When I Am LOB

DESCRIPTION: "When through the mud you drag your weary feet, Under your tunic your heart may cease to beat, No matter what becomes of thee, I'll always smile, and think with glee, That I am LOB." The singer describes all the dangers those LOB don't face
AUTHOR: Words: Maj. James Stone, Lt. "Duke" Kitching, Lr. W. Remple, Lt. Owen R. Brown (source: Hopkins-SongsFromTheFrontAndRear)
EARLIEST DATE: 1979 (Hopkins-SongsFromTheFrontAndRear)
KEYWORDS: soldier hardtimes escape
FOUND IN: Canada
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Hopkins-SongsFromTheFrontAndRear, p. 114, "When I Am LOB" (1 text, tune referenced)
Roud #29426
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Lili Marlene" (tune, plus cross-references to songs of the Italian campaign)
cf. "O'er the Hills of Sicily" (subject: the Italian campaign)
NOTES [401 words]: LOB, as Hopkins-SongsFromTheFrontAndRear explains, is "Left Out of Battle," the portion of a battalion not engaged in order to preserve it in case the unit is slaughtered. This was probably especially important in the Italian Campaign, which of all the fronts of the European War, most resembled World War I -- trench warfare all the time, mostly stalemated; the Italian hills made tank-based war much harder, and hence caused the fight to be much more static than on other European fronts.
This fact may make it surprising to find a mention of the Tiger tank. But the Tiger was perhaps particularly suited to Italy. Heavier than any Anglo-Allied tank, it fired the famous German 88 mm anti-tank gun, which was probably the best anti-tank and field anti-aircraft gun of the war; it had frontal armor of 110 mm (Wheal/Pope, pp. 463-464; Dougherty, p. 132, says 100 mm), which at the time it appeared no Anglo-Allied tank gun could penetrate. I seem to recall reading that the rule of thumb was that the exchange rate was six Shermans (the standard Allied tank) for one Tiger -- the Shermans had little hope against the German tank except to destroy its treads.
Dougherty, p. 132, lists the strengths of the Tiger as "Very powerful gun, Extremely thick armour, Reputation of invincibility" -- but lists among its disadvantages, "Poor strategic mobility, Needed large amounts of fuel." The engine wasn't big enough to carry all that weight of tun and armor, leaving it with a top speed of just 23 miles per hour and a range of just 120 miles. It broke down a lot because of that heavy load, and it was hard to keep supplied and hard to build and repair. As a result, it was not much good as an offensive tank. But in a place like Italy, where it was used mostly to hold a position, it could be a real problem to deal with.
Although Hopkins doesn't mention it, the desire to preserve a cadre was not the only reason why portions of units were "LOB." A constant problem in the war was "battle exhaustion," also known as "shell shock" -- one of the various conditions we now recognize as trauma-related (i.e. the same psychological category as post-traumatic stress disorder). Units were designated LOB in order to let them relax and reduce the effects of battle fatigue (Bercuson, p. 183). For the reasons outlined above, this was probably more important on the Italian Front than any other European theater. - RBW
Bibliography

Bercuson: David J. Bercuson, Maple Leaf Against the Axis: Canada's Second World War, 1995 (I use the 2004 Red Deer Press edition)
Doughetry: Martin J. Dougherty, Compared and Contrasted: Tanks from World War I to the Present Day, Amber books, 2010
Wheal/Pope: Elizabeth-Anne Wheal and Stephen Pope, The Macmillan Dictionary of The Second World War, second edition, Macmillan, 1997

Last updated in version 5.0
File: Hopk114

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography