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This riveting biography details how Stanley “Swede” Vejtasa became a World War II naval hero. During the Battle of the Coral Sea, Swede flew an SBD Dauntless dive-bomber and helped sink Shoho, the first aircraft carrier lost by Japan in World War II. The next day, in that same Dauntless, he took off from USS Yorktown and out-flew and out-gunned three Japanese Zeros, making him the only dive bomber pilot to be awarded Navy Crosses for both bombing and aerial combat.
Months later, the day before the Battle of Santa Cruz, Swede was flying an F4F Wildcat fighter off USS Enterprise and had no recourse but to follow orders he knew to be insane. He and his squadron mates flew their predictably empty search legs and beyond, only to discover upon their return to Point Option in the dark, that Enterprise was nowhere to be found. Incredibly, Swede located the oil slick he had noticed seeping from Enterprise during a morning combat air patrol and was able to track it back to the carrier.
After their harrowing return, during the Battle of Santa Cruz, the fate of Enterprise, and by extension Guadalcanal, lay in the hands of that same Swede Vejtasa. He responded by single-handedly downing an unprecedented two Japanese dive bombers and five torpedo bombers attacking the carrier. Skipper Jimmy Flatley recognized that in all likelihood, Swede had saved Enterprise from destruction, and he recommended Swede for the Medal of Honor.
American Sea Power in the Old World
This classic study examines the deployment of U.S. naval vessels in European and Near Eastern waters from the end of the Civil War until the United States declared war in April 1917. Initially these ships were employed to visit various ports from the Baltic Sea to the eastern Mediterranean and Constantinople (today Istanbul), for the primary purpose of showing the flag. From the 1890s on, most of the need for the presence of the American warships occurred in the eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Unrest in the Ottoman Empire and particularly the Muslim hostility and threats to Armenians led to calls for protection. This would continue into the years of World War I. In 1905, the Navy Department ended the permanent stationing of a squadron in European waters.
From then until the U.S. declaration of war in 1917, individual ships, detached units, and special squadrons were at times deployed in European waters. In 1908, the converted yacht Scorpion was sent as station ship (stationnaire) to Constantinople where she would remain, operating in the eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea until 1928. Upon the outbreak of World War I, President Woodrow Wilson ordered cruisers to northern European waters and the Mediterranean to protect American interests. These warships, however, did more than protect American interests. They would evacuate thousands of refugees, American tourists, Armenians, Jews, and Italians after Italy entered the conflict on the side of the Allies.
Hell to Pay
Two years before the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki helped bring a quick end to hostilities in the summer of 1945, U.S. planners began work on Operation Downfall, codename for the Allied invasions of Kyushu and Honshu, in the Japanese home islands. While other books have examined Operation Downfall, D. M. Giangreco offers the most complete and exhaustively researched consideration of the plans and their implications. He explores related issues of the first operational use of the atomic bomb and the Soviet Union’s entry into the war, including the controversy surrounding estimates of potential U.S. casualties.Following years of intense research at numerous archives, Giangreco now paints a convincing and horrific picture of the veritable hell that awaited invader and defender. In the process, he demolishes the myths that Japan was trying to surrender during the summer of 1945 and that U.S. officials later wildly exaggerated casualty figures to justify using the atomic bombs to influence the Soviet Union. As Giangreco writes, “Both sides were rushing headlong toward a disastrous confrontation in the Home Islands in which poison gas and atomic weapons were to be employed as MacArthur’s intelligence chief, Charles Willoughby, succinctly put it, ‘a hard and bitter struggle with no quarter asked or given.’”Hell to Pay examines the invasion of Japan in light of the large body of Japanese and American operational and tactical planning documents the author unearthed in familiar and obscure archives. It includes postwar interrogations and reports that senior Japanese commanders and their staffs were ordered to produce for General MacArthur’s headquarters. This groundbreaking history counters the revisionist interpretations questioning the rationale for the use of the atomic bomb and shows that President Truman’s decision was based on real estimates of the enormous human cost of a conventional invasion.This revised edition of Hell to Pay expands on several areas covered in the previous book and deals with three new topics: U.S.-Soviet cooperation in the war against Imperial Japan; U.S., Soviet, and Japanese plans for the invasion and defense of the northernmost Home Island of Hokkaido; and Operation Blacklist, the three-phase insertion of American occupation forces into Japan. It also contains additional text, relevant archival material, supplemental photos, and new maps, making this the definitive edition of an important historical work.
Strategic Theories
Admiral Raoul Castex French Navy
Admiral Raoul Castex is France’s most important modern naval strategist. Military historian Eugenia Kiesling offers the essence of Castex’s original five volume study, Théories Stratégiques, in a useful one-volume abridgment and a very readable translation. It emphasizes the admiral’s method of strategic analysis while omitting most of the chapters of historical narrative. Included are chapters defining strategy and relating it to policy and geography, analyzing the role of maritime forces and the significance of command at sea, prescribing a theory of conduct of operations, and introducing Castex’s favorite themes: strategic manoeuvre, stratégie générale, and the theory of “perturbation”.
Two narrative chapters on German operations in the North Sea from 1914 to 1916 remain as examples of the author’s historical style. The introduction places Castex’s work in four distinct contexts: the international debate among naval theorists on the nature and importance of “command at sea,” the controversy within France between advocates of the “historical” and “material” schools of naval strategy, the contemporary concern over coordinated naval strategy for total war, and his contribution to the formulation of French strategy between the world wars. In an era of expanding global responsibilities and shrinking national economies, Castex’s balanced view of naval power offers many insights for today’s new generation of naval thinkers.
Incidents at Sea
Free to patrol the skies and surface of the high seas under international law, U.S. and Soviet naval and air forces made daily direct contact during the Cold War. Often confrontational and occasionally violent, air-to-air contacts alone killed more than one hundred Soviet and American aviators during the Truman and Eisenhower years. Diplomacy to curtail the hostility produced mixed results. In the 1960s, the Soviet navy challenged U.S. naval dominance worldwide and collisions and charges of harassment became common. In 1972, the two nations signed an Incidents at Sea Agreement (INCSEA) that established navy-to-navy channels to resolve issues. This agreement, still in effect between the U.S. and Russia, is the focus of David Winkler’s study.
Here Winkler argues that Soviet and American naval officers, sharing bonds inherent in seamen, were able to put ideology aside and speak frankly. Working together, they limited incidents that have had unfortunate consequences. The process they established served as a model for similar accords between other maritime nations. With the emergence of China has a maritime power, elements of the US-Russia accord were adopted to assure peaceful interactions between American and Chinese naval forces.
Drawing on previously unavailable State Department files, declassified Navy policy papers, discussions with former top officials, interviews with individuals who were involved in incidents, Winkler details the U.S.-Soviet naval relationship through the end of the Cold War and beyond. Since the publication of Cold War at Sea: High Seas Confrontation between the United States and Soviet Union by the Naval Institute Press in 2000, confrontations at sea still occur, but efforts continue to limit their frequency and impact on international relations. In this volume, Winkler expands the narrative to bring the story to the present, detailing occasional U.S.-Russia naval force interactions such as the April 2016 Russian aircraft “buzzings” of the USS Donald Cook in the Baltic. He also details China’s efforts to militarize the South China Sea, claim sovereignty over waters within their economic exclusion zone (EEZ), and the U.S. Navy’s continuing efforts to counter these challenges to the freedom of navigation.
Overall, because of the regimens put in place, incidents at sea have become a rarity. While those who negotiated these regimens deserve recognition, it is the seaman and aviators who operate on the world’s oceans who deserve the ultimate acclaim for their professionalism in assuring that the agreed upon protocols were implemented.
Limiting Risk in America's Wars
The United States has the most expensive and seemingly military forces in the world. Yet, since World War II its military success rate has been fairly meager. The Korean War was a draw, Vietnam, Mogadishu, Afghanistan and Iraq were clear losses. Successes include: Iraq in 1991, the Balkans (Croatia and Kosovo), Panama, the initial takedowns of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, and Libya.
Failures have been marked by the introduction of large numbers of conventional American ground troops, while successes have been characterized by the use of airpower, special operations forces, robust intelligence and sensor platforms, and the use of indigenous ground troops.
The vital interests of the United States are seldom at stake; instead, the US intervenes to punish aggressors or topple particularly inhumane dictators. As a result, the US and its allies strive to maintain public support, both at home and abroad. One of the surest ways to lose this support is to suffer high casualties or, worse, inflict them on the societies we are ostensibly attempting to help. The goal of limiting cost and casualties is hindered by the introduction of large numbers of conventional ground troops—especially in the xenophobic societies of the Middle East.
This desire to limit risk and cost, while still achieving definable political goals, results in a quandary. This is not a new problem, and as early as two millennia ago nations sought to achieve these dual and often contradictory goals against enemies with asymmetric strengths. Often, nations rejected taking on a powerful enemy head-to-head; instead, belligerents launched “second front operations”—they moved the war elsewhere to achieve local superiority. Not surprisingly, this strategy was especially appealing to nations possessing powerful navies. Britain, who controlled the seas for several centuries, was especially adept at using this “second front” strategy.
Today we find that although second fronts may not be necessary, the reasons for conducting such operations are still with us—the desire to limit risk while achieving measurable goals. For America that means eschewing the use of massive numbers of ground troops to invade and occupy a subject country, but instead using its asymmetric strengths—a combination of airpower, SOF, intelligence and indigenous ground troops to achieve political goals.
Anatomy of Failure
Since the end of World War II, America lost every war it started and failed in military interventions when it did not use sound strategic thinking or have sufficient knowledge and understanding of the circumstances in deciding to use force. The public and politicians need to understand why we have often failed in using military force and the causes. From that understanding, hopefully future administrations will be better prepared when considering the most vexing decision to employ force and send Americans into battle.
The twin causes have been the failure to think strategically and to have sufficient knowledge and understanding when deciding on the use of force. Interestingly, this failure applies to republicans and democrats alike and seems inherent in our national DNA as we continue ignore past mistakes. By examining the records of presidents from John F. Kennedy to Barack Obama in using force or starting wars, it becomes self-evident why we fail. And the argument is reinforced by autobiographical vignettes that provide a human dimension and insight into the reasons for failure, in some cases making public previously unknown history.
The recommendations and solutions offered in Anatomy of Failure begin with a framework for a brains based approach to strategic thinking and then address specific bureaucratic, political, organizational and cultural deficiencies have reinforced this propensity for failure. The clarion call of the book is that both a sound strategic framework and sufficient knowledge and understanding of the circumstance that may lead to using force are vital. Without them, failure is virtually guaranteed.
Gambling and War
In 1914, as Germany mobilized for war, Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg remarked to the country’s legislators, “If the iron dice must roll, then God help us.” War has often been compared to a game of dice or a lottery. But just as frequently, war has been compared to a game of pure strategy like chess. Napoleon’s shocking successes during the early years of the Napoleonic Wars, for instance, are often attributed to strategic superiority and his ability to see the conflict in the same way a player sees the pieces on a chess board.
In reality, the business of negotiating with adversaries, fighting wars, and ending wars is far more complicated than a game of chess where each player can see all the pieces on the board and knows the possible paths that they can take. Even a casual observer of history can see that war is far more chaotic and unpredictable. And yet, international bargaining and international conflict is not a simple dice game either, where human beings have no control over the outcome. A comprehensive analysis of why wars occur and how they are fought must take into account a variety of factors including strategy, human error and dumb luck.
And perhaps no game in human history better captures these elements than the game of poker. Indeed, Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz remarked that “war most closely resembles a game of cards.” To succeed in poker, it is not enough to simply anticipate the actions of other players and try to outsmart them. A successful player must also have an understanding of, and a healthy appreciation for, the role of randomness. Additionally, players must confront the reality that all human beings are prone to errors in judgment, which causes them to make suboptimal choices under many circumstances. Taken together, all of these challenges make poker a fascinating and highly unpredictable game, explaining its enduring popularity.
This book focuses on applying lessons learned from poker, blackjack, roulette and other games of chance to study of international conflict. The book demonstrates how the combined factors of strategy, psychology and probability influence the outbreak of wars, how they are fought, and why they end. Drawing on scholarly insights from a variety of fields, including probability, statistics, political science, psychology and economics, the book offers thoughts on how we can better manage and prevent international conflict, the costliest game of all.
Neglected Skies
Neglected Skies is a reconsideration of one of the Second World War’s most forgotten naval engagements – the abortive clash between the British Eastern Fleet and the Imperial Japanese Navy’s First Air Fleet (Kido Butai) to the south of Ceylon, over a period of ten days in late March/early April 1942. The focus upon this battle is for the purpose of exploring the surrender of British naval supremacy from the operational perspective, most particularly the inability of the British Admiralty over two decades to develop a first-line, carrier-borne air arm. By primarily analysing the evolution of British naval aviation during the interwar period, as well as the challenges which the peacetime Royal Navy was forced to confront, most especially in the fields of international arms-limitation and domestic fiscal restraint, a picture emerges of a battlefleet which entered war in September 1939 at considerably less that a primary state of combat readiness. Likewise, the publication examines the rise of the instrument which was primarily responsible for toppling the Royal Navy from its paramount position on the battlefield – namely the development of Japan’s lethal first strike instrument known as the Kido Butai. The concentration of the IJN’s six largest aircraft-carriers into a single striking force, equipped with state-of-the-art aircraft manned by elite aviators, represented an enormous quantum leap forward in warfighting at sea, and the evolution of both the concept, and its material components in a domestic atmosphere permeated by aggressive militarism, is a central component in the book. Two essential conclusions are reach by the author. The first is that the demise of British naval supremacy was first and foremost a process that spanned two decades, prior to coming to fruition in the Indian Ocean in April 1942. The second is that the story of British naval and imperial decline did not end with the fall of Singapore on 15 February 1942, but rather reached its climax in the subsequent conduct of Japan’s Operation C, where for the first time in history, a British fleet was compelled to retire from the battlefield in the face of opposition from a force which, though similar in size, possessed a measure of modern aerial firepower which was quite beyond the capability of the British to effectively counter in any form then available to the British Admiralty.
The Origins of American Strategic Bombing Theory
Strategic bombing is likely the most studied element in Aviation History. The shelves of libraries are filled with books on the topic, yet relatively little is known about where the concept originated or how it evolved. Most of the books on strategic bombing fall into three categories: descriptions of bombing campaigns, critiquing whether they succeeded, or describing why different nations pursued individual visions of airpower. While these are important analyses, there is no one complete study of the idea behind America’s vision of strategy bombing that answers: how it originated, why it changed over time, the factors that shaped change, and how technology molded military doctrine? This book provides just such a full spectrum intellectual history of the American concept of strategic bombing.
In the minds of forward thinking aerial theorists the new technology of the airplane removed the limitations of geography, defenses, and operational reach that had restricted ground and naval forces since the dawn of human conflict. With aviation, a nation could avoid costly traditional military campaigns and attack the industrial heart of an enemy using long-range bombers. Yet, the acceptance of strategic bombing doctrine proved a hard-fought process. The story of strategic bombing is not that of any one person or any one causal factor. Instead, it is a twisting tale of individual efforts, organizational infighting, political priorities, and most important technological integration. At no point was strategic bombing preordained or destined to succeed. In every era, the theory had to survive critical challenges. By tracing the complex interrelationships of these four causal factors, this book provides a greater understanding of the origins and rise to dominance of American strategic bombing theory.
The Origins of American Strategic Bombing meets this need in two ways. First, it explains the intellectual process of going from Wright Flyers to B-17 formations over Germany. Next, it identifies the factors that shaped that intellectual development. In doing so, it challenges the Air Force’s self-identity with a much more complex explanation. It is no longer the story of Billy Mitchell or The Bomber Mafia, but one of a complicated interweaving of events, people, organizational cultures, technology, and politics. The book is unique as it integrates military, political, cultural, and technological history to explain the rise of strategic bombing as the dominant American vision of airpower as it entered World War II.