Customer Reviews

Overlord: General Pete Quesada and the Triumph of Tactical Air Power in World War II

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

 

 

This book is easy to get into and very informative. The story of Gen. Pete Quesada and the tactical air arm in the European Theater of Operations in WW II is something that anyone interested in military history should read. This aspect of the war is often overlooked, which should not be the case. The working together of ground and tactical air assets should be a top priority for military planners as well as anyone connected with the ground troops.

Elwood Quesada was one of those nearly forgotten pioneers of tactical air power during World War II. With the Ninth Air Force, Quesada would develop the concept of close air support to levels very similar to how it is practiced even today. Two key innovations were the use of Microwave Early Warning (MEW) radar and the technology for "combat column cover". MEW radar was originally a field radar designed for defensive purposes, to warn of an enemy air attack. As German aircraft rapidly became scarce, the radar came to be used for air traffic control, to keep track of and direct fighter-bombers in the air to fresh targets in real time. The second innovation was to provide radios that could talk directly to the planes (a simple idea, which had never been done before!) in the tanks of the attacking columns. The combination of the two meant that U.S. Army units could call in close air support on top of an enemy position in minutes, a capability that no other army, including the British, had during World War II.

As other reviewers have pointed out, the book does leave some holes in its treatment of the history of U.S. tactical air power. U.S. and British air power during WWII in general was not very good at destroying tanks - the available weapons (bombs and rockets) were simply too inaccurate. But it did have a tremendous effect on the Germans' ability to mount cohesive counterattacks and severely restricted their freedom of movement and destroyed their supplies.

Also, although Quesada pioneered the main techniques for close air support during WWII, Gen. Otto Weyland of XIX TAC would become its greatest practitioner, working closely with Patton and the Third Army, and contributing tremendously to the success of the Third Army.

Thus, two additional excellent books to read are "Air Power at the Battlefront" by Ian Gooderson and "Patton's Air Force" by David Spires. The first book gives a much more accurate look at Allied tactical air power, and the second points out that Patton's tremendous success was due in no small part to the contributions of Weyland's XIX TAC.

Two other fascinating points in this biography of Elwood Quesada are his postwar battles with pretty boy Hoyt Vandenberg, and his marriage to Kate Putnam, heiress to the Pulitzer fortune.

Vandenberg was appointed the head of the Ninth Air Force during WWII despite knowing nothing about tactical air power and later became the Chief of Staff for the new US Air Force. Vandenberg was the classic example of how far you can get in life if you look good, talk good, and play a great game of golf. He was also responsible for starting the USAAF's long slide away from having the proper equipment and weapons to do close air support the right way. Quesada was forced out of the Air Force by Vandenberg. Weyland would be exiled to non-combat jobs until the Korean War forced Vandenberg to bring him back as he now needed somebody who actually knew how to do tactical air support.

Yes, they ended up naming that missile base outside of Santa Barbara after this dumbkin pretty boy, Vandenberg Air Force Base. Something I think about every time they test fire off one of those Minutemen missiles and I see the missile contrails in the sky (they can be quite colorful and beautiful). They should rename the base after somebody more deserving.

Quesada's marriage to the widowed Kate Putnam allowed him to tap into the high society of the rich and famous. Which is why he could quit the Air Force whereas Weyland had to stay in and swallow his pride for several years. Quesada would go on to many different jobs and pursuits, none lasting more than three years or so.

A fascinating story of a fascinating man during the critical birth period of the U.S. Air Force.

I knew the General. In addition to his achievements in WW II, he devoloped the concept of an airport where incoming and out going passengers moved on separate floors (Dulles)With David Rockefeller they created the magnificent L'Enfant Plaza in Wash.D.C. His stories of growing up in Washington could be another book, not to mention his civilian achievements in Washington. The story of his flying Ike behind German lines after the D day invasion in a 2 seat P 51 to prove his point over German positions (much to the chagrin of Gen. Bradley) is one of my favorites. He had a picture in his office of he and Tooey Spaatz from their early days in "Jennies" with oil all over their faces except where their goggles were. Right out of "Dawn Patrol". This book is long over due.

I had to read some of the book for class but it was good enough that I read the entire thing.

This was a terrific work covering the exploits of America's true tactical ground support pioneer.

If you are interested in the political twist and turns of US tactical air force before, during and after WW2, you might find this book interesting.

However be warned it is full of exaggerated claims of what tactical forces actually did in WW2. For example on page 237, the writer talks about the battle at Mortain to show the effectiveness of the tactical bombing. He claims that Germans losses were 27 tanks and a bit later another 76 tanks lost. In fact, research shows that only 46 German tanks were lost in this action of which nine German tanks were destroyed by the air force.

Part of the problem is that pilots have a habit of exaggerating their actions. Say a tank takes a hit. It goes boom. To the pilot flying overhead it looks like it was destroyed. So he reports it destroyed. In reality all it took was a knock and one of these underrated, brilliant mechanics that both sides in the conflict had in abundance, will manage to fix it a few hours later.

The Allied air force did have an effect. It forced the German units to take repeatable take cover and by destroyed many of the bridges in the area so delayed the movement of the German units. It made the German fuel shortages worse. It was also quite effective at destroying German trucks which increased, the massive shortages of trucks that their armies suffered. It also caused the Germans to divert resources away from the ground to air defence.

A mediocre attempted biography of a fascinating man and even more important era

Elwood R. (Pete) Quesada was one of the most important generals of World War II, yet he was largely left behind in history. Quesada literally was responsible for inventing the methods of tactical air support for ground troops during the course of the American invasion of Europe. He was the fairly modest genius who got along with the ground forces generals where other Army Air Force senior officers considered anything other than strategic bombing demeaning.

For many reasons, Quesada is a fascinating man, yet author Hughes never seems to get to the core of the man. He describes he man, tells us what he accomplished, but provides no real sense of what went through the man's mind.

Instead, we get a fairly standard war history of machine guns blasting, bombs dropping, tanks advancing and shells bursting. There are a few bits here and there where Quesada and his team bring innovations to the system and Hughes does a fairly good job of describing them. I did not know, for instance, of the important contribution of the MEW radar. I'd provide the meaning of the acronym, but like many other terms, it is not to be found in the index and I am not about to page through the book to find it again. The poor index is only one of the several defects of this book. We get descriptions of tactical innovations, but only cursory examples of their use in most cases.

Hughes' writing is pedestrian, with no real tension or drama. Mistakes, whether of authorship, editing or proofreading abound. Words are clearly missing here and there. Some of the technical errors are total howlers: confusing millimeters with caliber. The P-51 Mustang did not have 50mm cannon - it had 50 caliber machineguns. There are few maps and those few do nothing more than illustrate where towns and cities are - not any aspect of the tactical air effort. Even then, many important locations are not on the maps provided.

On the whole, Hughes has not delivered. He does provide a somewhat cursory history of the development of tactical air support, but never invests it with the drama and power it deserves. He describes how the "big bomber boys" hijacked the newly independent Air Force after the war, pays lip service to the price paid in the Korean conflict for the failure to support the concept of tactical air and wraps it up quickly.

Hopefully some day, a more capable historian will tackle the same subject with better results.

Jerry