Navy Medicine in Vietnam: Oral Histories from Dien Bien Phu to the Fall of Saigon
Jan K. Herman. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc, 2009. 357 pp. Appen. Gloss. Notes. Bib. Index. $55.
Jan Herman, historian of the Navy Medical Department, has done most impressive work with this moving collection of first-hand accounts chronicles Navy Medical Corps service in Vietnam. It begins with the rescue of French survivors of the battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, and ends with the evacuation of South Vietnamese refugees after the fall of Saigon in 1975.
Herman includes stories of care rendered by surgeons and nurses and the healing process. As the preface explains, the astounding success of Navy medicine during this period is backed by solid statistics. In 1968, of every 100 Marines wounded and given emergency treatment on the battlefield and care in rear-echelon hospitals, only 1.5 percent died of their wounds.
Before the United States became embroiled in the Vietnam War, many survivors of the fighting at Dien Bien Phu owed their lives to the U.S. hospital ship Haven (AH-12). She docked at Saigon in September 1954 to embark 721 sick or wounded French soldiers. (Legionnaire Corporal Pierre MacIntosh was grateful for the safety and regular meals, but still missed "his daily wine ration.")
Chapter 12 describes the battle at Khe Sanh in 1968. Hospital Corpsman 3d Class William Gerrard recalled the incoming artillery, mortar, and rocket fire on Hill 881. "If you see pictures of World War I with guys living in trenches-that's how we lived. I saw a lot of casualties, mostly shrapnel wounds."
Navy hospital corpsmen's dedication to duty was reinforced repeatedly during the long, difficult war. Known to their Marine admirers as "docs," 689 of them lost their lives during the war and four were awarded the Medal of Honor.
Smithsonian Atlas of Space Exploration
Roger D. Launius and Andrew K. Johnston. New York, NY: HarperCollins/Smithsonian Books, 2009. 240 pp. Illus. Index. $34.99.
Experts from the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum have provided an exciting and generously illustrated narrative of man's journeys from Earth to the stars. Roger Launius is senior curator in the Division of Space History at the Smithsonian and Andrew Johnston is a geographer in the museum's Center for Earth and Planetary Studies. As they demonstrate, the momentous launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957 was preceded by thousands of years of humankind's interest in and observation of celestial bodies.
The preface notes that our fascination with space satisfies everything from the quest for greater national security and prestige and the need for telecommunications to the simple urge to gain greater scientific knowledge of the universe. The subsequent seven parts of the atlas include descriptions of ancient observatories; the origins of rocketry; military satellites; the Cold War space race; other terrestrial worlds; and possibilities for future space flight.
"Beginning of the Space Age," details the extraordinary accomplishments of Robert Goddard, a true pioneer. By 1915, the young scientist had proven that rocket engines could produce thrust in a vacuum and "therefore make space flight possible." Some of his later work led to the development of the Curtiss-Wright rocket engine that powered the Bell X-1 aircraft.
Part Five, "Reaching for the Moon," describes the emergence of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (in an effort to "catch up" with Soviet achievements) and the Apollo missions. "Across the Solar System," summarizes the history of the Space Age since 1957 and presents drawings of the Ares I and V rockets to be used in future human missions.
The British Naval Staff in the First World War
Nicholas Black. Woodbridge, UK: The Boydell Press, 2009. 333 pp. Appen. Bib. Index. $115.
Nicholas Black's examination the British Admiralty Naval Staff during World War I disputes the previous views of "misinformed" historians and naval figures. Commander Malcolm Llewellyn-Jones of the Naval Historical Branch in Portsmouth considers it a study "about the performance of an immature bureaucracy coping with new challenges amidst a war of national survival."
The introduction summarizes the structure of the wartime Naval Staff and the "inadequate nature" of its work. The British Intelligence Division, for one, employed some "flamboyant and unorthodox characters," and initially there were staff-wide personnel shortages. Nonetheless, in spite of the Royal Navy's notable shortcomings, one of the author's objectives is to show that in 1914 it did have a coherent plan for conducting the war.
The book begins with an analysis of personnel between 1912 and 1918 and the establishment of the war staff in August 1914. It examines the five leadership "regimes" leading to November 1918. (For example, First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill and First Sea Lord Admiral John Fisher are called the Churchill-Fisher Regime.) Appendices include "Senior Admiralty and Staff Officials" and "Administrative Development of the Admiralty War Staff, 1912-1918."
Chapter 5 underscores the author's argument that things were not as muddled as most traditional interpretations maintain. Although the Balfour-Jackson Regime (from May 1915 through November 1916) ended in apparent failure, the Navy had organized a successful evacuation of the army from Gallipoli, and the staff operated more smoothly than before. Thus, Admiral Thomas Jackson "was not the buffoon that later accounts have made him out to be."
It is noteworthy that even as Black's in-depth research disputes established perceptions of the British Navy leadership during World War I, similar studies are being conducted on British Army leadership during that war.
"Football! Navy! War!": How Military "Lend-Lease" Players Saved the College Game and Helped Win World War II
Wilbur D. Jones Jr. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2009. 265 pp. Illus. Notes. Bib. Index. $35.
Sports Illustrated writer Dan Jenkins calls this book one that preserves "treasured college football memories." It is a thorough survey of Navy athletics in World War II, with a title that comes from an old motto of the Naval Academy's physical training program.
The author, a retired Navy captain, tells how the Navy used football to develop leaders and fighting men for combat. The term "lend-lease" refers to the Navy policy of sending football players, including professionals, to college officer candidate programs.
Clark Shaughnessy, a famous coach of the pre-World War II era, called football "a great war game," the only field sport that closely simulated battle strategy and tactics. The Navy V-12 program for officer candidates became a wartime bonanza for college football. Interestingly, although no more than 75 black males were enrolled, Navy historians believed that to be a bold step paving the way to commissioning black officers.
Pre-season scrimmages and exhibition games formed the wartime relationship between the National Football League and military football. Some pro teams hired military players in their off-duty hours under assumed names. Bob Dove said, "The Marines didn't want us playing outside ball. They didn't care if we got killed or got our leg broken playing football in the Marine Corps, but they didn't want us doing it on Sunday."
It can be argued that football, a strictly American sport, "helped win World War II." But Commander Gene Tunney, a professional boxing champion, strongly opposed the idea of V-12 teams playing on college schedules. He viewed the practice as slowing combat training and "thereby forcing an unfair share of war's burden on less fortunate enlisted personnel." Personally, I would agree with Gene.