Current Reading: December 2022

KeskusteluMilitary History

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Current Reading: December 2022

1Bushwhacked
joulukuu 4, 2022, 2:07 am

Nearly finished The Royal Australian Air Force in South Australia During WWII by Peter Ingham. The book is an interesting and well illustrated history of the wartime RAAF in South Australia, a now largely forgotten part of the war effort. From having no RAAF presence in 1939, the state of South Australia became home to five air bases. Over the course of the war some 12,000 aircrew were trained for the Empire Air Training Scheme, as well as another 27,000 ground staff. Predominantly flying Avro Ansons and Fairey Battles, over 30 separate accidents occurred during the course of training leading to the deaths of over 80 aircrew. Accident summary details appear in the Appendix. Local coastal patrols and defence were also undertaken in response to surface raider and submarine scares throughout the war.

2Shrike58
joulukuu 6, 2022, 7:46 am

Knocked off Price's Lost Campaign, an analysis of the Confederacy's last hurrah in Missouri, which managed to be simultaneously inept and atrocious at the same time. This monograph could have been edited better but it was sufficiently enlightening that I give it high marks.

3Bushwhacked
Muokkaaja: joulukuu 7, 2022, 5:22 am

Finished Eagles Over Darwin by Tom Lewis primarily covering the 49th Pursuit Group's (later 49th FG USAAF) air defence of Darwin between March and September 1942.

With the RAAF's fighting power at this time virtually all deployed overseas, Australia was stripped bare of air defences. Into this void stepped the USAAC with fresh but inexperienced aircrew led by a cadre of senior flyers and Philippines campaign veterans who had survived to escape south. The accident rate as they mastered their P40's was high, but they provided a solid air defence of Darwin as the Japanese mounted a bombing campaign of G4M Bettys escorted by Zeros flying out of Timor, and the 49th was turned into one of the most distinguished Fighter Groups in the new USAAF.

This article from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute gives a good precis of the 49th's campaign and its importance:

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/usaaf-49th-fighter-group-darwin-forgotten-camp...

Further, the CO of the 49th, Colonel (later General) Paul Wurtsmith certainly sounds like an interesting guy and his Wikipedia bio is also worth a read:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Wurtsmith

4jztemple
joulukuu 7, 2022, 10:47 am

>3 Bushwhacked: When I looked up the book on Amazon, I saw this statement in the description, "In 1942, the air defense of the northern Australian frontier town Darwin was operated by airmen from the United States. That year was very nearly the end of Australia as a country." Is that hyperbole or was it considered possible that there would be no more Australia if Japan invaded? Just wondering.

5Bushwhacked
Muokkaaja: joulukuu 7, 2022, 6:19 pm

>4 jztemple: A very good question...

Whilst today we would consider the statement somewhat absurd, in early 1942 the situation would have looked very different.

Most of Australia's military strength was deployed in the Mediterranean / Middle East and the Australian Prime Minister John Curtin was in an argument with Churchill to get troops home and not diverted to Burma. The Chief of the General Staff Vernon Sturdee, threatened to resign if the troops weren't returned. I think the Fall of Singapore, where the 8th Division AIF was lost, exacerbated the situation to the point of near panic... The subsequent piecemeal campaign in the islands in the ABDA operational area also didn't inspire confidence, as one by one we were quickly overwhelmed. The early stages of the Kokoda Campaign were fought with green militia troops and the situation only began to turn when reinforcements from the AIF returned from the Middle East arrived in theatre.

Probably the best example of the 'mood of the times' would be to refer you to Curtin's controversial appeal to the US of 14 March 1942:

https://john.curtin.edu.au/audio/00434.html

Another good example is this 1942 propaganda poster:

https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/ARTV09225

All of that aside, my understanding is that the US had already independently come to an opinion the best long term base of operations for a counter offensive in the South Pacific would be Australia, with shipping bound for the Philippines already re-routed. At that point, Australia was, in my view, secured.

Japanese air raids on northern Australia continued into 1943 and their submarine force was active in the shipping lanes well to the south, including some coastal bombardment and a midget submarine attack on Sydney harbour. As for whether the Japanese actually had plans to invade, my understanding is they did not. At the time though, that was not known, you can understand how things were seen to be very much in the balance.

Subsequently stumbled across this Wikipedia article re Japanese intentions:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposed_Japanese_invasion_of_Australia_during_Wor...

6Shrike58
joulukuu 8, 2022, 1:25 pm

Just to add to the conversation Every Day a Nightmare is a great examination of the USAAF's war in Java; the evacuation of what was to become V Bomber Command coinciding with the attack on Darwin. It might be noted that while Washington thought that this force should stand by the Dutch to the end, the local commander basically cut his own orders to retreat, so as to save his technicians and support personnel for the long war; from side reading one gets the impression that the USAF is still embarrassed by this episode.

7Bushwhacked
joulukuu 8, 2022, 5:49 pm

I think the speed of the Japanese advance probably caught everyone by surprise, and you get the impression higher command didn't necessarily know what was going on.

The beginning of Lewis's book mentions an earlier ferry flight of P40's from Darwin to Timor on 9 February where most of the flight had to ditch due to bad weather, and subsequently the 33rd Pursuit Squadron transiting through Darwin was caught and destroyed in the carrier raid of 19 February 1942. If you add to that the disasters of the Battle of the Java Sea on 27 February and Sunda Strait the following day, coupled with the loss of USS Langley with its load of P40's and personnel, I think the phrase 'overtaken by events' may be applicable.

I would be of the view that sadly there is a general ignorance and disinterest of the campaign in Australia, and it is not really well understood, bar the occasional condemnation of the perceived waste of the loss of troops on Ambon and Timor, Australian military history being somewhat self absorbed at times and unable to perceive a wider viewpoint. (Just my personal observation).

8Bushwhacked
joulukuu 9, 2022, 2:40 am

... slacking off for the weekend and revisiting an old military science fiction classic, Joe Haldeman's The Forever War.

9Shrike58
joulukuu 10, 2022, 4:33 pm

Finished up British Submarines in the Cold War Era; more sustained excellence from Norman Friedman. Excited to learn that there is going to be at least one more work on the Royal Navy from him, dealing with coastal forces.

10Bushwhacked
joulukuu 17, 2022, 6:03 pm

... currently revisiting Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff

11jztemple
Muokkaaja: joulukuu 20, 2022, 12:45 pm

Finished The History of Landmines by Mike Croll. Very good overview of the use of landmines in warfare, as well as landmine clearing. It was published in 1998 so it is rather dated regarding the newer aspects of mine warfare.

12Bushwhacked
joulukuu 19, 2022, 1:56 am

>11 jztemple: More years ago than I care to remember I did introductory training on how to set and make safe M16 Jumping Jacks... made me happy I wasn't an engineer.
On exercise we used to lug M18 Claymores everywhere with us, as every night in platoon harbour we had to place one forward of the section machine guns. I'm guessing the Jumping Jacks are long out of service, given the UN 1997 Anti Personnel Mines Convention, but I wonder about the Claymore... we only ever set them on command detonation, but you could rig them with a tripwire, if I recall.

13Bushwhacked
joulukuu 19, 2022, 2:11 am

14John5918
joulukuu 19, 2022, 2:22 am

I've encountered landmines from the opposite end, at times having to drive carefully in between mined areas, sometimes following other vehicles' wheeltracks and strictly avoiding any disturbed soil or unusual object on roads where landmines were suspected, and at times working alongside civilian demining teams. On one occasion I recall having to help rebel soldiers dig their lorry out of the mud so we could get past them, as the other half of the bush track had a landmine which nobody fancied tackling. Mines, both anti-vehicle and anti-personnel, continue to cause death and serious injury to civilians, as well as denying access to much-needed agricultural land, in South Sudan and many other countries long after the war has ended. The sooner they are comprehensively removed from military arsenals, the better.

15Bushwhacked
joulukuu 19, 2022, 4:44 am

>14 John5918: I can tell you John, they were one of the things that scared me the most, even though I only ever had to deal with them in training. I think the Australian Army largely learnt its lesson regarding the futility of mine warfare in Vietnam. Vietnamese sappers became very adept at lifting our 'protective' minefields and re-using them lethally against us...

https://anzacportal.dva.gov.au/wars-and-missions/vietnam-war-1962-1975/events/ph...

16Shrike58
joulukuu 19, 2022, 7:47 am

Finished Stealth: The Secret Contest to Invent Invisible Aircraft. Was low-balling my expectations but this turned out to be one of the better non-fiction books that I've read this year.

17Bushwhacked
joulukuu 19, 2022, 5:07 pm

>16 Shrike58: ... coincidentally I was casting about on Google Maps over the weekend and was surprised to see three B2's with supporting KC135's on the tarmac at RAAF Base Amberley. Clearly caught whilst in transit to somewhere... I'm guessing Diego Garcia.

18Bushwhacked
joulukuu 19, 2022, 5:15 pm

19jztemple
Muokkaaja: joulukuu 20, 2022, 12:45 pm

Completed Brave Men's Blood: The Epic of the Zulu War, 1879 by Ian Knight. Very good history, although more of an overview due to the large number of illustrations in the book, which are very good and as the author points out, he tried to use drawings, paintings and photographs not previously used in other histories. Includes maps of all the major battles.

20Shrike58
Muokkaaja: joulukuu 21, 2022, 7:51 am

Wrapped up The Battle for the Fourteenth Colony. The author doesn't write with a lot of flair but a dispassionate analysis is to be preferred over antiquarianism with a shot of jingoism on the side (the bane of a lot of writing about the American Revolution).

21jztemple
joulukuu 21, 2022, 3:53 pm

>20 Shrike58: I had to look up the use of "antiquarianism" since I wasn't sure of the definition. The definition from Wikipedia: "Today the term "antiquarian" is often used in a pejorative sense, to refer to an excessively narrow focus on factual historical trivia, to the exclusion of a sense of historical context or process. You make a very good point. And thanks for helping me learn another new thing today!

22Bushwhacked
joulukuu 21, 2022, 5:49 pm

>20 Shrike58: Sounds like an interesting book. I'd be curious to understand more of the American motivation of the time... Was it seriously believed Quebec could be added to the Union... by fomenting internal revolution, or by force?... Or was it just a horizontal escalation of military operations in the Revolution? Or perhaps a bit of an attempt to lock in French support?

23Shrike58
Muokkaaja: joulukuu 22, 2022, 7:48 am

>22 Bushwhacked: There was some sense that there were political currents in Quebec that would make them amenable to joining the confrontation with London, but a lot of the deciding factor was that the American commanders on the ground basically had executive authority to take action and mount a spoiling offensive against British forces coming from the north. It is always to be kept in mind that this was basically a self-starting operation by the "New England" colonies without major input from the Continental Congress until rather late in the day. You can put this into the context of New England interest in confronting the French over the course of the 1700s.

24JesseCopley
joulukuu 22, 2022, 7:40 am

Tämä käyttäjä on poistettu roskaamisen vuoksi.

25Shrike58
Muokkaaja: joulukuu 22, 2022, 7:44 am

>21 jztemple: The author is a one-time staff officer from the USAF, who spent quality time as an administrator in Iraq, and his prose reflects that background. It turns out that Anderson has continued to study the Northern theatre of the American Revolution and the University of Oklahoma press published his monograph on the perspective of the First Nations in 2021, which I've put on the long-term TBR list.

Getting back to the book, Anderson notes that the real problem in writing about the Quebec Adventure is that we don't know a great deal about what the French-speaking peasantry thought about all this, apart from not wanting to fight even when led by the French-speaking gentry!

26Shrike58
joulukuu 24, 2022, 9:19 am

Completed The Fleet at Flood Tide. Hornfischer gives one the best narrative accounting of the Marianas Campaign that has been done to date. He was a little less successful in his examination of the American strategic bombing war against Japan, which the taking of the Marianas was supposed to facilitate, and examining the respective processes in Tokyo and Washington regarding war termination. As always, the best thing one can say about Hiroshima and Nagasaki remains that there were worse decisions that could have been made; whether there was really a better one still doesn't seem to be the case.

27John5918
joulukuu 24, 2022, 11:41 am

>26 Shrike58: the best thing one can say about Hiroshima and Nagasaki remains that there were worse decisions that could have been made

Without wishing to judge or second guess the people who made imperfect decisions in their own time and circumstances, and speaking from a human rather than a politico-military perspective, I can't think of a worse decision than deliberately committing a war crime by using weapons of mass destruction against civilian centres, killing hundreds of thousands of people. Better ones? Perhaps exploring more seriously the option of a negotiated surrender or armistice rather than insisting on unconditional surrender?

Maybe a good time to remember President Roosevelt's famous appeal "to the Governments of France, Germany, Italy, Poland and His Britannic Majesty", on 1st September 1939:

The ruthless bombing from the air of civilians in unfortified centers of population during the course of the hostilities which have raged in various quarters of the earth during the past few years, which has resulted in the maiming and in the death of thousands of defenseless men, women, and children, has sickened the hearts of every civilized man and woman, and has profoundly shocked the conscience of humanity. If resort is had to this form of inhuman barbarism during the period of the tragic conflagration with which the world is now confronted, hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings who have no responsibility for, and who are not even remotely participating in, the hostilities which have now broken out, will lose their lives. I am therefore addressing this urgent appeal to every government which may be engaged in hostilities publicly to affirm its determination that its armed forces shall in no event, and under no circumstances, undertake the bombardment from the air of civilian populations or of unfortified cities, upon the understanding that these same rules of warfare will be scrupulously observed by all of their opponents. I request an immediate reply.


Sadly a mere two years later he reneged on his position and the USA joined Britain and Germany in the "ruthless bombing from the air of civilians in unfortified centers of population", and a few more years later his successor also ignored his appeal with the atomic bombs dropped on Japanese civilians.

28Shrike58
Muokkaaja: joulukuu 24, 2022, 12:37 pm

>27 John5918: No negotiated surrender with the Japanese military in place was ever likely, as that would leave in place the military caste who provoked the Sino-Japanese war that ultimately led to the Pacific War. Their practical attitude towards the emperor was that the emperor should shut up and listen to them; they had a sense of accountability that an organized crime operation would find laughable. Your next best option is probably starving Japan into submission, and truly breaking Japanese society; that was the USN's position. After that you wind up with an invasion of the Japanese home islands, where nukes WILL be used as tactical assault weapons, along with chemical weapons. Possibly also with a Soviet invasion of Hokkaido.

As it was there was a negotiated surrender, as reading between the lines of the Dresden Declaration there was a promise to not destroy the Imperial house; that would have to be sold to a big chunk of the American public though.

Be that as it may, a major portion of Hornfischer's examination of the question is that the U.S military in Saipan for the first time experienced the Japanese military's willingness to sacrifice the Japanese civilian population to save their egos and privileges, and it hardened American hearts.

And yeah, these days, the whole American bombing campaign in Japan would basically be regarded as a war crime. The now gratefully fading "Good War" mentality means that a lot of polite lies are being disposed of.

29Shrike58
joulukuu 25, 2022, 8:03 am

Happy holidays to all and let us hope for better luck in 2023; I fear we're going to need it.

30Bushwhacked
Muokkaaja: joulukuu 29, 2022, 7:36 pm

... and rounding out the year with John Hepworth's The Long Green Shore in the tradition of fictionalised memoirs from the Australian Army's ranks of the Second World War. Others falling into this genre that are worth a read include Glassop's We Were the Rats Hungerford's The Ridge and the River Ryan's Fear Drive My Feet and Pinney's New Guinea Trilogy.

To borrow from LP Hartley "The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there"...

Happy New Year to All...

Postscript... I'll be taking a break from the Group in 2023. Good Reading to all.

31jztemple
joulukuu 26, 2022, 10:37 pm

Finished an old Ballantine's Illustrated History of World War II book, Barrage: The Guns in Action by Ian V. Hogg. This is one of the better books in the series as instead of talking about the hardware, which Hogg did in two others of these books, the author instead discussed how artillery was used (and misused). There is a chapter on WW1 on the Western Front. The are also chapters on WW2 in North Africa, the Eastern Front, Italy, the Far East and the assault into Germany. There is also an excellent chapter where Hogg describes how a field artillery regiment worked, chains of command, locations, communications and the preparation, distribution and implementation of firing orders.

32rocketjk
joulukuu 30, 2022, 3:27 pm

Just before the year's end I finished The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution, C.L.R. James' classic history of the Haitian Revolution and biography of its brilliant and charismatic leader, Tousaint L'Overture. This is a fascinating, multi-dimensional history and biography of a chapter of history I knew very little about. The book was originally published in 1938. My copy was a second printing of the book's 1971 republishing with a new introduction and an appendix by the author. James paid a lot of detailed attention to the various battles of the revolution itself, in addition to shining a light on the politics of class/race divisions and the ills of imperialism.

33rocketjk
Muokkaaja: tammikuu 1, 2023, 12:42 pm

OK, I snuck in one more short but fascinating work before year's end. I finished Watch Czechoslovakia! by Richard Freund. This book was written in 1937, just months before the infamous Munich Agreement. The book is, at its heart, an examination of the conflicts within the country between the Czechoslovak majority and the German minority, the use that Nazi Germany might be likely to make of these conflicts, and the very important reasons why they would care. I could find very little information about the book's author. I did find a couple of contemporary book reviews online. Freund is referred to in one as an "Anglicized Austrian journalist" and in another as an "Anglo-Austrian journalist." At any rate, he seems to have known his business. He describes at one point an interview he had with Edvard Beneš, who had been the country's president since 1935 and would serve in that capacity again after the war. In between, Beneš led the Czech government in exile during the Nazi occupation.

Freund give a thumbnail sketch of Czechoslovak history and describes the geographic and economic factors that have made the country of such strategic importance in Central Europe throughout the centuries. As Freund wrote:

"Four points should be remembered: (1) the Western mountain arch, pointing towards the heart of Germany; (2) the 50 miles' gap in the northern range which, as the "Gateway of Moravia," has played an important part in the migrations of the European races for thousands of years; (3) the long sweep of the Carpathians pointing towards Rumania and Russia; (4) the Danube in the south.

The Bohemian basin with its mountain walls has been coveted by ambitious nations from the dawn of history, because its possession gives to a strong military power a strategic basis for operations over vast tracts of the European Continent."


The German minority in the country actually made up around 22% of Czechoslovakia's overall population. As Freund describes things, quite a few of their grievances were legitimate. But by time of his writing in 1937, he says that rather than working towards solving these problems, a nationalist German party, under the leadership of a Nazi sympathizer named Konrad Henlein, was much more interested in kicking up dissension and creating an excuse for the Nazi Army to take action. Freund describes the separate mutual defense agreements the Czechoslovakians had with both France and Russia, and talks about what these allies were likely to do in the face of a German incursion. Freund seems to have been able to imagine every eventuality other than what actually occurred, the Allies ignoring their own strategic interests by handing over the country to the Nazi's. Given the strategic military use Hitler and his generals were obviously likely to make of occupying the country, it's astonishing in retrospect that Neville Chamberlin could have every supposed that the result of the Munich Agreement would be a significant period of peace.

I've read elsewhere that Beneš threatened the Allies with resisting the Germans despite the Munich Agreement (for what it's worth, Freund, in describing their likely strategy predicted they could hold out for around six months), telling Chamberlin that, agreement or no, if the Czechs fought, the Allies would be forced by public opinion to come to their aid militarily. Supposedly, Chamberlin replied that Beneš was correct, that the English and French would have to fight, but that if that happened they would make sure that the country was punished in any post-war treaties.

It's all fascinating information, especially given the fact that it was written at the moment, and as educated conjecture rather than as history. It took me only a single rainy afternoon to race through the book's 112 pages. I have no idea when and where I found this volume. It's been sitting on my history shelf since before I first started posting my library here on LT in 2008, as its entry date in my LT collection is March 1, 2008. It's in perfect condition with dust jacket intact. Finally, there are exactly three LT "members" listed as having this book. Me, something called Czech Center Museum (which provides no information on its LT profile page as to where or what it actually is*) and Ernest Hemingway!

* Possibly this place in Houston: https://www.czechcenter.org/

34Shrike58
Muokkaaja: tammikuu 2, 2023, 11:05 pm

>33 rocketjk: Very interesting. That Chamberlain threatened Benes with consequences for having the temerity to defend his country reminds me of previous "concerts" of Europe that built stability on selling other people out. This is not to mention contemporary folks who wish that the Ukrainians would just pack it in so that they don't have to be bothered.

35rocketjk
tammikuu 1, 2023, 12:41 pm

>34 Shrike58: Amen! And Happy New Year.

36Karlstar
tammikuu 2, 2023, 11:10 am

I started The Great Admirals: Command at Sea by Jack Sweetman and others. Just finished the essay on George Dewey, moving on to Togo (not Tojo) now so moving into the 20th century. There's a complete list of the Admirals I've read in the book in the Green Dragon group, here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/342834#8003518