dependency had been excluded from Japanese war plans in December 1941. Had Tokyo confined itself to occupying British Malaya and Burma, along with the Dutch East Indies. Roosevelt would certainly have wished to confront Japanese aggression and enter the war--the oil embargo imposed by the US following Japan's advance into Indochina was the tipping factor in deciding Tokyo to fight the Western Powers. It remains a moot point, however, whether Congress and public sentiment would have allowed the president to declare war in the absence of a direct assault on American national interests or the subsequent German declaration of war on the United States.

During the course of the war, the Japanese did style themselves as "liberators", although the sheen wore off pretty quickly with the locals. However, it was the only war aim Japan succeeded at, as the French, Dutch and British quickly found out in the postwar world.

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: Rankorian

Hmmm....looks like I asked the right group of people those questions.

Q-ball may be correct in that any approach at PI would have brought the Americans into the war.


But, if I were an American traitor in 1941, my suggestion to the Japanese would have been:

1.  Don't attack Pearl Harbor.

2. Poor everything on PI (as far as American territories), in the hopes of making it a quick battle.  Style yourself as a liberator--freeing an Asian territory from Western domination.  Film and reports will take longer to get to the US.  One could counter-PR it.  Claim US losses were exagerrated.  Offer compensation (after some negotiations, which take time, of course).  Unlike not attacking PI at all, you now have a strong base of operation to give pause to even those inclined to fight.

3.  Claim the resources in the area were vital to Japan's survival, justly needed.

4.  Hope the US population goes back to...its usual life.

5.  Cut a deal with the US: Let Japan live, we won't go east of PI.  Have a great European war, if you wish.


Reading about Operation Torch in North Africa, I am impressed with how poorly prepared, psychologically, America and the American soldier was, even at that time.  If one could keep casualties down, it is just unclear to me (though I certainly can withstand correction) that the US would gear up its economy to defend PI.  And if it does not gear up its economy and put it on war footing?......producing lawn chairs in Cleveland is not going to get a war won.



But, of course, this all presumes the Japanese were different, psychologically, at the time.  That they did not have disdain for others [Memo to High Command: smiling shots with Filipino natives is going to be a winner!  Pictures of Japanese nurses tending to wounded US soldiers--smilesome!]


I....just....come...away....from a PH strike....even a good one...............with, meh, not sure I did much.......


For WITP AE2: a discrete "quit meter" for the US, dependent on...a lot of factors--because that was the only way Japan was going to win.  [And, quitting a war, to be more controversial, is perhaps sometimes the right thing to do]

Warspite1

Roosevelt was itching (for the right reasons) to enter the war. He knew that if Germany was not stopped in Europe he would end up fighting them nearer home. Japan on her own did not pose the same threat to the US, but if Germany was successful in Europe - and remember we are talking November/December 1941 here - then the last thing the US needed was a Japan, now fully able to access oil from the NEI, rubber from Malaya etc running rampant in Asia.

My opinion is that an attack on the Philippines would have been sufficient to bring the US into a war against Japan - and for that matter, even if the Japanese left US territories alone completely, a Japanese attack on the NEI (and thus the securing of oil supplies) could well have been sufficient. Such an attack would have undone Roosevelt's work in putting the oil embargo in place and this would have come at a time that the Soviets were being rolled back - General Winter was only just about to strike - and the British were in no position to do anything alone.

My belief is the Roosevelt knew the US was going to have to go to war - not if but when. In reality he was presented with an incredible "gift" by both Japan, who united the US people behind the war effort in the most spectacular way possible and this was followed up by Germany declaring war on it. (How dumb is that?). But even without those things, the US would not have stayed out for much longer.

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: JWE

ORIGINAL: xj900uk
Agreed. Morale amongst even the toughest Marine units, and also on Naval ships faced with yet another Kamikaze attack in '45, was definitely starting to crack. Some men broke down in uncontrollable weeping, others just threw themselves overboard - they had reached the end of their line. Ugaki who commanded the Kamikaze units in '45 hoped this might well happen, but the US military rather wisely covered this up at the time and prevented information that morale was getting close to the cracking point from ever getting out, even to the US press.

Must be nice making pronunciamento from a soft, comfy, easy-chair. You have obviously never talked to a Marine.

When troops are interviewed, they tend to tell the truth; and for combat veterans, truth is they feel fear, rage, fear, frustration, and fear. Likely Sargon's troops felt the same way. But to conclude that this implies the Marine's morale was cracking indicates that you should perhaps learn a bit more about combat/conflict dynamics. Being afraid is good, in certain circumstances.

In any nominal combat unit, there are 3 classes of individuals:

5% are hysterical ostriches - they jump overboard, hide, run about shouting - basically interfering with useful activity, frightening and irritating everybody else, and generally making a nuisance of themselves.

5% are hard, cold, and wicked - they have sublimated their fear and turned the emotional energy into focus and purpose.

90% are trained, know what to do, and do ok, but need a kick in the pants to do better (need to be led and directed). Normally, it's the Hard 5% that are the leaders (officially and unofficially), so the 90% will do what is necessary, and what they were trained to do under that prompting. It's a psychological trust thing.

Sometimes, you may get a ship/unit where the Hysterics outnumber the Hard, and swamp the leadership principal. A real witch for the poor 90% pukes; but because it was unusual, it got reported; NOT because it was normal. For Marines, I would guess 2% Hysterics and 8% Hard.

So please don't do contemporary psychobabble when speaking about morale in the mid 1940s. It is both much simpler and more complex than you can imagine.

Admittedly I do not know much about the mindset of a crack marine in ´45. [;)]

But what I for sure know is that its much easier to face death if you feel that you will probably die anyway, compared to when you see victory is close
and you start hoping to return to your country as a victorious hero.
I know of pilot accounts in the European theatre that stated that the last months of the war were the worst of their lives, because they had seen
so many die, simply because luck ran out, that they started questioning their own luck and got timid because they were so eager to return home alive.
It must be very tough to continue watching your friends and comrades die by the weapons of an enemy that does not seem to understand that he already has lost.

Contrary to this there are many accounts of German soldiers who stated that they expected to die fighting anyway and nothing else mattered much to them anymore.
And a percentage of these probably were "hard" enough to focus on taking as many enemy soldiers down with them.

This or something similar can lead to different behaviour in combat I assume, even if it is negated by battle experience and training up to some level.