Book Reviews

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RUSSIAN PURGE AND THE EXTRAC­TION OF CONFESSION, by F. Beck and W. Godin; The Viking Press, N. Y. C., 1951; 277 pages. $3.50.

Reviewed by Vice Admiral L. C.

Stevens, U. S. Navy (Retired)

(Admiral Stevens served as U. S. Naval Attache in Moscow from 1947 to 1949.)

The authors of this thoughtful and impor­tant book are a “distinguished Soviet his­torian and a German professor of science” who were thrown together by chance in a Soviet prison during the Great Purge of 1936-39, and the book itself is the result of months of discussion in a cell between them­selves and with many and varied other vic­tims of the purge. Although, they later escaped from the Soviet Union, they are still unable to use their real names. The pub­lishers state that “their bona fides is attested by English authorities who know them per­sonally and vouch for them fully.”

Soviet life and events preceding the purge are discussed only insofar as necessary to provide an adequate background. The book is mainly concerned with the mechanics of the interrogation process, the categories of the people who were selected by the authori­ties for arrest, three typical case histories (although many other partial case histories are effectively used throughout to bring out various points), and an extraordinary dis­cussion of some seventeen different theories held by various victims to explain the moti­vation behind such purges and the self-in­criminating confessions which were made on a vast scale.

Touched off by the murder of Kirov, pro­tege of Stalin, secretary of the Leningrad party committee, and member of the Polit­buro, the purge of the late ’30’s involved not only the party members and senior military officers of the spectacular public trials, but literally millions of Soviet citizens whose cases were never publicized and who very frequently made confessions generally simi­lar to those of the famous trials. The circum­stances and nature of these confessions were so foreign to all Western experience that their explanation has been a major mystery among the many enigmas of Russia. Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon has been the most profound and penetrating attempt to reach an understanding of the psychology in­volved, but the present book, by its very nature, adds much to that study without de­tracting from the validity which Koestler’s novel has for the special cases of senior party members and Old Bolsheviks. Moreover, Beck and Godin are more concerned with the millions of victims who are unknown in the West (but not in Russia) than with the cen­tra' figures of the dramatized trials.

Although this book is limited to the Great Purge, it must be realized that the purge is an integral part of the operational practice of communist power and is always in process in Soviet Russia and elsewhere, with varying degrees of intensity. The pattern shown in the satellites is not discussed, and so this book is only partially applicable to recent events in Hungary. It is, however, of peculiar importance, not only to those who are fasci­nated by a particular period in Soviet his­tory, but to all who are interested in the workings of the Soviet mind, whether that mind be party or non-party.

The book is remarkable for its objectivity, particularly since its sources are those who have been imprisoned by the regime. It is not an account of the labor camps and of what happens to the condemned, but rather of the prisons and trials through which those ultimate prisoners must pass. It is often out­spoken in its fairness, such as its recognition of reasonably good physical conditions of Soviet prisons, and its contrast of the im­personal nature of the Soviet system with the personalized brutality of corresponding Nazi institutions. It is not a book of physical horrors, but the psychological and ethical horrors with which it deals are no less terri­ble. Although no comparisons are made with Anglo-Saxon justice and there are no hints of our own Bill of Rights, this book is tre­mendously effective in arousing an awful realization of what life can be like without essential safeguards for the individual against the state.

There is no moralizing in this book, no sitting in judgement, no propaganda. It generalizes from particular cases, but al­though there were former examining magis­trates, NKVD officials, and senior party members among its prisoner sources, the authors realize the incompleteness of their information and are never sweeping or dog­matic in their generalizations. They believe that fifteen of the seventeen theories they present “each contains a portion, at the very least a tiny grain, of truth.”

Russian Purge is rich in incidental infor­mation about the Soviet Union and its in­habitants. It is very readable—few will be able to put it down after starting to read—- and, what is rare among translations, the reader is never aware of the fact that it was originally written in another language. It is highly recommended for general reading and is a “must” for those whose interests or re­sponsibilities demand some understanding of the Soviet Union and the Russians.

AIR TRANSPORTATION MANAGE­MENT. By Joseph L. Nicholson. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 1951. 446 pages. $6.50.

Reviewed by Colonel Theodore R. Milton, U. S. Air Force

(iColonel Milton is Director of Operations, Military Air Transport Service.)

This book is essentially a collection of inte­grated and unconnected essays, covering in varying detail the entire field of commercial air transportation. The author, Joseph L. Nicholson, is introduced as a Temple Uni­versity lecturer on transportation: a fact which possibly accounts for the format he has chosen for his book.

While the idea of making each chapter complete in itself, as Mr. Nicholson has done, is admirably suited for a reference textbook, it makes “Air Transportation Management” a difficult book to read in the ordinary way.

The emphasis of this book is largely on the economic side of the industry. To this end the author has made much use of statistical information, both in tables and on charts, with a view to pointing out certain signifi­cant mathematical factors used in the analy­sis of an airline’s operating efficiency. There is, however, some well documented history- - though unhappily with little anecdote—of the struggle of the airlines from their earliest days to their present position as a major in­dustry. It is interesting to read of the opti­mism and far sightedness of a few post office officials in 1918 and their fight to get air transportation started. The author has given particular attention to the legislation which has governed the growth of the airline in­dustry and, in so doing, brings out the nar­row line which separates government sub­sidy from outright government control.

For reasons of his own, Mr. Nicholson has chosen to ignore the very great effect of the military on air transportation developments. The Air Transport Command and the Naval Air Transport Service are dismissed in one paragraph. No mention is made of the Mili­tary Air Transport Service, the Berlin Air­lift, or any other post war military air trans­port achievement. Perhaps this omission comes as a natural result of Mr. Nicholson’s preoccupation with the economic side of air transportation. Nevertheless, and for what­ever reason, the omission is a considerable one. It is impossible to give a well-rounded appraisal of the air transportation industry without touching on the effect of the military on that industry in the past ten years. Spe­cifically, such things as the maintenance and protection of United States interests over certain foreign routes fell to the ATC im­mediately after World War II. Radar traffic control, a subject of paramount importance, both economic and operational, to the air­lines, was given its first large-scale test on the Berlin Airlift. There are other such examples, numerous and pertinent to the thesis that commercial air transportation is closely allied to military air transportation.

Air Transportation Management, in sum­mary, remains a good textbook and a handy, if not unique, reference work on U. S. commercial air transport.

THE STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL. A CHRONICLE OF ECONOMIC MO­BILIZATION IN WORLD WAR II. By Eliot Janeway. New Haven: Yale Uni­versity Press, 1951. 382 pages including index. $5.00. Also published as Volume 53, The Chronicles of America Series.

Reviewed by Captain John D. Hayes, U. S. Navy

(Captain Hayes is on the staff of The Industrial College of the Armed Forces, Washington, D. C.)

The author of this interestingly written object lesson of what happened on the home front during World War II is a consulting economist and presently business trends con­sultant for Newsweek Magazine. During the period of which he writes he prepared nu­merous articles on the subject for Time, Life and Fortune. Recently he has published some penetrating articles on the present day problems of economic mobilization in the Harvard Business Review and the Yale Re­view. He is in the fore among authorities on this new phase of political and social science.

This popular volume has been badly needed, especially in view of the fact that we are again faced with the problem. There exists only a scanty literature on the exten­sive effort made in mobilizing our economy during the late war. No comprehensive rec­ords such as the Armed Services carefully provided for in the case of military opera­tions were maintained. All who were in­volved in this new phase of warfare were too busy doing the job to take the time to pro­vide for its record. The importance of what was done is sharply realized now, but it may be generations before historians can recon­struct the events of those years and provide us with a documented history of the war economy of the United States.

Prior to this book only three general works on the subject were available. The two earlier ones, Donald Nelson’s Arsenal of Democracy, 1946, and the publication by the Bureau of the Budget, The United Stales at War, 1946, are neither factual nor unbiased according to Janeway, who nevertheless is forced to use both as source material. The third work of this group, Robert H. Connery’s The Navy and Industrial Mobilization in World War II, reviewed in the December, 1951, issue of the Proceedings, is an accurate and comprehen­sive case history. Those who have the time and inclination would do well to read Dr. Connery’s book. The rest of us certainly should read Janeway’s shorter, undocu­mented account.

Janeway’s book is pointed primarily to the lessons that those war years have for us to­day. Two-thirds of the book is devoted to the pre-Pearl Harbor period of preparation. The great lesson preached is that Franklin D. Roosevelt is no longer with us. It was the American people who provided the dynamics for the war economy, assisted by Roosevelt who had the faculty of dealing with them as so many individuals across the table. He won the bet that the momentum of production outside Washington would win the war in spite of the administrative failures there. Such an assumption is not valid today.

After Roosevelt, Janeway’s heroes of the economic front are Bernard Baruch, James Forrestal, and Ferdinand Eberstad't. He gives credit to Justice William O. Douglas for discovering Forrestal and recommending him to the President. He is more than critical of Donald Nelson, Felix Frankfurter, and Harry Hopkins. Stettinius never knew what it was all about, and his succession of failures is his biography. Janeway is unique among commentators of the war years in Washing­ton in never being too hard on the military. To him the shortages that caused the con­flicts between the military and civilian agen­cies were due to failure of the civilians to use the prewar opportunity to prepare the econ­omy for mobilization.

An important part of this book is its excel­lent bibliography, presented in essay rather than in tabular form. In it Janeway cata­logues and appraises what amounts to prac­tically the whole literature on economic mobilization in the United States during World War II.

THE ASSAULT ON PELELIU. By Major

Frank O. Hough, USMCR. Washington:

Historical Division, U. S. Marine Corps.

209 pages, 20 maps, 29 photographs, plus

8 appendices.

Reviewed by Lieutenant Colonel R. D. Heinl, Jr., U. S. Marine Corps

The Assault on Peleliu, seventh of the now burgeoning Marine Corps series of operation­al monographs dealing with World War II, constitutes something of an event by reason of being the first scholarly, perhaps even the definitive study of an extremely bloody, hard-fought campaign which so far has received practically no treatment from the historians.

Thus, Major Hough’s fine narrative re­veals a lode of original material which has been almost entirely unworked. As examples only, we learn for the first time the facts be­hind the gravely inadequate prelanding preparation of the island; the story of Gener­al Rupertus’s extraordinary off-the-cuff pre­diction of a four-day conquest (actually the battle ran just short of ten weeks); the enigma which still shrouds the mission of Japanese General Kenjiro Murai during the defense of Peleliu.

As Major Hough makes abundantly plain, Peleliu was one of the toughest of many tough Marine Corps landing assaults.

It was executed by a division even then com­posed of veterans, a Marine division which has since added Inchon and Changjin Reser­voir and Hungnam to its laurels. In Septem­ber, 1944, this division (the 1st) was projected into battle after one of the most gruelling “rest-periods” in the history of the Corps, that spent on Pavuvu Island in the Russells —a South Pacific spot little different (except for the absence of Japanese) from New Britain, where the division had been fighting early in the year.

In a sense, Peleliu seemed to possess un­pleasant aspects from every one of the other battles: a reef and beaches like those of the atolls; mangrove swamp like those in the Bismarcks; and caves foreshadowing I wo Jima. In addition, militarily speaking, it had some of the craziest, most inadequately mapped terrain Marines had faced up to September, 1944. Its defenders, moreover, confronted the 1st Marine Division with thoroughly worthy opposition: portions of the Japanese 14th Division, an outfit with a record of victories running back to the Russo-Japanese War. Notable among the sup­porting units in the base troops was the 214th Naval Construction Battalion, a Japanese Seabee organization made up entirely of miners, sandhogs, tunnelmen, and com­manded by professional mining engineers. With Peleliu’s limestone for raw material, these men turned in a virtuoso performance in cave construction, a performance given special treatment by one of the several ap­pendices which The Assault on Peleliu re­serves for absorbing sidelights on the battle.

Major Hough is no stranger either to his­torical writing or to the Marine Corps. In World War I, still a teen-ager, he was one of the youngest sergeants in the Corps. Be­tween wars, as a newspaperman, novelist, and finally historian, he acquired real com­petence as a writing craftsman. During the second war, he returned, of course, to the Marine Corps, and acquired his knowledge of the Peleliu battle (among others) at first hand. After 1945, he produced The Island War, odds-on the best popular historical account of the Marine Corps’s Pacific cam­paigns. Now, in line with the Historical Division’s wise policy of having Marine history written, as largely as possible, by

those who were there, he has completed The Assault on Peleliu, and continues with the Marine Corps Historical Division ready, one hopes, to do more work of the same high literary and professional quality.

It should be no secret that I liked The Assault on Peleliu. I do believe that its cartography and typography are a little below that on some of its predecessors in the series (maps without scales or representative fractions or north-arrows are examples of what I mean). Compared, though, to the excellence of the book as a whole, such minor criticisms are not important.

BASIC SEAMANSHIP AND NAVIGA­TION. By Edmund A. Gibson. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 1951. 414 pages. $6.00.

Reviewed by Rear Admiral Arthur A.

Ageton, U. S. Navy (Retired)

“The particular aim of this treatise is to furnish seamen with thoroughly practical hints, such as are not found in the ordinary works on naviga­tion; or, if they do exist, are scattered through so many pages, and so smothered by their sur­roundings, as to require too much digging out— too many shells to be cracked before arriving at the kernel—a tedious process, which the practical mind recoils from:”—Squire Lecky in his Preface to Wrinkles in Navigation.

In his book of 414 pages, which aims to cover the practical aspects of both seaman­ship and navigation, Edmund A. Gibson may well have used the above quotation as his precept. Certainly, his treatise on these two subjects so important to the mar­iner, both merchant and naval, are admir­ably brief. Perhaps he might, with profit, have reflected that Squire Lecky’s excellent tome on navigation in its 22nd Edition was 817 pages, while the 10th Edition of Knight’s Modern Seamanship, the standard text on the subject, runs to 845 pages.

Within the scope of these obvious limita­tions, in 196 pages, Mr. Gibson presents clearly, pleasantly, and in simple language such subjects as general ship description, deck seamanship, cargo handling, ground tackle, boats, and canvas and leather. The general treatment of the material as well as the limitation of material indicates that he

has directed his book more toward the foc’sle hands of merchant ships and the deck sea­men of the Navy than toward deck officers. Marlinspike seamanship is especially well clarified by some excellent line drawings, but ship handling and towing and salvage cov­erage leave something to be desired when compared to a full treatise on those subjects. Rules of the Road—-included, oddly, under the heading of Navigation—are clearly and lucidly discussed but could, in the 16 pages devoted to them, not be as fully presented as is necessary for deck officers.

Missing from the discussion on Seaman­ship are such subjects long a preoccupation of seamen as handling boats in a surf, moor­ing, maneuvering to avoid collision, station keeping and maneuvering in formation, man overboard, weather, buoyage, and hurricane seamanship.

In discussing the broad subject of Naviga­tion, Mr. Gibson writes pleasantly and briefly, apparently adhering to the aphorism offered in praise of Squire Lecky’s work by one of his admirers, viz., “One of its chief merits lies not so much in what you have put in it, as in what you have kept out of it.”

It appears to this reviewer that Mr. Gib­son has kept too much “out of it” in his book. For example, all of the instruments of navigation are presented in 16 pages while the important and difficult subject of time and time pieces is covered in 15 pages. The very vital subject of piloting, to which a recent edition of Dutton’s Navigation and Nautical Astronomy devotes 70 pages, Mr. Gibson discusses in 9. Only one method of navigation, H.O. 214, is covered in any de­tail. Even so, no full solution of the prob­lem, nor a problem form, is illustrated, and no sample problems for solution by the stu­dent are given in the text. A good but brief discussion of electronic navigation is in­cluded.

The book closes with 68 pages of “A Glos­sary of Sea Terms,” excellent in its scope and definition.

As presented in Mr. Gibson’s book, the subjects of Seamanship and Navigation are presented in a readable and understandable fashion which would provide informative reading for seamen, yachtsmen, and small- boatmen. For a comprehensive text in either

subject for use in classroom or for self study, the student will have to supplement this brief and elementary text with advanced texts which cover both subjects more fully.

CHIEF OF STAFF: PREWAR PLANS AND PREPARATIONS (WORLD WAR II). By Mark Skinner Watson. Historical Division, Department of the Army, Wash­ington, D.C. 1950. 520 pages. Supt. of Doc­uments, $3.75.

Reviewed by Colonel George C.

Reinhardt, U. S. Army

Fact-packed and engrossing, this play by play account of the Army’s top-level staff and its tribulations in preparing a reluctant nation for inevitable war should shock most readers. Easy going American habits of criticizing “the brass,” of expecting foibles and histrionics from “celebrities” are both jolted. The enormity of the task demanded of the Chief of Staff’s Office, the astonishing degree to which the homely virtues of pa­tience, forebearance, and sound common sense were practiced in that high office, are calmly but most convincingly set forth.

Were it not for the array of world shaking decisions interspersing the narrative, the strict avoidance of any tinge of hero-worship however justifiable, this history might have been titled “The Human Side of the General Staff.” Few true stories in American annals as closely parallel the saga of Abraham Lincoln’s Civil War leadership.

The initial chapter, “Introductory,” is no casual listing of “preliminary remarks.” It sets the stage for the carefully presented, de­tailed study to follow. “The public state of mind remained serene on the very eve of Pearl Harbor” . . . “apathy of the nation as a whole” . . . why did the General Staff “not foresee the need earlier?” . . . “why were the forces so unready for expansion, the materiel so deficient?” That similar remarks could have described America on the threshold of all its great wars has been recorded since 1881 in Emory Upton’s Military Policy. Hence the necessity to study, not merely read, the 500 page account which lucidly explains them, utterly without rancor or name calling. Facts are re'counted, often with hitherto undisclosed reasons for those facts.

Opinions are left to the reader and the “judg­ment of history.”

The “two basic principles” of our national effort determined early and firmly executed are set forth: the primary aim of defeating Germany first and placing maximum stress on “mastering logistic difficulties to make plans feasible rather than adapting plans to current logistic conceptions.” That this “firm execution” sometimes roused public apprehension, even antagonism was unavoid­able just as some later (wartime) decisions of the Chief of Staff gave rise to controversies not yet settled. The avowed and deftly ac­complished purpose of the volume “is not to defend the decisions but to record them, reasons for making them, and developments apparently traceable to them.”

Despite its bulk, Mr. Watson’s volume challenges the reader to pick it up night after night until he has finished. Slow reading by reason of its fact packed pages, the recital remains intensely interesting to all readers. For the student of military history it could scarcely be more fascinating while to the researcher, enriched by its accessible foot­notes and superb bibliography, “The Chief of Staff, Prewar Plans and Preparations” furnishes a foundation'for inexhaustible delv­ing into phases of American history that deserve far more attention than they have hitherto received.

The unappreciated truism that “nonmili­tary considerations at times outweighed the military” (even von Clausewitz terms the military the servant not the master of the State) and the axiom that “facts of war are often in total opposition to the facts of peace” become evident. Economy of force in Industry seeks “just enough means to per­form the job.” Yet in battle, victory costs far less in casualties and that vital commod­ity “time” if a “force vastly superior” to the enemy can be employed.

Thus “Introductory” summarizes its premise that of all the agencies contributing to “results better than those of previous wars” it is difficult to name one “so largely responsible for success as the Chief of Staff.”

The effect upon the nation of two decades of peace, covering unprecedented prosperity and disastrous “depression,” and the con­sequent impact upon the military establish­ment: physical limitations as to men and materiel, stultifying psychological pressure upon the military leaders’ thinking, com­pletes the preview. History begins with the origin and powers of the General Staff. That this chapter is essential to the average citi­zen’s comprehension of the Army’s prewar plans is a commentary upon our national state of mind. It explains the Chief of Staff’s terrific struggle against innumerable defi­ciencies plus the wisdom and tact, not simply planning skill, involved in eradicating those deficiencies.

The impact of “Foreign Policy” upon the Armed Forces receives deservedly careful treatment headed by the still too little ac­cepted fact that it must be within bounds of expressed national policy that the Military Establishment plans its future development. The search, before Pearl Harbor, for clear guidance on that score was one of the great­est problems faced by General Marshall’s office. Again and again “staff memoranda” came to the Chief, foreworded with “as­sumptions of national policy” in order to provide a working basis for a plan. The radi­cal changes in that policy in the “thirties” by itself explains many of the false starts and uncompleted efforts in staff procedure. “Confusion of Aims” the author aptly titles the section dealing with this feature.

Discussing the start of rearming, Mr. Watson highlights the delicate relationships between Congressional viewpoints and public opinion on the one hand with military needs and planning on the other. In that respect General Marshall performed one of his most effective services to the nation. The confi­dence he justifiably won from members of Congress made the difficult path trod by the Office of the Chief of Staff smoother and achieved the closest liaison between the military and the Legislative Branch yet re­corded. '

Troop training is logically granted the longest chapter, bringing into clearer focus the part played by G.H.Q., the National Guard, America’s first peacetime Selective Service, and particularly the critical legis­lative struggle to “extend the draft,” a struggle won by a single vote margin in August, 1941! The question of the officer corps for the expanding Army; promotions, selection, elimination, brought heavy pres­sures upon the Chief of Staff. His firm, judi­cious handling of knotty problems such as Mayor LaGuardia’s request for a commis­sion, equitable treatment of Reserves, Guardsmen, and Regulars under the One Army Policy, resistance to favoritism regard­less of the pleader, provides a fruitful field for a complete study by itself.

The “movement toward air autonomy” is revealingly described in one of the rare ac­counts of this controversial item which avoids all bias. Presidential pressure for expanding the Air Arm faster than “bal­anced force” concepts could accept, or per­sonnel training support, repercussions of Nazi air superiority, British pleas for greater share in our aircraft production, all compli­cated an already complex matter. The ability of General Arnold to “place first things first” aided General Marshall in reaching the efficient compromise arrangement that kept the Air Arm part of the Army “for the dura­tion” yet permitted the Chief of Air Force to join the Chief of Staff and the Chief of Naval Operations as an equal in the Joint and Combined Chiefs’ deliberations.

Other steps toward “unification” are graphically portrayed. The early Army-Navy disagreements in overseas garrisons, Pan­ama, Hawaii, the Philippines and even Alas­ka contributed to the discord that a harried Chief of Staff had to quell in collaboration with his understanding “opposite number,” the Chief of Naval Operations. The depth of the Chief’s sincerity of purpose appears in his quoted personal letters such as one in which he deplores the fact that “old Army and Navy feuds still persist in confusing issues of national defense.”

The involved negotiations with the British during the period of “all assistance short of war” are explained with a clarity exceeding that of any previous single account. The finally achieved “restatement of national policy” and the adoption of the “Victory Program” bring the volume to its denoue­ment: “Darkening Clouds in the Far East” and “War Reaches America.”

Little known data on the weakness of America’s “outposts” in the fall of 1941 is succinctly stated and, if no startling new

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