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WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY
Volume 4 / Number 1 / 2007
Promoting Research and Scholarship
· In This Issue ·
Letters to the Editor..............................................................................3
A Historian's Search for HMS Laforey and U-223............................4
by Barbara Brooks Tomblin
The First Solo Low-Altitude Night Raid on Rabaul........................27
by Terry M. Mays
Q&A: David M. Glantz.......................................................................34
by Robert von Maier
Author's Perspective...........................................................................46
by H.P. Willmott
Author's Perspective...........................................................................49
by Adam R.A. Claasen
Author's Perspective...........................................................................56
by Vincent P. O'Hara
Books in Review..................................................................................60
by Michael D. Hull
Novus Libri..........................................................................................68
by Nicolas d'Aubigné
Books in Retrospect.............................................................................74
by Karl J. Zingheim
WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY
Volume 4 / Number 1 / 2007
Editorial Review Board
William F. Atwater • William H. Bartsch
Christopher M. Bell • Enrico Cernuschi
Robert J. Cressman • Edward J. Drea
Christopher R. Gabel • David M. Glantz
Donald A. Jordan • Richard B. Meixsel
Vincent P. O'Hara • Mark R. Peattie
E. Bruce Reynolds • Mark A. Stoler
Barbara B. Tomblin • Gregory J.W. Urwin
H.P. Willmott • Karl J. Zingheim
Executive Editor
Robert von Maier
Contributing Editors
Thomas H. Cassiano • Nicolas d'Aubigné
Michael D. Hull • Adam McFarland
World War II Quarterly is a peer-reviewed, scholarly journal dedicated to the
study of the Second World War (all theaters of operation and areas of conflict,
1931-1945). Reproduction in whole or in part is strictly prohibited without prior
written consent from the publisher.
Manuscript submissions are welcome. Authors should contact the editor for
specific requirements and guidelines before submitting any material. Prior to
acceptance, all manuscripts will be reviewed and may be edited for content.
Individual subscription rates are $45.00 per year (four issues). Institutional
subscription rates are $65.00 per year (four issues). Checks should be in U.S.
funds and made payable to: Pacific War Study Group.
© Pacific War Study Group, 2007 • All International Rights Reserved
ISSN 1559-8012 • Published in the United States of America
PO Box 131763, Carlsbad, CA 92013-1763
(760) 727-4355 • [email protected]
2 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
Letters to the Editor
Nishida Masahiro (Tokyo, Japan)
My compliments on providing the historical community with a muchneeded venue for World War II-specific, refereed manuscripts. I will be
submitting an article later this year and plan to encourage my colleagues
to contact you as well.
Kenneth B. Hughes (Provo, UT)
In my continuing search for information about the Royal Canadian Navy
during the Second World War, I happened upon two websites that have
proved useful and interesting. I thought other readers may want to know
about them. The websites are: “Awards to the Royal Canadian Navy”
(www.rcnvr.com), which is a treasure trove of data for researchers; and
“The Naval Museum of Manitoba” (naval-museum.mb.ca), which contains hundreds of photographs of RCN ships.
John E. McMillan (Cambridge, England)
I very much enjoyed reading Edward J. Drea's article, “The Shanghai
Campaign of 1937,” in the previous issue of World War II Quarterly. I
have long admired Dr. Drea's work and was pleased to see him cover this
little-known campaign. I also read with great interest the article by Toh
Boon Ho, “Harnessing Transformation: The British and German Armies
During the Interwar Years.” Both articles are fine examples of high quality historical scholarship.
Hans-Dietrich Scheffler (Freiburg, Germany)
I am keenly interested in corresponding with fellow historians who have
access to previously unpublished photographs of French Army troops,
1920-1945. I am also interested in unpublished or little-known Frenchlanguage manuscripts, diaries, memoirs, etc. dealing with the French
Army during this period.
In addition, I am searching for previously unpublished eyewitness accounts from Polish troops regarding their experiences during the war,
particularly those accounts that focus on the early weeks of the conflict.
I also require information dealing with the Armia Krajowa (AK) and
General Stefan Rowecki. I can be contacted at: [email protected]
3 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
A Historian's Search for
HMS Laforey and U-223
BARBARA BROOKS TOMBLIN
On 22 January 1944, Task Force 81, an Allied task force commanded by
Rear Admiral Frank J. Lowry, USN, landed General John P. Lucas’ VI
Corps on the Italian coast south of Rome. Codenamed Operation SHINGLE, this fourth major Allied amphibious operation in the Mediterranean enjoyed initial success. The first waves of troops from the U.S.
Third Infantry Division, British First Division, and a unit of U.S. Army
Rangers came ashore on D-Day on either side of the resort towns of
Anzio and Nettuno all but unopposed. By the afternoon of 22 January
1944, General Lucas’ troops had secured a beachhead at Anzio-Nettuno
and were poised to advance inland toward the capitol city of Rome.
Although the Allied landings at Anzio-Nettuno took the Germans by
surprise, Field Marshal Albert Kesselring reacted swiftly to the Allied
threat by sending the First Parachute Corps’ headquarters to Anzio with
orders to organize German units released from the Cassino front. With
reinforcements headed to the beachhead, by the evening of D-Day
Kesselring felt confident that he had the defense of Anzio well in hand.
General John Lucas, however, hesitated preferring to consolidate his
beachhead before moving inland. As a result, Allied troops quickly became trapped in the narrow Anzio beachhead unable to break out and advance toward Rome.
For four long months, ships of the United States Navy and Royal
Navy supported the Anzio beachhead bringing in fresh troops and supplies, evacuating the wounded, and providing anti-aircraft and anti-submarine defenses as well as naval gunfire support. Defending and supporting the Anzio beachhead proved costly to both navies. German gun
batteries ashore, including the famous “Anzio Annie,” scored hits on numerous Allied ships and landing craft. Axis sea mines, German aircraft,
U-boats, S-boats, and Italian (Repubblica Sociale Italiana or RSI) vessels sank or damaged scores of others.1
Among the Allied ships providing naval gunfire support, anti-aircraft
defense, and anti-submarine (A/S) searches for enemy submarines off
the Anzio beachhead was the 1,935-ton destroyer HMS Laforey, one of
4 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
sixteen L&M-class ships laid down by the British in the late 1930’s.
Launched on 15 February 1941 and completed in late August, HMS
Laforey had a complement of 226 men. Her armament included six 4.7inch guns, one 4.5-inch high-angle (HA) gun, four two pounder AA
guns, and four 21-inch torpedo tubes. By the time of the Anzio landings,
Laforey was a veteran campaigner in the Mediterranean. Joining Force H
at Gibraltar in 1941, Laforey had participated in numerous Mediterranean operations such as the famous PEDESTAL convoy to Malta.
During her wartime service in the Mediterranean, her officers and crew
had witnessed firsthand the ability of German and Italian submarines to
sink or damage Allied warships. In 1941, Laforey had stood by to assist
the torpedoed aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal, picked up survivors from
HMS Eagle before she sank, and taken the damaged SS Strathallan in
tow off Algeria in 1942. Furthermore, service in the Mediterranean had
honed the ship's officer's and crew’s skills at detecting and hunting enemy submarines enabling Laforey, assisted by HMS Eclipse, to corner
and sink the Italian submarine Ascianghi in July, 1943.
Ironically, less than one year later, Laforey was torpedoed and sunk
by a German U-boat during an anti-submarine hunt near Palermo, Sicily.
On 29 March 1944, Allied escorts, including HMS Laforey, established
a SONAR contact and initiated an A/S hunt for U-223. After almost
twenty-four hours, U-223’s captain, Oberleutnant zur See Peter Gerlach,
decided to surface, re-charge the boat’s batteries, and attempt to elude
his pursuers. British destroyers closed in on U-223, however, and
opened fire. Before ordering his boat scuttled, Gerlach fired an acoustic
torpedo which struck Laforey. She sank within minutes northwest of
Palermo, Sicily taking with her 189 officers and men, including the commander of the Fourteenth Destroyer Flotilla, Captain H.T. ‘Beaky’ Armstrong, Royal Navy. U-223 also went to the bottom, one of sixty-nine
German U-boats lost in the Mediterranean during World War II.2
In Sicily-Salerno-Anzio, January 1943 – June 1944, volume nine of
his History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Samuel
Eliot Morison briefly recounted HMS Laforey’s loss describing it as a
“unique destroyer-submarine battle in which both antagonists were
sunk.” According to Morison, on the morning of 29 March 1944, the
British destroyer had developed a submarine contact and called for assistance from the American destroyers USS Kearny (DD-432) and USS Ericsson (DD-440), two patrol craft or PCs, and several British escorts.
“One of them sank the submarine, U-223,” Morison noted, “but not before it had got another torpedo into Laforey, which sank her.” His account neglected to name the other British escorts or the American patrol
craft, but in a note Morison cited the war diaries of PC-626 and the USS
Brooklyn (CL-40).3
The author’s recently published narrative, With Utmost Spirit: Allied
5 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
Naval Operations in the Mediterranean, 1942-1945, mentions HMS
Laforey only in passing, yet the destroyer has the dubious distinction of
being the last British warship to be sunk by a submarine in the Mediterranean during the Second World War. The following article is an effort
to rectify this oversight and to discover more about this duel between a
British destroyer and a German U-boat.4
Taking into account the increase of online resources for Second
World War history and the propensity of today’s military history students to use the internet, the author chose to begin research into the Allied A/S hunt for U-223 online using the popular search engine Google.
Searching for information about HMS Laforey yielded two promising
sources: uboat.net and www.battleships-cruisers.co.uk. According to
uboat. net, on 29 March 1944 the British destroyer HMS Ulster located
U-223 on her ASDIC set while carrying out a routine anti-submarine
sweep with two other destroyers of the Fourteenth Destroyer Flotilla,
HMS Laforey and HMS Tumult. The three vessels dropped depth
charges on the German submarine, but evasive maneuvers enabled U223 to evade pursuers until the morning of 30 March. When they forced
the U-boat to the surface, the British escorts, now joined by HMS Hambledon, HMS Blencathra, and HMS Wilton, which had replaced Ulster,
opened fire. According to uboat.net, “Shortly before being sunk, U-223
fired a Gnat and hit HMS Laforey, which sank about 60 miles northeast
of Palermo, Sicily. Among the 189 who lost their lives was the commanding officer, Captain H.T. Armstrong, DSO, DSC, RN.” This
uboat.net page for HMS Laforey gives the position of her sinking as
38.48N, 14.10E, but provides no additional information, other than links
to U-223 and the destroyers Tumult, Ulster, Hambledon, Blencathra, and
Wilton.5
As one might expect, uboat.net has an entry for U-223 with a brief
history of the submarine, her wartime patrols and successes, and a list of
her commanding officers, including Oberleutnant zur See Peter Gerlach,
who was in command at the time of the U-223’s encounter with HMS
Laforey. In addition, this source claims that twenty-seven of U-223’s
crew survived the attack on the submarine, which cost another twentythree men their lives. By using uboat.net links, researchers can learn
more about Peter Gerlach, U-223, and Laforey, Tumult, Hambledon, and
Blencathra, the four British escorts. While useful, the uboat.net website
fails to shed additional light on the hunt for U-223 or the submarine’s
successful attack on HMS Laforey. Furthermore, links to Tumult, Hambledon, and Blencathra merely repeat the meager information already
provided by the website.6
Hopeful of finding additional details about the hunt for U-223, the
author turned to the next promising page one Google entry under HMS
Laforey, www.battleships-cruisers.co.uk. This site gives researchers a
6 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
link to HMS Laforey, which turns out to be an overview of the Laforeyclass torpedo boats built during World War I. The second site listed,
www.steelnavy.com, does offer a photograph of the World War II destroyer Laforey, but is a scale model site. Also listed on page one under
HMS Laforey in Google is the BBC People’s War site and an Amazon.com listing for Peter C. Smith’s book Fighting Flotilla: HMS Laforey
and Her Sister Ships. Both of these sources are far more useful and will
be discussed later in this article. Other entries for HMS Laforey proved
disappointing and time-consuming. Furthermore, three months after the
author’s initial research, the Google listings for HMS Laforey had
changed, a not uncommon occurrence on the web.7
In the author’s original research, Google’s entries for HMS Laforey
on page two led to several sites including one for L&M-class British destroyers, which produced interesting photographs, but no further information about Laforey. Fortunately, this page of entries listed a site for
HMS Laforey created by Dana J. Nield, a grandson of Laforey survivor
Richard C. Sumner, which yielded additional information about the destroyer, including her specifications, the ship’s “log” for the years 19411944, a roll of honor, and links with additional information about the
ship. The entry termed ship’s “log,” however, is not the actual log from
HMS Laforey, but appears to have been copied from Peter Smith’s book,
Fighting Flotilla, listed in the website’s links or bibliography. Furthermore, the entry for 30 March 1944 offers no new details about Laforey’s
loss. Caveat emptor: one of the HMS Laforey website links for an interview with Rear Admiral John A. Charles, Royal Canadian Navy leads to
a website for seasoned salt, not “old salts!” For those researchers with
persistence and a sense of humor, however, Rear Admiral John A.
Charles’ taped oral interview is listed on Google’s third page under
“Seasoned Sailors.” 8
Consulting the information available about HMS Laforey at two other
websites had mixed results. Wikipedia’s Answers.com. provided a photograph and details about the L-class destroyers, known as Laforeys, including their armament and other incidents in their service careers, but
little new information on the duel between U-223 and HMS Laforey.
George Duncan’s “More Maritime Disasters of World War II” website,
on the other hand, has new details about the A/S hunt for the German
submarine, which it incorrectly identifies as U-233. Duncan claims that
the hunt for “U-233” lasted for twenty hours and included twenty-two
separate depth charge attacks. According to Duncan, “U-233” dived to a
depth of 772 feet and surfaced after twenty-five hours managing to fire
three torpedoes, which hit Laforey.9
After consulting fourteen pages of Google entries on HMS Laforey,
however, the author still knew very little about her loss or that of U-223.
At this point, a more profitable line of online inquiry seemed to be a
7 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
search for the other British escorts involved in the hunt for U-223,
Blencathra, Ulster, Wilton, Tumult, and Hambledon. Searching Google
for these destroyers resulted in a good deal of fruitless effort. The existence of an American destroyer, the USS Hambleton (DD-455), complicated entries for HMS Hambledon; HMS Ulster yielded a photograph,
but little else; and Tumult produced the same information as Laforey. On
the other hand, several excellent photographs of Tumult and her crew in
1943 and 1944 are available in the S&T-class website of www.battleships-cruisers-co.uk/s_t_class.htm. Photographs of HMS Blencathra and
HMS Hambledon are available at the Hunt-class site www.battleshipscruisers-co.uk/s_t_class.htm, which, of course, requires researchers to
know that they were Hunt-class escort destroyers.10
Although online sources for these British escorts proved disappointing, sources for German submarines operating in the Mediterranean during World War II were quite useful. Searching Google for U-223 quickly
produced the uboat.net page previously discussed, but the link to ubootwafe.net was temporarily unavailable – another common problem with
online resources. Other entries under U-223 refer not to German submarines, but academic course numbers and radioactive decay! One entry
titled Deutsche U-Boote 1935-1945, however, led to a German-language
history of U-223, which included a report about U-223’s loss written by
the U-boat’s first officer, Gerhard Buske. The online translation from
German to English is a poor one. When a colleague translated the report,
however, it yielded more details about the vessel's demise. This report
states that U-223 was sunk on orders from the captain after twenty hours
of “water bombardment” by four destroyers on the night of 30 March
1944 about twelve nautical miles from the island of Ustica. According to
Buske’s report, the U-boat surfaced and shot a T-5 which hit HMS
Laforey. British escorts then opened fire on the U-boat and circled her.
U-223’s engineer subsequently set her “self sinking” or demolition
charges and the boat sank by the stern a short time later. Buske claimed
that all of the crew members left the boat, but because it was a very dark
night and they were scattered over a large area, he did not have a good
overview of the crew. Thus, Buske explained, he did not wish to speculate about the whereabouts or fate of missing crewmen. In this brief report, Gerhard Buske did say that the captain, First Lieutenant Peter Gerlach, together with Second Lieutenant Ernst Scheid, left the sinking boat,
but that Gerlach probably succumbed to wounds. Two more crew members died despite determined efforts at resuscitation by a British physician on board the destroyer which rescued them. The two men were
wrapped in sail cloth and after blessings by the British ship’s chaplain
were given to the sea. Buske confirmed that twenty-seven of the Uboat’s crew survived.11
Both Gerhard Buske and Lieutenant Walter Fitz survived the sinking
8 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
of U-223. Were they presently alive and able to recall more details about
the incident? An online entry under U-223 offered a clue. In a letter to
the website of the Wisconsin Central, Barry M. Sax wrote on 27 January
2006: “Excellent article. One historical error, The U-Boat was the U-223
not the U-233. The U-223 was itself sunk in 1944 off the coast of Sicily
by British warships. Among my friends are several Germans who were
crew members of the U-223 who survived the sinking. They are now
members of our organization.” Barry Sax, referring to an article about
the 1943 sinking of the SS Dorchester by U-223, suggested that readers
consult the Immortal Chaplains Foundation website. An online search
for the SS Dorchester did lead the author to Bob Smietana’s article, “If
We Can Die Together, Can’t We Live Together?” which includes a photograph of survivors from both the Dorchester and the U-223, including
first officer, Gerhard Buske. According to Bob Smietana, Gerhard Buske
and U-223 survivor Kurt Roser met with survivors of the ship they torpedoed, the SS Dorchester. Subsequently, both men became involved with
the Immortal Chaplains Foundation, an organization dedicated to the
memory of Reverand George Fox, Reverand Clark Poling, Rabbi
Alexander Goode, and Father John Washington, four chaplains on board
the troopship Dorchester, which sank about one-hundred-fifty miles off
Greenland. On that fateful day, 3 February 1943, U-223’s captain,
Kapitänleutnant Karl-Jurgen Wachter, fired three torpedoes, one of
which struck the Dorchester amidships. As the troopship began to sink,
the four chaplains went out on deck calming many of the 900 men on
board and giving their own life jackets to the frightened soldiers. When
the Dorchester went down, witnesses recalled seeing the four chaplains
standing on the deck of the ship, linked arm-in-arm and praying.12
An email to David Fox, director of the Immortal Chaplains Foundation and a nephew of Chaplain George Fox, confirmed that U-223’s first
officer, Gerhard Buske (known as Gerd), was still alive and living in
Munich, Germany. In a 13 May 2006 telephone interview with the author, Gerd Buske recalled the hunt for U-223, the sinking of HMS
Laforey, and the fate of his own submarine and her captain Peter Gerlach. In addition to confirming much of his original 1944 report, Buske
offered new information about the final hours of U-223, her officers, and
crew. After being submerged for about twenty-five hours, Buske recalled, a lack of oxygen in the boat and the need to re-charge the Uboat’s batteries forced Gerlach to surface. When U-223 came to the surface, four enemy destroyers appeared and attacked. They were in a tactical formation, which reminded Buske of the famous World War I crossing of the “T’ at the Skagerrak, otherwise known as the Battle of Jutland.
The four destroyers opened fire on U-223, hitting her, and then ceased
firing. According to Buske’s recollections, at this point in the attack,
fearing that the lead destroyer might try to ram his boat, Peter Gerlach
9 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
fired a spread of three T-5 homing torpedoes. One of the torpedoes,
Buske told the author, hit the Laforey on or near her stern possibly exploding the depth charges in the depth charge rack. She sank quickly, but
the other three British ships renewed their attack on the U-boat. When
Gerlach realized that they could not escape their Allied pursuers, he ordered the crew to launch gum (rubber) boats and abandon ship. With U223 still underway, about every fifty meters or so groups of crewmen
jumped overboard into the Mediterranean. Gerd Buske remembered
telling one of the crew to abandon ship by jumping from the starboard
side of the submarine to avoid being killed or injured by her churning
propellers. He stated that the last man off U-223 was her engineer (Ernst
Shied) who set the scuttling charges and then helped the wounded Gerlach into the sea. Before being rescued, however, Gerlach died of his injuries. Gerd Buske had already abandoned U-223 and watched her sink.
He claimed that the British destroyers continued to fire on the U-boat
and on her rubber boats injuring about half of the surviving crewmen. It
was nearly midnight and across the water Buske could clearly see pinpoints of light from the flashlights on the survivors’ life preservers. Mercifully, the Mediterranean was warm, Buske told the author, unlike the
icy cold Atlantic, which had claimed so many of the SS Dorchester’s
survivors. Toward morning, after at least four hours in the water, a
British destroyer appeared searching for survivors. Buske told those who
could swim to strike out toward the destroyer, which subsequently
picked up both Buske and the submarine's second officer, Walter Fitz.13
Photographs of U-223’s commanding officers, Karl-Jurg Wachter and
Peter Gerlach, her executive officer, Gerhard Buske, as well as the
names of seventy-eight of her crew and six photographs from the submarine's album are available on the ubootwaffe.net website. Unfortunately, when the author did her research, Google did not list ubootwaffe.
net until page sixteen. 14
Frustrated after hours of searching Google for details on the sinking
of HMS Laforey and U-223, the author decided to abandon online
searches in favor of published sources which, when all is said and done,
often remain the most efficient and most reliable means of historical research into World War II naval operations. The search for printed
sources began with Peter C. Smith’s aforementioned Fighting Flotilla, a
book listed on the first page of the original Google search under HMS
Laforey. Peter C. Smith, a well-known and respected British naval historian, published Fighting Flotilla in 1976 in the United Kingdom, but the
work was not readily available from nearby libraries, nor was it particularly inexpensive from Amazon.com and other used book sellers. 15
Acknowledging that historians/authors facing deadlines may not have
the luxury of time to pursue library loans or the resources to purchase
expensive books, the author turned to more readily available printed
10 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
sources such as Clay Blair’s Hitler’s U-boat War: The Hunted, 19421945. Blair includes in his extensive history of U-boat operations a detailed account of the A/S hunt for U-223, which ended in her loss and
the sinking of the British destroyer. According to Blair, early on 29
March 1944 “a three-ship British hunter-killer group searching north of
Sicily found by sonar the U-223, commanded by Peter Gerlach. The
three destroyers, Laforey, Tumult, and Ulster, commenced a relentless
chase that lasted about twenty hours.” In Blair’s account, Blencathra,
Hambleton (sic), and Wilton joined the hunt for the submarine that same
day, reinforced by Kearny, Ericsson, and three American PCs (264, 556,
and 558). Low on battery power and oxygen, Gerlach ordered the U-223
to surface and tried to creep away using his diesels while re-charging his
batteries. When Blencathra, Hambledon, Laforey, and Tumult located
the submarine on the surface, they opened fire. “Thus trapped, Gerlach
shot a T-5 at Laforey, which hit and blew it up.” Gerlach ordered his
crew to assemble on deck in life jackets and abandon ship. According to
Blair, “The engineer, Ernst Sheid, age twenty-one, who set the scuttling
charges, was the last man out of the boat. Skipper Gerlach told Sheid
that he, Gerlach, was ‘no good without his boat’ and elected to go down
with her.” Sheid and the other crewmen then jumped overboard. When
the British escorts circled back through the men in the water, Blair
states, their propellers killed many of the survivors. The British rescued
Engineer Sheid and twenty-six other crewmen.16
Although Blair’s account is more detailed than most, he incorrectly
identified the destroyer Hambledon, confusing her perhaps with the
American destroyer Hambleton. On a positive note, Blair confirmed
Samuel Eliot Morison’s claim that the USS Ericsson and the USS
Kearny joined Laforey and the other British escorts in their hunt for U223. This additional information made returning to the internet to search
for the Kearny and the Ericsson a promising option. Indeed, both destroyers have a website. The Kearny’s website features photographs of
the ship and a section of interesting memories by former crew members.
Unfortunately, none of these memories from Kearny’s crew include details about the sinking of the Laforey. The website does, however, have a
section titled the “Hunt for U-223.” This detailed account of the hunt
for the submarine and subsequent loss of both the U-boat and Laforey
sounded very familiar and a quick check of Clay Blair’s version of the
incident confirmed that the “Hunt for U-223” had quoted Blair word-forword. Unfortunately, it failed to acknowledge Hitler’s U-boat War as the
original source of the information.
The USS Ericsson website includes a brief recollection by the ship's
A.S.W. officer, Robert Louis Smith, which confirms both Blair and
Morison’s accounts. In his “My service in Ericsson,” Robert Smith recalled, “While screening USS BROOKLYN from Mers-el-Kabir to
11 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
Naples USS KEARNY and ERICSSON were detached to proceed to a
British commanded sub hunt just off of Palermo, Sicily where a U-boat
was down over two days, extremely deep, and U.S. stern charges were
needed to reach the U-boat. The enemy surfaced, undetected, about 1:00
A.M.; sunk the hunt flagship (H.M.S. Laforey (F99)) before the rest of
us (half a dozen British and US cans) sunk U-223. (Date: 30 March
1944).”17
Encouraged by the discovery of Robert Smith’s online recollections,
the author decided to use the internet to locate Peter C. Smith in regard
to his book, Fighting Flotilla. With little difficulty, Google found Peter
C. Smith’s website and an email to Smith soon yielded a facsimile copy
of his account of the A/S hunt for U-223. According to Smith, when the
U-boat surfaced and tried to escape, Laforey opened fire with her guns
and Peter Gerlach fired three torpedoes at the destroyer. “These hit
abreast the forward boiler room. The resulting explosion broke her back
and she quickly settled amidships, bow and stern rose quickly and within
two minutes of the explosions both halves disappeared.” The other escorts pursued the U-boat, Smith argues, “but in the confusion Laforey’s
situation was not noticed. When it grew light, Tumult and Tuscan returned to the scene of the sinking, but only a few of Laforey’s crew remained in the water to be rescued. Among those lost was Captain Destroyer Flotilla 14, H.T. ‘Beaky’ Armstrong.”18
Unfortunately, the author could find little biographical information
about Captain H.T. Armstrong online. In his work, Memoirs of the War
at Sea 1942-45, however, former destroyer captain Roger Hill, who
served in Armstrong’s destroyer flotilla, described Armstrong as a grand
chap, one of his heroes. In 1944, then a lieutenant commander, Roger
Hill flew to Gibraltar to take command of the refitted destroyer HMS
Jervis. Before the Jervis sailed to join Armstrong’s flotilla, Admiral
Harold Burrough came aboard to inspect the ship. Roger Hill recalled
the admiral asking, “You had great admiration for Beaky Armstrong?”
Burrough looked away and said, “I have bad news for you, Laforey was
sunk yesterday. Beaky was killed.” Admiral Burrough then explained,
“It was a Gnat. A U-boat was located on the surface by Coastal Command, more planes took over, and when he came up for air, he got a
good pasting with depth charges. Beaky joined in the hunt with some
more of his flotilla and detected him. They were circling at twenty three
knots. The U-boat had to surface and surrender as he had no endurance
left. As she was surfacing he fired a Gnat, unaimed. It picked up
Laforey’s propeller noises, hit her in the after magazine, and the ship
blew up. There were few survivors and Beaky was not among them.”
Hill’s dates are incorrect, Laforey sank on 30 March, not on 11 April
1944. If his recollection of Admiral Burrough’s description of the hunt
for U-223 is accurate, aircraft from Coastal Command first located the
12 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
surfaced U-boat. However, none of the sources consulted by the author
mention that Allied aircraft participated in the hunt for the submarine.19
At this point in the author’s research, the best available accounts of
the hunt for U-223, those written by Peter C. Smith, Gerd Buske, and
Clay Blair, offered details about the U-boat, but none spoke to the experience of HMS Laforey’s officers and crew. Here lies the strength of internet searching, which quickly led to one of the most interesting accounts of Laforey’s sinking. In “H.M.S. Laforey,” Ian Billingsley’s contribution to the BBC People’s War website, the sinking of the destroyer
is described from the perspective of Bob Burns and the destroyer’s gunnery officer, Lieutenant Boyer, RNVR. In his recollections of the
Laforey’s role in the hunt for U-223, Burns recalled that the destroyer
was sent out from Naples to pursue a previously established, but unidentified, submarine contact. “Our skipper’s orders were that we were to
proceed with full speed, to an area west of Stromboli where a U-boat had
been reported.” At 12.00, just before arriving in the area where the enemy submarine had been sighted, Burns recounted, “we were joined by
Tumult, Blencathra, Quantock and Lammerton.” The British destroyers
conducted an ASDIC search and then repeatedly depth charged the Uboat. “Attack after attack failed to bring the U-boat to the surface but as
darkness fell, our Asdic team was confident that during the night, lack of
air would bring her to the surface and my gun teams would have the
chance of delivering the coup-de-grace.” According to Burns, the
Laforey’s skipper, Captain Armstrong, had decided, “for reasons best
known to himself,” not to sound a call to action stations. “The crew was
therefore at defence stations, only half the armament manned and many
men were asleep in the mess-decks. With hindsight, one can say that
many of the 179 men who lost their lives, would have been saved, had
they been closed up at action stations.”
Suddenly, Sub-Lieutenant Gordon Ticehurst, the youngest officer on
the Laforey, called Bob Burns to the bridge. “When I got there, I found
the U-boat was clearly visible on the port bow. Our 4.7 armament was
soon straddling the target and when the Gunnery Officer arrived on the
bridge, I jumped down over the bridge screen to the Oerlikon, determined to ensure that the U-boat’s deck was raked with fire in case resistance was offered.” The searchlight snapped on, followed by a deafening
explosion. “I found myself hurtling upwards and then landing with a
thud on the Oerlikon’s safety rails. The U-boat had torpedoed us and I
was conscious between bouts of blackness and pain, that Laforey was
breaking up in her death throes.” Unable to stand, Burns pulled himself
to the destroyer’s side. “Laforey was sinking and I clung to the rigging as
she started her final plunge. Frantically I tore myself free and with arms
working like pistons, propelled myself as far from the inevitable
whirlpool of suction as possible,” Burns wrote. Although whirled around
13 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
like a cork, Burns’ half-inflated life belt kept him on the surface. In the
darkness, he could hear the cries of shipmates. “With the whistle always
carried by a gunner’s mate for turret drill, I began to signal in the hope
of collecting the survivors in a more compact group.” Unfortunately, the
now-exhausted Burns passed out. When he regained consciousness, he
heard a young seamen groaning. “At odd intervals, shipmates would
swim to us to offer words of comfort and encouragement and then swim
off to assist others.”
When HMS Tumult returned from sinking U-223 to search for German survivors, she discovered Laforey’s men in the water and rescued a
grateful Bob Burns. “I was hoisted aboard Tumult, encased in a Neil
Robertson stretcher, injected with a liberal dose of morphia and
despatched to the gunner’s mate holy of holy’s, the Transmitting Station.
From the usual illegal matelot’s hidden resources, a full tumbler of Nelson’s Blood was added to the pain relieving morphia and I sank into
peaceful oblivion.” Burns insists that neither Tumult nor Blencathra had
realized that Laforey had been torpedoed and sunk. Although Bob
Burns’ recollections offer a very personal perspective on the sinking of
HMS Laforey, his is the only version of the hunt for U-223 which mentions the escorts HMS Quantock and HMS Lammerton.20
Confusion abounds as to which Allied vessel first located the U-boat.
Many internet sources, in fact, credit both American destroyers and
British escorts with simultaneously locating U-223. For example, “Warships of the World” online history for 29 March 1944 states: “The destroyers Ericsson (DD-440) and Kearny (DD-432), along with sub
chasers PC-626, PC-556, and PC-558, and four British destroyers –
HMS Laforey, HMS Tumult, HMS Hambledon, and HMS Blencathra –
begin the submarine hunt 30 miles northeast of Palermo, Sicily.” In his
brief account of the A/S hunt for U-223, Samuel Eliot Morison argues
that Laforey made the contact early on 29 March 1944 and requested assistance from the Ericsson, Kearny, and the two PC’s. Peter Smith, however, states that Laforey left Naples on 29 March 1944 to join Tumult,
Tuscan, Ulster, Urchin, Blencathra, and Hambledon in an A/S hunt
north-east of Palermo. These escorts continued to search and at 1900 on
30 March Laforey picked up a surface radar contact which turned out to
be the surfaced U-223. According to Clay Blair, early on 29 March 1944
Laforey, Tumult, and Ulster, searching north of Sicily, found by SONAR
the U-223 and initiated a “relentless chase that lasted about twenty
hours. Blencathra, Hambledon and Wilton joined the hunt for the submarine that same day, reinforced by Kearny, Ericsson and three American PCs (264, 556, and 558).”21
Seeking to clarify the sequence of events in the hunt for U-223, the
author contacted the National Archives and Records Administration
(NARA) in regard to official after action reports, but, according to their
14 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
Modern Military Records division, “none of the American ships and
craft involved with the incident submitted action reports, and if Laforey
submitted one, it appears not to have been received by the offices of
COMINCH (Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Fleet).” In a stroke of good fortune for historians and researchers, requests for information about
records of World War II naval operations held by the National Archives
and Records Administration may now be made via email. With the proper citations, additional records may also be obtained by email request to
the Modern Military Records division. From NARA, the author received
a copy of an anti-submarine incident appraisal file found in the records
of Tenth Fleet, the organization responsible for anti-submarine warfare
and convoy routing. Contained in ASW Assessment Report No. 5870,
serial 89, is a message from Allied Force Headquarters Algiers dated 31
March 1944 which reads: “One U/boat sunk by gunfire at 0100.30 a result of hunt by British and US destroyers north of Palermo on 29th
March. 26 prisoners taken. During these operations, 1 British destroyer
torpedoed and sunk.” In the Eighth Fleet summary for the week ending
30 March 1944, the incident is also briefly described: “Ericsson and
Kearny with PCs 626, 556, 558, and 4 British DD commenced sub hunt
30 miles NE Palermo AM/29 the U-boat sunk by gunfire combined
forces 300130. 26 prisoners.”22
Fortunately, PC-626’s War Diary for March 1944 provides more details about the A/S hunt and sinking of both HMS Laforey and U-223.
The patrol craft’s commanding officer, E.B. Harvey, reported that at
0922 on 29 April (sic March) 1944, PC-626 got under way from her
mooring in Palermo, Sicily in company with PC-558, “to join in a submarine attack.” The patrol craft got a contact and at 1340 sighted HMS
Laforey and other ships at the scene of the U-boat contact. Laforey instructed PC-626 to take position 1,000 yards to starboard and participate
in their creeping attack plan. At 1700, however, PC-626 left the attack
position and joined with PC-558 and two U.S. destroyers “in an endless
chain patrol, keeping center of attack at a 6000 yard range.” Late that
night, at 2315 to be precise, PC-626 observed a searchlight sweeping the
water around the attack group and at 0102 the British destroyer fired star
shells. According to Harvey, “Considerable firing was observed from the
attack center. No explosions were observed.” Four hours later, PC-626’s
lookouts sighted several men in the water and the patrol craft subsequently picked up four German survivors and six bodies. After completing rescue operations, the patrol craft was ordered to proceed back to
Palermo. When PC-626 tied up at pier #3 in Palermo, Harvey wrote,
they heard that “H.M.S. La Forey had seen sunk by torpedo fire in the
engagement. It was learned later that the ill-fated German submarine was
the U-223.”23
One additional source, received courtesy of the National Archives and
15 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
Records Administration, proved interesting. According to the USS
Brooklyn’s war diary, the cruiser got underway on Tuesday, 28 March
1944 from Algiers and headed for Palermo, Sicily escorted by Kearny
and Ericsson. She anchored in the outer harbor of Palermo at 1404 the
next afternoon. Shortly after shifting Brooklyn’s berth to the inner harbor, her commanding officer, Captain Robert W. Cary, received a message from Laforey that she had “a doubtful A/S contact at 0515A in position 038-31 N 013-43 E which she was investigating and attacking.” The
British destroyer sent a second message to FOWIT (Flag Officer, Western Italy) confirming the existence of an enemy submarine and requesting assistance. At that point, Brooklyn dispatched Kearny and Ericsson
to join American patrol craft and the British escorts in their attack on the
U-boat. “Contact had been attacked fourteen times,” Brooklyn’s war diary explained. “Sub contact lost for one hour and then regained at 03649N 014-14E.” On 30 March 1944, the war diary noted, “HMS Tumult
advised that HMS Laforey sunk in position 38-45N 14-00E and that a Uboat was sunk and survivors were being picked up.” Confirmation of the
sinking followed from Kearny, which informed Brooklyn that she and
Ericsson were returning to Palermo. Kearny asked “that arrangements be
made to receive four survivors and five dead members of the German
submarine 223 from PC 626 arriving at Palermo 1200A.”24
These ASW reports provide crucial details about the Allied escorts
which located and hunted U-223, but Clay Blair’s bibliography offered a
lead to the most detailed, comprehensive Allied report about the ill-fated
German submarine. In the files of the Office of Naval Intelligence, in
OP-16-Z, is a summary of U-223’s wartime history and information
about her patrols learned from an interrogation of the U-boat’s survivors
who were being held as prisoners of war. From this British so-called
“post mortem,” emerges the story of U-223’s entry through the Strait of
Gibraltar into the Mediterranean and more details about her sixth and final war patrol.
According to U-223’s survivors, three days after leaving St. Nazaire
on her third patrol, U-223’s captain, Kapitänleutnant Karl-Jurgen
Wachter, announced to his men that they were bound for the Mediterranean. Approaching Gibraltar, U-223 submerged to avoid German
Search Receiver (GSR) contacts, but on the night of 25/26 September
1943 she slipped silently through the Strait undetected. One of the submarine's survivors, now a prisoner of war, attributed their good fortune
to an aircraft carrier which was proceeding out of Gibraltar Harbor at the
time “thus detracting undesirable attention from U 223.” Sometime between 17 and 20 October, U-223 safely arrived at the submarine base at
Toulon, France to join the Twenty-ninth Flotilla. Under Wachter, the Uboat made one more patrol in late November, 1943. On 27 November
1943 Wachter claimed to have sunk a destroyer off Algiers and a week
16 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
later a second escort before returning to Toulon on 19 December.25
U-223 proceeded to sea on her fifth patrol on 14 January 1944 with a
new captain, Oberleutnant zur See Peter Gerlach, in command. Three
days later, Gerlach received orders to proceed to Nettuno. When questioned about this patrol, U-223’s survivors boasted that the submarine
had sunk a corvette on 22 January, then a destroyer and an LST off
Anzio-Nettuno. Furthermore, they claimed that on 28 January 1944 Gerlach sank three landing craft from periscope depth with a triple salvo.
None of these claims have been confirmed. On 12 February, U-223 returned to Toulon and a week before sailing on her sixth and final patrol,
“left harbour for diving trials returning the same day.” Then, on 16
March 1944, she departed Toulon. After two days at sea, Gerlach received operational orders to proceed south to a patrol area between
North Sicily and Naples. According to the POW survivors, Gerlach decided to begin searching for targets near Ustica and on 22 March found
one, a landing craft of about 3,000 tons sailing alone. Making a daylight
attack from periscope depth, Gerlach fired a T-5 torpedo from Tube V at
the target and quickly submerged. The crew claimed to have heard an explosion, but could not confirm whether the target had been sunk.
Almost a week later, at approximately 2200 on 28 March 1944, U-223
was patrolling at periscope depth north of Ustica when Gerlach and the
crew suddenly heard the sound of H.E. (hydrophone effect). Two
minesweepers appeared and dropped depth charges, which “according to
one prisoner, smashed up her 20mm gun.” U-223 dived quickly “to a
safe depth,” but about six hours later again heard H. E.. “She went deeper to listen and after a short while decided that several escort vessels
were in the neighborhood.” Shortly thereafter a depth charge exploded.
Although the U-boat’s surviving crew members claimed that during a
long A/S hunt Allied escorts dropped 180 depth charges on U-223, the
submarine did not suffer any serious damage “as the U-boat was most of
the time at a depth of from 200 to 220 metres.”
In addition to details about the U-223, this Naval Intelligence report
(OP-16-Z), in parentheses marked “N.I.D. Note,” provides valuable information on the Allied escorts hunting the submarine, presumably obtained from reports by the British escorts involved in the A/S hunt. One
of these N.I.D. notes reports that HMS Laforey (Captain D.14), HMS
Tumult, and HMS Ulster were carrying out an A/S sweep in line abreast,
one mile apart, at fourteen knots. At 0430, in position 38 deg. 31” N.,
013 deg. 43’E., Ulster reported a contact. Laforey confirmed the contact
two minutes later and Captain (D.14) sent Tumult to carry out “Observant” two miles from the hunt. From 0650 until the U-223 sank, the
British destroyers maintained contact with the submarine and carried out
numerous depth charge attacks. HMS Wilton, which joined the trio at
1205, made two creeping attacks. Ulster departed at 1215 and two other
17 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
escorts, Blencathra and Hambledon, arrived at 1530. PC-556, 264, and
558 also joined the hunt for U-223 that same day. At dark, the N.I.D.
note states, “Captain D14 made his intentions known as follows: ‘Ships
are to hold contact throughout the night, in the hope of the submarine
coming up. I will pass bearings whilst in contact.’” Captain D 14, H.T.
‘Beaky’ Armstrong, also instructed, “Be ready to have shallow pattern
ready, should echo improve.”
Throughout the night of 29 March 1944, Captain Armstrong’s destroyers, deployed in line abreast, continued to hunt U-223. According to
an N.I.D. note, at about 2030, the U-boat doubled back and passed between Laforey and Tumult temporarily eluding her hunters who changed
course to 310 degrees. At 2130 Laforey regained contact with U-223 and
the British destroyers gradually altered course to 70 degrees in line of
advance, with Laforey the right wing ship, Blencathra in the center, and
Hambledon on the left wing. Tumult remained in the rear to prevent the
submarine from escaping.
U-223’s survivors recalled that, soon after midnight, she surfaced. Peter Gerlach ordered both diesels started and the submarine set off on a
westerly course. When a searchlight snapped on illuminating the surfaced U-boat, Gerlach ordered full speed and began zig-zagging. In a
note, the N.I.D. reported that at 0100 a small wisp of smoke was observed in the searchlight beam about 1,500 yards from Laforey and later
the hull of the U-boat was seen to surface prompting the British to open
fire with short range and main armament. According to this note, U-223
was on a north westerly course, steering at high speed directly away
from Laforey, and then tuned 180 degrees and tried to submerge, “her
bow going high in the air.”
Survivors recalled that when one of the escorts turned toward U-223,
Peter Gerlach ordered all torpedo tubes fired, “but the after tube jammed
and only one torpedo was fired from the forward tube.” According to
N.I.D., HMS Blencathra reported that this T-5 acoustic torpedo hit HMS
Laforey “at almost the same time as the submarine surfaced or very
shortly afterwards.” Another destroyer came up to starboard. U-223 continued to take fire from all three of the British destroyers and “one shell
hit her after diving tanks causing the boat to become stern heavy.”
At this point in the engagement, Peter Gerlach deemed further attempts to escape useless and ordered his crew on deck to prepare to
abandon ship. U-223 could not signal because her WT set had been put
out of action during the depth charge attacks. The Engineering Officer
(Ernst Scheid) set the scuttling charges inside the boat and was, the survivors’ report claimed, the last man off. “The Commanding Officer
made no effort to save himself, remarking to the Engineer Officer that he
was no use without his boat.” This claim has been disputed by her First
Officer, Gerd Buske, who stated that Ernst Scheid assisted Gerlach off
18 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
the boat, but that the captain subsequently died of his wounds. Stern
down, the U-boat began to circle at full speed “causing a panic amongst
the men in the water, who were trying to swim out of her path and out of
range of the gunfire from the destroyers which were still firing at the Uboat.” When she sank, the British ceased firing. According to another
N.I.D. note, U-223 sank at 0117 in approximately 38 deg. 56’N, 14 deg.
13’E. A loud explosion was heard shortly after she sank and the three remaining British escorts rescued a total of twenty-seven survivors, “the
red light on the life belts being of the greatest value in locating them.” 26
These survivors’ recollections and notes provided by Naval Intelligence contribute important details about the hunt for U-223, but add little regarding HMS Laforey’s contribution to the A/S hunt or her subsequent loss. In hope of learning more about the British L-class destroyer,
the author finally ordered a copy of Peter Smith’s book, Fighting Flotilla, which, among other details, offered a more complete biography of
Captain Harold Thomas ‘Beaky’ Armstrong. According to Smith, after
his cadet days at Dartmouth Naval College, Armstrong served in the
1920’s on the battleships HMS Warspite, HMS Revenge, and HMS Resolution before being appointed a first lieutenant on the sloop HMS
Fowey in 1932. From this small ship, Armstrong went to a shore assignment and then to the river gunboat HMS Cockshafer. At the beginning of
the war, he assumed command of the old World War I-era HMS Wren
before going to a new Tribal-class destroyer, HMS Maori. In July of
1941, promoted to Captain, Armstrong took command of HMS Onslow
as the leader of the Seventeenth Destroyer Flotilla in the North Atlantic.
One colleague, Rear Admiral Sir Geoffrey Henderson, recalled Armstrong as a “commanding personality” who looked “every inch the active, alert, quick thinking person he was.” Courageous and possessed of
a fine sense of humor, Armstrong, in Henderson’s words, “could be
quick-tempered but it was always seen to be for a justifiable cause.”
Armstrong held his officers and men to high standards, his former secretary recalled, but in turn the men loved and respected him.27
As the author completed her research, a chance entry in the Google
search engine suddenly revealed a new source, Bernard Edwards’ The
Twilight of the U-Boats. Although the work's title did not specifically
mention U-223, an accompanying promotional blurb touted: “To tell the
story he focuses on U-223, commanded by Karl-Jurgen Wachter and
commissioned in Kiel in January 1943.” That, and the following sentence, “The submarine’s murderous fourteen-month career, which ended
dramatically in the Mediterranean in March 1944,” got this researcher’s
immediate attention. Curiously, none of the Google entries for U-223,
SS Dorchester, or HMS Laforey, had turned up Edwards’ well-researched account of U-223 and the final months of German submarine
operations in Word War II.
19 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
In The Twilight of the U-boats, Bernard Edwards discusses U-223’s
earlier war patrols under Karl-Jurgen Wachter during which she sank the
SS Dorchester, but concludes with a detailed description of the hunt for
the U-boat in March 1944. Benefiting from Royal Navy official reports
at the Public Records Office, which, regrettably, he does not list in his
bibliography, Edwards begins with the first ASDIC contact of the U-boat
and painstakingly traces the day-long A/S hunt, which culminated in the
loss of both HMS Laforey and U-223. Although Edwards includes a
first-hand account of HMS Laforey’s sinking by her first lieutenant and a
report of the rescue and care of survivors by Lieutenant Richard
Howard, Blencathra’s commanding officer, he focuses primarily on the
role of the British escorts, only briefly mentioning Kearny, Ericsson, and
the three PCs. In fact, this engagingly written and detailed description of
Captain ‘Beaky’ Armstrong’s skillful pursuit of U-223 fails to resolve
several important issues in the hunt for U-223.28
None of the accounts of the hunt for U-223, including Edwards’
book, specifically addresses the issue of which Allied vessel(s) or aircraft first made contact with the U-boat. Edwards’ account states only
that Captain Harold Armstrong’s three destroyers were on an A/S sweep
when HMS Tumult first picked up the U-223’s presence twenty miles
north of Palermo, thirty minutes before dawn on 29 March 1944. Although he does discuss Peter Gerlach’s earlier Mediterranean patrols,
Edwards does not include in his account of the submarine’s final patrol
any previous contact made by two Allied ships, probably minesweepers,
or possible contacts by the USS Madison (DD-425) or Allied aircraft patrols. Interrogation of the U-223’s survivors does indicate, however, that
Allied escorts first located the U-boat on 28 March. The escorts depth
charged the German submarine destroying the 20mm gun mount.
Furthermore, both online and published accounts of U-223’s torpedo
attack on HMS Laforey vary. In his version, Peter Smith wrote that
Laforey was struck by three torpedoes abreast the forward boiler room.
Samuel E. Morison claims that just one torpedo struck the destroyer;
Clay Blair argues that Gerlach shot a T-5, which struck Laforey; and
Bernard Edwards writes that Gerlach fired a torpedo from the stern tube
at the British destroyers, striking HMS Laforey. In the British interrogation of the U-boat’s survivors, the torpedo man insisted that the stern
tube had jammed, but in a recent telephone interview, survivor Gerd
Buske stated that Gerlach fired three torpedoes at Laforey. He did not
mention the malfunctioning stern tube. The exact number of torpedoes
fired may never be known, but it is certain that at least one struck the destroyer resulting in an explosion, possibly in her magazines or depth
charge racks, and causing her to sink within a short period of time.
One of the most difficult issues to resolve is the fate of the U-223’s
captain, Peter Gerlach. In their accounts, both Bernard Edwards and
20 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
Clay Blair claim that Gerlach refused to leave U-223, preferring in the
time-honored manner to go down with his ship. They probably came to
this conclusion from reading the British “post mortem” which quoted the
U-223’s engineer Ernst Scheid. On the other hand, Gerd Buske insists
that Scheid helped the wounded captain off the U–boat, but that Gerlach
subsequently died of his wounds.29
In conclusion, after interviewing a U-223 survivor Gerd Buske,
searching available official reports, information online, and published
sources about the hunt for U-223, a more accurate, complete picture of
this unique duel between the U-boat and HMS Laforey emerges. Survivors recall that on 28 March 1944 Allied vessels, possibly two
minesweepers, discovered and depth charged the submarine damaging
her 20mm gun mount. At 0430 the following day, 29 March 1944, while
conducting an anti-submarine sweep with HMS Laforey and HMS Tumult, HMS Ulster registered an ASDIC contact. Ten minutes later,
Laforey confirmed the contact and Captain Armstrong, ordered Ulster to
depth charge the contact. Ulster dropped ten charges on the U-boat. At
0515 the cruiser Brooklyn, moored at Palermo, Sicily, received a report
from Laforey “that she had a doubtful A/S contact at 0515A in position
038-31 N 013-43 E which she was investigating and attacking.” Later,
no time specified, Brooklyn reported that Laforey had sent a message to
FOWIT confirming the existence of an enemy submarine and requesting
assistance.
In the meantime, Captain Armstrong had ordered Ulster to continue
the attack on U-223 and at 0900 HMS Tumult joined in. During the
morning of 29 March, the British escorts briefly lost the contact with Uboat, but regained it. By now, Ulster had run out of depth charges and at
1215 she departed the hunt replaced by HMS Wilton. In response to
Laforey’s request for assistance, at 0922 two American patrol craft, PC626 and PC-558, left Palermo to join in the hunt for U-223. At 1340,
PC-626 reported sighting Laforey and the other destroyers and her commanding officer, E.B. Harvey, received orders to take position a thousand yards to starboard and join in a creeping attack on the submarine.
By 1600, Wilton had also run out of depth charges and departed for Augusta to re-supply. The Hunt-class destroyers Blencathra and Hambledon arrived at 1530 to reinforce Captain Armstrong’s ships and at some
point in the afternoon American destroyers Ericsson and Kearny also
joined the British escorts, Laforey, Tumult, Blencathra, Hambledon, and
three PCs – 626, 556, and 558 – in the A/S hunt. As darkness fell, Captain Armstrong ordered his four destroyers to continue the hunt for U223 and sent Ericsson and Kearny to conduct a box patrol three to four
miles out while the three patrol craft deployed in an outside box patrol.
Sometime before midnight, U-223 slipped away from her pursuers
and doubled back. An hour later, at 2130, HMS Laforey regained con21 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
tact. Between 0015 and 0040 she switched on and off her searchlight and
soon afterward U-223 surfaced and proceeded on a westerly course. At
0100 the British reported seeing a wisp of smoke as the U-boat surfaced
1,500 yards away. U-223 survivors recalled that when a searchlight
snapped on, Peter Gerlach ordered full speed ahead, and the British destroyers opened fire. When one turned towards the U-boat, Gerlach ordered three torpedoes fired. According to one of the submarine’s torpedomen, her stern tube jammed. At least one, a T-5 acoustic torpedo,
found its mark, hitting the Laforey. She sank quickly. HMS Blencathra,
the nearest British escort to the Laforey, reported seeing the impact of
the torpedo, but according to most accounts, the other escorts were unaware that the destroyer had been torpedoed. Determining that the situation was hopeless and that U-223 could not escape, Peter Gerlach ordered the crew to assemble on the submarine’s casing and abandon ship.
The U-boat remained underway and, according to first officer Gerd
Buske, the men jumped off in groups at intervals of about fifty meters.
Some reports claim that the U-boat circled and that British gunfire and
the vessel’s propellers killed or injured many survivors in the water.
Twenty-seven men survived, but her captain Peter Gerlach died of his
wounds. HMS Laforey went down with heavy loss of life, including
Captain H.T. ‘Beaky’ Armstrong.
The A/S hunt for U-223 was therefore, a combined effort possibly initiated by unamed Allied escorts or minesweepers and followed up by
British escorts including HMS Laforey, reinforced by Ericsson and
Kearny, and three patrol craft, PC-626, PC- 558, and PC-556. Future research, including interviews with officers and crew who served on the
U-223 and the British and American escorts, as well as official reports
not already consulted, may lead to more details about this incident. In
the meantime, available in-print resources and online searches have given the author a more complete, accurate understanding of the hunt for U223 and the subsequent loss of both the submarine and the British destroyer Laforey. Using the internet to research this relatively minor
World War II incident often proved a time-consuming and frustrating
process, one fraught with inaccuracies and omissions. On the other hand,
it did lead to the discovery of Bob Burns’ vivid personal memories of the
sinking of HMS Laforey, email correspondence with author Peter C.
Smith, a telephone conversation with U-223 survivor Gerd Buske,
Bernard Edwards’ recently published The Twilight of the U-Boats, and
to the convenience of online searches and ordering of official reports
from the National Archives and Records Administration.30
Notes
1
Barbara Brooks Tomblin, With Utmost Spirit: Allied Naval Operations in the Mediterranean, 1942-1945 (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2004), pp. 322-328;
22 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
Samuel Eliot Morison, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol.
X, Sicily-Salerno-Anzio (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1964), pp. 338-43; Albert Kesselring, The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Kesselring (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1997), p. 194. Allied ships sunk or damaged during the Anzio campaign include USS Portent (AM-106), mined and sunk; HMS Palomares disabled by mine,
towed to Naples; LCI-20 bombed and sunk; HMS Janus hit by aerial torpedo and sunk;
HMS Jervis hit and damaged by radio-controlled glider bomb; USS Plunkett (DD-431)
bombed and damaged; HMHS St. David bombed and sunk; USS Mayo (DD-422) mined
and damaged; USS Prevail (AM-107), bombed and damaged; LST 422, mined and sunk;
LCT-2, mined and sunk; SS Hilary A. Herbert, a Liberty ship, hit by aircraft and
beached; SS John Banvard, hit and damaged, written off; PT-201, hit by friendly fire;
HMS Spartan, hit by glider bomb and sunk; SS Samuel Huntington, hit by glider bomb
and sunk; ATR-1, bombed and damaged; USS Ludlow (DD-438), damaged by coastal defense gunfire; USS Herbert C. Jones (DE-137), damaged by radio bomb; LST 418, sunk
by U-230; HMS Penelope, sunk by U-410; USS YT-198, sunk by mine; USS Pilot (AM4), damaged in collision; HM LST-305, torpedoed and damaged by Italian MAS boat and
then sunk by U-230; HMHS St. Andrew, bombed and damaged; HMS Leinster, bombed
and damaged; HMS Inglefield, hit by radio bomb and sunk; LST-349, grounded; PT-207,
hit by gunfire and damaged; HMS Laforey, sunk by U-223; USS Philadelphia (CL-41),
damaged in a collision with USS Laub (DD-613).
2
U-223, uboat.net; HMS Laforey, uboat.net.
3
Morison, op. cit., p. 371; Owen Gault, “If This Be Glory: Anzio – The Invasion that
Nearly Failed,” Sea Classics, January 2005. Gault states that in late March, Laforey and
two American PCs managed to attack and sink U-223 while patrolling well to the northwest of Palermo. This is, of course, only partially correct as Laforey had assistance from
Ericsson and Kearny and other British escorts. Technically, the two PCs, which Gault
does not name, did not receive credit for sinking U-223.
4
Tomblin, op. cit., p. 358; Clay Blair, Hitler’s U-boat War: The Hunted, 1942-1945
(New York: Modern Library, 2000), pp. 525-526. Albert Brandi in U-967 sank the
American destroyer escort USS Fechteler (DE-157) on 5 May 1944. Horst-Arno Fenski
fired a torpedo from U-371’s stern tube at the Coast Guard-manned USS Menges (DE320) on 3 May, but she was towed into Bougie. U-371 was subsequently hunted by Allied escorts, but before scuttling his boat, Fenksi fired a torpedo which hit and damaged
the Free French destroyer escort Senegalais. U-230 claimed PC-558 on 9 May 1944.
5
U-223, uboat. net/allies/warships/ship/4206.html.
6
U-223, uboat.net/allies/warships/ship/4206.html; uboat.net/men/commanders/g.html.
For example, Peter Gerlach is listed under “The Men” on uboat.net. He was born on 25
February 1922 in the city of Memel (Klaipeda), Lithuania. Prior to taking command of
the U-223, Gerlach commanded the U-37, a Type IX submarine.
7
battleships-cruiser.co.uk/laforey_class.htm; steelnavy.com.
8
dana-nield.com/d32/laforey/. An honor roll of Laforey’s officers and crew is a valuable
source for first names and other information. For example, her commanding officer, Captain H.T. Armstrong is listed as Captain Harold Thomas Armstrong, DSO, DSC, age thirty-nine, son of Thomas Charles and Gladys Maud Armstrong, husband of Vera Barker.
Regrettably, the fifty-seven minute interview with Rear Admiral Charles is not available
online, but must be purchased. Attempts to contact or email the website have failed to
yield any responses.
9
answers.com/topic/l-and-m-class-destroyer; en.wikipedia.org/wik/L_and_M_class_destroyer.
10
battleships-cruisers.co.uk. Although little information about the Hunt-class destroyer
HMS Wilton is available online, at the “The Gallant Ohio” website, airartnw.com/gallantohio.htm, there is a brief biography of Lieutenant Commander George G. Marten, her
commanding officer from 1943 to 1945. Marten joined the Royal Navy in 1931 and
served in destroyers including HMS Penn, which took part in the famous PEDESTAL
23 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
convoy in August 1942. After the war, Marten became Equerry to King George VI.
11
u-boot-archiv.de; translation courtesy of Ralf Tomandi. “The Hunt for U-223” at users.erols.com/sepulcher/USSKearny.htm provides a more complete description of the incident, but a link back to the home page reveals that this is a link from the USS Kearny
website titled “History of the Kearny.”
12
Barry Sax letter to editor, 27 January 2006, “Town of Dorchester Honors the Four
Chaplains of the USS Dorchester,” wisconsincentral.net; Dan Kurzman, No Greater
Glory, the Four Immortal Chaplains and the sinking of the Dorchester in World War II
(New York: Random House, 2004).
13
Telephone interview with Gerd Buske. The ocean temperature off Sicily was fifty-seven
degrees Fahrenheit, not “warm” but less chilly than off Greenland.
14
In addition to operational histories, uboat.net, ubootwaffe.net, uboat.aces.com, and
Wikipedia have excellent descriptions of German torpedo development. Wikipedia explains that in Allied parlance “Gnat” meant German Naval Acoustical Torpedo. The T-5
Zaunkoning electric homing torpedo, which Peter Gerlach used to sink the Laforey, entered service during the fall of 1943 as an escort-killer with more speed and greater range
than its predecessor, the T-4 Faulke. According to uboat.net, the Germans designed the
T-5 to home in on the most audible propeller noises after a run of 400 meters. Unfortunately for German submarine officers and crews, it had a habit of locking on to the Uboat instead of the enemy target. Both U-972 and U-377 probably sank after being hit by
their own T-5 torpedoes. For specifics of both the T-4 and T-5, see Unterseebootwaffe
website.
15
For example, the author could not find Fighting Flotilla in the Rutgers University library system, the entire University of California system, the Ventura County library system, or the Morris County, New Jersey library system. The U.S. Navy Department library
online catalog was unavailable at the time.
16
Blair, op. cit., pp. 519-522; 171; Ironically, although Clay Blair did a prodigious
amount of research for his book, Hitler’s U-boat War, he did not cite specific references,
leaving readers to assume from his extensive bibliography that much of his information
came from primary source material including official and unofficial Allied reports and
documents in German archives. The USS Kearny (DD-432), commissioned at the Brooklyn Navy Yard on 13 September 1940, was a veteran submarine hunter by the spring of
1944. Before being deployed to the Mediterranean in February 1944, Kearny participated
in the Neutrality Patrol, escorted numerous North Atlantic convoys, and took part in Operation TORCH in November 1942. No stranger to submarine attacks, the destroyer was
torpedoed while on Neutrality Patrol by U-568, which fired a spread of three torpedoes.
One torpedo hit Kearny on her starboard side just below the waterline killing eleven of
her crew and injuring twenty-two others.
17
Blair, op. cit., pp. 423-426; 519-522; 171; Robert Louis Smith, “My service in Ericsson,” geocities.com/bensonclass/440rbs.html; USS Kearny, users.erols.com. Blair’s
Hitler’s U-boat War also offers better coverage of the German T-5 homing torpedoes.
Blair not only discusses at length the success of the first homing torpedoes, but includes
Donitz’s reaction and sets the convoy battle in its historical context. He notes that the
Germans at first considered the T-5 a “wonder weapon.” More specific information about
U.S. homing torpedoes during the war can be found online in Tom Pelick’s article, “Post
WWII Torpedoes, 1945 to 1955,” at personal.psu.edu/faculty/p/q/pq9/post.html. See also
Frederick Milford, “US Navy Torpedoes, Part Four: WWII development of homing torpedoes 1940-1946,” The Submarine Review, April 1997.
18
Peter C. Smith, Fighting Flotilla: HMS Laforey and Her Sister Ships (London: William
Kimber, 1976), p. 169. The National Archives at Kew Gardens has an online catalog of
Admiralty records which can be purchased by researchers. ADM 1/29812 has the report
of awards made to the men of Laforey and the other destroyers in the hunt for U-223.
19
Roger Hill, Destroyer Captain, Memoirs of the War at Sea 1942-45 (St. Albans, UK:
Mayflower Granada Publishing, 1979), pp. 239-241.
24 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
20
Ian Billingsley, “H.M.S. Laforey,”, bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar.
Smith, op. cit., pp. 168-169. Lammerton, a Hunt-class destroyer, did serve in the
Mediterranean. Quantock is also a Hunt-class destroyer, see Warships of World War II,
warships.web4u.cz./staty.php?language=E.
22
ASW Assessment Report No. 5870, Record Group 38, Records of the Office of the
Chief of Naval Operations, N.A. The NARA website is nara.gov. Letter of 3 March 2006
from Patrick R. Osborn, Modern Military Records. In this same file marked serial 81,
Commander, Eighth Fleet (Com8th Fleet) reported to COMINCH that the USS Madison
obtained the original contact on a submarine and attacked with depth charges, but then
turned the contact over to the British destroyers. Madison was the only U.S. unit given
credit for sinking the submarine which was not mentioned by name. This report noted
that in serial 89 “British DD’s carried out hunt and attack. US PC’s carried out box patrol
around area. Not in attack.” There is no further explanation or date attached, but serial 81
probably refers to an earlier A/S hunt for U-450 on 10 March 1944 off Anzio. In the latter incident, a hunter-killer group composed of four Royal Navy destroyers, HMS Brecon, HMS Exmoor, HMS Blankney, and Blencathra, attacked Kurt Bohme’s U-450 and
forced her to surface. Brecon and Exmoor opened fired on U-450, forcing Bohme to order the boat abandoned and scuttled. The British escorts, including HMS Urchin, which
arrived late in the hunt, rescued fifty-one survivors. Preceding the hunt for U-223 by only
a few weeks, this action off Anzio may have contributed to confusion about which escorts participated in the loss of HMS Laforey and U-223.
23
War Diary, U.S.S. PC-626, March, 1944, RG 38, National Archives; William J.
Veigele, PC Patrol Craft of World War II: A History of the Ships and Their Crews (Santa Barbara, CA: Astral Publishing, 1998). Many interesting photographs taken at PC626’s launching and information about this patrol craft can be found on line at NavSource Online’s Submarine Chaser Photo Archive, but her very minor role in the sinking
of U-223 is not included. The website does state that PC-626 “assisted the PC-558 in
sinking a German one-man submarine 9 May 1944 off the coast of Salerno, Sicily.” In his
book about PCs in World War II, William J. Veigele also gives 9 May 1944 as the date
PC-626 assisted PC-558 in sinking a midget submarine. The PC-558 was sunk that same
day by a torpedo fired from U-230 commanded by Paul Siegmann. PC-1235 rescued thirty of the patrol craft’s survivors.
24
War Diary USS Brooklyn, RG 38, National Archives.
25
“U450, U223 and German One Man submarines, Interrogation of Survivors, NID,
1/PW/REP/1/44,” OP -16-Z, NARA.
26
Ibid.
27
Peter C. Smith, op. cit., pp. 98-99.
28
Bernard Edwards, The Twilight of the U-boats (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2004),
pp. 176-184. As of October 2006, the uboat.net site for U-223 still listed only German
U-Boat Losses During World War II: Details of Destruction by Axel Niestlé (Annapolis:
Naval Institute Press, 1998), and U-boat Operations of the Second World War, Vols. 1-2
by Kenneth G. Wynn, (Annapolis: Naval Institue Press, 1998). In his reply to recommendations for credit for each U.S. unit participating in anti-submarine attacks in serials 81
and 89, Lieutenant C.A. Kenny states that the “Madison obtained original contact, attacked with depth charges, and turned contact over to British DD’s and proceeded on
original duty.” The British “post mortem” for U-450 does not mention any previous attack by Allied escort or escorts. It states only that U-450 was sighted on the surface in the
moonlight off the Italian coast between Anzio and Ischia on the night of 9-10 March by
two destroyers. Uboat.net, however, claims that Madison participated with Blankney,
Blencathra, Exmoor, and Brecon, in the hunt for U-450. Furthermore, the USS Madison
website includes a copy of the ship’s awards and honors, which credit her for an initial
attack which resulted in the destruction of U-450. Thus, it seems unlikely that Madison
picked up a contact on U-223, but that serial 81 in the ASW report refers to the successful hunt for U-450.
21
25 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
29
Edwards, op. cit., pp. 176-177; U450 and U223 and German One Man submarines, Interrogation of Survivors; Smith, op. cit., pp. 168-169; Blair, op. cit., p. 520; Buske telephone interview; U-450, uboat.net; ASW report; “List of Madison’s Awards and Ribbons, USS Madison, geocities.com/bensonclas/madison.html. The website of the National Association of Destroyer Veterans – destroyers.org – does not mention this incident.
30
Errors or inaccuracies included Clay Blair’s misidentifying HMS Hambledon as the
USS Hambleton; George Duncan’s website identifying the U-boat as U-233 not U-223;
Bob Burns claiming the escorts included Lammerton and Quantock; Admiral Burrough
arguing that Coastal Forces aircraft made the contact with U-223; and Peter Smith’s version, which credits Laforey leaving Naples on 29 March to join Tumult, Tuscan, Ulster,
Urchin, Blencathra, and Hambledon in an A/S hunt north-east of Palermo.
BARBARA BROOKS TOMBLIN is the author of With Utmost Spirit:
Allied Naval Operations in the Mediterranean, 1942-1945 (Lexington,
KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2004) and G.I. Nightingales: The
Army Nurse Corps in World War II (Lexington, KY: University Press of
Kentucky, 2003). Dr. Tomblin received her Ph.D. in American History
from Rutgers University where she lectured in military history.
26 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
The First Solo Low-Altitude
Night Raid on Rabaul
TERRY M. MAYS
Al Lukas gunned the Douglas P-70 Nighthawk's throttles and initiated
his bombing run at 300mph. The palm trees quickly slipped past the
night fighter and gave way to the open water of Simpson Harbor. Despite the poor visibility due to the low ceiling and blackout conditions on
the ground, the target could be seen lying at the distant end of the harbor.
The pilot dropped the nose of the aircraft and skimmed above the water
as he lined up his final approach to the target. The absence of searchlights and anti-aircraft fire assured the crew that their mission was a
complete surprise to the Japanese based in and around the town. Lukas
could see the row of naval docks nearing his plane. According to Intelligence photographs, a fuel dump and the Australia House lay just beyond
the docks. Although the fuel dump was an obvious target for the night
fighter crew, the Australia House offered a more tempting objective. The
former elegant hotel served as a Japanese headquarters and/or officers’
quarters according to Intelligence sources.
The P-70 buzzed across the naval dock at less than 100 feet altitude as
the bombs (two 100lb incendiaries and four 100lb high explosives) were
released. Delays on the bomb fuses allowed the P-70 to escape before
the ordnance exploded over the targets. The rear gunner yelled that the
incendiaries had burst and produced a bright blue flame as they and the
high explosives enveloped the dock, fuel dump, and Australia House.
The third crewmen reported that he observed the Australia House actually rising off its foundation and collapsing. The fuel dump burst into
flames as the incendiaries smothered their target. In addition, the pilot
believed that one of the bombs damaged a small naval ship at the dock.
Lukas immediately urged his P-70 into a climb and turned to cross the
ridge located northwest of the town as the bombs exploded below him.
Two Japanese searchlights situated on the ridge illuminated the dark
night in a vain attempt to locate the attacker or attackers. The gunner
aboard the P-70 swiveled his .50-caliber machine gun and silenced one
of the lights as the plane roared across the ridge and dropped to the other
side. Two additional searchlights swept the darkness above the water in
27 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
search of possible naval craft and briefly illuminated the P-70 before losing the aircraft due to its speed. On the way home, the trio evaded a pursuing Japanese fighter and strafed an anti-aircraft and radar installation
on New Ireland Island. The crew beamed knowing that they had successfully completed the first solo low-altitude night fighter bombing raid on
the Japanese fortress at Rabaul in the Solomon Islands.
Al Lukas, a slender, talkative man with a pencil-thin moustache (and
the father of my wife), related the Rabaul tale to me on numerous occasions. One evening, as if to verify his facts, Lukas pawed through an old
box and produced the original mission documents that he had "borrowed" from the squadron Intelligence officer during the war. A carbon
copy of the three-page document, along with Lukas' flight log, which he
meticulously maintained throughout the war, offered a fascinating
glimpse of a heroic raid largely forgotten by historians.1
In 1942, Pilot Officer Lukas, and other Americans, were offered discharges from the Royal Air Force (RAF) in order to join the United
States Army Air Force. Lukas, due to his experience with the RAF night
fighters, was selected with a small number of other Americans serving in
the same capacity to help form and train the new American night fighter
units in Florida. As an RAF veteran holding the rank of Pilot Officer,
Lukas was offered a direct commission as a First Lieutenant and joined
the newly-formed 419th Night Fighter Squadron (NFS) after it was
tapped for an overseas assignment. The 419th arrived on Guadalcanal in
November 1943 after months of training with the P-70 at Kissimmee,
Florida.2
Although promised the newly-produced P-61 Black Widow night
fighters, the 419th arrived at Guadalcanal to inherit war-weary P-70s of
the departing 6th Night Fighter Squadron. The P-70 Nighthawk was the
night fighter version of the A-20 Havoc, a twin-engine medium bomber
utilized throughout the war by Allied forces. 3 Disappointment at not receiving the P-61s increased as the unit realized they would have to also
fly the twin-engine P-38 Lightning, which would break up the pilot/radar
operator teams that had formed in Florida. While the P-38s were capable
of downing Japanese aircraft caught in searchlights, the P-70 had managed to destroy only two planes during its tenure in the Pacific. 4 The underpowered P-70 faced difficulties catching and even reaching the altitude of many Japanese raiders. Due to these problems, the 419th began
its combat status flying harassing night missions against Japanese bases
and camps in the Solomons during the last months of 1943 and the first
few months of 1944 with the P-70s and P-38s.5
Lukas related that the idea for the raid originated in the local mess
hall when he heard several senior Marine Corps officers discussing the
difficulty in accurately bombing Rabaul. The Japanese base was situated
on a harbor that had been carved over time from the crater of an extinct
28 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
volcano on the northeast end of New Britain Island, located at the northwest end of the Solomon Islands chain. The terrain helped to protect the
base and its harbor while heavy Japanese air defenses, including fighters
and ample anti-aircraft guns, forced Allied bombers to attempt high altitude missions. Rabaul served as the major Japanese army and navy base
during the Solomon Islands campaign and was a tempting target. Lukas
boasted that he knew a way to accurately bomb Rabaul and immediately
encountered skepticism from the officers. However, he provided details
of his service with the RAF and the low-level night bombing tactics he
had learned while flying against German targets. In the European Theater, he flew solo raids against German airfields, factories, and trains utilizing the Boston bomber, another version of the American A-20. Thus,
flying a similar plane, Lukas felt confident that he could duplicate his
raids against German facilities with an attack on Rabaul. Although not
fully convinced, the officers passed the idea forward and Lukas received
permission to attempt a one-plane night raid on Rabaul.
Lukas asked his regular P-70 crew if they would volunteer to accompany him on the mission and both men accepted. This was a relief because he commented years later that he felt comfortable with his regular
crew and did not desire to substitute either due to the complexity of the
mission. Second Lieutenant J.S. Blankenship would serve as the Radar
Operator while Staff Sergeant Glen DeForrest agreed to man the guns of
the P-70.6 Lukas poured over the Intelligence photos of Rabaul to study
the target and the best routes in and out of the area. Since he could not
keep the photographs, he had to select the routes and targets and then
commit them to memory. At Rabaul, Lukas noticed the naval docks and
the fuel dump. Directly in line with these two targets was the Australia
House. Lukas selected these three targets due to their importance and
close proximity in a straight line from his approach route across the harbor. If Allied Intelligence was correct, a single bomb load could be
dropped across the naval dock, fuel dump, and then into the nearby Australia House. After settling on the targets, Lukas calculated his ordnance
needs and opted for the two 100lb incendiary bombs and four 100lb high
explosive bombs.
Lukas and his crew departed Guadalcanal on the morning of 9 January
1944 and flew to Munda on New Georgia Island where they ate lunch.
The trio continued to Bougainville in the late afternoon and landed at
Torokina fighter strip, recently captured from the Japanese. 7 At 2200, the
P-70 departed Torokina and proceeded on a course toward New Ireland,
which was situated east of New Britain and Rabaul. Flying at an altitude
of 500 feet, they spotted an American PT boat and, thirty minutes later, a
dinghy with a man rowing. Since the dinghy was southeast of New Ireland, Lukas was not sure if the man was an American or Japanese pilot
who had been downed earlier. Operating under strict radio silence, the
29 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
crew could not report the sighting until the next day.
As the P-70 approached the coast of New Ireland, one of the crew
members spotted a Japanese aircraft, either a Mitsubishi F1M “Pete” or
a Nakajima E8N “Dave,” at 1,000 feet. 8 Lukas quickly banked his aircraft and managed to slip away from the Japanese plane believing that he
was not spotted. They made landfall on New Ireland at Cape St. George
and flew north along the western coast of the island. Rain and poor visibility took its toll as they attempted to ascertain their exact location.
Thinking he was directly east of Cape Tavui, New Britain, Lukas banked
his aircraft and flew westward. However, upon reaching land, he was not
sure of his exact location and flew west along the coast for five miles before getting his bearings. The lack of any mountains to the south convinced Lukas that his arrival had been Cape Gazelle and not Cape Tavui.
Lukas flew to the north and made landfall at Bolemakas Bay. The weather had cleared and he set his course again for Cape Tavui. However, the
weather worsened as he approached the northern coast of New Britain.
Lukas identified Watom Island with difficulty and knew he was on
course. The crew cruised offshore between Talili Bay and Tavui Point to
study the weather situation over the target area. After careful contemplation of the situation, Lukas opened his bomb bay doors and approached
Rabaul from the direction of Vala Vala. Climbing over the ridge ringing
Rabaul, Lukas dropped down toward the harbor as two searchlights
snapped on and began swinging wildly in the attempt to locate the aircraft that had just passed their positions. The P-70 continued on a
northerly course hugging the terrain until reaching the harbor.
Once over the water, Lukas lined his aircraft with the naval docks and
commenced his bombing run. After dropping their bombs, clearing the
opposite ridge, and eluding the searchlight teams, the P-70 streaked out
to sea to begin the evasive course back to Bougainville. Lukas flew east
and crossed Duke of York Island on a course for New Ireland. Reaching
New Ireland, he turned south and within minutes one of the crew spotted
a Japanese fighter above and dead astern of the P-70. Lukas decreased
his altitude and skimmed the ocean in an attempt to lose the fighter. Evasive action failed to shake the Japanese fighter so he headed inland and
maneuvered his large aircraft into one of the valleys on the island. This
action, placing the darkly-painted P-70 into the dark valley, apparently
confused the Japanese pilot allowing Lukas to successfully slip away.
As Lukas, Blankenship, and DeForrest approached Cape St. George,
they decided to conduct an unscheduled harassment of the Japanese. Allied forces knew that the Japanese operated an anti-aircraft and radar installation approximately two miles inland from Cape St. George.9 Since
the weather in the area was clear, Lukas opted to locate and strafe the
Japanese installation. After making a dry run at an altitude of 200 feet,
the trio spotted the tents, anti-aircraft gun positions, and radar antenna in
30 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
a clearing. Lukas guided the P-70 to the south and returned for his strafing run. As he approached the installation, he fired a three-second burst
from the six .50-caliber machine guns in the nose of the P-70 at the tents
and gun positions. Returning again, he fired a burst of machine guns into
the radar shed while Blankenship on the dorsal twin .30-caliber guns and
DeForrest on the ventral .50-caliber gun peppered the tents. Lukas returned for a fourth pass over the installation and noticed a white light
flashing approximately two miles off shore. Suspecting that the light
could be from a Japanese surface vessel approaching Cape St. George in
response to an emergency call from the installation, Lukas returned to
his original flight path and headed south toward Bougainville.
Lukas eventually climbed to 9,000 feet to avoid poor weather and
safely landed at Torokina at 0200, four hours after commencing the raid
from the same location. He attributed the lack of anti-aircraft fire, despite at least twenty Japanese sites along the ridges surrounding Rabaul,
to the complete surprise of the low-altitude night mission.
After landing and reporting the success of his mission, the unit Intelligence officer, Skip Slater, told Lukas, "That was super, Luke." He carried the nickname "Super Luke" for the rest of his life. Sadly, another
night fighter crew attempted the same mission the next night despite the
attempts of Lukas to persuade them to abandon the idea. Based upon his
RAF experience against the Germans, Lukas realized that the Japanese
would be alert for a repeat of the caper. Apparently, the Japanese were
alerted to the possibility of another low-altitude night raid and the crew
attempting to duplicate the mission never returned from the operation. 10
The Allies would later encircle New Britain and push on beyond the
Solomons toward the Philippines, leaving Rabaul to "wither on the vine"
rather than waste valuable manpower to capture the post. Lukas, now
flying the P-61 Black Widow night fighter, would later down a Japanese
Mitsubishi Ki-21 “Sally” bomber during the night of 5 August 1944, and
move on with a detachment of the 419th Night Fighter Squadron across
New Guinea and to the Philippines.11 A severe case of malaria, and not
the Japanese, ended the World War II exploits of Lukas. The Army Air
Force evacuated him to a hospital in Australia for recovery. The war
ended as he was training on a night fighter version of the B-25 for reassignment to the Pacific.
Although most general histories of World War II have forgotten the
first solo low-altitude night raid on Rabaul, one cannot deny the impact
that this raid must have had on the Japanese at Rabaul as well as the
morale of the American night fighters operating in the Solomon Islands.
Notes
1
Information for this article originates primarily from three sources. The first source represents many informal discussions with Lukas followed by more formal interviews prior
31 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
to his death in 1995. The second source is Volume II of Al Lukas’ Flight Logs. These
logs consist of two bound volumes covering his years with the RAF in Europe and the
USAAF in the Pacific. Lukas meticulously maintained his logs and included considerable
detail for each of his significant combat missions. The third source is a collection of official 419th Night Fighter Squadron documents prepared for submission to the 13th Air
Force headquarters, including the following 419th NFS memoranda. Final Mission Report. Dated January 11, 1944. Historical Report of the 419th NFS January 1 – January
31, 1944. Dated February 5, 1944.
2
The RAF placed Lukas into No. 418 Squadron of the Royal Canadian Air Force. In
1942, the unit flew Douglas Boston bombers as night intruder aircraft over France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Lukas scored the first aerial victory of the squadron even
though he was bomber pilot. While circling a German airfield in the Netherlands on 6
May 1942, Lukas noticed the landing lights of Luftwaffe Ju-88 night fighters returning
from raids over England. He brought his Boston into the landing formation of the Ju-88s
and maneuvered directly behind one of the German aircraft. Lukas opened his bomb bay
doors, gunned his engines, and dropped his bomb load as he pulled up and over the German plane. The bombs struck the Ju-88 in mid-air forcing it to crash and damage other
aircraft on the ground. Dutch resistance fighters observed the airfield each night to report
the coming and going of Luftwaffe aircraft to British authorities via radio. Resistance personnel witnessed Lukas’ feat and reported it to England resulting in official confirmation
of the event. Because the Ju-88 was airborne when Lukas dumped his bomb load on it,
the RAF granted Lukas official credit for an aerial victory – as a bomber pilot.
3
The Douglas P-70 Nighthawk and the RAF’s Boston and Havoc bombers were variants
of the Douglas A-20 medium bomber. Lukas commented that he felt quite comfortable
flying the P-70 since its characteristics were almost identical to the RAF aircraft he flew
over Europe. An excellent overview of the American night fighter program, including P70 operations, can be found in Garry R. Pape and Ronald C. Harrison, Queen of the Midnight Skies: The Story of America's Air Force Night Fighters (Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing, 1992). Another useful reference work on the Douglas P-70 and RAF Boston variants of the A-20 is Harry Gann, The Douglas A-20 (7A to Boston III) (London: Profile
Publications, 1971).
4
Captain Richard “Dick” Stewart of the 419th NFS did down a Japanese Mitsubishi G4M
“Betty” bomber over Middleburg Island in 1944 flying a P-38 in cooperation with
ground-based searchlights. Stewart scored the squadron’s only P-38 kill of the war. Other
pilots who transferred into the 419th NFS at Guadalcanal did make previous night kills in
P-38s, but these were credited to their former unit, Detachment B of the 6th NFS.
5
The 419th NFS arrived in the Pacific Theater to provide night air defense rather than
night intruder work. However, the pilots were prepared for the latter missions due to the
extensive training they had received in Florida from Lukas and other former RAF pilots
who had transferred to the USAAF night fighter program.
6
DeForrest would end the war with two official kills as a P-61 Black Widow gunner. One
of these would be while flying with Lukas when they ambushed a Japanese Mitsubishi
Ki-21 “Sally” bomber near Noemfoor Island off the northern coast of New Guinea in
1944.
7
Torokina airstrip opened for limited air operations less than one month prior to the day
when Lukas utilized it as a staging point for his raid on Rabaul. Torokina was within sixty-five miles of five Japanese airfields during this period and was a dangerous location
for pilots attempting to fly in and out of Bougainville. For a good description of the work
to develop and protect Torokina airstrip, see Wesley Frank Craven and James Lea Cate,
editors, The Army Air Forces in World War II (Volume Four): The Pacific: Guadalcanal
to Saipan, August 1942 to July 1944 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950).
8
The Mitsubishi F1M “Pete” and Nakajima E8N “Dave” were Japanese naval float
planes. Both were two-seat, bi-wing aircraft developed in the 1930s. They were utilized
primarily for reconnaissance, although the F1M in particular performed night bombing
32 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
and air defense missions in the vicinity of the Solomon Islands.
9
Belief that the Japanese did not utilize radar during World War II is an ongoing myth.
Although slower to develop radar systems for military purposes than the other belligerents, the Japanese employed fixed and mobile ground-based, naval, and airborne radar
systems. For more information on the use of radar by the Japanese during the war, see
Yasuzo Nakagawa, Japanese Radar and Related Weapons of World War II (Walnut
Creek, CA: Aegean Park Press, 1998).
10
The P-70 on this Rabaul mission was listed as Missing in Action and the Air Force has
never been able to locate the aircraft or crew. The missing crewmembers are Second
Lieutenant Talbot Kelley (pilot), Flight Officer James Palmer (Radar Observer), and Staff
Sergeant Kenneth Nicholson (gunner). After losing this crew, the night fighters did not
attempt any additional night intruder attacks on Rabaul.
11
The Mitsubishi Ki-21 “Sally” bomber was a twin-engined aircraft introduced in 1937.
Although used extensively in China during the early years of the war, it was obsolete as a
day bomber by 1944 and typically performed only night intruder and general transportation duties. The Ki-21 could carry up to seven crew members.
TERRY M. MAYS received his Ph.D. in International Studies from the
University of South Carolina. He is Associate Professor of Political Science at The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina and a Lieutenant
Colonel in the United States Army Reserve. Dr. Mays is the author of
several military history titles and is presently completing a book on the
419th Night Fighter Squadron and night fighters of the 13th Air Force.
33 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
Questions and Answers:
David M. Glantz
ROBERT VON MAIER
Colonel David M. Glantz, USA (Ret.) is the author of more than thirty
books pertaining to the Soviet-German War as well as fourteen self-published atlases on specific wartime Red Army military operations. In 2000
he received the Society for Military History's Samuel Eliot Morison
Prize for his work in the field of Soviet military history. Colonel Glantz
earned degrees in modern European history from the Virginia Military
Institute and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a
graduate of the Defense Language Institute, the U.S. Army Institute for
Advanced Russian and Eastern European Studies, the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, and the U.S. Army War College. He
served on the history faculty of the United States Military Academy,
West Point; the Combat Studies Institute; and the U.S. Army War College. Colonel Glantz founded and currently edits the Journal of Slavic
Military Studies.
Q: Are there any particular Second World War scholars who have been
an important influence on you as a military historian?
A: Without question, no man has influenced me more than Professor
John Erickson, a good friend and former director of the University of
Edinburgh's School for Slavic Studies. Armed with keen insight and
dogged determination, John exploited unprecedented opportunities offered by Soviet Communist Party First Secretary Khrushchev’s glasnost
(openness) program during the early 1960s by visiting the Soviet Union,
interviewing former wartime military leaders, and discussing with them
aspects of the war hitherto considered to be “forbidden terrain.” John
then prepared his seminal and as yet unsurpassed trilogy of books on the
Red Army: The Soviet High Command, The Road to Stalingrad, and The
Road to Berlin.1 In doing so, he single-handedly established Soviet military history and military affairs as credible realms of study in the West.
As he wrote and published, he understood that reaching “truth” and “objectivity” in Soviet military history was a lengthy process likely requir34 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
ing years, if not decades, to complete. Inspired by John, I seek to build
on and perhaps complete his work. As well as serving as a model and
defining the “art of the possible” with regard to these studies, John also
consistently and selflessly supported my work and the work of many other aspiring Soviet military historians.
Malcolm Mackintosh, the author of Juggernaut: A History of the Soviet Armed Forces, and other books on the Soviet Army and Soviet military history, also inspired me and offered constant support. 2 My decision
to prepare a general survey on the Soviet-German War, When Titans
Clashed, was a modest attempt to replicate and, at the same time, update
Malcolm’s seminal survey study of the Red Army in peace and war.3
Q: If you were asked to recommend five books that should be in the library of anyone interested in the Soviet-German War, what works would
you select and what are the specific reasons for your selections?
A: Tragically, despite the Russian Federation’s recent extensive releases
of archival materials on the Soviet-German War, few Western historians
have exploited these fresh but often highly selective materials. Except
for recent forays by a number of historians into “social” aspects of the
war and the human dimension of the struggle and the publication of
memoirs by an increasing number of former Red Army soldiers and officers, precious few Western historians are presently working in the field
of Soviet operational military history. Compounding this tragedy, this
vacuum in military studies exists at a time when new archival releases
and fresh research into existing German archival materials are likely to
produce fundamental reassessments of virtually every aspect of the war
ranging from the strategic, operational, and tactical realms to the Red
Army as an institution and the lives and fortunes of the soldiers and officers who served in it.
This dearth of fresh operational studies forces readers to rely on what
may be termed “classic” works on operational aspects of the war. Although published decades ago, among the most important of these books
– ones that have largely weathered the test of time – are John Erickson’s
two “Road” books on the war, Earl Ziemke’s works, Moscow to Stalingrad and Stalingrad to Berlin, and Albert Seaton’s The Russo-German
War.4 Although published decades ago and incomplete by current
archival standards, the materials and judgments these books contain remain essentially sound.
Among the best of the new “social” histories of the war are Antony
Beevor’s excellent twin battle studies, Stalingrad and Berlin; Catherine
Merridale’s Ivan’s War: Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939-1945;
and Roger Reese’s Stalin’s Reluctant Soldiers: A Social History of the
Red Army, 1925-1941 and Red Commanders: A Social History of the So35 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
viet Army Officer Corps, 1918-1991.5 Beevor’s works exploit extensive
memoir materials and interviews with Red Army and Wehrmacht veterans to present readers with vivid eyewitness mosaics of the battles of
Stalingrad and Berlin, but sadly against the backdrop of 1970’s-vintage
history. Merridale’s work exploits the same sorts of materials to provide
a detailed perspective on the lives and attitude’s of Red Army soldiers.
Although I do not agree with all of Reese’s judgments, his twin studies
on the Red Army’s soldiers and officers offer fresh perspectives and
judgments likely to foster further exciting new research and debate.
Among the best of the many new memoirs by wartime Red Army soldiers are Dmitriy Loza’s Commanding the Red Army’s Sherman Tanks,
Fighting for the Soviet Motherland, and Attack of the Airacobras; Evgenii Moniushko’s From Leningrad to Hungary; and Evgeni Bessonov’s
Tank Rider.6 Those with internet access can read an imposing collection
of shorter memoirs assembled by Artem Drabkin on “The Russian Battlefield” website.7 Drabkin, who has dedicated his life to collecting these
memoirs, is presently working with Western presses to publish many of
them. Supplementing this work on the human dimension of the war,
Reina Pennington and Kazimiera J. Cottam have revealed the many contributions women made to the Soviet war effort, the former in her study,
Wings, Women, & War, and the latter in numerous books, including
Women in Air War and Women in War and Resistance, both published in
Canada.8 Finally, in addition to his formidable two-volume study on the
historiography of the war, The U.S.S.R. in World War II: An Annotated
Bibliography of Books Published in the Soviet Union, 1945-1975, which
now cries for update, Michael Parrish’s seminal study on Soviet intelligence organs, The Lesser Terror, has plowed new ground in this formerly obscure and “forbidden” field. 9
Q: What do you believe to be the most under-examined aspect of the
war on the Eastern Front?
A: Despite the recent spate of books, essentially all aspects of the Soviet-German War remain under-examined, particularly by historians in the
West. I have concluded that existing histories of the war cover about sixty percent of the action that actually occurred. The missing forty percent
of the war record includes important if not vital aspects of well-known
battles and operations, such as Operations Barbarossa and Blau, and the
battles of Moscow, Leningrad, Stalingrad, Kursk, Belorussia, Berlin, and
many others, together with countless battles and operations I simply term
“forgotten.” “Forgotten battles” means military actions conducted on virtually every scale that Western and Soviet (Russian) historians have either overlooked, ignored, or deliberately concealed, in the latter case primarily in an attempt to protect the reputations of the defeated armies and
36 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
their most important commanders, many of whom rose to greater prominence in the post-war years.
German historians and Western historians writing from the German
perspective frequently “forgot,” or overlooked many Red Army military
operations simply because they failed or were obscured by more famous
and important Red Army victories or defeats. This has been the case
with many major operations, primarily offensive but sometimes diversionary, which the Red Army launched while the Wehrmacht was conducting Operations Barbarossa in 1941, Operation Blau in 1942, and Operation Citadel in 1943. It was also the case in late 1943 and 1944 and
1945, when, perceiving it was under assault from every quarter, the
Wehrmacht recognized and reported on only the most successful of these
Soviet advances, ignoring those Soviet offensives that failed.
At the other end of the spectrum, Soviet (Russian) historians tended to
ignore or deliberately conceal many of the Red Army’s failed military
operations, primarily counteroffensive but sometimes even defensive.
Within the context of Operation Barbarossa, these include important but
failed Red Army counteroffensives in the western border region in late
June 1941 and in the Smolensk region in late August and early September 1941 and, during Operation Blau, major failed Red Army counteroffensives near Voronezh and in the great bend of the Don River in July
and August 1942 and near Kotluban’ on the approaches to Stalingrad in
August and September 1942. Likewise, these historians have generally
masked and ignored failed Red Army offensives at Izium and along the
Mius River during July 1943 because they were diversionary efforts associated with the more important and decisive fighting in the Kursk region.
Similarly, Soviet (Russian) historians have concealed failed Red
Army offensives later in the war by masking them with more important
Red Army victories in other regions or during later periods. For example, they used the victory at Stalingrad (Operation Uranus) to mask the
defeat in the Rzhev and Sychevka regions (Operation Mars) and the victories in Belorussian (Operation Bagration) from June to August 1944,
in Rumania (Iasi-Kishinev) during August 1944, and in Eastern Prussia
during January 1945 to mask previous major offensive failures in Belorussia from October 1943 to February 1944, in Rumania during April
and May 1944, and in East Prussia in October 1944.
Set against the backdrop of the catastrophic losses both sides suffered
during the war, military as well as civilian, and the appalling destruction
wrought across such vast an expanse of territory, the human dimension
and economic consequences of the war also remain tragically obscure.
Worse still, most of the officers and soldiers who fought in and survived
the war have fallen victim to time, robbing historians of their recollections and impressions and forcing those who wish to reconstruct the
37 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
scope of the carnage to rely primarily on dry and impersonal archival
records to tell this tale.
Q: What were some of the influencing factors in your decision to research and write Colossus Reborn: The Red Army at War, 1941-43?10
A: Like its predecessor volume, Stumbling Colossus, and its projected
companion third volume, Colossus Triumphant, Colossus Reborn is an
attempt to provide a credible, objective, and detailed study of the Red
Army and its soldiers and officers as it and they fought, evolved, and endured in total war.11 Within the essential context of wartime military operations, these books attempt to describe how the army evolved as an institution and examine, on a human basis, the lives and fortunes of the
men and women who served in it. Hence, both books closely examine
the army’s organizational structure, command and control organs, command cadre and leadership, operational techniques, disciplinary methods, and military hardware, while also devoting considerable attention to
Red Army officers and soldiers, the men and women from many ethnic
backgrounds who fought within its ranks.
Q: Another important addition to the literature is your 224-page Companion to Colossus Reborn.12 Would you discuss a few of the details regarding this particular volume?
A: Statistical in nature, the companion volume is designed to provide
readers with the sort of detail that has been unavailable in previous
books largely because publishers quite naturally recoil at the prospect of
producing non-narrative historical materials. However, I am convinced
that this sort of detail is necessary if one is to understand the true nature
of the Red Army, if not the unprecedented scope and complexity of the
Soviet-German War.
Q: There are a number of Russian-language works available dealing
with the Soviet-German War which are unfortunately not available in
English. Would you discuss a few of the more important studies that
have been published? Also, would you address some of the German-language books that deal with this subject?
A: Fortunately for researchers, but less fortunate for the English-language readers, since 1991 Russian historians have written a plethora of
detailed, objective, and candid studies on many aspects of the war. Many
publishing houses, official as well as private, have also produced an imposing array of books containing collections of archival materials and
wartime documents. For example, Terra Press in Moscow has produced
38 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
multiple documentary volumes (twenty-nine to date) containing directives, orders, and reports by the People’s Commissariat of Defense
(NKO), the Stavka, the Red Army General Staff, and other wartime command and control organs, single volumes containing documents (Stavka,
front, and army orders and reports) on many important battles, such as
Moscow, Kursk, and Berlin, and other volumes related to more specialized subjects. Likewise, Olma Press has published collections of documents (one or two volumes) on such topics as the battles of Moscow,
Stalingrad, and Kursk, and the Leningrad Blockade and other important
documents collections, such as the decrees the State Defense Committee
(GKO) issued during the war, as well as other important volumes.
Many other presses too numerous to mention have published vital new
books. These include Yauza Press, which has published several important books by Aleksei Isaev and a series edited by Isaev containing
books by other authors; AST Press in Moscow, which has published excellent books by Vladimir Beshanov, a Russian translation of my book
on Operation Mars, and a study on the tank battle at Prokhorovka
(Kursk) by Lev Lopukhovsky, and others; Tranzitkniga Press in
Moscow, which has produced studies of the battle of Prokhorovka and
Red Army mechanized corps in the initial period of the war in its series
“Neizvestnoe srazhenie” (Unknown battles), and Veche Press in
Moscow, which has published several works on the catastrophe in 1941
in its series “Voennye tainy XX veka” (Military secrets of the XX century). When translated into English, these and other books by these and
other presses will make major contributions to our present faulty understanding of the war.
As for more books on the war from a German perspective, I am impressed with the books by Steven H. Newton, including his work, Kursk:
The German View, Brian Taylor’s recent two-volume chronological
studies, Barbarossa to Berlin, and the volumes in the official German
history of the war in the series, Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite
Weltkrieg, although the latter are weak in operational detail and the English-language editions are quite costly.13 However, they do correct the
record regarding the presence of the 76th Infantry Division in the city
fighting at Stalingrad (one of my yardsticks to measure the accuracy of
books on the battle).
Q: If you were asked to write a biography of one of the lesser-known
Red Army commanders, whom would you select and why?
A: It is very difficult to answer this question because precious few of the
Red Army’s thousands of senior command cadre have received adequate
attention in the West. Among the most senior of Red Army commanders,
particularly those who rose to command fronts, the most neglected in the
39 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
West (and to some extent in Russia as well) are K.K. Rokossovsky, N.F.
Vatutin, and I.D. Cherniakhovsky. My favorite is Rokossovsky, whose
career spanned all four years of the war and whose wartime contributions historians have woefully underestimated. Rokossovsky commanded
the 9th Mechanized Corps during the terrible borders battles of June
1941, Group Iartsevo and the 16th Army at Smolensk, Viaz’ma, and
Moscow from July 1941 through June 1942 before rising to command, in
succession, the Briansk, Don, Central, Belorussian, 1st Belorussian, and
3d Belorussian Front from mid-1942 through war’s end. In addition to
playing a decisive role in many of the Red Army’s most important battles (Moscow, Stalingrad, Kursk, Belorussia, and Berlin), he has earned
the dubious distinction of having one of the major operations his front
conducted with considerable success, the Belorussian offensive from
October 1943 through March 1944, cast into the waste bin of “forgotten
battles” to protect the reputation of another front commander, General
Vasily D. Sokolovsky, whose companion offensive failed.
Among the many other Red Army commanders who require Englishlanguage biographies are army commanders Batov (65th Army), Pukhov
(13th Army), Zhadov (5th Guards Army), tank army commanders such
as Katukov (1st Guards), Rybalko (3d Guards), and Kravchenko (6th
Guards), and mobile corps commanders such as Poluboiarov (4th Guards
Tank), Belov (1st Guards Cavalry Corps), and Pliev (corps and cavalrymechanized group), and many others too numerous to mention.
Q: Have you conducted research regarding the pro-German Russian Liberation Army (ROA), the Russian People's Liberation Army (RONA),
the 29th Russian Waffen-SS Division, the 14th Waffen-SS Division
(comprised mainly of Ukrainians), or General Andrei Vlasov? And can
you recommend any books that cover these topics in relative detail?
A: I have yet to research these topics extensively. However, excellent
works on the subject include Kirill Aleksandrov’s recent book, Armiia
generala Vlasova, 1944-1945 (General Vlasov’s Army, 1944-1945);
Michael James Melnyk’s To Battle: The Formation and History of the
14. Galician SS Volunteer Division; and Wolf-Dietrich Heike’s The
Ukrainian Division 'Galicia,' 1943-45: A Memoir.14
Q: We recently discussed your forthcoming work pertaining to the battle
for Stalingrad. How soon do you expect it to be published and what
would you say makes this study different from other Stalingrad-related
books that are available?
A: Given the immense amount of detailed and credible Soviet documentation now available on Operation Blau and the battle for Stalingrad, af40 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
ter spending more than ten months working on the project, I have decided the topic cannot be covered adequately in yet another single volume
survey. Therefore, I now plan to produce two volumes, the first dealing
with Operation Blau (28 June-18 November 1942) and the second, the
battle itself beginning with the Red Army’s 19 November 1942 counteroffensive and ending with the Sixth Army’s surrender on 2 February
1943. I now hope to complete the first volume (I have already drafted
twelve of the book’s fifteen projected chapters) by year’s end and write
the second volume by next July. Hopefully, the publisher will agree to
issue each volume as I complete it, probably the first by fall 2007.
Newly-released Russian archival materials and unexploited German
sources promise to render all previous studies of the battle of Stalingrad
incomplete, incorrect, and essentially obsolete. This is so because neither previous nor existing German- and Soviet-based accounts adequately cover the intense but often “forgotten” fighting that took place on the
“road” to Stalingrad, in particular, the many counterstrokes and counteroffensives the Soviet Stavka organized during the period from early
July through early October 1942 as it attempted to thwart the Wehrmacht’s advance. These “forgotten” battles include the mid-July counteroffensive by three Soviet tank armies (the 1st, 4th, and 5th) near Voronezh
and in the great bend of the Don River and the major Soviet counteroffensives in the Kotluban’ region northwest of Stalingrad from late August through early October. Study of these and other forgotten aspects of
Operation Blau now vividly portrays the severe damage done to Paulus’
Sixth Army even before it engaged in the city fighting – damage that
rendered what ultimately occurred from November 1942 through February 1943 as dénouement.
Also neglected in previous studies is the intense defensive fighting associated with the virtual destruction of several Soviet armies (including
the 28th, 38th, and others) in the Donbas region during late July. In addition, Russian release of the Red Army General Staff’s daily operational
summaries, coupled with the records of multiple Red Army divisions
that participated in the fighting in Stalingrad’s center city, factory district, and associated factory villages, now makes it possible to reconstruct the fighting in these regions on an hourly basis, literally street by
street and balka [ravine] by balka.
Finally, these documents reveal errors pervasive in previous works,
many resulting from the over-reliance of many Western authors on older
Soviet sources such as Chuikov’s generally excellent study of the battle.15 For example, following Chuikov’s lead, most subsequent studies of
the battle erroneously include the German 76th Infantry Division as part
of Paulus’ force assaulting the city, while this division was actually engaged in fending off massive Red Army attacks in the Kotluban’ region
northwest of Stalingrad. Likewise, few if any books have reassessed the
41 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
Red Army’s counteroffensive strategically by considering the Red
Army’s companion offensive against German Army Group Center’s defenses in the Rzhev salient (Operation Mars).
Ironically, as is now the case with many battles in the Soviet-German
War, with these new Russian archival releases, researchers now experience greater difficulty describing operations from a German perspective
than from a Red Army perspective.
Q: Other than the aforementioned Stalingrad book, are you presently
working on (or planning to begin research for) any new World War II
book projects? If so, would you discuss a few of the details regarding the
work and when we may expect to see it in published form?
A: Once I complete the Stalingrad study, three major projects will occupy my time and attention: first, an attempt to produce a more definitive
multi-volume study of Operation Barbarossa or separate books on major
aspects of the German offensive; second, the completion of my projected
eight-volume self-published study of “forgotten” battles; and, third, the
production of my third book on major “forgotten” battles, this one on the
Red Army’s failed offensive into Belorussia from October 1943 through
March 1944.
I began the Barbarossa project two years ago as an effort commissioned by the U.S. Army’s Center of Military History (CMH) – a twelvemonth-long attempt to produce a single volume as a companion piece to
CMH’s previous two volumes on the war (by Earl Ziemke and Magna
Bauer). However, the twelve months of work, which resulted in an immense two-volume rough draft of more than 1,700 pages, proved too taxing to complete on schedule. Having “exiled” it to my cellar, once I can
bear to see it again, I plan to resurrect it, perhaps as a CMH project or as
several stand-alone books on lesser aspects of the massive operation.
Although self-published, I consider my series on “forgotten” battles,
which consists of a single volume on each of the eight wartime campaigns (by Russian definition), to be my most important project. This is
so because these volumes attempt to restore as much as possible of the
forty percent of “forgotten” battles to the historical record of the war.
Until this is done, no survey of the war can be considered complete. The
series is self-published because it relies heavily on documents and maps,
which commercial publishers shy away from producing. The remaining
two volumes in this series will cover the summer-fall campaign of 1944
(volume seven) and the winter-spring campaign of 1945 (volume eight).
I hope to complete these volumes in late 2007 and 2008.
The third planned project is to complete my book, The Red Army’s
Belorussian Offensive, October 1943-March 1944, which will be the
third in my series of commercially-produced studies on wartime ‘forgot42 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
ten” battles. As such it will be similar to Zhukov’s Greatest Defeat (Operation Mars) and Red Storm Over the Balkans (the 1st Iasi-Kishinev offensive).16 I have completed this book from the Russian perspective but
must still do more research on the German side. I will try to complete
this volume in 2007.
Q: Please tell us about Red Storm Over the Balkans: The Failed Soviet
Invasion of Romania, Spring 1944, which was recently published by the
University Press of Kansas.
A: This book, the second in my commercially-produced ‘forgotten’ battles series, covers an attempted offensive by the Red Army’s 2d and 3d
Ukrainian Fronts (commanded by Generals Konev and Malinovsky) to
invade Romania in late April and May 1944. Planned by the Stavka in an
attempt to exploit the successes the two fronts achieved in the southern
Ukraine during their respective Uman’-Botoshany and Odessa offensives
during March and April 1944, the offensive was an effort to cross the
Prut and Dnestr Rivers, capture the Romanian cities of Iasi and
Kishinev, and exploit deeper into Romania, perhaps as far as Ploesti and
Bucharest.
During this offensive, threadbare but skillfully led German forces,
particularly panzer and panzer grenadier divisions, such as the 3d, 13th,
14th, 23d, and 24th Panzer Divisions and the Grossdeutschland and SS
“Totenkopf” Panzer Grenadier Divisions, together with often pitifully
weak German and Romanian infantry divisions, contained the 2d
Ukrainian Front’s thrust in the Tirgu-Frumos and Iasi regions and the 3d
Ukrainian Front’s numerous attempts to break out westward from
bridgeheads its armies seized across the Dnestr River.
The ensuing action near Tirgu-Frumos and Iasi pitted three Red Army
tank armies (5th Guards, 2d, and 6th), albeit under-strength, against
Army Group Wöhler’s LVII Panzer Corps in actions which demonstrated that, even at this stage of the war, the tactical proficiency of combatworn German panzer and panzer grenadier forces could still thwart a major Soviet offensive. The action along the Dnestr River was also the last
instance in the war when a counterstroke by under-strength but still determined German forces could almost eradicate a bridgehead captured by
a full Soviet army (Chuikov’s 8th Guards), in the process inflicting severe damage on Chuikov’s army.
Q: In addition to being a military historian, are you also a collector of
World War II-related items such as militaria, weapons, or books?
A: One cannot do this work without collecting an imposing array of
books, documents, and maps, which now number in excess of 10,000
43 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
volumes (although as a former army officer who frequently moved, I
normally measured such detritus in their weight in pounds and the number of “boxes” required to transport them). Recently, I have also assembled a modest collection of Soviet vintage small-arms weaponry, primarily Mosin rifles and carbines from various dates, plus several vintage
pistols, and cheap surplus ammunition. When I delivered lectures to one
of several war-gamers’ conferences last summer, I brought several of
these weapons with me so that conference participants would have an
opportunity to live-fire them.
Editor's Notes
1
John Erickson, The Soviet High Command: A Military-Political History, 1918-1941
(New York: St. Martin's Press, 1962), The Road to Stalingrad: Stalin's War with Germany, Volume One (New York: Harper and Row, 1975), The Road to Berlin: Stalin's
War with Germany, Volume Two (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1983).
2
Malcolm Mackintosh, Juggernaut: A History of the Soviet Armed Forces (New York:
Macmillan, 1967).
3
David M. Glantz and Jonathan M. House, When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army
Stopped Hitler (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1995).
4
Earl F. Ziemke and Magna E. Bauer, Moscow to Stalingrad: Decision in the East
(Washington: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1987); Earl F. Ziemke, Stalingrad
to Berlin: The German Defeat in the East (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1968); Albert Seaton, The Russo-German War: 1941-45 (Westport, CT: Praeger
Publishers, 1971).
5
Antony Beevor, Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege, 1942-1943 (New York: Viking, 1998),
The Fall of Berlin (New York: Viking, 2002); Catherine Merridale, Ivan's War: Life and
Death in the Red Army, 1939-1945 (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006); Roger R.
Reese, Stalin's Reluctant Soldiers: A Social History of the Red Army, 1925-1941
(Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1996), Red Commanders: A Social History
of the Red Army Officer Corps: 1918-1991 (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas,
2005).
6
Dmitriy Loza, Commanding the Red Army's Sherman Tanks: The World War II Memoirs of Hero of the Soviet Union Dmitriy Loza (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska
Press, 1996), Fighting for the Soviet Motherland: Recollections from the Eastern Front
(Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1998), Attack of the Airacobras: Soviet
Aces, American P-39s, and the Air War Against Germany (Lawrence, KS: University
Press of Kansas, 2001); Evgenii D. Moniushko, From Leningrad to Hungary: Notes of a
Red Army Soldier, 1941-1946 (London: Taylor & Francis, 2004); Evgeni Bessonov,
Tank Rider: Into the Reich with the Red Army (London: Greenhill Books, 2003).
7
http://www.battlefield.ru/
8
Reina Pennington, Wings, Women, and War: Soviet Airwomen in World War II Combat
(Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2002); Kazimiera J. Cottam, ed., Women in
Air War: The Eastern Front of World War II (Nepean, Canada: New Military Publishing,
1997), Women in War and Resistance: Selected Biographies of Soviet Women Soldiers
(Nepean, Canada: New Military Publishing, 1998).
9
Michael Parrish, The U.S.S.R. in World War II, An Annotated Bibliography of Books
Published in the Soviet Union, 1945-1975 (New York: Garland Publishing, 1981), The
Lesser Terror: Soviet State Security, 1939-1953 (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers,
1996).
10
David M. Glantz, Colossus Reborn: The Red Army at War, 1941-1943 (Lawrence, KS:
University Press of Kansas, 2005).
44 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
11
David M. Glantz, Stumbling Colossus: The Red Army on the Eve of World War
(Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1998).
12
David M. Glantz, Companion to Colossus Reborn: Key Documents and Statistics
(Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2005).
13
Steven H. Newton, Kursk: The German View (New York: Da Capo Press, 2003); Brian
Taylor, Barbarossa to Berlin: A Chronology of the Campaigns on the Eastern Front
1941 to 1945, Volume One: The Long Drive East, 22 June 1941 to 18 November 1942
(Kent, UK: Spellmount Publishers, 2003), Barbarossa to Berlin: A Chronology of the
Campaigns on the Eastern Front 1941 to 1945, Volume Two: The Defeat of Germany,
19 November 1942 to 15 May 1945 (Kent, UK: Spellmount Publishers, 2003); Manfred
Messerschmidt et al, Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, ten vols. (Stuttgart:
Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1979).
14
Kirill Aleksandrov, Armiia generala Vlasova, 1944-1945 (Moscow: Eksmo Press,
2006); Michael James Melnyk, To Battle: The Formation and History of the 14. Galician SS Volunteer Division (Solihull, UK: Helion & Company, 2006); Wolf-Dietrich
Heike, The Ukrainian Division 'Galicia,' 1943-45: A Memoir (New York: The
Shevchenko Scientific Society, 1988).
15
Vasili I. Chuikov, The Battle for Stalingrad (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston,
1964).
16
David M. Glantz, Zhukov's Greatest Defeat: The Red Army's Epic Disaster in Operation Mars, 1942 (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1999), Red Storm Over the
Balkans: The Failed Soviet Invasion of Romania, Spring 1944 (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2006).
45 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
Author's Perspective
H.P. WILLMOTT
States wage war, services fight, and individuals see action, yet, one
would suggest, the majority of commentators and historians seem constitutionally incapable of making the distinction. To give but one example,
looking through various websites recently the author happened upon
“The hundred greatest Americans” and there was General Dwight D.
Eisenhower: “The Man Who Won World War II.” The very title is ludicrious and grossly insulting on any number of counts. Individuals do not
win wars, and most certainly the Second World War was not won by an
American individual or even the United States. It was a war won by the
United Nations, and in terms of the European war, the most important
single contribution to victory was Soviet just as the most important single national contribution to victory over Japan was that of the United
States.
The author started with such a perspective in terms of The Battle of
Leyte Gulf: The Last Fleet Action, and its main feature – one that has attracted criticism – is that it is concerned primarily with states and services and not with action. One would not condemn nor demean in any
way works such as James D. Hornfischer’s The Last Stand of the Tin
Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's
Finest Hour, but one would suggest that over the years the focus of
American national attention has been upon the combat narrative at the
expense of the national and service dimensions, which should form the
start line in any serious study of events. In part, of course, this ties in
with the problem that confounds American consideration of this battle,
the personal dimension and the personality issue that surrounds Admiral
William F. Halsey, Jr.
The Battle of Leyte Gulf never sought to present anything new, anything that had never appeared in print over the last sixty years, and to
have assumed that it could do so would have been arrogant and most certainly would have led only to failure since it is doubtful if there is anything, anything of real value, that has not been acknowledged in some
screed. But, the terms of reference of The Battle of Leyte Gulf were primarily two-fold, namely the consideration of first, national, and, second,
service, perspective. To the first of these was another strand made possible by nightly visits, over many months, to Japanese archives, courtesy
46 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
of the internet and Japanese personnel who were prepared to dig on my
behalf. If there is any criticism of past accounts of this battle then it must
be along the lines that in so many accounts the Japanese were the ‘also
ran.’ The battle was the result of deliberate decision, at least in part, on
behalf of both sides, and in seeking to set out matters that have not really
been afforded full and proper consideration of the Japanese situation in
English-language sources, the author hoped to provide something that
might cause the individual to pause, to consider things anew. The author
would suggest that one of the important factors that does provide credibility and originality for The Battle of Leyte Gulf is the fact that the two
sides are brought to center stage together.
The story of the battle itself is provided hopefully in full – though one
knows that there are certain to be matters that perhaps could and should
have been present but which for one reason or another fell by the wayside – and without inordinate detail in terms of matters of detail. So
many accounts deal at length with single episodes as if a shell or torpedo
hit must be afforded status that most certainly did not accord with significance. This, one would admit, has one weakness: the book can be represented – and indeed has been – as lacking the human dimension, of being
detached and dry. This author regrets such criticism, particularly allegations of dryness, but in terms of the human dimension, the book was
obliged to turn to the two individuals and the two decisions that invariably attract the lion’s share of attention, mostly uncriticial attention –
Kurita’s turn-away and Halsey’s baring of the San Bernardino Strait.
On the first matter, this author has never understood Kurita’s decision, and never will, and certainly at this distance from events and the
personnel who were present there is very little chance that full and proper explanation will ever be forthcoming. But the revelation that the copy
of the signal alleged to have been received in the Yamato informing Kurita of American forces to the north is a forgery was not known at the
time the book was begun, but the realization that there was no 0945 signal does raise any number of very interesting questions (pp. 182-191).
On the second matter, however, the realization of the truth surrounding
“The World Wonders” signal did produce one answer though it did so in
a somewhat unfortunate manner. The author would admit to having realized the truth rather late in the day and as a consequence a decision was
made that was wrong. The author decided to treat the matter in a separate appendix (pp. 325-331) rather than in text. The decision was made
on the basis of simplicity of text, not to encumber events with the distraction of examination of a single point, but, in retrospect, it was the
wrong decision. The point was that Halsey’s account of proceedings was
deliberately false, and he knew within a minute or two of receiving Nimitz’s signal what was content and what was padding, but he very deliberately paraded the latter as a means of distracting attention from reality.
47 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
But by placing this matter in a separate appendix, one has perhaps compounded this situation.
The Battle of Leyte Gulf represents an attempt to explain not to describe, and it represents an attempt to represent the battle in terms of historical context, most obviously in terms of dimensions seldom afforded
much in the way of historical consideration. It was a battle – the largest
naval battle in modern history – that was fought after the decision of the
war had been reached and it was a battle that resulted in overwhelming
victory, which historically has always been very elusive at sea. The Battle of Leyte Gulf examines these and other related points, and it seeks to
provide explanation in terms of what defeat represented for the Japanese
in terms of subsequent losses (pp. 1-12). Shipping throughout the Philippines and working routes between Japan and the south was hopelessly
exposed and was subjected to immediate and disastrous losses while the
situation of the Japanese navy was hopeless, and hopefully these matters
have been properly examined, most obviously in the tables of losses (pp.
295-306). Overall, one trusts, the work is a proper and thorough examination of this battle, with material drawn from both sides and properly
considered, though the author would make one point: in real terms, the
reader need not look beyond the first paragraph because that explains the
raison d’être of navies.
H.P. WILLMOTT is the author of more than a dozen books on naval and
military subjects, including Empires in the Balance: Japanese and Allied Pacific Strategies to April 1942 (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press,
1982); The Barrier and the Javelin: Japanese and Allied Pacific Strategies, February to June 1942 (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1983);
The Great Crusade: A New Complete History of the Second World War
(New York: Free Press, 1989); Grave of a Dozen Schemes: British
Naval Planning and the War Against Japan, 1943-1945 (Annapolis:
Naval Institute Press, 1996); The Second World War in the Far East
(London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1999); The War with Japan: The Period of Balance, May 1942 – October 1943 (Lanham, MD: SR Books,
2002); and, with Haruo Tohmatsu, A Gathering Darkness: The Coming
of War to the Far East and the Pacific, 1921-1942 (Lanham, MD: SR
Books, 2004). The Battle of Leyte Gulf: The Last Fleet Action (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2005) was selected for the 2006
Distinguished Book Award by The Society for Military History.
48 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
Author's Perspective
ADAM R.A. CLAASEN
In any typical one-volume Second World War text, the Norwegian campaign usually receives, at best, a cursory mention, often tucked unobtrusively between the invasions of Poland and France. Hiding in the shadows of towering stacks of books on the major battles of the Second
World War – Poland, France, the Battle of Britain, Moscow, Pearl Harbor, Stalingrad, Midway, Normandy, and Berlin – Norway has a decidedly overlooked air about it. Yet the campaign’s inconspicuous presence
in the most-written-about-war in history is one of its great allures. Although the truth is, of course, that a number of very good works have
been written about the invasion, it is equally valid to say that when compared to other campaigns, the small collection of books and articles that
make up the corpus of works on the invasion of Norwegian is not great. 1
As I soon discovered, an investigation into this 1940 campaign, codenamed Weserübung, and the years that followed, can yield some rich
seams of historical and military gold.
Hitler’s Northern War: The Luftwaffe’s Ill-fated Campaign, 19401945 (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2001) began its life as
a doctoral thesis under the tutelage of the venerable Vincent Orange,
Reader in History, University of Canterbury, New Zealand. In addition,
James S. Corum, Professor of Comparative Military Studies at the
School of Advanced Airpower Studies, Air University, was also very
generous with documents, photographs, and extremely useful advice.
The topic as outlined in the eventual book title was suited to a three-year
project, with a well-defined time period and clearly identifiable operational theater and command. The structure of the work itself would follow the traditional “genesis, planning, operational execution, and consequences” formula so common to the genre. I soon discovered that while
individual air power studies of various Second World War campaigns
had been made, no one had attempted an investigation of a single German Air Fleet (Luftflotte) for the length of its wartime life.2 Moreover,
the Norwegian theater provided an interesting mix of air-and-naval operations that was less common than the usual air-and-land campaigns of
German military history.
What struck me almost immediately was the reluctance of Hitler early
in the war to even consider a Norwegian adventure and how determined
49 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
individuals, unforeseen circumstances, and his own capricious nature
would see German forces invade in April 1940. It is obvious from surviving documents that Hitler in September 1939 was unwilling to break
Norwegian neutrality. This was not because of any high-minded moralistic qualms, but because he pragmatically thought it would lead to an unnecessary diversion of effort away from his expansive continental ambitions.3 Even with the badgering of Alfred Rosenberg, who felt that the
purity of Nordic blood demanded Norway be given the dubious privilege
of membership in a Greater German Reich, and Erich Raeder, who wanted Scandinavian bases for his navy, it was not until external events intervened that both men were able to make any headway with their Führer.
The Altmark Incident and the Soviet-Finnish Winter War seemed to confirm the belief that an Anglo-French Scandinavian operation was in the
cards. This in turn gave credence to the traitorous Norwegian Vidkun
Quisling’s whispered machinations to Hitler of a looming Oslo-London
collaboration that would see Norway secured for the Allies. Given the
threat this posed to Scandinavian iron supplies to the Third Reich’s war
economy, Hitler began the planning process for a type of operation unfamiliar to the German military leaders: a major combined sea and airborne invasion.
Those books that have been written about the invasion often focus,
quite rightly, on the joint-service aspect of its execution. In this sense
Weserübung was unique in the German Second World War military experience. In no other campaign did all three services, land, sea, and air
combine in such equal measure to secure a country. In military
academia, joint-service operations have, of latter times, become fashionable and teachers scratching around for case studies in joint-warfare invariably mention the Norwegian campaign. While this has much merit,
and I make much of this myself in Hitler’s Northern War, what a lot of
studies fail to acknowledge is that the success of the invasion was not
due to the unanimity of the leaders of the three services, but occurred in
spite of the considerable bickering between them. Both the Luftwaffe and
the Army were reluctant to commit resources to what was perceived as a
decidedly naval undertaking.
The worst offender by far was the Luftwaffe’s commander-in-chief,
Hermann Göring. Petulant, bombastic, and recalcitrant, Göring first began to fully reveal his unsuitability to wartime command leading up to
the Norwegian invasion. With the release of the 1 March 1940 “Directive for Weserübung,” the Luftwaffe commander’s concerns were confirmed: the High Command of the Luftwaffe (OKL) would play second
fiddle to the High Command of the Armed Forced (OKW). Moreover,
his air units would be placed under the direct control of the Army officer
ostensibly in charge of the whole operation. In the days that followed, he
verbally assaulted Wilhelm Keitel, the OKW’s chief of staff, bullied his
50 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
way to getting all Luftwaffe units for the campaign incorporated with his
own X Fliegerkorps, and, finally, at a conference five days later, threw
one of his infamous tantrums.4 In the presence of the other two service
commanders, the OKW staff, and Hitler, Göring vented his spleen. As
Nicholaus von Below, Hitler’s Luftwaffe attaché, was quick to observe,
what really rankled with Göring was that he had not been given the task
of leading the undertaking. 5 Hitler solved the immediate issue of
Göring’s boorish behaviour by banning him from meetings for a month.
However, because of his Social-Darwinist approach to leadership, Hitler
never showed any determination to end the fierce inter-service rivalry
that would bedevil German war efforts. Göring’s poor leadership was
obscured by the campaign’s eventual success, but would resurface at
Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain, and, with terrible consequences, at Stalingrad, and in the aerial defense of the Reich in later years. In the end, success over Norway was more a result of service commanders in the field
getting along with each other to get the job done than smooth relations at
the highest level.
During the campaign, German air power deployment was marked by a
number of wartime firsts. I found that these included the first wartime
use of paratroops; the first German large-scale maritime operations; and
the first occasion significant operational and logistical needs were fulfilled by air power. Warfare’s pioneer airborne undertaking took place
on Weser-day, 9 April 1940, over Denmark and Norway. Paratroops
were part of an integrated plan to secure strategically-important airfields:
Denmark’s Aalborg fields, and Norway’s southern fields of Fornebu and
Sola. Once secured, they would act as forward supply centers and operational bases for further aerial action. The capture of Oslo’s Fornebu airfield proved vital to Weserübung when the naval contingent met with
much stronger resistance than anticipated in Oslo fiord. The loss of one
of Germany’s premier warships, the Blücher, ironically to a Great War
torpedo of German manufacture, heightened the import of the Fornebu
field, from which air-landed forces were subsequently able to march on
Oslo. Having captured the fields, the approximately 500 transport aircraft dedicated to the invasion began an airlift of men and materials. In a
groundbreaking undertaking for the period, the Luftwaffe, in April alone,
undertook 3,000 flights delivering 2,730 tons of supplies, 29,280 men,
and 1,178,100 litres of fuel for the loss of 150 machines.6 These efforts
were essential to bolster the relatively weak vanguard units deployed by
warships. Within days of the invasion, the numbers of aircraft and the logistical demands saw X Fliegerkorps subsumed into a new creation:
Luftflotte 5 (Air Fleet 5).
From northern German bases and the newly-acquired Danish and Norwegian airfields, elements of Luftflotte 5’s approximately 500 fighting
machines took off on missions to protect the over-stretched naval ele51 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
ments trapped in Norwegian fiords and prevent Allied counter-operations. This they did easily in southern Norway and with a concentration
of effort broke the back of the Allied landings on either side of Trondheim. Likewise, Luftwaffe action against Royal Navy vessels in this area,
in particular against the heavy cruiser HMS Suffolk on 17 April, was the
first real indication that the Second World War would usher in a new
era, in which sea power had to contend with the threat of air power.
Ominously, and not emphasized in the literature in any great measure,
was the fact that although the Luftwaffe was a significant factor in the
south and central zones of operations in April, the sheer distances and
inclement weather around Narvik precluded the Luftwaffe from having
the same degree of significance in the Far North. At best, the Luftwaffe
was really only able to provide a thin logistical lifeline and periodic battlefield air interdiction. The eventual evacuation of the Allies from
Narvik in early June had more to do with the fall of France and Dunkirk
in the West than German aerial prowess over Narvik in the Far North.
Chronicling and analyzing these and subsequent uses of air power in
conjunction with sea and land operations required a reconstruction of the
historical record. This initially appeared problematic; especially since
the bulk of Luftwaffe documents had been destroyed in 1945 to prevent
them falling into the hands of rapidly advancing Allied forces. Throughout my investigations, I only ever stumbled across scraps of Luftflotte
5’s operations diary. In comparison, a vast treasure-trove of German
naval documents survived the war. It was in this latter collection that I
had cause to thank German record keeping proficiency when at the U.S.
National Archives at College Park, Maryland, I found that the German
naval high command had appended a daily Luftwaffe operational report
to the command’s diary in this period. 7 The fact that aerial operations by
Luftflotte 5 often impinged on naval considerations in Norway meant
that German Navy documents would yield extremely useful information.
What proved true for 1940 also held true for the 1942 attack on PQ-17
– when the naval records surrendered a thick file on Operation Rösselsprung (Knight’s Move) – and for the 1943 sinking of the Scharnhorst.8
Although the final two years of the war were extremely patchy in terms
of documentation on aerial operations, a bit of lateral thinking while
delving into the records at the USAF Maxwell Air Force Base’s Historical Research Agency, Montgomery, Alabama, made me realize that
some reconstruction could be realized through the utilization of Allied
records of bombing raids over Norway. Eighth Air Force after-action reports, combined with wireless intercepts of the German Fighter Command, Norway, opened a dismal window on how spectacularly unsuccessful Luftwaffe fighters were in preventing these assaults on facilities
important to German interests such as aluminium, magnesium, and nitrate factories at Heroya and the U-boat pens at Bergen and Trondheim.9
52 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
In April 1942, Hitler declared that the invasion of Norway was one of
the two most decisive events in the entire war – the other being the battle
for Moscow in late 1941.10 In reality, I found that Norway proved an uneven asset for German military investment. On the one hand, it never delivered the promised dividend in terms of providing a launching pad for
aerial operations against Britain and its watery Atlantic supply lines, but
on the other hand, it did enable his forces to launch attacks against Russian-bound Arctic convoys. In good measure, the relative failure or success in these two areas was largely determined by the types of machines
available for action. As the Norwegian campaign in the Far North had
revealed, the Germans had entered the war without the necessary longrange aircraft required for strategic bombing and maritime operations.
On the only occasion during the Battle of Britain when Luftflotte 5 ventured over northern England, it received such a pasting that it was never
tried again.11 What the Luftwaffe needed was four-engine high-altitude
machines with greater payloads. Instead, it found itself with twin-engine
medium-range bombers that were well designed for a land-based war but
ill-suited to attacks on Britain without fighter support and unable to
reach far enough into the Atlantic to work effectively with the U-boats.
While the Arctic convoy attacks also took place in a maritime environment, Allied transports here were forced much closer to air and naval
bases in northern Norway and therefore within striking distance of Luftwaffe twin-engine machines. The attacks on the convoys PQ-17 and PQ18 were the turning points for Luftflotte 5 in Norway. The Air Fleet had
stood at a healthy 500 combat aircraft in the early part of Weserübung,
shrunk to 180 in the pre-Barbarossa period, but was boosted to just over
260 aircraft in March 1942 in anticipation of attacks on Artic convoys. 12
The assault on PQ-17 was well planned and executed. In cooperation
with U-boats, and aided by the ill-considered decision to scatter the convoy, aircraft from Luftflotte 5 were able to wipe out two-thirds of the
convoy – twenty-four merchant vessels.13 This echoed the experience of
Weserübung, when land-based aircraft had effectively shut down Royal
Navy operations in the vicinity of seized Norwegian airfields. However,
the Allies had finally learned their lesson, and although the September
1942 Luftwaffe attack on PQ-18 saw thirteen vessels sunk, the inclusion
of an escort carrier in the convoy resulted in the loss of forty-four German aircraft. 14 These crippling losses and the transfer of four bomber
and torpedo bomber wings to the Mediterranean in the wake of Operation TORCH, relegated Norway to an operational backwater for the rest
of the war.
In spite of his initial arms-length approach to a Norwegian campaign,
once the die had been cast, Hitler had become completely dedicated to
retaining Norway as part of an expanded Reich. Over the years of occupation, with one hand, he attempted to fend off real and imagined Allied
53 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
counter-operations in the region, and, with the other hand, shape Norway
into a northern German outpost. Surviving diaries and post-war memoirs
reveal that the Scandinavian sector of Hitler’s Thousand Year Reich
would furnish German industry with much-needed iron ore and aluminium, dinner tables with protein-rich fish, and homes with electricity from
a proposed hydro-electrical scheme and underwater cable. Hitler anticipated that the Norwegian city of Trondheim would become home for a
quarter of a million Germans, with a vast naval port – a Nordic Singapore. Fortunately, these schemes never came to pass, and by 1944, Luftflotte 5, which had proved so instrumental in the success of the invasion
in April 1940, was a shadow of its former self, lacking enough aviation
fuel for even the most rudimentary of tasks. Luftwaffe requirements in
Norway had been overtaken by the very real need to protect the German
homeland. Overall, the Norwegian theater demonstrated that while the
Luftwaffe could operate very effectively over short to medium distances,
it lacked the types of machines to truly take advantage of Norway as a
base for operations against Britain and Atlantic convoys. I like to think
that Hitler’s Northern War has helped elevate the Norwegian invasion
slightly out of the shadows of the better known campaigns. In doing so,
it also offers a valuable insight into the rise and fall of the Luftwaffe during the Second World War through the study of a single Luftflotte.
Notes
1
Of these, the following offer some of the best insights from the German perspective:
Walther Hubatsch, “Weserübung.” Die deutsche Besetzung von Dänemark und Norwegen 1940 (Göttingen, Germany: Musterschmidt Verlag, 1960); Hans-Martin Ottmer,
“Weserübung.” Der deutsche Angriff auf Dänemark und Norwegen im April 1940 (Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1994); and, Earl F. Ziemke, The German Northern Theater
of Operations, 1940-1945. Pamphlet No. 20-271 (Washington, DC: Department of the
Army, 1959).
2
A Luftflotte was the largest operational force in the German Air Force, and as such was
composed of a wide range of aircraft and personnel necessary for “stand alone” operations. It included not only combat machines but also reconnaissance, transport, and flak
units. By the end of the war, the Luftwaffe had seven Luftflotten (Air Fleets) numbering 1
through 6 and Reich.
3
Earl F. Ziemke, “The German Decision to Invade Norway and Denmark,” in Command
Decisions, Kent Roberts Greenfield, ed. (Washington, DC: Office of the Chief of Military
History United States Army, 1960), p. 50.
4
“The Jodl Diaries with Annotations by General der Artillerie Walter Warlimont, 19371945”, Reel DJ 84 (Wakefield, England: Microform, 1973), 5 March 1940.
5
Nicolaus von Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, 1937-45 (Mainz, Germany: Von Hase and
Koehler, 1980), p. 225.
6
Hubatsch, "Weserübung," p. 353; "Norwegen (Aus einer Bearbeitung des
Nachkriegsprojekts von Rohden. Europaeische Beitraege zur Geschichte des Weltkriegs
II. 1939/194. Luftkrieg, Heft 14, Seite 114-171). 'Das Ringen um Norwegen,'" 13, fn. 1,
USAFHRA K113.305.
7
“Oberkommando der Kriegsmarine, 1 Skl-Teil D, Luftlage,” T1022/1756, National
Archives II College Park, Maryland [hereafter NA].
8
For PQ-17 see “Oberkommando der Kriegsmarine, 1 Skl-Teil C, Handakten für beson54 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
dere Operationen: Rösselsprung,” T1022/1791, NA.
9
“Eighth Air Force, Mission No. 75. Target: Heroya I, Trondheim I. Date of Raid: 24
July 1943, Enemy Tactics,” 520.332, United States Air Force Historical Research Agency, Maxwell Air Force Base, Montgomery, Alabama.
10
Henry Picker, ed., Hitlers Tischgespräche im Führerhauptquartier (Berlin: Ullstein,
1993), pp. 238-239.
11
Adam R.A. Claasen, Hitler’s Northern War: The Luftwaffe’s Ill-fated Campaign, 19401945 (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2001), pp. 164-169.
12
Ibid, pp. 46-49, 188, p. 205.
13
“German Air Attacks on PQ Convoys. Extracts from the War Diaries of Luftflotte 5,
Complete report on the operations against PQ 17”, AWM54 423/4/103, Australian War
Memorial, Canberra, Australia.
14
“Genst.d.Lw 8.Abt. Nr 35/44 gKdos. (II). Studien zum Luftkrieg, Heft 3. Gedanken
zum Einsatz der Luftwaffe im Luftkrieg über See”, p. 47, NA T971/34; E.R. Hooton, Eagle in Flames: The Fall of the Luftwaffe (London: Arms and Armour Press, 1997), p. 63;
K. Assmann and W. Gaul, “Die deutsche Kriegfuehrung gegenden english-russischen
Geleitverkehr,” in “Essays by German Officers and Officials About World War II”
(Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources in cooperation with the U.S. Naval Historical
Center, n.d.), p. 53.
ADAM R.A. CLAASEN is a lecturer in modern history, international relations, and politics at Massey University in New Zealand. He is a military historian whose research focuses on the Second World War in Europe. Dr. Claasen is currently working on a book about ANZACS in the
Battle of Britain.
55 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
Author's Perspective
VINCENT P. O'HARA
The U.S. Navy Against the Axis: Surface Combat, 1941-1945 relates the
surface fleet’s role in securing America’s extraordinary success in World
War II. The book provides a detailed synopsis of the forty-two major
surface actions the U.S. Navy fought against the Japanese, the French,
and the Germans and the context of these actions within the naval war.
The story of how the book came to be written is relevant to its format
and content. It began, more than ten years ago, as an accumulation of
specific details about naval surface actions. I was fascinated by the mechanics of naval combat and wanted to explore ways to model reality
through accurate simulations. For this purpose, details such as expected
percentage of hits at given ranges, or the probability of a shell detonating
seemed important. It was easy enough to read accounts of famous actions like the Bismarck chase, the Battle of Savo Island, or Leyte Gulf,
but I believed that for a model to be accurate, it needed to include data
from every action, regardless of its fame or consequences. However,
when I first began seriously researching the subject of naval surface
combat I was surprised how little information – at least of the type I
sought – was readily available. Thus, I began a systematic quest to identify and describe every naval surface action fought during the war.
One of the first things I realized was that I needed to establish parameters of what a naval battle was. Here is the definition of a naval surface
engagement that I used in my previous work, The German Fleet at War,
1939-1945: "...an encounter between purpose-built surface warships displacing at least 500 tons full load where torpedoes and/or gunfire were
exchanged.”1 This definition excludes the hundreds of actions involving
MTBs, armed trawlers, armed merchant cruisers, and raiders. Within its
parameters I count 163 surface engagements that occurred during World
War II.
My search led, like many searches do, to unexpected discoveries and
the growing conviction that much history written after the Second World
War has inaccurately discounted the contributions of the surface fleets of
all nations, dismissing gun- and torpedo-armed warships as relics of an
outdated technology and a bygone era.
I have never understood how the Pacific War, in particular, could be
considered principally a carrier war. For example: “These great carrier
56 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
battles, in which the rival Japanese and American fleets never saw each
other and in which battleships became little more than embarrassing encumbrances, settled the outcome of the naval war in the Pacific.” 2 To
question the accuracy of this depiction is not to discount the importance
of the five great carrier battles that did occur. While one could more easily argue that the resources and industrial capacity of the United States
settled the outcome of the naval war in the Pacific before it ever began,
in fact, the war had to be fought before it could be won and critical to
that victory were the contributions of the surface ships, even the dinosaur battleships, in their originally intended role as surface combatants. The U.S. Navy Against the Axis is replete with examples, but my favorites come from the Philippine campaign, after the last great carrier
battle and at a time when both U.S. carrier and ground-based airpower
was at its height and U.S. submarines were rampaging practically unhindered along Japan’s vital sea lanes.
Submarines and carrier airpower punished the Japanese strike forces
headed for Leyte Gulf in October 1944, but could not deflect either one.
Ultimately, surface warships had to face surface warships in the climaxing naval battle of the war. This impressed both the Army and Navy. In
January 1945 when Nimitz tried to withdraw the old battleships from the
Seventh Fleet, MacArthur successfully petitioned to keep them because,
as he saw at Leyte, airpower and submarine power could not be trusted
to protect his amphibious forces from the Japanese battleships that still
survived. In March 1945 the U.S. Navy itself concluded: “Actions covering this period illustrate most perfectly the potency of air power. On the
other hand, they also illustrate the inadequacy of air power against armored and well armed units unless the attacks be unremittent...The afternoon attacks of 24 October should have prevented the enemy from coming out thorough San Bernardino Straits but they did not prevent
this...On the other hand, our own surface vessels made short work of the
enemy fleet attempting to enter Southern Leyte Gulf and we sustained
very little damage in this action. It would therefore seem that, whenever
possible, use should be made of our armored ships to sink enemy armored ships.”3
The U.S. Navy Against the Axis contains other subthemes. It documents the importance of accurately assessing intelligence to formulate
realistic doctrine and plans. It illustrates the evolving impact of technology, like radar. Surface combat was unlike land and aerial warfare in
that it was relatively rare, usually sudden, and often unexpected, and few
men had the opportunity to become practiced at it. The fact that the
rapidly expanding U.S. Navy became so effective that even destroyer escorts could stand off heavy cruisers points to the success of the process
the Navy developed for training and fighting on the surface.
A final comment about the nature of surface combat illustrated in both
57 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
the The U.S. Navy Against the Axis and The German Fleet at War has to
do with technology. The vast majority of both admirals and the general
population considered large surface warships, as epitomized by the battleship and the large naval rifle, to be the supreme and most powerful
weapon systems of their day. Navies developed sophisticated computing
machines to ensure that ships could hit another ship at ranges of over ten
miles, and elaborate systems to protect ships from enemy gunfire. Certain expectations about the effectiveness of these expensive weapon systems became gospel. As Samuel Eliot Morison expressed it: “Before
World War II, most strategists thought that gun and torpedo fire had
been developed to such a point that naval battles would be decided in a
few minutes, at the end of which one side would either be annihilated or
so crippled that it could fight no more.”4
Of course, this was not the case. Long range accuracy proved far more
problematic than expected and in many battles the majority of the few
hits obtained were duds. Torpedoes, at least U.S. torpedoes, were not
deadly and even the infamous Japanese Long Lance had problems. In
other words, weapons did not function the way they were designed to
and this forced the Navy to embark upon a deadly, but ultimately effective process of evolution. The story of the Navy’s successful ability to
adapt under pressure holds lessons relevant to today’s and tomorrow’s
combat environments.
My publisher, Naval Institute Press, allowed me to deliver
manuscripts of unconventional layout and to populate them with large
numbers of tables, charts, and graphs. I was very conscious of length
limitations, but when I exceeded the contracted word count in the second
book, this presented no problem. The staff, particularly my editor,
Thomas Cutler, were uniformly supportive and responsive. Naval Institute changed the title of both books, however. The German Fleet at War
was originally entitled Beyond Bismarck, an allusion to the fact that
there was much more to the German surface fleet than the Bismarck. I
submitted The U.S. Navy Against the Axis under the title, American
Fleet at War. One chapter covers U.S. actions against the French, and
France was never a member of the Axis.
The German Fleet at War has received very favorable reviews. The
biggest criticism has been that it did not employ German primary
sources. While this is true, the book was never intended to be a work of
original scholarship. It was designed to collect and bring together a consistent set of information about German naval surface actions that existed nowhere else. In the process, however, the book grew in unexpected
directions, becoming a testimony to the surface fleet’s importance in the
German war effort. I had the embryonic draft of The U.S. Navy Against
the Axis before I ever started The German Fleet at War. However, when
I set down to produce a publishable manuscript I realized that I had be58 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
come more ambitious and it would be necessary to start afresh.
For The U.S. Navy Against the Axis I was able to make extensive use
of U.S. primary sources, thanks to the wonderful cooperation of the staff
at NARA who faithfully, accurately, and speedily fulfilled my regular
orders for materials. Internet websites like Hyperwar provided a valuable
resource. The San Diego State University library likewise proved an unexpectedly rich font of information, holding the complete Senshi Sosho,
the Japanese monographs, and U.S. material such as the U.S. Command
Summary, Running Estimate and Summary for the Pacific Fleet (the
“Grey Book”). I was lucky to find a capable translator, a native Japanese
speaker who was a former student of Alvin Coox.
The U.S. Navy Against the Axis provides a complete record of surface
combat undertaken by the U.S. Navy (and the Japanese Navy, of course).
It gives a unique, even iconoclastic picture of the naval war that has been
neglected by historians. It stands with The German Fleet at War to provide a unique World War II reference.
Notes
1
Vincent P. O’Hara, The German Fleet at War, 1939-1945 (Annapolis: Naval Institute
Press, 2004), p. viii. This was the author’s first book in a set of volumes which will analyze every surface action fought by every nation during the World War II period, down to
the destroyer action between Peru and Ecuador during their brief 1941 conflict.
2
Martin Middlebrook and Patrick Mahoney, Battleship: The Loss of the Prince of Wales
and the Repulse (London: Penguin, 2001), p. 322.
3
United States Navy, Battle Experience: Battle of Leyte Gulf, March 1945, p. 97.
4
Quoted in Vincent P. O’Hara, The U.S. Navy Against the Axis: Surface Combat, 19411945 (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2007), p. 3.
VINCENT P. O'HARA is a naval historian whose research focuses on
the Second World War. His work has been featured in numerous periodicals and annuals including Warship, MHQ, Storia Militare, and World
War II. He is currently working on a companion volume to his U.S. and
German books about the surface battles of the Italian Navy.
59 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
Books in Review
MICHAEL D. HULL
Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War
Against Nazi Germany. Donald L. Miller. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006. Illustrations. Notes. Index. Cloth. Pp. 688. $35.00.
Allied fortunes were at their lowest point in the spring of 1942 as
Great Britain stood resolutely alone against the Axis powers. Royal Air
Force Bomber Command was carrying the war nightly to Nazi-occupied
Europe and Germany, but losses were heavy. While British resolve had
remained intact during the Battle of Britain, the Blitz, and a series of
land and sea defeats, morale was being strained to the limit. Then came
the U.S. Eighth Air Force to help shoulder the burden of the air war, and
hopes rose.
In steadily increasing numbers, B-17 Flying Fortress and B-24 Liberator bomber groups took up station at airfields with names like Bassingbourn, Chelveston, Polebrook, Ridgewell, Molesworth, Grafton Underwood, and Tibenham. The American formations thundered across the
English Channel and the North Sea to hammer such enemy targets as
Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Mainz, Schweinfurt, and Regensburg.
While RAF Bomber Command Stirlings, Lancasters, and Halifaxes
pulverized German cities and production centers by night, the U.S.
bomber groups hit railway depots, tool production factories, and oil refineries by day.
A great experiment in aerial warfare – daylight precision bombing –
was underway, as Miller recounts in his richly-detailed and comprehensive narrative of the “Mighty Eighth.” The brash, young American
bomber crews learned to fight the air war by experience and on-the-job
training. Warding off Luftwaffe fighters and dodging anti-aircraft salvos
at 25,000 feet in thin, freezing air, the B-17 and B-24 crewmen battled
new kinds of assaults on body and mind. Air combat was deadly but intermittent, with periods of boredom and anxiety shattered by short bursts
of fire and terror.
As damaged bombers fell and crewmen were killed, wounded, or captured before the advent in late 1943 of the P-51 Mustang long-range
fighter escort, the “Yanks” came to realize why both the British and the
Germans had abandoned daylight bombing. But the American crews and
their generals persevered stoically, and Allied aerial superiority was
60 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
eventually secured in the embattled skies over Europe.
While the gallantry and sacrifice of the RAF, from the beginning of
the war to the end, is a glowing chapter in British history, the role of the
Eighth Air Force in 1942-1945 is well remembered. As Prime Minister
Winston Churchill remarked, “For our air superiority, which by the end
of 1944 was to become air supremacy, full tribute must be paid to the
United States Eighth Air Force.”
Drawn from archives, interviews, and oral histories, Miller's book is
the most eloquent and affecting study of the Eighth Air Force to appear
for some time. He weaves smoothly into his insightful combat history
the poignant story of the young pilots, navigators, bombardiers, and gunners who lived virtually from day to day. Unlike their infantry compatriots down in the muddy foxholes, the airmen slept on clean sheets, ate
good food, drank beer, and played darts in pubs, and danced with English girls to Major Glenn Miller's Army Air Force Band. But statistics
were solidly against them, and they had a much greater chance of dying
than ground soldiers.
Up until 1943, as Miller writes, only one American bomber crewman
in four could expect to survive his tour of duty (twenty-five missions).
Two-thirds of the bomber airmen could expect to be killed or captured,
and seventeen percent would either be wounded seriously, suffer a disabling mental breakdown, or die in an air accident over English soil,
such as a bomber collision in fog. By the end of the war, the Eighth Air
Force had tallied more fatal casualties – 26,000 – than the entire United
States Marine Corps.
Miller, the John Henry MacCracken Professor of History at Lafayette
College in Easton, Pennsylvania and the author of several other prizewinning books, also recounts vividly the ordeals of downed airmen in
German prisoner of war camps, and the hunger marches they were
forced to make as the Allied armies breached the Third Reich itself.
The author rejects revisionists' insistence that the Anglo-American
bombing offensive failed to cripple Axis war production and actually
strengthened the will of the German people to resist. There is no question that production was reduced, and critical fuel resources were destroyed. Miller concludes that while strategic bombing did not win the
European war, victory could not have been achieved without it.
This is a meticulous and moving history.
The Memoirs of Field Marshal Montgomery. Viscount Montgomery of
Alamein. Barnsley, UK: Pen and Sword Books, 2005. Illustrations.
Maps. Paper. Pp. 574. $34.99.
After the Allied armies had stormed ashore in Normandy on 6 June
1944, and established their bridgeheads, the master plan called for the
British Second Army to engage the main German strength on the eastern
61 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
flank, thus enabling the U.S. First Army to break out on the western
flank and head for the vital port of Cherbourg.
Seizure of the strategic road and rail center of Caen was the objective
of General Miles C. “Bimbo” Dempsey's Second Army, and its capture
had been scheduled for the first day of the invasion. But, although his
British and Canadian troops fought doggedly, the city was not taken until 10 July. From 15 June to 25 July, the Germans blocked the CaenFalaise area with up to seven-and-a-half panzer divisions, while General
Omar N. Bradley's U.S. First Army never faced more than three. The
Axis forces were aided by heavy rains and mud.
The plan to pin down the enemy strength had been devised by thenGeneral Bernard L. Montgomery, the prickly but highly professional
overall ground planner of the Normandy invasion. “I never once had
cause or reason to alter my master plan,” he says in his memoirs. “Of
course we did not keep to the times and phase lines we had
envisaged...but the fundamental design remained unchanged. There was
never any intention of making a breakout on the eastern flank.”
But, as Montgomery explains, misunderstandings about his basic concept led to friction between the British and Americans. The impression
was left that the British and Canadians had failed in the Caen sector, and
that the Americans had to take on the job of breaking out in the west.
General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Allied supreme commander, complained that Dempsey was leaving all the fighting to the Americans.
The reflection on Dempsey and the Second Army, Montgomery recalls, was a clear indication that Eisenhower failed to “comprehend the
basic plan to which he had himself cheerfully agreed,” and about which
General Omar N. Bradley had never had any doubts. The misconception
led to much controversy, says the author, “and those at Supreme Headquarters who were not very fond of me took advantage of it to create
trouble as the campaign developed.”
By 25 July, the day on which the American breakout began, “we were
on the threshold of great events,” Montgomery recalls. The British had
had the unspectacular role in the battle, he points out, and in the end it
was made to appear in the American press as an American victory.
“All that was accepted,” the field marshal acknowledges. “But we all
knew that if it had not been for the part played by the British Second
Army on the eastern flank, the Americans could never have broken out
on the western flank.”
Montgomery says he does not think that Eisenhower, “that great and
good man, had any idea of the trouble he was starting.” Nevertheless, the
author writes, “from that time onwards, there were always 'feelings' between the British and American forces till the war ended.”
Montgomery – self-confident and often tactless – was one of the most
controversial senior officers of the Second World War, and his memoirs
62 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
created a furor when they were first published in 1958. But they made
for compelling reading. In this paperback reprint, readers who missed
the original can understand Montgomery's personal and military development and see the war through his eyes – from Dunkirk to El Alamein,
from Sicily to the Sangro, from the Seine to Arnhem, and from the Ardennes to Luneburg Heath.
Montgomery, the son of the Bishop of Tasmania and a harsh mother
who gave him little affection, believes that Field Marshal Sir Alanbrooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, and Prime Minister Winston
Churchill did more to win the war than any other two men. General
George C. Marshall, U.S. Army Chief of Staff, was generally wrong in
strategic matters, says the author, while Eisenhower was “a great military statesman” but not “a great soldier in the true sense of the word.”
Churchill and both British and American senior officers found Montgomery insufferable, but he was nevertheless a professional soldier who
won battles, gained the trust of his men, and became a national hero.
Wounded three times on the World War I killing grounds, and facing a
critical manpower shortage in the second war, he made some mistakes
but was never accused of wasting lives.
It was Montgomery's forthrightness that got him into trouble. “I have
never been afraid to say what I believed to be right, and to stand firm in
that belief,” he writes. “This has often got me into trouble.”
While Montgomery's literary style may be less than polished, this is
certainly an important World War II memoir – candid, without favor,
and revealing.
Black Shoe Carrier Admiral: Frank Jack Fletcher at Coral Sea, Midway, and Guadalcanal. John B. Lundstrom. Annapolis: Naval Institute
Press, 2006. Illustrations. Maps. Index. Cloth. Pp. 640. $39.95.
Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher, who won battles at sea but lost the war
of public opinion, was no friend of the United States Marine Corps. Unjustly, he became the scapegoat for the U.S. Navy's failure to relieve the
beleaguered Marine garrison at Wake Island in December 1941, and was
vilified for withdrawing his carriers at Guadalcanal in 1942 and leaving
the hard-pressed 1st Marine Division without air cover. Although he had
prudent reasons for his actions in both operations, he was portrayed as
an over-cautious bungler and was even accused of cowardice. Yet he had
won the Medal of Honor during the 1914 Vera Cruz expedition and had
captained a destroyer in World War I.
As John Lundstrom relates in this epic biography of the controversial
“black shoe” carrier admiral, Fletcher led forces that contributed decisively to the dramatic turnabout in the Pacific from December 1941 to
October 1942, sinking six Japanese carriers for the loss of two American
flattops. Second in importance to Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, the
63 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
beloved Pacific Fleet commander, Fletcher spearheaded the dramatic
carrier confrontations at Coral Sea and Midway, and supported the invasion of Guadalcanal.
No one else, says Lundstrom, played a more important role in the crucial 1942 carrier battles that inflicted crippling losses and denied Japan
key strategic positions in the Far East. But Rear Admiral Samuel Eliot
Morison painted a relentlessly derogatory portrait of Fletcher in his
naval history of World War II, and it stuck.
With this book, founded on newly-discovered dispatches and personal
papers not available to previous historians, Lundstrom offers a fresh, literate, and balanced analysis of Admiral Fletcher's “hard-won accomplishments in battle” when the odds were heavily tilted in favor of the
Imperial Japanese Navy.
With meticulous research and penetrating insight, the author shows
that in the chaotic first year of the Pacific War, when basic carrier doctrine was being hammered out, Fletcher had to carefully feel his way
while rapidly assimilating an entirely new operational art. He displayed
flexibility and nerve at Coral Sea, Midway, and even at Guadalcanal,
says the author.
To adopt, as his critics demanded, a full-out, aggressive approach at
that time and with such limited resources would have required a Horatio
Nelson for just a chance of victory, Lundstrom believes. Otherwise, disaster was far more likely. In retrospect, the author finds that Fletcher's
well-measured style of command was the most appropriate for that time.
Cautious when necessary, Fletcher proved decisive when the situation
called for it, says Lundstrom. He agrees with Vice Admiral Vincent R.
Murphy, a CINCPAC war plans officer responsible for planning the relief of Wake Island, who observed, “Whatever Fletcher's failures may
have been, a reluctance to fight was not one of them.”
In the Course of Duty: The Heroic Mission of the USS Batfish. Don
Keith. New York: New American Library, 2005. Illustrations. Index. Paper. Pp. 327. $15.00.
A memorial to the fifty-two American submarines lost during World
War II, and their 3,500 crewmen now on “eternal patrol,” can be found
in an unlikely location more than one thousand miles from the sea.
Resting in a former beanfield near the Arkansas River in landlocked
Oklahoma's sprawling Muskogee County is a thick-hulled, dull-gray
diesel boat – the 1,800-ton Balao-class USS Batfish (SS-310), one of the
U.S. Pacific Fleet's most gallant submarines. After winning nine battle
stars and a Presidential Unit Citation, she is surrounded now by memorial plaques dedicated to her lost World War II sister boats and crews.
In what may well be the best submarine book written since the bestsellers of Captain Edward L. “Ned” Beach, Don Keith tells what hap64 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
pened on a pitch-black night in the waters north of the Philippines in
February 1945, when the Batfish was part of a U.S. Navy wolfpack sent
to intercept four Japanese submarines. Helmed by Captain John K.
“Jake” Fyfe, the Batfish engaged one of the enemy submarines, but in
the ensuing skirmish, a torpedo got jammed part way out of her launch
tube. There was the potential of the torpedo arming itself and blowing
the Batfish to bits with the next big wave.
What followed, as Keith's enthralling narrative relates, was an epic of
fortitude, skill, and luck unique in the annals of undersea warfare. Fyfe
and his crew fought a seventy-two-hour battle that tested the limits of
their mettle, and they not only survived, but sank three Japanese submarines. It was a record for a single patrol and earned the Batfish the
nickname of “Sub Killer of World War II.”
Drawing on official documents and previously-unpublished first-person accounts, the author tells the definitive story of the Batfish. It is both
a true-life adventure that captures vividly all the tension, terror, and drama of submarine warfare, and an eloquent testament to the men of the
“silent service” who gave their lives for freedom.
Commissioned in May 1943, the USS Batfish served in World War II,
the Korean War, and the Cold War. The submarine was stricken from
the U.S. Navy's active list in 1969.
Hitler's Raid to Save Mussolini: The Most Infamous Commando Operation of World War II. Greg Annussek. New York: Da Capo Press,
2005. Illustrations. Maps. Index. Cloth. Pp. 325. $26.00.
During the summer of 1943, as the British Eighth and U.S. Fifth
Armies secured Sicily and started their long, costly struggle up the Italian boot, dictator Benito Mussolini's disillusioned henchmen began turning on him.
One after another, the weary, fifty-nine-year-old Il Duce's top lieutenants criticized him and his disastrous conduct of the war. “You have
imposed a dictatorship on Italy,” declared Dino Grandi, leader of the rebellious subordinates. “You have destroyed the spirit of our armed
forces.” Mussolini was overthrown and imprisoned in the remote ski resort of Hotel Campo Imperatore on majestic Gran Sasso, high in the
Apennine Mountains.
When he heard the news, Adolf Hitler was furious and vowed to rescue his friend. Thus was launched, as recounted vividly and hour-byhour by author Annussek, one of the boldest commando operations of
the Second World War. Simmering with action and intrigue, it is a briskpaced and riveting work.
The author describes how Hitler summoned his former bodyguard,
Otto Skorzeny, and assigned him to rescue Mussolini. On 13 September
1943, under the codename Operation Oak, Skorzeny led a glider force of
65 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
commandos to a perilous 6,000-foot-high landing zone on Gran Sasso,
neutralized the Italian garrison, and, within a few minutes, placed the astonished Mussolini in a tiny Fieseler-Storch observation plane. A grinning Mussolini, who had been contemplating suicide, told his rescuers,
“I knew my friend, Adolf Hitler, would not abandon me.”
Taking off from a rocky pasture, Skorzeny flew the Italian dictator to
Rome, from where he was flown in a Luftwaffe aircraft to Vienna. The
mission shocked the Allies and catapulted Skorzeny to fame.
Fully documented, revealing, and written with elan, this is probably
the best account yet of the Mussolini rescue operation.
The Flying Circus: Pacific War – 1943 – As Seen Through a Bombsight. Jim Wright. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2005. Illustrations.
Index. Cloth. Pp. 232. $22.95.
Throughout the summer and fall of 1943, the U.S. Army Air Forces'
(USAAF) 380th Heavy Bombardment Group was the only U.S. force capable of striking major Japanese installations in the Southwest Pacific.
Other USAAF units based east of the 380th could pound and harass
enemy positions in the Solomon Islands and upper New Guinea. But the
range of the 380th's Consolidated B-24 Liberators – the longest-range
bombers America had at the time – gave the group full responsibility for
a wide sweep of the formerly Dutch- and Portuguese-held territory that
later became Indonesia.
The 380th Bomb Group – nicknamed "The Flying Circus" during its
training at Lowry Field in Denver – carried the war to the Japanese at a
time when, except for a tiny Allied toehold in southern New Guinea, the
Japanese occupied all of the islands encircling northern Australia.
One of its members was twenty-year-old James C. Wright of Weatherford, Texas, a second lieutenant trained as a bombardier. He had only a
few hours of "stick time" under his belt when he entered the Pacific war
zone, as he relates in this brisk and readable memoir. Tightly written and
reflecting an engaging sense of humor, this is an enlightening glimpse
into the Pacific air war as seen through a Norden bombsight.
Wright, who went on to represent his state in Congress for thirty-four
years, and served as Speaker of the House in 1987-1989, writes graphically of the thirty-four combat missions he and his crew survived over
Timor and "Suicide Alley," the heavily-defended Japanese airfields in
the Solomons. One of the missions lasted seventeen hours.
Wright points out that he started compiling his reminiscences after a
suggestion by the late Stephen Ambrose, best-selling World War II author and historian.
But he is uneasy with the title of "Greatest Generation" bestowed by
Tom Brokaw on the nation's fighting men of 1941-1945. Wright calls it
"an extravagant claim," and writes, "But in our heart of hearts we know
66 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
that we were not extraordinary people, just fairly malleable young folks,
products of our times and of our parents' guidance."
Nevertheless, he says, "The fellowship of sacrifice developed during
the Great Depression and World War II built a sense of national camaraderie that Americans haven't known before or since."
Wright's book is both an eloquent story of coming of age in war and a
tribute to the USAAF air crews who ventured into the Pacific crucible
more than six decades ago.
MICHAEL D. HULL is a military historian whose articles and book reviews have been featured in many periodicals. He is a contributing author to The World War II Desk Reference, a book published in cooperation with The Eisenhower Center for American Studies.
67 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
Novus Libri
NICOLAS D'AUBIGNÉ
The U.S. Navy Against the Axis: Surface Combat, 1941-1945. Vincent
P. O'Hara. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2007. Illustrations. Maps.
Appendices. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Cloth. Pp. 384. $36.95.
This work recounts the dramatic story of the U.S. Navy's surface fleet
in the Second World War – particularly its ship-to-ship engagements.
Naval historian Vincent P. O'Hara refutes the widely held belief that the
attack on Pearl Harbor rendered surface warfare obsolete and that naval
aviation and submarines dominated the Pacific War. Indeed, O'Hara successfully demonstrates that the battleships, cruisers, and destroyers of
the fleet made major contributions to America's victory by playing a decisive role at critical junctures. He also documents the performance of
weapon systems, details the development of doctrine, and examines the
important role played by new technologies.
Salerno 1943: The Allied Invasion of Italy. Angus Konstam. Barnsley,
UK: Pen and Sword Books, 2007. Illustrations. Maps. Bibliography. Index. Cloth. Pp. 192. $39.95.
In September 1943, in the initial weeks of the Allied campaign to liberate Italy, an Anglo-American invasion force of more than 80,000 men
was nearly beaten back into the sea by the German defenders in a ferocious ten-day battle at Salerno, south of Naples.
This book is the story of the tense, bitter struggle around the Salerno
beachhead that decided the issue and changed the course of the campaign. Utilizing archival records, memoirs, and eyewitness accounts, the
author recreates every stage of the battle as it happened. His well-researched account offers a fresh perspective on an important battle that
has been neglected by Second World War historians.
The Royal Navy and the Arctic Convoys: A Naval Staff History. Malcolm Llewellyn-Jones, editor. Oxford: Routledge, 2006. Appendices. Index. Cloth. Pp. 192. $120.00.
Published here for the first time, this volume presents a superb range
of insights into this crucial effort of the Second World War. A part of
Routledge's Naval Staff History series, the book describes the vital role
of the Arctic Convoys, 1941 to 1945, and was first issued by the histori68 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
cal section of the Admiralty as a confidential study for use within the
Royal Navy in 1954. It grew out of the earlier Battle Summary No. 22
compiled by Commander J. Owen of the Admiralty’s Historical Section
and issued in 1943 to cover the convoy runs to North Russia in the latter
half of 1942 and early 1943. That wartime Battle Summary was subsequently revised and expanded to include all the main convoy runs from
August 1941 until the end of the war using all the historical records
which were available after the war.
A new preface provides additional context for the convoys, highlighting support provided to Russian forces in their struggle against Germany, for the original Staff History was narrowly focused on the naval
aspects of the Arctic convoys to Russia.
Security and Special Operations: SOE and MI5 During the Second
World War. Christopher J. Murphy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
2006. Appendix. Bibliography. Index. Cloth. Pp. 272. $80.00.
This volume offers the first comprehensive history of the Security
Section of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) and its relationship
with MI5 during the Second World War. The author makes extensive
use of recently declassified files in order to examine the development of
a liaison between the two organizations. He explores SOE's involvement
with MI5's double cross operations and offers a new perspective on both
the 'Englandspiel' disaster in Holland and the case of the notorious agent
Henri Dericourt.
Through Mobility We Conquer: The Mechanization of U.S. Cavalry.
George F. Hofmann. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky,
2006. Illustrations. Maps. Charts. Notes. Select Bibliography. Index.
Cloth. Pp. 578. $45.00.
This work examines the evolution of U.S. Cavalry units from their origins as mounted reconnaissance and harrying forces to the eventual
merging of the newly mechanized cavalry and army branches in 1950.
Professor Hofmann examines the search for new doctrine at the tactical
and operational levels of war. He also details the resulting changes in almost every aspect of the military: weapons, equipment, organization,
force structure, training, and education.
In the late 19th century, the U.S. Cavalry held a number of roles, including a primary source of harvesting information, a security force to
detect enemy presence, and an economy force used to hold off or disrupt
larger enemy units. Advances in motorized transportation in the early
20th Century brought into question the level of mechanization that
should be implemented within the cavalry and whether mechanized units
should be developed and employed for special reconnaissance or as an
all-purpose force to accomplish a variety of missions.
69 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
Hofmann draws upon a wide range of primary material – including official records and manuals, military journals, personal papers, memoirs,
and oral histories – to detail the mechanization of U.S. Cavalry up to the
establishment of the U.S. Constabulary in 1946. The book includes an
introductory essay by the noted military strategist General Donn A. Starry, USA (Ret.). Through Mobility We Conquer is the story of the traditional cavalry branch chiefs who fought change, and the visionary officers who sought it.
Blitz: The Story of December 29, 1940. Margaret Gaskin. New York:
Harcourt, 2006. Illustrations. Maps. Appendices. Select Bibliography.
Notes. Index. Cloth. Pp. 448. $27.00.
Churchill referred to it as his nation’s greatest trial and its finest hour.
Europe had fallen to Hitler and Britain stood alone. Determined to bomb
the English into submission, the Luftwaffe attacked London nearly every
night, targeting the “Square Mile,” the heart of the city and the site of
some of its greatest landmarks. In this historical narrative, Margaret
Gaskin puts the reader into the middle of the Blitz, its horror and its
heroism, by vividly reconstructing the night that Hitler tried to burn the
city to the ground – the night that one of the war’s most haunting photographs was taken, showing St. Paul’s still standing amid burning ruins.
Stunningly vivid and compelling, Blitz uses the voices of those on whom
the bombshells fell – the ordinary and the famous – to tell the story as it
has never before been told.
Stalin's Guerrillas: Soviet Partisans in World War II. Kenneth
Slepyan. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2006. Illustrations.
Maps. Notes. Index. Cloth. Pp. 288. $34.95.
Professor Kenneth Slepyan provides an enlightening social and political history of the Soviet partisan movement, a people’s army of irregulars fighting behind enemy lines. These insurgents included not only
civilians – many of them women – but also stranded Red Army soldiers,
national minorities, and even former collaborators. While other Second
World War historians have documented the military contributions of the
movement, Slepyan is the first to describe it as a social phenomenon and
to reveal how its members were both challenged and transformed by the
crucible of war.
By tracing the movement’s origins, internal squabbles, and evolution
throughout the war, the author shows that people who suddenly had the
autonomy to act on their own came to rethink the Stalinist regime. He assesses how partisan initiative and self-reliance competed with and countered the demands of state control and how social identities influenced
relations among partisans, as well as between partisans and Soviet authorities.
70 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
Slepyan has tapped newly-opened Soviet archives, as well as wartime
radio broadcasts and Communist Party publications and memoirs, to depict the partisans as agents actively pursuing their own agendas. His
book gives us a picture of their day-to-day struggle that was previously
unknown to all but those few who personally survived the experience.
Ultimately, his study rescues the Soviet partisans from obscurity to depict the complexity of their lives and underscore their vital contributions
to the defense of their homeland.
Montgomery: D-Day Commander. Nigel Hamilton. Dulles, VA: Potomac Books, 2007. Illustrations. Notes. Index. Cloth. Pp. 160. $21.95.
This study follows Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery's military
career from his cadet days and service in World War I to his victories of
World War II, including his defeat of the German panzer commander,
Erwin Rommel, at Alamein.
Nigel Hamilton presents a brilliant, arrogant Montgomery, who refused to bow to authority and skated on the edge of dismissal like his
American counterpart, George S. Patton. Though very different in their
command styles, Montgomery and Patton became the two most successful Allied field generals in World War II. From North Africa through the
invasion of Sicily, they routed the Germans in battle, with Patton as a
thrusting cavalryman and Montgomery as an infantry commander devoted to applying massive force at a vital point. The author contends that
Montgomery’s planning and leadership transformed Operation OVERLORD from a Second Front project doomed to fail into a successful Allied invasion plan.
Allied operations after Normandy foundered in bitter arguments and
failure, for Montgomery at Arnhem and Patton at Metz. Had Montgomery and Patton been ordered to fight in the same direction after Normandy, argues Professor Hamilton, the Allies might have ended the war
in Europe in 1944. As it was, Montgomery and Patton had to save the
Allies from sensational defeat in the Battle of the Bulge in what was to
be their last battle together. The war ended for Monty on 4 May 1945,
when he accepted the surrender of all German forces in the north.
Rommel's Desert Commanders: The Men Who Served the Desert Fox,
North Africa, 1941-1942. Samuel W. Mitcham Jr. Westport, CT:
Praeger Security International, 2007. Illustrations. Maps. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Cloth. Pp. 248. $39.95.
One of the most famous and admired soldiers of the Second World
War was Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, who came to be known as the
“Desert Fox.” Rommel's first field command during the war was the 7th
Panzer Division – also known as the “Ghost Division” – which he led in
France in 1940. During this campaign, the 7th Panzer Division suffered
71 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
more casualties than any other division in the German Army, at the same
time inflicting a disproportionate number of casualties upon the enemy.
It took 97,486 prisoners, captured 458 tanks and armored vehicles, 277
field guns, sixty-four anti-tank guns, and more than 4,000 trucks. It captured or destroyed hundreds of tons of additional military equipment,
shot down fifty-two aircraft, destroyed fifteen more aircraft on the
ground, and captured twelve additional planes. It destroyed the French
1st Armored Division and the 4th North African Division, punched
through the Maginot Line extension near Sivry, and checked the largest
Allied counteroffensive of the campaign at Arras. When France surrendered, the Ghost Division was within 200 miles of the Spanish border.
Rommel had proven himself a superb military leader who was capable of
greater things. His next command, in fact, would be the Deutsches Afrika Korps (DAK), where the legend of the Desert Fox was born.
Rommel had a great deal of help in France – much more than his published papers suggest. His staff officers and company, battalion, and regimental commanders were an extremely capable collection of military
leaders that included twelve future generals (two of them Waffen-SS),
and two colonels who briefly commanded panzer divisions but never
reached general rank. They also included Colonel Erich von Unger, who
would no doubt have become a general had he not been killed in action
while commanding a motorized rifle brigade on the Eastern Front in
1941, as well as Karl Hanke, a Nazi Gauleiter who later succeeded
Heinrich Himmler as the last Reichsführer-SS.
Many historians never recognize the talented cast of characters who
supported Rommel in 1940. Few have ever attempted to tell their stories.
This book successfully remedies that deficiency.
Spain during World War II. Wayne H. Bowen. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2006. Index. Cloth. Pp. 296. $39.95.
The story of Spain during the Second World War has largely been
viewed as the story of dictator Francisco Franco's foreign diplomacy in
the aftermath of civil war. Wayne H. Bowen now goes behind the scenes
of fascism to reveal less-studied dimensions of Spanish history. By examining the conflicts within the Franco regime and the daily lives of
Spaniards, he has written the first book-length assessment of the
regime’s formative years and the struggle of its citizens to survive.
Bowen argues that the emphasis of previous scholars on Spain’s foreign affairs is misplaced – that even the most pro-Axis elements of Franco’s regime were more concerned with domestic politics, the potential
for civil unrest, and poverty than with events in Europe. Synthesizing a
wide range of Spanish-language scholarship and recently declassified
government documents, Bowen reveals how Franco’s government stumbled in the face of world war, inexperienced leaders, contradictory polit72 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
ical ideology, and a divided populace. His book tells the dramatic story
of a six-year argument among the general, the politicians, and the clerics
on nothing less than what should be the nature of the new Spain, touching on issues as diverse as whether the monarchy should be restored and
how women should dress.
Examining the effects of the World War II years on key facets of
Spanish life – Catholicism, the economy, women, leisure, culture, opposition to Franco, and domestic politics – Professor Bowen explores a
wide range of topics: the grinding poverty following the civil war, exacerbated by poor economic decisions; restrictions on employment for
women versus the relative autonomy enjoyed by female members of the
Falange; the efforts of the Church to recover from near decimation; and
methods of repression practiced by the regime against leftists, separatists, and Freemasons. He also shows that the lives of most Spaniards
remained apolitical and centered on work, family, and leisure marked by
the popularity of American movies and the resurgence of loyalty to regional sports teams.
Unlike other studies that have focused exclusively on Spain’s foreign
affairs during the Second World War, Bowen’s work stresses the importance of the home front not only in keeping Spain out of the war but also
in keeping Franco in power. He shows that in spite of internal problems
and external distractions, Franco’s government managed to achieve its
goals of state survival and internal peace. As the only single-volume survey of this era available in English, Spain during World War II is a
scholarly synthesis that offers a much-needed alternative view of the
Franco regime during this historically critical period.
NICOLAS D'AUBIGNÉ is a military historian whose research focuses
on the history of the Panzerwaffe from 1935-1945.
73 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
Books in Retrospect
KARL J. ZINGHEIM
The Battle of Hamburg: Allied Bomber Forces Against a German City
in 1943. Martin Middlebrook. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1980.
Illustrations. Maps. Index. Cloth. Pp. 424.
Perhaps the most chilling development in modern warfare and certainly the most controversial aspect of the Allied war effort in the Second
World War was the mass bombing campaign against enemy population
centers. What started with imprecise Luftwaffe attacks on weakly-defended metropolises eventually grew into huge Allied raids that devastated Axis cities and ultimately led to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki. The legacy of all this lives on today with the perpetual
threat of nuclear annihilation. The efficacy and even morality of the
strategic bombardment concept has generated considerable scholarship,
A.C. Grayling's work, Among the Dead Cities: The History and Moral
Legacy of the WWII Bombing of Civilians in Germany and Japan, being
among the most recent, but few writers have presented this special field
of study more comprehensively than Martin Middlebrook. The author of
six major works on the Anglo-American bombing effort, Middlebrook
specialized in the operations of the Royal Air Force's Bomber Command.
The Battle of Hamburg was one of his earlier works on the subject
and benefitted from being researched some thirty-five years after the
horrific fire storm of July 1943 when that extraordinary trauma was still
a lurid part of living memory. Middlebrook is a master of weaving solid
scholarship with gripping personal narrative and he made the most of the
nearly 550 interviews he conducted with both aircrews and Germans living in the target area. Although he had already written The Nuremberg
Raid, which thoroughly covered the costly RAF missions of March
1944, he did not presume that the reader was familiar with this research
and organized The Battle of Hamburg as a piece that could stand alone.
Middlebrook starts by encapsulating the progress of the air war in Europe, particularly the difficulty Bomber Command faced in executing the
precepts of strategic bombardment, namely, inflicting serious damage to
wartime industry and other military targets on the opponent's soil. Heavy
losses in daytime quickly forced the British to bomb by night, but the
challenges of even finding a target, let alone hitting it, in complete dark74 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
ness forced them to develop increasingly sophisticated navigation techniques and to adopt more draconian measures in assuring damage was
inflicted.
Next, he presented the tactics of both the British and American
bomber forces in that summer of 1943 since Hamburg would be the first
major joint bombing effort on a specific target. Apart from their preferred time of day, the operations of the respective Allied bomber arms
could not have been more disparate. The British crews flew to their targets alone, traveling in a "bomber stream" with hundreds of other
bombers at varying altitudes, relying on stealth and a good deal of luck
to avoid detection. The Americans, however, trusted in heavily-armed
aircraft flying in tight mass formations for mutual protection. At that
stage of the war, bombing Germany was still a novelty to the U.S. Eighth
Air Force and continuous fighter escort was six months in the future.
From the German perspective, however, the most important difference
in the Allied techniques was in targeting. Where the Americans relied on
"precision" bombing of specific buildings with military significance, the
British were compelled to bomb in wide swathes that encompassed entire city districts. Bomber Command's leader, Air Marshal Arthur Harris,
employed the wry euphemism "de-housing" in describing the resulting
indiscriminate devastation. By the summer of 1943, the respective
bomber forces had perfected special approaches to improve accuracy.
For the Americans, it was the simultaneous releasing of their bomb loads
when the formation's leading bombardier dropped, and for the British, a
complex system of colored marker flares dropped by specially trained
Pathfinders and lead bombers ensured that the inevitable creep back of
succeeding bombers in the stream would be minimized and kept within
the target city's confines.
Middlebrook also contributed much space to presenting the German
defenses at that stage of the war, from the day and night fighter systems
down to the civil defense organization in the urban areas. The Germans
were on a learning curve as well in the bomber war, paricularly at night.
Getting a night fighter within striking range of a bomber in darkness was
a difficult task and by mid-1943 a complex network of radars and patrol
boxes for individual fighters was favored. Next, a formidable array of
powerful antiaircraft guns and searchlights added to the discomfort of
the RAF crews. Finally, the Germans capitalized on the authoritarian nature of the Nazi regime by efficiently organizing the citizenry into unofficial fire fighting bands and providing extensive and well-equipped
bomb shelters found in the basements of most apartment buildings and
even in the lower levels of flak towers.
A remarkable aspect of Middlebrook's work is his portrayal of Hamburg and its place in the Germany of the time. Although this great port
city was an important industrial and naval center contributing mightily to
75 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
Germany's war effort, Hamburg was a relative latecomer to the modern
German union and had a reputation of being relatively soft on Nazism. It
was widely preceived among Hamburgers at that stage of the war that
the British recognized this and hence went easy on their city. (Actually,
Middlebrook found that Hamburg had a nasty reputation among RAF
crews for its fierce flak, and Bomber Command was still getting into its
stride.) The resulting devastation of the upcoming raids would be a particularly cruel blow to citizens with this viewpoint.
The science of penetrating German defenses and laying waste to their
cities was reaching its apogee in 1943. A simple but promising device
codenamed "Window" (small metal strips dropped from aircraft to simulate aircraft echoes and confuse ground search and nightfighter radars)
would be employed to neutralize the German radar coverage, allowing
more bombers to pass freely into the target area. Incendiaries were found
to be more effective at destroying structures and spreading devastation
than high explosives, so fire bombs would be a critical feature of the
payloads in the bombers for the coming raids against Hamburg, designated Operation Gomorrah. (High explosives, however, would play an important role in producing rubble and disrupting water mains, and more
perniciously, in impeding fire fighting with delayed fuses.) The point of
all this effort was to attempt widespread destruction in a short timeframe
and so shock the populace and crush their morale.
On the evening of 24 July 1943, after two days of waiting for good
weather, 879 bombers carrying nearly six-thousand aircrew set off for
Hamburg and a few minor subsidiary operations over occupied Europe.
Some 2,460 tons of bombs were winging their way to the great port, a
record for Bomber Command at that point. Within hours, bundles of
Window's foil strips were released into the slipstream, disrupting the
German radars and permitting more than ninety-two percent of the
bomber force to reach the city and drop their bombs. Hamburg's center
and western districts were hit hard, the morning sun being blotted out
from the ground by the columns of smoke.
Next, the Americans came in to attack the U-boat construction yard
and a nearby aircraft factory. Some 127 B-17s set off for the raid and
fought their way through the customary fighter interceptions and flak
barrages. What made this raid different, however, was the dense smoke
that partially obscurred the targets. Although the bomber crews believed
artifical smoke generators were causing the interference, later analysis
showed the damage from the night raid was the culprit. Fifteen Fortresses failed to return. That evening, the dense smoke caused the RAF to
bomb Essen in the Ruhr Valley.
The following morning, the Eighth Air Force set out for Hamburg
again. This time smoke generators were used in force and helped deflect
the accuracy of much of the American bombing. The RAF stood down
76 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
that night to give its crews a rest. However, on 27 July the campaign
would renew in earnest with 787 bombers lifting off from Britain bringing an additional 300 tons of incendiaries on what proved to be a hot
summer night. They flew for the eastern portion of the city and arrived
in force once again. The early bombing was well concentrated and subsequent planes in the bomber stream encountered a vertiable sea of
flame below as well as dense smoke and even strong thermal drafts that
tossed heavy bombers about the sky violently. Middlebrook found that
three factors combined to produce what became the first man-made
firestorm to engulf a city: unusually hot and dry atmospheric conditions;
exceptionally concentrated bombing; and the decision to commit the fire
fighting assets of east Hamburg to extinguish the remaining fires from
the first night raid in the western districts.
The heart of the firestorm area incinerated more than four square
miles of central Hamburg with temperatures reaching an estimated 800
degrees centigrade. Surrounding areas were also heavily damaged as extraordinary waves of flame shot through densely populated areas like an
incandescent hurricane. Middlebrook's extensive interviews provide several ghastly descriptions of what this near supernatural phenomenon did
to people caught in its path both within shelters and on the narrow
streets that were turned into furnaces. It is believed that approximately
40,000 people were killed outright that night. This catastrophe led over
the next several days to a mass exodus of 1.2 million residents from the
devastated city, which caused much strain to the regional transportation
system.
The RAF was not finished with Hamburg and a third raid was
launched on the 29th. This effort concentrated on the northeastern districts and although the Germans credit this raid with considerable physical destruction, the loss of life was mercifully low, due in part to the major evacuation. A fourth RAF raid arrived on 2 August and focused on a
patch of central Hamburg sited between the devastation earlier raids had
brought to the western and eastern sections. Ironically, this last raid
caused little damage and resulted in thirty-three lost bombers, the highest toll of the battle.
Though the raids against Hamburg produced a calamity that was to be
repeated a few times elsewhere and did indeed stun the local populace, it
did not shatter the German will to resist. Middlebrook concluded his
work by devoting a chapter to the reactions his interviewees, both Allied
and German, had to the legacy of the battle. For the airmen, most reflected that the duty was distasteful but necessary in an era of total war. For
the Germans, most still had not reconciled themselves to the perceived
savagery of the attacks, though more than a few mirrored the outlook
that with such an unrestricted conflict, devastation on that scale was inevitable. For both its depth of research and breadth of first-person narra77 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
tive, The Battle of Hamburg is highly recommended for any student of
20th Century warfare.
War Plan Orange: The U.S. Strategy to Defeat Japan, 1897-1945. Edward S. Miller. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1991. Illustrations.
Maps. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Cloth. Pp. 509.
This seminal work was an instant classic and is still a core title serious
students of the Pacific War must have in their personal libraries. A rare
example of a readable analysis of military thought, War Plan Orange
was authored not by a trained historian, but by a corporate professional
who employed his personal experience in business planning to bring insight to not only the U.S. military's grand prewar strategy in the Pacific,
but to the American methodology of war planning. Often referred to in
postwar histories, Plan Orange was never so cogently dissected prior to
Miller's work, which is a shame since modern wars are usually fought to
an established plan. The study of prewar planning and doctrine is still an
underdeveloped field, but the example set by Miller's work is an excellent model for future historians.
Miller's style followed twin tracks: the history of how the Plan
evolved over nearly a half century, and a description of how American
naval and military planners both produced it and broke it down. After
1896, developments on both ends of the Pacific Ocean set two great maritime powers on a collision course. In the west, the emergence of Japan
as a naval and military power in the wake of the first Sino-Japanese War
was followed by American territorial expansion from the east through
the conquest of Spanish colonies in the trans-Pacific and the annexation
of the kingdom of Hawaii. The defensive problems with the Asian embarrassment of riches so far from American shores was immediately recognized by U.S. planners. They not only produced a sober analysis of the
military prospects for defending the Philippines, but even forecasted
tepid public support for fighting such a far off campaign. This social
pessimism is all the more remarkable in light of the supposed jingoism
of the early 20th Century.
The soul of Plan Orange, according to Miller, was established between 1906 and 1914. It essentially divided the vast Pacific basin into
western and eastern hemispheres, the boundary generally running down
the 180th meridian. The Plan conceded early Japanese successes in overrunning island outposts in the western hemisphere and a successful invasion of Luzon culminating in a likely capture of Manila. The Army
would attempt to hold out as long as possible while the Navy would first
preserve the sanctity of Alaska, Hawaii, and Samoa in the eastern hemisphere. Fleet reinforcements would be transferred simultaneously from
the Atlantic. Then, with an Army relief force in tow, the fleet would
fight its way across the central Pacific and defeat the Japanese Navy in a
78 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
climactic battle in mid-ocean, leading to the recapture of lost possessions
and a blockade of Japan.
In a general sense, this was how the Pacific War actually played out.
One remarkable aspect to this prescient planning, however, was the total
discounting of allied assistance against Japan. Considering that Japanese
expansion into German Pacific colonies down to the equator in 1914
brought a direct threat to Australia and New Zealand, a threat all the
more palpable as Anglo-Japanese amity evaporated after 1919, the
American blindness to this geopolitical dynamic would have repercussions in the first two years of the war. As far as the Orange planners
were concerned, any war in the Pacific would be strictly between America and Japan.
This fixation on a central Pacific drive, as Miller describes, would directly influence not only American naval tactics, but ship design as well.
Long distances between atoll bases, particularly in the coal-fired age, required ships with exceptional endurance, even at the expense of speed.
Offensive power also required ever larger gun calibres capable of defeating Japanese ships at long gunnery ranges. This meant that American
capital ships tended to be slower but better armed than their foreign contemporaries. The later oil revolution in marine engineering simply produced a requirement for a fleet train to keep the battle force on the move.
The core notion of seizing and holding island bases to sustain the advance westwards also provided the impetus for a new Marine Corps mission: amphibious assault. Another remarkable validation of the soundness of the Plan was how smoothly the new technologies of aviation and
submarine warfare fitted in.
Miller's most important analysis, however, is not a mere recitation on
what the Plan contained, but an examination of the uniquely American
method of planning in the first half of the 20th Century. Unlike their foreign counterparts, especially the Japanese, U.S. war planners in this era
were not centralized into a general staff or academic institution where
doctrine could easily crystalize into dogma. Instead, promising officers
were encouraged to study strategy and make contributions to, as well as
challenge, the grand scheme. This flexible attitude was especially advantageous when breakthrough technologies, like aviation, became more
militarily practical, adding new perspectives to planning execution. This
was especially apparent in the 1930s when carrier power was perfected,
giving the fleet unprecedented striking power.
A potential pitfall, however, was rancor. This nearly happened in
1939-40 when senior officials in both the Army and Navy expressed pessimism over the nation's ability to wage an aggressive offensive in the
Pacific in the face of Nazi successes in Europe. A powerful movement
developed that stressed a conservative, defensive approach in the Pacific
while methods to deal with Germany, particularly in the contingency of
79 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
a British capitulation, were explored. After the American entry in 1941,
British attitudes towards a "Germany first" policy severely tried the efficacy of Plan Orange, nearly causing a rift between the American services. Another threat to the Plan came from within the Navy when Admiral James Richardson became commander of the U.S. Fleet, soon redesignated the Pacific Fleet, in 1940.
Richardson held no enthusiasm for all-encompassing plans that
promised to deliver victory according to timetables and strategic assumptions. In his capacity as the Fleet's top operational commander, he
sought to overturn Plan Orange. However, he employed invective and
personal diatribes against his superiors within the Navy Department and
even against the President. These tactics only contributed to his early relief, but he did sow doubt about Plan Orange in Washington on the eve
of war. Miller's assessment of Richardson's successor, Admiral Husband
E. Kimmel, focuses on Kimmel's prewar attempts to reinvigorate an offensive strategy, and not through the prism of the Pearl Harbor attack's
recriminations. Although this unfortunate naval officer lacked extensive
training in strategic planning, he made the most of his assigned staff and
sought to wring the most out of a fleet unprepared to execute Plan Orange.
Despite these near derailments, the de-centralized U.S. planning system kept strategic thinking lively and awake to technological developments. It was fortunate that the fully mobilized American productive capacity delivered a fleet fully capable of executing Plan Orange in less
than three years.
That the war was conducted largely within the parameters of the Plan
reflects the essential soundness of not only its combat considerations,
but the more mundane geographical and logistical realities. The
Japanese, by contrast, were sorely deficient in realistic strategy.
Edward Miller has made an enduring contribution not only to the historiography of the Pacific War, but to the science of strategic planning.
The lessons incurred from this discourse are still useful in the new century and should serve as a model for analyzing modern high level planning. That such a useful work stems from the pen of a non-historian is a
tribute to the democracy of talented scholarship.
KARL J. ZINGHEIM, a graduate of the United States Naval Academy,
is the Director of History for the USS Midway Museum in San Diego,
California. He is a naval historian whose research focuses primarily on
the Pacific War.
80 │ WORLD WAR II QUARTERLY Volume 4 Number 1 2007
- Conferences and Lectures Allies in War: Britain and America Against
the Axis Powers, 1940-1945
A Kleber Readings lecture by Dr. Mark Stoler
7 June 2007 • Carlisle Barracks, PA
contact: U.S. Army Heritage & Education Center
[email protected] • (717) 245-3803
Partisan and Anti-Partisan Warfare in
German-Occupied Europe, 1939-1945
21-22 June 2007 • Glasgow Caledonian University, UK
website: www.gcal.ac.uk/history
contact: Dr. Ben Shepherd
[email protected] • (44) 141 3318156
Patton and Rommel: Men of War in the 20th Century
A Perspectives Lecture presentation by Dr. Dennis Showalter
June 2007 • Carlisle Barracks, PA
contact: Captain Ginger Shaw
[email protected] • (717) 245-3127
2007 Conference of Army Historians
7-9 August 2007 • Arlington, VA
website: www.army.mil/cmh/cah2007
contact: U.S. Army Center of Military History
[email protected] • (703) 522-7901 ext. 4166
2007 Naval History Symposium
20-22 September 2007 • United States Naval Academy
contact: Professor Maochun Yu • [email protected]
Eighth Maritime Heritage Conference
9-12 October 2007 • San Diego, CA
website: www.sdmaritime.org
contact: Dr. Raymond Ashley
[email protected] • (619) 234-9153 ext. 104
Books on the Battlefield
3 November 2007 • University of York, UK
website: www.york.ac.uk/conferences/battlefield2007
contact: Dr. Catriona Kennedy
[email protected] • (44) 1904-434993
Military Oral History Conference
21-23 February 2008 • University of Victoria, Canada
contact: Dr. Shawn Cafferky
[email protected] • (250) 721-7287
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