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Naval Historical Foundation   

3 Nov 2011: Issue 13      

In This Issue:
Kamikaze, Japanese Special Attack Weapons 1944-45
Italian Battleships of World War II
E-BOAT vs. MTB: The English Channel 1941-45
Horrible Shipwreck!
Books Currently Available for Review

Kamikaze, Japanese Special Attack Weapons 1944-45     

  


By Steven J. Zaloga, Osprey Publishing, Oxford, UK, (2011)

 

Reviewed by Rear Admiral Ed Keats, U.S. Navy (Retired)

 

In 1944, the Japanese high command realized they had been defeated in the war against the United States. Their efforts then concentrated on procuring the best post-war terms they could gain. They believed the optimum way was to inflict enough major losses in terms of personnel and material on the United States to induce an end to the war without the requirement of an unconditional surrender. The method they chose was to employ much of their remaining assets in suicide attacks on American ships. They added to their existing resources those they could quickly build in small yet undamaged sites. As it turned out, small airplanes became the preferred means because they were more successful than small surface or underwater boats. The campaign commenced in a limited way in their struggle to hold on to the Philippines in 1944 and in the defense of Iwo Jima in early 1945. Suicide attack reached its peak in the battle for Okinawa in mid-1945.

 

Kamikaze by Steven J. Zaloga and published by Osprey of Oxford, England, a firm that specializes in illustrated books on the history of warfare, expertly recounts the story of Japanese suicide planes, known to the U.S. as "Kamikaze" (in Japanese, 'Divine Wind') but referred to as "Tokko" by the Japanese. Tokko means "special attack" in their language. The emperor, Zaloga says, preferred not to recognize that his forces would engage in suicide attack. There is, perhaps to the Japanese, a philosophical difference between a suicide attack on an enemy and defeated military officers taking their own lives.

 

 Zaloga's book provides a description of the tactics of suicide pilots which were to fly into American ships to create damage by explosion of the bomb they were carrying or, at least, by the impact and fire from their own gasoline. He emphasizes and offers details of how the suicide conveyances were constructed. His account covers not only airplanes but also ship and submarine suicide craft. They were built but not successfully employed and thus have escaped becoming general knowledge. He is thorough and, almost always correct in his account.

 

I say, "almost" because of his statement, "Destroyer and destroyer escorts were used [by the US] to establish picket lines around carrier task forces, serving both to extend the radar early-warning network and create a first line of defense against the kamikazes." No picket line could keep up with the fast carrier task force and no anti-kamikaze picket line was ever formed around the task force.

 

At the time of the kamikaze threat, I was Air Officer for Commander Amphibious Force, Pacific. At a meeting of principal officers of the staff, I said, "At altitude even an experienced pilot has difficulty distinguishing between a cruiser and a destroyer or a destroyer from a gunboat. The inexperienced suicide pilots will be even more confused. They will be tempted to attack the first possible target they encounter."

 

The Amphibious Force then established fifteen points between the landing beaches at Okinawa and the Japanese homeland and ordered one destroyer plus four Landing Craft, Infantry (LCI) ships to circle each point. An imaginative member of the staff came up with the appellation, "Radar Picket Ships" but they were not radar sentries, rather they were live targets somewhat similar to the wooden decoys often used by hunters of waterfowl. They were just sitting targets, waiting for attackers. Although they attempted to protect themselves with gunfire, they absorbed significant damage, leading to some sinkings but many casualties. Overall, and much to their credit, their sacrifice was important in protecting the vessels unloading over the Okinawa beaches.

 

It is revealing to learn from Zaloga of the vibrancy the Japanese were able to retain in their manufacturing capability despite continual bombing by carrier planes and large Army Air Force bombers. Although the efficacy of bombing has been widely promoted by air warfare enthusiasts, the ability of the Japanese to produce kamikaze weapons after suffering from many attacks  provides a telling counter argument to such assertions.

  

Zaloga performed extensive research at the National Archives and Research Administration located at College Pak, Maryland to select the revealing photographs of the construction of kamikaze weapons displayed in his book. Although the material remains available to others, it is unlikely that anyone will desire to repeat his work. This may be, therefore, the final reference book on Japanese suicide weapons in World War II. Since Zaloga leaves little left undocumented, "Kamikaze" is now and will be in the future the essential reference for those interested in that facet of the final battles in the Pacific war.

 

Rear Admiral Edgar Keats, a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy Class of 1935, is a frequent contributor to Naval History Book Reviews.

 

Italian Battleships of World War II                                        

  

 

By Mark Stille, illustrated by Paul Wright, Osprey Publishing, UK, (2011)

 

Reviewed by Alberto R Savoretti, MD

 

Mark Stille's latest installment is a delightfully refreshing work far and above what its easy reading Osprey/Vanguard primer format suggests: you can't judge a book by its cover! This work brings new or largely undiscovered material to the English-speaking world since most of the accounts on the topic of the Mediterranean naval theatre of the Second World War occur from the Royal Navy's vantage point. That is, history is written by the victorious British which dismiss the Regia Marina as lousy and ignore their  massive strategic impact on the conflict. The other half of the problem is that all primary Italian documents were destroyed after the war creating great difficulties for historians wishing to study the conflict in a balanced fashion from each Navy's perspective and form their own opinion. Furthermore, since Italy lost the war and had a very strong anti-fascist postwar sentiment, few efforts were made to document the Italian sailors stories from this period.

 

Premier Italian naval historian and author Erminio Bagnasco has lamented this in many of his works and has often cited that even a thorough research in his own native Italian language would suffer from these limitations. Therefore, primary sources detailing the topic from the Italian point of view are few and far between, mostly limited to the writings of Admiral Giuseppe Fioravanzo or Marc'Antonio Bragadin, and almost never translated into English. The Anglophone world to date has not been able to access enough information to form a properly informed opinion on the subject matter.

   

Mark Stille's point is that while the Regia Marina never scored a tactical battle success, it never needed to score a single hit on an enemy vessel! Sinking British warships was superfluous and unnecessary because the mere sortie of Italian units, which contrary to popular opinion were employed aggressively and often, caused Allied convoys to scatter and thus become easy prey, greatly reducing the Allied ability to supply their destinations. In turn, because British units were diverted to pursue or escort against said Italian units, they were unable to intercept the Italian shipping and conquer the sea lanes that they themselves were being denied. That the Italians delivered 98% of Axis personnel and 90% of materiel while suffering nearly negligible losses speaks highly about their Navy. In brief, I feel Italian Battleships of World War II is exceptional because of author's strategic objectivity.  Some minor errors do occur, but the effort to respect and represent the history as it occurred is largely intact.

 

As with Stille's previous Osprey/Vanguard titles, the work focuses in order of each class of ship he wishes to document under the category set by the title, in this case Italian Battleships of the Second World War. The story is woven using the stories of each individual ship through its service life, starting with the reasons for its design, inception, technical details, modifications pr revisions, and the combat history. The author offers well researched analyses of political, tactical and strategic considerations which of course enhances the experience for the reader. Despite the book's paltry 48 pages, the author delves into the reasons why the vessels were built that way and later modified, provides commentary on the external factors that led to their combat results, and offer little Easter eggs of pertinent, little known trivia that might make the reader smile, grunt or make facial expressions, thus driving his points home.  Kudos for providing details such as how many days each ship was out of action down to how many hits were suffered with their respective damaging during each of their actions. Also notable are the author's brief, but pertinent comparisons and criticisms to comparable vessels in other navies when appropriate.

 

Another highlight of the Osprey/Vanguard type books is the presence of paintings and  photographs; this work will not disappoint. There are numerous paintings done by an artist whom Stille commissions using period photographs, and they are nicely done. In this respect, he used a highly acclaimed and esteemed book (by Ermino Bagnasco, an excellent source) for the camouflage and wartime appearance of Italian vessels, whose flavor and vigor are well captured by the artist. The photographs in Stille's book are also mostly of good to excellent quality though a handful appear to be digitally enhanced or "pixelized" by a computer, perhaps due to their deteriorated condition. I have been informed by the author that all of the images therein were sourced from the Naval History and Heritage Command. By the author's own admission, the only photographs that are missing are photos of the Italian vessels during the war proper, few of which can be found without risking an infringement of copyright law given the logistics of communicating in Italian. Still, the range, scope and quality of the photographs makes this book worth buying just for that reason.

 

The only glitch that I could detect in the illustrations is on the cover with the Roma being attacked with the German flying bombs. Italian battleships had a white and red set of stripes on the fantail and forecastle due to operating in home waters which usually conferred air superiority given their proximity to the Italian peninsula's airbases. It has come to my attention that the Roma had these stripes painted only on the forward part of that particular ship which differed from the other Littorio class battleships.

 

Another small inconsistency I noticed was that the Italian navy's weapon performance was described as suffering high dispersion rate with poor accuracy in some areas, with the reasons why being well described, but overall being "comparable to other navies." My own exploration of Italian sources such as Erminio Bagnasco's Le Armi delle Navi Italiane Nella Seconda Guerra Mondiale (The Weapons of the Italian Ships in the Second World War) mentions these problems as being severe and decidedly inferior to what the rest of the world was accomplishing even as of the First World War, never mind the Second. One other incorrect small detail where the author might have erred was that he mentioned fuel as being a limiting factor to fleet sorties after 1942. While Mussolini verbalized this as a chronic problem to Hitler whom he deceived many times, there are sources such as Fabio Andriola's Mussolini Nemico Segreto di Hitler (Mussolini, Secret Enemy of Hitler) that describes, amongst other things how Italy had secretly stockpiled jaw dropping amounts of strategic materials without any purpose or attempt to use them whilst publicly declaring a great shortage thereof. The data shows that the fuel reserves at La Spezia at the time of Italian surrender were ludicrously full and that this alone would not have been a good reason for the Ita lian fleet to stop operations after mid-1942.

 

These are all minor foibles that any reader can easily overlook given the overall charm of this well researched synopsis of Italian battleships. It offers new, or at least largely unknown information in an easy reading format that will interest any warship buff or naval historian wishing to spend an evening or two digesting something a little different. The author shows a devoted, respectful approach to painstaking research, while the images both and photos present pleasing eye candy for any battleship buff. Its presence on your shelf will not be in vain, as the photographs and information make for a good reference that will be used time and again. I thoroughly enjoyed and highly recommend Mark Stille's Italian Battleships of World War II.

 

Dr. Savoretti works with the United States Naval Shipbuilding Museum (USS Salem CA 139) in Quincy, MA  

E-BOAT vs. MTB: The English Channel 1941-45     

 

 

By Gordon Williamson, Osprey Publishing, Oxford, UK, (2011).

 

Reviewed by Captain John A. Rodgaard, U.S.Navy (Retired)

 

E-BOAT vs. MTB is Gordon Williamson's latest contribution to Osprey Publishing Company's Osprey's "Duel" series of short works that emphasize the "...account of machines of war pitted against each other and the combatants who operate them."

 

With E-BOAT vs. MTB, Williamson traces the six-years of combat between the British and the Germans in the waters of the English Channel and the southern North Sea during the Second World War. While not as widely known (especially by many Americans) as the Battle for the Atlantic, the war in this narrow sea that Williamson describes is noteworthy in that each side conducted aggressive convoy defence (more so for the British) and interdiction operations, to include extensive mine warfare operations. In this reviewer's opinion this battle should be seen as an extension of the great Atlantic battle, and without the eventual success of the Royal Navy in winning control of these waters, the landings at Normandy might have been more costly.

The Royal Navy entered the war tragically deficient in the type of coastal forces needed to counter the E-Boats (Schnell S-Boots) of the Kriegsmarine, which from almost the beginning of the war caused major damage to British coastal convoys plying up and down England's east coast. In fact, by war's end the E-Boat came second only to the U-Boats in the tonnage sunk of allied shipping. However, by 1944, British strategy, operations and technological innovations battered down the effectiveness of the E-Boat.

 

Williamson weaves the strategy, operations and tactics employed by the antagonists with the technological specifications of the types of craft and their weapons. I for one, found his treatment a little uneven, although the reason for this is likely due to Osprey's abbreviated format.

 

The text is accompanied by numerous line drawings of the various coastal craft used by both sides, together with their weapons. Illustrator Howard Gerrard produced two dramatic battle scenes depicting the ferocity of close combat between high-speed craft. One depicts the tragedy that occurred along the southern English coast at Slapton Sands just before Normandy, when E-Boats caught a flotilla of nine U.S. Landing Ship Tanks (LSTs) that were preparing to conduct a full-scale amphibious training exercise. Two of the LSTs were sunk and over 600 men were killed, whilst over 300 more were killed by friendly fire.

            

E-BOAT vs. MTB: The English Channel 1941 - 45 provides the reader with just a taste into what the battle for the English Channel and the North Sea was like. For those who wish to know more, I would recommend The War of the Gunboats, by Bryan Cooper and E-Boats in Action in the Second World War, by Hans Frank. Finally, for an excellent treatise on the naval war in the Channel and North Sea, I recommend Peter C. Smith's history, Hold The Narrow Sea: Naval Warfare in the English Channel 1939 - 1945. Smith's work fully captures the totality of naval warfare as it was conducted in these coastal waters.

 

Captain Rodgaard is the co- author of "A Hard Fought Ship - The Story of HMS Venomous."

 


Horrible Shipwreck!    



By Andrew C. A. Jampoler, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD, (2010).

 

Reviewed by Mark Lardas

 

On August 31, 1833 the convict transport Amphitrite ran aground off Boulogne, France. By dawn of the next day, all aboard, except for three crew members, were dead, drowned when the incoming tide swamped the ship and battered the hull into collapse. In addition to Amphitrite's 16-man crew were 108 female convicts and 12 of their children were aboard the ship.

 

The tragedy was a nine-day's wonder in post-Regency England. The incident inspired sensational newspaper coverage, a controversial Admiralty investigation, and some truly maudlin poetry. Largely forgotten today, the disaster is the subject of Horrible Shipwreck by Andrew C. A. Jampoler.

 

Jampoler's account takes readers through a canvas filled with striking topics and intriguing characters. Amphitrite was transporting prisoners to Australia. Jampoler places transportation into its historical context, explaining why England used Australia as a penal colony, and explaining the mechanics of transportation. He shows how the process was carried out and why Amphitrite was carrying these women on its fatal voyage.

   

He also places the voyage in its larger context, showing the social structure of Britain in the 1830s. Jampoler also shows how that social structure churned the event into a sensation. The wreck occurred in Boulogne, a town with a large population of expatriate Britons, who witnessed the events. He also shows how one expatriate, John Wilks, a swindler who had left England for France and a career as foreign correspondent, whipped the public into a frenzy with his reports of the wreck. Wilks made the British consul in Bolougne as the villain of the piece.

 

Jampoler shows the accusation against the consul was fatuous at best and malicious at worst. The British consul lacked authority to force authorities to mount a rescue in a foreign country. Further, mistakes were made by Amphitrite's captain, who refused to evacuate the ship after it grounded but before the tide swamped it.

 

The book has flaws. It has a spattering of minor yet annoying errors. Bellerophon, a ship-of-the-line, is identified by the author as "one of the frigates at Trafalgar." Jampoler is also somewhat guilty of burying the lede. The actual shipwreck, the focus of the book, is scattered over two chapters and 90 pages. A reader has to re-read those sections of the book to get a focused description of the events as they transpired.

 

Despite these problems, "Horrible Shipwreck" is a worth reading. It covers a frequently overlooked period of maritime history, and provides a fascinating glimpse at the state of oceangoing sail during the decade when steam began to supplant sail.

 

Mark Lardas has authored numerous titles on naval historical subjects.

Books Currently Available for Review    

 

 

We have a number of books here in our offices that are available to be reviewed. If you are interested, please contact Dr. Dave Winkler at [email protected] .

 

  

My Heroes. Jack Ferrell (edited by Megan Burns), Waldenhouse Publishers, 2010, 432 pages. 

 

Fighting for MacArthur: The Navy and Marine Corps' Desperate Defense of the Philippines. John Gordon, Naval Institute Press, 2011, 370 pages.   

 

The United States Coast Guard and National Defense: A History from World War I to the Present. Thomas P. Ostrom, McFarland and Company, Inc., 2012, 264 pages.

 

The Elusive Enemy: U.S. Naval Intelligence and the Imperial Japanese Fleet. Douglas Ford, Naval Institute Press, 2011, 297 pages.

 

Battlefield Angels: Saving Lives Under Enemy Fire from Valley Forge to Afghanistan. Scott McGaugh, Osprey Publishing, 2011, 272 pages.   

 

Historical Fiction 

 

The Perfect Wreck: Old Ironsides and HMS Java, A Story of 1812. Steven E. Maffeo, Fireship Press, LLC, 2011, 361 pages. 

 

John Paul Jones: Father of the United States Navy. Wallace Bruce, Writers Club Press, 2002, 287 pages. (historical fiction)   

 

No Ordinary Summer. David T. Lindgren, AuthorHouse, 2010, 275 pages.

 

The Imperialist: A Novel of the Hawaiian Revolution. Kurt Hanson, CreateSpace, 2011, 341 pages. 

 

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