Dogfight over Tokyo: The Final Air Battle of the Pacific and the Last Four Men to Die in World War II
John Wukovits. Boston, MA: Da Capo Press, 2019. 352 pp. Notes. Biblio. Index. $28.
Reviewed by David Sears
I read Dogfight over Tokyo, John Wukovits’ new book, with anticipation. Four years ago, in the run-up to the 70th anniversary of VJ-day, I wrote a magazine feature about the same event.
I managed then to locate and interview two surviving Fighting Squadron (VF) 88 veterans—Bill Watkinson (now age 97) and Herb Wood (who died in 2017). Neither Bill nor Herb flew that ill-starred early morning 15 August 1945 mission, but each had shared the same conflicted emotions of risking death in the Pacific war’s closing days, hours, and minutes.
Time and space did not permit me to adequately delve into the lives of Howard M. “Howdy” Harrison, Wright C. “Billy” Hobbs Jr., Eugene E. “Mandy” Mandeberg, and Joseph G. “Joe” Sahloff. Now, in reading Dogfight over Tokyo, I was eager to learn more about them.
At the same time, there also were some apprehensions—beginning with the title. I knew from my own research that the documented details of the subject dogfight were scant at best. Indeed, the action occupies scarcely more than four pages of Wukovits’ 300-page narrative. This may disappoint some readers. Moreover, the subtitle’s assertion that these were “The Last Four Men to Die in World War II” is likely misleading. Wukovits explains early on that he uses that description in the narrow sense that Harrison, Hobbs, Mandeberg, and Sahloff were the last men killed while [emphasis mine] conducting a wartime mission.” A more apt hedge would be that they were probably the last U.S. naval aviators killed while conducting a wartime mission.
A bigger apprehension was that Dogfight over Tokyo might turn hagiographic. Each of the four aviators was courageous but each also fell victim to tragic happenstance. A fundamental truth about the fateful mission is that Hobbs and Mandeberg were “nugget” aviators thrust unexpectedly into the vortex of aerial dogfighting.
As Wukovits makes abundantly clear, Air Group 88’s airmen (whether flying Hellcats, Corsairs, Avengers, or Helldivers) almost exclusively confronted murderous Japanese flak from below rather than Japanese fighters from above. Employing this bigger frame of reference occasionally slows Dogfight over Tokyo with repetitious passages but also adds nuance and context.
A final apprehension concerns accountability. A tragedy of this dimension demands a villain. Would it be the deceitful Japanese? The uncaring top brass who needlessly dispatched Harrison-Hobbs-Mandeberg-Sahloff toward doom? Wukovits settles on Third Fleet Commander-in-Chief Admiral William F. Halsey. Long a Halsey admirer, Wukovits explains how he took “pains to ensure a fair evaluation.” In the end, however, “This book required me to portray him as less heroic, because that is how the aviators of Air Group 88 saw him.”
Wukovits’ explanation may well do service to his narrative arc. At the same time, it skirts historical accuracy—and “Bull” Halsey’s obligation to defend the Third Fleet.
The war’s finale was replete with blows and counterblows. On 8 August, Herb Wood’s combat air patrol (CAP) downed two would-be kamikazes. Three days later, off Okinawa, a single Japanese aircraft torpedoed the battleship Pennsylvania (BB-38), killing 20 men and wounding many more. On 13 August, air strikes destroyed an estimated 400 planes parked on fields near Tokyo while CAPs downed 19 more at sea.
In hopes of avoiding further bloodshed and loss, VF-88 Hellcats were ordered to “stand-down” at 0645 on 15 August. But what if they—and other Allied aircraft—had instead continued their strikes? Might they have prevented—or sidestepped—the aerial ambush that claimed Harrison, Hobbs, Mandeberg, and Sahloff?
That is pure speculation—and likewise skirts historical accuracy. But consider this: It was not until 1600 on 16 August 1945, roughly 35 hours after the U.S. Navy stopped all offensive operations, that Hirohito’s cease-fire order finally went out to Japanese forces.
Wukovits determined early on that locating sufficient information on two of the four aviators would be crucial to the viability of his narrative—a high bar to vault, given the 75 intervening years.
In the end, thanks to meticulous research and the indispensable cooperation of the Hobbs and Mandeberg families, Wukovits succeeds. His book is rich with family lore and reminiscences supplemented by a trove of contemporaneous letters, diaries, and hometown newspaper accounts. It is this tapestry blending the personal and the historical that makes Dogfight over Tokyo compelling.
Mr. Sears is a New Jersey–based writer and historian and frequent contributor to Naval History. Visit his history blog at www.DavidSearsWrites.com.
U-Boats Around Ireland: The Story of the Royal Navy’s Coast of Ireland Command During the First World War
Guy Warner. Newtownards, UK: Colourpoint Books, 2018. 239 pp. Photos. Illus. Biblio. Index. $24.95.
Reviewed by Col. John J. Abbatiello, U.S. Air Force (Ret.)
This well-researched and attractive paperback provides an extensive look into an important theater of the Great War—the waters around Ireland. Still part of the United Kingdom during World War I, Ireland served as a key bastion in fighting German U-boats, as they targeted merchant vessels bringing supplies to Britain. Later in the war, this area became an area of interest for the U.S. Navy, as transports brought U.S. naval and military forces and their equipment to Europe during 1917 and 1918.
U-Boats around Ireland is an expansion of Guy Warner’s earlier work on World War I airship operations from Ireland. It demonstrates his command of the primary sources and includes an extensive bibliography listing logbooks, reports, and other contemporaneous documents.
The account begins with the expansion of Royal Navy forces and bases in Ireland, the latter including Queenstown, near Cork along the southern coast, and Larne, in the northeast close to Belfast. Warner recounts the increasing use of U-boats to interdict British shipping, starting with the first unrestricted submarine campaign of early 1915, and the Royal Navy’s efforts to reinforce and reorganize Irish bases as a counter to this threat to commerce. Under the short-lived leadership of Sir John Fisher, the Admiralty designed and fielded simple airships to assist surface ships in patrolling for U-boats. The SS-class non-rigid airship resulted, capable of 35–43 knots and carrying a two-person crew in a wingless BE2C aircraft fuselage. With an endurance of more than eight hours, many of these SS-class “blimps” plied the waters around Ireland, where traffic inbound to the major ports of western England were under constant threat of U-boat attack.
Improved designs of airships as well as antisubmarine patrol ships and fixed-wing aircraft soon populated Irish bases to assist with the struggle against the U-boats. A fleetwide shortage of British destroyers meant that much of the surface force available to fight the U-boats in Ireland took the form of armed yachts, drifters, and trawlers. Warner takes occasional forays into describing the trade war from the German perspective, including excerpts from memoirs of U-boat crews to recount the cramped, damp, and deadly environment on board early submarines.
American readers will appreciate several chapters on the U.S. contribution to World War I in Ireland, starting in mid-1917. This effort included 47 U.S. destroyers assigned to Queenstown and 7 U.S. submarines based at Berehaven in the southwest of Ireland. Submarine chasers and U.S.-built flying boats supplemented these forces for convoy protection and antisubmarine patrols.
In August 1918, the U.S. Navy sent three oil-burning battleships to Berehaven; the USS Nevada (BB-36), Oklahoma (BB-37), and Utah (BB-31) were intended to serve as convoy escorts for U.S. troop transports to counter the perceived threat of German battle cruisers breaking out of the North Sea. U.S. naval forces served under the Royal Navy’s Coast of Ireland Command, led by Admiral Sir Lewis Bayly, who by the end of the war built close ties and a cooperative atmosphere between U.S. and British sailors.
This reviewer has two major complaints about the book. First, there are no footnotes or references, other than an infrequent mention of the source memoir for an extensive quotation. This makes it difficult for the reader to determine if important information originates from a contemporaneous report or the sometimes inaccurate memories found in autobiographical accounts. Second, the organization of the book may leave the reader confused. For example, numerous nonchronological forays into interesting topics—from the development of weapon systems to descriptions of rations to off-duty entertainment—force readers to check earlier paragraphs to ascertain the correct year. Chapter 10, examining U.S. naval aviation in late 1918, precedes coverage of 1917 U.S. destroyer operations in Chapter 11. Chapter 13 (of 14 total chapters) discusses British naval support against the Easter Uprising of 1916.
This book is beautifully illustrated, featuring period photos and maps on practically every page. Warner’s appendix, listing all Royal Navy and U.S. Navy vessels serving in Ireland during 1914–18, is priceless. Though not without flaws, U-Boats around Ireland fills a significant gap in the literature of Great War naval operations.
COL Abbatiello is the author of Anti-Submarine Warfare in World War I: British Naval Aviation and the Defeat of the U-Boats (Routledge, 2006) and is a former U.S. Naval Institute Editorial Board member.
USS Arizona: The Enduring Legacy of a Battleship
Ingo W. Bauernfeind. Mühlheim an der Ruhr, Germany: Bauernfeind Press, 2018. 192 pp. Photos. Illus. $25.75.
Reviewed by Fred Schultz
If readers are looking for a definitive, scholarly, groundbreaking history of the venerable battleship Arizona (BB-39) and her tragic demise, this is probably the wrong volume for you. But rather than advise about what this book is not, it seems more useful to acknowledge what it is.
The history and terrible fate of the Arizona are well-known, and author Ingo W. Bauernfeind makes no pretense of any dramatic findings here. What he does set out to do is salute the engineering feats that the U.S. Navy’s battleships truly were and the heroic efforts of the Arizona’s crew as the Japanese attacked, bombed, and sank their ship at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. One uncommon factor here is that the author is a native of Germany who is so enamored with U.S. history that he’s made it the principal focus of his chosen profession.
The lavishly reproduced historic photos in this volume are its main attraction. And lavish also refers to the book’s high-quality printing, which is becoming rare as costs have become prohibitive for many publishers.
The book’s introduction and afterword give it a good measure of credibility. The introductory essay is written by Daniel Martinez, chief historian of the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument. Martinez has been a fixture and long-time public face of the USS Arizona Memorial, and he writes of how the final resting place of those Arizona crewmen who went down with the ship has “different meanings for different people.”
Martinez ends his commentary with a remembrance of President Barack Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe coming together on 27 December 2016 “for that final official gesture of reconciliation between the two countries that had clashed in such a bitter war.”
The lion’s share of the rest of the book is a visual journey in photos, both rare and familiar, punctuated by memories of Pearl Harbor survivors, the names of whom will be familiar to anyone who has delved into the wealth of literature and firsthand accounts already captured in print. And certainly not neglected is the story of how the sunken Arizona has been painstakingly studied from the depths of where she sank.
The afterword, written by prolific author and well-known underwater archaeologist James P. Delgado, and which serves as a sort of “bookend” for this volume, concludes that the battleship and the 1941 attack “continue to reflect cherished stories and cultural values and beliefs, not only of Americans but also of people from other lands and cultures as they also confront the face of war.”
Academic historians and other experts in the field may not be impressed by this volume. Is there room on the bookshelf or coffee table for USS Arizona: The Enduring Legacy of a Battleship? This reviewer, a long-time believer in the value of both academic research and oft-disparaged “popular” history—which only makes the subject more accessible to more people—thinks it’s worth a look.
Mr. Schultz was editor-in-chief of Naval History from 1993 to 2005 and has served in various editorial capacities with the magazine since 1989.