Customer Reviews

Aircraft Carriers at War: A Personal Retrospective of Korea, Vietnam, and the Soviet Confrontation

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Admiral Holloway's story begins with a destroyer torpedo attack on a battleship during the Battle of Suriago Strait in WW II. At the time Holloway was a lieutenant assigned as the gunnery and torpedo officer in the destroyer USS Bennion. There is a rule of thumb in the Navy that a destroyer making a torpedo attack on a battleship in a sea battle has a life expectancy of less than five minutes before being sunk. You can imagine the feelings of the crew aboard Bennion realizing as they turned in to attack that many of them probably had less than five minutes to live.

Less than a week after that battle Lieutenant Holloway departed for flight training. His parting comments to the commanding officer were "In the past 48 hours we have silenced two shore batteries, shot down three Zeros, battled a Japanese cruiser, sunk a destroyer by gunfire, and torpedoed a Japanese battleship. I think I'm ready to try something new."

The book goes on to describe Holloway's experience in flight training and eventual assignment as operations officer of a carrier air task group where he flew as a pilot with Fighter Squadron 111 in combat in Korea. Later in the war he served as executive officer and then commanding officer of Fighter Squadron 52. His descriptions of flying in that war are as detailed, readable and understandable as any air combat stories I have ever read. The intensity of the naval air campaign in Korea is little understood or appreciated. An example is that one of the squadrons in his task group, VF-653, lost 12 of its 26 pilots during his 1951-52 tour.

Aircraft Carriers at War could well have been titled A History of the US Navy in our Time. Admiral Holloway next describes many of the naval operations during the cold war where his assignments included command of Attack Squadron 83 whose mission was delivery of nuclear weapons. The operations of such squadrons are described in easily understood terms.

The most significant operational descriptions in the book are included in Holloway's command tour of the nuclear powered attack aircraft carrier Enterprise during the Vietnam War. We seldom read descriptions of carrier operations by carrier commanders and this book has the best description of carrier warfare I have ever read. The command responsibilities and day to day operations of a carrier captain are clearly described and explained.

The remainder of the book is the most important historically as Holloway describes his operational experiences as an admiral in command of various fleet components and his Washington assignments leading to his selection as Chief of Naval Operations (CNO). The description of his tour as CNO gives seldom revealed insights into the inner workings of the Department of Defense and the relationship of the service commanders with the president and congress.

Aircraft Carriers at War is a historical review of naval operations in our time including three hot wars, the cold war and numerous international incidents written by a participant rather than an observer. Admiral Holloway is generally considered the most knowledgeable and dedicated proponent of aircraft carriers in our time and this book clearly reflects his knowledge and experience.

You may have noted this is not an entirely unbiased review. I confess that I commanded an attack aircraft squadron and an attack aircraft carrier at the same time as Admiral Holloway and we sometimes operated together.

Very few admirals (or generals for that matter) pay much attention to history. (Examples abound, including recent events.) But Jim Holloway not only reads and writes history--he lived it as well. From his spellbinding account of the shootout in Surigao Strait to the bombardment of Haiphong 28 years later, his career both aloft and afloat would fill a book whether or not he became chief of naval operations.

Holloway's memoir is divided into numerous segments providing both the personal and the overall perspective of events in wars hot and cold. Probably the most illuminating portion is his extremely detailed description of Korean War operations, to a degree this reader has not previously seen.

There is plenty of other significant material including development of nuclear powered aircraft carriers (Holloway commanded USS Enterprise) and the post-Vietnam doldrums when the fleet's human and materiel condition had been permitted to degrade to alarming levels. However, his busy post-retirement career has benefitted everyone interested in nautical lore, especially the Naval History web site.

In an era when active-duty admirals think that Douglas Devastators flew alongside Grumman Bearcats, when a Canadian Spitfire ace knows more about carriers than many naval officers, Holloway's book comes as a refreshing change.

I think many of us who study history and politics have a sort of mental disconnect. First, we know about heroes - generally young men in war who do brave and amazing things or at least participate in historical and/or dirty battles. Then, we see images of senior military guys - chests full of ribbons and stripes on sleeves - standing next to the world leaders they serve or getting in and out of cars at important buildings. How, if at all, does the young hero become the military brass?

This story tells of exactly such a transformation. It's the story of Admiral Jim Holloway III, who had about as brilliant a career in the Navy as one could possibly ever expect to have. From World War 2 through Korea and Vietnam to leadership roles as captain of the nuclear powered USS Enterprise, commander of various fleets, and finally Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) and member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I mean, the guy actually flew the lead F9F Panther for the movie "Bridges of Toko-Ri"! His story, taken as is, is amazing.

From what I gather from the book and my background knowledge, Holloway's success can be attributed to the following things:

1. Loyalty, bravery, and similar outstanding personal qualities.
2. A personality that made people like him and made people feel as if they wanted to be part of his success. I've met people like this in my life - it's just something about their personalities (more than, say, their abilities, though of course some abilities are a prerequisite).
3. A fine naval pedigree. It's doubtlessly true, as Holloway says in his book, that his famous Navy father never helped him directly. But, we all know that especially in such a place as the US Navy, having the "legitimacy" of a famous father helps indirectly.
4. Good career decision making on Holloway's part.
5. A fair bit of luck (if you can call it that--a few involved injury or death to superiors) at several points in his career in terms of positions becoming available for Holloway that were more senior, responsible, or elite than his experience otherwise may have allowed for.

So, through these five factors, Holloway had an amazing Navy career and this is faithfully chronicled in this book. It's exciting and unique and certainly worth reading. There are things there you won't find anywhere else.

However, I also think the book can use a bit of criticism. Please don't think of me too harshly for the following.

Basically, Holloway was a Navy superstar and this is his retrospective. Given that his career went from success to success, it's quite reasonable to expect that the narrative portion basically went "and then I did this great thing and then I did this great thing and then I did this great thing" interspersed with a bit of self-effacing modesty and that's exactly what you get.

But sometimes, I get the distinct feeling that he nevertheless lacks a bit of self confidence. Let me explain. Given that his career was so positive, you'd think that he'd have the luxury of looking back and commenting on what was done poorly. Sure, when he was a simple pilot aboard and aircraft carrier, he was potentially subjected to all the various organizational problems and absurdities of the Navy. But over time, as he gained positions of responsibility, such institutional problems I would have thought became his responsibility.

An example relatively early in his career was the condition of the CIC (Combat Information Center - a key facility) aboard the USS Enterprise, of which he was a captain. He describes his success in cleaning it up after it had become a storeroom for souvenirs and unofficial loitering/sleeping place for people who had no business being there (because of its air conditioning). That it was allowed to become such a mess in the first place was not his fault.

This is a pattern that we see repeated throughout the book, though you might have to look hard to see it. For example, we are told of the exciting raid on Haiphong harbor -- it's a great narrative and everybody involved was heroic in the actual action. But what's missing is that it was a stupid raid. What, exactly, was the point of attacking shore positions (defended with fixed artillery) with 6 inch guns? Sure, they blew up a few small ammo dumps (2 or 3 secondary explosions, I believe the tally was). Clearly this was a raid conducted without any sort of forethought as to what the ultimate objective was - as it were, it went more or less ok - but had there been an unfortunate incident, people would have demanded the rolling of heads since there was no real point to it given the risks involved. Admiral Holloway's main role should have been to ensure that there was a decent or strategic point to it all - given that there wasn't, his discussion on the raid centers on the action itself, such as it were, of which he plays little role. His "retrospective" is curiously short on self-examination - all the failures are somebody else's - those politicians with their rules of engagement, the incompetent US Air Force, etc.

At some point, especially by the early 1970s when he's CNO, the US Navy was institutionally a mess--this is not really discussed in the book. For all the tales of what he did RIGHT during his career, I would have hoped that the retrospective would have provided guidance to the next generation by also describing what he did wrong.

I mean, this would have been far more useful than the ludicrous story (the book is full of good stories too, but this one struck me as particularly ludicrous) that the Navy was about to be sold the F-16 as a carrier fighter until Holloway pointed out that its weapon system did not have all weather capability (and so the F-18 was chosen). Anybody who believes this story as recounted by Holloway in the book has a serious case of "hero blindness" and insults the thousands of engineers and aircraft professionals actually working on the programs. (A similar criticism can be made of Holloway's claims of the novelness of his "CV Concept" - that one at least was an excellent idea, but a pretty much inevitable one--I'd make my case about that, but I fear this review has gotten a bit too long already.)

Admiral Holloway was a great man. But his education and experience are Navy all the way. This made him what he was - fiercely professional, career oriented, and insular. That he was largely unable or unwilling to see certain big pictures is I guess now more or less vividly illustrated in the association with now essentially disgraced SecDef Donald Rumsfeld a man who shows about as well as anybody why people whose education consists primarily of flying aircraft and does not include things like a real, not on-the-fly-picked-up, education in economics, politics, business skills, and so forth should not necessarily be making policy.

The Book itself: exciting but not necessarily unique in its description of combat. Unique but not necessarily exciting in its description of naval bureaucracy. Highly worth reading, but make sure you keep your critical facilities about you and don't succumb to "hero blindness" when reading about his exploits. A quality book.

ADM Holloway does a commendable job at giving us a book that masterfully describes the evolution of aircraft carriers through naval history and his personal memoirs and does the Navy justice. As a young JO having graduated from annapolis and serving in the supply corps and having just completed my 1st sea tour, ACOW is one of the best books currently available with an enriched writing style and informs the JO as to why current cornerstones in the Navy exist such as NATOPS, Angled carriers, the transition from CRU/DES to the CVN as the flagship for the Navy, battle fleet organization to current day strike groups, along with the exposure to how they all tie in with OPNAV and NAVAIR, giving the reader/JO a first hand perspective to how plans & poliy work at the upper level work with system commands and program management.

What I like most is the writing style and approach that Holloway takes, where it is easy to follow him from his WWII days into the Cold War where he gives insight to why all those tours were significant in acheiving a purpose or getting him to the next tour, ultimately arriving to become the CNO.

Overall, I found this book very helpful and easy to read. I hope this invites more Admirals to write about their illustrious Naval careers. this is one of the few books that the current Navy can relate to whereas most of the popular books on the Navy recommended reading list are either too community centered (Submarines)or extremely theoretical strategy and policy no one cares for or focussed on WWII, all subjects the common sailor is out of touch with.

HIGHLY recommended for anyone taking a visible job in aviation, plans & policy or working at a front office/staff.

This is a very well written book by a very smart man. It is a bit wordy towards the end but the parts where he relates his experiences is very interesting. Good book!