Review: James D. Hornfischer, Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors, 2004

"This will be a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival cannot be expected. We will do what damage we can." Lt. Cdr. Robert W. Copeland, CO USS Samuel B. Roberts 

James Hornfischer's book on the Battle of Leyte Gulf is a modern classic of military history. Leyte Gulf was the largest naval battle in history, transpiring October 23-26 1944. It involved most of the Imperial Japanese battle fleet attacking the American invasion forces landing on the island of Leyte in the central Philippines. The result was a decisive American victory. After this battle, the Japanese surface navy was no longer a factor in the war. 

The battle was actually comprised of four separate actions (see map above). Hornfischer does an admirable job describing the strategic background to the battle. General MacArthur would land four divisions on the island of Leyte. His own 7th Fleet would provide firepower support, close air support and amphibious transport of the troops. The far more powerful 3rd Fleet was composed of the Pacific Fleet's new large aircraft carriers and battleships. It as under the command of Admiral Bill Halsey who reported to Admiral Nimitz in Honolulu. This divided command structure led to near disaster off the island of Samar. 

USS Hoel DD-533

Admiral Halsey's mission was to "cover and support" MacArthur's landings. However, Nimitz added a confusing provision to the orders, "In case opportunity for destruction of major portion of the enemy fleet is offered or can be created, such destruction becomes the primary task" (pg. 97, emphasis added). This order was a major blunder on Nimitz's part. When the Japanese carriers (being used as bait) materialized, Halsey moved north to the attack. He left the path clear for the Japanese surface fleet of four battleships and six heavy cruisers to Leyte Gulf and MacArthur's exposed transports. 

Thus the "battle of Bull's Run" was set-up between that most powerful naval surface force the Japanese had ever sent to sea (including the massive Yamato) and something called "Taffy 3." It is the "tin can" sailors (and flyers) of Taffy 3 that are the focus of Hornfischer's narrative. Taffy 3 was a small American task force made up of six "baby flat top" escort carriers with a screen of three destroyers and four destroyer escorts. The escort carriers were not designed for fleet actions. They were small vessels built from merchant hulls. Each carried around twenty-four aircraft divided between Wildcat fighters and Avenger bombers. Their mission was to provide the ground troops with air support and anti-submarine patrols for the invasion fleet. 

USS Gambier Bay CVE 73

"Tin can" is a nickname for destroyers. World War II destroyers packed a lot of punch with the torpedoes they carried. But, they didn't have much in the way of armor protection, hence "tin can." A solid hit from an enemy cruiser or battleship was usual sufficient to seriously damage or sink a destroyer. 

At around 0645 hours on 25 October the look outs of Taffy 3 observed the Japanese battle fleet bearing down upon them at a distance of twenty-five miles. Taffy 3's commanding officer Admiral Clifton Sprague had little recourse except to run to the south. He ordered all aircraft on his six carriers to immediately launch with whatever weapons were already loaded and to attack the Japanese fleet. He then ordered his destroyer screen to make a torpedo attack upon the fast approaching battleships and heavy cruisers. The "tin cans" responded with alacrity. They made several hits on the enemy fleet. More importantly, they gained time for the CVEs to move south and their aircraft to begin their attacks. 

There were many heroes that day on the American destroyers and baby flat tops. The escorts USS Hoel, USS Johnston and USS Samuel B. Roberts were all sunk with large loss of life. The escort carrier USS Gambier Bay was sunk by Japanese naval gunfire. Escort carrier USS St. Lo had the distinction of being the first American ship sunk by kamikazes. 

The determination and courage of the American sailors and airmen that day are exemplified by Gunner's Mate Paul H. Carr. He was captain of the Robert's aft 5 inch gun. As Hornfischer relates, 

Most of the men inside [of the gun mount] had been obliterated by the blast. They had gotten off 324 rounds of the 325 the ship carried in its after magazine, firing the last seven or eight shells without a working gas ejection line to clear the breech, until one of the final rounds got them. 

Looking around [Chalmer] Goheen discovered where the magazine's last round was. It was right there before him, cradled in the arms of Paul Carr himself. The man was alive - though barely, torn from his neck to his groin. Carr was struggling to hold the shell. He begged Goheen to help him load it into the wrecked breech tray. Goheen took the shell from Carr's arms and laid the gunner's mate on the floor of his mount. 

Paul Henry Carr of Checotah, Oklahoma, proud member of the Future Farmers of America, football and baseball letterman, brother of eight sisters, only son of Thomas and Minnie Mai Carr, died there on the deck of his battered, broken warship. (pp. 331-332)

The book is filled with such vivid, moving writing based on many interviews with the battle's survivors. Read it to learn of the price of freedom and independence. Read it to observe the mighty efforts of men. We'll not see their like again. 

Review: "Are We There Yet?" Roger Chickering and Stig Forster, 2004. An Example of Bad Historical Revisionism

In the first chapter “Are We There Yet” from A World atTotal War, Roger Chickering and Stig Forster analyze the meaning and development of the concept of “Total War.”  Because of a failure to make certain, vital distinctions in their analysis, the writers do not succeed in their main purpose in defining what “total war” is. The worst part of this essay is the author's egregious moral equivalence between Nazi Germany and the Western Allies. Considering Auschwitz and Hiroshima to be on a moral par is a confession of one's own moral imbecility. 

Not an Agent of Genocide

The authors note that the “hallmark” of total war is the use of military violence against civilians (pp. 11).  One reason for this, the authors recognize, is the full mobilization of a nation’s economy in the pursuit military victory.  This led to the blurring, or ending, of the distinction between combatant and non-combatant during World War II.  The reason for this is generally viewed to be the other defining factor of total war: total economic mobilization.  As the authors state total war requires “the thoroughgoing mobilization of industrial economies in the war effort, and hence the disciplined organization of civilians no less than warriors” (pp. 2)  The authors relate how this led theorist such as Guilio Douhet to conclude that civilians (or at least factory workers) were legitimate targets of opposing military forces.  In the context of World War I trench warfare anything that could break the deadlock and bring the war to a conclusion was considered justified.  Although, it wasn’t until World War II that technology, particularly the long range bomber, made this strategy possible.

The “unpacking” this essay deserves would require a considerably longer paper than space allows; therefore I will only mention a few of the methodological problems and factual omissions of serious consequence.  There are four distinct concepts the authors include in their definition of “total war” that I believe should remain distinct.  These are, 1: The degree of a nation’s economic mobilization, 2: Civilians as primary or secondary targets or as collateral damage, 3: The treatment of POWs or war of No Quarter, 4: Genocide.
 

As the authors note the original definition of total war referred to economic mobilization.  The French coined the terms “guerre totale” and “guerre integrale” for their nation’s total mobilization in the last two years of World War I.  There is obviously no clear line that can be drawn between limited and total war regarding mobilization.  The authors engage in some tedious hairsplitting on whether the United States fully mobilized during World War II and therefore engaged in total war.

The authors cite Maurice Matloff “The Ninety Division Gamble” from Kent Roberts Greenfield volume of the Green Series Command Decisions.  The authors, however, do not provide quotes or statistics to support their position that it’s hyperbole to claim the US totally mobilized for World War II (pp. 7).  I don’t have a copy of Command Decisions handy, however in Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare: 1943-1944 Maurice Matloff explicitly states that the “ninety division gamble” was the direct result of manpower shortages: “By 1943 the ‘arsenal of democracy,’ as the United States had come to be called, was just beginning to hit its full productive stride…Although increased use of women and Negroes, establishment of longer working hours, and improved efficiency in war plants eventually served to augment production, the manpower situation by early 1943 appeared grave” (Maurice Matloff (1959) Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare, 1943-1944. Washington D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military History. pp. 113, 116).  The concern was that drafting skilled workers would affect production, which could not be allowed.  And not just for factory workers, in November 1942 Congress gave a blanket draft deferment to all agricultural workers (pp. 116).

Regarding Nazi Germany and total war it should not be forgotten that Blitzkrieg was as much an economic concept as a military one.  Hitler’s purpose was to avoid full mobilization with quick decisive wars and to not get engage in a total war of exhaustion that the German economy could not hope to win. In fact, Nazi Germany did not begin full economic mobilization until after Stalingrad when it was too late.

Chickering’s and Forster’s evaluation of how civilians became targets in total war beginning in World War I and culminating in the Second World War has problems of special pleading.  In their analysis they apparently think it’s irrelevant who were the aggressors in these wars and who initiated this aspect of total war.  They note that nearly 740 German civilians were killed in allied bombing raids during World War I; however they fail to note how many British civilians were killed during the preceding Zeppelin raids (pp. 12).  While discussing the bombing raids of World War II the names Guernica, Warsaw, Rotterdam and London are not mentioned.  This is no small matter in evaluating later allied bombing campaigns.  On July 8, 1940 Winston Churchill wrote a memo to the Minister of Aircraft Production, Lord Beaverbrook, “I look round to see how we can win the war, I see that there is only own sure path,” and that was “an absolutely devastating, exterminating attack by very heavy bombers from this country…” (Their Finest Hour. New York: Bantam Books, 1977, pp. 548).  That both the British people and leaders where willing to go to extremes was motivated and justified by previous German attacks.  As an interesting side issue it should be noted that making a large, powerful democracy desperate and fearful for its continued existence can result in very bad things for the fascist aggressors.  The process of “taking off the gloves” in warfare doesn’t happen overnight and the beginning of it should not be ignored.  

Dresden 1945. Not Auschwitz, Not Even Close

Wars of No Quarter have been fought throughout history.  One example is the Texas Revolution of 1835-6.  General Santa Ana apparently thought of the Texans as rebels and therefore not worthy of the rules of warfare.  At the Alamo he put the defenders to the sword.  At Goliad he had 400 captured Texan soldiers executed.  At San Jacinto the Texans responded by killing hundreds of Mexican soldiers as they tried to surrender yelling “me no Alamo;” they understood.  The Texas Revolution was a “small war” regarding the number involved, however it was a brutal one by early nineteenth century standards.  While both the United States and England participated in Second World War’s total nature, both country’s treated Axis prisoners according to the Geneva Convention.

Lastly, the most troubling aspect of this essay, its “revisionist” view of the Holocaust.  The authors state, “Genocide was the other face of total war…The history of total war was driven by material and ideological forces that culminated respectively in Hiroshima and Auschwitz – in weapons that did not discriminate and policies that did so with a vengeance” (pp. 12-13).  This is an example of the old tactic to “normalize” the Holocaust and the continuing of the “Historikerstreit” or Historians Conflict that began in Germany in the 1980s.  As stated above, Hitler’s purpose was to avoid total war, not begin one.  Hitler’s purpose was not total war but social engineering.  Social engineering doesn’t necessarily require total or limited war.  As the cases of Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot demonstrate.  In fact both Hitler’s and Stalin’s example demonstrate that mass murder as social engineering seriously degrades any war effort through vast wasted resources including, in Stalin’s case, a better part of his officer corps.  As Benjamin B. Weber, in his essay “Shades of Revisionism: Holocaust Denial and the Conservative Call to Reinterpret German History,” details some of the tactics used to “normalize” the Holocaust, including “the intentional denigration of the Holocaust and the Third Reich” (Benjamin B. Weber. (December 1996) “Shades of Revisionism” University of Vermont: History Review Vol 6.

Reducing the Holocaust to another aspect of total war is just what the authors are doing by using Auschwitz and Hiroshima in the same sentence.  Whether one agrees with the dropping of the A-bombs on Japan, and the earlier firebombings, these actions had an identifiable war related purpose, to force the Japanese to surrender.  Auschwitz had no purpose to which even a partially sane person can fathom.  It is not an aspect of total war but as the Nuremburg Tribunal the Holocaust was a Crime Against Humanity. 

Gunter Bischof is the head of Center Austria at Tulane University.  He has also tried to make a connection between the Pacific Theater and the crimes of the SS.  On May 31, 2004 he posted an article at the History NewsNetwork, “The American ‘Good War’ vs. the German ‘Bad War’: World War II Memory Cultures.” Towards the end of the article after discussing the Enola Gay exhibit Bischof states: “While in Germany the veterans’ organization had failed to salvage their selective memories of the killing fields on the Eastern front, in the United States the veterans succeeded in enforcing their one-sided memory of heroic marines and valiant sailors.  Their killing frenzies in the island campaign and trophy taking of Japanese body parts was purged from the public memory.”  The comparison of American combat soldiers in the Pacific with Einsatzgruppen is now apparently acceptable for scholarly discourse.  It should be remembered however, that if “Hap” Arnold and “Bomber” Harris are as bad as Adolf Eichmann and Reinhardt Heydrich: then Eichmann and Heydrich are no worse than Arnold and Harris.  

Review: Hugh D. R. Baker. Chinese Family and Kinship. London: MacMillan Press, 1979.

In this study, Baker focuses on two Chinese concepts that define their view on proper family relationships. Wu-fu means the “five mourning grades,” and wu-lun describes the “five human relationships.”  These concepts identify the social hierarchy of Chinese society. Wu-lun is the more fundamental concept and is based on Confucian precepts. The five relationships are ruler/minister, father/son, elder brother/younger brother, husband/wife, and friend/friend (11). Except for the last, all of these relationships are about status with the latter person as the inferior half. Wu-fu is more complex than wu-lun. Wu-fu was a state sanctioned code of five mourning grades that were based on one’s relationship to the deceased. Wu-fu defined a person’s place within the hierarchy of their lineage. It was directly related to ritual and those who did not demonstrate the correct mourning garb were subject to severe punishment. This was one method by which the state enforced adherence to ritual. Wu-fu codified the web of association in which all Chinese lived, and was so vividly described by Fei Xiaotang. 

Baker does not have a thesis for this work. His book is a description of the Chinese family and its place in Chinese society within the framework of the associated rituals. He states that all relationships in the family are based on a “pecking-order” (15). The “pecking order” that ordains superiority and inferiority in all family relationships is generation, age, and sex. For example, while a husband is superior to his wife because of sex, he is expected to defer to his mother due to her superior generational position. This “pecking order,” along with wu-fu and wu-lun, “makes clear to whom each owes respect and obedience” for every individual in the family or lineage group (16).

Baker applies the above concepts to two traditions within that Chinese family that most illustrate the central important of the carefully defined hierarchies. These traditions are ancestor worship and lineages. Baker quotes a proverb that expresses that function of ancestor worship which places every individual in a “Continuum of Descent”: “he exists by virtue of his ancestors, and his descendants exist only through him” (71). As he explains, death does not end the mutual responsibilities between parent and child. In order to be secure in the afterlife, the dead require the appropriate sacrifices from their descendants, just as the living require blessings from the departed. Descent was patriarchal; hence the Chinese obsession with having a son to carry on the line. Women became appendages to the male line of their family.  

Baker’s chapter on lineages ties in well with Fei’s concept of differential mode of association. Lineages were extended families that held some property in common via trusts. The purpose of these trusts was to finance worship of significant ancestors. All males descended from this ancestor were part of the lineage (49). As Fei had written, these lineages could become states within the Chinese state, especially during the rule of a weak or declining dynasty. They enforced de facto legal codes. According to Baker, lineages were much more common in the south than in the north. While he provides several reasons for this, the impression is given that there is no consensus on this by scholars. This book dovetails nicely with that of Fei.