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.
Reader Ryan recently was in Hawaii, and kindly agreed to share his review of the various facilities there, ranging from the battleship Missouri to the air museum on Ford Island and various facilities ashore.
December 7th, 1941 – A day that shall live in infamy August 15th, 1945 – We hereby proclaim the unconditional surrender to the Allied Powers of the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters and of all Japanese armed forces and all armed forces under Japanese control wherever situated. Read more...
So here we have another chapter that mixes the Mediterranean with the Atlantic, as the Allies go ashore in Italy, beginning with the landings at Salerno. Salerno, south of Naples, is plausibly the most undercovered of the war's amphibious operations relative to how hot it was as a battle. The traditional story of amphibious warfare in Europe is about 90% Normandy and the remaining 10% gets sliced up among, prominently, Torch and Anzio, with Sicily probably also coming in ahead of Salerno. But it was the first large-scale deployment of guided bombs, as well as being the American landing that came closest to disaster of any in the war.
Of course, disaster is not the same thing as failure, which brings us to Anzio. Morison prefers not to dwell on it, but I think it's worth quoting cartoonist Bill Mauldin's excellent book Up Front to give a sense of what it was like there: "Anzio was unique. It was the only place in Europe which held an entire corps of infantry, a British division, all kinds of artillery and special units, and maintained an immense supply and administration setup without a rear echelon. As a matter of fact, there wasn’t any rear; there was no place in the entire beachhead where enemy shells couldn’t seek you out. Read more...
Starting in the 1840s, the electric telegraph began to link together the world's cities. Initially, this was only over land or bridgeable rivers, but soon, efforts were made to pass cables underwater, at least over short distances. Intercontinental cables remained a dream until the arrival of Cyrus Field, an American who put together a company to bridge the North Atlantic. His first attempt, laid by American and British warships in 1857, failed when the cable snapped 300 miles out from Ireland, but he raised more money and tried again the next year. That cable was more successful, in that it did provide a telegraph link between the two countries, but it was so noisy that it would take hours to send a message. To make matters worse, construction and operational defects meant that it failed completely in only a month.
The cable's failure provoked widespread skepticism, a matter made worse by the failure of an even more expensive cable through the Red Sea to India, and a commission of inquiry was set up to investigate the problems of submarine cables. The commission, a joint effort of the British government and the Atlantic Telegraph Company whose members included physicist Charles Wheatstone, published a 560 page report that confirmed that the problems with the cable were ones of design and operation, and that the concept itself was not inherently flawed. Unfortunately, it would take many years for Field to raise the money necessary to try again. Pretty much everyone in his own country was distracted for some reason, and the British ended up providing the lion's share of the money for the second attempt. This time, there was no rush to prepare the cable, and samples were made and thoroughly tested, with the final version being over twice as strong and three times as conductive as the first cable. Read more...
This is another chapter that is basically a straight adaptation of one of Morison's books, in this case Volume 8, with which it shares a title. Unfortunately, the first half gets extremely short shrift, which I think is sad. As much as I am not a fan of Douglas MacArthur, Morison's full account of the New Guinea campaign has long convinced me that it is one of the great military accomplishments of WWII, and he simply doesn't use enough space here to do it justice. I also am not sure that Morison's claims about only MacArthur being able to pull it off are true, but I will agree that it is the one unambiguous piece of evidence the case in favor of him being a great general has going for it.
One thing that jumped out was Morison ascribing the inactivity of the Japanese fleet to American air superiority. While that's certainly part of the picture, the increasingly perilous oil situation the Japanese found themselves in was also a major component not only of the ships not moving, but also of the Japanese inability to train replacement pilots, and it's weird that he doesn't even mention that. That section also has another veiled reference to codebreaking in the Pacific Fleet "finding out" where the enemy submarines were and sending hunter-killer groups after them. And of course, this is where England put up an unmatched score of 6 boats in 12 days, despite the efforts of the group commander to spread kills out among the ships of the unit. For kill number 6, she was only allowed in after 3 other DEs had failed, and promptly added to her tally. Read more...
37 years ago today, while conducting gunnery exercises off the coast of Puerto Rico, Turret II exploded aboard Iowa. 47 members of her crew were killed. Every year, a memorial ceremony is held for them, and I was able to attend in 2019 and honor the men who died.
They came to the Navy as strangers. Served the Navy as shipmates and friends and left the Navy as brothers in eternity. - George H.W. Bush
This week, we turn from the drive up the Solomons on Rabaul to the origins of the mighty Pacific Fleet that would ultimately take the war to Japan itself. Morison's coverage of the conflict between MacArthur and Nimitz whether the latter would have any real role in the Pacific is mercifully brief, although unfortunately, so is the rest of the chapter. With the exception of the raid on Truk (and the first appearance of Iowa), this is a chapter about amphibious warfare, and for whatever reason, the amphibious operations feel like they've been cut back more than other portions of the 14-volume series. Maybe it's just a matter of space, as operations like Tarawa were extremely complex and I think he's trying to be more focused specifically on the Navy in Two-Ocean War than he is in the full series.
Beyond that, I don't have a ton to say. The Central Pacific generally gets more attention than the southwest Pacific campaign, so I suspect most of you didn't get as much out of this one, and Morison's normal rhetoric only shows up in a few places, making me wonder if this was a chapter that had to be written hastily in the process of getting the book done. But next week, we'll get the last great carrier battle of the war, as well as one of the great and overlooked campaigns of the war. I promise I'll be a lot more verbose then.
Oh, and as a final note, the 8" guns at Tarawa were not from Singapore. They were instead from a batch bought by Japan in 1905 for use during their war with Russia.
By the mid-1850s, the telegraph was well on its way to uniting the world. In the previous decade, it had woven together the cities of the industrial world, and means had even been found to bridge the narrow seas. But the broad oceans remained a daunting challenge, and it would take a man of unusual drive to bridge them and bring Europe and America within seconds of each other.
The man in question was Cyrus Field of Massachusetts, who had made a fortune in the paper business and semi-retired by his mid-30s. While relaxing after a trip across the wilds of South America, he met a man raising money for a telegraph line from New York to Newfoundland, the closest point in North America to Europe. But Field, after studying his globe, thought that this wasn't going nearly far enough, and became obsessed with linking the two countries across the North Atlantic. With the backing of Samuel Morse and Matthew Maury, a Navy Lieutenant who had basically invented oceanography, he set about raising funds for first the completion of the Newfoundland cable, and then the link across the ocean. He was phenomenally successful at this, convincing not only many of the leading businessmen on both sides of the Atlantic to invest, but also getting promises of support from the British government, including a long-term operating subsidy and the use of warships to help lay the cable. The American government was far more reluctant to get involved, due to a mix of provincialism and anglophobia, but the bill squeaked through the Senate, and Field had the support he needed for the project. Read more...
It's time once again for our monthly open thread. Talk about whatever you want, so long as it isn't culture war.
Overhauls are light this week, just the 2025 posts, Suez Parts four, five and six, as well as and Dipole Python.
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