US Navy in WWII

On the advice of Vincent P. O’Hara, who was kind enough to comment on my review of Morison’s Two Ocean War, I decided to have a go at Morison’s more detailed History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, or at least those volumes which dealt with the war in the Pacific. I just finished my first three volumes; The Rising Sun in the Pacific, 1931 – April 1942, Coral Sea, Midway and Submarine Actions, May 1942-aug 1942 and Struggle for Guadalcanal, August 1942-February 1943. Let me just say, that all three books are magnificent!!

Morison not only had early access to extensive intelligence debriefings of Japanese officers captured at the end of the war and to the collection of documents that became the United States Strategic Bombing Survey (USSSB) but unparalleled access to the principals on the American side during the war. At the beginning of the war FDR gave Morison what amounted to a “blank check” to go wherever he wanted to gather materials for a history of the war. As a result of this access, much of it during the actual war, Morison was able to really put readers inside the minds of the American commanders.

In addition to the access Morison’s writing style is still fresh after all these years. Although he is definitely a partisan of America, he is fair to the Japanese (remarkable fair given the fact that he was writing in the late 40s). The fact that he personally knew the officers on the American side is transmitted to the reader through the writing in a way that I don’t think I’ve seen anywhere else. Sometimes it’s as if Morison were writing a chatty letter about the doings of the various alumni to other members of the same class.

Obviously, being largely written in the 40s and 50s, the books are somewhat dated. They have virtually nothing about the Allied use of ULTRA or MAGIC for instance. Despite this, I recommend that anyone interested in the US Navy in WWII should at least try these books. A tip of the hat to Vince O’Hara for taking the trouble to recommend them to me.

Finally, a note about editions. I am currently reading the newly published USNI Press edition of the books. The outstanding feature of this edition is the inclusion of brand new introductions for each volume. The new intros, written by outstanding current naval historians, introduce the volume, provide a survey of the current state of scholarship on the topic of the volume and finally place Morison’s work in context of current scholarship so the reader know explicitly where Morison has been superseded.

The intro to the Guadalcanal volume was written by John Lundstrom who provides a fairly detailed analysis of current scholarship including not only his own, First Team, but Hamel’s trilogy and Frank’s Guadalcanal. The intro to Rising Sun in the Pacific was written by H.P. Willmott, while the intro to the Coral Sea and Midway volume is written by Jonathon Parshall. These introductions alone are almost worth the price of the books.

My only complain is that the USNI is only publishing four volume a year, so I’ve got only 2-3 left before I start waiting on new ones!

21 for the year

A poor biography of a great man

William F. Buckley by Jeremy Lott is a very brief (176 pages) introductory biography of the conservative icon. The book is fairly well written and covers the highlights of Buckley’s life in more or less chronological order. Given the space limitations I suppose it was adequate but I’m not really sure the book serves any useful purpose. It is way too short to give a novice any real impression of WFB. If I wasn’t familiar with Buckley before reading this book, it wouldn’t have motivated me to read more about him.

Second, I don’t understand this book’s inclusion in the Christian Encounters series. Buckley was most certainly a staunch and (in his own way) devout Catholic, but little of that comes through in the book. The religious content limited to a fairly detailed account of God and Man at Yale and a sort of nebulous and unsupported assertion that Buckley’s Conservatism was driven by his Catholicism. Finally, and perhaps most disappointing of all is that very, very, little of Buckley’s wit, intelligence and wry sense of humor comes through in Lott’s book.

That being said, the book does provide the reader with a fairly extensive and well annotated reading list that covers existing the literature on WFB fairly well. In fact, the only two things I would add to it are Cancel Your Own God-Damned Subscription and Buckley’s various sailing books, especially Racing Through Paradise and End of the Affair.

In short, if the prospective reader is interested in learning more about WFB, this book isn’t the place to start.

18 for the year

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Amazon.com’s Vine program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Outstanding Military Fiction

I just finished my umpteenth reading of Anton Myrer’s Once an Eagle. This book is basically a character study of Sam Damon, an American army officer who enlisted before WWI, won the Medal of Honor and received a battlefield commission. The book follows Damon from his late youth, just before enlisting, through WWI, the inter-war years of privation and boredom, WWII and finally, his death in a thinly disguised Vietnam. Damon is a man of great intelligence, bravery, forthrightness and integrity, who always balances military necessity with the need to “take care of his soldiers”.

The counterpoint to Damon, and the “villain” of the novel, is Courtney Massengale, a West Pointer and a man who is completely self-absorbed and only concerned with the advancement of his career. Massengale is always one rank superior to Damon and the two men clash repeatedly throughout the book starting in WWI, and ending with Damon’s death in “Khotiane”.

Within the framework of this story Myrer explores many different themes of military life in the early to mid 20^th century. He illustrates the tedium of life in the peacetime army, the way relationships between high-ranking officers in WWII were grounded in the relationships of these men as junior officers, and the impact of war on the families of the soldiers. The most important theme of the book is the hard calculus of the commander and his need to spend the lives of his soldiers to attain military objectives. While both Damon and Massengale are willing to do this there are two key differences; first Damon is willing to put himself in harm’s way along with his troops and second, Damon is constantly judging whether or not a military objective is worth the lives of his troops and attempting to minimize their losses in way that is completely foreign to Massengale.

I’ve read this book four or five times now and it still resonates with me the same way it did when I first read it as a teen-ager. Not only do I recommend it highly, but so does the Commandant of the USMC, who placed it on reading list for all First Lieutenants in the United States Marine Corps, and the faculty at USMA who frequently use it a text for Cadets in leadership classes.

17 for the year.

Classic Gladwell

Just finished Tipping Point: How Little Things Make a Big Difference by Malcom Gladwell. This is a fascinating little book laying out Gladwell’s theory of how social change is driven. Basically, Gladwell ascribed the spread of social change to three groups of people; Mavens, Connectors and Salesmen creating a “critical mass” of change (called the “tipping point” by Gladwell), which, according to Gladwell then spreads to the rest of us depending on how “sticky” or compelling the change is and the “context” or need within society for that particular change.

The book makes a very compelling case for the concept of a “tipping point” many examples are cited of a social phenomenon bumping along at a low, steady level until a certain, still relatively small, level is reached then it explodes. Gladwell cites several examples including; crime in NYC, teen suicides in Micronesia and the spread of syphilis in Baltimore. Less clear, at least to me, was the mechanics of the Maven/Connector/Salesman paradigm and its impact on the spread of social change.  Although I do recognize the three archetypes (so you will if you read the book) I just didn’t think he mad as strong a case for their impact as he did for the concept of the “tipping point” itself.

Despite this criticism, this was an extremely interesting book and I recommend it highly to anyone interested in social change and what drives it.

16 for the year.

A Disappointing Gladwell Book.

I just finished What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell, and for the first time I was a bit disappointed. Perhaps I’ve been spoiled by his previous books Tipping Point and Outliers, but this one just didn’t do it for me. I think the main problem was that unlike those two books, this one didn’t have a central hypothesis or theme. It was just a collection of Gladwells columns that had a kind of “half-assed” thematic structure imposed on them ex post facto.

Don’t get me wrong, the writing is good and most of the columns, taken by themselves, are interesting, but at the end of the day, I was looking for something better, some flash of insight such as those provided by Gladwell’s other books.

15 for the year.

Another Jutland Tome

Jutland 1916: Death in the Grey Wastes by Peter Hart and Nigel Steel is an excellent account of the battle, with an interesting twist, the book is taken almost entirely from the recollections of the participants. Hart and Steel have searched the primary record for each phase of the battle and edited together a very cogent and moving account of the battle. The narrative was particularly compelling because it was told in the actual voices of the participants. A particular strength of the book was the wide diversity of its voices. The authors used both German and British sailors of all ranks, from stokers and wipers, through midshipmen to officers, even Beatty, Jellicoe and Scheer make appearances. Inclusion of all these voices brought home to me the human cost of the battle as no other book I’ve read.

I had two minor criticisms; first, the book really needs more and better maps. Readers unfamiliar with the battle may have difficulty keeping the relative positions of the ships straight at several key points; when Jellicoe made his deployment decision which resulted in the Grand Fleet “crossing the T”, during the confused and chaotic night action when the German fleet slipped behind the Grand Fleet to make good its escape and most perhaps importantly, at the beginning when Beatty first discovers the German scouting squadron. Although the authors describe the (mis)deployment of 5^th Battle Squadron, and the subsequent signaling disaster in some detail, a map or two at this point would have been invaluable. The other issue is that, being limited to primary accounts, the book is sometimes short on details of parts of the battle that didn’t get well documented by participants. Therefore, this should not be the only book a reader reads on Jutland, but it sure is a good second! Finally, readers should be aware that some of the participant recollections are a bit grisly. Descriptions of the wounded and dead are told with all the immediacy and impact of eye-witnesses describing what they saw.

Despite these very minor criticisms, I recommend this very highly for pretty much anyone interested in the battle, especially those interested in what it was like for the participants.

14 for the year.

The Birth of the Tank

First up was Band Of Brigands: The First Men in Tanks by Christy Campbell. This was an excellent book that traced the development and deployment of British tanks in WWI. The book is very strong on the personalities involved with the conception and development of tanks. Another strength was the description of the debate among the various officers in the British army on how the vehicles should be used in combat, should they be deployed piecemeal to provide support for the infantry? Or would it be better to mass them together to achieve the breakthrough that the infantry could then exploit? The book also covers their deployment in the various campaigns pretty well. The stories of the men who served in the monsters are very well covered.

The only two possible areas of improvement I saw were; a lack of detailed technical information on the tanks themselves and a rather dense writing style. While the book provides a general technical overview of the machines, the real “rivet counter” may be disappointed at the paucity of detailed information on engines, drive mechanisms, armor composition, etcetera. The book is also fairly densely written.  Partially this is a function of the huge amount of ground the book is attempting to cover. Readers will need to pay close attention to keep up. Despite these very minor issues I recommend the book unreservedly to anyone interested in the birth of the tank as an instrument of warfare. This one is staying on the shelf.

 

13 for the year.