The Southern Journey of a Civil War Marine: The Illustrated Note-Book of Henry O. Gusley
Edited and annotated by Edward T. Cotham Jr. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2006. 223 pp. Ulus. Notes. Index. $24.95.
Reviewed by Ron Benigo
Henry O. Gusley enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps shortly after the outbreak of the Civil War. A committed Unionist with little or no enthusiasm for abolition, Gusley completed his training and joined the Marine detachment on board the USS Westfield on blockade duty in the Gulf of Mexico. A literary man, both well read and articulate, Gusley began a diary of his wartime experiences in five states while on board the Westfield and subsequently the USS Clifton.
This diary, dubbed a “note-book” in frank imitation of Dickens’ “Pickwick Club” members, spans little more than a year from the capture of New Orleans by Union forces in late April 1862 to Gusley’s capture by Texas Confederates at the Battle of Sabine Pass in September 1863. This was a time when the Marine Corps was a force in search of a mission. It had been seriously weakened when a third of its officers opted to join the Confederacy, and Congress had recently authorized expansion to more than 3,000 officers and men. Gusley’s narrative basically describes a monotonous tour of shipboard guard duty albeit enlivened by the uncertainty of waking in a different place on an almost daily basis with little forewarning of what the day would bring. The occasional battle scenes are recorded as if Gusley were more observer than participant; although, his final entry describes an all-hands struggle against a surprisingly strong Confederate effort at Sabine Pass, ending in the loss of the Clifton and the capture of her crew.
This is not a particularly engaging book. However, I found subsequent events, as chronicled by editor Cotham, very interesting. First, Gusley’s notebook was discovered by his captors and its contents subsequently published as a series of installments in the Galveston Tri- Weekly News under the heading Yankee Note-Book. The installments proved very popular, especially in contrast to the strong abolitionist rhetoric commonly heard from pro-Union sources, and gave Texans a view of an enemy whose good humor and wry political observations were not much different from their own.
Second, and perhaps even more remarkable, was the discovery of more than 80 drawings by Dr. Daniel D. T. Nestell. Harry Bounds, a friend of book editor Cotham’s, made the find in the Special Collection of the Nimitz Library at the U.S. Naval Academy. An accomplished sketch artist as well as physician, Dr. Nestell also served on board the Clifton at the time of Gusley’s service with the same fleet. He was also captured at Sabine Pass. During this period, Nestell sketched in detail many of the events described in Gusley’s journal. Cotham has effectively combined the best of each to give the reader a much richer account of the blockading efforts of the Union fleet in this important historic moment.
Aficionados of Marine Corps history will not find the usual tales of conspicuous gallantry in the face of impossible odds we have come to expect. Gusley’s notebook is more the articulate musing of an ordinary Marine battling the heat and flying insects of the Gulf and boredom of shipboard life as well as the occasional Rebel. But the book has a nice pace as Gusley was careful to avoid the “writing for writing’s sake” that plagues many amateur diaries, and most pages provide the reader with something interesting to reflect on. Nestell’s sketches provide a welcome additional dimension to the effort, and the editor’s introduction provides just enough historical context to tie the pieces together.
Clash of the Carriers: The True Story of the Marianas Turkey Shoot of World War II
Barrett Tillman. New York: NAL Caliber, 2005. 348 pp. 111. Appen. Notes. Bib. Index. $24.95
Reviewed by Andrew G. Wilson
Before the might of U.S. B-29 bomber squadrons could be effectively deployed against imperial Japan’s home islands, the Japanese-held islands of Guam, Saipan, and Tinian had to be secured as bases from which to launch these aerial armadas. To the U.S. Navy fell the job of protecting the landing beaches during the assaults from the heavily pressed but undefeated Imperial Japanese Navy. This clash of 20th-century naval titans became known as the Battle of the Philippine Sea, or to many American Airmen, Sailors, and historians as the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot.
Through the wide use of interviews with combatants from both sides of the battle, along with official histories and secondary literature, noted aviation historian Barrett Tillman has provided the student of World War II and naval aviation history with a detailed and multidimensional account of this massive aerial contest.
The Turkey Shoot of June 1944 would far overshadow all previous carrier engagements between the two navies in terms of forces deployed, including the much more famous and close-run 1942 Battle of Midway. The United States entered the fray against the Japanese in the Philippine Sea with an awesome force of 905 aircraft on board 15 fast carriers, most of which had been launched since the war’s outbreak. The official designation given to these carriers was Task Force 58, but the group had another name within U.S. fleet parlance: Murderer’s Row. To counter this impressive force, the Imperial Japanese Navy would commence operations with approximately 440 aircraft aboard nine carriers. As Tillman makes vividly clear, by 1944 the U.S. Navy—both surface fleet and aerial elements—outclassed those of the Japanese in everything but perhaps elan.
What makes this work so impressive is the sheer detail provided by Tillman, combined with leadership profiles, personal recollections, and stories of those involved. Besides being able to create the sensation that the reader is actually in the cockpit of an attacking Grumman F6F-3 Hellcat, Tillman also covers such important (and sometimes forgotten factors in securing ultimate success) topics as radar, aerial reconnaissance, the impact of submarines, bunker-C fuel, and postbattle aviator recovery efforts. The reader is left I with a clear understanding that so much more I than fighting spirit and operational experience is needed to triumph in a contest such as the Turkey Shoot.
Author Stephen Coonts, writing in the foreword, perhaps best captures why Clash of the Carriers is a must-read for the serious student of World War II in the Pacific: “This sea battle marked the first time that Japan felt the full weight of America’s economic, population, and industrial superiority, which had in three short years been translated into an amazing military advantage that would, within 15 months, leave Japan prostrate and in ruins.”
Tillman’s work provides a comprehensive account of the human element and costs associated with command and combat in naval aviation—derived from what was arguably the greatest aerial contest in naval aviation history.
Japanese Submarine Raiders 1942—A Maritime Mystery
Steven L. Carruthers. Narrabeen, Australia: Casper Publications, 2006. 230 pp. Illus. Maps. Appens. Index. $29.95.
Reviewed by Rear Admiral Thomas A. Brooks, U.S. Navy (Retired)
This book is an update of the author’s 1982 book Australia Under Siege, about the World War II Japanese Navy’s employment of two-man midget submarines. Both books focus on the 31 May 1942 attack on Sydney harbor, Australia, by three midget submarines and are severely critical of Australians for their lackadaisical attitude toward the imminent threat of Japanese attack and invasion and the navy and government for lack of readiness, inadequate response, and covering up shortcomings under the cloak of wartime censorship.
This revision includes additional information on intelligence sources available in early World War II and more coverage of the midget submarine attacks on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 and Diego Suarez, Madagascar, on 31 May 1942. Carruthers also mentions attacks on Guadalcanal anchorages during the Solomon Islands campaign and on U.S. ships participating in landings in the Philippines in 1944, but his claims, in this regard, cannot be substantiated.
The story of the Japanese midget submarine force is an interesting tale of innovation and, above all, individual heroism. While the midgets inflicted little damage, their crews willingly sacrificed their lives in the effort. Only one of the 20 crew members who participated in the Pearl Harbor attack survived, none of the six involved in the Sydney attack returned, and of the four in the Diego Suarez raid (a third midget never made it into the harbor), two perished with their boat and two swam ashore but were later killed by a British army patrol. The author claims the submariners in the Philippine attacks fared rather better; they were ordered to scuttle their boats, and most swam ashore.
The use of midget subs during the Pearl Harbor attack is a matter of some controversy. The author is a member of the school that believes that at least one of the five participating midget subs was able to fire torpedoes at the USS Oklahoma (BB-37) and USS West Virginia (BB-48). He offers as proof Japanese aerial photography taken during the attack, which is, at best, inconclusive. This must be the maritime mystery to which the book’s subtitle refers. Only four of the five midgets have been found. The mystery will go unresolved until the fifth boat is located and examined.
Losses inflicted by the midget submarines were insignificant. Apart from the Pearl Harbor controversy, the attack on Sydney saw torpedoes narrowly miss USS Chicago (CA-29), sink a barracks ship (killing 21 men), and damage a Dutch submarine. The Diego Suarez attack resulted in damage to the battleship HMS Ramilles and the sinking of a naval auxiliary. The author writes that the boats inflicted dramatic damage at Guadalcanal and the Philippines, but his claims do not match known U.S. losses. He states that midgets operating in the approaches to Mindinao in 1944 sank 14 ships, including two cruisers, five destroyers, and a seaplane tender. No U.S. cruisers were lost to submarines in 1944 and only the USS Indianapolis (CA- 35) was sunk in 1945, by I-58, not by a midget she may have been carrying. No U.S. seaplane tenders were lost to subs during that time. If the nine Kaiten human torpedo attacks during 1944-45 are included, the numbers still do not add up.
The author does only a fair job of outlining the special sources of intelligence available to Admiral Chester Nimitz and General Douglas MacArthur as a result of success in breaking JN- 25, the Japanese naval code; Purple, the Japanese diplomatic code; and Enigma codes, German messages encrypted using Enigma cypher machines.
Perhaps the most egregious error in the book pertains to the role of “Intrepid,” Sir William Stephenson, Winston Churchill’s intelligence liaison officer in the United States. The author portrays Stephenson as being in charge of U.S.-U.K. codebreaking activities and places Navy Captain Laurence Safford as his deputy. Stephenson had no relationship whatever with Navy codebreaking operations and no relationship with Safford, who headed the Navy’s cryptanalytic efforts in Washington, D.C.
The book is illustrated with many pictures, graphs, maps, and schematics and contains great detail on Japanese two-man midget subs and the attack on Sydney harbor. Other than that, however, errors and misstatements of fact greatly reduce the book’s value to any serious student of World War II naval history.
The End of Barbary Terror; America’s First War Against the Pirates of North Africa
Frederick C. Leiner. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. 239 pp. Ulus. Bib. Appens. $28.
Reviewed by William M. Fowler Jr.
The United States was born into a hostile world. Neither England, our old master, nor France, our former ally, welcomed the appearance of the new republic. Released from the commercial restraints of the British Empire, American merchants and captains were free to “try all ports.” That freedom, however, came at great risk. In former times the wooden walls of the Royal Navy provided a bulwark of protection for American (i.e., colonial) trade. Independence canceled that insurance. The republic’s merchant marine was left to fend for itself.
Nowhere was the danger to American shipping greater than in the Mediterranean world of the Barbary corsairs. For generations the North African states of Morocco, Tunis, Algiers, and Tripoli had been in the business of harassing passing vessels. Ships whose nations paid tribute were allowed to proceed. Nations who did not pay found their vessels captured, the crews enslaved, and held for ransom.
Maria, a small Boston schooner, bound for Cadiz, was the first vessel of the new republic to be captured. She was taken off Cape St. Vincent by Algerines on 25 July 1785. For the next 30 years, the corsairs bedeviled our commerce. For a time, at least the combination of force and diplomacy protected U.S. trade, but while America was distracted during the War of 1812, Algiers decided to levy war. This is the point at which author Frederick Leiner takes up the story of the Barbary Terror.
Having crowned themselves with glory, strength, fame, and an impressive cadre of officers in the War of 1812, the U.S. Navy was ready for a fight, and the Algerines provided them an opportunity. Peace with England gave President James Madison the chance to deploy this power in the Mediterranean. With approval of the Congress, he ordered a pair of squadrons to Algiers. To command them, Madison appointed two war heroes— Stephen Decatur and William Bainbridge. Decatur was ordered to leave immediately while Bainbridge prepared ships to follow.
On 20 May 1815, Decatur’s squadron of ten vessels, including three frigates, departed for the Mediterranean. It was the most powerful naval force that the republic had ever sent to sea. On 17 June, it made its first capture, taking the Algerine ship Mashouda. On the 20th it took another enemy vessel, Estedio. Eight days later the American squadron was off Algiers.
The loss of Meshuda and Estedio shocked the dey, ruler of Algiers, and he asked for a truce. Decatur refused responding, “I do not want peace myself but it is my orders to treat [for peace]. My officers have come out to fight and put themselves in practice.” Two days later, the dey signed a treaty of “universal peace and friendship.” By its terms the dey agreed “no tribute shall ever be required from the United States” and that he would immediately deliver up “all the American citizens, now in his possession.” Having completed his business in Algiers, Decatur sailed for home but not before visiting Tunis and Tripoli to remind the ruler of those Barbary States of the importance of respecting American rights.
Decatur arrived in New York on 12 November. In a whirlwind of barely six months he managed to defeat the Algerines, secure a treaty, and arrange for the, release of American captives. Shortly after his arrival home, President Madison praised Decatur for his accomplishments and “high character.” Thanks to him there was now “a reasonable prospect of future security for thru invaluable portion of our commerce which passes within reach of the Barbary corsairs.”
Leiner’s fine work enhances our understanding of this final chapter in the struggle between the fledging United States and the Barbary corsairs. Decatur’s triumph in the Mediterranean coming in the wake of the naval victories of the War of 1812 ensured the Navy’s place as the darling of the republic.
As with his previous work Millions For Defense: The Subscription Warships of 1798, the author has expertly plumbed the wealth of archives and secondary works available for study. His source notes will be consulted by scholars following in his wake.