115 of 127 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Devastators Devastated., November 2, 2005
This review is from: The Unknown Battle of Midway: The Destruction of the American Torpedo Squadrons (Hardcover)
This is a very interesting little book. While brief, it raises some interesting conclusions. The result will not doubt spark contention among veterans and historians. I am left to realize now why the account of Midway given to us by the likes of Walter Lord and Gordon Sprague seem to not quite ring correct. For those interested in the US carrier air operations at Midway, this book paints a dim picture. As a military officer myself, I can say Mr. Kernan's account of Navy incompetence, careerism, cover-up, cowardice, courage will grip you. The tale is, of course, complex. It involves complex air and weapon systems, communications, training, command control, and leadership. The author reached conclusions which leave the reader to decide whether actions were the result of incompetence, indifference, or cowardice. Air Group commander Stanhope Ring, from the Hornet, was a disaster. His blunders were covered up by the Hornet operational staff. That he received the same award as Lieutenant Commander Waldron is ironic (to say the least). Evidence seems to suggest Ring was haunted by his failure on June fourth for the rest of his life. He wrote private explanations of why his airstike got lost and missed the Japanese fleet. Whether his explanation is sufficient to explain what happened is left for the reader to judge (I do not believe his account) Captain Mitscher of the Hornet does not come off well here either (there are no after action reports from the Hornet, which is unbelievable. If we had lost the battle, many careers would have been over). Admiral Fletcher was really the only competent carrier commander among the Americans. If Admiral Halsey was present, the Americans might not have botched things so badly. The Enterprise fighter section leader, LT Gray, led his planes out of the battle zone (abandoning Torpedo 8 to be slaughtered), claiming Bingo fuel. The passage of time has not diminished the stench of cowardice here. Gray (to this day) feels his actions were justified, based upon the severe fuel limitations of the Wildcat fighter. Such was the drama of Midway. New methods of war, causing more than the usual friction. In such cases, sheer courage and the random factor must be left to make up the difference. I recommend this book for those who consider themselves "experts" on the battle. It will send them running back to their books to study charts of the movements of the air groups. There is much detail tucked into this work, especially in the notes. For example, the fate of the pilots picked up by the Makigumo and the Arashi. I was surprised that George Gay (only survivor of Torpedo Eight's attack) had his ashes scattered in the waters off Midway. How fitting. I did not know (but learned from a footnote) that Commander Joseph Rochefort [was] caught in the infighting between the director of naval intelligence and the director of naval communications over which directorate should control the production and dissemination of communications intelligence and lost his post. His analysis of Japanese message traffic was decisive in giving our Navy the initiative in launching their counterattack. I recommend this book, and learned much from it. I think it will do much to keep the memory of the Midway pilots alive. The story of Torpedo 8 is one of the epic stories in American military history. The true story would make a good screenplay, I believe. I look forward to upcoming scholarship on the battle, because it will be interested in seeing how this work is received by naval historians.
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85 of 94 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A worthy history, but with a few corrections needed, November 21, 2005
This review is from: The Unknown Battle of Midway: The Destruction of the American Torpedo Squadrons (Hardcover)
. Professor Kernan was kind enough to forward an advance copy of his latest book to me, which focuses on what he considers the biggest "unknown" of the epic Battle of Midway in 1942: the full story of the U.S. torpedo squadrons; their strategy, training, planning, sorties, and sacrifice. As veteran of Torpedo Squadron Six (VT-6) on the USS Enterprise during the battle, he is uniquely qualified to comment on such matters, and as a university professor in English literature, he is masterfully equipped to write about them. The result is a gripping tale of what was like to live and work aboard the Enterprise and VT-6 during those desperate early months of the war.
. Unfortunately, this book suffers from a deficiency also seen in Kernan's recent fictional tale of the Battle of Midway, "Love and Glory": he really needs to employ the service of an independent editor before submitting a manuscript for publication. "The Unknown Battle of Midway," an otherwise interesting and useful book, is sullied by numerous typesetting or content issues (example: one chart shows VT-6 breaking away from Ring and the Hornet air group--a simple typo, but a glaring graphic flub that jumps out at the knowledgeable reader who expects to see VT-8 there). In critiquing the book for him, I provided the author with a list of the mistakes, which he says will be helpful in producing a subsequent paperback edition. (Interestingly, his very best book, "Crossing the Line," has none of these kinds of problems. It is five-star quality in all regards.)
. If you can get past such glitches (and most readers probably aren't the editorial nitpicker that I am), this book is a positive addition to a well-rounded Battle of Midway library. I would give it at least one more star if its structural errors were fixed. (Reviewed by R. W. Russell, editor, The Battle of Midway Roundtable, www.midway42.org)
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59 of 74 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Filled with substantive and interpretive errors - Kernan gets it all wrong, April 5, 2007
This review is from: The Unknown Battle of Midway: The Destruction of the American Torpedo Squadrons (Hardcover)
At the beginning of World War II the author was an 18-year old enlisted aviation ordnanceman who subsequently served on several carriers in the Pacific. Readers would hope that he would leverage this experience to provide a unique and original viewpoint of war on a carrier. Unfortunately, Kernan strays far outside his expertise. Many of his comments and some of his facts are dead wrong; some of his comments and many of his interpretations can seem to be creditable on a superficial level, but are also either dead wrong or one of the breed of insidious half-truths that have a life of their own and are hard to squash. This book will be cited in future works, so another cottage industry has been created to correct the horde of myths and inaccuracies that will trickle down into Naval history from this book. To crown this achievement, Kernan creates a new "conspiracy theory" about the Battle of Midway.
Any good conspiracy theorist needs to first establish his personal credibility. This Kernan attempts in a few introductory chapters where he talks about military history, carrier aviation, ship design, and aerial torpedoes. His believability dies quickly. Specifically, I count 20 substantive or interpretive errors or half-truths in the book's first 25 pages.
There are errors where his facts are just dead wrong:
* "The USS Oglala was hit by four torpedoes ..." No, she was not hit by any torpedoes - she sustained underwater damage from a single torpedo hit on a light cruiser that was moored inboard of her. Because she sank without taking any direct hits herself she was later known as The Ship that Was Frightened to Death;
* The Japanese had not "stalemated the Russians in Manchuria," actually the Japanese were soundly beaten at Nomonhan, the 23rd Division being nearly annihilated with 76% casualties. The only reason the Soviets halted was because they had Poland to invade and then the Germans to repulse;
* The US Navy had radar "courtesy of the British." No the first USN radar was on a ship in April of 1937, and the first production radar, the CXAM, began installation in May of 1940. Exchange of radar information with the British did not happen until the Fall of 1940;
* Carriers to launch wanted 30 knots of wind over the deck, not "30 knots [of ship's speed] plus the wind."
... and many other factual errors.
There are errors where his proffered opinions are either only half right or misleading. For example, his comments on the placement of islands on carriers, boiler and engine room subdivision, and stack numbers and placement are superficial and uninformed, and generally half-truths. Tonnage limitations and how the disposal of stack gasses effect turbulence in the landing area is never mentioned. He thinks that early US carrier designs had arresting gear at both ends of the ship because "depending on the wind, the carriers were as likely to launch and land planes while going backward as forward" - no, Alvin, the arresting gear at both ends was for emergency recoveries without having to break the deck spot, or in the event of battle damage.
Even more egregiously, he does not understand the distinction between belt armor and a ships torpedo protection system, mixing them up in his discussion and then laughably coming to the conclusion that carriers succumbed to enemy torpedoes "because they were not armored enough." He uses technical terms improperly: for example, a ship's propeller shafts are referred to as "drive shafts," equating a carrier's propulsion system with that of a 1941 Chevrolet roadster.
After thus establishing his credibility, Kernan then goes on to collect some of the reasons why so many of the US torpedo bombers were lost at Midway. Most are straightforward, collected from other secondary sources dealing with the battle, and are presented in a workmanlike manner. However, when he moves to original material he reveals his true roots, not those of a Navy aviation ordnanceman, but of an English Professor from an Ivy League school. What he really wants is to talk about racism and class barriers in the wartime Navy. Racism he could work in only for a sentence, since it is clearly irrelevant to the story. Classism, however, becomes the centerpiece of the only "original" analysis in the book. Kernan contends that there was a conspiracy among the Navy high command to confuse or suppress the facts surrounding the attack of Torpedo 8 in order to protect the career of the Commander Hornet Air Group (CHAG), Commander Ring.
The bare facts are the following: the enemy carriers were located inexactly. Ring and Waldron have an argument before launch on the flyout course to use to find the enemy, but Ring is unconvinced by Waldron's arguments. Ring, as CHAG, gathers his squadrons and heads out. 30 minutes after launch Waldron again argues over the radio with the CHAG, then, on his own hook, departs from the formation with his squadron of torpedo bombers. Waldron finds the carrier, attacks, and his entire squadron is shot down, inflicting no damage. Ring does not find the target and returns to the Hornet.
Waldron is Alvin Kernan's hero. He dedicates the book to him.
In Kernan's view, Waldron is the self-sacrificing hero and Ring is the goat for not agreeing with him, and subsequently for not finding the targets when presented with the "correct" course by Waldron. This is exactly 180 degrees out, and where Kernan displays a lamentable ignorance of how military organizations work. Waldron was obligated to present his views to his commander; however, he was equally obligated to follow the orders of his commander afterwards. Kernan spends a lot of ink explaining why the Devastator was a poor aircraft and inadequate to the task; how, then, can he make Waldron out as a hero for disobeying orders and leading his squadron on a suicide attack in such an inadequate aircraft? If the TBD was unlikely to penetrate to the target without fighter support and the diversion of a dive bombing attack, points all well made by Kernan, how can Kernan subsequently praise him for doing just that?
Waldron was guilty of disobeying orders, and should have been court-martialed; the real "conspiracy" was that the Navy gave him a Navy Cross for getting himself and his people killed.
Examine what could have been: if Waldron had followed his commander's orders, he would have arrived at the point of no return and turned back, undoubtedly with a great big "I told you so" expression on his face. But then, his torpedo squadron would have been back on the Hornet and available for subsequent strikes, including those against Hiryu and against the Japanese cruisers on the 6th, after the Zeros were gone and the TBD had a reasonable chance of getting hits. Had he acted appropriately, his combat power would have been preserved for later, instead of senselessly thrown away. These points totally evade Kernan as he obsesses with his conspiracy theory.
The evidence that Kernan presents to support his idea that there was a Naval Academy Alumni Association conspiracy to "save" Ring career is that Ring did not submit an after action report (rather, that Kernan could not find an after action report in the archives, quite a different thing), and that Mitscher's after action report was inaccurate as it supposed that Ring passed to the south of the target carriers, when he evidently actually passed to the north. Kernan does not understand that the after action reports, submitted only days after a battle, sometimes reflect the very real confusion of the battle. Considering that Torpedo 8 and Fighting 8 were lost in toto, Mitscher was writing a report based on limited inputs and not a full picture. Often only an exhaustive after-action review is able to get the facts sorted out. From this slim reed - the lack of a report, and an inaccurate report - Kernan claims a conspiracy to protect Ring. That's the jist of Kernan's argument. There is no other evidence, no corroborating testimony, no other facts, just Kernan's perception of class jealousy manifested into a conviction of a conspiracy.
One wonders if Kernan's research in the field of English is held to the same standard of evidence.
One should buy this book if one would like to see a collection of secondary source information regarding the US torpedo bombers at Midway. He has some quotations from works that are not easily located, and collects faithfully most of the arguments against US torpedoes and the Devastator torpedo bomber that are located in disparate sources. One should not buy the book for clear charts or graphics - "minimalist" is the style, so minimalist as to be nearly incomprehensible. One should also purchase this book if one wants to be entertained when the real naval historians go into damage control mode to stamp out all the disinformation spread by this book.
One should not buy this book if you are less than an expert in the field, for you are likely to be misled by what is known in the Navy as "bum gouge."
Dr. Alan D. Zimm, CDR USN (ret) (By the way, NOT a USNA grad).
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