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Members of the Institute, both regular and associate, may save money by ordering books through its Book Department, which will supply any obtainable book. A discount of 10 per cent is allowed on books published by the Institute, and on books of other publishers (government and foreign publications excepted). Address Secretary- Treasurer, U. S. Naval Institute, Annapolis, Maryland.
HISTORY OF UNITED STATES NAVAL OPERATIONS IN WORLD WAR II. Volume II. Operations in North African Waters, October 1942-June 1943. By Samuel Eliot Morison. Little, Brown and Company. Boston 1947. $5.00.
Reviewed by Richard S. West, Jr.
Associate Professor, U. S.
Naval Academy
With his Operations in North African Waters Samuel Eliot Morison begins the publication of a series of volumes on the United States Navy’s operations in World War II. Although this book is the first to come off the press, it is the second volume in an ambitious fourteen-volume series which is scheduled to be published during the next four years.
As author of the Pulitzer prize biography of Columbus entitled Admiral of the Ocean Sea, of The Maritime History of Massachusetts, and of the Oxford History of the United Stales; as a popular lecturer at Harvard, and as a scholar who is also a seaman, Professor Morison is abundantly qualified to undertake this huge scholarly project, and to the Navy’s great good fortune he was at the outset of the war enthusiastic about undertaking it. In the belief that too often history is written “from the outside looking in,” Professor Morison early in 1942 volunteered his services as a naval historian. President
Roosevelt and Secretary Knox accepted his proposal and commissioned him in the Naval Reserve, in which his sole duty has been that of naval historian of World War II. Access to official documents, authority to interview naval personnel, opportunities to visit the various theaters of war on board combat ships (he has participated in several amphibious expeditions and surface engagements with the enemy) have given him an unprecedented opportunity to observe and gather his historical material “from the inside.” Professor Morison, or one of his assistants, has visited every theater of naval warfare since 1941. Although lack of a long range perspective is a handicap which Professor Morison is the first to acknowledge, the historian’s own nearness to his subject is not without a compensating advantage. “Historians in years to come . . .,” he points out, “can never recapture the feeling of desperate urgency in our planning and preparations, of the excitement of battle, of exultation over a difficult operation successfully concluded, of sorrow for shipmates who did not live to enjoy the victory.”
The historian in the present instance is one who participates in the historic events he describes, who takes his meals in the wardroom and stands on the bridge alongside the naval commander, enjoying the same eyewitness vantage as the commander, being moved by the same apprehensions, similarly depressed, alarmed, or thrilled to exultation as the naval operations materialize into history.
In a foreword to the present volume Secretary Forrestal notes that Professor Morison’s work “is in no sense an official history”; the form, style, character, opinions, and conclusions “are those of Dr. Morison, and of him alone”; and the only restrictions to which he has been subject are “those imposed by the necessity of safeguarding information which might endanger national security.”
In the subjective aspects mentioned, the book is of course Professor Morison’s. Yet the very nature of the work, a cooperative venture in which five junior reserve officers and six enlisted personnel assisted in the collection of data and the production of maps and charts, gives the work a truly authoritative, if not an “official,” character. The Navy’s original purpose in commissioning its author has, in Secretary Forrestal’s words, “been well served and the work is a stirring account of the Navy’s operations in World War II.”
According to the plan, Morison’s volumes will deal with operational history, leaving administrative aspects of the naval war to be treated separately by Professor Robert G. Albion of Princeton University. “My purpose in writing this work,” states Morison, “is to tell Americans and their allies what the United States Navy accomplished in the greatest of all naval'wars, and how it was done.”
Operations in North African Waters devotes ten chapters to the invasion of North Africa, one to the Navy in the Tunisian Campaign, and a brief concluding chapter to the seizure of Pantelleria. It thus covers all naval operations in North Africa and the Mediterranean prior to the invasion of Sicily.
A chapter on “Preliminaries” gives a masterful thumbnail summary of the diplomatic, political, and military situations which led to the decision of the Combined Chiefs of Staff on July 25, 1942, to undertake “Operation Torch”: a combined Anglo- American occupation of French Morocco, Algeria, and possibly Tunisia. On August 14, 1942, General Eisenhower was appointed Commander in Chief of the Allied Expeditionary Force and Admiral Sir Andrew
Cunningham, R.N., was named the Allied Naval Commander. By September 9 Operation Torch had been broken down and the tasks assigned as follows:
1. The capture of Casablanca and other Atlantic ports of Morocco had been assigned to Task Force 34, under Rear Admiral H. Kent Hewitt, U.S.N., comprising Western Naval Task Force (Admiral Hewitt), with Western Task Force United States Army (Major General G. S. Patton, Jr., U.S.A.).
2. The capture of Oran, by Central Naval Task Force under Commodore Thomas Troubridge, R.N., with Center Task Force United States Army (Major General L. R. Fredenhall, U.S.A.).
3. The capture of Algiers by Eastern Naval Task Force, under Rear Admiral Sir H. N. Burrough, R.N., with Eastern Assault Force, British and American troops (Major General C. W. Ryder, U.S.A.)
For this large combined operation, which was to be mounted from distant American and British bases, there was not time to equip all personnel “to the last gaiter button” or train them to “the final polish.” The risk in embarking on Operation Torch with inadequate training, Admiral Cunningham has well stated, “was deliberately accepted, in order to strike while the time was ripe.”
How each of the task forces was assembled and trained, how it crossed the Atlantic on a “drunk man’s” course first feinting toward Dakar or, in the Mediterranean, contrived to resemble a relief expedition to Malta, the D-Day experiences of each force and of each major element of each force—all of these matters are faithfully clarified.
Since Admiral Hewitt’s force encountered the most serious naval resistance, as well as greater navigational hazards for landing the light craft of that early day, and since the operations of Task Force 34 were concluded quickly enough to exert a favorable influence on the settlements in Algeria, Admiral Hewitt’s operations are accorded more space and they seem to stand out with greater clarity than the Anglo-American operations inside the Mediterranean. Unfortunately it was not considered feasible to forewarn the French leaders in Africa either as to the time of the invasion or the formidable strength of the forces involved. The possibility of military resistance in the pre-dawn of November 8 had thus to be accepted. Of the three groups under Admiral Hewitt, the Southern Group at Safi was virtually unopposed, the Northern Group at Lyautey met vigorous military opposition ashore, and the Center Group thrusting against Casablanca encountered the stiff opposition not only of shore batteries but of naval sorties and of the menacing long-range bombardment of the battleship Jean Bart. The light cruiser Brooklyn with destroyer groups screened the transports and shielded the troops on shore from the fire of batteries on Cape Fedhala. Air cover was furnished by the Ranger and the Suwanee under Rear Admiral E. D. McWhorter. A Covering Group, composed of the Massachusetts and the heavy cruisers Tuscaloosa and Wichita, under Rear Admiral R. C. Giffin, was taken under fire by the Jean Bart, and while this duel was under way at 0815 a light cruiser and seven destroyers under Contre-Amiral Gervais de Lafond made a sortie. The action developed as “an old-fashioned fire-away-Flannagan between warships, with a few torpedo attacks by the enemy, and air attacks by us, thrown in.” The Massachusetts and the Tuscaloosa narrowly missed being torpedoed. The flagship Augusta, the Brooklyn, and other ships participated in the lively engagements of this day.
Mistakes inevitably occurred, as Admiral Cunningham foresaw, mistakes of judgment, divergences of opinion over doctrine or procedure. Some readers may perhaps detect a modicum of pro-Navy bias in Professor Morison’s comments, but they will usually find the views of opposing sides clearly summarized. Finally it must be noted that the number of superb illustrations and maps, and the conscientiously assembled statistical data of all sorts, add greatly to the value of Operations in North African Waters.
Titles of Projected Volumes in Samuel Eliot Morison’s History of United States Naval Operations in World War II:
I. The Battle of the Atlantic, 19391943
II. Operations in North African Waters, October 1942-June 1943
III. The War in the Pacific—Defensive
Phase, December 1941-June 1942
IV. The War in the Pacific—Offen
sive-Defensive Phase, July 1942- October 1943
V. Breaking the Bismarcks Barrier, November 1943—June 1944
VI. The Conquest of Micronesia, 19431944
VII. New Guinea and the Marianas, 1944
VIII. Mediterranean Operations, June 1943-June 1944
IX. The Battle of the Atlantic, May 1943-May 1945
X. The Liberation of France, 1944
XI. The Liberation of the Philippines, Leyte through Mindoro, 1944
XII. The Liberation of the Philippines, Luzon to completion, 1945
XIII. The Liquidation of the Japanese
Empire, 1945
XIV. General Index and Appendices.
THERE WILL BE NO TIME—THE REVOLUTION IN STRATEGY. By William Liscum Borden. The Macmillan Company. New York. 1946. 225 pages. $2.50
Reviewed by Captain F. S. Withington, U. S. Navy
This is a profoundly disturbing and a thought-provoking book, written by a young former Army Air Force pilot who is now a student at the Yale Law School. He examines the effect of long range rockets carrying atomic warheads upon world strategy and the security of the United States, and arrives at no comforting conclusion save that we can purchase national safety only by maintaining ready for use a larger stockpile of atomic rockets than any possible enemy.
Mr. Borden makes the basic assumption that it will be possible in the foreseeable future for any nation, from its own territory, to launch guided missiles against selected targets in any other nation, and to reach them with sufficient accuracy to do- them lethal damage with the detonation of atomic warheads. He states “eventually radar- and radio-controlled rockets will take off from any point on the globe and explode ‘within a mile of any other point.’ ” Tremendous problems of guidance, propulsion, and control must be solved before such a result can be attained. It is not at all certain that a solution is possible. He is entirely correct, however, in maintaining that we should be thinking of the position of the United States in a world where such lethal offensive results might be approximated.
He considers soberly and pessimistically the possibility of world agreement to outlaw atomic energy, biological warfare, and other possible methods of mass killing, concluding that such political agreement would be impotent without an international police agency to enforce it, and that the present sovereign states will never give up the practical veto power which they now possess in their own armies, navies, and air forces. It is premature to give up hope that political agreements, through a United Nations organization or possibly an actual super state, can produce peace and world security. But we cannot fail to consider the effect on our security if such efforts fail.
Mr. Borden writes clearly and well, whether one agrees with him or not. Our scientists would probably be the first to disagree with his statement that “science, if fertilized with enthusiasm and unlimited funds, can almost produce on demand.” His conclusions regarding the technical possibilities of radio, radar, the magnetic airborne detector, and infra red homing are exaggerated.
This book has great value as a warning and an invitation to sober thought. Several quotations will illustrate these qualities. “Unless a federation intervenes in time, war is certain and inevitable.” “In an atomic war temporary mastery of the air is all that is necessary to assure victory.” “Actually, the airplane has always more closely resembled long- range artillery.” “Espionage is our first line of defense.” “The mission of everyone not on active duty with the armed forces when hostilities commence will be to stay alive, and no more.” “In sober reality there may be a choice between a strong America and no America.”
Mr. Borden is obviously not a war-monger. He has come through one war with his life, and wants to see no more. His book is worthy of serious attention, especially by those, in uniform and out, who are responsible for the safety of the United States.
TOGETHER. By Katherine Tupper Marshall. New York: Tupper & Love, Inc. 1946. 292 pages. $3.50.
Reviewed by Haney H. Bell Jr., Instructor U. S. Naval Academy
Since General Marshall, our war-time Chief of Staff, refuses to write his own memoirs, this book written by his wife provides the public with what is probably the most intimate account of this great man’s life it will be privileged to read.
Writing in a friendly and straightforward style, Katherine Tupper Marshall emphasizes the family life of the General from the time they were married in 1930 when he was a lieutenant colonel stationed at Fort Benning, Georgia, until he became the top ranking officer of the U. S. Army in World War II. Reading the book one comprehends how earnestly she endeavored to be a true helpmate to the man destined for greatness. When she married into the Army, she was totally ignorant of its customs and conventions. Some of these she found odd, others she found amusing, but all of them she found had a reason. In time, with patient and laborious effort, she mastered the intricacies of military protocol, and when her husband received the greatest promotion of all, she just as patiently and just as laboriously ran their Fort Myer home in such a manner as never to trouble the heavily burdened General with household problems. Reading this book, one also becomes acquainted with a new Marshall—a Marshall who obeys when he is told to “keep his shirt on” by a private, and a Marshall who remains alone in silent reverence for thirty minutes beside the grave of his son at Anzio.
One will find here the answers to many interesting questions about the man who helped to give his country victory in the greatest war in history. Why was he selected as Chief of Staff over officers who outranked him? How was he able to do so much so well? And lastly, why is he who is very tired, who hates politics, and who wants to retire, still in politics, and still hasn’t retired?
This is a valuable book which is made even more valuable by the author’s addition of both biographical and pictorial appendices.
AIR TRANSPORT AT WAR. By Reginald M. Cleveland. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1946. 324 pages. $3.50.
Reviewed by Lieutenant Commander H.
O. Werner, U. S. Naval Reserve
In the spring of 1942, the Japs tried the northern route. Attu and Kiska became Japanese Aleutian outposts; Dutch Harbor, on the mainland, was under air attack. The situation was critical. Late in the afternoon of Saturday, June 13, Washington called on eleven commercial airlines to divert all available equipment to Edmonton, Alberta. Flight crews dropped their passengers at the first airport, fueled their planes, and flew north over the border. American Airlines alone contributed twelve transports—nine from West Coast runs, three from the East. Then, from their Edmonton base, these civilian crews made daily round-trip flights to Dutch Harbor—seventeen or eighteen hours of flying—over notoriously hazardous terrain, until the immediate crisis was past.
Army pilots were attempting to ferry fighting planes to the African front. Most of them made it; but too many were disappearing into the Brazilian jungles. Tommy Harmon was one of the lucky few who bailed out on the Georgetown, New Guinea-Belem, Brazil leg of the flight and lived to tell about it. Eastern Airlines was flying transports across the same route under Army contract. The commercial operators and the Army worked out a system of “weather ships”; i.e., the Army placed aerologists on the early morning northbound and southbound Eastern flights. Weather reports were broadcast from these planes at alternating 15-minute intervals and on the fighters’ frequency. Within two weeks a marked improvement was noted in the safety record of the ferry pilots; soon the operation became routine.
Those are two from hundreds of examples of the direct contributions of the commercial airlines to the war effort, as collected and summarized by Reginald M. Cleveland. His book could be more accurately titled, Commercial Air Transport At War, for Mr. Cleveland’s material, largely statistical although presented in narrative form, illustrates how long-continuing and magnificent were the war tasks performed by the 21 United States airlines and Consairway, the operating division of Consolidated Aircraft Corporation. The airlines opened new ferry and transport routes through thousands of miles of heretofore unknown skyways, ferried military and transport aircraft over those routes, flew millions of transport miles under contract, trained Army and Navy personnel, performed many kinds of ground maintenance, established and operated modification centers, and supplied equipment and, most important, key personnel around whom ATC and NATS were developed into the world’s greatest air transport systems. The dust wrapper of the book carries both the Air Transport Command and the Naval Air Transport Service insignia, but ATC and NATS figure in this account only incidentally. The book belongs, rightly and deservedly, to the commercial airlines; they earned it many times over.
Those of us who served in the Navy with NATS will heartily say amen when we read the foreword to the book by Lieutenant General Harold L. George, until recently head of ATC: “Mr. Cleveland’s vivid account gives the airlines the credit which they so richly deserve. We of the armed forces, who know so well the greatness of their contribution, welcome the publication of his account.”
WHAT INDUSTRY OWES TO CHEMICAL SCIENCE: a symposium. By Fifty Contributors, on an idea originated by Richard B. Pilcher and Frank Butler-Jones. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Chemical Publishing Co., Inc., 350 pages plus index. $5.00.
Reviewed by C. E. Sunderlin, Assistant Professor, U. S. Naval Academy
The first edition of What Industry Owes to Chemical Science was published in 1918 as a collection of twenty articles in answer to the question: “What is the place of the chemist in practical life and what part has he taken in industrial and social development?” The present edition, published in Great Britain in 1945 and in this country in 1946, is completely rewritten and expanded to a
total of approximately fifty different articles. These include such subjects as explosives, inks, paints and varnishes, synthetic resins and plastics, photography, ceramics, glass, enamels, leather, rubber, dyestuffs, etc.
The book is intended for the general reader, not the specialist, in the various fields covered. Therefore, the authors “have endeavored to avoid technical details which cannot easily be understood by those who have little knowledge of science.” In this they have succeeded. However, even specialists in the general fields of science might find the book useful as a source of information on selected topics.
Approximately fifty British chemists contributed the articles for this symposium. It is understandable that processes described and data used refer to British chemical practice. This should be no deterrent to the general reader, for the chemical principles are the same, whether here or in Great Britain. The articles are very readable, show no marked differences in style, and exhibit a high level of technical competence. Each article is a complete unit in itself; one article does not depend on any other article for background or development.
Thumbnail Reviews of New Books
Caesar’s Gallic Campaigns. A new version with Introduction and Notes by Lieutenant Colonel S. G. Brady, A.U.S., Retired. Harrisburg, Pa.: Military Service Publishing Co. 1947, 230 pages. $2.50.
Colonel Brady’s treatment is not a translation but a condensed re-telling of Caesar’s eight years’ campaigning in Gaul, 58-51 b.c. The story is told in idiomatic Americanese—e.g., “Remember, men, the 10th is one outfit that has always had guts”—and it really gets across a good idea of Caesar’s brilliant leadership and the virtues of the Roman legions. A naval episode is the battle between Roman galleys and heavier Celtic craft in Quiberon Bay (56 b.c.), in which the Romans used falces or grappling hooks to cripple the enemy by breaking halliards and stays.
Guadalcanal Round-Trip: The Story of a Red Cross Field Director in the Present War. By Alfred S. Campbell. Lambertsville, N. J.: Printed by the Author. 1945. 112 pages. $2.00.
With an incredible supply of comfort kits, playing cards, and all the Red Cross man’s stock in trade, the author went out with the first invasion force to Guadalcanal, and came back with the wounded from the Quincy, Astoria, and Vincennes. The narrative is modest but gives an impression of the author’s boundless energy, and of a useful job well done.
The Epic of Freedom. By John T. Flynn. Philadelphia: The Fireside Press. 1947. 127 pages. $2.00.
The author vigorously points out the great mile-stones on the road to “freedom, slowly broadening down,”—the parchment-inscribed rights squeezed from their masters by barons, burghers, and finally by the common man. If, according to the author’s rough estimate, less than one per cent of the 200 billion people who have lived in the world have been freemen, rather than “subjects, serfs, and slaves,” then Americans should know and treasure their noble inheritance.
Battle Studies. By Colonel Ardant du Picq. Translated by Colonel John N. Greely and Major R. C. Cotton. Harrisburg, Pa.: Military Service Publishing Co. 1947. 273 pages. $2.00.
Unquestionably the publishers have done a great service in making easily available, in the Military Classics series, the work of this influential writer of the 1860’s, who was a precursor of Foch, and who stressed morale, military psychology, a study of the men who are the atoms composing a military body, as the key to success in battle. It may be added that they would have done a still greater service by discarding most of the 36 pages of introductory material, including 20 useless pages written by a French editor in 1902, and replacing them by a good up-to-date study of du Picq, such for example as is found in Earle’s Makers of Modern Strategy.
Remington Handguns. By Charles Lee Karr, Jr., Lieut. Commander, U. S. Naval Reserve, and Carroll Robbins Karr. Harrisburg, Pa.: Military Service Publishing Co. 1947. 125 pages; 41 plates. $5.00.
For small arms students and collectors, here is a good brief historical sketch of the old Central New York firm of Remington Arms, and a well illustrated catalogue of all their handgun models from about 1850 on. The book is accepted as standard by the National Rifle Association.
Marina Militare Italiana, 1946. By Dr. Aldo Frac- caroli. Milan. 1946. 202 pages and 60 plates.
This well illustrated little manual provides an accurate guide to the ships of all types in the Italian Navy which survived the war, together with
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some indication of wartime losses. Though the manual includes all ships now constituting the Italian Navy, a table at the end shows the makeup of the fleet after the reductions called for by the peace treaty. It will then be limited to 2 battleships, 4 cruisers, 4 destroyers, 16 torpedo- boats, 20 corvettes, and a corresponding number of smaller craft.
Recent Books of Professional Interest
Barea, Arturo. Forging of a Rebel. New York: Reynal & Hitchkock. 1946. $5.00. Author was a Spanish Rebel who fought in the Spanish Civil War.
Carr, Edward Hallett. The Soviet Impact on the Western World. New York: Macmillan. 1946. $1.75. Russia and the Western powers.
Chiang Kai-shek. China’s Destiny. New York: Roy Publishers. 1947. $3.50.
Cornell, Felix M., Editor. American Merchant Seaman’s Manual. 4th edition revised. New York: Cornell Maritime Press. 1946. $4.50. Fitzgerald, Walter. The New Europe. New York: Harper. $3.50. An introduction to political geography in post-war Europe.
Haines, William Wister. Command Decision. Boston. Little, Brown. 1947. $2.50. Story of officers and men in a bomber division.
Hamlin, Benson. Flight Testing; Conventional and Jet-Propelled Airplanes. New York: Macmillan. 1946. $5.00.
Koop, Theodore F. Weapon of Silence. Chicago. Univ. of Chicago Press. 1946. $3.50. Rules and procedure for wartime censorship.
Moore, Wilbert Ellis. Industrial Relations and the Social Order. New York: Macmillan. $4.00.
Schussnigg, Kurt. Austrian Requiem. New York. Putnam’s. 1946. Secret diary kept by former Austrian Chancellor during seven years’ imprisonment in Nazi concentration camps.
Semat, Henry. Introduction to Atomic Physics. New York: Rhinehart. 1946. $4.50.
Smith, Edward S. C. Applied Atomic Power. New York: Prentice-Hall. 1946. $4.00.
Smith, George Geoffrey. Gas Turbines and Jet Propulsion for Aircraft. New York: Aircraft Books, Inc. 1946.
Smith, Leonard J. Collective Bargaining. New York: Prentice-Hall. 1946. $5.00.
Spender, Stephen. European Witness. New York: Reynal & Hitchcock. 1946. $3.00. A writer’s journal and observations in Germany and France at the end of the war.
Stefansson, Vilhjalmur. Great Adventures and Explorations. New York: Dial Press. 1947. $5.00. Stories of the World’s Great Explorers.
Stocking, George W. and Watkins, Myron W. Cartels in Action. New York: Twentieth Century Fund, Inc. 1946. $4.00. A “case-book” on international cartels—origin and operations of cartels in sugar, rubber, steel, aluminum, magnesium, electric lamps and chemicals.
Thorner, Robert H. Aircraft Carburetion. New York: Wiley. 1946. $3.50.
Van Narvig, William. East of the Iron Curtain. New York: Ziff-Davis. 1946. $3.00. A detailed account of the present situation in Russia.
White, Margaret Bourke. “Dear Fatherland, Rest Quietly,” a Report on the Collapse of Hitler’s Thousand Years. New York: Simon & Schuster. 1946. $3.00. A comprehensive, striking report on postwar Germany.