Read Engineers of Victory: The Problem Solvers Who Turned the Tide in the Second World War Online
Authors: Paul Kennedy
Tags: #Technology & Engineering, #International Relations, #General, #Political Science, #Military, #Marine & Naval, #World War II, #History
Engineers of Victory: The Problem Solvers Who Turned the Tide in the Second World War (68 page)
62.
Morison,
Two Ocean War,
486.
63.
Padfield,
War Beneath the Sea,
ch. 9, is, as ever, reliable here.
64.
R. Spector, “American Seizure of Japan’s Strategic Points, Summer 1942–44,” in S. Dockrill, ed.,
From Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima: The Second World War in Asia and the Pacific, 1941–45
(London: Macmillan, 1994), ch. 4.
65.
The best brief, and rather sardonic, account of the Aleutian Islands is in Spector,
Eagle,
178–82.
66.
Liddell Hart,
History,
356–62.
67.
Morison,
History,
vol. 8, is the most detailed.
68.
Millett,
Semper Fidelis,
410–19, is excellent on the Marianas campaign.
69.
Morison,
History,
8:162.
70.
J. B. Wood,
Japanese Military Strategy in the Pacific War: Was Defeat Inevitable?
(Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007).
1.
A. Bryant,
The Turn of the Tide, 1939–1943: Based on the Diaries of Field Marshall Viscount Alanbrooke
(London: Collins, 1957); A. Bryant,
Triumph in the West 1943–1945
(London: Collins, 1959).
2.
See Alanbrooke,
War Diaries, 1939–1945: Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke,
ed. Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2001). This later edition is a model of its kind. It not only includes many of the more candid entries that Bryant had felt it prudent to omit while Churchill and other key personages were still alive, but it also distinguishes between Alanbrooke’s original uncensored entries, Alanbrooke’s later notes, and Bryant’s own variants (see “Note on the Text,” xxxi–xxxiv).
3.
See Andrew Roberts’s clever use of the Alanbrooke diaries in
Masters and Commanders: How Roosevelt, Churchill, Marshall and Alanbrooke Won the War in the West
(London: Allen Lane/Penguin, 2008).
4.
Alanbrooke,
War Diaries,
433.
5.
Ibid., 557. “It was a wonderful moment to find myself re-entering France almost 4 years after being thrown out” (entry of June 12, 1944).
6.
The phrase seems to have been invented by the great historian of Stuart Britain, J. H. Hexter, in “The Burden of Proof,”
Times Literary Supplement,
October 24, 1974—part of the raging debate in those years on the causes of the English Civil War.
7.
The claim comes in the penultimate paragraph of Hinsley’s 1988 Harmon Memorial Lecture to the U.S. Air Force Association, “The Intelligence Revolution: A Historical Perspective.” It is actually a wonderful piece,
showing due skepticism of the many popular works of the 1970s and 1980s on spy rings, decrypting geniuses, and intelligence breakthroughs. So it is odd that he put his neck so far out with this nonprovable estimate.
8.
R. Spector,
Eagle Against the Sun: The American War with Japan
(New York: Free Press, 1985), 457. Chapter 20, “Behind the Lines,” is an impressive survey on many aspects of the intelligence war—and the limitations.
9.
I had already composed these paragraphs before David Kahn sent me his extremely important article, “An Historical Theory of Intelligence,”
Intelligence and National Security
16, no. 3 (Autumn 2001): 79–92, which I had quite missed earlier. Note especially 85–86: “Intelligence is necessary to the defense, it is only contingent to the offense.”
10.
D. Kahn, “Intelligence in World War II: A Survey,”
Journal of Intelligence History
1, no. 1 (Summer 2001): 1–20, a fine summation because it repeatedly asks for the proof that intelligence worked.
11.
It comes as something of a relief to this author that the most powerful criticism of certain U.S. commanders toward British ideas and inventions are made by American historians themselves: see Paul A. Ludwig,
P-51 Mustang: Development of the Long-Range Escort Fighter
(Surrey, UK: Ian Allen, 2003), on Echolls’s opposition to the P-51; and W. Murray and A. R. Millett,
A War to Be Won: Fighting the Second World War
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), 249–50, on the slaughters of the chiefly U.K. merchantmen along the eastern seaboard (“It was Admiral King at his worst; he was simply not going to learn anything from the British, whatever the costs”); and ibid., 418–19, about Bradley’s unwillingness to learn anything about the “tactical problems confronted by an amphibious assault on prepared defenses.” Compare this American confidence of their own sheer muscle power with Churchill’s insistence that it would not be by vast numbers of men and shells but by devising newer weapons and by scientific leadership “that we shall best cope with the enemy’s superior strength,” a key refrain in P. Delaforce’s
Churchill’s Secret Weapons
(London: Robert Hale, 1998).
12.
P. Kennedy,
The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers
(New York: Random House, 1987), esp. 355, Table 35.
13.
C. Barnett,
The Swordbearers
(London: Eyre and Spottiswood, 1963), 11.
14.
See, among others, A. Bullock,
Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives
(London: Harper Collins, 1991); and the contrasting S. Bialer, ed.,
Stalin and His Generals
(London: Souvenir Press, 1970), and H. Heiber, ed.,
Hitler and His Generals
(New York: Enigman Press, 2003).
15.
See D. Edgerton,
Britain’s War Machine: Weapons, Resources and Experts in the Second World War
(London: Allen Lane, 2011), a sharp contrast with Barnett’s
The Audit of War: The Illusion and Reality of Britain as a Great Nation
(London: Macmillan, 1986).
16.
Malcolm Gladwell, “The Tweaker: The Real Genius of Steve Jobs,”
New Yorker,
November 14, 2011. In a rather wonderful way, Herman’s book on American innovation and productivity in WWII,
Freedom’s Forge,
passim, is simply an extended version of this story of constant improvement of an initial design to get a satisfying final product.
17.
One thinks here of that brilliant work by H. Hattaway and A. Jones,
How the North Won: A Military History of the Civil War
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983).
18.
Neatly summarized in A. Grisson, “The Future of Military Innovation Studies,”
Journal of Strategic Studies
29, no. 5 (October 2006): 905–34, paying due tribute to Barry Posen, Eliot Cohen, Williamson Murray, MacGregor Knox, Timothy Lupfer, and other notable figures in this field. My own brief venture here was in my 2009 George Marshall Memorial Lecture, published as P. Kennedy, “History from the Middle: The Case of the Second World War,”
Journal of Military History
74, no. 1 (January 2010): 35–51. On
The Genius of Design,
see
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00sjIfg
. The Millett and Murray “military effectiveness” concepts run through this present text, and many an endnote.
SPECIAL REMARKS
The alphabetical bibliography that follows below is chiefly of the standard type, but I would like to make several comments upon sources used for this book. The first is in regard to the well-known electronic database Wikipedia and others like it. Many university professors worry about the incomplete or nonverifiable aspects of entries, and about an undue reliance of their students upon easy-to-access electronic sources rather than the wonderful experience of slowly perusing books on musty library shelves and discovering works that have escaped the imperfect electronic catalogs. I understand that very well. But I have to confess to being mightily impressed by certain of the lengthy and detailed and scholarly (and anonymous) Wikipedia entries to which reference is made here, in particular to those which relate to aspects of the Pacific War. They are substantive and very well documented, and I would like to pay tribute to their authors (or the single author, since many suggest that the same craftsman was at work). Many other Wikipedia items are, as is alleged, rather embarrassing to peruse.
I should also like to acknowledge a heavy debt to the authors of works that are often referred to scornfully by professional (Ph.D.) historians as being written solely for “military history buffs.” Actually, I do not think this present book could have been written—certainly not to the depth it was—had it not been for my reliance upon numerous titles made available by Osprey Press, Pen and Sword, and other notable publishers of military-technological history. Many years ago Professor Lawrence Stone, generously reviewing a book far removed from his own tastes, observed that in Clio’s great mansion there are many corridors and many apartments; and that there is room for all. I like that.
Finally, I am indebted to the extraordinary quality of so many of the official histories put out by national governments or their armed services upon the various aspects of World War Two, military and civilian. Those composed by the American, British, and Dominion historians, some of them a full sixty years ago, are a tribute to their profession; well-written, balanced, critical (for example, the British and American histories of their own strategic bombing
campaigns), and models of detached analysis. Then there is the impressive, more recent German official history,
Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg,
taking scholarship to new levels. This bibliography only contains titles expressly contained in the notes, but I did want to acknowledge my broader debts here.
Alanbrooke, Field Marshal Lord.
War Diaries 1939–1945
. Edited by A. Danchev and D. Todman. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2001.
Allen, L.
Burma: The Longest War, 1941–1945.
New York: St. Martin’s, 1984.
Ambrose, S.
D-Day, June 6th, 1944.
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994.
Atkinson, R.,
An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942–1943
. New York: Holt, 2002.
———.
The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943–1944.
New York: Henry Holt, 2007.
Ballendorf, D.A., and M. Bartlett.
Pete Ellis: Amphibious Warfare Prophet 1880–1923.
Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997.
Barbier, M. K.
D-Day Deception: Operation Fortitude and the Normandy Invasion.
Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007.
———.
Kursk: The Greatest Tank Battle, 1943.
Leicestershire: Ian Allan Publishing, 2002.
Barnett, C.
The Audit of War: The Illusion and Reality of Britain as a Great Nation.
London: Macmillan, 1986.
———.
Engage the Enemy More Closely: The Royal Navy in the Second World War.
London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1991.
———.
The Swordbearers.
London: Eyre and Spottiswood, 1963.
Barnhart, M. A.
Japan Prepares for Total War: The Search for Economic Security, 1919–1941.
Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988.
Beach, E.
Submarine!
New York: Bantam, 1952.
Bekker, C.
The German Navy 1939–1945.
London: Hamlyn, 1972.
Bendiger, E.
The Fall of Fortress.
New York: Putnam, 1980.
Berger, C.
B29: The Superfortress.
New York: Ballantine, 1970.
Bernstein, A., M. Knox, and W. Murray.
The Making of Strategy: Rulers, States and War.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Bialer, S., ed.
Stalin and His Generals.
London: Souvenir Press, 1970.
Bialer, U.
The Shadow of the Bomber: The Fear of Air Attack and British Politics 1932–1939.
London: Royal Historical Society, 1980.
Biddle, Tami.
Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare: The Evolution of British and American Ideas About Strategic Bombing, 1914–1945.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001.
Bidwell, S.
Gunners at War: A Tactical Study of the Royal Artillery in the Twentieth Century.
New York: Arrow Books, 1972.
Birch, D.
Rolls-Royce and the Mustang.
Derby, UK: Rolls-Royce Heritage Trust, 1987.
Blair, C.
Silent Victory.
2 vols. New York: Lippincott, 1975.
Brookes, A.
Air War over Russia.
Hersham, Surrey: Ian Allan, 2003.
Bryant, A.
The Turn of the Tide: 1939–1943.
London: Doubleday, 1957.
———.
Triumph in the West, 1943–1946.
London: Collins, 1959.
Bullock, A.
Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives.
London: HarperCollins, 1991.
Burchard, John.
Q.E.D.: MIT in World War II.
New York: Wiley, 1948.
Calvert, J. F.
Silent Running: My Years on an Attack Submarine.
New York: John Wiley, 1995.
Carell, P.
Hitler’s War on Russia: The Story of the German Defeat in the East.
Sheridan, CO: Aberdeen Books, 2002.
Carlyon, L. A.
Gallipoli.
London: Batsford, 1965.
Citino, R.
Death of the Wehrmacht: The German Campaigns of 1942.
Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2007.
Clarke, I. F.
Voice Prophesizing War 1763–1984.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966.
Collier, B.
The Defence of the United Kingdom.
London: HMSO, 1957.
Cooper, M.
The German Air Force 1933–1945: An Anatomy of Failure.
London: Jane’s, 1981.
Corbett, J. S.
Some Principles of Maritime Strategy.
London, 1911.
Craven, W. F., and J. L. Cate, eds.
The Army Air Forces in World War II
. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948–1958.
Cross, G. E.
Jonah’s Feet Are Dry: The Experience of the 353rd Fighter Group During World War II.
Ipswich, Suffolk: Thunderbolt, 2001.
Cruikshank, C.
Deception in World War II.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979.
D’Este, C.
World War II in the Mediterranean, 1942–1945.
Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books, 1990.
Danchev, A.
The Alchemist of War: The Life of Basil Liddell Hart.
London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1988.
Deighton, L.
Fighter: The True Story of the Battle of Britain.
London: Pimlico, 1996.
Dupuy, T. N.
Numbers, Prediction, and War: Using History to Evaluate Combat Factors and Predict the Outcome of Battles.
Fairfax, VA: Hero Books, 1985.
———.
A Genius for War: The German Army and General Staff, 1807–1945.
Fairfax, VA: Hero Books, 1984.
Earle, E. M., with G. A. Craig and F. Gilbert.
Makers of Modern Strategy: Military Thought from Machiavelli to Hitler.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971.
Edgerton, D.
Britain’s War Machine: Weapons, Resources and Experts in the Second World War.
London: Allen Lane, 2011.
Eisenhower, D.
Eisenhower at War 1943–1945.
New York: Random House, 1986.
Ellis, B.
Brute Force: Allied Strategy and Tactics in the Second World War.
New York: Viking, 1990.
Erickson, J.
The Road to Berlin.
London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1983.
———.
The Road to Stalingrad: Stalin’s War with Germany.
London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1975.
Evans, R.
The Third Reich at War.
New York: Penguin, 2008.
Fergusson, B.
The Watery Maze: The Story of Combined Operations.
London: Collins, 1961.
Fissel, M. C., and D. J. B. Trim, eds.
Amphibious Warfare 1000–1700: Commerce, State Formation and European Expansion.
Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2005.
Foot, M. R. D.
SOE: An Outline History of the Special Operations Executive, 1940–1945.
London: BBC Publications, 1984.
Forczyk, R.
Erich von Manstein.
Oxford: Osprey, 2010.
Frankland, N.
The Bombing Offensive Against Germany.
London: Faber, 1965.
Furse, A.
Wilfrid Freeman: The Genius Behind Allied Survival and Air Supremacy 1939–1945.
Staplehurst, UK: Spellmount Press, 1999.
Glancy, H.
Spitfire: The Biography.
London: Atlantic Books, 2006.
Glantz, D.
Colossus Reborn: The Red Army at War, 1941–1943.
Westport, CT: Praeger, 1995.
Glantz, D., and J. House.
The Battle of Kursk.
Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004.
———.
When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler.
Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998.
Gollin, A.
No Longer an Island: Britain and the Wright Brothers 1902–1909.
London: Heinemann, 1984.
Gretton, P.
Convoy Escort Commander.
London: Cassell, 1964.
———.
Crisis Convoy: The Story of the HX 231.
London: Naval Institute Press, 1974.
Gross, C., and M. Postlethwaite.
War in the Air: The World War Two Aviation Paintings of Mark Postlethwaite.
Marlborough, UK: Crowood Press, 2004.
Habeck, M. R.
Storm of Steel: The Development of Armor Doctrine in Germany and the Soviet Union, 1919–1939.
Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003.
Hackett, R.
Yamagata Arimoto and the Rise of Modern Japan 1838–1922.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971.
Hall, D. I.
Strategy for Victory: The Development of British Tactical Air Power, 1919–1943.
Westport, CT: Praeger, 2008.
Hardesty,
Red Phoenix: The Rise of Soviet Power.
Minnetonka, MN: Olympic Marketing Corp, 1982.
Harris, A.
Bomber Offensive.
London: Collins, 1947.
Hartcup, G.
The Effect of Science on the Second World War.
London: Macmillan, 2000.
Harvey-Bailey, A.
The Merlin in Perspective.
Derby, UK: Rolls-Royce Heritage Trust, 1983.
Hastings, M.
Overlord.
London: Michael Joseph, 1984.
Hattaway, H., and A. Jones.
How the North Won: A Military History of the Civil War.
Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1983.
Headrick, D.
Power over Peoples: Technology, Environments, and Western Im
perialism, 1400 to the Present.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010.
Healy, M.
Kursk 1943: The Tide Turns in the East.
Oxford: Osprey Press, 1992.
Heiber, H., ed.
Hitler and His Generals.
New York: Enigma Press, 2003.
Herman, Arthur.
Freedom’s Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II.
New York: Random House, 2012.
Hezlet, A.
The Electron and Sea Power.
London: C. Davies, 1975.
Higham, R.
Air Power: A Concise History.
Yuma, KS: Sunflower Press, 1984.
Hinsley, F. H. et al.
British Intelligence in the Second World War,
5 vols. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979–1990.
Hooton, E. R.
Eagle in Flames: The Fall of the Luftwaffe.
London: Arms and Armour Press, 1997.
Howard, M. E.
Grand Strategy.
London: HMSO, 1970.
———.
The Continental Commitment.
London: Maurice Temple Smith, 1972.
———.
The Mediterranean Strategy in World War Two.
London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1967.
———.
Strategic Deception.
London: HMSO, 1990.
Howse, D.
Radar at Sea: The Royal Navy in World War 2.
Annapolis: US Naval Institute Press, 1993.
Hoyt, E. P.
The Destroyer Killer.
New York: Pocket Books, 1989.
Iriye, A.
The Origins of the Second World War in Asia and the Pacific.
London: Longman, 1987.
Irving, D.
The Rise and Fall of the Luftwaffe: The Life of Luftwaffe Marshal Erhard Milch.
London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1973.
Isley, J. A., and P. A. Crowl.
The U.S. Marines and Amphibious War: Its Theory, and its Pratice in the Pacific.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1951.
Jones, E. L.
The European Miracle.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.
Jones, T. C. G.
The Battle of Britain.
London: Frank Cass, 2000.
Keegan, J.
The Second World War.
New York: Penguin, 1990.
Kennedy, P. M.
Strategy and Diplomacy 1870–1945: Eight Studies.
London: Allen and Unwin, 1983.
———.
The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers.
New York: Random House, 1987.
Kershaw, I.
Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions That Changed the World, 1940–1941.
London: Penguin, 2007.
Kirby, S. W.
The War Against Japan.
London: HMSO, 1957–69.
Liddell Hart, Basil H.
History of the Second World War.
London: Cassell’s, 1970.
———.
The British Way in Warfare.
London: Faber and Faber, 1932.
Ludwig, P.
P-51 Mustang: Development of the Long-Range Escort Fighter.
Surrey, UK: Ian Allen, 2003.
Lupfer, T.
The Dynamics of Doctrine: The Changes in German Tactical Doctrine During the First World War.
Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute, 1981.
MacDonald, C.
The Lost Battle: Crete 1941.
New York: Macmillan, 1993.
Macksay, K.
Armored Crusader.
London: Hutchinson, 1967.
Manchester, W.
American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880–1964.
Boston: Little, Brown, 1978.
Marder, A. J.
Operation “Menace.”
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976.
Masters, J.
The Road Past Mandalay.
London: Michael Joseph, 1961.
Matloff, M., and E. M. Snell.
Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare, 1941–1942.
Washington, DC: Office of the Chief of Military History, 1953.
Maund, L. E. H.
Assault from the Sea.
London: Methuen, 1949.
Mendelssohn, K.
Science and Western Domination.
London: Thames and Hudson, 1977.
Messenger, C.
World War Two: Chronological Atlas.
London: Bloomsbury, 1989.
Middlebrook, M.
Convoy: The Greatest U-boat Battle of the War.
London: Phoenix Books, 2003.
Miller, E. S.
War Plan Orange: The U.S. Strategy to Defeat Japan 1897–1945.
Annapolis, MD: U.S. Naval Institute Press, 1991.
Millett, A. R.
Semper Fidelis: The History of the United States Marine Corps.
New York: Free Press, 1991.
Millett, A. R., and W. Murray.
Military Effectiveness.
Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1989.
Milner, M.
Battle of the Atlantic.
Stroud, Gloucester: Tempus, 2005.
Mitcham, S.
Blitzkrieg No Longer: The German Wehrmacht in Battle, 1943.
Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2010.
Moorhead, A.
Gallipoli.
London: Hamish Hamilton, 1956.
Morison, S. E.
History of United States Naval Operations in World War II
. Boston: Little, Brown, 1947–1962.
Murray, W.
German Military Effectiveness.
Baltimore: Nautical and Aviation Publishing, 1992.
———.
Luftwaffe.
Baltimore: Nautical and Aviation Publishing, 1985.
———.
Strategy for Defeat: The Luftwaffe 1939–1945.
Maxwell, AL: Air University Press, 1983.
Murray, W., and A. R. Millett.
A War to Be Won: Fighting the Second World War.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000.
Myers, R., and M. Peattie.
The Japanese Colonial Empire 1895–1945.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984.
Nagorski, A.
The Greatest Battle: Stalin, Hitler, and the Desperate Struggle for Moscow That Changed the Course of World War II.
New York: Simon and Schuster, 2007.