Monthly Archives: November 2009

November 30, 2009 · 23:58

Padre Steve Nails His Comprehensive Exams and a Few Loose Thoughts

After about 3 years and some change I have completed my Masters of Arts in Military History with a concentration in World War II at American Military University.  Today I learned the results of my comprehensive exams which I took last Tuesday.  I “Passed with Distinction.”  That was very satisfying because I did work hard all the way through the program which I began about a year after I finished the Marine Corps Command and Staff College and my Doctor of Ministry in 2005.  I finished with a 4.0 GPA and will officially graduate in Washington D.C. on February 15th. 

The program was pretty grueling and to refresh my brain I began to take and re-write various research papers or essays that I had written during the program and posted them on this site.  I found that in doing so I improved what I had written and was able to really refresh my knowledge even as I added more information to the posts or otherwise reworked them. Doing this has given me inspiration to begin writing on new topics in history dealing with military history and theory, church history and religious liberty, including the freedom of conscience, historical theology as well as baseball and my own story of my tour in Iraq and subsequent struggle with PTSD.  Some of these articles and essays are posted throughout this site. I hope to turn at least some of this into books at a later date.  If you happen to be a publisher, literary agent or know one please let me know.   

One thing that I have enjoyed is having others comment on my work, some even to criticize it.  I found that the criticism was sometimes not just of the work but of me for enunciating opinions that are contrary to theirs.  Terms like “traitor” “unbeliever” and “heretic” have been used to describe me by some.  I have found that if you don’t want criticism of your work don’t write.  If doesn’t matter what the subject is, whether you are liberal or conservative, Christian or something else that there will be someone who will take issue with either your work or you.  I have learned that depending on the type of criticism I can take it seriously, lightly or blow it off, but I am learning not to take it personally.  Heck, most critics don’t know me from Adam so what do they know.  People who know me on the other hand I do try to listen to and if I am wrong, misinterpreted or wrote something that I really didn’t want to come out the way that it did to be generally civil to my critics and treat them with respect.  I think only once or twice I replied to people in a snarky way.  I am not afraid to mix it up with someone, see the comments ton my post on A Christian Defense of the Rights of Moslems in a Democracy but try never to demean the person by name calling, stereotyping or vilifying their position but sticking to the facts and hoping to build a bridge of reconciliation even if we cannot come to agreement.  On the other hand there are a few individuals and groups that I have been somewhat sarcastic or hard in dealing with, but only because they open themselves up to it by, to use a baseball metaphor, throwing at the other teams’ batters.  I figure if they want to throw at people then I can throw at them.  Since fair is fair I would imagine that some of these kind folks are praying for me using “impreccatory prayers.”  Oh well. 

Anyway, a couple of other things.  Today we hosted LTC Dave Grossman a leading expert on the effects of combat and killing on the human body, mind and spirit.  Dave has written the books On Killing and On Combat. He is highly sought after works heavily with military, police and emergency services personnel as well as those in the psychiatric, psychological and chaplain/clergy fields.  The seminar was well attended by a diverse audience of physicians, nurses, psychologists, chaplains, social workers, counselors, corpsmen and others.  I met him late last night when his plane came in, picked him up this morning and took him back to the airport before coming back to the medical center for the rest of my on-call shift. 

The first time that I met Dave was a EOD Group Two where we hosted him about a year and a half ago.  At the time I was in the middle of my post deployment PTSD crack up.  Everything was setting me off, the Great Dismal Swamp was burning, visibilities were down to half a mile, the sky was “Iraqi Sandstorm Brown” and smelled like the burn pits that litter that country.  Every sound, loud noise, jet aircraft, especially F-18s, helicopters and sudden move was sending me back to Iraq.  We hosted Dave as I said and he was most gracious during his presentation then, but his subject matter send me down hard back then.  It was after that seminar that our Diving Medical Officer looked at me and asked “Chaplain are you okay?”  To which I had to say no, I was crashing and it was really difficult.  I’m doing better now and while some of Dave’s presentation did affect me, it was not to the extent of last year.  I held together and realized that I will get through this, that I will be stronger for what I have gone through and hopefully be able to help others who have suffered the same or worse.  While I was in Iraq I was “in the zone” and it was coming home to a world that didn’t seem to understand what I had experienced, what I had learned and at least initially didn’t seem to care for me or value what I did that sent me down. 

Today made me realize that I am doing better.  I’m not where I want to be.  I still have great problems with sleep and some issues with anxiety as well as some flashbacks, dreams and nightmares, but not like they were even a year to 9 months ago. 

So, not much else for the night.  I’m praying that I don’t get a 0230 or 0300 page and that I get 4-5 hours of sleep. 

Thank you for your prayers, support and encouraging and even non-encouraging words since I started this site back in February.  So many people have been so kind to me, in person and in their responses to what I write here and on the link in my Facebook page to my articles that I am blown away. What really matters is when I get a comment from someone with PTSD or a family member of someone who let me know that something that I wrote touched them. I think that matters more than anything that something that was so difficult and even devastating to me is now helping others who thought that they were alone.  It also feels really good to have completed the work for the Masters Degree and to realize that I am getting better.

I think tomorrow after work I shall take a breather at the Church of Baseball, Harbor Park Parish as well as take the Abbess over to Gordon Biersch for the Stein Club appreciation night. Take care and blessings,

Peace, Padre Steve+

 

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November 29, 2009 · 22:33

Lessons in Coalition Warfare: Admiral Ernest King and the British Pacific Fleet

The genesis and strategy of British Royal Navy’s participation in the Pacific in 1945 is a little studied aspect of the Pacific campaign.  Prior to 1945 the participation of the Royal Navy in the Pacific ended at the Battle of the Java Sea.  After that the Royal Navy operated in the Indian Ocean in support of British operations in Burma and against German surface raiders. Michael Coles in “Ernest King and the British Pacific Fleet: The Conference at Quebec, 1944 (Octagon) published in The Journal of Military History January 2001, 65, 1 Research Library pp. 105-129 provides a good analysis of the Allied decision to allow the Royal Navy a role in the Pacific and the objections of Admiral Ernest King to the proposal.

The renewal of the Royal Navy’s Pacific role began at the 1944 Octagon Conference where the Allied Joint Staff made the decision to bring the Royal Navy back to the Pacific. Admiral Ernest King was the only dissenter in the question of Royal Navy operations in the Pacific.  The strategic aspects of this decision are seldom addressed by most who chronicle the Pacific war.[i] William Kimball in “Forged in War: Roosevelt Churchill and the Second World War” never mentions the naval strategy discussed at the Octagon conference. Samuel Elliott Morison in “The Two-Ocean War” described the decision for the Royal Navy to enter the Pacific as “important” and outlines King’s opposition to it without addressing strategic considerations.[ii] John Costello in “The Pacific War” described how Churchill insisted on the Royal Navy being committed to operations against Japan and how Roosevelt’s agreed to “to avoid a bitter clash.”[iii] Likewise Williamson Murray and Allen R. Millett in “War to Be Won” note that one of the goals of Octagon was “to determine the level and nature of British in the air-naval war in the Pacific.” However they do so as do the others without addressing the naval strategy.[iv] Max Hastings mentions Octagon in “Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-1945” again without specific reference to naval strategy.  However later in the book later discusses the Royal Navy’s limitations in ships, manning, logistics and operational art as it entered the Pacific campaign.[v] Other writers chronicle British operations in the Pacific but usually focus in the gallantry and determination of the Royal Navy and not its weaknesses.[vi]

Coles’ article is invaluable to understand the decision in relation to the political, military and economic considerations which influenced both King’s opposition to the deployment and the performance of the British fleet in the Pacific.  Coles analyzes tensions between King and the other participants at Octagon. He judges King to be more realistic and informed regarding Royal Navy capabilities and more importantly its limitations than British leaders especially Churchill.[vii]

King was surprised at Roosevelt’s decision to accept Churchill’s offer of the Royal Navy without prior discussion by the Combined Chiefs of Staff.  Coles notes that King may have kept silent at subsequent meetings of the Combined Chiefs, because he either assumed that his positions were logical and apparent to all or that he believed that Churchill was lying about his navy’s capabilities. Of course it was politically impossible for King to suggest such.[viii]

King’s realism on the subject was a directly related to the political tensions between American and British visions for the outcome of the Pacific war, and the pressing strategic considerations necessitated by Japanese offensives in Burma and China. The British goal of re-establishing colonial rule in Southeast Asia was a major bone of contention.  Many Americans believed that the British goals were “aimed primarily at the resurgence of British political and economic ascendancy in South East Asia and restoration of British prestige.”[ix] Yet the US wanted to defeat Japan’s formidable Army in Asia without the sacrifice of large numbers of American troops or material which necessitated British participation.[x] The introduction of large numbers of American troops on the Asian continent was impossible due to the lineation of the US Army to 90 divisions, most of which were engaged in Europe.  Likewise US domestic issues regarding war production and the Navy’s share of it in relations to changing wartime conditions was a major concern for King.  King and the Navy argued for high naval production while others including George Marshall were beginning to question it, especially if the British could provide “make substantial Naval forces available in the Pacific.”[xi]

American Lend Lease aid to Britain was another issue.  Roosevelt calculated that the US needed Britain to be active in post-war Europe, this required significant post war aid. Roosevelt viewed “vigorous participation” by the Royal Navy as a means to gain congressional support in spite of the fact that Britain could no longer play a global military role without US support.[xii] One of the problems faced in the Pacific was how British mandated modifications to weapons systems supplied by the United States caused problems in production and caused shortages in key weapons systems, especially naval aircraft.  Coles’ notes how King had problems with this and wondered if supplying the Royal Navy’s Pacific operations “represented the most effective use of American industrial capacity.[xiii] However King did not chose to argue this point at the conference, once again demurring to President Roosevelt.

The most compelling factor discussed by Coles was the operational and logistic problems related to the deployment, supply and operation of the Royal Navy. There were a number of problems that the Royal Navy faced as it deployed to the Pacific.  First among them was the fact that the Royal Navy was in large part short-legged and cold water Navy.  Its ships were designed mainly for service in the Atlantic and Mediterranean and ill-suited for the Pacific. The Royal Navy did not have the operational experience of the Americans in regard to Fast Carrier Task Forces, especially coordination of refueling and resupply operations or coordination of air group operations.  Admiral Philip Vian insisted that “Before joining the Americans…we needed to be adept at using a great many more aircraft at a time, and for longer periods.”[xiv] Max Hastings’ noted that the Royal Navy was “overstretched and war weary”[xv] and Coles goes to great lengths to illustrate British weakness while analyzing tensions in the British-American relationship particularly the shift in the relationship as the Americans took the leading role.

King had the foresight to recognize that the British contribution would be more of a liability than help.[xvi] The principal Royal Navy purpose in the Pacific was political, not military and Coles asks if it helped or hindered “the achievement of the respective nations’ policy objectives.” Coles does not believe that it helped; that in fact the Royal Navy would not have been able to continue had the war continued.  He quoted a British liaison officer who wrote that the Royal Navy would have “been unable to continue operations because of lack of logistic support.”[xvii] Coles calls the Royal Navy’s effort in the Pacific an “expensive instrument of failed policy” and that Admiral King seemed to have recognized this better than others, arguing that King’s opinions were not based on simple personal prejudice.[xviii]

Coles uses an excellent mix of primary and secondary sources including diaries, operational reports, histories and journal articles from American and British sources to document his work providing ample references throughout his article. His work is important in recognizing the importance strategy plays in making political decisions in coalition warfare.  Likewise he places value on individuals such as King who are able to recognize the strategic aims and limitations in coalition warfare by various partners.

Though the Royal Navy’s participation in the Pacific War was a relatively insignificant in terms of its overall role in the war it provides lessons for our time. Coalition warfare requires that members of the coalition be able to function our time we can see a similar situation where many of the NATO forces in Afghanistan are dependent on the US for most of their operational and logistic support. It also requires that the members of the coalition have a firm grip on the overall strategy and understand the capabilities and limitations of each.  In Afghanistan the United States faces a situation where it needs capable alliance partners.  It does not have the force capacity to go it alone and political support for additional troops has weakened in congress and in the public.  It is a somewhat similar situation to the Second World War where the United States needed significant British participation in the Asian ground war to ensure that the United States would not have to make major commitments to on the Asian mainland.  Likewise it was needed to get congressional support for post war aid to Britain.  Likewise George Marshall and others wondered if the British could provide significant naval support which would alleviate the need for high naval production which they questioned.  Strategy and the desired end state must be central to how coalitions fight wars.

 

[i] See Spector, Ronald H. Eagle Against the Sun: The American War With Japan. The Free Press and Division of MacMillan, Inc. New York, NY 1985. Spector nowhere mentions the British Navy in his history of the campaign  and in his short reference to Octagon he does not mention the debate over the Royal Navy’s inclusion in the campaign. p.419

[ii] Morison, Samuel Eliot. The Two Ocean War: A Short History of the United States Navy in the Second World War. An Atlantic Monthly Press Book, Boston MA 1963. pp. Morrison does also mention some of the specific actions of Royal Navy in the Pacific. Pp.423-424.

[iii] Costello, John. The Pacific War: 1941-1945 Quill Publishers, New York, NY 1981. p.495.

[iv] Murray, Williamson and Millett, Allan R. A War to Be Won: Fighting the Second World War.  The Belknap Press of Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. 2000. pp.484-485.

[v] Hastings, Max. Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-1945. Alfred A Knopf, New York, NY 2008. Originally published in Great Britain as Nemesis: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45, Harper Press, London, 2007.  p.112-113 and 400-402.

[vi] “Ernest King and the British Pacific Fleet: The Conference at Quebec, 1944 (Octagon). By Michael  Coles.  Published in The Journal of Military History January 2001, 65, 1 Research Library. p.127

[vii] Ibid. pp.111-112

[viii] Ibid. p.111

[ix] Ibid. p.113

[x] Ibid. p.114

[xi] Ibid. p.117

[xii] Ibid. p.118

[xiii] Ibid. p.120 Coles describes several instances where the “Anglicized” systems delayed deliveries and lengthened transportation to operational British units.  Modifications included flight helmets, radios and aircraft modifications. He also discusses how ineffectively the British used the large number of Escort Carriers provided by the US.

[xiv] Ibid. p.123

[xv] Hastings. p.400

[xvi] Coles. p.127. This is something that Morison does with utmost deference to the British.

[xvii] Ibid. p.128

[xviii] Ibid. p.129

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November 28, 2009 · 02:17

Can Anybody Spare a DIME: A Short Primer on Early Axis Success and How the Allies Won the Second World War

Hitler and Mussolini, the Axis Leaders Never Developed a Grand Strategy

All modern war is predicated on the full potential of a nation or alliance to fight a war.  This includes what is known in today’s parlance the DIME, or the Diplomatic, Intelligence, Military and Economic factors of national power. During the war the Axis powers almost exclusively fixated on the military dimension, especially at the operational and tactical level never coordinating a national or alliance grand strategy.  On the other hand the Allies were successful in doing so despite competing national interests of the British Empire, the Soviet Union and the United States.

Early German Success in France Changed the Face of Warfare

The Germans and Japanese were victorious in the early years of the World War Two due to their application of the most modern forms of warfare and ability to exploit weaknesses in their opponents.  For the Germans this entailed the use of the “Blitzkrieg” or lightening war which used the combined arms team of tanks, artillery, and mechanized infantry with close air support coordinated by commanders in mobile command posts who were able to adapt to tactical considerations on the ground and exploit enemy’s weaknesses.  This involved the classic forms of applied mass, speed and firepower to overwhelm enemy defenses at critical points and the encouragement of initiative by commanders, the Auftragstaktik. Led by men such as Heinz Guderian, Erich Von Manstein and Erwin Rommel to name but a few, the German commanders overcame allied opposition as well as the occasional hesitancy of their own senior leaders to defeat Allied forces throughout Europe.  The blitzkrieg involved risk, but the Germans for the most part, with key exceptions such as at Dunkirk during the French campaign took risks and exploited weaknesses in Allied political goals, military coordination and operational art. The Allies were hampered by weak political leadership, an aversion to risk, an outmoded strategy and poor coordination of a force which outnumbered the Germans and included more tanks than the Germans could field.  The German armaments were not necessarily superior to the Allies, but were better used for the most part.

German skill at the operational level was exemplified in Poland, France and the Low Countries, a daring Norwegian operation, which could be described as one of the first joint operations in military history, the Balkans and North Africa as well as the initial phases of Operation Barbarossa.  Each of these operations had flaws, the most glaring being at the strategic level and lack of a Grand Strategy.  The operations also exposed weaknesses in logistics and limits to what the mechanized and tactical air forces could do when stretched too far, North Africa and Russia as cases in point.  The Germans would always be outnumbered and fighting a multi-front war because of their limited naval capability, both in surface units and U-Boats, as well as the lack of a strategic air capability which kept them from eliminating Britain from the war.  Hitler’s desire for German domination in Europe excluded a true coalition effort to make allies with powers in Europe such as Vichy France which shared an aversion to the British especially after the attack of the British Navy on the French fleet in North Africa.  Likewise Germany’s alliance with Mussolini’s Italy was more of a strategic liability than a true partner. Hitler’s aversion to the Soviet State prevented any more than a brief cooperation with the USSR which was ended by the German invasion of the USSR. The Germans also failed in their war strategy by not going to a total war effort until 1943 after the ascension of Albert Speer as the Armaments Minister.  Thus German forces had to fight war “on the cheap” so to speak for the first part of the war, especially in North Africa and in Russia. In Russia the vast expanse of the front forced the Germans to thin out their forces to dangerous levels and whose pathetic road and rail network limited the already limited ability of the Wehrmacht to supply its forces as they advanced deep into Russia.

Admiral Yamamoto One of the Few Japanese Leaders to Understand what the Japanese Faced in Going to War with the United States

In the Pacific the Japanese used fast carrier task forces and naval air power coupled with superior surface warfare groups of fast battleships, cruisers and destroyers operating in conjunction with land based Army and Naval air units to isolate and destroy allied naval forces and outposts throughout the Pacific.   The Japanese exploited their superiority to conduct their own form of blitzkrieg.

Despite Inflicting Crushing Defeats on the Allies in late 1941 and early 1942 the Japanese period of Conquest would be Short Lived

At the same time the Japanese, even more so than the Germans lacked the ability to fight a long war; something that the best and most realistic of the Japanese strategists, Admiral Yamamoto understood and warned his government about before the attack on Pearl Harbor.  Likewise they like the Germans failed to develop a cohesive Grand Strategy in their war effort.  Competing priorities and inter-service rivalries between the Army and the Navy over resources, manufacturing priorities and war aims crippled Japanese efforts.  Despite this the Japanese used superior tactical application of forces, exploited Allied command and control weaknesses, numerical and qualitative superiority over dispersed and often obsolete Allied forces. The Allies in the opening phase of the war were often led by officers who had little respect for the Japanese and underestimated the Japanese skill at the tactical and operational level of warfare as well as the individual Japanese soldier and sailor, with tragic results.

USS Pope Being Blown out of the Water at the Battle of the Java Sea

The Japanese were constrained by limited resources and intense competition between the Army and Navy for those resources as well as a long term war in China which drew off the larger part of the Japanese Army and Army Air Forces.  The Japanese effort stalled after they lost much of their carrier fleet and experienced naval aviators at Coral Sea, Midway and the Guadalcanal Campaign.  The Americans, who assumed the mantle of the Pacific Theater after the initial Japanese success and weakness of British and Dutch forces in the Pacific and demands of the war in Europe began an aggressive defense and opened an offensive against the Japanese long before the Japanese believed that they would at Guadalcanal.

At the heart of the early German and Japanese success lay their superior application of the techniques and weapons of modern warfare on the land, sea and air against opponents who were initially ill-prepared to meet their onslaught.  They both had glaring weaknesses but their weaknesses in the early years of the war were masked by Allied ineptitude at all levels, tactical, operational and strategic.   Thus they were successful and at times wildly so, but in their success lay the seeds of their defeat.

Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill overcame Significant Conflicts of Interest to Build a Grand Strategy

The defeat of the Axis powers was in large part a combination of superior Allied strategy at the “grand strategy” level and lack of a corresponding Axis Grand Strategy; as well as the Axis powers inherent weaknesses in natural resources, manpower and industrial capabilities to fight multi-front wars, coupled with poor transportation and logistics capabilities for distant operations.

The US Navy Breaking of the Japanese Naval and Diplomatic Codes as well as the Cracking of the German Ultra Code and Capture of the Enigma Machine Greatly Enhanced Allied Intelligence

The cracking of Japanese Naval and diplomatic codes and the capture of the German Enigma code machine and code books aided Allied strategic planning, none or the Axis intelligence services rose to the challenges of the war. The Allied victory and Axis defeat was in fact a combination of what is called the DIME, the Diplomatic Intelligence Military and Economic factors which caused the Axis defeat.  While it is in part due to Allied strategy, Axis deficiencies in each of these areas played a part in their ultimate defeat.

Massive US Industrial Capacity Drove the Allied War Effort

On the Grand Strategic level there was no comparison. The Allies, even factoring in often conflicting national goals were able to coordinate a strategy to first defeat Germany and then Japan.  The Americans, British and Russians began such cooperation even prior to the American entry into the war through the Lend Lease, followed by the British and American Combined Chiefs of Staff, which helped coordinate often disparate British and American strategies in Europe and Asia. Murray and Millett assert and I agree with the thesis that the British and Americans “came closest to designing a global strategy that accommodated their war aims.” (War to Be Won p.584) While close coordination with the Russians was illusory at best, the Western Allies were able to help keep the Russians in war the by helping to supply them (War to Be Won p.388), and on occasion launching operations which assisted the Russians, such as the invasion of Italy. The Italian invasion, though the pipe dream of Churchill to crack the “soft underbelly” of Europe was a key factor in the German decision to quit the Kursk offensive and redeploy Panzer Divisions, including SS formations to Italy and the West. This weakened the Germans in the face of the Russian counter offensive following Kursk which aided Russian success. The Axis powers knew no such coordinated strategic thinking.

Poor Italian Technology, Training and Organization Made them More of  a Burden to Germany than a Help

The Japanese, Germans and Italians ran separate wars based on their perceived national considerations at times which often ran contrary to the common needs of their coalition.  Italian actions in the Mediterranean caused a diversion in German efforts at key times, such as in Greece where the Germans had to save the Italians and delay the opening of Operation Barbarossa.  Italian incompetence forced the Germans to commit forces to North Africa, Greece, the Balkans and Italy upon its collapse which could have been used to great effect in Europe or Russia. The Japanese and Germans never coordinated their efforts to defeat either the western Allies or the Soviets.  The lack of a coherent Grand Strategy on the part of the Axis powers, especially in the early part of the war when Allied fortunes were at lowest ebb, was every bit as much a part of their ultimate defeat as was a coordinated or “superior” Allied strategy.

The lack of a coordinated Axis Grand Strategy was reflected in the way each fought its war, the Japanese were hindered by lack of natural resources, especially those most important in maintaining a war economy, fuels, metals, rubber and even foodstuffs for which they were dependant on foreign suppliers such as the United States.  They were also hindered by a war in China which consumed troops and supplies without a corresponding benefit.  (See Barnhart’s “Japan Prepares for Total War and Toland’s “Rising Sun.) Their inability to produce the machines of war in sufficient numbers to replace losses due to combat operations and their failure to keep up with advances in technology negated their initial success and superiority at sea and in the air.

US Naval Forces Would Dominate the Pacific

The Germans failed to mobilize their economy to a total war footing until after Stalingrad and the accession of Albert Speer to head Reich war production.   They also attempted to fight a multi-front war and were dependant on weak and unenthusiastic satellite states such as Romania and Hungary to hold what they deemed to be less important areas in order free up German units.  Likewise the Germans had not adequately prepared for the war at sea with sufficient surface, naval air or U-boat strength to win the battle of the Atlantic, nor had the Luftwaffe developed a strategic bombing capability with long range fighter escorts to win the Battle of Britain. German industrial efforts, even the great strides made after Speer took over war production were unable to keep pace with the massive production of the Americans and the Soviet Union.  The Red Army ground the Wehrmacht to dust on the Steppes of Russia, a key factor in that helped the American and British successfully invade Western Europe.

B-17s Over Europe

The preponderance of western Air, Naval, war production and natural resources enabled them to field Fleets, Armies and Air Forces which were unmatched in size or technical sophistication for their time in history.  The Japanese and the Germans had no way to win by 1944, short of developing and deploying Atomic weapons and delivery systems before the Americans and British did could defeat.  Murray and Millett note this in regard to Germany which had the Wehrmacht held out longer would have been the first target of the Atomic bombs. (War to Be Won p.483)

Atomic Bomb at Hiroshima, It could Have Been Berlin Instead

In summary the Axis powers were defeated by their own weaknesses in the diplomatic, intelligence, military and economic arenas as much as they were by superior Allied strategy.  This in no way negates the superior way in which the Allies marshaled their resources and coordinated a coherent Grand Strategy.  But even so the Allies by were running out of troops by the end of the European war.  Russian formations while still formidable were operating at greatly diminished strength by the end of the war and their losses “carried political and social consequences that were to burden the Soviet Union to its demise.” (War to Be Won p.483)  The British were bled dry and unable to keep up with losses suffered after Normandy. The Americans too suffered from a shortage of manpower, particularly in Army infantry forces, and had limited their Army to a mere 90 divisions of all types to fight a world war. They had diverted manpower to the Army Air Corps, Naval and Marine Corps leaving the Army chronically short infantry. The Americans were forced into emergency drafts of troops from the Air Corps and other ancillary formations and support units to fill out infantry formations during the winter of 1944-45.  (See Russell Weigley’s book Eisenhower’s Lieutenants.” and Max Hasting’s “Armageddon” for a good treatment of the manpower situation in 1944-45) This is one point were the Americans took a risk that almost backfired on them and could have cost them victory.

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November 27, 2009 · 01:01

The Transitional Carriers: USS Ranger CV-4 and USS Wasp CV-7

Note: This is the second in a series of articles on US Aircraft Carriers. The first article “The First Aircraft Carriers Part One: The First American Flattops- Langley, Lexington and Saratoga” can be found at this link: https://padresteve.wordpress.com/2009/10/08/the-first-aircraft-carriers-part-one-the-first-american-flattops-langley-lexington-and-saratoga/

I expect to write a follow up article on the Yorktown class, followed by one on the World War II Essex class and Independence class carriers.  At some point I might tackle the post war modernizations, modifications and careers of the Essex class.

Following the success of the Langley, Lexington and Saratoga the Navy began to design aircraft carriers from the keel up.  The Japanese had already done so when they commissioned the IJN Hosho in 1922. Hosho displaced 10,000 tons was 579 feet long full load carried 26 aircraft at a top speed of 25 knots.  Hosho would serve in a secondary role in the Second World War, surviving the war with minor damage.

Hosho as Built

The British commissioned the HMS Hermes in 1923. She was slightly larger than Hosho at 12,900 tons and 598 feet long and capable of carrying 15-20 aircraft. She had a maximum speed of 25 knots.  She was sunk by Admiral Nagumo’s carrier strike force off Ceylon on 23 January 1941.  Both of these ships served in fleet support and training roles much of their careers being smaller and less capable of operating more modern aircraft developed in the late 1920s and 1930s.

HMS Hermes

The United States Navy was late compared to the Japanese and British ion designing carriers from the keel up, however when it did they were larger, faster and carried a far larger number of aircraft than the Hosho or Hermes.

Ranger at Hampton Roads 1942: Note the Funnel Arrangement

The Ranger was commissioned on June 4th 1934 and displaced 14,500 tons, was 769 feet long and had a maximum speed of 29.25 knots.  She carried 86 aircraft, over four times more than Hermes and three times that of Hosho.  She was not initially equipped with a catapult though one would be added later with a more advanced one being retrofitted in 1944.  She had a unique funnel arrangement having 6 small funnels located aft along both sides of the flight deck. These could be repositioned out so as not to interfere with aircraft operations.

Ranger Launching F4F-3 Wildcat off French North Africa November 1942

She had a small island structure.  This was not a particularly satisfactory design and would not be repeated in the fleet carriers which followed but would be used on the Independence class Light Fleet Carriers (CVL) and all Escort Carriers (CVE).  Ranger would operate with the Pacific Fleet in the 1930s before returning to the Atlantic in early 1939.  She would participate in Neutrality Patrols to protect US Shipping and missions to transfer US Army Air Corps aircraft across the Atlantic.  After the US entry into the war would participate in the Allied landings in French North Africa, Operation Torch launching 496 sorties against Vichy French ships, airfields and ground targets.  She remained in the Atlantic in 1943 conducting patrols, transporting Army Air Corps aircraft across the Atlantic and operating with the British Home Fleet conducting raids against German ships and installations at Bodo Norway.  Following these operations she would be refitted and sent to the Pacific to serve as an advanced training carrier for pilots and air crew being trained for combat duty.   She would decommission in October 1946 and sold for scrap in 1947.

Wasp at Hampton Roads, May 1942

She was not used in a combat role in the Pacific as she was determined to be too small and too slow and having very limited armor protection.  However her design was such that it could be refined for future classes of carriers including better armor protection, expanded anti-aircraft capabilities and better command and control facilities.

The second of these transitional carriers was the USS Wasp; CV-7 was built as a replacement under the Washington Treaty for the Langley and her displacement was limited to 14,700 tons.  Laid down in 1936 and commissioned in April 1940 she benefitted from experience with the Ranger and though roughly the same displacement as Ranger and only marginally faster.  Wasp was only 688 feet long as compared to Ranger, but had better protection and a more efficient design that was similar to the larger Yorktown class ships.  She carried over 80 aircraft and was equipped with 2 flight deck and two hanger deck catapults. Wasp’s career was short but action filled.  During 1940 through early 1942 she remained in the Atlantic conducting training, Neutrality patrols, shadowing Vichy French warships in the Caribbean, transporting badly needed British Spitfires to the besieged island of Malta and operating with the British Home Fleet against the Germans.

Wasp Loading Spitfires for Malta

With the shortage of carriers in the Pacific due to the loss of Lexington and damage to Saratoga Wasp was transferred to the Pacific where her air group received new aircraft prior to sailing to the South Pacific to take part in the invasion of Guadalcanal in August 1942.  Her air group acquitted itself well in action against the Japanese in the initial operations and she would remain in the area of operations.  On September Wasp was escorting troop transports carrying the 7th Marine Regiment to Guadalcanal.   As she recovered aircraft she was hit by 2 torpedoes from the Japanese submarine I-19.  I-19 had executed one of the most successful attacks by a Japanese submarine on US Naval Forces during the war, sinking Wasp, damaging the Battleship North Carolina and the destroyer O’Brien which later sank while sailing to the United States for permanent repairs.  At about 1420 the powerful 24” “Long Lance” torpedoes hit the Wasp in the vicinity of her ammunition magazine and aircraft gasoline tanks.  The fires rapidly spread throughout the ship igniting ready ammunition for the anti-aircraft guns.  Despite damage control efforts the fires spread and large secondary explosions wracked the ship forcing her abandonment at 1520.  With the ship abandoned she was sunk by the USS Lansdowne going down at 2100 with the loss of 196 of her crew.

Wasp Burning and Sinking

Though small and short lived the Wasp was a successful design incorporating a folding T-shaped deck edge elevator which was a predecessor of the much larger ones found on modern US Aircraft Carriers. The Ranger despite her limitations was far more capable than other countries early designs and served well in the Atlantic and as a training platform.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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November 26, 2009 · 00:34

Padre Steve’s Thanksgiving Thoughts

The Abbess: “Steve would you pray for the food?”

Padre Steve: “Dear Lord we pray for this turkey and all of it’s relatives on this Thanksgiving. We ask you to comfort them in their sorrow and give them your peace. Amen.”   Padre Steve’s Thanksgiving prayer from 1992.  I think the last time that we hosted a Thanksgiving dinner.

I am on duty tonight, pretty tired and I have been pretty busy this evening.  Hopefully things will settle down and no one will take any turns for the worse that will cause them or their families to have to mourn on this Thanksgiving 2009.  We have several in pretty bad shape as well as some I know not in hospital who are in pretty dire straits.

But since things have settled down a little I do need on this Thanksgiving Eve pause to give thanks for all of the blessings that I have been given.  I also need to give thanks for  wife who has had to suffer all of my rough edges, refusal to completely grow up, my wanderlust, dreams as well as my obsession with work, academics and yea verily, even baseball.

I am grateful for so many things but most of all the Abbess of the Abby Normal.  This dear soul has put up with me yea these 26 years of marriage and the 31 years that we have known each other.  She has had to deal with a husband who has devoted himself to a military career and vocation as a Priest that has spanned 28 years of that time.  She has endured separations too many to count and a decent number of deployments, unaccompanied tours and temporary duty out of the areas that we have lived.  In the 20 or so months that I have been back from Iraq she has also had to deal with my struggle with PTSD and all the trimmings that go with it.  Likewise she has had to see me grieve my dad, who though still alive only exists in body and does not know me anymore. I am truly thankful for the wife that I am blessed to have.

I think I have tried this dear woman’s patience quite often in our marriage, of course I do not think that she has forgotten the 1992 “Prayer for the Food.”  It is dangerous sometimes to ask me to pray because I might just take you literally, as I did the Abbess back in 1992 who slipped up and instead of asking me to “ask a blessing on the meal” “say grace” or simply “give thanks” but rather asked me to “pray for the food.” Something that I did, and I think that the prayer was actually longer as I remember making eye contact with her during the prayer as she glared daggers at me as the guests either giggled or listened in stunned silence. This will surprise no one who really knows me well.  Tonight as I made my rounds in our cardiac care unit I noticed one of the newer high-tech CPR dummies looking bored in the training/ conference room.  I had to remedy the situation.  Taking the obviously bored and neglected dummy I set him in a high-backed office chair facing the television which happened to be on.  I so arranged him so that a person coming in the room would see the back of the head, which happens to be bald like mine as it was looking at the TV.

Bob the CPR Dummy Watching TV

A person entering from the hallway into the unit would see the profile for the dummy.  This one is kind of cool as it has a shirt and the facial features are more realistic than the old style.  I did let the charge nurse know so he could get a laugh out of anyone who does a double take as they enter the unit bleary eyed at two or three in the morning.  I mentioned my misdeeds to my buddies Cinda and Jennifer over in the PICU who both got a laugh out of it.

Bob Chilling Out

I think the greatest honor that I had on a Thanksgiving  was in 2007 serving in Iraq. I got  a chance to serve the troops and workers in the chow hall at TQ after coming back that afternoon from an aborted mission to Waleed on the Syrian border when our air support mission was cancelled when a host of Congressmen, Senators and dignitaries decided that they needed to visit Iraq leaving us and quite a few others marooned at Al Asad’s air terminal for 4 days as they flew about Iraq in our aircraft.  Thankfully when I knew that we could not get anywhere the west and that we had to return to TQ so we could prepare for our next mission later in the week I got us on a C-130 back to TQ which delivered us home in time for me to help serve at the dinner that night.  I was in charge of the Mac n’ Cheese and the Sweet potatoes.  So since Mac n’  Cheese was not in my typical Thanksgiving dinner growing up I figured that I had to sell it.  So with that in mind as each person came up to where I was I would say “Get your Mac n’ Cheese, an American Classic….8 of 10 customers agree that this is the best Mac n’ Cheese in Iraq.”  The servers from the Gulf Catering Company who were to my right and left, both from the Indian subcontinent somewhere had very limited English but were laughing as I served people and even called people over to my serving station from across the room. When the workers got a chance to come up and eat knowing that they were mainly vegetarians  I would say, “step right up, get your Mac n’ Cheese an American delicacy making American kids fat for years.” I don’t know if they bought the shtick but they did come back for more and most were smiling.

This year because of my duty schedule as well as my comprehensive exams the Abbess has done most of the work, even the turkey which is usually my job. When I go home I will help her with what I can since she has worked hard to get ready for this.  After all, we haven’t hosted one of these since 1992 so I’d better help.

Anyway, it is late and with any luck the Deity Herself will grant me a night’s sleep with no 2 AM pages.

Peace and Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.  Please pray for my fellow Sailors, Marines, Soldiers and Airmen who serve in harm’s way, those who suffer the wounds of war in any form and those in need in the USA as well as around the world.  Despite all of our countries issues we still have so much to be thankful for to live in such a country.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I know that I am grateful and thankful for all the blessings that God has given me and all the people who have been there for me.  God bless you again.  Happy Thanksgiving!

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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November 24, 2009 · 23:55

Waiting on Results and Planning

I completed my comprehensive exam today and I am full of joy.  I used 6 hours and 12 minutes and maybe a bit of change of the 6 hours and 15 minutes allotted. I think I did okay, certainly well enough to pass.  I want to “pass with distinction” but I did not time myself as well as I could have and my last answer was not as well developed as I would have liked.  Oh well, 4 questions, any of which could have been developed into a thesis or book in 6 hours 15 minutes…I guess I should be satisfied.

So now that the exam is done I wait on results.  Presuming that I am right and that I passed it I will officially graduate on February 15th in Washington DC.

My biggest challenge now is to kick myself back into shape and lose the wait that I picked up over the summer thanks to my friends at Krispy Kreme.  Nothing like 3-5 hot and fresh glazed washed down with a beer or two before bed to pick up some wait.  Tastes great…really filling.  I am pleased that my PT is coming along, especially now that I have time to do it.  This week I have decided to vary what I do and went to a class on body shaping, those girls who lead that shit will kick your ass.  I kept up but it was work.  Today I went to a spinning class.  That too when you do it right takes a lot of effort. However I will kick this in thee ass and be off of the fat boy program as fast as I can.

Next on my agenda is to keep working to recover from Iraq and deal with my PTSD related issues.  I am getting”top cover” from my boss to do this and I am grateful.

Next comes my board certification as a Clinical Chaplain in the hospital setting, with luck that will be done by the spring sometime.  I have a few other certification  type things that I am working on and all should be good when I get them done too.

Finally I am looking at writing two baseball books one on the Negro Leagues.  Over the summer I met Sam Allen, one of the remaining Negro League players who lives in the local area.  I also want to do one on the minor leagues.

I guess that’s enough to put on the table for now. Tonight we watched Four Weddings and a Funeral and Bedazzled and since I don’t want to wake up like Hugh Grant in Four Weddings and a Funeral by oversleeping my alarm and saying a certain four letter word in a variety of ways as I dash in to work I should get ready for bed.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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November 23, 2009 · 22:27

The Night Before the Big Game: Comprehensive Exams All or Nothing

In the Funky Winkerbean comic there was a strip that one the the characters made this comment:

“There is no such thing as a “final” exam…if they were they would take you out and shoot you afterward.”

Anyway, the quote may not be exact but it does convey a truth, unless you are living in a country where academic failure is punishable in some way shape or form.  The old Soviet Bloc countries did this well….screw up in Olympic Training Camp and end up picking rotten turnips in a Gulag.  Yummy.

Tomorrow, Tuesday 24 November I take my Comprehensive Exams for my Masters Degree in Military History from American Military University.  It is a venture into the unknown.  In my degree program I performed very well.  I have a 4.0 average in all academic work to this point.  I did very well in Marine Command and Staff College and aced my studies for my Doctor of Ministry. However, this is different, it is one shot, like a World Series appearance.  The rest was regular season stuff, it mattered, but not as much.

The past 7 weeks I have been preparing, unfortunately I really don’t know what for.  The class I believe is taught by the Department Chair, a man from whom I have never taken a course. Thus although I understand the format and expectations I have no earthly idea what he will ask.  I will have to answer four questions in 6 hours.  I’m told that they probably will tie together but it is like going into a game against a pitcher that you have never seen before,  You don’t know his stuff, you don’t know how he works and all you have is your experience and knowledge to face him. As such I am out of my comfort zone with this guy.  In addition I go into the exam at a pretty low point emotionally because of the situation with my parents and just being worn down.  So I will have to dig deep tomorrow to do as well as I want to do.

Despite all of my prior preparation which has included a lot of review and even re-writing of old research papers to put on this site, I am anxious.  My stomach and gastric systems started doing backflips like when I was in California and after my return.  I hardly slept last night and hopefully will not only get to sleep early but actually get some rest before getting an early session of PT in before the exam begins at 0815 and end 6 hours later.  I will be alone with the exam.  A sign will be on my office door warning humanity to stay away.  I can certainly relate to Roger Clemons who said: “If someone met me on a game day, he wouldn’t like me. The days in between, I’m the goodest guy you can find.” For 6 hours tomorrow I will be unlikable.

If I do well I will be celebrating at Gordon Biersch tomorrow night.  If I don’t I will be drowning my sorrows there.  The beer will be the same but the mood a bit different.  It is like Tommy Lasorda once said: “When we win, I’m so happy I eat a lot. When we lose, I’m so depressed, I eat a lot. When we’re rained out, I’m so disappointed I eat a lot.” I can drink happy or sad, I would prefer to celebrate.  It is more fun.

Now I do expect that I will do well.  I want a grade of “Pass With Distinction” versus just a “Pass.”  It will take work and probably drain me as I will not have the time that I normally have to prepare and research my writing.  Heck I take a lot of time to polish what I write here on this site.  I figure if I am lucky that I will have about 65-70 minutes on each question.  I do hope that I can pull it off. But then maybe I need to relax a bit and remember what Bill “Spaceman” Lee said:

“I think about the cosmic snowball theory. A few million years from now the sun will burn out and lose its gravitational pull. The earth will turn into a giant snowball and be hurled through space. When that happens it won’t matter if I get this guy out.”

Maybe I just need to pass the damned thing and get it done with.  Well I need to get ready for bed.  Nothing much more to do. I just gotta go out and do what I’ve worked so long and hard to do. I’ve wanted a Masters in History since my undergrad days. This is for all the marbles.  I hate to lose and will be pissed at me if I do not kick this thing in the ass.  This is my World Series, at least until the next time….Ph.D. anyone?

Peace,

Padre Steve+

 

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November 23, 2009 · 02:03

Some Things Don’t Change…Bloom County my Favorite Cartoon

Yes they are in season again…Liberals.  Is Glenn Beck around?

No they don’t change do they?

Change the name of the President and it is just like today

Nothing really changes…I could use this after checking out the news

And now I shall try to get some sleep… have to love insomnia and anxiety

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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November 22, 2009 · 21:56

The Impact of Technology on the Organization, Strategy and Tactics in the Second World War

Introduction

World War II saw some of most rapid technological advances impacting military forces in history. The advances in technology impacted the organization and tactics of major power military forces, especially those of the United States, Germany, the Soviet Union and Great Britain.  These advances combined to revolutionize the way wars were fought and military forces have been organized to the current day.

Heinz Guderian’s Theories of Mechanized and Combined Arms Warfare and His Organizational Genius Revolutionized  Land Warfare

The technical developments and their relationship to military organization and tactical applications began in the years following World War I as various writers began to analyze that war and formulate ways not to repeat the grist mill of trench warfare that dominated it.  The writers looked at tactical innovations, new technology and enunciated ways that technology and tactics could be combined with organizational changes to revolutionize the ways that wars were fought.  Chief among these writers were General Fuller and Captain B.H. Liddell Hart in Britain, Colonel Heinz Guderian and Erwin Rommel in Germany.  Airpower theories were dominated by the strategic bombing theories of Italy’s Guido Douhet and tactical air theories of American Marine General Roy Geiger as well as the pioneers of tactical air support in the Luftwaffe.   In the United States General George C. Marshall helped initiate doctrinal changes that would change the way that the U.S. Army would fight.

Among the common elements found in the works of these men was the necessity to apply technology to overcome the pitfalls that all of the armies which fought in the First World War found themselves.

The Mechanization of Ground Forces

Mass Speed and Firepower: The Germans Would Pioneer the New Style of Warfare

There were a number of major technological advances between the wars and during the war that helped change the nature of warfare.  One of the earliest was the mechanization of armies which began toward the end of the First World War and continued between the wars to varying degrees in each country.  All the major armies experimented with mechanized forces to one degree or another. In Britain these got the earliest start with some formations being 100% mechanized by the early 1930s.  France was more circumspect about mechanization only slowly converting forces as they were focused on a defensive strategy based on the Maginot Line.  Many in the German high command resisted Guderian and other innovators regarding the mechanization of the Wehrmacht as well as the development of the Panzerwaffe.

The Soviet Union Would Turn the Tables on the Germans using their own Tactics

The Soviet Union had a large number of mechanized and armored formations prior to the war though they were not proficient in their use and had not developed doctrine to match the forces that they controlled.  The Untied States also resisted efforts to mechanize its Army but seeing the results of the German Blitzkrieg quickly overcame years of resistance to become an Army that save for 2 Cavalry Divisions was 100% mechanized.  The development of Airborne formations added the possibility of vertical envelopment to ground operations. These developments impacted nearly every campaign in Europe and North Africa and to a much lesser degree the Pacific theater. German performance in the early Polish, French, North African and Balkan Campaigns as well as the initial foray into the Soviet Union were all successful due to the proficiency of their combined mechanized, Panzer and tactical air forces.  The Soviets would develop and become very effective at this type of warfare on a much large scale than the Germans could have imagined beginning with the Stalingrad counteroffensive and especially in the destruction  of the German Army Group Center in the summer of 1944.

Though Using Lighter Armored Forces the Americans Would become Proficient in the New Type of Warfare by the Summer of 1944

The Americans became proficient at mobile operations during the war, especially during the “dash across France” and the breakout in the Saar-Palatine campaign in 1945,  but many times uninventive commanders squandered the advantage and allowed themselves to be sucked into battles of attrition that their forces were not made for.

Communications

A key development that accompanied and accentuated the mechanization of ground forces were advances in tactical wireless communications which made it possible for commanders to keep up with fast moving formations and react in near real time to changing tactical situations.  The Germans were the first to become very proficient in this as they not only developed communications for ground forces but also for coordination between tactical air forces and ground forces.  This made the German Blitzkrieg the first example of modern air-ground combat cooperation.  The Americans, British and Soviets would follow suit but it was the German Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe that pioneered the communications revolution.  As the war went on communications capabilities increased and armies became more dependent on tactical and long range wireless communications.  The dependency of military forces on communications networks became a major factor in operational planning and the success of the Allies in breaking Japanese and German codes gave them an advantage in anticipating German or Japanese moves.

Armor, Firepower and Mobility: The Tank Comes into its Own

World War Two Saw Tanks become Deadly Instruments of Modern Warfare

Mechanization was a major factor in the war and the most decisive component of the mechanization of ground forces was the development of the tank as well as specialized formations which employed tanks in close cooperation with other arms, such as mechanized infantry and artillery.  The development of such forces really began with the British but the best example of this was the German Panzer Division.  The Panzer Division was a totally mechanized and integrated force of all arms which was employed in mass and capable like all German units to be task organized into Kampfgruppen to optimize tactical flexibility.  British Armored Divisions were tank heavy and infantry light which made them far less flexible organizations.  Soviet Armored forces were slow to develop but they became masters of large level operational maneuver using mechanized and tactical air forces to a deadly effect against the Wehrmacht.  The Americans delivered a light and flexible armored formation and became very proficient in combined arms warfare though the divisional structure often proved too light and not as resilient as German formations.  It was in this environment that the tank truly came into its own to dominate the battlefield in a way that many could not have imagined prior to the war. Firepower, protection and mobility advantages gained through technological advances increased the lethality and survivability of the tank and forced each side to develop better ways of neutralizing tanks through more powerful anti-tank guns, sabot rounds and shaped charges.

Tactical and Strategic Air developments

The Americans and the British Would Develop the Concept of Strategic Bombing against Germany

With the technical revolution came revolution in the skies both at the strategic and tactical levels.  Modern bombers with good navigational gear guided by radar and assisted by modern bombsites such as the Norden developed by the United States would wreak havoc on industrial and civilian centers. Advances in aircraft technology saw fast and more lethal aircraft being fielded by all powers as the war progressed and while Jet propulsion developed during the war would doom piston powered aircraft as first line assets.

The P-47 Thunderbolt Would Serve as both a Long Range Bomber Escort and as Seen Here as an Excellent Ground Attack Aircraft

Tactical air developments would be led by the Germans but as the war went on the Allies developed sophisticate tactical air forces that dominated battlefields when the weather permitted. The Germans pioneered the use of ballistic missiles as well as the cruise missile while the United States and Britain developed the Atomic Bomb.  Specialized types of tactics and organizations were developed for strategic, tactical and naval air forces. At the strategic level there were the dueling schools of precision versus area bombing while at the tactical level the developments were as much predicated on air-ground communications as they were the aircraft flown.  Specialized aircraft were developed or modified as tank-killers while fighter forces became more specialized to into interceptors, bomber escorts and night fighters.

The Obselecent Junkers JU-87 found New Life on the Eastern Front as a Tank Killer armed with 2 37mm FLAK cannon

The influence of air assets, especially at the tactical level would become more pronounced as the war went on.  Allied air superiority ensured that the landings in France and the breakout in Normandy succeeded and tactical air dominance by US Navy and Marine air forces in the Pacific aided ground operations as well as sea battles.

Amphibious Warfare developments

The US Navy and Marine Corps Would Perfect Amphibious Operations in the Pacific

Technology came to the fore in amphibious operations with the development of specialized landing craft, beach clearing equipment and naval gunfire support.  This effort was led by the United States with the most advanced force being the Marines.   The combined use of air, land, sea and naval air forces to include the use of Aircraft Carriers revolutionized how the campaign in the Pacific would be fought to a conclusion long before anyone thought that it could be.

General Naval Developments

At sea ship design advanced new and better classes of warships as technologic advances in radar, sonar, gunnery systems, torpedo and ant-aircraft technology made warships far more formidable than those built only years before the war.  This was nowhere more apparent than in submarine development especially that of Germany’s U-boat arm with the development of streamlined hulls and “schnorkel” technology.  The use of U-Boats and later American submarines in the Pacific into “Wolf Packs” increased the lethality of submarine forces to a near decisive state in the war.  Naval tactics were influenced by the use of air and surface search radar as well as sonar.

US Fast Carrier Task Forces Would Dominate the Pacific War and Naval Warfare to the Present Day

The development of the US Navy into the dominant Naval Power of the next 65 years was built upon the success of the Navy in the Second World War.  The largest and some of the bloodiest sea battles in history were fought in the Pacific with decisive results in that theater of operations.  Operationally the major Navies all were influenced to one degree or another by the theories of Alfred Thayer Mahan.

Summary and Conclusion

The course of World War Two was determined by the strategic and operational theories developed in the inter-war years. These were applied correctly by some powers and not by others.   The use technological advances and more effective organizational structure developed in the inter-war years and refined by the experience of war impacted the war on land, at sea and in the air in every theater of war.  The use of combined arms and joint operations revolutionized the manner in which wars would be fought.  If the technology, theory and force structure had not come together when it did the war might have been fought much as the First World War.  Instead warfare became faster and more lethal than ever and would lead to even more advances in the years to come.

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November 22, 2009 · 01:44

Book Review: Identity and War, the Lessons of King Philip’s War

This is a book review of Jill Lepore’s book “The Name of War: The Name of War: King Philip’s War and the Origins of American Identity” Vintage Books, a division of Random House, New York NY. 1999

King Philip

The thesis of Jill Lepore’s book “In the Name of War: King Philip’s War and the Origins of American Identity” is that King Philip’s War helped lay the foundation of American identity. Lepore postulates that the history of the war and the war itself cannot be separated especially in regard to the identity of the participants.  This is of particular interest in how the participants record the history of the war and how it influences their perception of themselves and their enemies.

War and how it is recorded in history can define a people. Examples of this can be seen throughout history. For instance the history and identity of Serbia cannot be separated from the battle of Kosovo in 1389 . There are countless other examples of how war shapes the identity of people and nations.  One of the defining moments in the early history of Colonial America was King Philip’s War which lasted from July 1675 through August 1676.

Lepore maintains that King Philip’s War defined the ways in which the colonists and Indians shaped their views of themselves and each other, not just at the time of the war but in succeeding generations.  She takes an approach unlike a lot of histories of war.  Instead of simply analyzing battles Lepore looks at how war cultivates language and the questions that war provokes.

The most pressing to Lepore is “how do people reconcile themselves to war’s worst cruelties.”[i] She notes her own view of war in her introduction: “War is a contagion, the universal perversion. War is politics by other means, at best barbarism, a mean contemptible thing.”[ii] She says that her interest in war was drawn on the media coverage of the Persian Gulf War and her question of “how war could be represented without pictures.”[iii] This of course demonstrates how she views the nature of war and how she interprets it.

Lepore examines the literature of “King Philip’s War” beginning with the death of the leader of Wampanoag Indian King Philip in June 1675.  She examines the war from both sides inasmuch as that only one side had access to the means to record that history. Through the writings of the colonists she examines the brutal nature of King Philip’s War which “in proportion to population… inflicted greater casualties than any other war in American history.”[iv]

This is not a campaign history.  Instead Lepore selects incidents and battles of the war and looks at them through the eyes of the people that recorded them.  Lepore notes that “the central claim of this book is that wounds and words-the injuries and their interpretation- cannot be separated, that acts of war generate acts of narration, and that both types of acts are often joined in a common purpose: defining the geographical, political, cultural, and sometimes racial and national boundaries between peoples.”[v]

Lepore’s account is a literary and philosophical study of the nature of war and not a military history. Her understanding of the totality of this war and its effect through the years is noted by others such as Russell Weigley.[vi] She asks a poignant question that should be noted by any practitioner of war or military theorist: “If war is, at least in part, a contest for meaning, can it ever be a fair fight when only one side has access to those perfect instruments of empire, pens, paper, and printing presses?”[vii]

Lepore studies the literature of the war published by the colonists.  In particular she discusses the competing histories published by Increase Mather and William Hubbard, both pastors in New England and the writings of other colonists, especially those of Nathanial Saltonstall and Mary Rowlandson.  For Lepore the importance of the writing of these people is connected to the identity of the peoples involved, both the English colonists and the Native Americans.[viii] Lepore’s premise is that the writings of the colonists “proved pivotal to their victory, a victory that drew new firmer boundaries between English and Indian people, between English and Indian land, and what it meant to be “English” and what it meant to be “Indian.””[ix] This is still a critical question. She notes how King Philip’s War influenced later events such as the American Revolution and the deportation of the Cherokee nation in the 1820s.

For Lepore the formation of the identity of both the colonists and the indigenous people is the key theme of this war, and for that matter most wars.

Lepore depicts this in her prologue and the account of the torture of a Narragansett Indian by Mohegans Indians while the English watch.  The question that she raises and that she will ask again is “If they are to think of themselves as different from “these Heathen” whom they condemn for their “barbarous Cruelty,” how then can they consent to such treatment of a Narragansett before their very eyes? “Their enemy is killed, yet they do not have to kill him. They are allowed to witness torture, yet they not need inflict it.”[x]

Yet for the colonists such behavior risked their identity as Christians and Englishmen which was what they believed that they fought for in the first place.  Lepore notes Mather’s 1674 sermon The Day of Trouble is Near which emphasized the theme of decay and confusion present at the time.[xi]

Lepore notes the effect of literacy on both the colonists and Indians. She begins with the murder of John Sassamon a bi-lingual Indian as the seminal event which set the stage for the war. She then examines Sassamon’s relationship to the English and Christianity and his relationship with King Philip.  In Lepore’s account Sassamon was a victim of both his faith and literacy.

Lepore provides a good study of early missionary attempts to “bring the Gospel” to the Indians by translating the Bible and devotional texts from English to Massachusett[xii] and how that missionary activity converted many Indians including Sassamon.  Lepore notes that: “in a sense literacy killed John Sassamon. And herein lies one of the fundamental paradoxes of the waging and writing of King Philip’s War:  The cultural tensions that caused the war – the Indians becoming Anglicized and English becoming Indianized- meant that literate Indians like John Sassamon who were those most likely to record their version of events of the war, were among its first casualties.” [xiii]

Lepore’s depiction of the cruelties of war in chapters three and four is a study in contrasts.  Again this comes back to a question of identity for the colonists.  They saw themselves as different from the “uncivilized Indians” even the Christian Indians.  This was because the colonists believed that Indians did not value English understanding of identity which was connected to property and its improvement, houses, land and farm field’s cattle and possessions.  When the Indians destroyed English property it was a blow at their very identity as Englishmen. The tension between these tow opposite points of view remains a fixture of American life.

Religion played a major role in the conflict.  Lepore notes that “the colonists’ sense of predestination…, their natural affinity with the land, and their cultural proclivity to conflate property with identity, all combined to produce this oneness of bodies and land.”[xiv] The English did not view the Indians as having the same values because they did not have the same understanding of land and property, and thus they saw them as savage.  For example she discusses how the colonists view of how “the Algonquians’’ perceived nomadism, their failure to “improve” the land, formed the basis for the English land claims….”[xv] In  other words the English Colonists believed that if the Indians were want to improve the land upon which they dwelt than they did not deserve to remain on it.

Lepore discusses the metaphor of “nakedness” in relation to the loss of property and identity.[xvi] She notes how the Indians seemed to have understood the importance of land and property to the English. She cites a note left by a Nipmuck Indian at Medfield “we hauve nothing but our lives to loose but thou hast many fair houses cattell & much good things.”[xvii] She notes that the note offered an analysis missed by all the English accounts of the war.[xviii]

Likewise Lepore notes how religion informed both the colonists and Indians who both looked for supernatural messages in the natural world.  The English colonists, primarily Puritan Calvinists believed that the devastation of the war on them at the beginning of the war was “God punishing them for their sins, not the least of them their failure to convert the Indians to Christianity.”[xix] The English settlers were influenced by their Calvinist theology and believed that the Indians both “served the devil” but were also “the instruments of God.”[xx] The Indians also had a spiritual element to their conduct of the war and the clash of these beliefs gave the war a religious dimension especially for the Colonists a dimension that would pervade American perceptions of many of the wars which followed.

Another theme of Lepore in how the war shaped identity is in the context of the bondage experienced by the English captives of the Indians during the war that of and of the Indians following the war.  She uses the stories of Mary Rowlandson and Christian Indian James Printer to illustrate her thesis.

Rowlandson’s story is the account of her capture, captivity and release by the Indians following the attack on Lancaster, Massachusetts in February 1676.  Lepore calls the importance of Rowlandson’s account The Sovereignty and Goodness of God and how it shaped the colonial and later American understanding of the war by “the nearly complete veil it has unwittingly placed over the experiences of bondage endured by Algonquian Indians during King Philip’s War.”[xxi] Lepore writes that for Rowlandson and Printer that the story was one of redemption and return to English society, Rowlandson through her book, Printer through bringing back scalps of other Indians as a demonstration of his loyalty to the Colonists.[xxii]

Another point raised by Lepore here is the enslavement and deportation of the Algonquians by the Colonists following the war.  A key to the thinking of the colonists is elaborated by Lepore: “In the end, the colonists’ evaluation of Indian sovereignty was merely an extension of their thinking about Indian possession: Indians were only sovereign enough to give their sovereignty away.”[xxiii]

This again comes back to Lepore’s thesis of identity.  She states that the “colonists moved toward (but never fully embraced) in their writing about King Philip’s War was the idea that Indians were not, in fact truly human, or else humans of such a vastly different race as to be considered essentially, and biologically inferior to Europeans.”[xxiv] She argues that King Philip’s war was a defining moment where “Algonquian political and cultural autonomy was lost and where the English moved one step closer to the worldview that would create, a century and a half later, the Indian removal policy of Andrew Jackson.”[xxv]

Lepore’s final section deals with memory and identity.  She illustrates this by noting how the Reverend Nathan Fiske in 1775 equated the British to the Indians of King Philip’s War; and the play Metamora written in 1829 about King Philip and the war.  Both Fiske and the latter play had an impact.

Fiske’s sermon helped light the fires of American independence movement, something that which Lepore notes for the Indians was “not a gain but a loss of liberty.”[xxvi] The play Metamora opened the day Andrew Jackson declared his policy of Indian removal. It was the most popular American play of its era. Lepore says that when you “peel back all the layers …what remains is a struggle for American and Indian identity. Through plays like Metamora, white Americans came to define themselves in relation to an imagined Indian past.”[xxvii]

Overall Lepore’s treatment of King Philip’s War is a good treatment of how wars affect people and their relationships with those whom they war against.  Using Lepore’s thesis of the war, the history of war and how they shape the identities of peoples and nations’ one could conceivably analyze other conflicts from this perspective.

Since this is the premise of why Lepore began her study of King Philip’s War it is worthy of further discussion.  Such studies could be undertaken in the Balkans, Kurdistan, Palestine, Iraq or Syria as well as other regions where the impact of war is thoroughly ingrained in the minds, hearts and imaginations of the parties involved.  From this perspective one wonders what future generations of Americans and Moslems will write of the current conflicts that the United States is engaged in.

Another aspect of Lepore’s examination study is religion in the perception and interpretation of war.  In this case it is the impact of the colonists Calvinism and its relationship to other English theologies of its day as well as other Calvinistic understanding of war of that era that matters.

This is very important.  The more recent English colonists prior to King Philip’s War had in many cases experienced the brutality of English Civil War and the protectorate of Oliver Cromwell in which they dominated the English political landscape.  Thus for many of these colonists a return of the Crown and Anglicanism would drive them to seeking independence for the colonies.

Many of the soldiers among them would certainly recall the brutality of the civil war and the invasion of Ireland. The soldier’s views of the Irish were similar to the views of the colonists of the Indians, something that Lepore only mentions in passing. As such the experience of the more recent colonists and the soldiers added a dimension of brutality that was not as prevalent before the hostilities.

Likewise Lepore mentions little of Roger Williams’ beliefs and his relations to the Puritans whom he fled to found Rhode Island in 1631 on the principle of religious freedom.  Her treatment of Williams does not include his respect for the Indians and view that “perhaps their religion was acceptable in the eyes of God as was Christianity.”[xxviii] Despite this her treatment of King Philip’s War is worthwhile reading because it brings up the question of identity which seems to drive war and those who write of it to the present day.

The question that Lepore forces us to ask is how past wars shape our conduct in and interpretation of ongoing wars.  The Colonists would see their conflict with the Indians as one of life and death, one of their very survival as a people and as such they were willing at times to commit atrocities against Indian threats, real and imagined.  More recently the American understanding of the war against Japan was conducted in a similar vein with many of the same overtones.  Likewise the framing of the current war by some as a war of survival against the threat of Islam raises similar issues.  Thus Lepore’s study is valuable in examining how some view the current war on terror as well as a means to look at other wars in our nation’s history through a different lens, not simply through the eyes of battles, military forces, strategy and tactics but through the participants identity and who the war is both shaped and recorded by both sides.  Even if one does not accept her conclusions or her admitted biases the book can allow us to reexamine our own views of our past and how they shape our present view of war, conflict and identity as a people.

[i] Lepore, Jill. The Name of War: The Name of War: King Philip’s War and the Origins of American Identity. Vintage Books, a division of Random House, New York NY. 1999 p.xxi

[ii] Ibid. p.x

[iii] Ibid. p.xxi

[iv] Ibid. p.xi.  Additionally, Allen R. Millet and Peter Maslowski in For the Common Defense: A Military History of the United States of America The Free Press, NYew York, NY 1984 note that “the colonists did not enjoy an “Age of Limited Warfare” like that which prevailed in Europe from the mid-seventeenth to the mid-eighteenth century.  To the colonists (and to the Indians) war was a matter of survival. Consequently, at the very time European nations strove to restrain war’s destructiveness, the colonists waged it with ruthless ferocity, purposefully striking at noncombatants and enemy property.” p.18

[v] Ibid. p.x

[vi] Weigley writes in “The American Way of War: A Study of United States Military Strategy and Policy,  Indiana University Press, Bloomington IN, 1973 that “In King Philip’s War of 1675-76, the Indians came fearfully close to obliterating the New England settlements. When the colonists rallied to save themselves, they saw to it that their victory was complete enough to extinguish the Indians as a military force throughout the southern and eastern parts of New England…” and that he “logic of a contest for survival was always implicit in the Indian wars, as it never was in the eighteenth-century wars …”p.19  Weigley notes how this would impact future American Wars beginning with the War against France and later the American Revolution in that “their success demanded the complete elimination of British power from all of North America, just as they had demanded and won the complete elimination of French power.” p.20

[vii] Ibid. p.xxi

[viii] Ibid. Lepore. p.x

[ix] Ibid. p.xiii

[x] Ibid. Lepore. p.4-5

[xi] Ibid. p.6.  Lepore notes a theme that will be later picked up by many in American history.  The idea that they were visible saints for all of Europe to see is a precursor to the idea of the United States as “A city set on a hill.”

[xii] See Leopre pp.33-39

[xiii] Ibid. p.25-26

[xiv] Ibid. p.82

[xv] Ibid. p.76

[xvi] Ibid. p.79

[xvii] Ibid. p.94

[xviii] Ibid. pp.95-96.  Lepore notes that the English interpreted Algonquian assaults and taunts as “expressions of mindless savagery rather than calculated assaults on the English way of life.” And the refusal of the English to “place Indian “cruelties” within the broader context of Algonquian culture, instead labeling them “barbarous” violations of English ideas of just conduct in war….”

[xix] Ibid. p.99

[xx] Ibid. p.102  Lepore does not dwell on this but this observation is entirely consistent with Calvinist theology which drew heavily on the Old Testament imagery of Israel and its relations with its neighbors.  The Old Testament prophets often spoke in terms of the enemies of Israel being used by God to punish Israel for its sin and  disobedience to God.

[xxi] Ibid. p.126

[xxii] Ibid. p.147-148

[xxiii] Ibid. p.165

[xxiv] Ibid. p.167

[xxv] Ibid.

[xxvi] Ibid. p.189 ff.  Lepore chronicles the losses of Freedom in the various states to the different tribes of New England.

[xxvii] Ibid.p.193

[xxviii] Gonzalez, Justo. The History of Christianity, Volume 2: The Reformation to the Present Day Harper and Row Publishers, San Francisco CA. 1985 p.225

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