The War for Korea, 1950-1951: They Came from the North
Allan R. Millett. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2010. 644 pp. Intro. Illus. Maps. Notes. Index. $45.
Reviewed by John Prados
In this second installment of what will be a multivolume narrative of the “Forgotten War,” Allan R. Millett picks up the story at the start of the June 1950 North Korean invasion of the South. For those who have anticipated this book for five years, let me cut to the chase: The wait was worth it; read this book! Now let me circle back and take it from the top.
Five years ago, Millett published The War for Korea, 1945-1950: A House Burning, which offered a backstory of the war unmatched except in Bruce Cumings’ comprehensive, remarkably balanced and nuanced two-volume work, The Origins of the Korean War. Millett continues in similar vein, providing a history of the first year of the war, including the invasion, the U.S. riposte, the evolving United Nations context, the Pusan perimeter and Inchon invasion, the move north, the Chinese intervention, and the succession of Chinese offensives and allied counteroffensives that led to the stalemated front of 1951. Along the way he delivers excellent capsule discussions of strategic deliberations on both sides, the problems faced by soldiers in the field, and larger issues that influenced the conflict.
With good narrative flow the author presents accounts of battles, portraits of generals and national leaders (including the Truman-MacArthur controversy so recently reprised between President Barack Obama and General Stanley A. McChrystal), and accounts of naval and air operations that are frequently ignored in Korean War histories. Millett’s analysis of General Matthew Ridgway’s actions importantly illuminates the achievements of perhaps the most forgotten general of this forgotten conflict. Millett’s sustained attention to the other side—the North Koreans, Chinese, and Soviets—also is worthwhile. This overview incorporates the latest findings and brings them to the reader in unprecedented detail.
Coverage of the intrigues at MacArthur’s headquarters, the intelligence question of Chinese intervention, and the impact of the one on the other comes as close to the heart of the matter as we are likely to get. Millett’s investigation of the vagaries of alliance diplomacy that determined the composition and type of the British Commonwealth, French, and other national contingents that fought under the United Nations banner in Korea is also a welcome addition to the record. Previous works on the war have almost taken the U.N.’s contributions for granted, without examining their causes.
They Came from the North will not be definitive, but it does not miss by much. Millett notably omits detail concerning the South Korean ally, an important theme of his first volume. He covers the South Korean army primarily as it serves alongside U.S. troops and in his account of the first days of the invasion. He makes an exception when treating the most recent development in our knowledge of the war—the emerging record of atrocities on the U.N. side, starting with (but not limited to) No Gun Ri, which has led to a truth commission investigation in Korea. Millett discusses the question quite sparingly, limiting his coverage to South Korean activities, and concludes with the statement that “In August 1950 South Korea was awash with stories of war crimes, many true.”
It has been characteristic of the literature on the Korean War, or perhaps of the many authors who have written on the subject, to focus through a narrow lens. Several of the first-generation historians, including S. L. A. Marshall, T. R. Fehrenbach, and Robert Heinl, concentrated on the tactical. Later works, by Robert Leckie and David Rees, helped to widen the view but still omitted important elements of the story. The don of Korean War historians—if not Millett himself—is Roy E. Appleman, who continued the tradition of tactical focus. More recent authors, such as Clay Blair, Joseph Goulden, John Toland, and David Halberstam, have wandered all over the place, trying for color but often bogging down in details. Millett, however, skillfully adopts an explicitly strategic focus, while managing to move seamlessly up and down the ladder of action to retain the reader’s interest. Add to that his command of the source material, and the result is an unparalleled inquiry into the reasons things happened the way they did during the Korean War’s first year.
The USS Carondelet: A Civil War Ironclad on Western Waters
Myron J. Smith Jr. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2010. 288 pp. Maps. Illus. Intro. Notes. Bib. Index. $55.
Reviewed by Noah Andre Trudeau
Visitors to the Vicksburg National Military Park will encounter something wonderfully unexpected between the stops for Battery Selfridge and the National Cemetery. One suddenly views the salvaged remains of a Civil War–era “City-class” ironclad, the Cairo. The pieces have been fitted into a framework that vividly suggests the real size and shape of the warship. Pictures in books are fine, but to stand in the presence of this full-scale mock-up is to feel in awe of the might and power it projects. The career of the Cairo (sunk in December 1862) was relatively short. By contrast, that of her sister ship, the Carondelet, lasted the entire war and often found her and her crew solidly in harm’s way. The story of the Carondelet, and by proxy that of all seven City-, or Cairo-class ironclads, is the subject of Myron J. Smith Jr.’s new study.
The Union warships were designed by Samuel M. Pook, and their construction was overseen by James B. Eads. Meant to deliver massive firepower against a target, the vessels were mobile gun platforms powered by a single paddlewheel placed just forward of the stern. Their distinctive low profile, slanting casemate, and frustratingly slow speeds inspired the group nickname of “Pook’s turtles,” or just “turtles.” Ironed warships were unexplored territory for ship designers and builders. The City-class vessels were designed to tackle targets head-on and were heavily armored in front; remarkably little thought was given to what the enemy might do in response. So when first sent into action, the turtles were both powerful and terribly vulnerable to plunging fire onto their lightly armored decks and roofs, and woefully exposed from the rear, where a well-placed shot could cripple the paddlewheel. How the officers and crews adapted their weapons to the shifting arena of battle is just one of many interesting subplots to the larger story.
Smith marshals an impressive array of sources to tell this tale: manuscripts, newspapers, official records both published and unpublished, and a long list of books and articles. His narrative is well-supplied with images and maps, though the latter are almost all of the period and perhaps not as effective as modern versions would be. He writes with the ease of a natural storyteller, and his chronicles of the Carondelet’s dramatic engagements are real page-turners, especially running the Rebel gauntlet at Island No. 10, the bloody slugfest with the ironclad CSS Arkansas, and the free-for-all combat at Plum Point Bend.
His treatment of the principal officers involved is thorough, though I did wish he had spent more time with the common Sailors and their daily lives on board the Carondelet. Some of the most effective displays at Vicksburg’s USS Cairo Gunboat and Museum present the artifacts of everyday life on board ship, and adding more of that to the narrative would have brought a welcome depth to his tale. Smith’s able detective work in unraveling what happened to this storied vessel after the war provides a bittersweet coda to the life and dismantlement of a warship that deserves a better place in the American memory. While the price is somewhat steep for a paperback, Smith’s skillful history writing makes it worthwhile.
Admiral “Bull” Halsey: The Life and Wars of the Navy’s Most Controversial Commander
John Wukovits. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. 282 pp. Maps. Illus. $27.
Reviewed by Alan P. Rems
More than 50 years ago, in his History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Samuel Eliot Morison criticized Admiral William F. “Bull” Halsey Jr.’s decisions at Leyte Gulf. Since then, numerous writings about Halsey’s handling of the Third Fleet at that battle and during two destructive typhoons have undermined his once-considerable reputation. In this new biography, John Wukovits veers in the other direction and reaches conclusions as controversial as his subject.
Although Wukovits contends that “few citizens today recognize his name,” Halsey probably enjoys greater name recognition than any naval figure of World War II. However, since relatively few know anything more about him, it is useful that Halsey’s career now receives a fresh look by this skilled popular historian.
After conducting daring carrier raids that raised America’s spirits during the first six months of the war, Halsey led the South Pacific theater campaign during 20 eventful months, when his forces turned the tide at Guadalcanal and won the rest of the Solomons. Although Wukovits’ concise narrative covers the naval actions well, more detail about the land operations would have been useful in showing specifically Halsey’s important influence on the land battle, including his removal of key generals he considered inadequate.
With respect to Halsey’s relationship with General Douglas MacArthur in the South Pacific, Wukovits gives the impression that they operated as equals, whereas Halsey was then subordinate to MacArthur for strategic purposes. Less amicable than Wukovits’ description of their relations suggests, Halsey confided privately: “I can work for Doug MacArthur, but he sure as hell could never work for me.”
Wukovits’ obvious enthusiasm for his subject does not blind him to Halsey’s later missteps in leading the Third Fleet. He forthrightly points out the serious impediments to Halsey’s performance, including the evolution of fleet tactics while Halsey was ashore in the South Pacific and his obsession with defeating enemy carriers using the same unmethodical approaches that sufficed early in the war. Wukovits calls Halsey’s wishful thinking about enemy movements at Leyte Gulf “one of the most basic errors a commander can make.”
Considering the author’s balanced perspectives, his conclusions come as a surprise. He considers it wrong that Halsey is “overshadowed” by MacArthur and General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who commanded at far higher levels. More extreme, he believes “Halsey’s accomplishments stand at least on par with [Admiral] Chester Nimitz’s and dwarf those of his other naval colleagues in the Pacific.”
To support such singular ideas, Wukovits shifts much of the blame for Leyte Gulf onto Nimitz, who authorized Halsey to leave his assigned post in support of Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid if there was opportunity to destroy the enemy fleet. According to Wukovits, “Though Nimitz never intended that Halsey should abandon Kinkaid, he failed to make that clear.” But a commander whom Nimitz once praised as able to “calculate to a cat’s whiskers the risk involved” and who was well aware of the Japanese penchant for devious tactics should have recognized the risk as unacceptable. After exonerating Halsey of fault at Leyte Gulf and claiming that “only with the typhoons can Halsey be charged,” Wukovits lists the admiral’s achievements, which were arguably not superior to Admiral Raymond A. Spruance’s and hardly equivalent to Nimitz’s unbroken successes at a higher level of command.
Wukovits writes that “in evaluating an individual, one must look at the importance of the person to his times and view him the way his contemporaries did.” Thus, the book includes numerous excerpts from articles in newspapers and magazines by journalists who loved Halsey’s ferocity and took his utterances at face value. Missing are the voices of the carrier admirals who served under both Halsey and Spruance and who decidedly preferred service with the latter. Admiral Arthur W. Radford, later Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, would write: “Halsey either suffered from poor advice in connection with carrier air operations or insisted on making his own decisions, which could be worse.” These well-informed professional contemporaries should also have been quoted and factored into Wukovits’ evaluation. While his book provides an absorbing account of Halsey’s full career, military history buffs will not gain important new information that goes beyond E. B. Potter’s standard biography.
Nevertheless, if Halsey does not rank as America’s greatest World War II naval commander, he surely shares a place with Generals Philip Sheridan, Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, and George S. Patton—all of them great, dynamic leaders who ably served even greater leaders.
Strangling the Confederacy: Coastal Operations in the American Civil War
Kevin Dougherty. Havertown, PA: Casemate, 2010. 233 pp. Maps. Illus. Index. $32.95.
Reviewed by Craig Symonds
For some time there has been a need for a comprehensive analysis of the joint Army-Navy operations conducted by Union forces off the Confederate Atlantic and Gulf coasts. The only previous such work is Rowena Reed’s Combined Operations in the Civil War (Naval Institute Press, 1977), which is not only a third of a century old, but also is flawed by Reed’s inexplicable admiration for the “genius” of Major General George B. McClellan.
In this volume, Kevin Dougherty, a former Army officer who teaches at the University of Southern Mississippi, examines the role of joint operations through the prism of modern joint-forces doctrine. He devotes his first two chapters to thumbnail sketches of the principal players and then provides a brief, 150-page summary of coastal operations from Hatteras Inlet in 1861 to Fort Fisher in 1865. In his conclusion, he uses the matrix of modern joint-forces doctrine to evaluate these operations.
Evident rivalry and dysfunction between the Union Army and Navy notwithstanding, Dougherty argues that the coastal campaigns constituted “a major step in the evolution of joint warfare and planning in U.S. military history.” In his conclusion he lists the various components of successful joint operations as defined by the official 2006 Joint Chiefs Publication 3-0. Though he acknowledges that “synergy proved a special challenge,” he maintains that “the coastal war was on the leading edge of U.S. military evolution in the areas of campaign planning and joint operations.”
While this is an original approach, the work is weakened by Dougherty’s heavy dependence on a half-dozen secondary sources. There is no evidence that he consulted the published Official Records—the essential first step for anyone researching the Civil War. Moreover, he borrows ideas and occasionally even language from these books. One example will suffice. Here is a sentence that appears on page 115 of Kevin Weddle’s biography of Samuel F. Du Pont (Lincoln’s Tragic Admiral, University of Virginia Press, 2005): “Du Pont was appalled . . . [that] the Squadron Commanders seemed content to take their few vessels and simply sail—or steam—aimlessly up and down the coast.” In Dougherty’s book this becomes: “He was shocked that squadron commanders seemed content to merely cruise aimlessly up and down the coast with a few vessels.” Dougherty does give Weddle a footnote here, but it is worth noting that 16 of the 23 footnotes in this chapter refer to Weddle’s book.
Dougherty’s concept is a good one—showing how Civil War–era Army-Navy coastal operations laid the groundwork for future campaigns—but the lack of a serious research base is disappointing.