War and Destiny
James Kitfield. Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2005. 386 pp. Bib. Index. $27.50.
Reviewed by William Thomas
As debate continues over the use of intelligence leading up to the war in Iraq, it is nice to be able to step outside the emotion and learn about the path on which the U.S. is traveling. James Kitfield's War and Destiny explains the neoconservative ideology and its effects with such clarity that nothing happening today in Iraq, Afghanistan, or elsewhere should be a surprise.
Kitfield, a reporter who has covered national security affairs for nearly 20 years, displays an understanding of defense issues that allows him to get beyond political rhetoric and find the underlying basis for modern policies. He traces the birth and growth of the neoconservative movement as it influences international relations. This ideology shaped the American response to 9/11, the decision to invade Iraq and the progress that has followed, and the transformation of the U.S. military. Kitfield explains its effects at points along the way.
The centerpiece of this book is the war in Iraq. As the nation marches toward war, Kitfield chronicles the steps, abroad as well as at home. His reporting during the time led him to an impressive array of sources in and out of government, most of whom stood by their statements rather than remaining unnamed, as so many reporters rely upon. He examines the circumstantial clues suggesting Iraqi involvement in 9/11, the evidence of continued chemical and biological weapons development, and Aahmed Chalabi's assurances that the U.S. could quickly and easily overthrow Saddam.
As the war begins, Kitfield finds himself with the V Corps' forward headquarters on the march to Baghdad. His accounts as a print journalist seem more gripping than anything reported on television. As he experiences missile attacks and the ubiquitous fog of war he draws the reader into the melee, no doubt eliciting knowing nods from combat veterans. He offers up a firsthand account of the "pause" in the battle that infuriated proponents of the war back home and fueled the naysayers. Through his description of the death of fellow reporter Michael Kelly and others around Baghdad he conveys the dangers inherent in the uncertain twilight between the major combat and the post-conflict periods. Still, Kitfield left Iraq in the spring of 2003 with a sense of cautious optimism seemingly shared by the military men and women he left behind.
Not content to report secondhand information from the safety of home, Kitfield brings the reader back to Iraq two more times. Each time he, and the officers with whom he talks, seemed to emphasize the "cautious" over the "optimism." He is in the Al Rashid Hotel with Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz when it is attacked, and his perceptions of that event's implications seem somewhat at odds with the administration's continuing pronouncements. Rather than simply offering up his own opinions, he seeks out senior and junior personnel-some of whom he knew from his first time around, and who are back again-for their thoughts on the matter.
Upon leaving Iraq for the last time he devotes an impressive section of the book to the plans for military transformation and their effects as demonstrated in war. Readers of his earlier book, Prodigal Soldiers, are aware that Kitfield knows a thing or two about transformation. The differences between the military's post-Vietnam recovery and the plans for its adaptation now become very clear throughout the final portion of the book. He does not claim to know what will happen to the military as a result of Iraq, but he certainly knows which questions to ask.
Kitfield goes out of his way to portray military members as he hopes all Americans will see them: as professional, seasoned, and confident rather than as "outdated Vietnam-era images or as Beetle Bailey caricatures." He credits all those he meets along the way, regardless of whether or not they agree with his conclusions, and he records the names of many of those who fell in battle. His respect for civilian leaders is harder to detect. Does this color his reporting? Perhaps, but while it is clear in the end that he is not a fan of current U.S. policies, he is careful to offer multiple perspectives on an issue, allowing the reader to finally decide what to think. There will be those who will discount this work out of hand simply because his conclusions do not match their own, but the truth is that the only person who will not learn something useful from this book is the person who does not want to.
Dr. Thomas is an assistant professor of Military Strategic Studies at the U.S. Air Force Academy and Deputy Director of the USAF Institute for National Security Studies. During 2004-2005 he served in Baghdad's "Green Zone" as a strategic planner in Multinational security Transition Command-Iraq.
Carriers in Combat: The Air War at Sea
Chester G. Hearn. Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, 2005. 316 pp. Ill. $49.95.
Reviewed by Norman Polmar
Chester Hearn has written an overview of the development and combat operations of the world's aircraft carriers. It is a useful introduction to the subject, beginning with Eugene Ely's historic shipboard flights of 1910-1911, up through U.S. carrier operations in Operation Iraqi Freedom of March 2003. The writing style is good and photographs and maps are suitable.
Unfortunately, the book is of little value to historians, buffs, or naval officers. The author's lack of knowledge of naval terminology and numerous factual errors detract severely from the work. For example, with respect to terminology, LPH (amphibious assault ship) never indicated Landing Platform Helicopter in the U.S Navy, and when designated AV-3, the Langley was a seaplane tender, not an aviation transport. More disturbing are the factual errors: Rear Admiral Henry M. Mullinix was a task group commander, not commander of the air group on the escort carrier Liscome Bay (which was CVE-56, not CVE-16 as in the book).
The U.S. submarine Nautilus (SS-168, not SSN-571) did not fire one torpedo at the Japanese carrier Kaga at Midway and then fire "three torpedoes into the burning Soryu, and they exploded"; rather, the Nautilus fired four torpedoes at the Kaga, one of which never left the tube. According to Japanese sources,
Two of the torpedoes barely missed the [Kaga], and the third, though it struck, miraculously failed to explode. Instead, it glanced off the side and broke into two sections, the warhead sinking into the depths while the buoyant after section remained floating nearby. Several of Kaga's crew, who were swimming about in the water after having jumped or been blown overboard when the bombs struck the carrier, grabbed onto the floating section and used it as support while awaiting rescue.
Subsequently, in the Solomon Islands the Japanese submarine 7-79's phenomenal six-torpedo salvo not only sank the carrier Wasp (CV-1), but also damaged the battleship North Carolina (BB-55) and destroyer O'Brien (DD-415). (The latter ships were not torpedoed by the I-75.) And, the O'Brien never made it back to Pearl Harbor, as Hearn states. She sank from her wounds several days after being torpedoed.
And the Soviet Yak-36 was not the Forger, but the Freehand, a test and development aircraft. The very different Yak-38 Forger flew from the Ajev-class carriers and that aircraft was in no way "patterned" on the British Sea Harrier.
The list of errors continues. These problems with Aircraft Carriers reduce the book to a useful "first reader" for the uninitiated who want only a superficial overview of carrier aviation.
Mr. Polmar is a columnist for Proceedings and Naval History magazines.
American Shogun: A Tale of Two Cultures
Robert Harvey. Woodstock & New York: The Overlook Press, 2006. 459 pp. $35.00.
Reviewed by Robert S. Bolia
American Shogun is British journalist Robert Harvey's attempt at a dual biography of General of the Army Douglas MacArthur and Japanese Emperor Hirohito, whose lives were, the author argues, inextricably intertwined. While the prospect is initially intriguing, Harvey does little to make the case that a dual biography is called for. Although the book opens with an account of the historic meeting between MacArthur and Hirohito just two and a half weeks after the Japanese surrender, little else in the narrative suggests that they had any contact at all, leaving the reader unconvinced of the potential significance of the book.
While the author has set out to write a dual biography, the result bears little resemblance to traditional biography. Whereas a typical biography of a leader—whether military or political—might spend a few chapters on his or her early life and career, devoting the bulk of the work to the activities that made the leader famous, Harvey has done almost the opposite. American Shogun contains much more detail about the lives of both MacArthur and Hirohito before World War II than it does about either of their wartime activities or their involvement in the rebuilding of Japan. Indeed, we learn almost nothing about what they were actually doing during these critical periods.
That is not to say that the focus of the book is on the early lives of the subjects. Rather, the problem is an almost complete lack of focus on them at all. For instance, 55 pages—more than 10% of the book—are devoted to the history of Japan before Hirohito. Further, much of the material presented on the war is of little, if any, relevance to the lives of either the general or the emperor. More detail is given, for example, on the campaign for Okinawa than on any of the campaigns in which MacArthur was involved. There is also an inordinate amount of material presented on the atomic bomb—President Harry S. Truman's decision to use it, mechanical details of its construction, a narrative of the journey of the Enola Gay, a Japanese schoolboy's experience of the attack—that had nothing to do with either MacArthur or Hirohito. Indeed, they seem to have been included only because they make for interesting reading.
The book further fails to adhere to the norms of historical writing. No attempt has been made to cite sources. The author employs dozens of quotations, often citing the speaker or writer but seldom the source, making it difficult to evaluate their credibility. In addition, he frequently makes cavalier statements related to historical or cultural facts that the reader is unable to substantiate. This is especially problematic in a work that claims to break new ground, since it is impossible to differentiate between novel analyses and the work of other historians. Moreover, the text is peppered with summary judgments about the appearance, intellect, and character of the historical figures that say more about Harvey than they do about the figures themselves: Harvey appears to take pleasure in making sport of President William Howard Taft's obesity, for example, or reporting that Hirohito had a weak mind, or was physically weak relative to MacArthur. Finally, it is clear that Harvey is a great admirer of MacArthur, but as such he tends to assume MacArthur's view on anyone with whom he came into contact, or on events in which he had taken part, and as such lends little credence to alternative interpretations.
American Shogun is a well-written book and an entertaining read. Unfortunately, it is not objective history, and is unlikely to add to the literature on either MacArthur or Hirohito, leaving it, in the end, unsatisfying.
Mr. Bolia is a scientist at the Air Force Research Laboratory's Human Effectiveness Directorate at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.
First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong
James R. Hansen. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005. 769 pp. Notes. Bib. Index. $30.00
Reviewed by Captain William Readdy, U.S. Navy (Retired)
University of Auburn historian Dr. James R. Hansen's First Man at long last completes the trilogy of authorized accounts of Apollo XI, adding to the previous works by Wayne Warga and Buzz Aldrin, Return to Earth (1973) and Michael Collins, Carrying the Fire (1974).
It should come as no surprise that these books are as different as the three crewmembers of Apollo XI themselves. Unlike Warga's book "as told to" by Buzz Aldrin or Mike Collins' personal reflections in his own very descriptive and compelling prose, Hansen's book is a detailed, highly documented, and extensively sourced tome. His work benefits from interviews with Armstrong, his family, childhood friends, squadron mates, fellow test pilots, and astronauts, but most especially Armstrong's God-fearing mother, Viola, who felt her firstborn son was predestined for greatness.
(First Man was obviously not the humble, self-effacing Armstrong's choice for a title; rather it was Hansen's, who admits as much in the acknowledgements. Perhaps, with Hansen's rigorous and detailed approach, the book might well have been titled, Neil Armstrong—the Complete Biography.)
In an unconscious nod to James Michener's style and love of detail, Hansen relates the story of the Armstrong clan beginning generations before their arrival in the colonies in the late 1730s, and their eventual settlement in Pennsylvania. He picks up Neil Armstrong's story during his boyhood, through his careers as aeronautical engineer, research pilot, and astronaut, and return to civilian life as a university professor, corporate executive, and trusted aviation and space advisor to American presidents.
Hansen's research would be useless without his ability to distill the huge volume of technical documentation and books written since the first lunar landing in 1969. To add historical perspective, Hansen intersperses many of Armstrong's comments over the years among his recent interviews. In the process he corrects or debunks earlier anecdotal accounts about Chuck Yeager, Buzz Aldrin, and others. In the decades to come, First Man is destined to become one of the definitive reference works on the lunar program.
The book will appeal to space aficionados, but it is uncertain how many others will have the patience to tackle its 769 pages. Those who press on will be rewarded with rare insights into Armstrong's small-town Ohio upbringing and his personal and professional life. The detail helps to explain the complex personality, the analytical approach to most topics, and the dry, subtle sense of humor so emblematic of this legendary astronaut.
Of particular interest to Proceedings readers will be the stories about his flight training and carrier qualification-first in SNJ Texans and F-8F Bearcats on the USS Cabot (CVL-28)-or later his transition as a nugget in one of the first jet fighter squadrons, the VF-51 Screaming Eagles. Armstrong flew F-9F Panthers on 78 combat missions during a 1951 Korean War deployment with Carrier Air Group Five on board the USS Essex (CV-9), the exploits of which were the basis of Michener's famous novel, The Bridges at Toko-Ri.
If surviving the loss of six feet of his wing on a ground attack run and subsequently bailing out were not enough excitement, there are the descriptions of engineering and research flying the early X-series planes. As a pilot first for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics during the seminal days of supersonic flight and then at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for the dawn of the space age, Armstrong took on the X-IB and the X-15 at Edwards Air Force Base, California.
A charter member of the prestigious Society of Experimental Test Pilots, he was well on his way to being a legend in flight test research even before being selected for the astronaut program. Picked for the second NASA group, or "Next Nine," he joined such Navy notables as Pete Conrad, Jim Lovell, and John Young-all of whom went on to command Gemini flights and then Apollo missions to the moon.
Armstrong commanded Gemini VIII, performing the first docking in space, then was assigned the command of Apollo XI, successfully piloting the lunar module, Eagle, to a soft landing on the moon's Sea of Tranquility and into history.
The book sheds more light on Armstrong's Lindbergh-like qualities of avoiding the limelight and the media. In reality it was his intensity and focus on the mission first and foremost that led to that appearance. Although he may have been a bit shy, he was in fact a humble, self-effacing engineer and research pilot who was most often deeply immersed in accomplishing the mission. A professional's professional, Armstrong time and again demonstrated the persistence, courage, and tenacity to get the job done-often against tremendous odds.
A surprising discovery is Armstrong's substantial role in revolutionizing aerospace vehicle flight control: in the early 1960s he pioneered reaction control systems for exo-atmospheric flight in the X-15, and then a decade later championed the first successful demonstration of a fly-by-wire (FBW) aircraft flight control system, using an Apollo-era digital computer and a NASA F-8 Crusader. Digital FBW freed airplane designers to attempt entirely new statically and dynamically unstable configurations, successfully increasing aircraft performance capabilities. It is now commonplace in many military and commercial aircraft around the world.
Captain Readdy, a 1974 U.S. Naval Academy graduate, was an aerospace engineer, naval aviator, test pilot, space shuttle astronaut, and NASA associate administrator for space flight. He commanded the space shuttle Atlantis on STS-79 and is a life member of the U.S. Naval Institute.