Customer Reviews

Halsey's Typhoon: The True Story of a Fighting Admiral, an Epic Storm, and an Untold Rescue

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Halsey's Typhoon is a World War II disaster-survival tale about Typhoon Cobra enveloping the U.S. Navy's Third Fleet, commanded by Admiral William F. (Bull) Halsey, in the Philippine Sea in December 1944.

The best part of the book, by far, is the second half. Participants, primarily surviving crew members of the three sunken destroyers or the destroyer escort Tabberer which rescued 60% of the survivors despite its own severe damage, relate their experiences during the storm, floating in the water for 24-48 hours, being rescued and recovering These survivors' and rescuers' tales, related recently to the authors by a handful of remaining veterans, are informative, frightening, fascinating, memorable and inspiring. I'm glad their firsthand experiences, even in part, have been published.

Unfortunately, apart from the survivors' personal narratives, this book's deficiencies are many. The authors seem to have relatively little knowledge of either the Navy or World War II, with misused terms and questionable characterization events being too numerous to itemize. Examples include referring to the flag flown at the bow of a naval vessel as a "battle guideon" (an Army term for what the Navy calls a battle jack); calling a ship's mess deck its mess hall; repeatedly referring USS Monaghan as having "drawn first blood" when it sank a Japanese mini-sub inside Pearl Harbor thirty minutes after the attack started whereas it is widely acknowledged that USS Ward sank a Japanese mini-sub outside the entrance of Pearl Harbor before the aerial attack even commenced; describing MacArthur's invasion of Luzon as a "stepping stone" toward Iwo Jima, Okinawa and Japan itself when it was arguably more of a strategic distraction from Nimitz's Central Pacific island hopping campaign through Guadalcanal, Guam, Saipan, etc. that actually established the air bases from which the U.S. directly struck Japan in 1945 and opened the route to Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

Also, the book needs serious editing to eliminate wordiness, inconsistencies (e.g., ascribing different ranks or titles to the same people within the scope of a few days) and questionable or obscure metaphors. For instance, does it make sense to describe Halsey's belated decision to allow his command to break formation in order for individual captains to concentrate on the safety of their ships to being like "Mrs. O'Leary reporting her cow missing?" The authors' wordiness and commitment of space to irrelevant biographical details or wartime events may have been a way to deal with the fact that a concise rendition of their most original and compelling material would have filled perhaps just half as many pages.

Finally, apart from the sunken destroyers and their principal rescuing vessel, former-President Ford's experiences on the USS Monterey and descriptions of near-disaster on the USS Aylwin, there are few details about what happened to any of the other vessels during the typhoon. Finally, there is nothing whatsoever about how the typhoon affected the war effort. How long did it take before the damaged Third Fleet was again combat ready? What impact did the loss of Third Fleet air cover have on the Army's Mindoro campaign, which was the reason Halsey was so reluctant to release his ships from formation? The world wants to know...

The book's three sections - The Fleet, the Storm and The Rescue - are divided into twenty-five unnamed chapters that total 266 pages. An Epilogue (immediate post-storm events), Afterword 2006 (post-WWII careers of some figures in the narrative), four-page bibliography, an index and miscellaneous addendums bring the page count to 322. Twenty-eight B&W photos illustrate some of the key characters and ships and endpaper charts depict locations relative to the typhoon track. There are no footnotes.

Recommended to naval history and WWII buffs, survival/adventure tale fans or anyone who lost a relative at sea during WWII due to the recounting of individual veterans' experiences. Not recommended to people seeking information about WWII campaigns and strategies or those seeking tightly composed nonfiction prose.

In 2007 two different publishers released two different books on the 1944-1945 typhoons that sank three ships in the U.S. Third Fleet. Under the command of Admiral William Halsey, the U.S. Navy lost more men due to these natural disasters than it did at the battle of Midway. Bob Drury and Tom Clavin's "Halsey's Typhoon" was the first one to make it to book stores and garnered more attention and sales than Buckner F. Melton Jr.'s "Sea Cobra." Given the timing and focus of these two books, this review will compare and contrast the two. In short, there is no question that Melton wrote the better book.

The illustrations of carriers, battleships, oilers, destroyers, and destroyer escorts compared to 30, 60, and 90 foot waves is the best feature of Drury and Clavin's account. It gives landlubbers a good idea of how rough seas are problems for some ships and not for others. The shortcomings of this book, however, are much more significant. First, the book ignores altogether the second typhoon Halsey sailed into. Melton discusses this one, but not at length. This brevity is understandable, the second typhoon did less damage and sank no ships. It does show, though, that the commander and staff of the Third Fleet learned little from their experiences with the first typhoon despite efforts to do so. The problem that Drury and Clavin have is that this second storm undermines their argument that Halsey was largely blameless for sailing into the typhoons.

The mechanics of publishing also favor Melton. Drury and Clavin have only one map. Melton has nine. He also provides an extensive bibliography and footnotes, whereas Drury and Clavin have a brief bibliography and make no effort to provide any sort of documentation on their sources. Drury and Clavin also make a number of basic mistakes when it comes to nautical matters and use maritime terms incorrectly. Examples include "helming" a ship; calling a battle jack a "battle guideon" (an Army term); referring to a ship's mess deck as its "mess hall." They also put generals in the Japanese Navy Ministry and refer to the Army Ministry as the "War Department" (an American term). Stylistically, Melton is the better wordsmith. Drury and Clavin use too many editorializing adverbs ("legendary" or "untold") to exaggerate the significance of their story.

Much more significant is the thesis of each book. Drury and Clavin make Lt. Cmdr. James Marks, captain of the USS HULL, out to be the main villain in this incident. The HULL was one of his ships lost in the first typhoon. This charge seems reasonable at first, but Marks' seamanship does not explain why the USS MONAGHAN and SPENCE sank, nor does it explain a number of close calls on other ships. It seems that the two authors allowed crewmen from the HULL that they interviewed for the book to use the opportunity to settle old scores with Marks. In fact, Drury and Clavin do not spend much time talking about ships other than the HULL while Melton does. Melton also gives much more attention to the post storm investigation. Since Marks was the subject of an official investigation, Drury and Clavin argue this was proof enough of his guilt. The fact that there was no court-martial or that the other captains died in the storm makes this observation rather weak. Melton gives a much more nuanced description of the investigation. Halsey rather than Marks was the main target of the investigation and the board placed primary blame for sailing into the storm on the Admiral. There were a number of mitigating circumstances, though, and Melton is good at describing them. This incident is no black and white morality play.

In short, Melton offers a much better book than Drury and Clavin.

Having been on a DE attached to the Seventh Fleet in the calmer waters just south of Leyte at the time of this disaster I learned about it through scuttlebutt later and then, of course, in following years from all that was written about it. All of it was especially poignant for me because we had operated with the Hull, the Spence and the Monaghan before all this happened and they and their crews were my (our) friends. This book, however, told the full story and I was not only glad to read it but glad that it has been told so well and with so much accurate detail. While it's easy - and maybe accurate - to write this off as just one of those things that happen in war, nothing in the book changed my original opinion fomed over the years that Halsey was more interested in meeting his schedule than protecting his fleet, that he should have made arrangements for fueling his screening DDs nd DEs long before the disturbance hit and that the skippers of these lost DDs should have much earlier broken station and headed for calmer waters. When things start to get carried away by the wind as powerfull as this and the barometer starts dropping like it did and you are almost in irons it's time to run for calmer waters; and these captains did not. Ignore seas like this at your peril; and a Captain's first duty is to his ship.

Had a bit of problem at times keeping up with the navigation as described, but othewise a good book.

A most hilarious book!

Not that the authors, touted by the publisher as "seasoned writers on maritime topics," mean it to be funny, but the constant misuse of nautical terminology, inappropriate allusions to the classics and silly quotations leads to inadvertent humor ranging from mild chuckles to outright howlers.

The two authors evidently had a contest to see who could use the "saltiest" language and include the most irrelevant quotations in their portions of the book. Every opportunity is taken to use some nautical term - often it appears that some inane sentence is included just so another nautical term can be displayed.

So, so often, the terms are used incorrectly.

Some of the best:
The authors assert that sonar pings are displayed on radar scopes.

Trying to be nautical, they describe an admiral who daily "skiffs over" to consult with his commander - they evidently are not aware that a skiff is a tiny one-man boat, usually oared. Sailors would have paid good coin to see an admiral rowing himself about on his official rounds.

They assert that the task force's radars were improperly adjusted, making them unable to make "long-range weather predictions."

"Squadron" and "flotilla" are used by the authors any time they want a synonym for "a bunch of ships." They appear not to understand that these terms have precise meanings.

Ships are constantly referred to as being "in irons." The authors evidently do not know that this term refers only to sailing ships. Powered vessels cannot be "in irons."
American sailors are constantly referred to as "jack tars," a term actually given to British seamen during the sailing ship era. These are jarring incongruities in a story about a 20th Century American steam-powered fleet, akin to using football terms to describe soccer action ("They're both sports, right?"). To praise some intelligent actions, they used the phrase "quick's the word and sharp's the action," another British sailing-era expression. I have come across the phrase only twice, once in O'Brien's Jack Aubrey novels and once in the movie Master and Commander, apparently major sources of the seasoned maritime writers' nautical education.

Similarly, the authors have a very tenuous grasp on the terms pitch, roll, and yaw, using them interchangeably. They often described ships as "pitching to starboard."

The authors refer to a destroyer's "fuel gauge," evidently unaware that such a thing does not exist. Fuel tanks have to be individually sounded and the figures totaled by the Oil King. One destroyer's stack is referred to as her "spout." A captain conning his ship is referred to as "helming" the ship - the authors presumably "steering wheel" their cars home. And, although the phrase sounds really official, there is no such thing as a "water penetration repair party." It is clear that the authors do not understand how a WWII warship works.

The authors also do not appear to understand how naval officers are to be addressed. Admiral Nimitz is constantly referred to as "CinCPAC Nimitz," and Admiral Ernest King, the Chief of Naval Operations, is the "Navy Chief of Staff," a position that did not exist.

No noun is left undecorated by an adjective. Publishers tout this kind of writing as "exciting" or "accessible," but it only works if the adjectives make sense. What do you say when a ship that has been in commission for about a year is described as "venerable"? Is a ship capable of 32 knots "bursting her boilers" at 25 knots?

Then there are the many things that are just flat wrong. For example, the authors inform the readers that it is harder to sight a man in the water from the "towering superstructure of a "heavy ship" than from a destroyer's deck close to the water, which is exactly the opposite of what is true. This is an important point when discussing actions taken to retrieve men in the water from sunken ships, a critical part of the Cobra Typhoon story.

Then there are the many silly references to the ancients and the classics. We are informed that, according to "Euclid's geometry," two objects cannot occupy the same place at the same time, something that the rest of us know as the Pauli Exclusion Principle or one of the axioms from Einstein's work - physics, not geometry.

The bottom line is that here we have a book written by authors with no real understanding of the operations of a WW II navy. Yet, they expect us to accept their judgment on one of the more controversial events of the war in the Pacific. In the end, after offering criticism after criticism of Halsey in the body of the book, they fall in with the Navy's official judgment exonerating Halsey, a surprising inconsistency.

But in the end, it does not matter. Certainly no one would want to make a decision based on testimony from a book that is simultaneously so pretentious and so inaccurate.

This is not an untold story of the war, rather it has been told for years. Morrison has it in his HISTORY OF NAVAL OPERATION IN WORLD WAR II. Halsey's meteorologist wrote a book of almost exactly the same title 40 years ago.

The writing is not very good. It could have used more polishing and another draft, but my guess is that they were rushing to get it to press because another publisher had a book on exactly the same subject (SEA COBRA) coming out, and they wanted to get in first.

No footnotes or attribution. The bibliography is not that extensive. There is only a single map. More would have been very helpful in following the action -- repeatedly i had to try and figure out the navigation to figure out exactly which turn they were talking about. A mpa showing the ship dispossession within the fleet would have been invaluable.

The authors allow their oral history interviewees to settle old scores. Any officer who ever corrected them gets paid back here. Its true -- history gets written by survivors.

Interestingly, another phenomena of the war is described here -- it was common for ships to sail and have maybe 5% of the crew miss movement. "greatest Generation" and all that, but that alos meant the greatest amount of skulker. Unthinkable to have a ship in today's navy depart with that kind of AWOL.

"Halsey's Typhoon": earned one star for the awesome photos of future Prsident Gerald Ford skying for the basketball on the basketball court and
Commander Henry Lee Plage of the USS Tabberer looking three times cooler than Fonzie and John Wayne put together. He proved in action to be three times the hero that he looked.
"Halsey's Typhoon": earned three negative stars for a boring start, middle and end as well as talking down to the reader (constantly using words that had to be looked up and when I looked them up the results were staggering. The words were constantly listed as slang, archaic, obsolete and the meaning didn't even fit the sentence!!!)
"Sea Cobra" by Buckner F. Melton Jr.: covers the same event and earned 4.5 stars. It was extremely user friendly and made the story come to life. You felt like you were with the sailors fighting Typhoon Cobra and Typhoon Viper and Commander's Plage's decision to ignore Halsey's orders and amazingly rescue drowning sailors.
"Sea Cobra": earned .5 negative stars due to lesser photos.

This is a true story of bravery and dedicated effort worth telling and retelling, and this particular rendition, laced with first-hand recollections of survivors and excerpts from the report of the naval Board of Inquiry, does so in a flowing style which makes it difficult to put down. However, this is essentially a journalistic treatment which makes it something other than the definitive study of the subject. Moreover, it focuses almost exclusively upon the three ships that foundered and a few other vessels that suffered more extensive damage without discussing the nearly 90 other vessels which survived the storm without mention of their damage or the reasons they pulled through as well as they, purely by implication, seem to have done, leaving the reader with what seems like a grossly lopsided perspective. In other words, while the authors supply a certain amount of information about why a relatively few ships had serious problems they don't fully explain those ships' situations by contrasting them with the circumstances of the vast majority of the ships involved, which apparently survived without serious problems. While they try to explore what went wrong with a few, they make no attempt at what seems to have gone right with the many others exposed to the storm, leaving a highly visible gap in providing a full understanding of the event.

Perhaps worse still, the authors' attempts to use nautical and other naval terminology is frequently so awkward - if not actually entirely incorrect - that they succeed only in showing their essential illiteracy cocerning such matters, to the point of making the experienced reader of maritime literature cringe. Given the subject matter of this book the latter flaw is hardly insignificant, and how it escaped the editors at Atlantic Monthly Press is to be wondered at. It is hoped that if there is ever another edition this failing will be rectified effectively by better informed, more competent editing.

I have a casual interest in naval history, and regret that I did not know of other books on this typhoon incident before I read Drury and Clavin's version.

I agree fully with most of the negative reveiws posted, and will not reiterate their specific complaints.

In general, the authors demonstrate considerable ignorance and lack of research into general naval matters, terminology, and technology. In reading the narrative, one is jolted over and over by obvious errors, misuse of technical terms, inconsistencies, unlikely supposition of peoples' feelings and statements, and basic poor writing.

Charles Ostrofe

This book could have begun with "It was a dark and stormy see". The authors try to impress us with their vocabulary, often using archaic terms, and overuse adjectives. The writing is in the style of a bad romance novel with overuse of adjectives. Many of the similes are inappropriate for a sea story.

My biggest complaint is reserved for the lack of citations. The book is filled with quotations, but there is no notes section to tell us where the quotes came from. The book might as well be labeled fiction. The magazine and newspaper section citations are lacking and the electronic sources section follows no style. Websites are listed with URLs nor access dates. In the miscellaneous section, one of the sources is history.navy.mil. The high schoolers I work with can put together better bibliographies.

The book is primarily a recount of the suffering of those who were aboard the three lost destroyers; it pays too much attention to the sufferers and not enough to the good work of the survivors and the other ships that were properly handled. It also blames Halsey for taking unnecessary chances, and that is not accurate. Halsey and his advisors were unaware of the storm until it was too late to evade it. I was aboard a carrier in Task Group 38.2 (Halsey was aboard the New Jersey, the guide of that group). Halsey did everything possible to aid and save his ships from a menace that nobody thought would as bad as it turned out to be. I congratulate the authors on their research into the actual happenings, obviously based on reports directly from survivors. The authors could have used a good Navy editor, however, since their language is far from that of a seagoing person. M.D. Van Orden, Rear Admiral, USN (Retired); an Ensign aboare USS Independence (CVL 22)during the typhoon.