Pearl Harbor: Legacy of Attack
National Geographic Video, 2001. Narrated by Tom Brokaw. 2 hours. $19.95.
Can be purchased at shop.nationalgeographic.com or retail video stores.
Reviewed by Captain Edward L. Beach, U.S. Navy (Retired)
The National Geographic Society has put out one of its usual high-quality pieces of work in the video Pearl Harbor: Legacy of Attack [a companion book, Graveyards of the Pacific, is being released concurrently]. A better title might have been, however, “Bob Ballard’s Long and Unsuccessful Search for the Midget Sub Sunk at the Entrance to Pearl Harbor.” It is evident that he and his crew did their best within the time allotted, but all they accomplished was to prove that discovery cannot be preprogrammed.
The facts are that Japan sent five midget submarines with two-man crews into Pearl Harbor around midnight on 6-7 December 1941. Of these, one was sunk an hour before the attack began outside the channel entrance to the harbor; this became the exclusive object of Ballard’s search. One missed the entrance entirely because of a failed gyrocompass, and only three penetrated into the harbor. Substantial reports apparently account for two of these, but the third is yet to be found. The video shows a famous photograph taken by a Japanese flier during the height of the attack in which two torpedo wakes are seen emanating from a tiny black object resembling one of these submarines. If this can be shown to have been true, it would be one of the most outstanding submarine attacks in history. The picture shows one torpedo headed into the West Virginia (BB-48) and the other into the Oklahoma (BB-37). This boat, as yet unfound, is the one Ballard should have been looking for.
This cavil aside, the video is a dramatic replication of many of the old photographs of the attack, put together with sensitivity and understanding. Only a few of them are new, but to all students of Pearl Harbor they still are of consuming interest. A movie shot taken of the Arizona (BB-39), for example, shows a huge column of black smoke rising from her quarterdeck, and an other, even bigger one from her forecastle. The ensuing explosion of the Arizona’s forward magazines, resulting in the destruction of the ship, tells its own story, and hardly needed the commentator’s statement that in that instant 1,100 men died.
Unfortunately, the video becomes tearfully sentimental toward the end. The camera returns frequently to two of the survivors of Pearl Harbor to depict their emotions upon returning, after half a century, to the memorials there. For a documentary of one of the greatest events of history, the amount of video time given to this feature somehow seems too much— moving though it is. Even more disturbing, at the end the video diverts into racial politics. There is considerable time given to the story of Dorrie Miller, a black steward’s mate, who grabbed a machine-gun and was unofficially credited with shooting down six Japanese aircraft, despite the fact that he never had fired a gun before. Much is made of the view that solely because of his race he was not awarded the Medal of Honor, and was given the Navy Cross instead. While this reviewer has no quarrel with the idea that he probably deserved the highest-possible decoration, the tag end of this video seems a strange place to insert a racial issue.
In all, however, this is a fine rendition of what happened at Pearl Harbor, with its inclusion of many dramatic photographs. It nevertheless misses the mark by spending too much time on Ballard’s unsuccessful search, on the tears of some of the survivors, and on an unnecessary racial interlude dragged in by the heels.
Omaha Beach: A Flawed Victory
Adrian R. Lewis. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina, 2001. 381 pp. Maps. Photos. Notes. Bib. Index. $34-95 ($31.45).
Reviewed by Russell F. Weigley
Adrian Lewis begins with a dramatic narrative of the tactics, horrors, casualties, and the near-fiasco of Omaha Beach and then goes on to explore why the D-Day landings there in 1944 nearly went awry. His exploration evolves into the fullest study of the planning for the cross-channel invasion we have, especially rich in its development of the context of the planning in differing U.S. and British amphibious doctrines and in differences among the amphibious doctrines of the U.S. services.
The planners differed particularly over the value of tactical surprise versus the application of sustained firepower to soften defenses. In simplest terms, Lewis’s conclusion is that the differences were handled through an unsatisfactory compromise that ended up sacrificing both desiderata. To the dismay of many of the infantry commanders who actually would head the attack, the possibility of tactical surprise inherent in a night landing and the obvious other advantages of hitting the beaches at night (as opposed to a potentially suicidal daylight frontal assault against strong defenses) were abandoned for the sake of a final daylight aerial and naval bombardment just before the landings. In the hopes of retaining some element of tactical surprise, however, the final bombardment was too limited to be effective.
The U.S. Navy consistently championed sustained naval gunfire as an essential preliminary to amphibious assault, especially after the Tarawa bombardment proved insufficient. U.S. Army and British planners in Europe were quick to point out, however, that lengthy preliminary bombardments were possible in the Pacific because the invasion targets were islands that could not be reinforced. In fact, European planners were too quick to focus on this issue, because Anglo-American intelligence failed to discern Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s intent to rely almost entirely on beach defenses to stop the invaders—with only minimal expectations of bringing up reinforcements. Unaware of Rommel’s design, D-Day planners proceeded according to British doctrine, seeking tactical surprise and a limited bombardment.
That doctrine was based, however, on a history of assailing only weak defenses. By 1944, the Germans in Normandy had inconveniently constructed defenses much more sophisticated than anything previously encountered, so Allied planners looked for a quick fix—and thought they found it in heavy bombers. Awed by the apparent might of an armada of such aircraft, and undissuaded by airmen who would not offer realistic appraisals of the bombers’ limitations, the planners decided that a final, brief aerial pummeling of the beaches would resolve their dilemma. They failed to reckon that the bombers were not prepared to deal with targets as precise as beach defenses, so the quick fix did not work—and near disaster was the result.
Lewis argues that it was mostly good luck that saved the invasion from Omaha- like difficulties on the other four beaches. He may go too far here, not sufficiently taking into account the terrain obstacles peculiar to Omaha. He also may underestimate the sheer intractability of the problems of waging war, whereby the risks of an Omaha Beach cannot always be evaded. Lewis teaches history at the University of North Texas and also is a retired U.S. Army major; his analysis sometimes displays the lack of appreciation for shading and nuances that can result from the somewhat uneasy marriage of the military officer’s penchant for clarity with the ambiguities of historical experience.
Heroes of Iwo Jima
A&E Network. Narrated by Gene Hackman. 2 hours. Premieres on 17 June 2001, 2100 EDT/PDT.
Reviewed by Colonel Joseph H. Alexander, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired)
On Father’s Day, 17 June, the Arts and Entertainment Network will premiere a two-hour special entitled Heroes of Iwo Jima. Produced by Arnold Shapiro and hosted by Academy Award winner (and former Marine) Gene Hackman, this new documentary is hands-down the best account of the battle and its controversial flag-raisings yet produced.
The battle for Iwo Jima took place during 36 violent days of fighting on a small volcanic island in the western Pacific in the late winter of 1945. It was the biggest and bloodiest single battle the Marines ever waged. More than 25,000 Japanese and Americans died in the fighting. Iwo Jima still represents the pinnacle of forcible amphibious assault from the sea.
On the battle’s fifth day, a combat patrol from the 28th Marines raised a small U.S. flag on the crest of Mount Suribachi. Several hours later, a second, larger flag went up. In that moment, Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal captured in l/400th of a second the greatest image of the war, perhaps the greatest photograph ever taken—five Marines and one Navy corpsman straining to raise the flag against a stiff wind.
Rosenthal’s photograph became an overnight sensation. The snapshot was reproduced on a postage stamp, became a model for a bronze statute to be carved by sculptor Felix de Weldon, and won the 1945 Pulitzer Prize. President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the three surviving flag raisers home to help sell war bonds.
The original flag raisers and their accompanying photographer, Staff Sergeant Louis R. Lowery of Leatherneck magazine, cried foul. They had blazed the way, raised their flag hours earlier, then defeated a Japanese counterattack along the crest. Yet no one sent them home early or cast their features in bronze. As the documentary portrays clearly, however, Lowery took a series of outstanding photographs that morning (and was injured in the counterattack) but his one picture of the risen flag remains unremarkable. His photo was historic; Rosenthal’s was immortal.
Did Rosenthal somehow stage his iconic shot? The documentary disproves this rumor with footage by doomed movie cameraman William Genaust, who stood beside Rosenthal and recorded an uninterrupted raising of the larger flag.
Shapiro does not overly dramatize the seizure of Suribachi, admitting that the battle still had a full bloody month to run afterward. Yet his production reflects a master’s touch. Most of the combat footage appears in color. The surviving veterans speak of their experiences with poignant dignity. Widows and children of the dead testify with a lingering sadness that reflects the impact of the battle’s toll on the home front. The narration is even handed; the music is haunting but unobtrusive.
Shapiro wrote the script with director Lauren Lexton. Historical consultants were Parker Albee Jr. and Keller Cushing Freeman, who wrote the 1995 book, Shadow of Suribachi (Westport, CT: Praeger), and retired Major General Fred Haynes, operations officer for the 28th Marines. James Bradley, son of flag raiser John Bradley and author of the popular Flags of Our Fathers (New York: Bantam, 2000), appears often and effectively.
The gem of the many on-screen authorities is Joe Rosenthal himself, now in his 90s and understandably reclusive after so many years of unwarranted controversy. Other strong contributions come from Greeley Wells, Colonel Tom Fields, and the irrepressible Charles Lindberg, the last of the six flag raisers still alive.
Iwo Jima remains a touchstone battle for Marines. Heroes of Iwo Jima enhances that reverence. Leave it to Joe Rosenthal to close the show with an insight nearly as priceless as his famous photograph. “Yes, I’m the guy who took the picture of the flag raising on Mount Suribachi,” he said, “but the Marines took Iwo Jima.”
