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Class of 1957 Book Review Site. ©2007. To add a Book Review, or to comment on a book already in this listing, send your material or review to Sam Coulbourn at Persnav@shore.net. Photo at top of each page shows VADM C. Turner Joy (1895-1956). Joy was Commander Naval Forces Far East for most of the Korean War, presided over Armistice Talks with the North Koreans, and then came to Annapolis to serve as Superintendent. He was our Supe during our plebe year. Revised 3 August 2008. |
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WAR HISTORY Voices of Courage, the Battle for Khe Sanh, Vietnam
By Ronald Drez and Douglas Brinkley, 2005.
A story of one of the most heroic efforts in American military history. - A 77 day struggle in 1968 for the remoter Khe Sanh Combat Base- during which 6,000 Marines withstood the onslaught of a superior enemy force. A stark condemnation of the policies of Secretary McNamara and President Johnson.
WAR HISTORY Visions of Victory: The Hopes of Eight World War II Leaders
By Gerhard Weinberg, 2005.
Describes the war aims of eight WW2 leaders, and Hitler is the lead-off piece. Among other things Weinberg describes Hitler's plan as being true "world domination" achieved by a series of wars. He proposes that Hitler's greatest personal retrospective regret was that Chamberlain "caved" to him in 1938 because he (Hitler) WANTED to precipitate his European (first phase) war then, not later. He thought that if he started then (instead of 1939) he would have won that phase, and that is not far fetched. His world domination plan had as its centerpiece a racial/ethnic "revision." (to put it nicely).
WAR HISTORY DC Confidential-- The Controversial Memoirs of Britain's Ambassador to U.S. At the Time of 9/11 and the Iraq War
By Christopher Meyer, 2005.
The author, an experienced diplomat and journalist, relates experiences as ambassador from 1997 to 2003 in Washington culminating in his retirement after 31 years on the eve of the invasion of Iraq. He provides fascinating perspectives of British and American diplomacy and politics under PMs Major and Blair and Presidents Clinton and Bush. He doesn't hold back in his disagreements with any of the four, but is perhaps harshest on Clinton. It is surprisingly candid and well worth the time to read.
WAR HISTORY Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq
By Michael Gordon and Gen. Bernard Trainor, (USMC), 2006.
A detailed history about the Iraq War and events leading up to invasion. Gordon, who is military correspondent for NY Times and Trainor give a negative account of intelligence info before and during war explaining that even Iraq Generals thought Saddam had WMDs prior to invasion and did not believe him even after he told them that they had been destroyed. Our troops also thought that they would be gassed and that the Iraq's would welcome them in the south. Authors argue that Rumsfeld pushed hard for reduced troop level in spite of advice from many military experts that more troops would be needed both during and after takeover. General Franks also was given poor review for his attitude and lack of planning for post war situation. Bremer also received very negative review. Military operations are covered in excruciating detail and reveal many mistakes in planning and coordination.
WAR HISTORY The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece
By Victor Davis Hanson, 2000, University of California Press, 303 pp.
Victor Hanson undertakes to translate the ambiguity and enormity of Greek warfare into the realism of the individual experience and sensation. Through detailed examination of the hoplite’s armor, social structure, drinking habits and more, Hanson attempts to personalize a style of warfare far more gruesome and, as he sees it, more glorious than that of modern day. To support his claim he utilizes extensive imagery from ancient literature, sculpture, and pottery paintings as well as comparisons to more modern and familiar history. Unfortunately, in his efforts to make his conjectures appear irrefutable, he distracts the reader with excessive and repetitive referencing. However, when taken as a whole, Hanson’s book does present two points particularly effectively. The first is his opinion of the Greek hoplite himself. Hanson not only brings realism to Greek warfare, but to the Greek warrior as well. He presents details of historical and literary accounts to emphasize the short comings, as well as the qualities of the Greek hoplite. He discusses instances of drunkenness during battle, of involuntary urination and defecation due to fear (even of the Spartans), and of occurrences of cowards fleeing the field of battle. He does not do this to degrade the hoplite but rather to show that the Greeks were simply men, and no more. Once accepted, this fact allows the reader to appreciate even more keenly the characteristics of heroism and valor they displayed. It dispels the argument that the Greeks were somehow a different breed of men and in so doing allows the reader to relate to these ancient warriors. The second point of note within Hanson’s text was the inherently gruesome nature of war. Hanson wishes to dispel the perception that war of Ancient Greece was a litany of Achilles and Hectors dueling honorably for the beautiful Helen. He preferred General Sherman’s view: “There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but, boys, it is all hell.” Hanson believes that no one presented this more accurately than the Greeks within the confines of the Greek “dance floor.” He spends much of the book explaining the distasteful elements of warfare from the discomfort of the panoply and the limited vision on the battlefield to the stench of the dead and the mounds of dead three deep. He emphasizes the emotional turmoil after a battle as well, explaining that the soldiers were likely to have known much of the army on a personal level, making their loss all the more painful. Yet underlying his remonstrations of war is the recognition that the Greeks seem to have managed to use these horrific ordeals for a greater good. Hanson repeatedly explains that the Greek “rules of war,” allowed for a short brutal “war” between equal opponents on even footing, where the winner took all. Simply put, Hanson implies that the Greeks had established a level of humanity within warfare. By minimizing the length of campaigns and accepting the decisions of the battlefield, the Greek city-states used war as a political and social tool without leaving any disastrous impressions on their society or culture. He presents this civility of war as a direct contrast to modern wars. He warns of the danger of a post-infantry world that does not respect war in which he believes the Greeks were able to. He believes that such disrespect presents the prospect of a much greater horror than that of the Greek death in “no man’s land.”
Reviewed January, 2007 by Midshipman Charles Meyer, Student in the Class of Professor Wick Murray, Chair in Naval Heritage sponsored by the Class of 1957.
HISTORY
HISTORY Agony at Easter: The 1916 Irish Uprising
By Thomas M. Coffey, Penguin Books, 1969. 271 pp. Paper.
This is a tragic story about a truly miserable uprising. Ireland had been a part of Britain since 1169. Ireland had made many attempts to throw off the English rule, but it never came to pass. Coffey, an American who was a pilot in the Pacific in World War II, produced a very colorful, carefully documented tale of this uprising which began the day after some of its leaders had called it off. It began on Monday, April 24, Easter Monday, when a ragtag assortment of insurgents marched through Dublin and seized several buildings, but primarily the General Post Office on O’Connell Street. Britain was fighting Germany in the First World War, and the Irish revolutionaries had gathered the funds to buy a shipload of ammunition and weapons from Germany. However, when the ship attempted to enter the port of Queenstown (now Cobh), the British found out, the ship sailed outside the port, and its crew scuttled it. “It is normal enough for an Irishman, accustomed to more talk than action, to wish something dangerous would have happened, once he suspects it won’t happen.” However, this small band of revolutionaries, a gnarly combination of old Sinn Fein men, Marxists, Socialists--- members of the Irish Citizen Army and the Irish Volunteers became men of action on Easter Monday. The Irish insurgents seized the Post Office and began to fill it with their men, and an amazing collection of old rifles, shotguns, axes, sledgehammers, home-made bombs and grenades, and loads of food that they had requisitioned from nearby stores and hotels, actually paying for what they took. They took down the British flags flying from the building and hoisted the flag of the Irish Free State. They smashed out all the windows and stationed riflemen at each window, and on the roof. The insurgents seized other buildings in the vicinity of the GPO, which is just two blocks from the River Liffey, down O’Connell Street (then called Sackville St.). This story concentrates on the actions in the GPO, and on the heroic leaders of this Rising: Patrick Pearse, Tom Clarke, Thomas McDonagh, Joseph Plunkett, Michael O’Rahilly and James Connolly. Another more minor leader, Eamon de Valera, later became the third president of Ireland. If you ever decide to lead a rebellion somewhere, it might be useful to read this book, because it identifies a whole load of things that you should NOT do. First, the leaders of this rising knew from the start that the odds were terribly against their success, yet they plunged ahead with romantic fervor, hoping that more and more Irishmen would come to join their cause. This book provides many interesting pictures of the Dublin poor, who were stuffed in houses all around the Post Office, 20 or 30 to a house, in homes often without doors, with no heat, no water, and lots of fleas and bedbugs. As soon as the insurgents began to build barricades across the streets around the Post Office, the masses from the slums took it as their signal to break in to the shops nearby. We see women who put elegant lacy gowns on over their own filthy dresses, men drunk as lords on stolen brandy…. And little boys discovering a supply of fireworks in a store, and setting a huge pile of fireworks on fire right in the store! Connolly, one of the leaders, and a dedicated Marxist, thought the Irish working class was a “powder magazine--- if you drop a match it will go up.” Another leader argued that the working class was “a wet bog. You drop a match and it will land in a puddle.” That indeed is the way this Rising turned out. The working poor jeered at the insurgents, and went about the business of raping the shops and reeling in an alcoholic orgy. [p. 76] The British troops seemed slow to react, but they finally surrounded the buildings the insurgents had taken, and the ordeal, from Tuesday on to the evacuation from the GPO on Friday, is a storm of bullets, artillery shells and machine gun fire. There are many incidents of heroism on the part of these insurgents, and more incidents of stupidity and foolhardiness on the part of the pillaging slum dwellers. In the end, many insurgents were killed, the leaders tried and executed, and some 2000 imprisoned, most for a short while. Although this Rising was a failure, it did what its leaders hoped it would do. After it was over, the Irish people began to show new respect for these men, and three years later (in 1919) another uprising began which ended with freedom for Ireland in 1921.
Review by Sam Coulbourn, 04-30-08
HISTORY Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World
By Margaret MacMillan; Foreword by Richard Holbrooke. 2003. New York: Random House. 570 pp.
The author, Margaret MacMillan, received her PhD from Oxford University and is a provost of Trinity College and Professor of History at the University of Toronto. She is the great-granddaughter of David Lloyd George. This is the story of the elegant, elaborate peace conference hosted by the French, to settle the world after the turmoil of The Great War, which we now call World War I. The three key players at this conference were Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States, who came with a widely publicized “Fourteen Points”; David Lloyd George, Britain’s Prime Minister; and Georges Clemenceau, Prime Minister of France. For this particular review, I focused upon one of many topics in this book: The Rebirth of Poland. Poland at the end of the Great War was, as MacMillan writes, “a dream, not a reality.” Since late in the 18th century, it had been absorbed by Germany, Russia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and there were Poles from the Baltic coast to deep in Ukraine, and south to Hungary and Romania. This Paris conference was Poland’s chance to be born again. There were three notable Poles who converged on Paris for this conference: Jozef Pilsudski, Roman Dmowski and the world’s most famous Pole, the pianist Ignacy Jan Paderewski. Pilsudski (1867-1935) was an old soldier born in a patrician family in Wilno, now Vilnius, Lithuania. He fought the Russians desperately, even taking part in a plot with Lenin’s brother to assassinate the tsar in 1887. This earned him five years in prison in Siberia. Later he became an anti-Russian fund-raiser, mainly robbing banks and mail trains. During World War I he led Polish forces fighting on the side of Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, to ensure defeat of Russia. When Russia fell apart with the Bolshevik Revolution, he withdrew his support from the Central Powers. Dmowski (1864-1939) was another Polish patriot who had been fighting for a new Poland, but opposed Pilsudski at every turn. He came from an impoverished urban background, and had been involved in political organizations even as a youth. He became a brilliant biologist, but he always had time to work for Poland, and against Pilsudski. Paderewski (1860-1941) was born in the Ukraine and by the time of the Paris Peace Conference he had gained world wide fame for his music. His role was to try to get Dmowski and Pilsudski to play off the same sheet of music. Wilson and Lloyd George were not thrilled about either Dmowski or Pilsudski, and it’s not hard to see why. They both hated the Germans and the Russians, but came at everything from different angles. No one knew what to do about the Bolsheviks during these days, and it was not even clear that they were really in charge of Russia. But the Americans and British didn’t want to create a Poland that would add to that contamination. Dmowski had spent a lot of time in Paris and Clemenceau and the French were much more receptive to the Poles. The American President Woodrow Wilson reported, “I saw M. Dmowski and M. Paderewski in Washington, and I asked them to define Poland for me, as they understood it, and they presented me with a map in which they claimed a large part of the earth.” The Polish Corridor was a way to connect the River Vistula and Polish railways to the Baltic coastline, and this was a major arguing point. The main city in this corridor would be Danzig (Gdansk), and whether this would be Polish or an international city, like they were talking about for Fiume in the Adriatic. Another big point of argument was Upper Silesia, whether it should be taken from Germany. It was rich with coal, iron and lead mines and iron and steel mills, and considered vital to Germany’s ability to pay the reparations that would be expected of them in the Peace Treaty. The Poles eventually won Upper Silesia, but this was one of the first things Hitler seized when he invaded Poland in 1939. In 1945 it went back to Poland. There were many more sticking points in the negotiation for rebirth of Poland, but it did happen, and Pilsudski went on to become its first leader, one way or another, including as its dictator, right up to 1935. Paderewski was its first Prime Minister, but he quit at the end of 1919. Dmowski never held office. Poland survived this difficult birth and even flourished for a time, until the summer of 1939 when it disappeared from the map again. When it surfaced again at the end of the Second World War, it was strangely altered and shrunken, emptied of its Jews by the Nazis and of its Germans by the Soviets, and moved 200 miles to the west. -- Review by Sam Coulbourn, March, 2008
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