Supremacy at Sea: Task Force 58 and the Central Pacific Victory
Evan Mawdsley. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2024. 368 pp. Illus. Maps. Appx. Notes. Biblio. Index. $30.
Reviewed by David F. Winkler
In the wake of Paul Kennedy’s Victory at Sea (2023), Yale University Press has published Evan Mawdsley’s treatise furthering the argument that U.S. industrial might produce a naval force of such potency that it was able to sledgehammer its way across 3,500 miles of Central Pacific water in six months. Hence the Mahanian Supremacy at Sea title is most appropriate to describe what Task Force (TF) 58 accomplished under the leadership of Vice Admiral Raymond Spruance and Rear Admiral Marc “Pete” Mitscher as the U.S. Pacific Fleet, under the command of Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, repeatedly accelerated offensive operations against the Japanese Empire.
For contemporary strategists looking across the western Pacific at the Asian mainland, I strongly urge a start at the back of the book with “Appendix II: The Other Side of the Ocean–Japanese Forces and Strategy,” which gives an overview of Japan’s desires for the decisive battle and its use of island bases to create what Professor James Holmes of the Naval War College would define as a defensive “crumble zone.”
Mawdsley introduces his narrative with a review of the 1942 Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands, in which Japanese numerical superiority in ships and aircraft would cost the United States the carrier USS Hornet (CV-8) of Doolittle Raid fame and cripple the Enterprise (CV-6)—the last remaining U.S. carrier in the Southwest Pacific. Oh, what a difference a year makes, as the ships authorized in the Two-Ocean Navy Act of 1940 come online with the Essex- and Independence-class carriers being produced in such quantities as to create multiple carrier task groups. “Victory, indeed accelerated victory, was made possible by the overwhelming strength and speed of the fast-carrier force and by Japanese weakness—the faulty island strategy and the low level of war production.”
For his 238 pages of narrative, the author had a challenge with chapter composition in that there is less historical content for those chapters covering various TF 58 raids on Truk, the Marianas, Palau, Marcus, Wake, and New Guinea than those covering TF 58’s support of amphibious operations in the Marshalls and Marianas. To solve the problem, Mawdsley offers up approximately 75 pages of filler material on the various components critical for success in combat. Much like Krispy Kreme’s injection of various jellies and cremes to enhance the flavor of its glazed donuts, Mawdsley treats us with yummy sub-chapters covering topics such as “Officers and Enlisted Personnel,” “The Two-Ocean Navy,” “U.S. Navy Aviators,” “U.S. Navy Airplanes,” “Fleet Air Defense,” “The Fleet Train,” “Intelligence,” and “Submarine Force, Pacific Fleet.”
No filler needed for the final chapters covering Operation Forager and the subsequent Battle of the Philippine Sea. Indeed, the climactic Battle of the Philippine Sea is covered in two chapters. Given Mawdsley’s glowing admiration for naval aviation in the previous chapters, the fact that most of the Japanese tonnage sunk can be attributed to the submarines USS Cavalla (SS-244) and Albacore (SS-218) comes across as almost awkward. However, horrific losses of irreplaceable aircraft and aviators in what was dubbed “The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot” eliminated Japan’s carrier aviation as a credible threat for the remainder of the war.
The author details the controversy over Spruance’s decision not to push the task force westward on 19 June 1944, given concerns about a Japanese end-around that could have targeted the invasion force landing Marines on Saipan. The consequence of the decision would be a late afternoon strike on 20 June that led to the destruction of an auxiliary carrier and two oilers—not quite a repeat of Midway. In addition, the nighttime return of the various air groups resulted in a loss rate of 40 percent, as many pilots not qualified for night landings chose to ditch their aircraft. Fortunately, most of the aircrews were recovered. In the end, not only is Mawdsley supportive of Spruance, but in hindsight, he argues the Battle of the Philippine Sea had greater strategic significance than the subsequent clash at Leyte Gulf. Japanese losses in the Marianas had more impact in Tokyo than in the Philippines, and airfields on Saipan and Tinian put the home islands within range of B-29s.
This is a synthetic work that digs into operational reports, as Samuel Eliot Morison did some three quarters of a century ago, and draws from recent scholarship. The bibliography features ten post-pandemic titles. Among the noted authors whom Mawdsley calls out in the text are Trent Hone and the late John Prados. In 2019, Yale published Mawdsley’s The War for the Seas: A Maritime History of World War II, which won the Society for Nautical Research (UK) Anderson Medal for the best maritime history of 2019. This book certainly will be a contender for similar honors.
Dr. Winkler is the editor of the forthcoming Naval Institute Press book Destroyers at War, written by Admiral James L. Holloway III, and was embarked on board the USS Bennion (DD-662) during this time frame.
Too Far on a Whim: The Limits of High-Steam Propulsion in the U.S. Navy
Tyler A. Pitrof. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2024. 218 pp. Illus. Notes. Biblio. Index. $ 39.95.
Reviewed by Andrew K. Blackley
Naval history books that delve into naval technology usually concentrate on things directly related to combat power, such as guns and armor. Tyler A. Pitrof, a historian with the Naval History and Heritage Command, has written an outstanding book that dives deep into the usually overlooked technology of propulsion. Based on a decade of research, Too Far on a Whim looks at the development of high-steam propulsion, the personalities of the U.S. Navy’s interwar bureau system that drove its adoption, and the unforeseen consequences it had on operations in the early Pacific war. Pitrof challenges the standard historiography that high steam was wholly beneficial because it extended operational range and asks, but at what cost?
Pitrof provides a brief history of steam propulsion systems and the related civilian developments in power generation in which turbines quickly replaced reciprocating engines. Engineers striving for efficiency and system optimization sought to squeeze as much energy from steam as possible. One way to do this was by increasing the temperature and pressure of the steam to drive more powerful turbines that, in turn, would increase both ship speed and fuel economy and range—at least on paper.
Warship design is based on a nation’s strategic goals, and for the U.S. Navy, working under War Plan Orange, operating range across the vast Pacific became a priority. In the early 1930s, high-steam technology looked to be the ideal propulsion system that could provide both speed and increased range. The Bureau of Engineering under Rear Admiral Harold G. Bowen Sr. vigorously pursued its adoption, beginning with the newest destroyers then under design.
The new high-steam system used a complex arrangement of boilers, economizers, and superheaters to provide steam at 600 psi and 850 degrees Fahrenheit to drive high-pressure, low-pressure, and cruising turbines, cross-connected via a complicated double-gear reduction system. The greater cost and complexity of the new system was considered acceptable in light of the claimed gains in operating range. The Bureau of Construction and Repair thought otherwise, and eventually the General Board had to convene a special panel in 1938, chaired by Admiral Thomas C. Hart, to determine the future of the system. After hearing testimony, the board chose to stay the course based on the system’s potential benefits, but Hart’s less-than-enthusiastic comment to Secretary of the Navy Claude Swanson was “that we have come too far on whim to walk back on a hunch.” The new high-steam system would be installed on all warships built thereafter, but the Navy failed to provide realistic testing of the system and planned poorly for its production under war conditions, with unfortunate consequences.
The Two-Ocean Navy Act of 1940 set into motion a huge naval building program; however, problems concerning the high-tensile steel and other strategic materials the high-steam system required proved nearly insurmountable, thanks to the Navy’s decentralized procurement system. Industry’s inability to quickly ramp up the production of new turbines and gear sets created a bottleneck that delayed ship launches by many months, leaving the Navy with a severe shortage of destroyers during the first two years of the war. The claims for big increases in operating range were based on prewar engineering efficiency scores using the cruising turbines. Under war conditions, when instant power might be required at any moment and escorts had to keep station with the fast carriers, the cruising turbines remained locked out, and fuel economy and range estimates went out the window. The resulting need for frequent refueling underway would handicap operations.
Pitrof has written an insightful look into the “black box” of high-steam propulsion and the fateful consequences of its adoption. He acknowledges that his study does not provide a detailed analysis of the effect that high steam, for good or bad, had on operations in the Pacific war. I sincerely hope that he will do so with his next effort.
Mr. Blackley, an independent scholar based in Ohio, has an master’s degree in history (cum laude) from Norwich University. He has presented at the McMullen Naval History Symposium, and his work has appeared in Naval History and Naval Review.
