Military History

By F.H. McCullough, III INTRODUCTION Fifty years ago, in the Gulf of Tonkin, during the evening of May 8, 1972, offshore North Vietnam, a U.S. Navy SH-3 Sea King helicopter was making its approach to the U.S. Navy’s guided-missile light cruiser USS Providence (CLG-6), flagship of RADM Rembrandt C. Robinson, USN, the Commander (i.e., CTG) of various naval surface ships afloat constituting task groups TG70.8 and TG77.7. The helo was returning from a conference aboard the aircraft carrier USS Coral Sea (CV-43) where senior officers met with the Commander of the US 7th Fleet and others at the onset of a major escalation of the Vietnam War. USS Providence (CLG-6…

Reviewed by CAPT Chuck Good, USN (Ret.) “Stealth at Work” is a chapter title in this interesting and clever little book, and it fits the book itself. To outward appearance, this is a breezy picture-book, geared towards tourists and dilletantes visiting the museum ship herself at her berth in Belfast; a light souvenir, easy to slip in a backpack with the offering of a “tanner (sixpence)” in the donation bucket. But the book’s stealth is what is hidden in between the myriad of sketches, photos, vignettes, sidebars and color plates: a concise, lucid and quite professional history of the early years of World War I in the North Sea. The story takes us from mobilization to …

After a span of eight years, Captain Beardsley, a member of the Naval Historical Foundation, responded to a survey to participate in the Foundation’s oral history program. At the same time, fellow NHF member and Professor of History at William Paterson University Suzanne G. Bowles, also expressed interest in participating. Because Dr. Bowles already knew Captain Beardsley as a member of the Northern New Jersey chapter of the Navy League, it was an ideal match. During the session with Dr. Bowles, Captain Beardsley discussed his duties as Commanding Officer of USS PC 1140 and USS PCE-R 858. USS PC 1140 served in the Atlantic and Mediterranean in 1944. The ship served as a …

Reviewed by CAPT Richard Dick, USN (RET) Dr. Justus Doenecke has studied intensely the events and personalities involved in the eventual American intervention in World Wars I and II, authoring six books on these topics. The author’s depth of research and knowledge of secondary sources covering the early 20th century in the U.S. greatly strengthens this book, More Precious Than Peace. In particular, he builds on his Nothing Less Than War, a history of the events leading up to America’s declaration of war in April 1917. More Precious Than Peace examines the American experience in World War I but from a fairly restricted point of view. The author reviews American gro…

Reviewed by Charles C. Kolb, Ph.D. Developing the Naval Mind is an important, thoughtful volume written by two Naval Academy history professors is designed for officers of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps but also serves Sailors and Marines of all ranks as a compendium on developing professionalism and skills needed to rise through the ranks. Likewise, it can also serve the officers and enlisted men of our other sea services, Coast Guard and Merchant Marine, but also is valuable to officers and enlisted men of the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force, as well as the U.S. Space Force. Moreover, it can serve as a significant source for the members of other nations’ land, sea…

The Navy Museum will serve as the backdrop for an afternoon seminar followed by a reception as the NHF commemorates the 40th anniversary of the largest naval combat confrontation in the post-World War II era. With the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano (ex-USS Phoenix) torpedoed on 2 May 1982, and the HMS Sheffield crippled two days later, this is an appropriate time to mark the occasion with presentations capturing various aspects of the fight for sea control around this South Atlantic island group. Featuring Director of Naval History Rear Adm. Sam Cox; Former Secretary of the Navy John Lehman, and former DoD officials Norman Polmar and Dov Zakheim. Sabastian Bruns with…

Reviewed by CAPT Chuck Good, USN (Ret) Broad in scope and rich in detail, Hitler’s Navy is a comprehensive overview of the ships, organization, and sailors of the Kriegsmarine. As befits Osprey’s core competency in producing monographs of famous ships and classes, the work is lavishly illustrated and full of technical detail. For those seeking focused accounts of famous campaigns or battles, such as the River Plate, Denmark Strait or the Norwegian Campaign, this is not the work. These engagements have been the focus of many previous works, and the author chooses to give them a minimalist summary in his first chapter. But Hitler’s Navy makes up for the lack of fighting…

Reviewed by ISCM (AW) David Mattingly, USN Ret. A mix of airframes; fighters, light attack planes, and helicopters all made up the carrier air wings on Yankee Station during the Vietnam War. Most notably, the RF-8 Crusader piloted by Navy and Marine Corps aviators flew over enemy territory as the “eyes of the fleet.” Kenneth Jack, a Navy photographers mate assigned to Navy Light Photographic Squadron 62 (VFP-62), has gathered the story of the RF-8, its pilots, and maintainers from unofficial and official sources including reels of archived reconnaissance film shot over North Vietnam by RF-8 photo pilots. The RF-8 Crusader was developed from the F-8 Crusader whic…

Reviewed by Charles H. Bogart If small boat action is of any interest to you, this book is a must read. While thousands of books have been written about the fight to the death between the Royal Navy and the Kriegsmarine during World War II, almost all of these books have concentrated on the convoy battles in the waters of the North Atlantic. There was, however, another series of convoy battles fought between the Royal Navy and the Kriegsmarine. In these battles, it was the Royal Navy who was the attacker and the Kriegsmarine the defender. These battles were fought in the coastal waters of Europe. It is noted in the book’s preface that Royal Navy motor torpedo boats fi…

Reviewed by Ingo Heidbrink, Ph.D. Crude oil tankers are not only some of the largest ships that have ever sailed the oceans but are the backbone of international energy trade. At the same time they normally gain little public attention, unless they are at the center of an ecological disaster. Therefore, it should be lauded that Ray Solly brings attention to this unique type of ships with his new book. Having not only worked as an officer in the merchant marine, but on supertankers, he has a unique background for an author on this subject. The structure of the book basically follows a chronological sequence by being divided into four sections (Early Crude Oil and P…

Reviewed by Rhonda Smith-Daugherty, Ph.D. In his famous work, On War, Carl von Clausewitz discussed the qualities that make up what he termed the “Military Genius.” While he acknowledged that good leaders require intellect, the real heart of leadership is intuition and courage. Since the battlefield is fluid, a leader must have the ability to counter whatever tactics the enemy uses, while never losing site of the objective. He or she, must gauge the enemy’s path using information obtained during the battle. This information may be incomplete or even false, but a good leader acts on the intuitive and sees through the “fog of war.” The leader’s courage and determinati…

Reviewed by Ingo Heidbrink, Ph.D. On the surface Robert M. Bunes new book Wind, Fire and Ice: The Perils of a Coast Guard Icebreaker in Antarctica is an autobiographical take on a young physician’s deployment on USCGC Glacier to Antarctica in the early 1970s. As such it is a welcome addition to the body of literature on the maritime history of the Antarctic region in particular as it covers a period seldom covered by polar or maritime historians who still tend to focus mainly on the so-called heroic age of Antarctic exploration. But reading deeper into the book, it becomes obvious that there is much more to the book and that it needs to be recommended not only to the …

Reviewed by Charles H. Bogart This remarkable book is much more than a biography of Lt. Col. Barry B. Bridger; it is also a guide to living life to the fullest. The story is of two parts, Lt. Col. Bridger’s life up and through captivity and his life after leaving the U.S. Air Force. His time as a POW started on January 23, 1967, when his F-4 Phantom fighter was shot down by a SAM over North Vietnam and ended 8 years later when he was repatriated home. One of the points that Lt. Col. Bridger makes in the book is that while PTSD affected 31 percent of those who served in Vietnam, it affected less than 5 percent of those held POW. This difference, he holds, was of the re…

Reviewed by Charles H. Bogart This book is a must read for anyone interested in U.S. Naval aviation in the Pacific Theater during World War II. Lt. Commander Harry “Dirty Eddie” March Jr. joined the Navy in December 1940 and pinned on his naval wings in August 1941. He would serve in the Pacific Theater during the course of World War II and be promoted from Ensign to Lt. Commander. Along the way he gained the distinction of being designated an Ace, having downed five Japanese aircraft. Contrary to regulations, Lt. Cdr. March, throughout the war, maintained a journal in which he wrote about what was happening in his life and his thoughts on the war as a whole. The…

Reviewed by Capt. Richard Dick, USN (Ret.) Schnellbootwaffe is a volume in the extensive Images of War collection from Pen and Sword. The collection focuses primarily on presenting lesser-known archival and private photographs woven with captions and text. For some subjects like military animals in the First World War and the Brandenburger commandos in the Second, the Images of War provide real insight into lesser-known areas of military history. For other subjects, the Images of War volume is just another entry in a crowded field. Schnellbootwaffe has elements of both. The real strength of the book is not so much its photographs but the operational details of t…

Reviewed by Capt. Richard Dick, USN (Ret.) Crash Boat is a remarkable memoir in several ways. The story of an Army Air Forces (AAF) 63-foot crash boat, P-399 Sea Horse (an unofficial nickname), in the Pacific during the latter half of World War II, it was written in a cooperative effort between the skipper, Earl McCandlish, and the son of his chief mate, MSGT George L. Jepson. The authors’ crisp style, eye for color and detail, and sense of common humanity make the book a pleasure to read and highlight an aspect of the war—inshore air-sea rescue in the Pacific—about which little has been published. McCandlish narrates the book from his initial assignment to cras…

Rear Admiral Thomas F. Brown III, USN (NHHC Photo) Thomas Francis Brown III entered Officer Candidate School in 1954 and served as an aviator until his retirement in 1985 as the Director, Strike and Amphibious Warfare Division (OP-954) in the Office of the CNO. In his 343 combat missions in Vietnam, he was awarded a Silver Star for dropping a bridge span in North Vietnam, four Distinguished Flying Crosses, and multiple other awards. His commands included VA-37, CVW-19, USS Caloosahatchee (AO-98), USS Midway (CV-41), Military Enlistment Processing Command, CARGRU 1, and CARGRU 5/CTF-77, during which he amassed 4,843 hours of accident-free flying and 1,017 traps. Tom…

Reviewed by Diana L. Ahmad, Ph.D. Published twenty years after the death of the author, Franz Kurowski, the book focuses on U-48, the most successful U-Boat in World War 2. During the war, the author served as a Luftwaffe paratrooper with the Afrika Korps. After the war, he worked as a freelance journalist and wrote over one hundred books, including Panzer Aces: German Tank Commanders in World War II. U-48 provides a look into naval operations in World War 2 from the perspective of the Germans prior to the entry of the United States into the conflict. The book gives readers a detailed description of how the commanders of U-48 proved incredibly successful by si…

Reviewed by Jeff Schultz Dr. Wigand Wüster’s An Artilleryman in Stalingrad: A Soldier’s Story at the Turning Point of World War offers insight into a pivotal World War II campaign through the rarely told artilleryman’s perspective. His frank memoir lacks the self-serving elements common to historical retellings where pride takes precedence and real experiences require at least some embellishment to fit ego-driven narratives. Wüster served prewar and fought from 1939 Poland up to his capture in early 1943, rising to the rank of Oberleutnant (first lieutenant). He spent years in Soviet captivity before his release in late 1949. Postwar, he earned a law degree and wo…

Kind of like an ugly duckling I guess, but interesting https://www.navy.gov.au/hmas-albatross-i