The Battle of the River Plate by Richard Woodman. Review by Jonathan Beard

Military history, like any other field with a vast literature, produces many mediocre books, a few excellent ones, and a fair number that were not worth publishing. The Battle of the River Plate, unfortunately, falls into the last category. It is marred by a few minor mistakes and fails to present the battle between the British cruisers and the pocket battleship in an interesting way. But, more important, it represents opportunities missed. We have a well understood battle, one that was chronicled by Dudley Pope’s entertaining 1956 book of the same title. Anyone publishing a book in 2008 should have new information to present, or a new interpretation of the battle. Woodman has little new information–and missed some that was available at the time he was writing the book–and nothing in the way of interpretation. There are two sections at the end of the book called “Aftermath” and “Analysis,” but they do not contain any real analysis. They do have some interesting material on the two commanders–Captain Langsdorff and Commodore Harwood–and the fact that hundreds of crew members from the Graf Spee ended up either staying in Argentina, or emigrating there after World War II. But nothing on the importance–if any–of the pocket battleship’s short-lived career as a raider or her destruction by British forces.

The two most obvious things missing from the book concern radar and salvage. The Admiral Graf Spee was one of four ships equipped with the first model of Germany’s Seetakt radar, a search set that operated at a wavelength of 60 cm. As far as I can tell from reading various websites, the Graf Spee used this for surface search during her weeks in the South Atlantic, but did not use it for fire control. But there is not a word about this in Woodman’s book, even though I believe this was the first time radar was used at sea during the war. The only time he mentions radar is at the end, when he points out that when the pocket battleship was scuttled, the tower, with the radar antenna, remained intact and above water. The Royal Navy sent a technician, and Woodman reports that he “removed a section of the antenna and the cathode ray tube.” The former makes sense–the antenna is visible in photos of the wreck, and recovering a piece would enable British technicians to determine its operating wavelength. But it is hard to believe the fragile cathode ray tube would have survived the explosions and fire, and it would not have been at the foretop with the antenna–so I doubt the latter is true. More important, though, one thing that we know much more about in 2008 than in 1956 is radar. If the Graf Spee used it–to locate targets, much less for fire control–this should have been in this book.

The other omission is less important. Woodman ought to have known that the systematic salvage of the wreck began in 2004. The main range finder and the large eagle with a swastika have been removed–and possibly much more by the time this book came out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_pocket_battleship_Admiral_Graf_Spee

Ewa Field: Lost World War II Battlefield

The Honolulu Advertiser just ran a piece that will interest many including those interested in battlefield preservation.   Ewa Field was one of the many airfields struck by the Japanese on December 7, 1941 during the raid on Pearl Harbor.  Most of the fields 50 planes were destroyed on the ground and several marines died.  The area is now targeted for development and a local preservationist is making a bid to save the ground.

Hats off to Jonathan Beard for this sending along this piece.

The Waves of Omaha Beach

After reviewing hundreds of articles written this June 6, 2008 to commemorate D-Day one has really stuck out for me as worthy of praise.

Robert Kauffman’s Waves of Omaha Beach is a really a remarkable article exploring the emotional pull of the American cemetery at St. Laurent sur Mer overlooking Omaha Beach. Kauffman, after visiting the grave of a fallen American soldier, writes:

I’d like to cry out to all of those young men: ”You were robbed of the most sublime gift that we possess, your very lives. But we, too, were robbed — of you and your love, your hopes, your dreams and your aspirations; of those thousands of precious sons and daughters you never had the privilege to father and who would have borne the image of your greatness; of those thousands of grandchildren you would never hold or hug or kiss.

The article is worth reading because it is so different from the standard anniversary articles full of gore and triumphalism.

Upcoming Conference…

On the 18th and 19th of July King’s College London will be holding the following conference:

Allied Fighting Effectiveness in North Africa and Italy, 1942 - 1945

As the call for papers says this conference will seek to evaluate the role the Mediterranean theatre played in the the Second World War.

Issues of Allied strategy aside, academic attention to the Mediterranean Theatre of Operations during the Second World War has not been commensurate with the scale and significance of the military operations conducted therein. Compared with other major campaigns of the conflict, most notably that of France and Northwest Europe during 1944-5, there has been a lesser focus in recent years on the issue of Allied fighting effectiveness at the operational and tactical levels of war in the North African, Sicilian and Italian campaigns. Yet the breadth of operational and tactical experiences encountered in these campaigns was perhaps uniquely broad; each campaign full of contrasts. For example, battles in Italy could be characterised by a degree of attrition more common to 1916 than the Second World War; they could be static and bloody affairs which involved protracted efforts to break strongly-held defensive positions. Over the course of the campaign in Italy alone the British Army sustained more casualties than in any other theatre during the war. On the other hand, these campaigns witnessed bold amphibious strokes, accompanied by the innovative application of force in complex joint and combined operations. New approaches were evolved and refined at the operational and tactical levels of warfare; it was in these campaigns that the Allies learnt much of their trade before the invasion of Northwest Europe in mid-1944. Encompassing the major campaigns of North Africa, Sicily and Italy from operation ‘Torch’ to the end of the war in Europe, this conference seeks to explore the intriguing dichotomy of the nature of battle in the Mediterranean theatre, whilst helping to emphasise its significance to the study of Second Word War military history.

The conference will explore the following key themes:

• Tactical effectiveness: doctrine, training and experience; combined arms tactics; urban and mountain warfare; technology; morale and combat psychology.
• Operational art; command, control and communications; logistics.
• The war in the air: the counter-air battle, the employment of tactical airpower; the effectiveness of air-to-ground operations.
• Naval operations, specifically the development and evolution of amphibious technique.
• Intelligence, propaganda, partisans and irregular warfare.
• Inter-Allied cooperation and aspects of coalition warfare.

This should be an interesting conference and if you have an interest in the war you should come an listen to some of the papers.

 

Ross

Review of James Holland’s “ITALY’S SORROWS”

In many ways James Holland’s new book, Italy’s Sorrow: A Year of War, 1944-45 is a very excellent book.

The absolute horror that civilians experienced as the front line moved throughout the Italy in 1944 is described in detail. The military analysis is balanced with Italian, Allied and Axis perspectives. The combination of solid military analysis and the inclusion of a multiplicity of perspectives make this book excellent.

It comes really as no surprise that for each moment that the front line was in movement, and thru each village it passed, the citizens of those in the general are were subject to abject horrors. The surprise is that Holland transcends the normal boundaries of military history to include the perspective of the non-combatants. Refreshingly, the fears and attitudes of Italian non-combatants, partisans and soldiers alike are featured equally. Their recollections are forceful and don’t always fit neatly with the historical narrative we think we know. Italy was having a near all out civil war after the collapse of the government in Rome. Italy was under the aegis of three different governments: the mafia infested allied occupational government in the south, Axis occupational government in the north and of course, the rump puppet government of Mussolini, the Salo Republic.

But, if you were a civilian living astride the front line you had more pressing problems than who was in charge where. You would be very lucky if the war would move through your town or village in a day or maybe two days. There would be shelling, there would be death – but it would be over quick.

If you were unlucky, like those that lived in Casino or in other places up and down the Italian peninsula, the war would stall in your town or village for not one or two days but months or weeks. When this stall occurred the destruction was usually complete, 90% - 100% of structures destroyed in a given area, not to mention the loss of life and the horrendous conditions of living in a war zone. Your home would be destroyed; your livelihood gone and many, many friends and family would be killed.

Holland brilliantly follows several Italian families who experienced this passing of the front. The recollections about those killed by ordinance that has not yet exploded or the feeling of utter confusion of wandering through a battlefield in the absence of information attempting to reach safety, but knowing full well, that any second could be the last for you and your family, all make for harrowing reading.

Civilians faced danger from the air, from both allied and axis aircraft, danger from ground troops, incessant shellfire, land minds and extreme German anti-partisan laws that legalized killing anyone for any reason.

Soldiers, at least generally, have access to food, water, medical attention and information. Civilians on the battlefield, generally, have none of these things in quantity. These elements of the civilian experience of war are often under explored in history and military history books, yet they are at the forefront of Holland’s history. For this, he deserves much credit for these eye opening accounts of Italy’s Sorrow.

Sir Max Hastings Speaks at Pritzker Library

Recently, Sir Max Hastings appeared at the Pritzker Military Library in Chicago. Hastings was present to discuss his new book RETRIBUTION: THE BATTLE FOR JAPAN, 1944-45.  RETRIBUTION was reviewed by Jonathan Beard for this blog only a month.  The interview at Pritzker, conducted by Ed Tracy, is excellent. Pritzker deserves high praise for their commitment to bringing high quality scholarship to the general public using traditional events and new media transmitted on the internet.

RETRIBUTION by Max Hastings. Review by Jonathan D. Beard

Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45,  by Max Hastings, March 2008, New York, Random House Inc. 656pp. $35.00 978-0-307-26351-3 (0-307-26351-7)

When Max Hastings chose “Retribution” as the title for his overview of the last two years of World War II in Asia, it is obvious that he had Japan in mind.  This is the story of Japan reaping the whirlwind for the winds it had sown since 1937 in China, and since Pearl Harbor in 1941.  But retribution also means a distribution of rewards and punishments, and it is here that Hastings stands out:  this is the most judgmental work of military history I have ever read.  Hastings passes out a little praise–he greatly admires William Slim for his generalship in Burma, and has kind words for Chester Nimitz–but his forte is denunciations.  The most consistent target of his wrath is Douglas MacArthur, but his condemnation of William Halsey for his performance at Leyte Gulf is harsh as well.  He also devotes an entire (short) chapter to condemning the Australian people, military, labor movement and leadership for their performance in the last stages of the war.  But these are just the controversial denunciations.  He reserves most of his anger for Japan, especially its leaders, from Hirohito down to individual officers, accusing most of them of combining casual cruelty with moral cowardice.  But the Japanese are not alone:  Hastings condemns all the Western powers for their patronizing, racist treatment of Asian allies, and, on the other side, sees both Chiang Kai-Shek and Mao Zedong as tyrants lacking human feelings for their own people.

But Retribution also intends to tell the story of the last two years of the war, and here Hastings faces major challenges.  Unlike the war in Europe (Hastings covered its end in Armageddon, published in 2004) the conflict in Asia spanned a huge portion of globe, from Manchuria in the North to Australia in the South, and from Burma to Hawaii.  It is unlikely the Soviet soldiers in Manchuria and the Australians fighting in New Guinea were even aware of each other’s existence.  The author has chosen to combine chronology with a thematic approach.  The book moves from early 1944, as the British prepare to recover Burma and the Americans plan for the invasion of the Philippines, to the war’s end with the atomic bombs and Soviet entry into the war.  Narrative chapters recount the battles for Burma, the Philippines, and Okinawa, while thematic chapters deal with Japanese treatment of Allied prisoners, the war at sea, and so on.   Sometimes this works better than others. Hastings obviously knows that the US Navy submarine force destroyed Japan’s trade and ability to supply its troops, but his “The War Underwater” chapter seems perfunctory.  He is obviously far more interested in the decision to burn Japan’s cities with incendiary attacks, probably both because he is more at home with air forces and because the moral questions involved engage him. 

It is difficult questions, moral, political and strategic that make Retribution interesting, and lift it above most military histories.  I found his sections on the bombing of Japan–first burning out cities with incendiaries, then using nuclear weapons–to be excellent.  He points out what people in 1945 knew:  much of Hamburg, Berlin and Dresden had been reduced to ashes, with few second thoughts in London or Washington; Japanese treatment of Chinese civilians was well known, and their cruelty toward Allied POWs was becoming apparent.  Attitudes at the time were not tinted by our experience of Japan as a peaceful nation, nor by our painful awareness of the threat of nuclear weapons to our own lives.  At the same time, he is even-handed, telling how physicists such as Leo Szilard, belatedly aware of the genie they had unleashed, sought vainly to forestall the dropping of the bomb.  And he emphasizes how the ultimate decision to end the war lay with the Japanese:  even after the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the Russian entry into the war, the majority of the Japanese high command still favored fighting on at any cost.  It was only when Hirohito belatedly showed courage that the tide turned.

If there is one fundamental problem with Retribution, it is that the book is too long.  550 pages will daunt some (potential) readers.  And though I praise Hastings for adding so many voices–he interviewed scores of surviving veterans, Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, American, British, etc.–to make the book come alive, these vignettes weigh it down.  All too often he simply drops three or four paragraphs of testimony from American pilots, Chinese civilian victims, or others into a chapter without their adding much to its message.  In addition, there are a few errors that careful fact-checking could have prevented.  Naval history is a field I know well, so I noticed that he wrongly credits the USS Pennsylvania with 16-inch guns, the Japanese at Samar with 15-inch guns, and describes destroyer Shigure as a heavy cruiser.  None of these is a significant mistake, but they reduce a reader’s confidence in a book.  On the balance, however, this is a good book, especially for American readers.  It covers aspects of the Pacific war–Burma, Manchuria, Australia–not often given much space in American accounts.  And, more than anything else, Hastings always keeps the political and human-rights issues involved in the war clearly in sight. 

 

$170 for a 200+ page book on the war?

I recently had the pleasure of reading two excellent new books on the Second World War. The first book was a monograph on the development of airpower in the interwar years. The second book was a collection of essays by prominent historians that dealt with various facets of the battle of Normandy.

These books, in my opinion, made a serious contribution to the existing literature on these topics. However, there was one serious problem; the retail price for the books respectively was $170 US (256 pages) and $120 (240 pages). Of course, these prices are prohibitively high even for research libraries. Thus, these books are condemned to an existence in only a handful of libraries around the world. How can this be (and why?)? How can the prices be so high? Well the answer lies mainly in the fact that there isn’t a trade market for these books and as such they’ll never really possess the appeal needed to sell lots of copies. It also helps that there a handful of elite institutions willing to pay exorbitant prices for small single volumes. The real problem is that some publishers realize they can get away charging such high prices per volume because college and university professors need an avenue in which to be published.

It is no suprise that academics are pressed by their institutions and by prestige factors to seek publication for their books. Thus, sometimes the only available route for books that lack wide appeal are publishing houses that will offer little or anything in the way of advances to the authors, and minimal royalties in the event they sell a few hundred books. In exchange, the book will be published and the retail price tag will be startlingly high. No effort will be given to marketing. It’s unlikely an expert editor will have ever given feed back.

Of course, it raises the obvious question, what value is a book if no one is going to read it because the price is prohibitively high? Second, why bother writing the book in the first place? This isn’t a problem unique to military history.

Unfortunately, these publication schemes seem like the trend. Academics must publish or wither on the vine of non-tenure track life. Yet, there must be a better way…

In this day and age creative solutions exist to ensure that the written word will be read: ebooks, self publishing, blogs, and a whole host of other mechanisms serve to ensure that great ideas and insights could reach a wider audience for way less money.

-jd

The New York Times Reviews HUMAN SMOKE

Today The New York Times Book Review examined Nicholson Baker’s Human Smoke.

Here is part of Colm Toibin’s closing paragraph of this excellent review:

“It is possible that “Human Smoke” will infuriate those who believe that Churchill was a hero and that war, in all its viciousness, is often the only way to defeat those who declare or threaten war. “Human Smoke” will not be admired by those who argue that methods used to win a war may seem, especially to novelists writing more than 60 years later, impossible to justify. Nonetheless, the issues Baker wishes to raise, and the stark system he has used to dramatize his point, make his book a serious and conscientious contribution to the debate about pacifism. He has produced an eloquent and passionate assault on the idea that the deliberate targeting of civilians can ever be justified. “

This writer can’t help but think that binary thinking, that Baker strongly rejects, i.e. good vs. evil, and the with us or against us mindset, only speeds the march to war.

–JD

HMAS Sydney Found 100 Miles off West Australian Coast

Famed shipwreck hunter David Mearns has located the HMAS Sydney in nearly 3 km of water off the West Australian coast.

The ship went down with all hands (645 souls) after an encounter with the German raider Kormoran on November 19, 1941. The loss of the ship has long been a favorite topic of conspiracy theorists in Australia because of its uncertain fate. At the time of the loss, the Sydney was the most powerful ship in the Royal Australian Navy.

For more on the find, the lingering controversy and much more check out these two links:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4446978a12.html (article)

HMAS Sydney Video (television news report)