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BOUGAINVILLE AND THE NORTHERN SOLOMONS. By Major John N. Rentz, U.S.M.C.R. U. S. Government Printing Office: Washington, D. C., 1948. 167 pages plus 47 photographs and 33 maps. $2.00.
Reviewed by Lieutenant Colonel Robert E. Cushman, Jr., U. S.
Marine Corps
There has appeared another of the Marine Corps’ series of historical monographs; this latest concerns the diversified campaign in the Northern Solomons. In spite of the complexity of the operations it is clearly presented to the reader by means of a topical, rather than chronological, organization of subject matter. First the strategic situation and plans are described; then the principal Bougainville operation is completely told; following which is the narrative of related peripheral actions. The final chapter draws together in one place the conclusions which are to be derived from the planning and the battles.
The battle narratives are especially well done. As a participant, this reviewer lived again the initial landing of November 1 and the subsequent struggle against Jap and jungle that stretched on for two months. In addition these narratives contain far more than just front line accounts: the Naval battle of November 1-2, the participation of air units, and the stories of supporting agencies and logistical struggles are all completely developed. To complete fully the picture of the over-all campaign, one finds operational narratives, complete for each as to Naval, Air, and Ground participation, of the actions in the Treasury Islands, Choiseul, Green Islands, and Emirau.
In concluding, the monograph analyzes the campaign under three headings: strategic, tactical, and technical. It demonstrates the wisdom and soundness of the over-all plan and its relation to Pacific strategy. It describes the infantry-artillery team and the close air-ground and naval- ground coordination developed. Clearly described are the contributions of engineer, shore party, amphibian tractor, medical and service elements. And finally the monograph sums up with the words, “The general mission assigned forces of the South Pacific Area had been accomplished.”
We may add, this book too has accomplished its objective. It is well organized, well presented, and covers the entire campaign in all aspects. It is, at the same time, both scholarly and extremely readable. While accurate and thoroughly annotated, the narrative is fast moving and interesting and is followed by a comprehensive analysis and evaluation. The maps and pictures are deserving of special notice. The pictures support the text and convey a graphic description of the terrain, the enemy, and the Marine. The principal maps are of the convenient gatefold type which can be followed without interruption while reading the text.
This book can only be commended; it has appeal for a wide variety of readers. It will be of value to the naval officer as an example of the operation of balanced sea power—- surface, air, and ground—and of the employment of Marines to extend sea power to the seizure of the bases which that power requires for its proper employment. It will be of value to the field officer as an account of the planning and staff work required for a campaign of this magnitude and as a story of the execution of the plans by high level commands. It will be of value to the junior officer as a tactical account showing the action and maneuvering of small units and their respective naval counterparts. And finally it will be of value to the military and naval student everywhere because of its complete annotation and documentation as an aid to research and study, and because of its comprehensive coverage of all phases of one of the most important but least publicized campaigns of the war.
SCIENCE AT WAR. By J. G. Crowther and R. Whittington, C.B.E., F.R.S. New York, Philosophical Library. 1948. 185 pages + 51 plates + 51 figures. $6.00.
Reviewed by Senior Professor Earl W. Thomson, United States Naval Academy
This book accomplishes for the British scientists and the Scientific Advisory Committee to the British Cabinet what Baxter’s Scientists Against Time has done for the American scientists and the Office of Scientific Research and Development. In the foreword Sir Henry Dale states well the purpose of the book and its intellectual level:
Our object was to make available to the public an authoritative account of some of the most important aspects of the scientific contribution to the war effort, based on the official archives, but so written as to be acceptable to the reader without special scientific education. . . . The account of it must therefore be illustrative rather than comprehensive.
The four fields of scientific endeavor and accomplishment that are used as illustrations are: radar, operational research, the atomic bomb, and “science and the sea.”
The history of radar, or radiolocation of an object by the use of radio reflection or echoes, is followed from Appleton’s measurement of the Heaviside layer in 1924, through Watson Watt’s start on the defensive problem in 1935, to the end of the war. Nowhere is the Britisher’s persistence and thoroughness in research shown so well as in these developments of radar defensive measures by “flood-lighting” in 1939, by early warning and ground control interception, by the invention of the plan position indicator and the cavity magnetron, and the evolution of blind bombing from Oboe to Gee and H2S. We very much doubt, however, the British claim that “Aircraft guided by Oboe and bombing from 30,000 feet at 250 miles per hour drop on the average half of their bombs within 150 yards of the target.” Even American daylight bombing with the Norden sight, and the over-advertised “pickle-barrel bombing,” was nowhere near that accurate in practice, and certainly our H2F, which was an improvement on H2S, never approached that accuracy.
One interesting application of democratic principles was that of the informal conferences known as “Sunday Soviets” in which “The staff officer got into the habit of bringing rather diffuse problems to the scientists, and general discussions went on between admirals, air marshals, lieutenants, pilots, scientists, laboratory assistants, development engineers, and anyone who could help.”
The development of Operational Research Sections as part of the working staffs of combatant units was one of the major scientific accomplishments of the war. These sections made studies on the use of scientific equipment and how it should be used for best results, on the types of bombs versus bomb damage, on the optimum size of convoys, on bomber losses, and largely introduced the quantitative idea into modern combat intelligence. Certainly no higher echelon headquarters should ever again be without an Operational Research Section, for:
Warfare is largely susceptible to calculation. . . . The romantic conception of war is becoming out of date. It is not consonant with the systematic, rational, scientific kind of warfare which is evolving from the inter-penetration of war and science.
The section on the atomic bomb is largely an interesting history of radioactivity and nuclear fission from Lord Rutherford to the “departure of the group of British scientists to America in 1943.” Thirty pages are devoted to this British history and two sentences to the two billion dollar effort of the American scientists which culminated in the atomic bomb.
The chapter on “Science and the Sea” relates the story of ultra-sonics and ASDIC, of the counteroffensive against German magnetic and acoustic mines, and of degaussing.
Numerous excellent pictures are included, together with many diagrams showing the principles of the devices being described. However, we always deplore the inefficient British habit of fully explaining some device in the text and then repeating this explanation in the caption accompanying the illustrative picture or diagram.
This book, as with all British scientific texts, although published in this country, requires some “translation”—static becomes atmospherics; vacuum tubes are valves, a pip is a blip, loops are plumes, a director is a predictor, and underwater demolition teams are “belligerent divers” or “swimming saboteurs.” Even during the time we were allies we could not break down this difference in nomenclature. Another criticism, this one being economic, is that $6.00 is too much to charge for a 185-page book. This price will certainly restrict the interest and sale of this interesting volume.
THE SEA CHASE. By Andrew Geer. Harper and Brothers, New York, 1948. 274
pages. $3.00.
Reviewed by Mr. John L. Zimmerman
This is a great sea story—and the adjective is used in a puristic sense. The book has a rugged, craggy quality that gives it a stature far beyond what we have grown to expect between modern covers. A man who knows the sea and the men and the ships upon it, has written of all of them in a way that places him abreast of Conrad and Mc- Fee.
The tale boils down to this. Karl Ehrlich, master of the German freighter Ergenstrasse, finds himself in an Australian port late in August, 1939. At any moment the news may come of the opening of hostilities, and Ehrlich, a sailor and a former officer in the German Navy, intends to get his ship home. In order to get underway, he is forced to leave with coal enough only to get him part way across the Pacific. Geer tells us how he managed it, and as we read of Ehrlich, memories of other historic deeds cluster about us— memories of Bligh, and of the great legendary Polynesian canoe voyagers. And as Ehrlich almost wins out, as he almost accomplishes the incredible, we recall the little stone figure of a breaking wave, on the ridge at Gettysburg.
There is a good chance, I think, that Ehrlich will live the strange, half-materialized life of the fiction hero as long as Nordhoff and Hall’s Bligh, and much longer than the Spenlove which McFee used as his mouthpiece. For he is a much more human and understandable character than the very real Bligh, and much more believable than the highly rarified Spenlove. Lord Jim is the only sea character who can touch him.
Another strong character, not so clearly depicted, is the young English artist and naval officer, Napier. Artist by choice, officer by force of war and duty, Napier is Ehrlich’s Nemesis. The story of his victory really is the tale of how Ehrlich was tripped up by the sadism of an underling and and by his own too stern sense of duty. The German seems to have been actively an implacable man—his passive nature may have been quite different. I am sure of two things—I should not like to serve under an Ehrlich, but were I in a position of high command, I should like to have many Ehrlichs under me.
It makes me feel churlish to point out errors, but they are there and they must be noted. The shades of all South Seas Fannie Farmers must be writhing at the thought that poi comes from the roots of the breadfruit. This slip occurred when a part of the tale was telescoped in editing. Again, Diego Ramirez Island appears as Diego Ramerez Island; I find it hard to forgive the publisher for letting that one get by. Finally, some quibbler is bound to bring up what seems to be mathematical license in the matter of the Ergenstrasse’s age, for she was launched in 1896 and, in 1939, Geer has her in her forty- fifth year. He has, of course, used the Japanese method of calculating age, an ingenious device which takes account of the period of gestation.
Geer’s descriptive skill equals his storytelling ability. As he described the ship’s groaning and straining, I could close my eyes and hear, see, feel, and smell the William P. Biddle as she carried us to Iceland. When he told of her list to starboard, I could see the Orizaba staggering along in the same convoy like a wry-necked trull.
It is just that sort of thing that makes the book a great one. It is one more proof, if one be needed, that a good sea story will always be greater than a good land story, for the sea’s life and rhythms are quicker and more perceptible than those of the land. It also tells us that even in this day of gidgets and gadgets and occult physical marvels, the sea is still the great road upon which men must travel who would go from one land to another.
Some day, perhaps, great books will be written about the air, but this will happen only after we have got past the log raft and dugout canoe stage of air travel. In the meanwhile, we have the sea, the ships, and Geer.
TAKE UP THY BED AND WALK. By David Hinshaw. New York: G. P. Putnam’s sons. 1948. 233 pages, bibliography, index, $2.75.
Reviewed by Captain H. H. Montgomery (M.C.), U. S. Navy
Take Up Thy Bed And Walk is a presentation of the problems of a considerable segment of our people, the physically handicapped. Against a background of the history of the Institute for the Crippled and Disabled in New York, the author discusses the progress that has been made over the years in devising and perfecting methods and procedures for assisting these members of the community to overcome dependence upon others for assistance in the details of their day-today personal lives and starting them toward economic independence.
The country as a whole became conscious of physically handicapped persons as a national problem through the attention focused on rehabilitation of casualties during the recent war. The author makes it very clear, however, that rehabilitation of the physically impaired is not a procedure born of war conditions, but on the contrary, is one that has peace-time significance in its application to the great body of physically handicapped persons who are always a part of our national life. And these numbers are being augmented every day by malformations at birth, by the crippling effects of disease, and by the large toll taken by accidents of all sorts.
The author discusses the development of the efforts of the New York Institute for the Crippled and Disabled on behalf of the physically handicapped through the years before the war in which, by trial and error in an almost unexplored field, an understanding of the physically impaired person was gained and methods and procedures to aid him toward a more normal life within the limitations of his condition were developed. This effort afforded a vast store of knowledge which could be drawn upon in instituting programs for the care of war casualties.
The attention focused on the restoration of the war-disabled stimulated workers in the field to a greater effort and aroused interest of others to bring about greater advances in the practice of rehabilitation. The accomplishments of this national effort are well presented.
The reader can gain an insight into the psychological reaction of the handicapped toward their disabilities as well as a broad perspective of what is necessary to aid them in their progress toward a life approaching as nearly as feasible their more fortunate fellows. As a whole, the book points up the need for recognition on the part of our society as a whole; that there will always be a large segment of physically handicapped in our population; that present day knowledge affords the methods and procedures involved in aiding them to compensate socially and economically to their disabilities; that the Institute for the Crippled and Disabled in New York has demonstrated these procedures are practical; and that the physically handicapped person who is aided toward adjustment becomes a more normal, happy individual, and in doing so is changed from condition of dependency on his relatives or the community to a worthwhile contributor to our economic life.
THE MEDAL OF HONOR OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY: Compiled by the Public Information Division of the Department of the Army. Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office. 1948. 469 pages. $4.50.
Reviewed by Lieutenant Commander H. 0. Werner, U. S. Naval Reserve (Inactive)
This handsome volume, prepared upon the direction of President Truman, brings together for the first time the story of the Army Medal of Honor with the names of the recipients from the time the Medal was established up to the present, the citation for each award, all available pictures of World War II winners, and a listing of all source material on the subject.
In 1861 Senator James W. Grimes of Iowa, chairman of the Senate Naval Committee, introduced a bill which was passed by both Houses and approved by President Lincoln, and which established a Medal of Honor for enlisted men of the Navy—“the first decoration formally authorized by the American Government to be worn as a badge of honor.” The Army Medal of Honor was approved six months later. By that time the Director of the Mint was submitting designs for the Navy award and, hearing of the Army award, submitting one of the Navy designs that would be appropriate for Army use as well. In final form the medals were identical except for the device for attaching the ribbon—an anchor for the Navy, an American eagle for the Army.
The Medal of Honor, awarded since 1863 to officers as well as to enlisted men, is “the highest decoration which can be given in any of the armed services—Army, Navy, or Air Force.” It was awarded to Army personnel
I, 200 times in the Civil War, 95 times in World War I, and 292 times in World War
II. Throughout the history of the Army the award has been made a total of 2,116 times.
This new book is an excellent compilation which succeeds in carrying out President Truman’s request “to give the American people a fuller understanding of the ideal for which the Medal of Honor stands in the history of our Army and of our country.”
THE NAVY OF BRITAIN. By Michael Lewis. London: George Allen & Unwin, Ltd. 1948. 613 pages. Illustrated. $7.50.
Reviewed by Assistant Professor Haney H. Bell, Jr., U. S. Naval Academy
By drawing a clear line of demarcation between a Naval History of Britain and a History of the British Navy, Michael Lewis, Professor of History at the Royal Naval College, has in his book The Navy of Britain attempted to give to the reader a clear picture of the latter. It is a picture that is at times romantic, at times humorous, but always absorbingly interesting.
This work is not a study in strategy nor is it intended to be. Professor Lewis has endeavored to show how the English fleet has evolved from its earliest beginnings into the magnificent instrument for both peace and war that it ultimately proved to be. In order to accomplish this, the author has divided his work into six major parts: Origins of the Navy, Ships of the Navy, Officers of the Navy, Men of the Navy, Management of the Navy, and the Navy in action.
Possessing a vast quantity of valuable historical material enlighteningly compiled and engagingly written, the book will prove interesting to the uninitiated layman as well as to the professional naval officer. To the former it will be a revelation that the British Navy did not, in some majestic and mysterious manner, spring full armed from the head of Jove, but rather that it was built over a period of centuries by the overcoming of many hardships and obstacles. To the latter it will be instructive in that the officer will be able to ascertain from its pages which naval policies have succeeded in the past and which have failed, and why.
The fact that the author has seen fit to illustrate the work copiously greatly enhances the instructive value of this book, which is excellently written, interesting, and enlightening.