And we finally come to the end of the war against both Germany and Japan, rather curiously combined into a single chapter. The start is the last gasp of the Battle of the Atlantic, which now is sharing not only with invasions in Europe but also with an entirely different ocean's war. I feel like noting that while the Type XXI and its successors were a serious problem for ASW forces postwar, the sheer number of escorts available and the inexperience of the German skippers probably made it somewhat less of a threat than it sounded like. As for the Type XXVI, hydrogen peroxide may be a relatively mild substance by the standards of rocket oxidizers, but it's still nasty, nasty stuff to be trapped in a submarine with, and I don't think the Germans would have been able to get it working as their war machine collapses, given the failures of the victorious Allies to make it functional postwar.

Back in the Pacific, we see the battleships getting into the action against the Japanese mainland, as well as the sad tale of Indianapolis, by far the most overdone story of the Pacific War relative to its importance. (I have seen libraries where their entire naval section was three SEAL memoirs and two books on this tragedy.) More fun is the discussion of the massive underway replenishment effort, a subject I've always loved. Read more...

On my last afternoon in Dayton, Nelson said that she was not interested in going back to the Air Force Museum yet again, so we went looking for other attractions in the city, and settled on Carillon Park, Dayton's main local history museum/center. Now, for most places, that's about three rooms about the city's founding fathers and some natural disaster that struck in the town in the 19th century. And, well, there was that, but there was also a lot of stuff related to Dayton's fairly astonishing history of innovation. This is the town that gave us not only the airplane, but also the cash register, the cruise missile, leaded gasoline, the electric car starter, the pull tab for cans, and even freon, as well as lots of smaller stuff.

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The main pavilion is focused on Dayton's engineering history, from its status as a manufacturing hub in the mid-19th century to the invention of the cash register by the company that became NCR (they have a really cool display of models sold all over the world) to more modern stuff. It was great, and made me wonder why there isn't a National Museum of Engineering, because that should totally be a thing and I would go there a lot. The exhibits were done well, and cover a lot of subjects in a way that felt accessible without being patronizing, a sadly common problem in science-type museums. Read more...

With the European war mostly closed, we move from the Philippines north into some of the best-known battles of the Pacific War. I don't have a lot to say about Iwo Jima, but was amused by his comment that Okinawa was somewhere "where American forces seem destined to remain until the cold war waxes hot or the communist menace fades." And here we are, six decades later, with the communist menace that he spoke of gone, and yet American forces remain on Okinawa.

I was also intrigued by his comments about the New York Fire Department providing the impetus for the development of fog nozzles, which I don't think came up when I wrote about the subject. I did a bit more digging, and discovered that while nothing Morison says is technically wrong, the framing is extremely weird. The fog nozzle was pushed on Adm. Cochrane at BuShips by Harold J. Burke, who was a member of the New York City Fire department, but was a Lieutenant in the Naval Reserve at the time, and he did go on to run the damage control school with Lt. Thomas Kilduff, who was formerly of the Boston Fire Department. As far as I can tell, there was no particular institutional involvement by either city's fire department in the DC school or program, which would explain why I'd never heard about this.

I certainly appreciate Morison's skillful portrait of the Okinawa landing, and of the destruction of Yamato, although I have to nitpick his comment that "not another battleship was ever built". Both Vanguard and Jean Bart were completed after the war, and I maintain that the battleship remained important for a decade or so after this. I also feel compelled to point out that the effectiveness of the armored flight decks on British carriers is overstated, and that the smaller air wings imposed by said decks meant they were hit about as often as the Americans, despite having far fewer ships.

And then we come to the horror of the kamikaze attacks on the Americans off Okinawa, one of the most brutal battles of the war. I don't have much to add to Morison's account, except to call him out for ignoring the loss of the William D. Porter, a favorite here at Naval Gazing. But with that campaign closed, next week will be our final chapter in the book.

For last week's DSL meetup, I returned to the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson AFB¹ for the first time in 16 years. I've previously reviewed it based on that visit, but that was years after the fact, and I wasn't able to give the sort of detail that I like to. But, in the wake of an incredibly fun meetup (you should come to Iowa next year) I can now review it properly.

Website

This is an incredibly good museum on several levels. First, the collection is unmatched. I don't know of anywhere else you could look at the history of land-based military aviation, from the Wrights to supersonic flight to stealth, entirely with real airplanes. Across the four big hangars, there's an example of almost everything the USAAF/USAF has flown since the 20s, along with many planes stolen from our enemies, and quite a few of the planes themselves have cool stories, ranging from a number that set important records to the Cornfield Bomber. Not to mention the unique planes, like most of the stuff in the R&D Gallery, home of the world's greatest airplane, the XB-70. Read more...

With Leyte over, this chapter was always going to be smaller and less impressive, covering a campaign forgotten in the shadow of that great naval battle. But it’s a good reminder of the early days of the kamikaze campaign, and we encounter a mention of our friend the proximity fuze. Also, it’s worth pointing out that by this point in the war, US air defenses were strong enough that the kamikazes were actually more effective in terms of lives lost per bomb hit than conventional bombing, even if it takes a uniquely Japanese mindset to actually implement the plan.

There’s also an interesting reappearance of “current politics c.1963″ when Morison starts talking about how it’s a problem that the Allies didn’t move more swiftly into Indonesia. 1963 was the start of the Indonesian confrontation, basically an undeclared war between Britain and Indonesia over the creation of Malaysia, and I suspect Morison talks about that mostly because it was in the news at the time.

And this was going to be a short chapter, so operations in the Philippines got combined with Morison’s account of the war against Japanese commerce fought by American submarines. It’s a rather lurching shift to go back to 1942, and the necessity to cover a campaign of this scale means that almost all individual elements are lost in the early years, except for an admittedly amusing story about carrying Muslims to the Philippines (although I still can’t figure out why they wouldn’t be able to eat ice cream). This is better in 1944, although the rapid-fire recounting of actions (some of which I’ve read about at much greater length) is a lot to take in all at once.

Also, I should point out that ″Shinano″ did not have a 30 cm flight deck. That’s a full foot of armor, and I’m not sure any ship ever built had a deck that thick. It was a more normal 3″/7.5 cm, and ″⁣Shinano″⁣ is the canonical example of progressive flooding caused by insufficient watertightness, although the complacency of the crew didn’t help much. I am also sad that the coolest submarine of the war, ″⁣Barb″⁣, was only mentioned briefly once, and didn’t receive recognition for blowing up a train, sneaking in absurdly close to the enemy coast and setting a speed record on the way out, or using rockets to pioneer the modern submarine mission of land attack.

The battleship Jean Bart was under construction when the German offensive smashed the French army in 1940. She was being built in Saint-Nazaire, on the country's Atlantic Coast, and after defeating the armies in Belgium, the Germans took some time to prepare for further offensives, giving the French a chance to get her to sea and safely out of German hands. This would only become possible around June 20th, when the tides were right, a channel to her building dock had been dredged, and last-minute efforts would make her about ready for sea.

French dredge Pas de Calais II being launched in 1933

As the departure day approached, it looked like things were coming together. The channel was on schedule for completion, and Jean Bart would be met by HMS Vanquisher, who would escort her to safety on the Clyde. But the political situation was in flux, and on the 17th, her destination was changed to North Africa. The British were not informed. But bigger changes came the next day, when word reached Saint-Nazaire that the Germans were approaching, and the ship needed to leave as quickly as possible. The need to fill the dock meant they'd miss the next tide, so the first opportunity would come at 0300 on the 19th, and a bit of unfinished work in the channel meant that at one point it had lost 5m of its 50m width, making a narrow squeeze for Jean Bart's 33m beam. But the bigger challenge was that it would have to be navigated in the dark. Two teams spent the afternoon of the 18th frantically working, one to make the final preparations for sailing, the other planting scuttling charges in case she was unable to do so. Read more...

And now we come to the naval climax of the war, the greatest of all sea battles: Leyte Gulf. This chapter is jam-packed, and as such, Morison keeps the strategy section fairly short, and with only one obvious lie, that Admiral King wasn't anti-British. He was in fact a very confirmed Anglophobe, although possibly only as an extension of general misanthropy. Then there's the decision to massively accelerate the landings on Leyte, which Morison if anything undersells as a truly awe-inspiring logistical achievement. The actions of TF 38 before the attack get fairly short shrift, with the escape of Houston and Canberra from the waters off Formosa getting only a brief mention. It's one of the war's great epics of naval engineering, and I really need to write it up at some point.

But all of this brevity is in service of getting to the main event. Sibuyan Sea is quickly dealt with, but he spends plenty of time on Suriago Strait, the last action between battleships, which Morison gives a fitting rhetorical sendoff to. Then Samar, where I would complain that he falls into the too-common trap of focusing on Johnston over the other escorts in Taffy 3, but I'm also wildly biased in favor of Hoel for various reasons. The other major factor that I think gets ignored in Morison's account of Samar is Kurita's probable sleep deprivation, and the mental strain of having a couple flagships shot out from under him, which likely contributed to his remarkably bad decision-making.

And then there's Cape Engano and the infamous incident with Task Force 34, and I think Morison sort of drops the ball on this one, because there's really no discussion of the confusion that led to the San Bernadino Strait being uncovered beyond the bare fact that it happened. For those who don't know, the conventional view is Halsey is primarily responsible for the screwup, although I'm in the more recent revisionist camp that points out that Halsey's priority was the Japanese carriers, not covering the landings directly, so it was ultimately up to Kinkaid to make sure he was covered. (Although this doesn't excuse Halsey's poor phrasing of his orders, which everyone outside Third Fleet misunderstood.) I also feel compelled to point out that if he had left TF 34 to block Kurita, it would have done wonders for the historical reputation of the battleship, because nobody would believe how little damage Kurita's fleet did to Taffy 3 in real life. But Morison basically skips all of this because he can gloss over it and talking about it doesn't really make the USN look good.

When the French resumed battleship construction in the 1930s after the lapse of the Treaty System, they were faced with a problem. A large infrastructure program in the early part of the century had left them well-equipped to build battleships 200 m long, but as ships got faster, they also got longer, and by the mid-30s, 200m was typical for a heavy cruiser, and battleships would need to be considerably longer. A few 250m drydocks were available, but most building facilities were still at the old limit. To get around this, Dunkerque, the first of the new ships, was built in two sections, a 197m main hull and a 17 m bow, the two then being attached in one of the longer drydocks.

Strasbourg is launched in Saint Nazaire

This worked quite well, and when the only long set of ways available, originally used to build the liner Normandie, was taken up by Dunkerque's sister Strasbourg, the decision was made to build Richelieu, the first of their 35,000-ton treaty battleships, in the same manner. The center section, 197m long, was built in the same drydock as Dunkerque, while the 43m bow and 8m stern were built elsewhere and mated up in drydock. Read more...

It's time once again for our regular Open Thread. Talk about whatever you want, so long as it isn't Culture War.

Overhauls are Falklands Part 1, The Spanish-American War Part 4, LCS Parts one, two and three, A visit to Texas, and for 2025, Orbital Missile Defense and Carrier Operations Parts one, two and three.

And now we come to the last full chapter of the European War, a naval account of the invasion of France. I quite enjoyed this chapter, probably because, unlike so many other chapters, none of it felt rushed. There was good coverage of everything from the strategic background to Overlord and Anvil/Dragoon (and yes, you might claim that it went on a bit too long dumping on Churchill's opposition to the second one, but I am absolutely here for dumping on Churchill's screwups like that) to the logistics of the invasion and the action on the beaches. I also like that the Southern France invasion wasn't shortchanged as it so often is in discussions of the European War. Normandy was undoubtedly important, but I'm not sure I've ever seen it undercovered in any history of WWII ever.

Beyond that, the only thing of particular interest in this chapter was Morison's point about the ways in which the different logistical situations of the Americans and British drove their approaches to planning. I had never quite put that together before, but it does make a lot of sense of why there was tension between the two sides over how much planning needed to happen and when.

Also, a couple of brief notes. First, Arkansas was firing 12", not 14", and I also think Morison underrates how difficult the fighting was for some of the British troops on June 6th. But that's about it, although I am reminded that I should look more into the coastal gun battles during this period.