No problem - I really shouldn’t rely on my memory! From your first post I’d already noted Rules of the Game as one to look out for.
An excellent suggestion about the order of reading. The first book really sets the stage for what the US navy would have to face in and around 1812.
A couple of good ones that haven’t been mentioned:
Sacred Vessels: The Cult of the Battleship and the Rise of the U.S. Navy by Robert L. O’Connell
The Wooden World: An Anatomy of the Georgian Navy by N.A.M. Rodger
I really enjoyed this one; the chapter on patronage was worth the cost of the book in itself.
THere are a ton of books on the Battle of Trafalgar, but a good one that I read recently was Nelson’s Trafalgar: The Battle That Changed the World, by Roy Adkins.
Another vote there. Just a wonderful, fascinating, intense book.
(bolding mine)
I missed this. Massie has (many) errors? I did not know this. Would you then NOT recommend “Dreadnought” and/or “Castles of Steel”?
Could you be a little more specific about Massie’s faults please?
Thanks!
My apologies, mlees and the rest of the crew – I mistook Massie for O’Connell and his Sacred Vessels, though I don’t know why. I’ve got nothing against Massie, actually, but for my leaky brains. Still, Keegan’s cruddy.
Incidentally, and sorry for the double post, after all the praise (well deserved) for Roy Atkins, his and his wife’s The War for all the Oceans, while not as good as Noel Mostert, is much cheaper and more readily available, I should think. It’s also very good!
And let me elaborate on O’Connell. His main thesis is a silly black-and-white dichotomy between the “bad” battleship admirals and the “good” carrier admirals, which he, basically, sums up in the contention that it was power-hungry and short-sighted battleship admirals preventing far-sighted and daring carrier people from establishing their arm as the central of the Navy. It’s utterly and absolutely ridiculous and ahistorical, as any number of sources will gladly point out (supplied on demand) – though it probably makes for a good story. It’s an extreme, pre-war version of The Fast Carriers by Clark Reynolds, who basically argues the same with much less vehemence and a clearly appreciation for historical realities for the war years.
Titans of the Seas is an excellent account of the carrier war in the Pacific.
Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors is a gripping account of the destroyermen who faced Japanese battleship off Samar during the Battle of Leyte Gulf.
The First Salute by Barbara Tuchman is a fascinating, very readable account of naval warfare and politics at the time of the American Revolution.
Lincoln’s Commando by Ralph Roske and Charles Van Doren is a fascinating look at a personal hero of mine, William B. Cushing, a dashing, unbelievably brave and lucky U.S. Navy officer during the Civil War.
At Dawn We Slept by Gordon Prange is a classic book on the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
The Cruel Sea by Nicholas Monsarrat is a wonderful novel about a British corvette on convoy duty during WW2.
On the Beach by Nevil Shute and The Last Ship by William Brinkley are both gripping postapocalyptic tales of U.S. Navy warships and their crews after WW3.
Although it’s not history, I really enjoyed Michael Abrashoff’s It’s Your Ship, a leadership/management advice book by the former C.O. of one of the most celebrated destroyers since WW2.
Naval History magazine, published by the U.S. Naval Institute in Annapolis, is a great way to get your fix every other month. I’ve been a subscriber for more than a decade, and I enjoy every issue.
Thanks for the clarification, Enterprise.
The three books I most recommend from my reading are:
Theodore Roosevelt The Naval War of 1812
Alfred Mahan The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783
John Lehman (Reagan’s Sec Nav) “On Seas of Glory”.
Obviously, I’ve read O’Connell and I think he made a plausible case. I didn’t think he was portraying it as a good admirals vs bad admirals situation. And certainly not with carrier admirals as the heroes - his book goes back decades before naval aviation was a factor. His main argument was that the naval leadership persisted in overlooking genuine faults in their naval planning. They insisted that battleships were the key to naval warfare and ignored considerable evidence of how vulnerable battleships would be in actual combat (to mines and submarines long before carriers entered the scene). In peacetime, admirals would build up their fleets based on unfounded theories and then in wartime, they would be unwilling to risk those fleets in battle. So battleships wouldn’t be risked in battle because they were too valuable to lose and other ships wouldn’t be sent into battle because they were needed to defend the battleships. His argument is that the resources that were spent on battleships would have been better spent on a more diversified force.
Ironically, I think the modern carriers have the same fault. Fleets have been built around the carrier the same way they used to be built around the battleship. Both are centered around a ship that is theoretically capable of single-handedly winning the battle. But on the eve of battle, the admirals realize that that central ship is also capable of costing them the entire battle by being sunk. And with the realization, admirals become more concerned with avoiding defeat rather than achieving victory.
I don’t wish to hijack this thread, so I will try to be brief. His main argument stinks. The U.S. Navy was well aware of the various vulnerabilities of the battleship, as the Fleet Problems held during the 1920s and 1930s show, and they were anxious about solutions. The fleet had a rather clear appreciation of the British fleet’s ideas about battlefleet vulnerability (witness Jellicoe’s anxieties about submarines during Jutland), and attempted to come to terms with them. But the battefleet was the sole tool that could guarantee naval supremacy at least until 1942, and even then remained vital, and O’Connell’s belief that this was a false appreciation of the value of the battleship is singularly unfounded. If nothing else, the United States retained a tenous superiority over the Japanese throughout the interwar period, and to argue that this superiority of the main force should have been squandared for a more diversified force ignores that the U.S. Navy WAS fairly diverse (lacking, if anything, small cruisers as destroyer leaders), and arguing that the Navy was not prepared to risk its battleships in war ignores so many historical facts that it’s not really even an argument, more of a polemic.
It’s a circular argument. Battleships only guaranteed naval supremacy if you defined naval supremacy as having the most battleships. In actual combat, battleships never really did all that much in WWII. Naval campaigns were decided by destroyers and submarines and aircraft carriers. Leyte Gulf was the only battle where battleships made any significant contribution and that was a fluke. The battleships fought at Surigao Strait because the Japanese and American carriers were off chasing each other.
I dunno. BB’s were a “trump” card. They forced the enemy to either fold, or up the ante.
Radar seems to me to be the key to carrier power. Without it (and proper Fighter Direction policy), carriers are rather vulnerable to an enemy air attack. The US used radar to direct fighters in intercepting incoming strikes, and attack snoopers (sometimes before the snoopers even realise that there is a carrier force in the area). But radar came in the nick of time. So, even though aircraft themselves were believed to be dangerous in the mid to late 30’s, their carriers were thought to be glass cannon’s.
If the carriers weren’t there to provide the fighter cover, the whole fleet was sitting ducks for aircraft. WWII had numerous examples of surface fleets without air cover that were devastated, with and without battleships.
I was trying to explain the mindset of the thirties. The exercises conducted by the USN showed the potential of aircraft to be deadly. But without air or surface search radar, carriers were seen as vulnerable to both air attack, and surface attack. Carriers were expected to be the first casualties in a large naval battle. Once the smoke clears, the BB’s go in and mop up. Both the USN and the IJN expected to be able to hunt down and destroy the enemy carriers with their cruiser forces, if needed.
Also, don’t discount the effort needed to sink a ship at sea. You got to find it (not always easy) first, then launch an attack (weather permitting), and try to hit something maneuvering to avoid hits. HMS Repulse avoided 17-19 torpedos before she finally got hit (and without proper anti-torpedo protection below decks, things went downhill fast after that). Destroyers were notoriously tough to hit when underway.
Also: don’t discount the HUGE strides in aviation that occured from 1937-1941 in terms of aircraft payload, range, and survivability.
The Bismarck and Swordfish torpedo bombers come to mind.