Customer Reviews

Unrestricted Warfare: How a New Breed of Officers Led the Submarine Force to Victory in World War II

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book offers the novice reader an interesting insight to a number of the better-known US submarine skippers of World War Two. I would tend to agree that the book is much narrower in scope than the title suggests but for all that it still offers an exciting account of submarine warfare as experienced by the US Navy in the Pacific. It was revealing to read an account of a war crime committed by crew-members of one American submarine but I suppose that this just goes to show how war can brutalize even the best of men.

Overall I found the book interesting and engaging but it did not grab me as fully as previous accounts that I have read on submarine warfare. I did enjoy the accounts of what became of the men in the book after the war. The account of the sinking of the `Tang' was well done and it really did bring home to the reader how tragic the end of a submarine could be.

One minor point that spoilt my reading of this otherwise well written and presented book was that at times I felt the author was belittling the efforts of German U-boat crews, only Americans could do the job properly. Overall though I came away after reading this book thankful of the efforts of these brave men. I hope that if by reading this book people come to realise how many young men lost their lives for the benefit of us all.

Unrestricted Warfare is an excellent "captain's eye view" of submarine combat in the Pacific during the Second World War, and an essential volume for those interested in naval history or military leadership. Thoroughly researched with help from the Japanese side, the book tells its story by tracking the wartime careers of several submarine officers who became the Silent Service's top scorers ever, including Richard O'Kane and "Mush" Morton. Unrestricted Warfare is hardly a puff piece, however: the author unflinchingly reveals the truth behind several wartime atrocities, while also explaining in detail the tumultuous political climate and leadership failings that beset the submarine force during the war. DeRose also does a fine job reconciling the often inflated claims of wartime reports with newly uncovered data, and the book features many illustrations never before seen in print.

DeRose has a unique skill that transports the reader to a time and place that he or she can not imagine. When I entered the armed forces in WWII, serving on a submarine was easily on the bottom of my list. After reading "Unrestricted Warfare" I now better understand the rational for my decision. DeRose draws a stark and honest picture of unrelenting stress, anxiety and vulnerability for the officers and enlisted men as they embark on their submarine patrols. The heroic stories of the lives of several submarines and their crews left me engaged, exhausted and thrilled. These men had to have been half-crazy to volunteer for such service. We do, however all owe them an undying debt of gratitude for their contributions to the defeat of the Japanese in the Pacific. DeRose's book is a must read.

There are plenty of books on the U.S.-Japan sub war, noteably the highly detailed "Silent Victory" by Clay Blair Jr. If you're looking for a good overview of the subject, however, this book is a great start. It primarily covers the leadership of Mush Morton aboard USS Wahoo, who was the first of a new breed of aggressive commanders who took the battle to the Japanese, and the other officers who learned the "Wahoo way" under Morton and went on to successful commands of their own. Next, it covers the patrols of Dick O'Kane, Morton's former XO, as he leads aggressive, successful patrols into Japanese waters. Also covered are torpedo malfunctions and other problems that caused patrols to be less successful than they could have been, but the concentration here is on men who lead the way aggressively taking the war to Japan. A fine volume to get you started on the topic; you might follow with O'Kane's books, "Wahoo" and "Clear the Bridge," and "The Bravest Man" about O'Kane himself.

"Unrestricted Warfare" is a fascinating book mainly concentrating on the power team from the USS Wahoo-"Mush" Morton, Dick O'Kane, George Grider and Roger Paine Jr. To put it simply, I doubt whether any of these men particularly Morton and O'Kane would have got a submarine command in peacetime but once war broke out, they became legends. The book examines in detail, the patrols of Wahoo in a way that hasn't been done before and the chapter on its last patrol is hard to put down. The author to his credit does not make plaster saints of Morton and O'Kane but portrays them as the very human people they were.

My only regret is that the author did not study other skippers in depth particular Gene Fluckey, Slade Cutter, Ned Beach or Dusty Dornin.

A great book that leaves the reader with one query-why didn't Mush Morton get the Medal of Honor-it was awarded for lesser actions in WW2 ie:MacArthur.

There have been many fine books on the U. S. submarine campaign in the Pacific and this should be added to the list. It's a fresh, insightful look at some of the sub commanders who, through their aggressiveness and tactical innovations, helped make that campaign the success it was.

The book concentrates on a group of officers - Dick O'Kane, George Grider, Roger Paine -who learned their trade under the legendary 'Mush' Morton on USS Wahoo. In contrast to the cautious U. S. sub skippers produced by the peacetime Navy, Morton was aggressiveness personified, taking his ship in harm's war when others might have turned away. Morton and his Wahoo team of O'Kane, Grider, Paine and others came up with tactical innovations that helped sink 55,000 tons of Japanese shipping before Wahoo's loss in October 1943. O'Kane and Grider went on to become top-scoring skippers in their own right. O'Kane in particular inherited Morton's mantle when he commanded USS Tang, being even more aggressive and even more successful in terms of ships sunk, 93,000 tons worth.

This book doesn't pretend to be an all-inclusive, exhaustive account of every WWII USN submarine. DeRose does interweave the story of other subs and skippers against the backdrop of the Wahoo-Tang-Flasher saga. UNRESTRICTED WARFARE is, however, a fresh, in-depth, warts-and-all account of a singular group of officers based on in-depth research that drew on interviews with surviving crewmen and American and Japanese combat records.

DeRose's book is a wonderful read. I can't remember when I enjoyed a book on U. S. sub operations as much as this. Morton, O'Kane, Grider and the others come to life as complex, intriguing, sometimes irritating human beings. Warriors all, their story is well told in this marvelous book!

This book was well written and researched. It is written in a very easy to read and enjoyable style.

My only gripe about this book is its' limited scope. The title implies that you will learn about many of the submarine commanders in WWII, but in reality you really only hear of the exploits of a few submarines and their men. If you are a fan of WAHOO,TANG, Mush Morton or Dick O'Kane (which I am) you will enjoy this book. As a matter of fact it probably does a better job than any other book I've seen at covering the controversial treatment of the troop ship incident on WAHOOs' third patrol& the end of Wahoos' illustrious career. If however you are looking for a book that covers more than 3-4 WWII commanders and their exploits then this is not the book for you.

Overall an entertaining book, but again be aware that if you are looking for a book that covers several submarines and\or their commanders their are better choices out there.

This is an excellent book that traces the history of key officers and men that served first on the USS Wahoo and how they developed the skills to move on to commands of their own. The lineage of officers trained under Dudley Morton is amazing, and extensive. It also has a nice mix of detailed analysis of sinkings, and personal recollections.

The author uses a unique approach in this book. He takes the officers assigned to one submarine early in the war and follows them through their various assignments throughout the war. His attention to detail, and those rare moments of humor, make this a book you have to have in your collection if you have the slightest interest in submarines during World War II. One of my favorites.

"Unrestricted Warfare" by James F. DeRose is an excellent overview of U.S. submarine operations against the Japanese in the Pacific during World War II. While the book is not intended to convey the depth of detail of Clay Blair's epic "Silent Victory," it provides a first-rate and highly readable examination of the three major problems faced by the United States in executing "unrestricted submarine warfare" against the Japanese after the Dec. 7, 1941 surprise attack on Pearl Harbor: Faulty doctrine, faulty skippers, and faulty torpedoes. The Navy, once it realized the magnitude of the problem, moved fairly quickly to solve the faulty skippers problem, replacing cautious, older, largely peacetime-trained skippers with more aggressive younger men who hadn't been molded by a pre-war performance system that punished captains whose submarines were detected during fleet exercises. These younger skippers crafted and cobbled together their own, more successful doctrine, often on the fly, as the war progressed. The torpedo problem was another matter and was met with incredible bureaucratic intransigence from desk-bound officials safely back in the U.S. It was never fully solved during the war and was only partially rectified by December 1943 - two full years into the conflict - and only then by stop-gap measures undertaken by the fighting forces themselves. (It is known from survivor testimony that two U.S. subs, the Tang and the Tullibee, were sunk by their own circular-running torpedoes and a recent analysis of wreckage photos from a third boat, the USS Grunion, strongly suggest a third. The loss of the Grunion, possibly to its own torpedoes, is not covered in "Unrestricted Warfare" since the wreck was not discovered until well-after publication of the book). "Unrestricted Warfare" provides an excellent insight into the undersea warriors who suffered the highest casualty rate of any branch of the American armed forces in World War II and are still largely under-recognized by history.