Building American Submarines 1914-1940
Gary E. Weir. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, 1991. 166 pp. Append. Bib. Gloss. Ind. Notes. Photos. $8.50 ($7.65) paper.
Submarines and the War at Sea 1914-18
Richard Compton-Hall. London: MacMillan London Limited, 1991. 345 pp. Ind. Maps. Notes. Photos. £20.00.
Undersea Warriors: Submarines of the World
Capt. Ernest L. Schwab, USN (Ret.). Lincolnwood, IL: Publications International, Ltd., 1991. 256 pp. Gloss. Ulus. Ind. Photos. $29.99 ($26.99).
Dive Into History, Volume 2: U.S. Submarines
Henry C. Keatts and George C. Farr. Houston, TX: Pisces Books, 1991. 221 pp. Bib. Illus. Ind. Photos. $18.95 ($17.05) paper.
Reviewed by William Galvani
Readers of Naval History will be pleased to find that four new books are available that take submarines from their infancy to today’s modem vessels.
In Building American Submarines 1914-1940, the Naval Historical Center’s Dr. Gary Weir has done a masterful job of analyzing the growth of the U.S. submarine industry from the pre-World War I era through the eve of World War II. He explores the evolution of the intricate relationship between the U.S. Navy and the companies that built its submarines. In the years before the Great War, private builders controlled the development of the submarine. While the Navy set a few minimal specifications. Electric Boat and the Lake Torpedo Boat companies, among others, controlled the research, development, and building process. They pursued innovations to the extent that they thought improvements would increase the marketability of their vessels.
Experience in World War I and the shocking superiority of captured German U-boats demonstrated the inadequacy of this system. Additionally, an increasingly vocal submarine community demanded the best boats that technology could produce, not simply boats that met contract specifications. Goaded by these factors, the Bureau of Engineering and the Bureau of Construction & Repair began to participate in the submarine design process.
With the commencement of submarine construction at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in 1916, the Navy started to wrest control of the process from Electric Boat and other companies. When the 1925-31 hiatus in submarine construction at Electric Boat ended, the Navy began to take the lead in research, design, and development. By the end of the 1930s, the Navy had clearly become the senior partner in technological innovation. The net results of the naval/private sector cooperation were the capable submarines that carried the war to the enemy from 1941 onward.
Weir carefully unfolds this complicated relationship in a thoroughly researched and well-constructed narrative that describes the pivotal issues of submarine development. Completing the book are exhaustive endnotes, a detailed bibliography, and a comprehensive index. Building American Submarines demonstrates excellent scholarship throughout and makes a significant contribution to submarine history.
Complementing Weir’s book on early submarines is Submarines and the War at Sea 1914-18, Richard Compton-Hall’s splendid history of British and German submarines in World War I. The U.S. submarines that Weir wrote about had a minor role in the war, but Compton- Half s boats were significantly involved from the start.
One month after the beginning of World War I, U-21 sank the cruiser HMS Pathfinder with a torpedo, the first instance in warfare in which a submarine used a torpedo to sink a warship. U-21’s success is all the more remarkable considering the appalling mechanical and habitability problems that afflicted all early submarines. Compton-Hall catalogs an impressive list of those troubles—poor seakeeping characteristics, unreliable engines, minimal navigation capability, cramped living conditions, poor ventilation and toxic fumes, odors and poor sanitation, and cold or heat, depending on the season—and cogently analyzes them.
The author, a submariner for 21 years and current Director of the Royal Navy Submarine Museum, draws a persuasive picture of battleship admirals unable to comprehend the potential of submarines and younger officers who were eager to demonstrate the capabilities of their commands but were usually ignored.
Prewar navies, he points out, failed to develop a submarine doctrine that matched the vessels’ capabilities. Flag officers conducted unrealistic, self-satisfying training exercises, and they paid no attention to antisubmarine warfare. Yet, from the beginning of the war the mere suspected presence of submarines began to influence naval strategy.
While developing his broad themes, Compton-Hall offers numerous anecdotes and examples to support his points and to invigorate his text. He employs wonderful detail to cover the initial patrols of submarine warfare, and he makes excellent use of British and German primary sources. The author’s thorough footnotes, grouped at the back of the book, often read as interestingly as the text. A fine book, full of well-reasoned conclusions and fascinating detail. Submarines and the War at Sea is a pleasure to read as the work of an expert who attends to his craft with such enjoyment and skill.
The primitive but lethal machines Compton-Hall writes about were the ancestors of the precisely engineered nuclear marvels and the capable diesel boats that Navy Captain Ernest L. Schwab describes in Undersea Warriors. This large- format edition combines the usefulness of an intelligence summary with the attractiveness of a coffee-table book.
Beginning with the United States, the author outlines the fleets of 11 major submarine-building and -operating nations. Class descriptions make up the bulk of the book, and Captain Schwab has thoroughly summarized each type’s dimensions, operating characteristics, armament, and sensors. He analyzes each class’s missions, strengths and weaknesses, future, and, where applicable, sales history and potential.
The text reflects the difficulty of working on the edge of classified material; qualifiers such as “reportedly,” “evidently,” and “probably” abound. An experienced submariner, Schwab writes succinctly and trenchantly throughout, and his observations are right on the mark.
Undersea Warriors includes a fine selection of photographs; most are in color and many are a half-page or larger. The photographs by Yogi and Steve Kaufman are particularly striking, but readers familiar with submarine literature will recognize a number of them from Silent Chase and other large-format books.
Undersea Warriors is as up-to-date as a book can be, given the world’s rapidly changing military and economic situation. Perhaps because of a rush to production, however, it contains minor typographical errors, and at least five pictures have been printed backwards.
Dive into History, Vol. 2: U.S. Submarines describes 12 sunken U.S. Navy submarines in the Atlantic (as well as one near San Diego) that are accessible to divers. Keatts and Farr have dived on most of these submarines, and the book reflects their firsthand knowledge of the sites.
Descriptions of each of the 13 sunken submarines make up the heart of the text. The authors summarize each sub’s history and explain how she came to rest on the bottom. Recounting dives made on each wreck, they assess the dangers of diving there and provide accurate location information. A nice selection of black-and-white historic photographs, as well as color underwater shots, illustrates the text.
Unintentionally, this little volume raises serious questions about the ethics and legality of removing artifacts from sunken vessels. Keatts and Farr cite the example of a diver who removed and converted into a lamp the first retractable periscope installed on a submarine. Though the USS G-l had been officially abandoned by the Navy, this type of salvaging serves no historic purpose and benefits no one except the individual involved. But the authors have missed an opportunity to educate the sport diving community about the irresponsible and, in some instances illegal, removal of artifacts from sunken vessels. Even a target ship sunk in weapons tests has historic integrity that unchecked scavenging violates.
Steel Ships and Iron Men: A Tribute to World War II Fighting Ships and the Men Who Served on Them
Bruce Roberts and Ray Jones. Chester, CT: The Globe Pequot Press, 1991. 148 pp. Append. Photos. $22.95 ($20.65).
Reviewed by Christopher C. Wright
Steel Ships and Iron Men does two things. First, it describes, in words and pictures, the memorial ships located in the United States that served in World War II. Second, it provides a series of vignettes that portray what life was like for individual sailors on board the ships during the war, drawing on individual veterans’ recollections. The book probably will be appreciated most by World War II Navy veterans and by first-time visitors to the memorial ships, for it offers both easy reading and arresting viewing.
The strongest aspect of the book is the extremely high-quality color photography of the memorial ships as they now appear. Apparently the product of a large- format camera, rather than the usual 35- mm., ship photography of this quality is unusual, normally being found in comparatively obscure places such as the expensive Japanese journal sekai no kansen (“Ships of the World”) published monthly in Tokyo. A variety of generally familiar black-and-white World War II action photography obtained from the official collections in Washington, D.C., is interwoven with the current color views. Well produced. Steel Ships is printed on glossy heavy stock that is critical to realizing the value of Mr. Roberts’s photography. The only flaw is the layout of a number of the larger photographs across two pages, separated by the book’s spine.
The book is weakest in the finer detail given about the ships themselves. Characteristics data are limited and not specified as to what particular date they represent. Small errors are present, such as placing the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Taney (WPG-37) at Pearl Harbor during the Japanese attack (the ship was at Pier 6, Honolulu Harbor, until about noon that day); in reverse, present-day memorial submarine Bowfin (SS-287) is listed as being at Honolulu when in fact the vessel resides in Pearl Harbor proper, right next to the memorial museum building and the dock for boats going out to the Arizona Memorial. The book suggests that destroyer escort Stewart (DE-238) is “thought to be the only destroyer-escort in existence”; others survive, most notably the Brazilian Bauru, formerly the USS McAnn (DE-179), which has been a museum ship open to the public near Parque de Flamengo, Rio de Janeiro, since 1982.
This book illuminates the great potential value of the many memorial and museum ships around the country. These ships are excellent resources for an improved understanding of naval history, including naval technical developments as well as a sense of life at sea. Some, such as the Massachusetts Memorial Commission, have excellent educational programs under way toward this end.
The ships also play a role in gaining public support for the naval service and in acquiring volunteers, though this book steers clear of any evaluation of such economic considerations. The continued maintenance of these aging ships is a major undertaking, and one wonders what the future holds for them. Some of the vessels described here have already faced some daunting financial hurdles. Those of us who benefit from these memorial and museum ships should be ready to help support them when the question of financing their survival returns—which it will.
Lightning Over Bougainville: The Yamamoto Mission Reconsidered
By R. Cargill Hall, editor. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991. 220 pp. Append. Bib. Ind. Maps. Photos. $21.95 ($19.75).
Reviewed by Craig M. Cameron
At 0934 on 18 April 1943, when the first sighting, “Bogeys, 11 o’clock high,” crackled over their headsets, 16 Army Air Forces pilots pushed both throttles full open on their P-38 Lightnings and minutes later sent the commander-in-chief of the Imperial Japanese Navy, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, crashing to his death in the jungle of Bougainville below. For almost 50 years this single mission has been the subject of extensive conjecture and often acrimonious debate.
In April 1988 the Admiral Nimitz Museum in Fredericksburg, Texas, sponsored the “Yamamoto Mission Retrospective,” which brought together scholars and surviving U.S. and Japanese pilots involved in that mission. One of the organizers, R. Cargill Hall, from the Office of Air Force History, presents in this book the edited proceedings of the conference. The two main sections of Lightning are derived directly from the presentation of five scholarly papers in an academic panel, and from the mission panel in which eight Americans and one Japanese from among the original participants related their recollections of the engagement. In addition. Hall has written an introduction, included transcripts of three brief interviews with key participants, and provided 12 appendixes of “related documents.”
The symposium was structured around three basic debates that are carried through in the book. First are the practical and ethical questions raised in four of the academic papers about targeting Yamamoto. Under what circumstances is it appropriate to single out an enemy leader in such fashion? And at what point is military necessity reduced to simple assassination or terror? The second debate concerns the conduct of the mission from the standpoint of intelligence security. A single paper by Captain Roger Pineau, U.S. Naval Reserve (Retired), an intelligence and Japanese-language officer in the Pacific, outlines in abbreviated form the concerns that the mission might have compromised the codebreaking work of the Americans that had been crucial in defeating Yamamoto’s great operation ten months earlier at Midway. Finally, the third debate—and the most heated—centers on assigning proper credit for the actual kills of the two Betty bombers carrying Yamamoto and his staff.
Of the three debates, the last is of least historical value, yet it draws inordinate attention at the conference and in the book precisely because of its personal nature. Thomas G. Lanphier, Jr., and Rex T. Barber officially share credit for the first bomber kill equally, and it is around these two men that controversy swirled for so long. In a letter to his parents in December 1942, reproduced in one of the appendixes, Lanphier wrote, “All the business about ‘how many Japs did so and so get’ is pretty much nonsense.” By the time he appeared in a three-part newspaper article in September 1945 as “Yamamoto’s Killer,” however, Lanphier had changed his mind on the subject.
Given its narrow focus. Lightning will appeal primarily to those interested specifically in the Yamamoto mission or the wartime exploits of the P-38. The editor is not off the mark in writing that “this book offers a definitive summary” of the main debates, and scholars will find the complete, annotated bibliography useful. Even more casual enthusiasts, however, may enjoy the glimpses from the cockpit offered by Hall and the original participants of this unique mission.
Bougainville, 1943-1945: The Forgotten Campaign.
Harry A. Gailey. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 1991. 237 pp. Bib. Gloss. Ind. Maps. Notes. Photos. $27.00 ($24.30).
Reviewed by Benis M. Frank
Little less than 50 years ago, on the 1st of November 1943, the 3d Marine Division (Reinforced) of I Marine Amphibious Corps landed on strategically located Bougainville, the largest island at the northern end of the Solomons chain. The primary reason for the landing was to construct airfields from which Allied aircraft could be based for air raids against Rabaul. In reducing this major Japanese air and naval base, the threats against General Douglas Mac Arthur’s operations in New Guinea and the 1st Marine Division landing on Cape Gloucester the day after Christmas 1943 would in turn be diminished, and the Allied thrust toward the Philippines could continue as planned.
It is well that in this commemoration period Dr. Harry A. Gailey has written about Bougainville. His is not just a popular history because he has delved into primary documentation and used such sources as the oral histories and personal papers that were not available when official histories were written. (So it is with his books on Peleliu, Guam, and Saipan.) And it is well that a scholar of his stature has written about a place that—except to those Marines, soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Australian troops who fought there and survived—does not have the name recognition that Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Iwo Jima, or Okinawa have. Marine General C. “Jerry” Thomas once observed of Belleau Wood and Guadalcanal that each battle seems to have a personality of its own, and so, too, it can be said of Bougainville.
Before I discuss this well-researched and -written history favorably, as it deserves, I have several caveats. First, I think too much time was spent going into the campaigns and other action leading to the strategic situation before and the rationale for the Bougainville invasion. Second, Dr. Gailey has a “thing” about Lieutenant General Holland M. Smith, as he exhibited in his Saipan history, and he doesn’t neglect throwing in a dig at the senior Marine in the Pacific in the opening pages of this work. Also, in his discussion of the Guadalcanal campaign, he misidentifies the 7th Marines as the first regiment arriving in New Zealand to be used in the Guadalcanal landing. As a matter of fact, it was the 5th Marines, followed by the 1st Marines, who had arrived in New Zealand in June 1942, while the 7th was at Samoa, not Espiritu Santo, which is where the 2d Marines mounted out for the Canal. Also, Colonel Craig commanded the 9th Marines, not the 3d Marines. Several other small errors of fact crop up, but they do not really diminish the quality of this history.
At the outset, Dr. Gailey quite correctly states that the Bougainville operation was an example of cooperation between the services with respect to the command situation, the best example of which was the rotation of commanders of Air Solomons, a composite aircraft group consisting of Army Air Forces, Navy, and Marine Corps squadrons supplemented by Australian and New Zealand air units. Many people not fully familiar with the Bougainville operation will be quite surprised that the campaign extended far beyond the landing of I MAC forces on 1 November and their withdrawal and relief by the XIV Army Corps beginning on 15 December of that same year.
The second phase of the Bougainville campaign saw some extremely heavy fighting by the Army under the miserable conditions of heat, humidity, rain, mud, swamps, and almost unscalable heights against a Japanese foe who would not retire easily from the field. Almost immediately after relieving the Marines, XIV Corps began building strongpoints and pushing them out farther into Japanese territory and harassing the Japanese at every opportunity. At the same time, Army units built up a relatively comfortable rear area with almost all of the amenities of civilization. Air units from the Piva Strips mounted continual raids against Rabaul in what came to be known as “The Bougainville Milk Run.” While frontline Army units fought and suffered casualties, they were fewer in number than those suffered by the Australians who replaced them.
The final phase of the Bougainville campaign dealt with in this book covers the experiences of the Australian forces that relieved the U.S. Army beginning in October 1944 and took over full command by 1 February 1945. The Australians then mounted a full-press operation against enemy forces remaining on the island, who by now had been almost completely isolated. Although in a sorry state, they were still capable of giving a good account of themselves in battle.
Here, the author describes very well the reason for the Australian offensive mindedness and the frustrations of the Australians under the command of General MacArthur in the fighting elsewhere in the Southwest Pacific theater. Dr. Gailey also shows that once the U.S. restraints were removed and the Australians were on their own, they rushed to vindicate themselves and show “the Americans the true worth of the Australian fighting man.” Sadly, in the subsequent fighting, the Australians needlessly suffered heavy casualties.
For the Japanese, Bougainville was a killing ground. Of the 65,000 Japanese estimated to have been on the island when the Marines landed, only 21,000 remained at the time they surrendered to the Australians in August 1945. Approximately 18,000 Australians were killed or died of wounds or disease in the little more than seven months of their campaign. Dr. Gailey quite rightfully concludes:
It was a terrible toll for an island whose possession after March 1944 was of no consequence in bringing the war to a close. The Australian phase of the near-two-year conflict on Bougainville was characterized by daily acts of bravery under some of the worst physical conditions encountered by troops anywhere during the war. That the Australian soldiers performed so well when they had to know that what they were doing was in the larger sphere unnecessary and unappreciated at home says much for the courage and the discipline of the ordinary Australian infantryman.
This book is an important addition to the official Army and Marine Corps histories written of the battle, as well as to the tome in Samuel Eliot Morison’s 15- volume history of naval operations in World War II that deals with the Navy’s war in the waters around the Northern Solomons.
Books of Interest
By Lieutenant Commander Thomas J. Cutler, U.S. Navy (Retired)
Checkfire!
VAdm. William P. Mack, USN (Ret.). Baltimore, MD: The Nautical & Aviation Publishing Company of America, 1992. 411 pp. $22.95 ($20.65).
Admiral Mack’s third novel focuses on the USS Truxtun, an old four-stack destroyer converted into an amphibious transport for operations in the Pacific during World War II. As in his other novels, Admiral Mack draws on his own naval career and his engaging writing style to bring the story to life.
Desperate Venture: The Story of Operation Torch, the Allied Invasion of North Africa
Norman Gelb. New York: William Morrow, 1992. 365 pp. Bib. Ind. Notes. Photos. $25.00 ($22.50).
The November 1942 invasion of North Africa was the first combined U.S.-British offensive of the war and a dress rehearsal for the much more important invasion of France a year and a half later. In spite of its many errors, Operation Torch led to the defeat of German forces in North Africa. The invasion is described in detail in this well-written account by the author of Dunkirk (William Morrow, 1989).
Miracle in Korea: The Evacuation of X Corps from the Hungnam Beachhead
Glenn C. Cowart. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1992. 173 pp. Append. Bib. Gloss. Ind. Maps. Notes. Photos. Tables. $29.95 ($26.95).
The U.S. 10th Corps very nearly met disaster in Korea, but a combination of courage and logistical wizardry turned an impending tragedy into a moment of U.S. honor. The Marine breakout from the Chosin Reservoir was soon followed by the incredible evacuation from Hungnam of 87,000 U.S. and Republic of Korea troops, virtually all of their equipment, and 86,000 civilians who wished to flee North Korea. Cowart’s detailed description is an excellent tribute to those Marines.
The Normandy Campaign, 1944: A Select Bibliography
Colin F. Baxter. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1992. 184 pp. Bib. Ind. $45.00 ($40.50).
Extensive categorization and cross-referencing make this bibliography an excellent research tool. Included are atlases, doctoral dissertations, and museums, plus a useful narrative.
Those Navy Guys and Their PBY’s: The Aleutian Solution
Elmer Freeman. Spokane, WA: Kedging Publishing, 1992. 280 pp. Append. Bib. Ind. Maps. Notes. Photos. $18.95 ($17.05) paper.
A former crew member of one of the famed Navy PBY patrol aircraft of World War II and veteran of the Aleutians campaign, Freeman imparts a firsthand look at that remote comer of the war. Numerous photographs and maps enhance the presentation, and transform this from mere history to vicarious experience.
