Battle of Surigao Strait
Anthony P. Tully. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2009. 352 pp. Maps. Appen. Notes. Bib. Index. $27.95
Reviewed by Tim Bean
Anthony P. Tully's new book covers the events of 20-25 October 1944 in the southern Philippines, which culminated in two independent Japanese formations attempting to penetrate Surigao Strait. They were part of just one of several Imperial Japanese Navy task forces that were constituents of the Sho-1 plan for a decisive attack on U.S. naval shipping supporting the landings along Leyte Gulf. The resulting complicated night actions in the strait represented the last gunfire exchange between capital ships. The battles collectively known as the Battle of Leyte Gulf, considered the largest and final fleet action of the Pacific war, have generated numerous useful monographs that have also raised some contradictions and new questions.
Tully sets out to resolve these inconsistencies concerning the Surigao Strait action. As in his previous book, Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway (Potomac Books, 2005), written in collaboration with Jonathan Parshall, he deftly capitalizes on Japanese sources, allowing him to correct mistakes that have crept into the existing histories and to furnish a more credible hypothesis regarding certain events. Yet Tully also makes thorough use of existing English-language sources and accounts. These sources, notably the U.S. Naval War College history, revise our understanding of Japan's plans at the battle's outset concerning the reasons for the lack of coordination between the two forces that were to pass through Surigao Strait-Vice Admiral Kiyohide Shima's cruiser force and Vice Admiral Shoji Nishimura's battle division. Tully reveals as superfluous the standard view that issues of rank and personality led to their separation. The real issue was that Shima's force was originally tasked for counterlanding operations. It was his own lobbying and that of Vice Admiral Gunichi Mikawa, chief of the Southwest Pacific Area, that led Tokyo to agree to retask Shima to attack through Surigao, just at a point when it was difficult for his ships to join Nishimura's force-a situation to which Tokyo appeared indifferent. It is noteworthy that Samuel Eliot Morison had access to the volumes of the War College report that Tully cites, but failed to acknowledge these crucial issues.
English-language accounts and Japanese sources also provide strong evidence of a previously aborted plan involving Nishimura conducting an "end run" off the Marianas in June 1944. Moreover, they indicate that, rather than part of a double-pincer movement, Nishimura's force (like Vice Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa's carriers to the north) was a diversion for the main assault by Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita's force coming via San Bernardino Strait.
But it is in terms of the action's tactical events that the Japanese sources dominate Tully's work. A review cannot do justice to Tully's analysis of the fighting, but several points illustrate the quality of his research. First is his treatment of the loss of the battleship Fuso. Using accounts of the few survivors and observations in U.S. ships' after-action reports and logs, Tully rejects the traditional line that the Fuso broke in two and that for some time these halves continued to float. It appears that she rolled over in one piece and then slid beneath the waves.
Second, while acknowledging that he cannot conclusively resolve the timing and responsibility for the torpedoing and sinking of the destroyer Michishio, Tully does raise more detailed issues about those events that at least allow for more informed speculation. He makes clear that Nishimura was not a fatalistic fool, but a careful and thoughtful commander who believed he could pass through the strait in the face of what he anticipated were only light American forces to attack shipping in Leyte Gulf. To support this view, Tully cites as evidence Nishimura's planned order of attack in the gulf.
When asked about the Battle of Waterloo, the Duke of Wellington once warned: "The history of a battle is not unlike the history of a ball. Some individuals may recollect all the little events of which the great result is the battle won or lost, but no individual can recollect the order in which, or the exact moment at which, they occurred, which makes all the difference as to their value or importance." Perhaps so. Nevertheless, in Battle of Surigao Strait Anthony Tully has managed to trace the complicated flow of and reason for events on the night of 24-25 October with a skill and aplomb that forces one to reconsider previously held views.
The Frigate Surprise: The Complete Story of the Ship Made Famous in the Novels of Patrick O'Brian
Brian Lavery and Geoff Hunt. Foreword by Nikolai Tolstoy. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, 2009. 144 pp. Illus. Index. $39.95.
Reviewed by Commander Tyrone G. Martin, U.S. Navy (Retired)
This is the latest in the growing number of companion works published in the wake of the very popular Patrick O'Brian Aubrey/Maturin novels and was first published in England in 2008. It is noteworthy in that it combines the talents of prolific Age of Fighting Sail historian Brian Lavery and maritime artist Geoff Hunt, who produced the cover art for the O'Brian series.
Lavery uses a detailed account of the rather humdrum career of the actual HMS Surprise (once the French corvette l'Unite) as the basis for enlightening shorebound readers on the particulars of life on board a man-o'-war in the early 19th century. He intersperses segments of operational history with descriptions of construction, rigging, crew organization, and daily routine.
The book's textual inconsistencies are a distraction. In one instance, two statements in the same paragraph differ on which masts the ship bore her lower courses. In another, text and graphic disagree on the number of royal sails the ship carried. If nothing else, these disparities will enliven book club meetings.
The one event of any moment in the real Surprise's history occurred in October 1799 when her crew, during a night expedition, retook the former HMS Hermione, whose crew previously had mutinied, slaughtered their officers, and delivered the ship to Spanish authorities in a South American port. Although outnumbered about two to one, the Surprise's crew stormed aboard from ship's boats and retook the frigate with minimal casualties, thereby earning a knighthood for Captain Edward Hamilton. Surprise thereafter resumed her anti-privateer patrols in the Caribbean until she returned to England and was decommissioned in 1802.
The historical essay is interrupted at about its midpoint for a series of scale drawings by Karl Henry Marquardt depicting the ship's external form, internal layout, rig, and boats. These are nicely rendered, but the size limitation imposed by their presentation in a book and the fact that they are based largely on conjecture and are supported by minimal labeling makes their value largely ephemeral.
Chapter Nine summarizes the career of the fictional Captain Jack Aubrey, one of whose commands was the equally fictional Surprise, apparently included in case a purchaser of the present work was unaware of the series.
In the final chapter Geoff Hunt describes his approach to this series of paintings, including his concerns about sight lines and perspective, as well as the historical accuracy of the ships' rigging and fittings. His Surprise paintings, reproduced in full color and many on full pages, comprise the core of the book's illustrations. His eye-catching and dramatic work is reminiscent of that of renowned British maritime artist Montague Dawson.
The Frigate Surprise is a beautifully crafted book, printed on heavy paper and awash in beautiful illustrations. Its 12-inch-square size and its heft, slightly over three pounds, along with the small print typical of British books of this genre, make it a difficult book to read if not at a desk or table. It is clearly intended for the avid landlubber reader of the Aubrey/Maturin novels and not a book wherein those with substantive knowledge of the Age of Fighting Sail can expect to learn anything new.
American Commando: Evans Carlson, His WW II Marine Raiders, and America's First Special Forces Mission
John Wukovits. New York: New American Library, 2009. 352 pp. Illus. Notes. Bib. Index. $25.95.
Reviewed by Colonel Jon T. Hoffman, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve (Retired)
John Wukovits' latest work on World War II in the Pacific theater chronicles the 2d Marine Raider Battalion under the command of Evans F. Carlson. Both the man and his unit were courageous and controversial. While a few authors have focused on elements of this story-mainly the Makin Raid in August 1942-this is the first detailed look at how Carlson built his force and led it through two significant operations.
One of the book's strengths is the depth of Wukovits' research. In addition to the typical operational records, he has unearthed a wealth of material from personal papers and other sources scattered in archives around the country. In addition to mining letters and diaries written at the time, he also interviewed numerous veterans of the battalion, skillfully weaving their viewpoints into the narrative. His work in the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library at Hyde Park is especially useful. The correspondence there highlights not only Carlson's close relationship with the President, who helped bring about the creation of the battalion, but also with FDR's son, James Roosevelt, who served as Carlson's executive officer and played a major role in shaping events.
Wukovits is a good storyteller, bringing events to life with skill and vibrancy. In one such passage, describing the hardships the battalion endured during its Long Patrol on Guadalcanal, the author gives one of the most vivid accounts available of men fighting and trying to survive in a tropical jungle.
While Wukovits frequently critiques Carlson's decisions and actions, sometimes he lets his subject off the hook too easily. At the end of the book, he quotes a longtime civilian friend of Carlson's who observed: "Evans lived a theatrical life, and he was aware of it. He did things with style and had a flair for the dramatic." This astute judgment highlights a character element that should have informed his analysis throughout the book. While many Marine leaders had negative or ambivalent views of Carlson for various reasons, from his publicly expressed social and political views to his unusual approach to leadership, Wukovits too readily accepts Carlson's view that the establishment was actively conspiring against him. Such a case can be made, but an equally strong argument can be made to the contrary. His removal from command of the battalion in the spring of 1943 came after more than a year in the billet-a long time in that capacity during the war. If the Corps were bent on minimizing his role and ending his career, he would never have served in two subsequent campaigns, as a senior observer at Tarawa and as a division operations officer at Saipan.
The book suffers a bit from the author's lack of detailed knowledge of the Marine Corps, which limits his ability to properly place Carlson and his battalion in the larger context of the institution and the war. A prime example is the importance Wukovits attaches to the Long Patrol and its supposed significance in helping American forces retain their hold on a "tenuous perimeter" around Guadalcanal's Henderson Field. By that time in the campaign, mid-November 1942, Major General Alexander A. Vandegrift's 1st Marine Division and supporting Army units had assumed the offensive and were actively driving the Japanese farther back from the vital complex of airfields. The Long Patrol played a part in that effort, but certainly not a central one. Smaller errors creep in, such as the statement that the battalion was the first unit in the U.S. military to receive the M-1 rifle or that the Marine Corps did not adopt Carlson's revolutionary fire-team concept until after World War II.
While American Commando likely will not be the final word on Carlson, his raiders, and their many contributions to Corps and country, it is a welcome addition to the field that is well worth the read.
Diplomats in Blue: U.S. Naval Officers in China, 1922-33
William Reynolds Braisted. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2008.
406 pp. Illus. Maps. Appen. Notes. Bib. Index. $75.
Reviewed by Mark Mollan
Diplomats in Blue, William Reynolds Braisted's long-awaited third book on the U.S. Navy in China, chronicles the service's role in the foreign relations of the would-be colonizing powers in setting off the Asian tinderbox that was China in the 1920s and early 1930s. Focusing on diplomatic flashpoints, Braisted handily illustrates how foreign military and diplomatic representatives often cooperated with each other to defend their nationals and property in the face of battling warlords, roving bandits, emerging communists, and gathering Chinese nationalists. But by 1927, with the Shanghai Incident and its aftermath, this cooperation broke down. Once the Japanese forces were seen to exceed the limits of protecting their interests and began to expand their empire, European and American forces excluded the Japanese from their cooperative efforts and sought remedies to protect themselves not only from the usual warlords and bandits but also from the threat of war between China and Japan.
Braisted brings to light the often-conflicting interests among the U.S. military leaders of the region, as well as friction among the military and U.S. diplomatic corps in China and their leadership in Washington, in crafting military policy. By contrast, Braisted's previous books, The United States Navy in the Pacific 1897-1909 and The United States Navy in the Pacific 1909-1922 (University of Texas Press, 1958 and 1971), had sought to bring military decision-making and power to bear on the study of diplomatic relations in general, using the U.S. Navy in China as the backdrop. Whereas the focus of the first two volumes is the Navy's role in relation to the U.S. Department of State, the Executive Branch, and the U.S. Army, Diplomats in Blue shifts its focus to naval officers in the theater and their interactions with their Western, Japanese, and Chinese military and diplomatic counterparts.
The extensive cast of characters attests to Braisted's thorough research of traditional government document sources. Readers seeking social or economic history, however, may wish to look elsewhere. Additionally, the author assumes the reader has read the first two volumes or is well-versed in the issues discussed therein. For example, little mention is made early in the book of the Washington Conference of 1921-22, although the diplomatic flashpoints described all take place in its wake-a topic that Braisted discusses thoroughly in his second volume.
Although this is not a personal narrative, Braisted's care for the subject matter stems from boyhood years spent in China during his father's two tours in the Middle Kingdom from 1922 to 1924, the period in which the book opens, and again in 1932, as events were heating up in the wake of the Shanghai Incident, which is the subject of the final third of the book. True to his first two volumes, the author deftly and thoroughly handles his subject matter.
Readers who enjoyed Braisted's first two books should appreciate Diplomats in Blue and its valuable contribution to understanding the often contentious and sometimes cooperative nature of relations between military and diplomatic players both inside and outside the U.S. forces and diplomatic corps. The volume is especially timely as we face similar issues in our relations with Iraq and Afghanistan, and increasingly with Pakistan.
The book offers a couple of additional gems, including a foreword by Gene Allen Smith and James Bradford and an epilogue written by Bradford. These offer further insights into Braisted's foundational contributions to the growing body of research on U.S.-Chinese relations.