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Book Reviews 109
‘Chael Herr. New York: Alfred A.
I :n°pf, 1977, 272 pp. $8.95 ($8.06).*
v'ewed by Peter Braestrup
i 1 ^raestruP. currently Editor, Woodrow , [ ^nfernational Center for Scholars at the
so’!‘a», served as a rifle platoon leader ^ f e First Marine Division in Korea in > and, in hjs newspaper career, as a VKpondent Vietnam in 1966-1969 for 1 ew York Times and The H'ngton Post.)
ook^etl ^’c^ae^ Herr’s Vietnam > largely a collection of Esquire ‘eces f;r<:. ■ V
orst written ten years earlier,
°Ut ln ^ate ^977, it received - ^ Praise. The New York Times’ i ' • Bryan asserted that Herr
DQYg 11
7. an showed “how different” 3 darn was from any other war jje° ( by Americans; Irwin Shaw said rr showed "what it must really have ’ and William Borroughs
°ssal 6rr aS exP0S*n8 the whole corf:. 3 ^ud of American interven-
assertions were, in my view, ner ■ ^'Heading. They assigned to lavo S a sort °f 1960s anti-war Jh^voij ^at> in fact> he managed to te^arlc d ^ Strength of dispatches, in ls*ier ed c°ntrast to so many books on h0ten ■ arn> *s that it lacks cosmic pre- -|i’ Po«Sl°nS' Herr told a Washington
he'i°UrnI'|terViewer’ k is “in no way a y tirna^allStic hook; it’s a work of the
. a totally personal response.” -ItlThy 6ed’ Herr’s “facts” (on geogra- Tet’ V>eaPonry, unit designations, the arice °^ens‘ve> Communist perform- iallv.’,etcare not t0 be taken liter- tiCaj ,'s descriptions of the 1968 tac- ^exar_SltUat'on at Khe Sanh or Hue, for riat) 1* e> would dismay combat histo- |^pasS' ^°r d° his fairly conventional ^ high ^ i*bes at the rear-echelon and the f author‘ty get to the heart of
Tr1„.irnatter- But there are other uths.
Hit‘^atc^es' enduring value lies in s own youthful super-sensitivity
and his modesty. It lies in his extraordinary ability to convey, out of his own fearful fascination with combat, with a kind of psychedelic, surrealistic fact/fiction impressionism, his perceptions of the camaraderie, the follies, the exhilaration, and the madness, of both the newsmen and the “grunts” (mostly marines) he encountered in Vietnam in 1967-1968.
He discusses the reporter’s romantic self-image:
“In any other war, they would have made movies about us too, Dateline: Hell!, Dispatch from Dong Ha, maybe even A Scrambler to the Front, about Tim Page, Sean Flynn and Rick Merron, three young photographers who used to ride in and out of combat on Hondas. But Vietnam is awkward, everybody knows how awkward, and if people don’t even want to hear about it, you know they’re not going to pay money to sit there in the dark and have it brought up. CThe Green Berets doesn’t count. That wasn t
really about Vietnam, it was about Santa Monica.) So we have all been compelled to make our own movies, as many movies as there are correspondents, and this one is mine.” Herr was born in Syracuse, New York, the son of a jeweler. After college, he lived in Greenwich Village, married too young and divorced, did an Army Reserve stint, and wrote a bit. At age 27, chubby and bespectacled, a drifting man-child of the sixties, he got to Saigon with a commission from Esquire to see his first war. He palled around with photographers like Flynn and Page rather than the “straight” journalists. But, more than most, he pushed himself out to the Delta, to the Special Forces camps in the Highlands, and into the middle of marine fights in I Corps. He was a “parasitic” greenhorn (but on one occasion, he was pressed into service as a rifleman), a self-conscious voyeur of sorts, who could listen to journalistic gossip and “grunt” patois, and remember it all, every awesome rumor, superb sea story, myth, and joke. He
alternative Allied courses of atf given an outline war plan whid
also remembered the first shock of combat:
“Quakin’ and Shakin’,” they called it, great balls of fire, Contact. Then it was you and the ground: kiss it, eat it, . . ., plow it with your whole body, get as close to it as you can without being in it yet or of it, guess who’s flying around about an inch above your head? Pucker and submit, it’s the ground. Under Fire would take you out of your head and your body too, the space you’d seen a second ago between subject and object wasn’t there anymore, it banged shut in a fast wash of adrenaline. Amazing, unbelievable, guys who’d played a lot of hard sports said they’d never felt anything like it, the sudden drop and rocket rush of the hit, the reserves of adrenaline you could make available to yourself, pumping it up and putting it out until you were lost floating in it, not afraid, almost open to clear orgasmic death-by-drowning in it, actually relaxed. . . . Maybe you couldn’t love the war and hate it inside the same instant, but sometimes those feelings alternated so rapidly that they spun together in a strobic wheel rolling all the way up until you were literally High On War, like it said on all the helmet covers.”
Herr never claims to have perceived or shared the full danger and complexity of the rifleman’s experience, but he makes clear that his sympathies were with the grunts and not with the fashionably anti-war folk back home. At one point, he observes:
“I think that those people [back home] who used to say that they only wept for the Vietnamese never really wept for anyone at all if they couldn’t squeeze out at least one for those men and boys when they died or had their lives cracked open for them. . . .”
In its way, Dispatches serves as a kind of epitaph. Herr liked the grunts more than he hated the war.
DROPSHOT The American Plan for World War III Against Russia in 1957
Anthony C. Brown, Editor. New York: The Dial Press/James Wade, 1978. 330 pp. Maps. $12.95 ($11.65).[1]
Reviewed by Norman Friedman
(Dr. Friedman is a theoretical physicist currently concentrating on naval problems at the Hudson Institute. A Columbia University graduate, he has authored or coauthored articles and papers on the U.S.-Soviet naval balance, an analysis of Soviet naval missile systems and tactics, and warship design. His writing has appeared in the Proceedings on several occasions. Dr. Friedman is currently writing a history of carrier design for the Naval Ship Engineering Center.)
In many ways, the current American defense posture can be traced directly to the decisions and concepts of the early postwar period. In the naval case, for example, we find decisions in favor of forces striking an enemy’s land mass rather than his ships— decisions quite justified by the character of the most likely enemy, the U.S.S.R. This delineation makes a study of the postwar period particularly fruitful; but until very recently security restrictions have enveloped the key documents. Thus the open publication of a U.S. war plan, DROP- SHOT, prepared in 1949, seems particularly significant. DROPSHOT typifies U.S. military doctrine in transition from the conventional war concepts of World War II to concepts of strategic nuclear and thermonuclear war which have dominated ever since.
Alas, this extremely valuable document is ill served by its editor, Anthony Cave Brown. DROPSHOT was, above all, an attempt to test forces which could be raised under budgetary constraints imposed by the Truman Administration. DROPSHOT projected these forces forward to 1957 in order to examine the consequences of research and development efforts already in mature stages. Indeed, one of the most interesting features of the plan is the list of new equipment which was clearly expected to be in service eight years later—much of which never progressed beyond the prototype stage. Much of the document consists of a careful analysis of quite similar to that employ^ World War II, and culminating ^ occupation of the U.S.S.R. In e cases, attractive courses of action1 well have proved impossible, $ expected Soviet and Allied levels forces. In fact, studies like DROPS* helped support attempts to incf U. S. military spending even W the Korean War mobilization 0 pletely invalidated the 1949 P1*1 tions.
Brown prefers to take a more sel tional view: DROPSHOT is an asto>> ing document, which proves long-standing Soviet assertion tha! United States was always plod preemptive war against it; afl^ seems astonishing that the Amef1' would go so far as to imagine mil1' conquest of the Soviets (a la Gerf and Japan, one might note). In * by 1949 it was quite evident thd most likely future war was the against the U.S.S.R., and there really no valid means of defeating Soviets other than by more or conventional force of arms. Ded war planning was probably the way to test such ideas. In this DROPSHOT is no more a signtf1 indicator of American intent to sp war than the dozens of pre-5'’ War II war plans held by the ^ Archives or the thousands of sce^ for future war produced every ye‘!l the U.S. “think tank’’ indn*1 DROPSHOT is worth reading, ho"( because any U.S. war plan doci^ of its period reveals American cofl° of war at a time when they rapidly changing in directions off significance for the present.
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Unfortunately, the plan itself|S, rounded by prologues and appe*1" which tend to obscure it. Brow*1 provides estimates for both NAT0 Warsaw Pact forces abstracted the International Institute Strategic Studies (IISS) Military of 1959, presumably for comps< with the projections of 1949- ^ does not mention the rather imp0 events totally unforeseen in 1 Perhaps the two greatest wer^ Korean War, which led to a American and NATO mobilizatio'1
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C0As Prospective operations officer of the USS Albany (CG-10), I was in charge of the pre- likTlm'SS'0ning detail during training at Newport in 1968. I had come from shore duty and,
*ho m°St °f the new crew’ received a ful1 series of shots fr0m the tW° hosPital corPsmen
*ere attached to the detail.
get °rtly after the precommissioning detail joined the ship in Boston, I was surprised to sj,a Phone call from the doctor asking when it would be convenient for me to come to the Me “ay t0 get my shots. When I protested that his corpsmen had given me the shots in j P°rt. the doctor apologized and said they couldn’t find any record of them. noth°ught hard for a few seconds. "Very well, doctor. You're doing your duty, and I’m the ^°'n£ t0 8've y°u an argument. I’ll be there at 1300, but I want those two corpsmen ® too. They’re going to stand right beside me, and every shot I take, they take.
P ithin ten minutes the doctor called back. “No need to come down, Commander. They Und your record.”
so materially changed the East-West itary balance; and the advent of the y fogen bomb, which provided so much destructive power that a strategic air offensive against the 0viets finally became a potential ^ar-winner, something the atomic °mb was not, as Brown is at pains to P°mt out. On the other side of the pCa e> the Soviets in 1949 had not the ,^es rben attributed to them, and in ^ ^ /be I1SS, a private organization,
■ 3 ^ttle idea of realistic Soviet force s- For example, Brown seems ^ pletely unaware of the gross ^estern overestimation of Soviet Qfavy bomber production, and indeed oviet submarine production (algo in that case the true figures ere unpleasant enough).
Dr <3ee<a> Brown seems to view to ClPSHOT largely as a hook on which ang a series of anti-American
utments. dropshot could have Deen th • •
me centerpiece around which an analyst „<■ .
j , ot postwar American strategic grVe °Pment was built, but instead telat^ 3PPears t0 bave opted for a atlVelV quick and sensational publi- “L l0”' H‘s book should be labelled, handle with“Rler*Can Practical Navigator
°°wditch” Vol. l
^■fense a* ■ .
Cenr "tapping Agency Hydrographic
Pp. in’ WashinSton, D.C., 1977. 1,386 ($g Map- Append. Ind. 19.00
R • *
Ter,e^ecl by Lieutenant Commander 17 R- Dettman, U. S. Navy
Navigators around the world have been waiting impatiently for the new edition of Bowditch since the last edition went out of print and word was circulated that a new one was in the works. That took place several years ago, and the time could hardly have been easy for those entrusted with the task of rewriting Bouditch, if only for the fact that everyone wanted to know when the new edition would be available. But now it has arrived and the wait was worth it.
The new edition is about 200 pages longer than the equivalent volume of the 1966 corrected print edition and it has been rearranged considerably during the update. The most evident changes are in the sections dealing with electronic navigation. In the first chapter, the History of Navigation, the section dealing with recent developments in electronic navigation methods has been expanded from a little more than two to over ten pages and covers everything from radio direction finding to satellite navigation. The major section dealing with the use of electronic navigation systems has been increased from 60 to 190 pages.
Figures in the book have been vastly improved as well. For example, chapter five of the old edition had a small chart printed on facing pages to illustrate the construction and detail of a chart. The binding of that book made it difficult to get the maximum benefit from the chart. The new edi- ’ tion, however, circumvents that problem by making the chart a fold-out and then improves it by adding labels to important areas and figures on the chart. In addition, many other figures have been improved in reproduction quality and size to make them more useful.
Most navigators will still find this edition to be the same Bouditch that they have been used to for years. It is possible to pick pages at random and read sentence for sentence from the old and new edition together without a change in wording (except for the more significantly revised sections such as electronic navigation). There is little fault in this since the old edition was properly known and revered for its conciseness. However, the very conciseness that keeps the size of the book within bounds also makes it difficult for the beginning reader to use. But, the book is primarily a reference source for the practicing navigator rather than a text book for a course in navigation.
Another pleasant surprise is the addition of an appendix on the use of electronic calculators for navigation. Relying on equations instead of completed programs, the section will prove useful and interesting primarily to those whose knowledge of foreign languages includes mathematics.
The new Bowditch is a jewel to be prized by the practicing navigator. A copy of the new edition belongs on every professional bookshelf, especially if you have a particular interest in electronic navigation.
114 Books of Interest to the Professional
Compiled by Professor Jack Sweetman, Associate Editor
NAVAL AFFAIRS
Battleships, United States Navy: World War II, Korea, Vietnam
Marvin R. Bachison. Maverick Publications for American Enterprises, 1978. 161 pp. Ulus. Append. Ind. $12.95.
The specifications and operational history of every U.S. battleship which served in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam are presented in outline form. The appendices include a description of the existing battleship memorials (the Alabama [BB-60] at Mobile Bay, the Massachusetts [BB-59] at Fall River, the North Carolina [BB-55] at Wilmington, and the Texas [BB-35] at Houston).
Charleston Blockade: The Journals of John B. Marchand, U.S. Navy, 1861-1862
Craig L. Symonds, Editor. Newport, R.l.
Naval War College Press, 1976 (distributed and sold by the U.S. Government Printing Office). 287 pp. Maps. Illus. Bib. $3-00 ($2.70) paper.
In the naval history of the Civil War, a great deal has appeared about the importance of the blockade, but relatively little has been written about the business of blockading. What a tedious, frustrating, and often dangerous business it was is made clear by this edition of the journals of Commander John B. Marchand, who commanded the USS James Adger off the Carolina coast from December 1861 through July 1862. Dr. Symonds is a member of the History Department at the U.S. Naval Academy.
Dunkirk: The Great Escape
A. J. Barker. New York: David McKay, 1977. 240 pp. Illus. Maps. Append. Bib. Ind.
$14.95 ($13.46).
The evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from the beleaguered beaches of Dunkirk in the summer of 1940 was in its way as dramatic a demonstration of the utility of seapower as any operation of World War II. Its story is well told in this attractive pictorial.
The International Countermeasures Handbook 1977-1978
Harry F. Eustace, Editor. New York: Franklin Watts, 1977. 630 pp. Illus. Bib. Ind. $50.00 ($45.00).
The third edition of this massive guide is
designed to provide an up-to-the-minute reference to the field of electronic countermeasures.
Marine Corps Aviation: The Early Years, 1912-1940
Lt. Col. Edward C. Johnson, USMC, Edited by Graham A. Cosmas. Washington, D.C.: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1977 (distributed and sold by the U.S. Government Printing Office). 106 pp. Illus. Append. Ind. $ 1.70 ($1.53) paper.
The birth and adolescence of Marine Corps aviation is chronicled in a typically attractive publication of the Marine Corps’ History and Museums Division. Much of the information it contains was gleaned from interviews with pioneer marine aviators at the division’s oral history section.
Naval Aircraft
Louis S. Casey, Edited by Christy Campbell. London: Books For Pleasure/Phoebus, 1977.
127 pp. Illus. $5.95.
A handsomely produced British pictorial reviews the development of carrier aircraft from the eve of World War 1 through World War II. Besides the planes themselves, the coverage includes armament, ordnance, and related technology. Many of the illustrations are in color.
U. S. Overseas Bases: Problems of Projecting American Military Power Abroad
Alvin J. Cottrell and Adm. Thomas H. Mooter, USN (Ret.). Beverly Hills, Ca.: Sage Publications for The Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., 1977. 67 pp. Maps. Bib. $3-00 paper.
The authors warn against any further constriction of the global basing infrastructure that sustains the U.S. forward deployment and strategic mobility, arguing that such a development would make it impossible for the United States to act as a world power.
MARITIME AFFAIRS Folklore & the Sea
Horace Beck. Middletown, Ct.: Wesleyan . University Press for the Marine Historical Assn., Mystic Seaport, 1977. 463 pp. Illus.
Bib. Ind. $6.95 ($6.26) paper.
The traditions, legends, and superstitions of people who live by the sea are collected
in a beguiling anthology, the first i perback edition of a work originally Pl lished in 1973.
131 Go South Inside: Cruising the Inland Waterway
Carl D. Lane. Camden, Me.: International Marine, 1977. 177 pp. Illus. Maps. Ind. $15.00 ($13.50).
The Atlantic Intercoastal Water* stretches 1,090 miles from Norfolk Miami. This commonsense cruising g"1 to it was written by a veteran of round-trip passages.
The Pirates
Douglas Botting and the Editors of Time-’- Books. Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books, 1978. 192 pp. Illus. Maps. Bib. Ind. $9-9: ($8.96).
The history of pirates and piracy is tt* in a richly illustrated pictorial which' contains a substantial text. The volut*1 one of a new Time-Life series on "The • farers."
Salvage from the Sea
Cdr. Gerald Forsberg, OBE, RN (Ret.), London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977- 1 pp. Illus. Ind. £ 4.95 (Approx. $9.00).
Written in language comprehensible the general reader, this book provide* anecdotal introduction to the field marine salvage. The author has exte^ experience in salvage operations in f1 the Royal Navy and the British Merck Navy.
U. S. Life Lines: Imports of Essenti^ Materials—1967, 1971, 1975 and tV Impact of Waterborne Commerce 0< the Nation
Prepared by the Special Assistant to the Ch'( Naval Operations for Presentations. Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of b' Operations, Department of the Navy, 197^ (distributed and sold by the U.S. Govern:'' Printing Office). 85 pp. Illus. Maps. $2.5® ($2.25) paper.
The great and growing extent to whid1 industrial production and economic * being of the United States are depefl® upon raw materials imported from ovd is graphically demonstrated. The inesC* ble conclusion is that, for this country' lanes are indeed life lines.
book
All
M*I-ITARY affairs
Coventry,
^°r™an Longmate. New York: David McKay,
•, ' PP- Ulus. Maps. Append. Bib. Ind.
$12-50($H.25).
On the evening of 14 November 1940, the nglish provincial city of Coventry was ofeVrated by 450 German bombers in one t e most highly publicized air raids of ^orld War II. British journalist Norman to"^- interviewed scores of survivors compile this dramatic, minute-by- als'nUte recreat'on that fateful night. He ?° addresses the controversial question of vetber Prime Minister Churchill had ad- int'<:e^ knowledge °f the raid from Ultra fe^rcePts but declined to take action for ar °f betraying his source of information.
ORDER SERVICE
ber Prices enclosed by parentheses are mem- °the^tlCeS ^err,bers may order most books of Publishers through the Naval Institute at
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The Armies of the Warsaw Pact Nations: Organization—Concept of War—Weapons and Equipment
Friedrich Wiener, Translated by William J. Lewis. Vienna: Carl Ueberreuter Publishers, 1976. 384 pp. Illus. Maps. Ind. 120 Austrian Schillings (Approx. $7.55) paper.
The organization, order of battle, weapons and equipment, and operational doctrine of the land and air forces of the seven Warsaw Pact nations are described in the first English edition of this pocket guide. It is illustrated by 590 photographs.
Armoured Fighting Vehicles of the World
Christopher F. Foss. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1977. 192 pp. Illus. Ind. $7.95.
All tanks, reconnaissance vehicles, armored personnel carriers, self-propelled guns (including antiaircraft missile systems), and armored load carriers in service or under development are treated in the third, revised edition of this well- illustrated reference.
Calculus of Power: The Current Soviet-American Conventional Military Balance in Central Europe
Sherwood S. Cordier. Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1977. 101 pp.
Bib. $7.25 ($6.53) paper.
The second edition of this scholarly study assesses the conventional war-fighting capabilities of the American and Soviet land and air forces in Central Europe. The Western European armed forces are also taken into account. The author is professor of history at Western Michigan University.
Beyond Top Secret Ultra
Ewen Montagu. New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1978. 192 pp. $7.95 ($7.16).
The name Ewen Montagu will be familiar to World War II buffs and historians as the author of the classic story of The Man Who Never Was (1953). In his new book, Montagu relates his wartime activities as the officer in charge of British naval intelligence’s stable of double agents. The title refers to the fact that the number of people informed of these activities was even smaller than that cleared for Ultra.
The FY 1979-1983 Defense Program: Issues and Trends
Lawrence J. Korb. Washington, D C.: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1978 (AEI Defense Review, Volume Two, Number Two), 45 pp. $ 1.50 ($1.35) paper.
The fiscal year 1979 budget, containing the first defense spending plan wholly designed by the Carter Administration, is subjected to a critical review. The author, professor of management at the U.S. Naval War College, maintains that the new budget departs from a national consensus formed under the Ford Administration to reverse the decline of U.S. defense spending vis-a-vis the U.S.S.R., and that the increase in the strength of the U.S. NATO commitment is being effected at the cost of other capabilities.
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