Customer Reviews

The War in Pacific: A Retrospective

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

 

 

Leon Cooper, who was a landing craft Naval officer during World War II, argues that it was a waste of human lives and resources to attack the Japanese on some of the islands in the Pacific. Furthermore, he believes we should not have invaded Okinawa or the Philippines. Instead we should have waited a few months longer until the Manhattan Project had reached fruition. We could have left the Japanese soldiers on islands such as Peleliu and Tarawa to whither away after cutting their supply lines. Cooper asserts that had we not attacked those islands and the Philippines and Okinawa the result of the war would not have changed and we would have saved tens of thousand of lives.

Cooper also contends that the main reason we did invade the Philippines was to satisfy the egomania of Gen. Douglas MacArthur who wanted to fulfill his promise to "return." Additionally, Cooper argues that President Roosevelt supported this foolish venture because MacArthur would then be occupied and not able to run for president against him.

In a larger sense Cooper contends that our strategy in the Pacific followed antiquated "island-hopping" plans outlined long before the war began, plans that did not take into consideration the way naval warfare had changed in the interim. Furthermore, Cooper condemns FDR for allowing the wasteful command rivalries between a "vainglorious General MacArthur and a stiff-necked Admiral Nimitz" (p. 13) to compromise the war effort.

Cooper also asserts in particular that we invaded Iwo Jima ("with 26,000 casualties") "primarily because the B-29 was not an airworthy plane. Iwo Jima, it was decided would be a safe harbor for air crews flying to and returning from Japan." (p. 64) He indicts the Boeing company, which built the B-29 for not making it a safer plane. I am reminded of the current controversy over the body armor worn by our soldiers in Iraq. Have considerations of profit margins for the manufacturers taken precedence over the safety of our soldiers?

In a wider sense I would ask to what extent are political and economic considerations more important that the lives of fighting men and women? It would appear that it is often the case that politicians and CEOs make decisions that are good for their careers and their economic well-being while being detrimental to the lives of our soldiers. Finally I would ask, wasn't it ever thus? Politicians and heads of corporations tend to be experts at furthering their own interests regardless of how that might affect others. The populace is expected to give everything to the war effort and to make every imaginable sacrifice, including going into a battle (as was the case in some of the battles in the Pacific) in which the casualty rate was expected to exceed thirty percent or more. Meanwhile FDR and MacArthur might occupy themselves primarily with the gratification of their egos.

Such is human nature and the nature of politics and the nature of "politics by other means"--that is, warfare on the grand scale.

Cooper's arguments make eminent sense and I have little doubt that he is substantially right. The horrific casualties that we suffered in those battles seem pointless in retrospect. Once the atomic bombs fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the unconditional defeat of Japan was assured. How sad it is to think about all those lives that could have been spared given better leadership.

This is a short and incisive book, clearly written and deeply felt. There are some black and white photos and some maps. Unfortunately the maps are rather small and the details too fine for these old eyes, and some of the photos are blurred. There are three appendices. One lists "all of the 146 U.S. Navy aircraft carriers that saw action during the War in the Pacific"; another is a document of "the detailed order...by the Japanese High Command...to commence hostilities against the U.S., Great Britain, and Holland"; and the third is a declassified memo written by Vannevar Bush and James Conant of the Office of Scientific Research and Development advising Secretary of War Henry Stimson of the progress toward creating an atomic bomb.

In addition to the blurry photos and the not very readable maps, the book is marred by table of contents and index references to the wrong pages. Despite these faults Cooper is to be commended for reminding us that, although WWII and the immediate aftermath may have been the time of America's greatest glory, we and our leaders were far from perfect.

Leon Cooper spoke to the Ridge Writers, the East Sierra branch of the California Writers Club. The following is the review of his talk as submitted to The Purple Sage, the Ridge Writers' newsletter:

There used to be a radio program that dramatized significant events in history. The program, hosted by Walter Cronkite, was named, "You Are There"; it eventually moved to TV. At the end of each program, Cronkite would declare with echo-chamber effect, "Everything is as it was, except YOU WERE THERE!" Leon Cooper, our speaker on 5 September, dramatized for us the war in the Pacific, and he WAS there; a lesson in history is always more powerful and memorable when related by an actual eyewitness; no echo-chamber is needed.

What Leon Cooper witnessed, as a Navy officer in charge of a Higgins Boat that took invading Marines ashore, was the wholesale carnage of his passengers caused by poorly planned and executed direct frontal assaults on well-defended beaches.

A lesson in history is not only more powerful and memorable when related by an actual eyewitness, it is made more so when that eyewitness has had time to maturely reflect on the meanings and causes of those events. These mature reflections are the major thrust of this, his second book about his wartime experiences. (His first book, "90 Day Wonder", was the subject of a previous Ridge Writers program.)

Here are the major points made by the book and conveyed by the speaker:

* The Navy's Island-Hopping strategy was outmoded (i.e., based on past wars), delayed the end of the war and resulted in needless casualties;

* Whereas the war in Europe was under the single command of Eisenhower, the Pacific conflict suffered from a divided and often confused command - Gen. Douglas MacArthur vs. Adm. Chester Nimitz;

* The kowtowing to the egomaniacal MacArthur, especially as regards the unnecessary retaking of the Phillipines, was probably based on Roosevelt's desire to keep MacArthur from running against him in the 1944 presidential election;

* The B-29 ("The World's Lousiest Airplane") was rushed into production without adequate testing. It was powered by Wright (wrong!) engines that frequently caught fire. The Army Air Corps had to set up centers to rebuild these planes, correcting many design defects. Sen. Harry Truman's investigation characterized the B-29 program as quantity trumping quality.

Although these corrections to the common, cleansed version of history are refreshing to those of us who lived thru that era, Cooper expressed doubt as to whether the military and its civilian superiors have learned anything from history. Pity!

Stephen J. ("Steve") Wersan, Ph.D.
Ridgecrest, CA

One third of the 300,000 American military casualties suffered in the Pacific Theatre of World War II were inflicted in just five of the many battles fought against the Japanese over the course of four years. "The War In The Pacific: A Retrospective", author Leon Cooper deftly analyzes these five particular battles waged during this hemispheric war drawing quite specifically upon his own experiences as a direct participant in these battles to seize and control Japanese-held islands. Cooper presents his own conclusions on whether the American military command under General Douglas MacArthur and Admiral Nimitz evidenced good judgment in their decisions as to which islands to invade as the war progressed. Or if these commanders, most especially MacArthur, put self-aggrandizement and private agendas above the safety and best interest of the men they commanded. Cooper makes a persuasive case worthy of serious consideration that several of the major battles fought out at great cost to American forces had virtually nothing to do with defeating Japan and therefore represent an unnecessary sacrifice of American lives. As with the growing number of personal memoirs and biographies being contributed to a growing library of first hand reports from frontline participants who fought in World War II, "The War In The Pacific" is a welcome and invaluable contribution to American Military History in general, and the Pacific Theatre campaigns in particular.

In Steven C. Barber's film "Return to Tarawa," which features Leon Cooper's role in the Battle of Tarawa, Mr. Cooper is portrayed as a heroic character who ferried Marines into Tarawa and wounded guys out throughout the 3-day battle in November of 1943. Cooper has said publicly many times he "closed the eyes of the dead" and buried "scores" of his fellow countrymen in the days following the battle. Unfortunately, in Cooper's own 2003 book, 90 Day Wonder: Darkness Remembered, which has been widely marketed and reviewed as "true to life" (i.e., a nonfiction memoir), he tells a different tale. In the book version Cooper's Higgins boat was hit and he was returned to a ship and cleared for duty by a Navy doctor. Cooper then ordered a coxswain to bring him to a strip of land far away from the battle for about a week, by which time the fighting and follow-up actions had ended. He'd missed the battle almost entirely and never set foot on Betio, the islet where the fighting took place.

Both accounts cannot be true. If audiences accept the film version then Cooper's own autobiography is a fabrication. That means Cooper knowingly duped readers and allowed them to think it was true. The book conveniently lacks a label as "fiction," "nonfiction," "history," etc., yet reviews on the author's own website clearly indicate that readers view the book as truly an account of the author's life. Mr. Cooper proudly features these reviews to market the book, further promoting the book as a true account. But on the other hand, if audiences accept the book version as fact, then the Barber film cannot possibly be accurate or considered a true documentary. The film then becomes the fabrication. All that considered, the looseness with which this author handles history seems to call his credibility into question, and certainly overshadows "The War in the Pacific - A Retrospective."