Imponderable but Not Inevitable: Warfare in the 20th Century (Praeger Security International)

Imponderable but Not Inevitable

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE Warfare in the 20th Century

MALCOLM H. MURFETT, EDITOR

PRAEGER An Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC

Copyright 2010 by Malcolm H. Murfett All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Imponderable but not inevitable: warfare in the 20th century / Malcolm H. Murfett, editor. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-313-37882-9 (hard copy : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-313-37883-6 (ebook) 1. Military history, Modern—20th century. 2. Naval history, Modern—20th century. 3. Military art and science—History—20th century. 4. Naval art and science—History— 20th century. 5. Military policy—History—20th century. 6. Strategy—History—20th century. 7. Uncertainty—Political aspects—History—20th century. I. Murfett, Malcolm H. D431.I47 2009 355.0209’04—dc22 2009029584 ISBN : 978-0-313-37882-9 EISBN: 978-0-313-37883-6 14 13 12 11 10

1 2 3 4 5

This book is also available on the World Wide Web as an eBook. Visit www.abc-clio.com for details. Praeger An Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC ABC-CLIO, LLC 130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911 Santa Barbara, California 93116-1911 This book is printed on acid-free paper Manufactured in the United States of America

For Caroline, a zany joy in my life

Contents

Preface

ix

Acknowledgments

xiii

Abbreviations

xvii

1. Casting Doubt on the Inevitability Syndrome Malcolm H. Murfett

1

2. The Unknown and the Unknowable: The Loss of HMAS Sydney Peter J. Dennis

23

3. The Madness of General George Daniel K. R. Crosswell

41

4. What Do They Want, and How Can We Respond? Commonwealth Intelligence and Confrontation with Indonesia, 1963 Brian P. Farrell 5. Air Power Finds Its Ascendancy, at Last Christopher Clark

73 107

6. Three of a Kind? Fisher, Rickover, and Gorshkov and the Management of Naval Change Geoffrey Till

121

7. Measuring Defeat: Imponderables of the American Experience in Vietnam Ronald Spector

141

viii

8.

CONTENTS

What’s Luck Got to Do with It? Random Elements That Affected the Naval Campaigns of 1939–1945 Malcolm H. Murfett

155

Selected Bibliography

175

Index

187

About the Editor and Contributors

201

Preface

OUR APPRECIATION OF imponderability and the notion of the improbable occurring when one least expects it have been given a massive jolt by the breathtaking success of The Black Swan, Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s highly idiosyncratic but immensely stimulating book on the subject. While this book has no bell curves to circumvent and probably won’t be translated into forty languages, as the fictional Yevgenia Krasnova’s A Story of Recursion was supposed to have been, it still represents a fascinating plunge into a world that we habitually take for granted, namely, life and what happens to us when we are brought face to face with the more violent aspects of it.1 A resort to arms is always unfortunate, for it is an expression of failure— a failure shared by all those who have created the problem in the first place or by their often unworthy successors. Those who take up arms do so, of course, for a variety of causes. Perhaps not all believe that warfare will cut the Gordian Knot that talk has failed to do, but for whatever reason they prefer violent action to consensual diplomacy. If history teaches us anything— and it ought to—warfare rarely solves anything and often complicates the mess that preceded it. Unfortunately, this realization is often subordinated to a vigorous belief that ‘‘this time’’ it will be different. One senses that the advocates of war firmly believe that victory on ‘‘this occasion’’ will be theirs. Past failures can be safely attributed to unwillingness on the part of certain belligerents to take drastic action against their foes. If one eliminates the constraints imposed by social conscience or moral imperatives, therefore, the act of war can be successfully applied and victory won, or so the theory goes. Warfare when applied without restraint is seen by these individuals as being truly

x

PREFACE

predictable. If a certain force is applied to a particular situation, the result will be x. It almost smacks of laboratory experiments at school. These individuals, whether officers in military fatigues or civilians in august positions of power, are so convinced that they have the secret of future success in their hands that it becomes enormously difficult to deflect them from their task of putting that theory into practice and waging war. Their confidence in a military solution to a vexatious problem is often catching, particularly if all other avenues to a peaceful resolution to a crisis have continued to fail. Launching a military strike at one’s enemy may appear to be a logical progression from a situation of perpetual failure, but the results rarely conform to the policy appreciation drawn up for it in the first place. Helmuth Karl Bernhard Graf von Moltke, who knew a thing or two about warfare, was inclined to think that military plans hardly survived the first shot of a campaign.2 This volume of essays helps to explain why warfare isn’t so easily reduced to a quantitative and qualitative model that will bear a set of predictable results. Instead the clinically methodical approach to war soon dissolves into something that resembles chaos theory. People don’t perform as they are supposed to under all circumstances; equipment doesn’t always work flawlessly ; mistakes happen; nature intervenes to wreak havoc with man’s plans; accidents occur when they are not supposed to; ill health inhibits decision making; and luck or fate takes over without recourse to any sort of logic. Inevitability is also a much overworked and misused concept. Few things in life are inevitable. Benjamin Franklin thought that there was little beyond death and taxes that fell into this category, but blessed by confirmatory hindsight, some people who ought to know better (sports commentators particularly) are apt to resort to the inevitability syndrome with astonishing facility. Unerring foresight is an unlikely virtue to possess. I can’t imagine many people being right 90 percent of the time, and the idea that any human being can always be right about everything he or she predicts is too weird and uncanny to even contemplate for more than a few nanoseconds. Our opening essay looks at four situations in which the inevitability concept looked as though it would apply in advance but didn’t in reality. While such case studies should puncture the myth of inevitability, they fail to do so because there are plenty of instances where things have happened as they were predicted to. In sport as in life, favorites do win more often than not, but even so. sometimes an extraordinary upset occurs that catches many by surprise. In the rubric of Taleb, a ‘‘black swan’’ appears out of nowhere to confound both punters and specialist experts alike. Peter J. Dennis’s essay on the extraordinary clash between the light cruiser HMAS Sydney and the German armed raider Schiff 41 Kormoran in November 1941 reveals the inexplicable nature of warfare and exposes more of a black hole than a black swan. What happened when these two vessels met to condemn them both to a watery grave remains pure guesswork. What

PREFACE

xi

isn’t speculation any longer is where they settled on the bottom of the Indian Ocean off the coast of Western Australia. Daniel K. R. Crosswell’s lucid and rather disturbing portrait of General George S. Patton Jr. removes us from the realm of the black swan and into an examination of the murky psychological reaches of military leadership. Brilliant but mad, Patton proved to be a truly inspirational figure for those whom he commanded and the most resolute opponent that any adversary might care to have. Whatever his undoubted military gifts were—he would claim a ‘‘sixth sense’’ that enabled him to grasp the initiative instantly and exploit the military situation as it was unfolding—more often than not he appeared to be an accident waiting to happen. While we have nowadays become conditioned to recognizing that our heroes have feet of clay, there was much about Patton that still almost defies belief. Imponderable undoubtedly; a genius possibly; he was almost invariably larger than life. For those brought up on the Ultra story and the brilliant (if not decisive) dissemination of OPINTEL in World War II, Brian P. Farrell’s absorbing essay on the groping and inchoate nature of Allied intelligence during the period of Konfrontasi is a useful corrective. Here in the early to mid-1960s the intelligence picture about the real intentions of the Indonesian leadership was confused to say the least. Nothing looked certain, little was fixed, and much was speculative. Trying to work out what to do to confront such a moving target proved largely beyond even the multifarious capacities of the Allies, a cautionary tale indeed for all concerned. Although aircraft ultimately came of age during the Second World War and performed an assortment of vital roles in distinctly different theaters of operations, possession of overwhelming air power was never enough to ensure victory in the multifaceted conflicts of the post-1945 world. Christopher Clark’s essay in this volume illustrates why air power as a force multiplier wasn’t always effective, but, as befits an air historian, he sketches in those instances where it has been applied in the latter years of the century with devastating results. Cliche or not, therefore, one size clearly does not fit all, for even when air power was applied vigorously in the past, the results were far from inevitable. Geoffrey Till’s essay returns to the theme of personal leadership—an imponderable element at the best of times—but stays onshore on this occasion to explore the art of policy management as devised and promulgated by those three radical scions (sirens) of the naval establishment : Fisher, Rickover, and Gorshkov. Vastly different though they were, all three visionary individuals saw themselves as modernizing transformers of the service that they had devoted their life to. All were determined to manage change according to their own principles, and each of them tended to see opposition to their plans as a form of heretical deviance that would have to be thwarted come what may. Unfortunately, such a dictatorial approach ensured that the era of strong, sustained leadership they imposed came at a significant price both for the navy

xii

PREFACE

they tirelessly led and the nation they loyally served. And what of their longterm influence? Read on. Ronald Spector’s paper grapples with the vexatious problem that the Americans experienced in the 1960s and 1970s of attempting to gauge the degree of their success or failure in the Vietnam War. Can such progress be reliably measured? In many ways Vietnam became a litmus test for the inevitability syndrome and the imponderability of war. How could one of the two superpowers suffer defeat at the hands of a much smaller, physically divided, and far poorer Southeast Asian nation? It defied the statistical odds, and, therefore, surely it couldn’t be true? Or could it? Our final essay settles on a whole range of random factors that can inhibit the success or failure of a particular mission, a larger campaign, or even the entire war itself. Most of these imponderable factors can easily be overlooked, ignored, or taken for granted when military action is being contemplated. Even if they are taken into consideration by the war planners, translating the theoretical awareness of their existence into an effective contingency plan for dealing with them in practice is quite another matter. After all, what allowance can be reliably made for such volatile things as ‘‘friendly fire,’’ mishaps, and bad luck? What price can be put on extraordinary courage and self-sacrifice, displays of decisive initiative when it’s most needed in the heat of battle, or flagrant acts of insubordination caused by hubris or other personal quirks of nature? Add a bout of bad weather, malfunctioning equipment, command failures, and the unexpected to the mix, and the results defy the precision of even the best plans and often make them immediately redundant. Surprise, therefore, remains a key feature of life. Imponderable as well as improbable things happen in war. How one adapts to them remains the key; but who on earth can tell in advance whether that challenge will be met with distinction, mediocrity, or failure?

NOTES 1. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (London: Penguin Books, 2008), pp. 23–25, 229–252. 2. Peter Paret, ed., Makers of Modern Strategy: Military Thought from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986), p. 289.

Acknowledgments

I HAVE FELT for a long time that tertiary institutions could do more to engage the general public than they do at present. Too often communication between the two involves a request for financial assistance from the one to the other. A public outreach program is, therefore, a small but valuable way for a university to give something back to the wider community in its midst, and not just the alumni whose names appear on its database and who have benefited from its teaching and research facilities. If such a lecture series is going to take off in a positive way, however, it needs an interesting and coherent theme that will attract and retain the interest of the public. Imponderability and the nature of the unexpected had fascinated me even before Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s The Black Swan made its riveting impact on the international book market. My own work on naval warfare had cemented my interest in the unpredictable and the often overlooked features of warfare and encouraged me to think of ‘‘The Imponderables of War’’ as the theme for the first series of these public lectures. Armed with a topic, I thought the Department of History at the National University of Singapore (NUS) was well endowed with both the academic and institutional means to offer just such a lecture series to the public, and I was delighted to receive warm and enthusiastic support for this initiative from my colleagues and friends, who helped in various ways to establish the monthly series of talks in September 2006 and make them a great success. This was particularly true of the head of my department, Associate Professor Albert Lau, whose commitment to the series was unwavering throughout. At a time when our financial resources were fairly tight, he still found the departmental

xiv

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

funds to bring in one of our speakers from Canberra. It helped to have him and his deputy, Associate Professor Brian Farrell, on board in an active way. Christine Khor, the director of the NUS Centre for the Arts, whom I approached in the spring of 2006 with this idea, was keen on the project from the outset. She set aside the Celadon Room in the Cultural Centre as a place where we could hold our talks in the evenings from 7 to 9 P.M. and waived the rental fees for it. Christine’s range of contacts from her days in tourist promotion and journalism is vast, and she used her influence with her friends and former colleagues in a number of telling ways. Significant promotional support was thereafter provided by Foo Su Ling, one of Christine’s senior staff members, who could always be relied upon to get the message out to friends of the NUS Museum, NUS alumni, and through the entertainment columns of the Straits Times to the general public beyond Kent Ridge. Apart from sourcing the iconic image that became the face of our series on all of our posters and advertising literature, Su also arranged for the cheese and wine that was offered before each lecture began. Sponsorship in liquid form by Top Wines was greatly appreciated by many of our audience, who found Flora Loh’s monthly selection of reds and whites evidently much to their taste. Wine and cheese are a very civilized way of starting proceedings in the early evening and gave the lecture series an added touch of class. No matter how good the marketing and administrative arrangements are for any new undertaking, the most critical feature remains the contributions made by the lecturers themselves. Once again fortune smiled on this enterprise. Apart from Brian Farrell and me from within the Department of History, we also could rely on our astute associate member of staff Dan Crosswell and two distinguished visiting professors, Peter Dennis and Ron Spector, to keep the NUS flag flying. To add to the mix, we were lucky enough to have Geoff Till with us in Singapore during the early months of 2007 when he was a visiting professor in the S. Rajaratnam School of Strategic Studies at the Nanyang Technological University. This meant we only needed to reach beyond the equatorial shores of ‘‘One North’’ to procure Chris Clark from the Australian Department of Defence in Canberra to bring an aerial dimension to our series. These lectures were very well received, and the question-and-answer sessions with our audience afterwards were always lively and very illuminating affairs. This volume of essays represents the product of our labors in this series. I hope you will like them as much as the Singaporean public did. Finally, it’s all very well having a great theme for a book and interesting and evocative essays to buttress the concept, but it still needs a discerning and innovative acquisitions editor to see the strengths and value of the work as clearly as the person promoting the manuscript does. In this and other respects I was fortunate in finding Tim Furnish at Praeger Security International and Steve Catalano at ABC-CLIO, both of whom believed in ‘‘the imponderables’’ and promoted it at every stage. I should also like to extend my thanks to Randy Baldini and his excellent production crew from Cadmus Communications

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

xv

who made my task as editor much easier than I had any right to expect. I hope it will be the first of a number of projects that we will all be able to work on together in the future. I feel that the last word of thanks should go to my wife, Ulrike, and our children Marianne, Caroline, Nicolas, and Stephanie for always believing in me and by extension the idea that has come to fruition in this book.

Abbreviations

A.A.

Antiaircraft

ACT

Australian Capital Territory

ADFA

Australian Defence Force Academy

AEC

Atomic Energy Commission

AMDA

Anglo-Malayan Defence Agreement

ANZ

Archives New Zealand

ANZAM

Australia, New Zealand, and Malaya

ANZUS

Australia, New Zealand, United States

A/S

Antisubmarine (bomb)

ASDIC

Allied Submarine Detection Investigation Committee (acoustic detection of underwater objects)

ASV

Antisurface Vessel (radar)

ASW

Antisubmarine Warfare

AURI

Angkatan Udara Republik Indonesia (Indonesian Air Force)

AWM

Australian War Memorial

BAP

Beatrice Ayer Patton

BG

Brigadier General

BPI

Badan Pusat Intelijen (Central Intelligence Agency, Indonesia)

CAB

Cabinet Office Papers (UK)

CCO

Clandestine Communist Organization (Sarawak)

CDS

Chief of Defence Staff

xviii

ABBREVIATIONS

CGS

Chief of General Staff

CIA

Central Intelligence Agency (U.S.)

CINCFE

Commander-in-Chief, Far East

CINCPAC

Commander-in-Chief Pacific

CO

Colonial Office Papers (UK)

COL

Colonel

COMUSMACV

Commander, U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam

CORDS

Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support

COS

Chiefs of Staff

CRO

Commonwealth Relations Office

CSR

Commonwealth Strategic Reserve

DC

Defence Committee (Australia)

DEA

Department of External Affairs (Australia)

DEFE

Ministry of Defence Papers (UK)

DGFP

Documents on German Foreign Policy

DIA

Defense Intelligence Agency (U.S.)

DO

Dominions Office (UK)

DOPC

Defence and Overseas Policy Committee Papers (UK)

FEC

Far East Command

FHW

Fremde Heere West (German Intelligence Evaluation Service, Western Section)

FO

Foreign Office Papers (UK)

FUSAG

First U.S. Army Group

GC&CS

Government Code and Cypher School

GCHQ

Government Communications Headquarters

GCM

George Catlett Marshall

GEN

General

GI

General Infantry

GSP

George S. Patton, Jr.

GSP, Sr.

George S. Patton, Sr.

GVN

Government of Vietnam

HES

Hamlet Evaluation Survey

HMAS

His Majesty’s Australian Ship

HMS

Her/His Majesty’s Ship

HMSO

Her Majesty’s Stationery Office

IAF

Independent Air Force (UK)

IJN

Imperial Japanese Navy

ABBREVIATIONS

JIC

Joint Intelligence Committee (UK)

JICFE

Joint Intelligence Committee, Far East (UK)

LST

Landing Ship, Tank

LTG

Lieutenant General

MACV

Military Assistance Command Vietnam (U.S.)

MAD

Magnetic Anomaly Detection

M-day

Malaysia Day

MG

Major General

M.I.A.

Missing in Action

MI5

Security Service (UK)

MI6

Secret Intelligence Service (UK)

MTB

Motor Torpedo Boat

MV

Motor Vessel

NA

National Archives (UK)

NAA

National Archives of Australia

NATO

North Atlantic Treaty Organization

NCO

Noncommissioned Officer

NRB

Nuclear Reactors Branch

NUS

National University of Singapore

OKW

Oberkommando der Wehrmacht

OPINTEL

Operational Intelligence

PGM

Precision Guided Munitions

PhD

Doctor of Philosophy

PKI

Partai Komunis Indonesia (Communist Party of Indonesia)

POL

Petroleum, Oil, and Lubricants

RAAF

Royal Australian Air Force

RAF

Royal Air Force

RAN

Royal Australian Navy

RANC

Royal Australian Naval College

RDF

Radio Direction Finding

REPT

Ruth Ellen Patton Totten

RMA

Revolution in Military Affairs

RN

Royal Navy

RP

Robert Patton

SD

Sicherheitsdienst (German Security Department)

SEATO

South East Asia Treaty Organization

SHAEF

Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force

xix

xx

ABBREVIATIONS

SSBN

Ballistic Missile Submarine

SSN

Nuclear Attack Submarine

SUPP

Sarawak United People’s Party

TNI

Tentara Nasional Indonesia (National Army of Indonesia)

TNI-AL

Tentara Nasional Indonesia–Angkatan Laut (National Navy of Indonesia)

TNKU

Tentara Nasional Kalimantan Utara (North Borneo National Army)

UN

United Nations

USAAF

U.S. Army Air Forces

USAMHI

U.S. Army Military History Institute

USN

U.S. Navy

USS

U.S. Ship

VC

Viet Cong

VLR

Very Long Range

VMI

Virginia Military Institute

WWI

World War I

1

Casting Doubt on the Inevitability Syndrome Malcolm H. Murfett

much misused concept, and foregone conclusions are not quite as guaranteed as we may think they are. Four case studies taken from the European theater of the Second World War will help to illustrate this point. In all cases the odds were stacked in favor of only one possible outcome, and yet in each case those odds were spectacularly overturned. If examining these incidents does nothing more, it should help to confirm the fact that things are not quite as inevitable as they are often claimed to be. A start can be made at the extreme western end of the Mediterranean Sea, where the famous rocky fortress of Gibraltar, a modest 8.5 square kilometers in surface area, shared a land border with Spain, which had been coveting it ever since the Treaty of Utrecht had given it to Britain in 1713. Over the years Gibraltar had become an important naval base for the British, a role enhanced by the growing commercial vitality of the Mediterranean once the Suez Canal had been opened for business in 1869. Its key strategic value, however, derived almost exclusively from its geographical position, since possession of the Rock of Gibraltar and the vast array of ordnance built on it ensured that the British would continue to exercise dominant control over all surface shipping passing through the narrow chokepoint of the Strait in either direction.1 While Gibraltar was a more than useful asset to have in peacetime, in time of war it was likely to be crucial, not least for its role as an assembly port for convoys. By the late 1930s, however, the future prospects for continuing British rule over the Rock looked extremely bleak. After a merciless three-year civil war in Spain, victory had gone to the Nationalists—the fascist grouping led by Francisco Franco and the Falangists—with more than a little help from their ideological partners in crime Italy and Germany.2 Thereafter, it appeared inconceivable to many that Spain, which had looked enviously at Gibraltar for more than two centuries, would not hesitate to burnish its fascist

INEVITABILITY IS A

2

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

pretensions by using military might to overrun the rocky fortress and block off the British from using the Mediterranean. Franco’s sympathy for the Axis cause had already been shown by his adhesion to the Anti-Comintern Pact in February 1939, and his eulogizing of Mussolini and admiration for Hitler’s achievements were already well known. For the British and their French allies, therefore, the situation was especially grave when the European phase of the Second World War opened in September 1939. It became even worse once the Italians had joined the fray on 10 June 1940, and the French had left it in demoralizing defeat less than a fortnight later. Standing alone against the marauding Axis powers and with the Japanese making increasingly threatening noises in East Asia, the British Commonwealth looked acutely vulnerable. Savaged on the high seas by the U-boat war, the British military forces were in no position to lose the Mediterranean and Middle East as well. And yet a Spanish takeover of Gibraltar would almost certainly ensure that they would. Worse still, if Franco let Hitler use Gibraltar as an air base for the Luftwaffe, German bombers would be situated to pick off British mercantile shipping that was using the route around the Cape of Good Hope to get goods and supplies from Asia and the Australasian dominions to the home country.3 Given the fact that Franco was already expressing his support for the Axis cause by permitting German U-boats to use Spanish territorial waters for a range of profitable activities, allowing German reconnaissance aircraft to fly with Spanish markings, and passing on Allied shipping information to the German intelligence services, the early entry of Spain into the war and the rapid demise of Gibraltar as an Allied naval base looked inevitable. Confirmation of this likelihood seemed evident when officially sanctioned cries of ‘‘Gibraltar espanol’’ were to be heard during the Civil War parade in Madrid on 18 July 1940.4 Despite Gibraltar’s vulnerability and the air of impending doom that hung over its future, things didn’t pan out in the way many political commentators and military analysts might have suspected that they would. Why? A clue lies in the Spanish caudillo himself. Franco was the arch pragmatist. Although he was almost wholly identified with the Axis cause and had no sympathy for democracy or its supposed virtues, he knew that his economically ravaged country was on the cusp of a famine.5 While he could talk of joining in common cause with his Axis partners, he knew he couldn’t commit himself to active entry into the war on their side unless he received a mountain of economic and military resources from them to make up for the very real shortages that the Spanish people were experiencing at this time. If the Germans couldn’t or wouldn’t provide him with these resources and commit themselves to underwriting a slew of Spanish colonial claims in North Africa, Franco was prepared to listen to a series of economic overtures from London and Washington.6 Franco was more than just a poseur. While far from being a genius in anything, he was to prove very adept in playing off one side in the war

CASTING DOUBT ON THE INEVITABILITY SYNDROME

3

against the other to the maximum benefit of Spain itself. Both sides courted him because he held an invaluable bargaining chip, the future of Gibraltar, which the British sought to retain and the Axis powers desperately wanted under fascist control once the Luftwaffe had lost the Battle of Britain to the RAF and Hitler had been forced to postpone the cross-Channel invasion of the British Isles (Operation Sealion). Hitler instructed General Jodl and Grand Admiral Raeder on 6 September 1940 that a military plan for conquering Gibraltar must be devised (Operation Felix). It would be given further impetus during the autumn by growing problems for the Axis war effort in the Balkans and by the inconclusive negotiations that bedeviled German-Spanish relations in these months.7 Franco’s personal envoy was his brother-in-law Ramon Serrano Su~ner, the interior minister and noted Germanophile.8 He did not make a favorable impression on his German hosts in Berlin when he began these talks in midSeptember by setting out Franco’s extensive shopping list of desired economic, military, and territorial items as the minimum price for Spanish entry into the war.9 Franco’s prohibitive price did not come down in the following month, as could be seen from his tortuous round of talks with Hitler when the two leaders and their staffs met at the small border town of Hendaye in the Pyrenees on 23 October 1940. Meeting in Hitler’s suite of railway carriages, Franco reiterated the fact that he wasn’t prepared to enter the war or attack Gibraltar at this stage unless he received a prodigious military and economic bonanza in advance of this action.10 Refusing to be bullied, Franco adopted an intransigent stance that frustrated the German dictator and made him so exasperated at the inconclusive nature of the interview that he was heard to mutter to one of his aides: ‘‘mit diesem kerl ist nichts zu machen.’’11 Who would have thought that the limited but underestimated caudillo would have been able to stand up to the demonic genius Hitler in this way? Although dismissive of Franco as only an average officer and a subaltern in temperament, Hitler had been unable to persuade him to do his bidding. On the contrary, Franco had proved to be extremely elusive and quite impossible to pin down to any fixed commitment. Hitler was to observe afterwards in a message to Mussolini that negotiating with the Spanish dictator had been such an excruciating experience he would prefer to have three or four of his own teeth removed rather than go through it again.12 As his mind turned toward a forthcoming invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa), Hitler was reluctant to transfer so many economic and military resources to Spain when they would be needed on the Eastern Front. His views were shared by his commander-in-chief Field Marshal Walter von Brauschitsch and the chief of the Wehrmacht’s General Staff Franz Halder, who went on record as stating that ‘‘Spain’s domestic situation is so rotten as to make her useless as a potential partner.’’13 While Franco’s price for turning his alleged neutrality (actually nonbelligerency) into a combative presence in the war may, therefore, have been too

4

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

high for the Germans to pay, the British Allies and their American friends, knowing what was at stake in retaining control of Gibraltar, were prepared to go to considerable economic lengths to provide Spain with some of the wheat, cotton, gasoline, aviation fuel, fertilizers, chemicals, and agricultural machinery that he needed, while blockading all German military supplies from entering any Spanish ports.14 Because he didn’t have the means to conduct active warfare, this aid reduced Franco’s truculence to some extent, and he remained dependent on the economic imports that the Allies (particularly the Americans) could provide to him. Where Hitler and Ribbentrop, the foreign minister, had failed, Admiral Canaris, the head of the Abwehr (Military Intelligence Division), was deputed to go to Spain, meet Franco, and gain his permission for German troops and their supplies to begin entering the country on 10 January as a prelude to launching the attack on Gibraltar (Operation Felix). Canaris was no more successful than the f€ uhrer and his foreign minister had been in persuading Franco to agree to an attack being made on Gibraltar. Felix was postponed, only to be replaced in May 1941 by Operation Isabella, a plan for a wholesale German attack on Spain and the Rock of Gibraltar if the British seized either Tangier or landed in Portugal. It too would be shelved and replaced by an OKW directive, Operation Ilona, on 29 May 1942, should Anglo-American forces have the temerity of landing in French and Spanish Morocco or on the Iberian peninsula itself.15 Ilona, which was renamed Gisela as a result of a security breach, shared the same fate as Felix, being progressively postponed and finally abandoned altogether. Without the consent of Franco, therefore, Hitler could not secure his desired objective of sealing off the western end of the Mediterranean. D€onitz, Raeder’s successor at the helm of the Kriegsmarine, was still pushing for an attack on Gibraltar and a closing of the Strait as late as May 1943. It did no good. Gisela became another casualty of Franco’s guile.16 Franco had played his cards very well. He was canny and alert to changes in the tempo of the war and began to sense in the closing months of 1940 that an Axis victory in the war could no longer be guaranteed. It didn’t stop him from identifying with his ideological cronies, or indeed from either sending volunteer units of Falangists (known as the Blue Division) to fight in Russia in July 1941, or arranging for 100,000 Spanish workers to go to Germany a month later, but it was sufficient for him to stop short of fully embracing the prospect of entering the war on their side.17 Instead he allowed himself to be bought off by the Allies. In the end, they alone could provide him with the economic resources that Spain so desperately needed.18 They obviously wouldn’t provide Franco with military aid that could then be used against them, nor would they agree to his outrageous colonial demands, but they did enough with their economic aid to improve matters domestically and win his commitment to remaining out of the war for its entire duration.19 Having gone from neutrality to nonbelligerency in June 1940, Spain returned to relative neutrality in 1944. Who would have thought it possible?20

CASTING DOUBT ON THE INEVITABILITY SYNDROME

5

Another Mediterranean redoubt, the island fortress of Malta—all 316 square kilometers of it—was another vital British naval base, and it shared Gibraltar’s fate in another way too: it was vulnerable to enemy attack not least because it was only 92 kilometers south of the Italian island of Sicily. Once Italy had joined the war in June 1940, the threat to the island’s three serviceable airfields and the main naval dockyard in the Grand Harbour at Valetta was quite obviously substantial. Although the British government had no intention of writing off Malta and was willing to defend it for the foreseeable future, few even in Whitehall could have reasonably expected this island to survive if the Italians and their Axis partners decided that it shouldn’t. Even Churchill, who remained among the most bullish of all the Allied political and military elite, sensed that if the Italians didn’t invade Malta, their bombers could make it untenable as a major naval base. On 3 May 1940, more than five weeks before the first bombs began falling on Malta on 11 June, the Royal Navy’s Mediterranean Fleet, under the command of Admiral Sir Andrew Browne Cunningham (ABC to his friends and subordinates), had prudently sailed east to Alexandria, leaving behind only four submarines to guard the waters of the island. As the danger signs increased and signals intelligence—yielded through the brilliant work of the cryptanalysts at Bletchley Park—pointed to an early entry into the war by the Italians, all merchant shipping was forbidden to use the Mediterranean on 16 May 1940.21 Mussolini, the archetypal poseur and role model for Franco, wanted to enter the war on the winning side. He had no intention of fighting a long costly war, not least because he didn’t think Italy was sufficiently prepared for such a thing, and he didn’t believe one was necessary in any case. As he told Marshal Badoglio on 26 May: ‘‘I assure you the war will be over in September, and that I need a few thousand dead so as to be able to attend the peace conference as a belligerent.’’22 Hardly inspiring leadership, but what do you expect from an exploitative bully? Rather than invade Malta, the Italian service chiefs decided that the defenses of the island could best be reduced by aerial bombardment and that an amphibious invasion could come much later, when the island had been bombed into rubble and its offensive capability had been totally eclipsed. It was not to be. Despite bombing the island 2,154 times over the course of the next twelve months, the Italians were no closer to invading Malta in mid1941 than they had been when they had joined the war on 10 June 1940.23 This was surprising, to say the least, as the island’s existence and the naval and air forces present on it remained a constant irritant to their Italian opponents. It was amazing what half a dozen light cruisers and a similar number of destroyers supported by a couple of submarine flotillas could do to sabotage the Italian war effort both at sea and in the air. Along with the fighter and bombing planes based on Malta, these naval forces contributed to the attacks made on the Italian supply routes to their Axis forces in North Africa, sinking 851,861 tons of shipping, together with all their supplies. Put into

6

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

some sort of perspective, the Italians lost an overall total of 16.3 percent of all their shipping using these convoyed supply routes over a three-year period from June 1940. Out of this total, Malta’s contribution to those losses was a not insignificant 9.45 percent.24 Rommel could ill afford to lose this amount of materiel. It didn’t guarantee he would lose the North African campaign, but there is little doubt that it hurt it. As if that were not sufficient, the aircraft based on Malta continued to undertake vital reconnaissance duties for the Allied war effort. Furthermore, the continued use of the Maltese airfields meant that they could be used as a vital staging post and refueling center for those aircraft that were in transit and scheduled to go on to the Middle and Far East. As Douglas Austin points out: ‘‘It is no coincidence that Rommel’s two successful campaigns in early 1941 and early 1942 were carried out when Malta was neutralized by Luftwaffe attack and supplies flowed freely, and that British successes were achieved in periods of greater Malta pressure on the stream of Axis supplies.’’25 Given Malta’s steadfast commitment to the Allied cause, why didn’t Mussolini or Hitler decide to finish the island off, as Marshal Graziani, Grand Admiral Raeder, and Field Marshal Erwin Rommel suggested they should?26 Again, surely, wasn’t it inevitable that they would? One way of doing so, of course, was to find some way of preventing the replenishment of the island’s aerial defenses. Usually twice a month the Allies sent at least one of their aircraft carriers based in Gibraltar to the Balearic Islands, where they would fly off substantial numbers of Hurricanes (in 1941) and Spitfires (in 1942) bound for Malta and the defense of the island.27 Strangely, no systematic attempt was ever made by the Italian submarine arm, let alone its surface fleet, to interfere with these supply runs. Italian and German fighter planes would try to mount an attack against the incoming aircraft once they were in Italian airspace and claimed some victims, but most of the Allied aircraft making these journeys landed in a relatively serviceable state.28 After demurring on the prospect of invading Malta for eighteen months, largely because the leading officers in the Regia Marina Italiana (the Royal Italian Navy) had been reluctant to commit themselves to such a hazardous amphibious operation against what they sensed would be an obdurate foe, the Italian High Command, under pressure from their German equivalents, resumed planning for the elimination of the island at the end of 1941. A joint plan was devised for an invasion of Malta, known to the Germans by the operational codename Fall Herkules and as Operazione C3 to the Italians.29 Despite the renewed impetus to wipe Malta off the map, the project was deferred until after Rommel had launched his attack against the British Eighth Army at the Gazala Line in late May 1942. Once he had seized Tobruk on 21 June, the operation was postponed again in favor of an all-out attack on Egypt (the Battle of Alamein), which he was to launch later in the year.30 In the meantime the siege of Malta continued. Axis confidence that the island could not be sustained by the Allies in the long run remained high, a feeling boosted

CASTING DOUBT ON THE INEVITABILITY SYNDROME

7

undoubtedly by Rommel’s success in North Africa. As the Afrika Korps began homing in on Egypt and looked only weeks away from seizing Alexandria and sealing off the Suez Canal in the autumn of 1942, the Italian High Command complacently assumed that Malta would eventually fall into the lap of the Axis forces without any need for an amphibious invasion being mounted against it.31 Little did they know Churchill. He was absolutely determined that Malta should not follow Singapore and fall to the enemy. He inspired and cajoled his service chiefs both at home and in the Mediterranean to continue supplying Malta regardless of the dangers involved and the losses that must be borne in doing so. It was estimated that Malta required 40,000 tons of food and supplies a month. Without them, a system of rationing wouldn’t work for long and the island’s population would eventually use up their stockpiled supplies and be starved out. Under such circumstances, surrender would have been almost inevitable. Churchill was determined that this scenario wouldn’t be played out, and his hand can therefore be seen in the mounting of relief convoys, such as those of Halberd, Harpoon, Pedestal, Substance, and Vigorous, when the going got rough in 1941–1942.32 It isn’t an exaggeration to state that his contribution to the island’s resistance was crucial in ensuring that the Allies didn’t just cut and run from Malta when most observers assumed they would. Despite the fact that over 11,000 tons of bombs had fallen on Malta in the first five months of 1942, causing damage and destruction on a wide scale sufficient to drive the light surface fleet from Valetta and the submarine arm from Lazaretto Creek in April, the Allied air forces stubbornly and defiantly remained.33 They were able to do so, of course, as a result of outstanding radar facilities and the strong A.A. gun capability that the Allies had installed around Valetta even before the Italian war had begun; the superb air-handling ability of the fighter pilots based at Luqa, Hal Far, and Ta Kali; the Ultra signals intelligence windfalls from the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) that warned of impending air raids; and the quite outstanding repair teams that kept all the airfields and the maintenance base at Kalafrana somehow in working order amidst all the chaos that was going on.34 Who could have believed it possible? It stood to reason that Malta couldn’t survive in the face of such a sustained Axis attack. And yet survive it did, and with Rommel’s defeat at El Alamein and the launching of the Anglo-American invasion of North Africa in November 1942 (Operation Torch), the siege was lifted and the tide turned as far as Malta was concerned. Thereafter it was to play a decisive role in the buildup for the Allied invasion of Sicily (Operation Husky) in July 1943, providing more cause for Hitler to curse the Italians for failing to crush Malta at the outset of the war in 1940, and supplying further proof, if such was needed, for Rommel to look back and lament that Malta rather than Greece ought to have been taken by the Axis forces in the spring of 1941.35 So what did it cost the Allies to maintain this island fortress while the Italians remained in the war? From the naval arm of the services, the

8

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

following were sunk: two aircraft carriers (Ark Royal and Eagle), five light cruisers, nineteen destroyers, a 40,000-ton floating dock, and the 10,000-ton semitanker Breconshire. Of the nearly eighty submarines that were operationally based at Manoel Island near Sliema for some part of the war, at least forty were lost. Among those naval vessels that were damaged were three aircraft carriers (Furious, Illustrious, and Indomitable), the battleship Nelson, the monitor Centurion, eleven light cruisers, and at least a score of destroyers. If one adds the rest of the minor classes of warship, the auxiliaries and other vessels that were either sunk or damaged to this list, the total number of ships that paid some sort of price for keeping Malta in the war far exceeds, as Tony Spooner tellingly indicates, the total strength of the Royal Navy in the 1990s.36 As far as the Royal Air Force was concerned, it lost 547 aircraft in the air and another 160 on the ground. Amazingly, perhaps only 1,486 Maltese civilians lost their lives in the total of 3,340 enemy air raids that were conducted over the island—testimony to the success of the deep shelters that had been constructed to protect the civilian population from the torrid nature of the bombing blitz. Their endurance and the astonishing resilience of those fighting to defend them were recognized by the awarding of the George Cross, the highest civilian award for gallantry, in April 1942 by His Majesty King George VI.37 At the time the award was conferred upon the island, it was facing its greatest peril. Would gallantry be enough to ensure its survival? It looked exceedingly doubtful. But war, that ultimate imponderable, would tear up the inevitable script in any case and dictate a quite different and unexpected conclusion. One incident that combines impertinence and incompetence in roughly equal measure to shake the inevitability syndrome occurred for the most part in British coastal waters in February 1942. What became known as the ‘‘Channel Dash’’ involved the extraordinary escape of two mighty battleships—Scharnhorst and Gneisenau—and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen from the French Atlantic port of Brest into the busiest waterway in the world, the English Channel, through the narrow Strait of Dover, where the coast of Kent and that of the Pas de Calais are little more than 37 kilometers (or roughly 20 nautical miles) apart at their narrowest point, and on up through the southern North Sea and finally into the safety of German waters and sanctuary: at the naval base of Wilhelmshaven in the Jade estuary for the Scharnhorst and at Brunsbuttel in the mouth of the River Elbe for her sister ship Gneisenau and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen.38 This is a story that almost defies belief. After withstanding repeated bombing raids over the course of the eleven months that the two battleships were holed up at Brest, Vice Admiral Ciliax, the commanding admiral of battleships, sent a coded signal to Hitler requesting permission to break out of the harbor at Brest with his ships and make a dash for home in the dark on the evening of 11 February 1942, accompanied by half a dozen destroyers and a number of S-boats (fast MTBs). Hitler, sensing that neither Ciliax nor his surface fleet was doing much good to the Axis cause by

CASTING DOUBT ON THE INEVITABILITY SYNDROME

9

being marooned in a French port, approved of the plan and encouraged him to begin at his earliest convenience.39 Despite the strength of his naval force, Ciliax faced a hazardous journey to safety. Even if he broke out of Brest and evaded the Allied naval vessels waiting outside the harbor for just such an eventuality, the first part of the journey home would take him around the tip of the French Atlantic coast to Cherbourg in Normandy, a distance of roughly 240 nautical miles (444 kilometers). Once there he had a further 120 nautical miles (222 kilometers) to go to reach the Dover Strait. Ciliax knew he could do one or other of these two legs in darkness, but not both.40 Vice Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay, the architect of Operation Dynamo (the evacuation of Dunkirk) and in command of the Dover station, knew that too and was convinced that no sane person would take these heavy ships through the busy and narrow Strait in the hours of daylight. It would be sheer madness and tempting fate. He suspected that German naval officers were too disciplined to do such crazy things. Really? For once Ramsay was wrong. Ciliax was prepared to gamble, and Hitler expected him to succeed in his quest because he thought the aerial threat posed by Coastal Command, the Fleet Air Arm, and Bomber Command had been exaggerated and that British military decision making was too ponderous to react to a crisis with elan and dispatch.41 How right he was on occasion. Delayed for at least ninety minutes by an Allied air raid that had taken place on Brest earlier in the evening, Ciliax managed to clear the harbor at 2245 hours (10:45 P.M.) on a pitch black night and move off into the calmness of the open sea completely undetected by the Allies. Twelve hours later his force still remained unspotted by the enemy. Equipment failure on two of the three Coastal Command aircraft patrolling the Channel—in this case their vital ASV Mark 2 radar sets—plus a spell of ground fog that saw the third Hudson plane curtail its patrol coincided with Ciliax’s dash up the Channel. Ramsay remained oblivious to the equipment failures. No one from Coastal Command had thought or troubled to inform him.42 Bad weather intervened elsewhere to restrict his options still further. Thick snow had fallen on Norfolk overnight, carpeting its airfields and making them inhospitable places to land. As a result, fourteen Beaufort torpedo bombers that were due to be transferred southward remained in Scotland until conditions improved. Ramsay could have done with them on 12 February. German jamming of British radar stations had begun at 0920 hours and immediately aroused suspicions that something was afoot. But what was it? A reconnaissance mission spotted what was taken to be a convoy of twenty-five to thirty vessels, but Ramsay received no word that the three heavy ships were in it. It was only at 1125 hours that he finally discovered that Ciliax’s force was under way.43 While the late news wasn’t ideal, it stood to reason that the German ships would now come under sustained attack both at sea and from the air as they moved up toward the narrowest part of the Dover Strait. At least that is what

10

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

anyone would have a right to expect. Did it happen? After a long-distance torpedo attack by five MTBs from Dover had proved futile, Ramsay pressed six lumbering Swordfish torpedo bombers into action. Despite the exemplary courage of their pilots, they were ruthlessly destroyed by the guns of the German fleet.44 What was left? Seven torpedo-carrying Beauforts based at Portsmouth—except that three of those were not immediately serviceable. None of the remaining four managed to rendezvous with their fighter escorts; two, impatient at the delay, left of their own volition, leaving the other two to make the best of a very poor piece of aerial coordination. In the end none of the four knew that they were supposed to attack three heavy ships. They had been bizarrely instructed instead to attack three large enemy merchantmen—a rather different quarry from the Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, and Prinz Eugen— particularly since the mythical merchant vessels were supposedly doing between 8 and 10 knots, whereas Ciliax’s warships were making 27 knots at this time. Why they had been so ordered is quite unfathomable. Unfortunately, by basing their calculations on their preflight briefing, the Beauforts began looking in the wrong place in the Strait and obviously didn’t find what they were looking for.45 After this shambles, things could only get better. Or could they? Once the other three Beauforts from Portsmouth finally got into the air, they made a beeline for Ciliax’s force. They found the Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen and attacked them without hitting either ship.46 By this time a thaw had set in and the Beauforts from Scotland eventually landed at their new bases in Norfolk. Coastal Command sent them on to the airbase at Manston in Kent to meet up with their fighter escorts and a group of Hudson bombers who would lead them to the German ships. When the Beauforts arrived at Manston at 1450 hours (2:50 P.M.), they found the Hudsons already circling the airfield. Knowing that they should form up behind them, they attempted to do so, but every time they went in behind the Hudsons the latter circled round to back up the Beauforts! It was, as David Hamer puts it succinctly, ‘‘pure farce,’’ but it took 30 minutes to resolve. Eventually the commanding officer of the Beauforts set course for the German ships and took his squadron of nine planes with him. Six of the Hudsons went with them, but the rest continued to aimlessly circle the airfield before retiring from the scene. Fourteen of the fifteen planes found the German ships but didn’t succeed in hitting any of them, and one nearly attacked the British destroyer Worcester, which had been badly damaged in an earlier attack on the German foe that had been beaten off.47 While this was going on, the commander-in-chief of Bomber Command, Air Marshal Pierse, was beginning to rue his earlier decision made two days previously to put 100 of his bombers on four hours’ notice. When he was informed just before lunchtime that the German ships were on the loose, he didn’t have any bombers immediately available to deal with them. If Bomber Command was going to be successful, it would have to drop armor-piercing bombs on the heavy ships, but in order for these to be effective, they needed

CASTING DOUBT ON THE INEVITABILITY SYNDROME

11

to be dropped from a height of 7,000 feet (2,133 meters); since a thick cloud layer had formed as low as 1,000 feet (305 meters), the minimum requirements for a successful bombing mission were missing. In the end Bomber Command assembled 242 aircraft and sent them airborne in stages from 1445 hours to 1700 hours. Poor weather—thick cloud and rain squalls—combined to bamboozle the RAF. Of this prodigious number only 39 managed to drop their bombs, and some of those were dropped on British destroyers. Bomber Command lost 15 of its bombers, either from accurate German gunfire or from flying into the sea.48 Despite all that the British services tried to do, the only things that gave the Germans any real problems were mines. Scharnhorst struck two of them on her journey: the first one at 1431 hours off the River Scheldt, which she recovered from quickly; and the second one, a more serious affair off the West Frisian Islands at 2134 hours, which left her holed, much slower, and with an extra 1,000 tons of seawater in her hull. Gneisenau also struck a mine off Vlieland in the West Frisian group a little earlier at 1955 hours, but this did little to slow her down. All the German force who made the Channel Dash reached port without further mishap on 13 February.49 So ended the operation—Fall Cerberus—that should not have succeeded because it was against all the odds, and yet it did. For the British it was an object lesson in bad planning, orchestration, and execution. They could blame the weather, but even then, who on earth (apart perhaps from Hitler or Ciliax himself) would have thought that the Germans could have got away with this extraordinarily bold gesture of running the gauntlet of the British armed forces through their own coastal waters and emerging unscathed at the other end?50 All of these cases help to refute the concept of inevitability in war, and the final example—the maintenance of the D-day secret—is arguably the most improbable of them all. How could the Allies be expected to keep the enemy guessing about where and when they were going to launch their invasion of Europe in 1944 when the Germans were devoting so many efforts to discovering that secret and when hundreds of Allied officers who knew the date and intended location of the largest amphibious operation in history had to be relied upon to maintain absolute discretion at all times?51 It is not the purpose of this case study to describe the process by which the Normandy landing sites were chosen or the role—brilliant though it was—of the Commando Special Services in collecting sand and soil samples from the projected invasion beaches or the sawing off of steel from one of Rommel’s antilanding craft obstacles (known as the ‘‘Belgian Gates’’) from under the unsuspecting gaze of the German defenders. I shall also avoid discussing the painstaking work of the engineers and geologists in measuring the strength of offshore currents, the depth of water, and the shape of the beaches at the D-day landing sites, or the skill of the photographic analysts who pored over masses of aerial reconnaissance shots of the entire stretch of the French coastline from Brittany to the Belgian border and interpreted the information

12

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

about the strength of German defenses along that route on a daily basis. Furthermore, there is, alas, no place for an examination of the heroic efforts of the men and women of the French Resistance who collected information, arranged novel methods of passing it on, and then acted on instructions from their Allied contacts to begin sabotaging all forms of German communications in the hours preceding the invasion. By the same token, this article cannot do justice to Admiral Ramsay’s outstanding logistical blueprint for getting the invasion forces and their supplies ashore. Suffice it to say that all of these tasks are worthy of anyone’s attention and were crucial in helping the Allies plan a very successful invasion of northwestern France.52 Instead it is my task to look at the problems the Allies faced in ensuring that the D-day secret was preserved in the months preceding the launching of Operation Neptune on the night of 5–6 June 1944. It was no easy task, as so much could go wrong. Every German spy sent to Britain by clandestine methods had to be caught and punished before he could do any damage; those attached to foreign embassies had to be detected and shipped out or unsuspectingly used by the British security services to feed inaccurate information to their foreign masters. Those German spies who were swiftly identified and didn’t pay for their intended activities with their lives were used as double agents to confuse German intelligence. While it seems almost unbelievable to comprehend, the British achieved the rare feat of a 100 percent success rate in these ventures. They were helped no doubt by the incompetence of most of the spies themselves and by the fatal combination of ineptitude and overconfidence with which the German authorities (both Abwehr and the SS Intelligence Services) went about their task of gleaning these secrets.53 But this total success was not achieved merely through the inadequacy of the German agents and their spymasters or the sheer brilliance of the British security services, but also through the remarkably sustained vigilance of the British people themselves, who didn’t hesitate to make reports on suspicious characters with whom they came in contact and who might otherwise have slipped through the security net.54 While the German intelligence services performed throughout in a curiously uninspiring fashion, they might still have discovered the D-day secret if any one of the Allied officers who knew the crucial details of the invasion plan (codenamed the ‘‘Bigots’’) could have been captured and tortured into making a confession. Likewise, the secret could have been exposed if any of the ‘‘Bigots’’ themselves had revealed it to those outside the charmed circle, whether as an act of bravado while under the influence of drink or through pursuing any number of recreational activities with those not privy to the secret. These were not improbable possibilities. Although capturing a ‘‘Bigot’’ looked the least likely, it came perilously close to taking place.55 On 26 April 1944, an Allied amphibious landing took place along the south Devon coast at a spot called Slapton Sands. This quiet spot near Dartmouth had been chosen because it was thought to be beyond the prying

CASTING DOUBT ON THE INEVITABILITY SYNDROME

13

attentions of German surveillance and because the coastline resembled the projected American landing site on the French shore known by the codename Utah Beach. Because a mockup of the German defenses in Normandy could be built by army engineers on Slapton Sands, it afforded the Allies an ideal opportunity to test out their amphibious landing techniques in advance of the real thing. Unfortunately, it would prove to be a depressing rehearsal that went badly wrong from the outset and continued in that way throughout. Of all the things that could and did go wrong, however, by far the worst aspect came from an unlikely quarter in the shape of a German MTB attack on a convoy of eight landing craft that were making their way to the landing site in the predawn phase of the operation. In this sneak attack two LSTs had been torpedoed and sunk, while a third one had seen its stern blown off. Several hundred servicemen, including ten ‘‘Bigot’’ officers, were reported missing as a result of this attack, and some among them may have been captured by the German craft that had cruised among the wreckage and the bodies of the capsized Allied soldiers with their searchlights on. If a few survivors had been hauled aboard for future interrogation and any had been ‘‘Bigots,’’ the maintenance of the D-day secret would clearly have been imperiled. Consequently, a massive search was mounted by many Allied vessels in the following hours in a relentlessly systematic trawl for victims across Lyme Bay. It succeeded in its depressing quest, as all ten of the ‘‘Bigots’’ were eventually recovered from the sea. None had survived, unlike the secret of the invasion plan, which remained intact.56 ‘‘Careless talk costs lives’’ was a popular advertising slogan adorning posters that appeared across the length and breadth of the United Kingdom during the war, constantly reminding British citizens to be circumspect about what they said to other people, whether in public or private. It appears to have been a remarkably successful campaign, since the enemy didn’t acquire the type of intelligence they sought through the route of casual conversation and well-informed gossip. Strict censorship of mail and telephone calls certainly helped in this respect, yet some security breaches did take place, and the three worst examples all included ‘‘Bigots.’’ An Army mail-sorting office in Chicago, a dining room at Claridges Hotel in London, and the back of a London taxi were all scenes of unwitting carelessness or blazing indiscretion and could have resulted in the secret being discovered well ahead of the D-day landings. An overworked and stressed secretary to the Ordnance Supply Section of SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force) in London, Sergeant Thomas Kane, sent a parcel containing top secret ‘‘Bigot’’ papers to his sister in Chicago by mistake. This would have been quite bad enough, but the parcel tore open in the sorting office in Chicago, exposing the contents to at least a dozen people working there. It got worse because Kane was of German origin and his family lived in a largely German neighborhood of the city. As a result, the U.S. security services kept Kane, his sister, and all the sorting office staff who had seen the ‘‘Bigot’’ papers under surveillance until after 6 June. Another moment of extraordinary carelessness occurred

14

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

when a staff officer to Brigadier Harris, the chief of SHAEF’s telecommunications, managed to lose the bulky communications plans (radio information as well as ciphers) for use in the amphibious invasion (Operation Neptune) while on his way home one evening. Fortunately, an observant London taxi driver discovered the cache of top secret material and handed in the errant staff officer’s briefcase containing these ‘‘Bigot’’ papers to the Lost Property Office at Scotland Yard before any lasting damage had been done. These at least were accidental mistakes. Major General (MG) Henry Miller, quartermaster of the U.S. 9th Air Force and a West Point classmate of the Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower, chose a public dining room at one of London’s leading hotels in April to show that alcohol can loosen the tongue of even some hard-bitten veterans. A boastful Miller, seeking to impress his circle of friends, paid for disclosing that the invasion would take place before the middle of June by losing his job, being reduced in rank to lieutenant colonel, and being sent home in disgrace. It effectively marked the end of his career. In the following month an American naval officer, Captain Edward Miles, another one of the ‘‘Bigots,’’ was accused by the British Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory, commanding officer of the Tactical Air Force for Neptune, of drinking too much and revealing top secret information at a party. Despite the fact that this case was not proven, Miles too was sent home, but it didn’t spell the end of his career.57 These errors—some crass, some the result of sheer fatigue and overwork—notwithstanding, the invasion secret could have been guessed accurately had it not been for the existence of a number of Allied deception plans that were designed to put the Germans off the scent. Grouped under the codename Bodyguard, two major plans were launched—Fortitude and Zeppelin— whose explicit purpose was to provide the German security authorities with information that appeared credible but was actually a gigantic web of interlocking lies.58 This campaign of disinformation evidently worked because Hitler and his military advisers were persuaded to keep their forces stretched from Norway to southeastern Europe preparing for Allied invasion plans that didn’t actually exist. While Zeppelin dealt with supposed plans for forthcoming attacks in Greece, Romania, and Yugoslavia, Fortitude had three elements: a mythical invasion of Norway and the use of Scandinavia as a launching pad for an invasion of Germany (Fortitude North) ; a massive attack on the French coast in the area of the Pas de Calais (Fortitude South) ; and intense radio activity in the immediate post-D-day period to convince Hitler that the attack on Normandy was nothing more than a mere diversion and one that hid the real intent of the Allies, namely, a massive invasion of the Pas de Calais (Fortitude South II, also known as Rosebud).59 These plans were brilliantly orchestrated. Radio signal traffic was built up over many months to create a mythical British 4th Army based in Edinburgh (codename Skye) that was earmarked for the Norwegian campaign (a possibility that played on Hitler’s paranoid suspicion that such an invasion was very

CASTING DOUBT ON THE INEVITABILITY SYNDROME

15

likely) and a First United States Army Group (FUSAG) under General George Patton that was supposedly gathering in Kent and the southeastern counties of England to mount the ‘‘attack’’ on the Pas de Calais (codename Quicksilver). Additional support for these deployments came from an unlikely quarter in the shape of grossly distorted estimates prepared by Colonel Alexis von Roenne, the head of the intelligence division Fremde Heere West (FHW) and the man responsible for preparing updated reports on what was believed to be the up-to-date Allied Order of Battle in the months leading up to the invasion. These reports were for use by the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW), the Supreme Command of the German Armed Forces. Von Roenne had remained a friend of Canaris but actively distrusted Walther Schellenberg, a member of Himmler’s SS and head of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) that had absorbed the Abwehr in the early months of 1944. Von Roenne was persuaded by one of subordinates (Roger Michel) that Schellenberg was intercepting these reports and routinely halving the FHW’s estimate of Allied divisions in England. As a result, Hitler had begun to transfer some of his forces to the east, whereas von Roenne and Michel firmly believed they should be staying put and preparing for Patton’s invasion. After dwelling on the matter for some time, von Roenne began acting on Michel’s suggestion of doubling the estimate of the FUSAG divisions in the southeast of England to counter Schellenberg’s activities. He contented himself with the idea that once the SD had cut the FHW’s estimates of Patton’s forces, the new revised figures passed on to Hitler would still be roughly in line with those the FHW believed to be FUSAG’s current armed strength. What von Roenne didn’t know, however, was that Schellenberg didn’t cut the FHW’s figures once the SD had absorbed the Abwehr, and that as a result in May 1944 von Roenne’s inflated figures were accepted by the OKW and that instead of the eighty-five to ninety Allied divisions the Germans thought they would be facing in the cross-Channel invasion, the actual figure was only thirty-five.60 As with Quicksilver, Skye, and Zeppelin, the Fortitude plans managed to convince the leading members of the OKW as well as the man who mattered most—Hitler—that the invasion of northern France would take place on the coastal stretch somewhere between Boulogne and Dunkirk close to the Belgian border. In this case the most obvious location for the invasion seemed to make the most operational and logistic sense to leading military luminaries, such as Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, the overall commander-in-chief of Western Command, and Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, the man responsible for commanding the body of troops who were to repel the invasion (Army Group B), let alone a host of other senior officers without either their military savvy or experience.61 Apart from being easily the shortest route across the Channel, a landing in the Pas de Calais sector appeared to make the most strategic sense because it would enable the Allies to acquire one or more of the three large ports that were in the immediate vicinity (Boulogne, Calais, Dunkirk) and use any or all of them to begin consolidating their military

16

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

presence in the area. Another key advantage of the Pas de Calais sector lay in the fact that it was the closest route to the industrial heartland of Germany, the Ruhrgebiet. By allowing conventional wisdom to overrule his intuitive powers for once, Hitler made the crucial mistake of concentrating the bulk of his troops and their defensive preparations in the Pas de Calais rather than along the Normandy coastline, much to the relief of the Allies, whose invasion would have otherwise been far more hazardous than it already was.62 What aerial reconnaissance the Luftwaffe was allowed to make over southeast England seemed to confirm the buildup of the FUSAG troops. Thanks to the ingenious work of an army of set designers, stage and scene builders recruited from the world of film and the theater, mockup vessels of every description made from canvas and plywood began appearing in the ports of Kent, Sussex, and Essex. Inflatable tanks and devices that simulated the tracks left by tanks and heavy vehicles were used to make it appear that every wood and copse was hiding parts of a vast armored force that Patton would bring with him across the Channel to drive Rommel’s Army Group B back from the coast and allow the fiery American general to spearhead the attack on the Rhine and the Ruhr. To add apparent certainty to German conviction about the Channel crossing, a phantom oil refinery was constructed in the harbor at Dover to reinforce the impression that it was going to service Patton’s force. These imaginary scenarios were cultivated by very talented and skilled experts and technicians, but the ruse was assisted by the imposition of prohibited areas around the coast from which all civilians and those without official accreditation were excluded. This ensured that casual snooping or sustained surveillance at the ground level was impossible.63 German aerial reconnaissance experts not only failed to expose the Allied plot to deceive them, but they also failed to identify the two giant concrete constructions that were taking shape off Tilbury in the Thames Estuary as artificial harbors (Mulberrys). Had they done so, they might have guessed it wasn’t part of the Allied plan to seize the ports in the Pas de Calais after all. Von Rundstedt, whose visceral contempt for Hitler is shown in his reference to the f€ uhrer as ‘‘the bohemian corporal,’’ considered them to be antiaircraft gun towers, while Hitler supported the view of other military analysts who thought they were designed to replace the damaged infrastructure of the ports that Patton’s troops were aiming to seize.64 Once again German misinterpretation of the available evidence ended up by ensuring that their attention remained focused on the Pas de Calais and not on Normandy. If doubt about the location of the invasion seemed to have been cleared up in the minds of the OKW by the evidence that had been accumulated in favor of the Pas de Calais, the question of when the attack would take place was much less certain. In May the weather and sea conditions had been favorable for such an attack, and as a consequence numerous heightened states of readiness had been raised during the month, only for Rommel’s troops to be stood down once the alarm had passed. This anticlimactic cycle took on a

CASTING DOUBT ON THE INEVITABILITY SYNDROME

17

familiar routine after a time and rather undermined defensive awareness, since the troops grew weary of the ‘‘hue and cry.’’ As the weather deteriorated in early June, the vast majority of the leading German military officers involved in planning the resistance to the invasion began to suspect that the British may have missed an opportunity to press home their advantage and would now be forced to wait several weeks until climatic and tidal conditions improved before embarking upon their amphibious operation. While naval opinion in the shape of Grand Admiral D€ onitz and Admiral Krancke were inclined to see no real prospect of an invasion before August 1944, Hitler and the OKW contented themselves with the notion that it might be delayed even longer, until after the Soviet Red Army had made a major push forward on the Eastern Front. Even Rommel, who had not ruled out an invasion in either early or mid-June, believed that the prevailing poor weather conditions in the Channel would prevent the Allies from launching their attack between 5 and 7 June. Confident in his assessment of the low risk factor, he drove home to southern Germany for a couple of days to see his wife at Heerlingen and meet Hitler in Berchtesgaden. Other senior military figures took their cue from Rommel and either left the area or relaxed their vigilance.65 They may not have done so had they possessed the means of predicting the weather pattern accurately over the next few days. Having lost the services of their weather ships in the Atlantic and North Sea and without an extensive amount of aerial surveillance in the Western Approaches, the German meteorologists were denied the extensive range of information on high- and lowpressure front systems that the Allies possessed. Even if they had such a range of reports, predicting the weather over the Channel is notoriously difficult because it is so fickle. What information they possessed pointed to a prolonged spell of bad to indifferent weather, ruling out, or so it was thought, any chance of an invasion. Captain John Stagg, the leading Allied meteorologist on Eisenhower’s staff, was privy to what was going on out in the Atlantic and sensed that a brief interlude of better weather was approaching. Having advised a postponement of the offensive on 5 June, he predicted—accurately as it turned out—that the invasion could take place on the following day. Eisenhower took his advice, and the rest is history.66 Amazingly, therefore, and against all the odds, the D-day secret was maintained. Those who believe in black swans (the unexpected) shouldn’t be in the slightest bit surprised by this turn of events. Improbable events occur more often than we tend to think they do, and even if their frequency can’t be charted with any degree of certainty, it doesn’t prevent them from taking place. In the four cases studied in this essay, the myth of inevitability and the fallacy of prediction have been starkly exposed by the highly improbable occurring when the most likely didn’t. Even though outliers in war help to make even the most detailed planning redundant, the real surprise in these cases resulted from developments that didn’t happen rather than from those that did!67 It seems, therefore, that black swans can be both visible and

18

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

invisible, the unlikely nature of the event being the only determining factor in their existence. Doesn’t this evidence of black swans swirling about the place— rare though they may be—make a mockery out of the inevitability syndrome? If it doesn’t undermine the predictive process, perhaps it should do so.68 NOTES 1. In all, 137 individual pieces of ordnance are listed in Darren Fa and Clive Finlayson, The Fortifications of Gibraltar, 1068–1945 (Oxford: Osprey, 2006), p. 51. This list contains the following items: one 2-pounder; eight 6-pounders; two 17-pounders; seven 25-pounders; five 4.5-inch howitzers; one 6-inch howitzer; two 9.2-inch howitzers; seven 75-mm (2.95-inch) guns; four 3-inch guns; twenty-eight 3.7-inch guns; fifteen 4-inch guns; eight 6-inch guns; seven 9.2-inch guns; and forty-two Bofors guns. See also Tito Benady, The Royal Navy at Gibraltar (Grendon, UK: Gibraltar Books, 1993), pp. 149–150, 214–216. Benady makes the point that the strong countercurrents existing at depths below 100–150 feet (30.5–45.7 meters) at the western entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar made it virtually impossible for submarines (with their slow submerged speeds) to force their way into the Mediterranean against them, and so they were forced to travel through the Strait much closer to the surface, where those strong countercurrents didn’t exist. This made them vulnerable to detection by aerial Magnetic Anomaly Detection (MAD) as the war continued. More information is also available at http://www.gibraltar.costasur.com/en/guns.html. 2. Sebastian Balfour and Paul Preston, eds., Spain and the Great Powers in the Twentieth Century (London: Routledge, 1999), pp. 96–184. 3. Denis Smyth, ‘‘Franco and the Allies in the Second World War,’’ in ibid., pp. 188–189; George Hills, Rock of Contention: A History of Gibraltar (London : Robert Hale, 1974), p. 425. 4. Paul Preston, Franco : A Biography (London: HarperCollins, 1993), pp. 348– 349, 360–361, 370. 5. Brian Crozier, Franco: A Biographical History (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1967), pp. 334–335. 6. Benady, Royal Navy at Gibraltar, pp. 150–151. 7. Crozier, Franco, p. 319. 8. Serrano Su~ner had conspired against the Anglophile foreign minister Colonel Juan Beigbeder and connived to succeed him at the head of the Spanish Foreign Ministry, which he finally did on 17 October 1940. Little good it did him. Both Hitler and Ribbentrop disliked him heartily and distrusted him as a pious cleric who was opposed to Nazi Germany. After the Hendaye meeting in October 1940, for instance, Hitler referred to both him and his brother-in-law, the caudillo, as ‘‘Jesuit swine.’’ Preston, Franco, pp. 338, 360, 366, 399–400. 9. In a vast list of requirements prepared by the Spanish Ministry of Trade, the following economic- and military-related items were sought from the Germans : 100 long-barrel guns, 100 mortars, 24 coastal guns, 100 A.A. guns, 3 squadrons of seaplanes; 600,000–700,000 tons of bread grain, 200,000 tons of coal, 100,000 tons of diesel, 200,000 tons of fuel oil, 40,000 tons of lubricating oil, 20,000 tons of petroleum, 35,000 tons of manganese ores, 100,000–150,000 tons of scrap metal, 100,000

CASTING DOUBT ON THE INEVITABILITY SYNDROME

19

tons of paper pulp, 25,000 tons of crude rubber, 100,000 tons of cotton, 48,000 tons of wood pulp, 55,000 tons of manila hemp and jute, 30,000 tons of peanut seed, and 625,000 tons of nitrogen fertilizer. The Charge d’Affaires in Spain (Erich Heberlein) to the German Foreign Ministry, No. 2800, 16 August 1940, Documents on German Foreign Policy [hereafter DGFP], Series D, Vol. X, Document 355 (London: HMSO, 1961), pp. 499–500; unsigned memo, 16 September 1940, DGFP, Vol. XI, Documents 62–62 (London: HMSO, 1961), pp. 81–91; Crozier, Franco, pp. 320–326. 10. Preston, Franco, pp. 394–399. 11. This expression may be loosely translated as follows: ‘‘There is nothing to be done with this character.’’ Ibid., p. 397. 12. Ibid., pp. 399, 416. 13. Ibid., p. 394. 14. Smyth, ‘‘Franco and the Allies,’’ pp. 185–209. 15. Hermann G€oring was certainly of the opinion that Hitler made a critical mistake by not seizing Spain in 1940 and saw it as a missed opportunity to alter the whole course of the war. Hills, Rock of Contention, pp. 429–430; Jack Greene and Alessandro Massignani, The Naval War in the Mediterranean, 1940–1943 (London: Chatham Publishing, 1998), pp. 137–140. 16. Gisela was only finally abandoned on 14 June 1943. Crozier, Franco, pp. 342– 344, 347–348, 351–352. 17. In a telegram from Heberlein to Joachim von Ribbentrop on 4 July 1941, the formation of the Blue Division (Division Azul) was announced. It was to consist of 641 officers, 2,272 NCOs, and 15,780 men. The Charge d’Affaires in Spain to German Foreign Ministry, 4 July 1941, DGFP, Vol. XIII, Document 70 (London: HMSO, 1961), p. 81; Preston, Franco, pp. 438–439. 18. After being appointed British ambassador to Spain in May 1940, Sir Samuel Hoare used food aid, in particular, as a useful magnet to lure Franco away from the Axis cause. He clearly had a measure of success in this venture. It is also interesting to contrast the views of Preston and Crozier on Franco’s ability to deal with both Hitler and the Allies. See ibid., pp. 343–505; Crozier, Franco, pp. 326–413. 19. Another ploy being used by the Allies to court Franco was the formation by the Roman Catholic Church of the ‘‘Sword of the Spirit’’ movement in 1940. Cardinal Hinsley, the Catholic primate in the United Kingdom, was well to the fore in promoting the movement’s aims of championing Christian values at the expense of Nazi paganism. Tom Boardman, Britain and the Spanish Civil War (Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 193. 20. Stanley G. Payne, The Franco Regime, 1936– 1975 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987), pp. 266–342; Ernle Bradford, Gibraltar: The History of a Fortress (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972), pp. 177–194. 21. Douglas Austin, Malta and British Strategic Policy, 1925–1943 (London: Frank Cass, 2004), pp. 65–72. 22. Ibid., pp. 78–79. 23. Ibid., pp. 103, 116. Mussolini’s cynical move in entering the war when France was already on the verge of defeat is perhaps best summed up by President Roosevelt in the telling phrase: ‘‘the hand that held the dagger has struck it into the back of its neighbor.’’ Robert Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932– 1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), p. 228.

20

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

24. Austin, Malta and British Strategic Policy, pp. 187–192. According to the latest scholarship on Allied air and naval operations in the central Mediterranean from June 1940 to May 1943, Maltese-based forces were responsible for sinking 210 enemy merchant ships of more than 500 tons, out of 394 of those that were destroyed by the Allies during this period, a figure amounting to 53.3 percent of the total. 25. Ibid., p. 189. 26. Ibid., pp. 78, 117, 170; Tony Spooner, Supreme Gallantry: Malta’s Role in the Allied Victory, 1939– 1945 (London: John Murray, 1996), pp. 290–298. 27. For a detailed explanation of what these aircraft did for Malta and against the Axis war effort on a day-by-day basis, see two volumes by Christopher Shores and Brian Cull with Nicola Malizia, Malta: The Hurricane Years, 1940–1941 (London: Grubb Street, 1987); and Malta: The Spitfire Year, 1942 (London: Grubb Street, 1991). 28. Richard Woodman, Malta Convoys, 1940– 1943 (London: John Murray, 2003), pp. 57–58, 60, 83–84, 92, 111, 132–133, 156–157, 165, 176–177, 218, 246, 290–291, 317, 320–325, 328, 349, 369–372, 380–381, 392, 394–395, 456–457; Spooner, Supreme Gallantry, pp. 20–24, 123–186. 29. James J. Sadkovich, The Italian Navy in World War II (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994), pp. 79–80, 123–124, 210, 212, 221, 232, 239, 249, 254, 266, 272– 276, 279, 285, 287, 297; Austin, Malta and British Strategic Policy, pp. 76–82; Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, pp. 16, 41, 95, 194, 206, 223–233, 282. 30. Austin, Malta and British Strategic Policy, pp. 153–154; Shores and Cull with Malizia, The Spitfire Year 1942, pp. 677–679. 31. Sadkovich, Italian Navy in World War II, pp. 68–80, 157–170, 175–176, 179– 180, 184–188, 191, 193–200, 219–230, 235–238, 249–284, 288–290, 296, 301–302, 305, 309, 311, 313, 319, 331–332, 336, 345–348. 32. Woodman, Malta Convoys, pp. 56–57, 83, 178–238, 317–388, 468; Greene and Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, pp. 174–191, 232–263. 33. Austin, Malta and British Strategic Policy, pp. 149–154. 34. Laddie Lucas, Malta—The Thorn in Rommel’s Side: Six Months That Turned the War (London: Stanley Paul, 1992); Spooner, Supreme Gallantry, pp. 8–9, 301, 307–309. 35. Ibid., pp. 225–288; Austin, Malta and British Strategic Policy, pp. 170–180. 36. Spooner, Supreme Gallantry, pp. 3–6. 37. Correlli Barnett, Engage the Enemy More Closely: The Royal Navy in the Second World War (New York: W.W. Norton, 1991), p. 491. 38. Ibid., pp. 443–445; Richard Garrett, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau: The Elusive Sisters (Newton Abbot, Devon: David and Charles, 1978), pp. 86–118. 39. David Hamer, Bombers Versus Battleships: The Struggle Between Ships and Aircraft for the Control of the Surface of the Sea (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1998), pp. 137–139; Gerhard Koop and Klaus-Peter Schmolke, Battleships of the Scharnhorst Class: The Scharnhorst and Gneisenau: The Backbone of the German Surface Forces at the Outbreak of War (London: Greenhill Books, 1999), pp. 52, 111–112. 40. John Asmussen, ‘‘Scharnhorst: The History: Operation ‘Cerberus’ (11–13 February 1942),’’ www.scharnhorst-class.dk/scharnhorst/history/scharncerberus.html (accessed 30 October 2006).

CASTING DOUBT ON THE INEVITABILITY SYNDROME

21

41. Hamer, Bombers Versus Battleships, p. 138. 42. Ibid., p. 140; Barnett, Engage the Enemy, p. 447. 43. Hamer, Bombers Versus Battleships, pp. 139–142. 44. Ibid., pp. 142–143; Barnett, Engage the Enemy, pp. 450–451. 45. Hamer, Bombers Versus Battleships, pp. 143–144. 46. Ibid., p. 144. 47. Ibid., pp. 144–145. 48. Ibid., pp. 146–147; Barnett, Engage the Enemy, p. 451. 49. German casualties in Operation Cerberus amounted to only two killed and two wounded. Asmussen, ‘‘Operation ‘Cerberus’ (11–13 February 1942),’’ www.scharnhorst -class.dk/scharnhorst/history/scharncerberus.html; Hamer, Bombers Versus Battleships, p. 147; Barnett, Engage the Enemy, pp. 452–453. 50. Hamer, Bombers Versus Battleships, pp. 147–149. 51. Gilles Perrault, The Secrets of D-Day (London: Arthur Barker, 1965), p. 106. 52. Ibid., pp. 18–26; Jock Haswell, The Intelligence and Deception of the D-Day Landings (London: B.T. Batsford, 1979), pp. 81–102. 53. Given that Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, the head of German Military Intelligence (Abwehr), loathed Hitler and the Nazis, one cannot rule out the possibility that he might have been deliberately slipshod in this matter as a means of undermining the regime he served and yet hated so much. Perrault, Secrets of D-Day, pp. 57–72, 137; Haswell, Intelligence and Deception, pp. 47–50, 57–63. 54. Haswell, Intelligence and Deception, pp. 59–63, 152. 55. Perrault, Secrets of D-Day, pp. 105–106. 56. Ibid., pp. 105–110. 57. Haswell, Intelligence and Deception, pp. 153–154. 58. Churchill was the source of the codename Bodyguard. At the Allied conference held in Tehran in November–December 1943 (Trident), he had declared that ‘‘in war time, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.’’ Ibid., p. 105. 59. Ibid., pp. 106–107. For an in-depth study of the Fortitude plans, see Roger Hesketh, Fortitude : The D-Day Deception Campaign (London: St. Ermin’s Press, 1999); Michael Howard, Strategic Deception in the Second World War (London : Pimlico, 1990), pp. 103–166. 60. Haswell, Intelligence and Deception, pp. 52–53. 61. Ibid., pp. 106–109, 143–144; Perrault, Secrets of D-Day, pp. 164–169, 176– 178, 182–184, 222–224. 62. Hesketh, Fortitude, pp. 168, 191–197; Anthony Cave Brown, Bodyguard of Lies (London: W.H. Allen, 1976), pp. 355–678. 63. Hesketh, Fortitude, pp. 116–124; Haswell, Intelligence and Deception, pp. 110–111, 131–132, 159–160. 64. Haswell, Intelligence and Deception, p. 107. 65. Ibid., pp. 161–164, 168–170. 66. Ibid., pp. 164–168. 67. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the Lebanese former quant and trader and currently the distinguished professor of risk engineering at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University, has much to say on the subject of the existence of black swans and the extraordinary nature of the unexpected and the inexplicable. Taleb should know. After

22

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

beginning life as an irreverent hardback, his first book, Fooled by Randomness (New York: Texere, 2001), was discovered by the wider world and became a best-seller when it emerged in its first paperback version through Random House in 2005. It has subsequently been translated into eighteen languages and counting. His latest book, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, was not so much a black swan as a stone cold certainty (within the constraints of that term)! 68. Taleb, The Black Swan, pp. 135–211.

2

The Unknown and the Unknowable: The Loss of HMAS Sydney Peter J. Dennis

SHIPS SOMETIMES SINK,

and in wartime they frequently sink or are sunk. The oceans of the world are littered with the inevitable detritus of war: the thousands of wrecks of warships and merchant vessels. One estimate puts ship losses in the Second World War at well over 3,000. Measured against that scale, the loss of the Leander class light cruiser HMAS Sydney in November 1941 would hardly warrant more than a passing mention, simply another casualty of the war at sea, albeit it one with the uncommon characteristic that all 645 crew were lost. Yet in naval history circles, especially in Australia, the loss of the Sydney has generated an enormous and ongoing controversy, to the point that in 1997 the minister for defence requested the Joint Committee on Defence, Foreign Affairs, and Trade of the Australian Federal Parliament to enquire into the circumstances of November 1941 and to make recommendations aimed at bringing the controversy to a close. Quite apart from the inherent interest of the story, an examination of the loss of the Sydney, the broader context within which that loss took place, and reference to the manner in which the controversy has subsequently unfolded will draw our attention to some of the imponderables of war: the role of judgment or misjudgment, the uncertain nature of the evidence at the time and subsequently, the importance of trust and the destructive power of mistrust, and the sheer difficulty of knowing. The great 19th-century German historian, Leopold von Ranke, said in the preface to his History of the Latin and Teutonic Peoples, ‘‘History has had assigned to it the task of judging the past, of instructing the present for the benefit of the ages to come. To such lofty functions this work does not aspire. Its aim is merely to show how things really were.’’ If only it was that simple.

24

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

Let me set the scene by sketching in the basic facts that are, to my knowledge, unchallenged by any of the protagonists in this debate. On 11 November 1941, HMAS Sydney, under the command of Captain Joseph Burnett RAN, left Fremantle, Western Australia, to escort the troopship Zealandia to the Sunda Strait in the Netherlands East Indies. Late on the afternoon of 19 November, Sydney intercepted what appeared to be a merchant vessel but which was in fact the German raider Kormoran under Kapitän Theodor Detmers. Seeking to establish a positive identification, and faced with confusing signals from Kormoran, Burnett drew Sydney ever closer to Kormoran, and when Detmers realized he could not maintain his disguise any longer, he gave the order for Kormoran’s guns and torpedoes to be used at close range. In the ensuing exchange both ships were severely damaged, Kormoran ultimately being scuttled on Detmers’s orders, with 345 crew surviving and subsequently being picked up and imprisoned. Sydney was last seen limping off in a south-southeast direction, the only sign of her presence being dimmer and dimmer glows on the night horizon. No survivors were ever recovered alive, and only one body, now acknowledged to have been from the ship, was ever found, and that by accident. We can assume that the ship sank, but its wreck had not been located by 2006. When Sydney failed to arrive at Fremantle, and when after several days it had been established that it had not sailed to some other port (e.g., Singapore or Batavia), a sea and air search was mounted on 24 November and continued for five days. Nothing was found: no debris, no oil slick, no lifeboats, no bodies. Rumors were already circulating about the Sydney, but a formal statement was not issued by the prime minister until 30 November, although the next of kin had been informed by personal telegrams three days earlier. A ‘‘Solemn Memorial Service’’ to commemorate the loss of HMAS Sydney was held in St. Andrew’s Cathedral, Sydney, on 4 December 1941, in one sense to mark the close of this traumatic event. It did anything but. The official history of the Royal Australian Navy in the Second World War—that is, the history commissioned by the Australian government but written independently—devoted some fourteen pages to the Sydney-Kormoran encounter.1 That account, proportionate as it was in a volume that covered the first two years of the war, failed to answer a number of questions about the event, and has itself become one of the targets in the ongoing and burgeoning controversy. The parliamentary enquiry, whose report was tabled in March 1999,2 was partly conceived as another means of bringing closure, by trying to produce as comprehensive a report as possible, drawing on the widest evidence, including hundreds of public submissions from those who felt that ever since 1941 there had been an ongoing government cover-up in some way or other. Again the enquiry’s report failed to satisfy both the critics and the merely curious, even though it was generally regarded as being fair, balanced, and ready to investigate each and every claim, no matter how outlandish. A third attempt was launched. In early 2006 the Australian government,

THE UNKNOWN AND THE UNKNOWABLE

25

apparently without reference to its own Naval Historical Section, announced that it would provide matching funds of up to $1.3 million to underwrite the cost of a search to locate the wreck of the Sydney, in the hope that its discovery would help answer at least some of the questions surrounding the ship’s loss and provide a degree of consolation, however belated, to surviving relatives of Sydney’s crew. Further developments since that announcement, which I will discuss below, have merely added to the mystery. If we reduce the sixty years of controversy down to its essential elements, there are three main questions that await definitive answers:   

Why did Sydney draw so close to Kormoran as to negate its overwhelming advantages? Did Kormoran engage in illegal tactics, which its captain subsequently tried to cover up for fear of being charged with war crimes? Why were there no survivors from Sydney (especially compared with the 80 percent survival rate from Kormoran)?

To these we might add a fourth, which is related less to the engagement itself than to how our understanding of it has been absorbed into Australian memory: Will the discovery of the wreck of the Sydney finally bring closure to this controversy? In trying to answer the first question—what explains the fateful decision to close with Kormoran—we need to be aware of the burden of history or, if you prefer, the weight of past experience. HMAS Sydney was the second Australian warship to bear that name, the name of Australia’s first and largest city. Its predecessor, HMAS Sydney (I), was a Town Class light cruiser that in November 1914, after operations in the southwest Pacific that resulted in the capture of German possessions in the region, was detailed to escort the convoy carrying the first contingent of the Australian Imperial Force to Egypt. As the convoy approached the Cocos Islands in the Indian Ocean, it received a signal from the Cocos Islands transmitting station that an unidentified warship had appeared off the coast. Sydney was detached from the convoy and sent to investigate, and on the morning of 8 November it sighted the Emden, a cruiser belonging to the German Far Eastern Squadron that had sunk many ships in the Bay of Bengal and in the waters around Malaya. Although Emden opened fire first and scored several hits on Sydney, the latter’s superior firepower quickly prevailed, and the captain of the Emden ran his ship aground on a coral reef, where, in the absence of a clear signal that it had surrendered, it received a further pounding from Sydney’s guns. The captain of Sydney radioed back to naval headquarters: ‘‘Emden beached and done for.’’3 That message, and the painting that bears the same title and that now hangs in the Australian War Memorial, entered into Australian memory, but particularly into the annals of the Royal Australian Navy. It was the young service’s first significant battle victory.

26

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

In 1935 HMAS Sydney (II) was commissioned into the Royal Australian Navy. From the beginning it seemed destined to have a glorious career and to live up to the record of its forebear. In July 1940, while stationed in the Mediterranean, it engaged and sank the Italian cruiser Bartolomeo Colleoni off the coast of Crete, the first RAN naval victory of the war, and the only time in the war that a light cruiser sank a heavier warship. Through the dash and daring of its captain, John Collins RAN, and crew, Sydney became the glamor ship of the Mediterranean. In Alexandria it received a hero’s welcome from the assembled British fleet, and on its return to Australia, the crew marched through the streets of its namesake city to a rapturous reception. HMAS Sydney had more than lived up to its heritage. But it was a burden that contributed, albeit subconsciously, to its destruction. When Sydney sighted Kormoran on 19 November 1941, what was Captain Burnett to do? Burnett was one of the original class of 1913 at the newly established Royal Australian Naval College. Upon graduation in 1917, he served on HMAS Australia in the North Sea and on the Royal Navy destroyer HMS Tower. Thereafter he had extensive experience in both the Royal Navy and the Royal Australian Navy, in sea and shore postings. In May 1941 he was appointed to HMAS Sydney, his first sea command. In explaining why Burnett did what he did, some have emphasized his lack of command experience and have suggested that it was essentially this inexperience, which morphed into incompetence, that caused the loss of Sydney. This is too simplistic. There were other factors bearing on Burnett’s decision to close with Kormoran. First, the Admiralty had given instructions as recently as 4 November 1941, that enemy merchant ships were to be captured, and Burnett had received orders from the assistant chief of naval staff that ‘‘if any suspicion exists, the ship should be boarded.’’ There was a clear expectation that, where possible, enemy ships should be captured before they could be scuttled, and that log and code books should be seized before they could be destroyed. This was to be accomplished, of course, while the safety of one’s own ship was protected. The words of Clausewitz come to mind: ‘‘Everything in war is simple, and the simplest thing is complex.’’ Recent experience also played a part in Burnett’s decision. His classmate and rival in the RAN, Captain Harold Farncomb, had been criticized earlier in 1941 when, in command of HMAS Canberra, he had engaged the German ships Coburg and Ketty Brövig and had stood off at a range of 19,000 yards and expended what was subsequently regarded as an excessive amount of ammunition. Burnett had been on the staff in Navy Office when this critical report was written, and he would have been well aware of what a combination of undue caution and an excessive expenditure of scarce ammunition could do to an ambitious officer’s career. We should not, however, make too much of this. Every situation is different, and while Burnett was undoubtedly aware of precedents, he had to judge the particular situation as he saw it. Some critics have argued that he ignored

THE UNKNOWN AND THE UNKNOWABLE

27

established procedures, others that he was too much of a by-the-book captain. The fundamental problem confronting Burnett was how to identify the other ship without endangering his own, let alone trying to capture it and seizing whatever of value could be obtained—cargo, if it was an enemy merchant vessel, or log and code books if it was a disguised raider. And there was always the possibility that a raider, or indeed a supply ship, might be carrying Allied crew who had been captured when their own ship had been sunk. Only close investigation could settle that problem. To close or not to close? Sydney made continuous attempts over the course of an hour to obtain a clear identification of the ship under surveillance. Signals to Kormoran were met with confusing and incomplete answers: Was the other ship attempting to evade identification, or was it genuinely confused and ignorant of the proper procedures and signals (which had only recently been promulgated) ? Sydney, as with all warships, was under strict orders to maintain radio silence, so there could be no question of seeking clarifying information from naval headquarters. Could Burnett be certain in the late afternoon light that the captain of the other ship had been able to read Sydney’s signals? What if the other ship was the trading vessel that it claimed to be? If there was doubt in Burnett’s mind, he could only do one thing: get closer to see if he could make a positive identification. We might conclude that Burnett’s decision arose from a number of factors: inexperience in a command role; a determination to avoid criticism of excessive caution ; a consciousness of his ship’s reputation for decisive action under a previous captain (also a rival from the RANC class of 1913); a conflict, or at least a tension, between the operational procedures and Admiralty expectations in dealing with unknown ships; difficulties in obtaining a positive identification; and a determination to bring the matter to a conclusion before nightfall made further action impossible. The subsequent disaster arose, therefore, in large measure from the imponderables of war. Of course we cannot be certain what prompted Burnett to act as he did: there were no survivors from Sydney to explain the captain’s decision, no ‘‘black box’’ that might reveal telling details. The best we can do is to surmise and theorize: the fog of war prevents us going any further, and the unknown will remain unknowable. The second question that arises from the loss of Sydney is whether Kormoran engaged in illegal tactics. In part this question stems from a belief that the outcome could only be explained by a resort to underhand ruses, since no ship of Sydney’s power and reputation could be so overwhelmingly defeated by a lesser vessel. The argument is as follows: that Kormoran, disguised as the Straat Malakka, continued to fly a false flag so as to lure Sydney closer to the point that its superiority in firepower was negated. Only at the point that it decamouflaged and opened fire did it hoist the German battle ensign, although some have suggested that the German ensign was never hoisted at any stage of the encounter. Kapitän Detmers subsequently expressed concern that he

28

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

might be subjected to a court martial, which has led some commentators to conclude that he, Detmers, knew he was guilty of some sort of illegal behavior and was at pains to cover it up, thus leading to his giving conflicting accounts to his interrogators. The fact is that while tradition favored fighting under one’s proper flag, there was no legal requirement to do so, so long as a participant was willing to run the risk of suffering the fate of those guilty of piracy. The ‘‘niceties of war’’ or the ‘‘practice of the sea’’ seems a feeble argument against operational necessities or taking advantage where possible. The more serious charge against Detmers is that, under a flag of surrender, that is, a white flag, he lured Sydney closer and led Burnett to make preparations to send a boarding party that could prevent the Kormoran being scuttled and that could capture the invaluable log and code books. Thus Kormoran was able to maneuver into a position whereby it could decamouflage within seconds, unleash its guns, and fire its torpedoes, thus delivering the fatal blow to Sydney. The evidence is, at best, inconclusive. The criticism of Detmers relates to the broader third question: Why were there no survivors from Sydney, especially compared with the situation of Kormoran? From the evidence we have (itself a matter of considerable controversy, as discussed below), it seems that while the Kormoran’s opening salvos fell short, its third, fourth, and fifth shots destroyed Sydney’s bridge and gunnery director tower, and at least one of its torpedoes, fired after the eighth or ninth salvos, struck the Sydney near the bow, inflicting major damage. Kormoran was also hit by fire from the one gun turret on Sydney that was still operational, and its engine room was largely put out of action. Sydney tried to ram Kormoran, which successfully evaded collision, and Sydney limped off, burning fiercely and still being fired upon by Kormoran until, at a range of 12,000 yards, Detmers gave the order to cease fire. After inspecting the damage his ship had sustained, Detmers decided to scuttle the ship. The surviving crew were evacuated into lifeboats, charges were set, and at 0125 (1:25 A.M.), 20 November, Kormoran sank. Twenty-six crew members from Kormoran were picked up by the converted liner-troop transport Aquitania in the early morning of 23 November, but it did not break radio silence to announce the recovery, thereby intimating what it might portend, until it reached the coast of Victoria on 27 November. The British tanker MV Trocas picked up a further group of survivors on 24 November and sent a coded signal to this effect to Navy Office. In the following days several more groups of Kormoran survivors reached the shores of Western Australia and were taken into custody. The signal from Trocas triggered a search for Sydney that was called off on the evening of 29 November. When pondering why there were no survivors from Sydney, the first question that arises is why a search was not launched immediately. ‘‘Immediately,’’ however, begs the question: How and when was it determined that Sydney had been damaged and possibly lost? There is no evidence that Sydney sent a signal at any time during the encounter. Claims that it did send a signal

THE UNKNOWN AND THE UNKNOWABLE

29

have been convincingly demonstrated to be the work of the uninformed, the misguided, or the mischievous. Certainly, had Sydney tried to do so, the signal would have been immediately jammed by Kormoran, whose wireless operators were on alert against precisely such an eventuality. Once the action was under way, it seems very likely that Sydney’s communications capacity was destroyed by Kormoran’s early salvos. Of course, those who want to believe in a conspiracy or a cover-up point to the very absence of any such signal in the archival records to show how determined the government was, and has continued to be, to conceal the truth. The fact that no trace of any signal from Sydney has ever been found merely demonstrates to them the truth of their assertion. When the ship did not arrive at Fremantle on its expected date of November 20, there was no immediate cause for concern. Signals were sent to Batavia and Singapore to see if operational requirements had led to its diversion to either of those ports or if conditions at sea had delayed its arrival. Even when those enquiries produced no information, there was not undue concern; because all were aware that radio silence had been impressed on Allied ships, silence on the part of Sydney was to be expected. What needs to be stressed is that for the Australian authorities it was only in retrospect that 19 November was significant ; not until the first group of German survivors were picked up on 23 November and their interrogation began did the events of the previous days become known. Action that might have been able to locate survivors from Sydney in the immediate aftermath of the encounter was therefore inevitably delayed, because apart from the Kormoran survivors no one knew, or even had reasonable cause to suspect, that anything major was amiss. Retrospective knowledge is a luxury not afforded those on the spot. Let us now go back to the encounter and its immediate aftermath. The disproportionate losses between the two ships have led to further charges of illegal tactics, over and beyond those of flying the wrong flags. The most sensational of these charges, put forward by the son of the Royal Navy navigator on Sydney, alleges that the Australian government and the RAN have consistently conspired to conceal essential ‘‘facts’’ about the encounter. Specifically, Michael Montgomery has argued that Kormoran was assisted by a Japanese submarine, and that once Sydney was effectively disabled and the crew abandoned ship, they were machine-gunned in the water. Hence there were no survivors.4 These were serious charges, or would have been if there was a shred of evidence to support them. To the credulous the very lack of evidence is proof in itself, proof that a massive and ongoing conspiracy exists to conceal the truth. How else to explain what happened? A fundamental mistrust of government and a fierce belief that organizations such as the navy ‘‘will stick together for the good of the service’’ helps to blind these protagonists to a demonstrably reasonable explanation, especially when they can peddle wild conspiracy theories.

30

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

Take Montgomery’s claims. The whereabouts of all Japanese submarines were carefully documented by the Japanese, for obvious operational reasons. Those records still exist and show that the movements of every submarine in November can be accounted for. None was anywhere near the SydneyKormoran action. But of course, the conspiracy theorists reply, they would say that, wouldn’t they? There must be additional submarines not on the published list, submarines whose activities were naturally to be concealed. But what this theory fails to consider is the broad context of the war at this stage. In November 1941, Britain was at war with Germany and Italy. The United States was neutral, and there was an uneasy but deteriorating situation with Japan in the Pacific. The conspiracy theorists argue that Churchill wanted to conceal the involvement of the Japanese submarine against an Australian warship from President Roosevelt because that would not be sufficient to bring the United States into the war. What was needed was a Japanese attack on American assets. To give weight to this fanciful scenario, they point to certain documents dated 1941 in the National Archives in London, documents that remained sealed long after the vast majority of material relating to the Second World War was opened to public scrutiny. Here was proof of the conspiracy. Alas, just before the parliamentary enquiry finalized its report, the documents were released. The story they relate is interesting, but it in no way bears on the story of Sydney. Churchill became aware that a senior officer in the Admiralty had previously had very close commercial contact with the Imperial Japanese Navy and the Mitsubishi Company; after being warned, the man in question, a minor Scottish peer, had severed his ties with Japan, but he remained under suspicion, especially in light of his position of director of air materiel at the Admiralty, which gave him virtually unrestricted access to highly sensitive technical information. He was quietly shifted out of the Admiralty, and the matter hushed up. The cover-up, if it was a cover-up, was designed to protect Churchill’s position in relation to Roosevelt, when the United Kingdom and the United States were engaged in highly secret talks about cooperation in a future war: those talks could not be jeopardized by possible security leaks on the British side. Clearly, this had nothing to do with Sydney. But what about the lack of survivors from the Sydney-Kormoran clash? Surely here was proof of criminal behavior? The fact that none of the German survivors ever hinted at such action, let alone confessed to it, was almost proof in itself. What of Detmers’s statements on at least one occasion that he feared being tried by court martial? Was this not an indirect admission that he had transgressed the rules of war? It is clear that the initial interrogation of the Kormoran survivors was fairly amateurish in its conduct—it could hardly be otherwise when the survivors landed on a remote part of the Western Australian coast and were questioned by local garrison troops, for whom the war was surely a distant phenomenon. It is possible, even likely, that in the days the crew spent in their lifeboats, efforts were made to construct a

THE UNKNOWN AND THE UNKNOWABLE

31

minimal, coherent account that would serve to satisfy their interrogators, if ever they were picked up. This was, after all, a wartime situation, and the survivors were under no obligation to provide more than their name, rank, and serial number. Why would they go out of their way to offer additional information? Inconsistencies in their various accounts might well be explained by the fact that these were men who, after all, had had a traumatic experience both on ship and in their lifeboats and rafts. Detmers’s comment about the possibility of being court-martialed could mean a number of things: for example, that he feared that his success against all odds might be put down to illegal behavior, as the only way of explaining the loss of Sydney, to which all the initial advantages accrued. The problem is that the German accounts are the only ones we have: if they are dismissed as self-serving statements designed to conceal dark misdeeds, then we are left with no evidence at all ; if we accept them, even if reluctantly, can we pick and choose which bits we take to be reliable and which bits we can discard? It is at best a perilous course. To return to the matter of survivors: if we broadly accept the Kormoran accounts, it would appear that no attempt by Sydney was made in the immediate aftermath of the encounter to abandon ship. Perhaps—that fateful word!— if he was still alive, Burnett hoped that the ship might yet be saved; perhaps the exchange of fire had so damaged Sydney’s lifeboats that abandoning ship did not at that stage seem to be a realistic alternative to remaining on board and trying to douse the fires. Montgomery would have us believe that crew from Sydney did leave the ship and were then machine-gunned in the water. There is no evidence for this, but that has not stopped one of the otherwise most thoughtful analysts of the encounter, Dr. Tom Frame, a Ph.D. graduate of the University of New South Wales and subsequently (but no longer) Anglican Bishop to the Australian Defence Force, from concluding: It is not being mean-spirited to assume nothing good about Detmers. He was just as disposed to committing a war crime as any other professional German naval officer. . . . While Detmers should not be damned simply because he was a German naval officer, deserving to be judged independently for his own conduct, he suffers from being a member of an officer group whose individual standards of honour and integrity need to be proved rather than assumed.5

Not only is this guilt by association, it’s by very distant association. Detmers had been continually at sea since December 1940, his only contact with other naval officers being very occasional rendezvous with his supply ship. Given that no bodies were ever found, it is not possible to provide any evidence to support the machine-gunning argument. What of the lifeboats? The most careful and dispassionate analysis of the action, that by Wesley Olsen,6 suggests that the wooden boats were stowed on the upper decks of Sydney, one of the areas subjected to heavy fire from Kormoran’s 15- and 2-cm guns, and that they were especially vulnerable to shell and splinter

32

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

damage, and that, further, the crane that was needed to lower them into the water may well have been out of action, either by Kormoran’s guns or by the resulting fire on Sydney. All that were left for Sydney’s crew were several Carley floats, canvas-sided, wooden plank-floored rafts that provided virtually no protection over prolonged periods. This lack of protection was borne out by the earlier case of HMS Neptune, which had sunk in the Mediterranean in December 1941 after running into a minefield. Sixteen men of the Neptune had scrambled on board a Carley float, but fifteen of them died of exposure within four days. Sadly, the entire Neptune crew of 745 officers and men, save for that one survivor in the Carley float, were lost. One Carley float, most probably from Sydney, was subsequently recovered, and the presence of numerous small holes along its side suggested to some that here was further proof of the machine-gunning of the Sydney survivors. However, a forensic examination concluded that the holes were caused by ‘‘shrapnel from at least one high-explosive shell detonating on or near the main structure of the ship and ricocheting into the float. There is no evidence of damage by small arms fire.’’ The report went on to say that there was no evidence of the float having been exposed to the fires that had broken out on Sydney. These two conclusions, together with the location of the float when it was recovered, point to its being blown off the Sydney early in the course of the action, before the fires took hold and before the float was manned by survivors. The machine-gunning theory collapses, at least to the extent that it relies on the so-called evidence of the Carley float. As to the absence of any field of debris on the surface of the ocean, we are again left to speculate. Sydney was last seen moving slowly away from the Kormoran, its fires being eventually the only indication of its increasingly distant presence. None of the Kormoran survivors ever mentioned any sound or provided any visual suggestion of an explosion. Had there been an explosion, the likelihood of major pieces of wreckage ultimately surfacing would have been all the greater. The absence of such wreckage, and the lack of all but a few bits and pieces that might have come from Sydney, suggest that rather than being destroyed in a massive explosion, the ship lost buoyancy and capsized. Those who might still have been alive on board, possibly trying to douse or contain the fires, were sucked down with the ship when she went down. Another Carley float, containing a body, washed ashore on Christmas Island in early February 1942. The body had clearly been exposed to the elements for some time: its eyes and nose had been pecked out by birds, and the flesh from the right arm was missing, apparently stripped by fish as it hung over the side. A postmortem revealed nothing about the identity of the corpse, which was subsequently buried in a grave, apparently unmarked, in the Old European Cemetery. A local resident who attended the funeral later said that the medical examination had revealed that the body had an almost perfect set of teeth, a rarity in the 1940s, which has led several families to claim that the

THE UNKNOWN AND THE UNKNOWABLE

33

body was that of a relative who was a member of Sydney’s crew. Shortly after the burial had taken place, Japanese forces occupied Christmas Island. For some decades the official position was that this Carley float, and hence the body, had not come from Sydney, but persistent and painstaking studies by a number of independent enquirers have reversed that position, and it is now accepted that on the balance of probabilities, there is no other ship that could be reliably regarded as the source. The parliamentary enquiry recommended that steps be taken to locate the grave, in the hope that this might yield further information on the circumstances surrounding Sydney’s loss and perhaps provide closure to at least one family, if a positive identification could subsequently be made. That proved to be extremely difficult. There were no extant records from the previous Christmas Island administration to show where an individual grave might be, and even the general location of the now-disused cemetery was by no means certain. In 2001 an official search was made, based on the evidence of a former resident of the island. Huge amounts of earth and debris were moved, and nothing was found. That disappointing result, as well as a failure on the part of interested parties to reach any agreed positions (except that ‘‘something’’ had to be done), led the chief of navy to conclude that there was insufficient evidence, or even commonality among the various parties, to justify the expenditure of public funds to carry out a further search, let alone a search for the wreck of the Sydney. If we leave aside the more extreme positions taken by such organizations as the ‘‘End Secrecy on Sydney’’ group, the various individuals and nongovernment bodies that have taken a passionate interest in the question of Sydney have produced an enormous mass of detailed, often scientifically rigorous information that has made it difficult to resist calls for further action. The success in finding the Titanic showed that discovery and recovery at great depths was no longer an impossibility. The problem was that the area that it was proposed to search was large, and the techniques not yet as established as those used in the Titanic search. As Robert Ballard, the discoverer of Titanic, remarked about the possibility of locating Sydney, ‘‘It’s not like looking for a needle in a haystack, because the haystack hasn’t yet been identified.’’ It would appear that further research and a refinement of the methods of locating wrecks have led the government to agree to fund, in part, a search for Sydney. The prime minister, John Howard, is known to have a deep and genuine interest in Australian military history, and it would appear that he personally intervened to give impetus to the search. The Parliamentary Committee’s report could not help but be impressed by the depth of feeling in the community, and especially by the sense that the government had somehow failed in its duty to those who had given their lives in the service of their country, and to their surviving families and to the community in general. Further developments in techniques for locating wrecks have made the chances of success considerably greater. However, the government’s offer of matching

34

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

funds was tied to the search being restricted to the northern area favored by most but by no means all interested parties, and there is a concerted campaign to have the area of the proposed search shifted to a more southerly location, or at least significantly widened. Meanwhile, on the basis of new personal and photographic information, a further search for the burial site of the unknown sailor was carried out on Christmas Island in July 2006. After two weeks of excavation a body was recovered; it seems to be that of the man washed ashore in 1942. Extensive forensic tests are now being carried out in Sydney and Canberra. As the press briefing in October 2006 made clear, identification will be to some extent a process of elimination, and that process will be a lengthy one. Absolute certainty of identification is by no means guaranteed. Even at this early stage, however, two observations are worth noting. First, the body has extensive dental work, which would seem to counter the claims, particularly by one family, that the man in question is their brother, noted for his perfect set of teeth. Second, and possibly more significant, there is a wound in the head, either a bullet wound or a shrapnel wound. Does this support the massacre theory? Meanwhile, controversy continues to surround the proposed search for the wreck of the Sydney. The government’s financial offer to the HMAS Sydney search group has been rejected as inadequate (projected costs having risen significantly since the original estimates were made) and unacceptably restrictive in how the funds could be expended, with the possibility that the group could be exposed to huge financial penalties. Public interest, outside the Sydney pressure groups, has not resulted in any surge of donations, perhaps because the issue is not one that resonates with the public at large, or perhaps because there is a feeling that such matters are properly ones for the government, of whatever political persuasion, to fund adequately. But are we in danger of losing perspective here ? One of the inevitable tragedies of war is that men and women die in circumstances that cannot be determined with precision. ‘‘No known grave’’ is an all-too-common epitaph in both world wars. On the Western Front, the Menin Gate at Ypres stands as a silent testament to the 57,000 men, including more than 6,000 Australians, who lost their lives in the Flanders campaign and who have no known grave. The Australian National Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux records the 11,000 men who died on the Somme who have no known grave, including the 3,000 who died in the Battle of Fromelles in July 1916, the greatest single loss ever suffered by Australians in war. The missing-in-action (MIA) phenomenon in the United States has created an utterly poisonous climate, and far from bringing relief to the families of those affected, has in large measure preyed on their grief for ulterior political purposes. The word closure has achieved a currency unknown in previous generations, when the personal loss and tragedy of war were accepted with a public stoicism, even if that masked a lasting, and understandable, private grief. Closure for the immediate family is a very real

THE UNKNOWN AND THE UNKNOWABLE

35

and entirely understandable phenomenon; it becomes less and less meaningful the more distant the relationship becomes. And if the search for Sydney is successful, what will the wreck reveal ? Some hope that discovery of the wreck will provide conclusive proof of the exact circumstances that led to the loss of Sydney, while the more extreme protagonists argue that locating and examining the wreck will prove that here has been a concerted conspiracy to conceal the fact that acts of criminality sealed Sydney’s fate. And what if the search fails to locate the wreck? In that case, having conceded the principle of searching, it will be very difficult for the government to say this is a one-shot undertaking. There will be continuing pressure to look elsewhere. And if the wreck is located, what then? The legislative process of declaring the site a war grave will not protect the wreck from the depredations of those less concerned with sensitivity than with commercial profit. The case of the Titanic is not exactly analogous, but it does provide disturbing food for thought.

CONCLUSION The HMAS Sydney Memorial, in Geraldton, Western Australia, the place in Australia where Sydney was last sighted on its final voyage, eloquently represents the reality. A dome consisting of 645 seagulls, one for each member of Sydney’s crew, looks out over the waters of the Indian Ocean. To one side there is a large iron sculpture representing the bow of Sydney. In front, staring out to sea, stands the lone figure of a woman, watching, waiting, wondering. The waiting may or may not be over one day, depending on whether Sydney is ever located; but the wondering will surely persist. For all the enquiries and investigations into the loss of Sydney, the central questions will remain unanswered, because they cannot be answered. ‘‘To show how things really were’’ is not possible in the case of Sydney: we must be content, however difficult that might be, with the unknown and the unknowable.

EPILOGUE Since November 2006, when this essay was delivered as a public lecture, there have been a number of developments that directly and indirectly relate to the Sydney saga. Several claims to have located the ship resulted in a flurry of newspaper articles, the Sydney Morning Herald breathlessly claiming in August 2007, ‘‘We found HMAS Sydney.’’ When local divers ridiculed the story and showed that the supposed wreck was in fact an abandoned prawn trawler, the paper retreated into an undignified silence. Earlier, an article in the Bulletin claimed not only to have found the Sydney but also to have

36

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

identified in close proximity a Japanese aircraft carrier! The story was little more than a one-day sensation, not least since the ‘‘discoverer’’ declined to reveal any details, but it did set off a vigorous correspondence from individuals who variously claimed an ongoing cover-up by the government or a concerted effort by unnamed persons to denigrate anyone who dared to challenge the official version.7 These allegations were nothing new, but what gave them added force was the fact that in two separate instances, long-standing mysteries had recently been solved, suggesting that real effort and application could bring about a similar result for Sydney. From the Vietnam War the remains of three Australian soldiers killed in action but not recovered at the time were located, identified, and returned to Australia for burial. The success of the search was due in large part to the untiring efforts of Vietnam veterans acting in a private capacity, and seemed to demonstrate just what could be achieved by persistence in the apparent face of official inaction. Secondly, from a distant war, a Belgian workman unearthed the bodies of five World War I soldiers who had been buried in a common grave that was subsequently lost. Careful historical research and DNA testing made it possible to identify positively two of the soldiers, and all five were reinterred in a war cemetery in October 2007. A third soldier was subsequently identified, and his headstone was changed to identify him by name. (His two nephews, both octogenarians, were, following recent government policy, flown to Belgium for the rededication of the headstone : on being asked what this meant for them, they replied that it gave them a chance to say ‘‘goodbye’’ to their uncle, but also to say ‘‘hello,’’ because their father had never spoken of his brother killed in the war. This surely gave a new meaning to the notion of closure.) Meanwhile the books continue to appear, adding little that is new but maintaining the general cover-up argument.8 The most significant breakthrough came in March 2008, when a team led by David Mearns, who had earlier discovered the wreck of HMS Hood, located the Kormoran on 12 March, and five days later, found the wreck of the Sydney. It was a triumphant success, and one that came remarkably easily when measured against earlier predictions of the difficulties involved. In the media storm that followed, several newspapers again displayed their ignorance of the essential facts. The tabloid (Sydney) Daily Telegraph (18 March) gave a two-page spread to the recollections of several men who had served on Sydney before being transferred to other ships. One, an eighty-six-year-old veteran, laid the blame for the disaster on Captain Burnett, or, in the words of the ill-informed reporter who had clearly failed to do even a basic check, on the ‘‘arrogance of the British captain of the ill-fated HMAS Sydney.’’ Burnett’s sons, both of whom had commendable careers in the RAN and who have maintained a dignified silence in the face of years of accusations about their father, might well have taken particular exception to this slur, given that Burnett was born in New South Wales and was a graduate of the Royal Australian Naval College, Jervis Bay. The Canberra Times, which aspires in its

THE UNKNOWN AND THE UNKNOWABLE

37

masthead ‘‘To serve the National City and through it the Nation,’’ proclaimed (18 March) in banner headlines, ‘‘After 66 years Australia can mourn the lost crew of HMAS Sydney.’’ What, an observer might reasonably ask, had the families of the crew, not to mention the wider community, been doing since 1941? More to the point, the location of both wrecks, and the stunning photographs that were produced, were significant for several reasons. First, the Kormoran was almost exactly where German survivors had said it had been scuttled, thus giving a broader credence to their collective accounts of the battle (and in the process utterly destroying the credibility of those who had insisted on a search further south, an insistence largely, though not entirely, based on oral evidence that even generously could only be described as flimsy).9 Second, photographs of Sydney showed that the bow of the ship had been severed, causing an almost instantaneous sinking, which is the most likely explanation of the total loss of life from Sydney, compared with the high survival rate of the Kormoran crew. Following the discovery of the two wrecks, the chief of the defence force (CDF) announced a public inquiry into the sinking of the Sydney ‘‘and related events subsequent thereto.’’ Submissions from interested parties were called for, and the president of the inquiry, the Hon. T. H. Cole, said that he intended to interview Kormoran survivors (if they were willing) and to trawl the archives of the world, including those in Japan, in order finally to determine what had happened and to put to rest conspiracy theories about thirdparty involvement and government cover-ups. Only a few voices expressed any doubt as to the wisdom of this exercise, among them Tom Frame and the journalist Brian Toohey. Frame insisted (Canberra Times, 10 April 2008) that there was no newly discovered cache of documents that would explain what had been a mystery for so long, a position markedly at odds with that of the deputy prime minister, who, in announcing the inquiry together with the CDF, spoke of ‘‘23-shelf kilometres of yet-to-be examined documents pertaining to Sydney.’’ Toohey, writing in the Canberra Times (6 April 2008) in the context of the new Labor government’s announced intention of cutting government spending, labeled the inquiry a waste of money, arguing that ‘‘a fiscally conservative government . . . would leave the job to naval historians and amateur enthusiasts.’’ Meanwhile, extensive DNA testing has failed to identify the body washed up on Christmas Island, which has been reburied in the cemetery at Geraldton. Tests did, however, establish that the piece of shrapnel found in the skull was of German origin, a serious blow to those who continue to claim that Japanese machine gun fire claimed many of Sydney’s crew, not, it should be noted, that evidence or lack of evidence has played any real part in their fantasizing. A variation on the massacre claim alleges that the Japanese submarine crew murdered the Sydney survivors, and were in turn killed by the Kormoran crew.10

38

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

There are few signs that the doubters and critics will accept that they have been shown to be wrong. Michael Montgomery wrote to the commission of enquiry to say that while his original estimate of where the action had taken place was now proved to be ‘‘inaccurate,’’ ‘‘in almost all other important respects the arguments of my book . . . have been borne out by the very considerable body of evidence which has emerged since the publication of its final edition in 1986.’’11 The claim is, in every respect, breathtaking. It should hardly come as a surprise, however. Despite all the evidence, not a single critic has retracted his or her accusations, outrageous though some of them are, or apologized for the slurs he or she has made on past actors in the drama or on current analysts. None has seen fit to acknowledge that after all the investigations, charges, and countercharges, cries of ‘‘cover-up’’ and worse, the account written by the official historian G. Hermon Gill, relying in large part on the evidence of the German survivors, is remarkably accurate in depicting what happened and where. Dr. Tom Lewis, a former naval officer (which immediately disqualifies him in the eyes of the conspiracy theorists) and a historian, has written powerfully of these critics: These theorists might consider what they are doing with their allegations. They are bringing harrowing images into the minds of the family and friends of those who went down with the Sydney. They are also alleging illegal, unethical, and even criminal behaviour by legions of faithful servicemen and women, WWII politicians and government workers, and the same cohorts of people from other countries too. They should be ashamed, and they should be silent.12

The commission’s report was made public in August 2009. It, and the transcripts of the hearings, constitute a devastating and comprehensive demolition of every conspiracy theory and alleged cover-up. The president of the inquiry left no doubt as to his considered view: ‘‘Each of the frauds, theories and speculations . . . was investigated. None has any substance whatsoever.’’13 The matter should end there.

NOTES 1. G. Hermon Gill, Royal Australian Navy, 1939–1942 (Canberra: Australian War Memorial, 1957). 2. Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence, and Trade, Report on the Loss of HMAS Sydney (Canberra: The Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, 1999). 3. The first signal was rather more prosaic: ‘‘Enemy beached and done for.’’ 4. Michael Montgomery, Who Sank the Sydney? (North Ryde: Cassell Australia, 1981). 5. Tom Frame, HMAS Sydney: Loss and Controversy (Rydalmere : Hodder Headline Australia, 1998), pp. 218–220.

THE UNKNOWN AND THE UNKNOWABLE

39

6. Wesley Olsen, Bitter Victory: The Death of HMAS Sydney (Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press, 2000). 7. See The Bulletin, letters, 30 May 2007. 8. For example, John Samuels, Somewhere Below: The Sydney Scandal Exposed (Sydney: Halstead Press, 2007), alleges criminality and talks of the involvement of a Japanese submarine and the mass burial of Sydney bodies in the sand dunes of Western Australia. The front cover depicts Sydney against the backdrop of a Japanese battle flag; the author is described (perhaps self-described) on the rear cover of the book as a ‘‘skilled historian.’’ It is clear that the ‘‘massacre in the sand dunes’’ story has been dealt a decisive blow. One of its proponents, under intense cross-examination in the Cole enquiry, has admitted that he has no evidence to back his claims (which expand the story to insist that following the Sydney-Kormoran battle, in which a Japanese submarine fired one or more torpedoes at Sydney, the captain of the Kormoran then had the Japanese executed by his German crew). The ‘‘evidence’’ for this is essentially two unsigned and undated letters, allegedly from men involved in burying the Australian bodies. When pressed by counsel assisting the enquiry, the witness admitted that he had ‘‘[no] evidence. Not yet, no.’’ Canberra Times, 13 November 2008, p. 10. 9. See, for example, Glenys McDonald, Seeking the Sydney: A Quest for Truth (Nedlands : University of Western Australia Press, 2005), which provides an account of the Fremantle seminar that was rewritten after it was pointed out to her by a third party (following her letter to the Geraldton paper) that the transcript of my comments did not bear out what she claimed I had said. The inconsistency in her account is hardly surprising: subsequent development, culminating in the discovery of the two wrecks, has shown her insistence on a different location to be as accurate as the oral evidence on which it was largely based. Not in the least chastened or embarrassed by the total demolition of her theories, she emerged as the public face of the Sydney search effort and was a very visible television presence on board the ship that located both wrecks. 10. http://www.defence.gov.au/sydneyii/transcripts.htm, 17 (12 November 2008), 755:41, 772 :29 (accessed 2 June 2009). 11. E-mail submission, 20 May 2008: http://www.defence.gov.au/sydneyii/ Index%20to%20Submissions.htm (accessed 10 November 2008). 12. Tom Lewis, ‘‘The Truth about Sydney,’’ Australian Warship, no. 45 (2008), pp. 18–19. This article was one of three submissions that Lewis made to the commission of enquiry: http://www.defence.gov.au/sydneyii/Index%20to%20Submissions.htm (accessed 10 November 2008). 13. http://www.defence.gov.au/sydneyii/FinalReport/index.html (accessed 13 August 2009).

3

The Madness of General George Daniel K. R. Crosswell

I have greater ability than these other people and it comes from, for lack of a better word, what we must call greatness of soul based on a belief—an unshakable belief—in my destiny. —Patton Diary . . . a tactless, high-strung, profane officer with a one-cell, juvenile mind. —John P. Marquand, ‘‘The General’’1 TWO THINGS ABOUT General George S. Patton Jr. seem apparent. First, as acknowledged master of mobile combined arms operations, Patton emerged as the outstanding Allied field commander in the war in Europe. Patton devoted his entire life to a single-minded preparation for a chance to win the laurels as one of history’s great captains. When those opportunities arose, he did not falter. Second, Patton was mad. Not barking at the moon or falling down and eating the rug mad, but mad nonetheless. Few would quibble with the first proposition, even if reluctant to elevate Patton into the pantheon of great captains. While Patton’s eccentricities feature in any treatment of his life and career, commentators make allowances—as did his contemporaries—for his garish and intemperate behavior, irrational beliefs, and hyperaggressiveness based on the notion all men brushed with genius must be a little mad. The reverse side of the coin equally applies ; Patton’s purported genius must be a consequence of his own particular madness. Military historians do not always command the high opinion of academic colleagues. There remains the nagging supposition that military history falls short of authentic scholarship, in part because those who write military history never quite succeed in distancing themselves from their subjects. Military historians seemingly derive an indecorous enjoyment from their discipline, and

42

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

their discipline deals with the societal pathogen of war. Historians of war preserve a quaint antiquarian attitude about past heroes. Some subject matter remains sacrosanct ; sexual peccadilloes, financial peculation, and mental disease top the list. The vast majority of works on Patton tend toward the saccharine if not hagiographic; but even the more serious treatments of Patton’s life inadequately come to grips with the darker side of Patton’s strange persona. In his outstanding biography, Carlo D’Este ascribes Patton’s excessive personality traits to his adolescent struggles with dyslexia. Stanley Hirshson’s less sympathetic biography dismisses the dyslexia claim but makes no real attempt to analyze Patton’s complex psyche other than being preoccupied with the general’s fixation on reincarnation. Both authors fall prey to a certain reductionism. Martin Blumenson, biographer and authoritative editor of Patton’s papers, goes much further. He claims that the general’s aberrant behavior stemmed from alterations in Patton’s neurochemistry generated by a subdural hematoma, a product of one too many blows to the head.2 Patton’s story embodies the old cliche : a thin line separates madness and genius. Patton spent his adult life executing a high-wire act walking that line. The demons that drove Patton explain why he succeeded so brilliantly as a soldier and also account for the abject failures that bookended his command in Europe—the slapping episode in Sicily that nearly derailed his career and his removal from command of the 3rd Army for failure to execute the deNazification program in occupied Bavaria. He was driven by his own set of demons, demons whose genesis rested not in dyslexia or faith in reincarnation or even brain trauma—though all three conjoined—but in a lifelong struggle with a serious mental disorder.3

THE ‘‘NAME’’ There was nothing conventional about Patton’s family and childhood. Born on 11 November 1885 into a wealthy southern Californian family, George Smith Patton Jr. entered the world with every advantage. But behind its upper-crust Victorian facade, the Patton household harbored some troubling phantoms. Like three generations of Pattons before him, George Patton Sr.’s station in life derived less from personal accomplishment than from marrying up. It was not as though George Sr. failed—he could point to business success, social connections, and a failed run for the U.S. Senate—so much as he never quite succeeded. What he wanted in life was a military career ; what he longed for was military glory. Achieving neither, he determined his infant son would fulfill his dreams. George Sr. obsessed about the Patton name. He contrived an ancient genealogy, tracing the Patton line back to Highland nobles and, through marriage, English kings. He conjured up visions of tidewater cavaliers and the first

THE MADNESS OF GENERAL GEORGE

43

families of Virginia. The truth proved something much less inspiring. The first Patton in America arrived in 1770 as an indentured clerk. The Pattons were professional men—merchants, lawyers, physicians, and politicians—who, like other Virginia parvenus, purchased lands in the Piedmont and affected landed status. But not all was chimerical. Robert Patton, that first American Patton, prospered in the tobacco trade and married the daughter of Brigadier General (BG) Hugh Mercer, a genuine Scottish patriot who died a hero’s death commanding a brigade in the War for American Independence. Robert’s son, John Mercer Patton, sired twelve children; seven sons, four of them Virginia Military Institute (VMI) graduates, fought for the Confederacy. Four Pattons rose to colonel; two of them died at the head of their troops. The first George S. Patton, the general’s grandfather, briefly commanded a brigade in the Shenandoah campaign in 1864 and fell mortally wounded at Winchester. His brother, Waller Tazewell Patton, commanded the 7th Virginia Infantry at Gettysburg. Storming the ‘‘Angle’’ during the ill-fated Confederate assault on that fateful final day, ‘‘Taz’’ Patton dramatically fell at the ‘‘high tide of the Confederacy’’ as he mounted the stone wall atop Cemetery Ridge.4 The widow Susan Patton and son George left war-ravaged Virginia in 1866 for southern California, there to reunite with her lawyer brother who settled in Los Angeles in the 1850s. In 1870 she married a first cousin of her late husband, another VMI graduate, Virginia colonel, and lawyer, G. Hugh Smith. Carrying on family tradition, Patton’s father returned to Virginia to attend VMI, intent to follow the drum. A fine student, Patton rose to first captain, the top-ranked cadet in his class. Owing to family financial circumstances, however, he returned to California, forsaking his dream of military glory. Like the Pattons before him, he entered the legal profession, speculated in real estate, dabbled in Democratic politics, and married above his station. Soon after returning to Orange County, George began courting Ruth Wilson, the daughter of one of the wealthiest land barons in southern California. Ruth’s sister Annie had already decided she would spend her life a spinster together with her ‘‘ever present cherished companion’’ sibling on their estate. Ruth’s marriage to Patton never altered the plan. Annie even appeared on the railroad platform to accompany the newlyweds on their honeymoon. Somehow they dissuaded her from going, but that proved the last time Annie would be exiled from their lives. Annie—known as Nannie—dedicated her life to the couple and, after George Jr.’s arrival, ‘‘the boy.’’ While George Sr. lived, she took up residence with the Pattons: in all matters outside the boudoir she acted as surrogate wife and mother.5 George Sr. could not entrust his son’s education to outsiders; George Jr. would be schooled at home. So George Jr. did not attend prep school until age twelve. Rather than teaching, George Sr. engaged in evangelizing. He valued character formation over the three Rs. Every night father and son sat in the living room before the fire as George Sr. recounted the tales of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, of the Patton colonels who died warriors’ deaths,

44

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

of the four Pattons, one still a VMI boy-cadet, who fought at New Market; and Hugh Mercer, killed at the head of his troops at Princeton. In addition to stepgrandfather Smith, Patton heard firsthand accounts of the Civil War from Col. John Singleton Mosby, the infamous Virginia guerrilla chieftain who worked for the Southern Pacific Railway in Los Angeles and frequently visited the Patton home. This mythologized image of the glories and values of Old Virginia, the Lost Cause, and the romantic cavalier ideal of courageously dying in a hail of enemy fire left an indelible mark upon Patton’s young psyche. ‘‘All his dreams of glory and the sword were handed on to George,’’ observed his granddaughter, Ruth Ellen Patton, ‘‘and he lived his dream life vicariously through the young man he either referred to as ‘the boy’ or ‘my hero son.’’’6 For formal lessons, Patton’s father and aunt taught via a ‘‘great books’’ approach. At age seven George Sr. read him the Iliad and the Odyssey. Aunt Nannie, as in all things, assumed the burden of Patton’s early education, reading him Pilgrim’s Progress, the Lives of Plutarch, The March of Xenophon, Alexander the Great, Greek mythology and the Norse sagas, the works of Scott and Kipling, the plays of Shakespeare, and everything she could find on Napoleon and the Civil War—and especially the Bible. Patton could recite entire sections of the Old Testament from memory.7 During these long reading sessions Georgie often appeared to drift away as he sat constantly twirling his long golden ringlets. George Sr. wondered if the child might be a little addled, which could explain his reluctance to subject Georgie to a conventional education. He need not have worried. The impressionable boy absorbed everything he heard and locked it away in his remarkably retentive memory. Not daydreaming, young George built castles in the sky, embedding himself into the stories he heard. ‘‘I used to fancy that I was [King] Arthur,’’ Patton revealed, ‘‘I really used to be quite sure I was.’’ As he later admitted, as ‘‘a boy dreamer’’ he had ‘‘so long lived in a world of imaginary battles that they seem real and every thing else unreal.’’8 As further evidence, young George fashioned a play-sword and inscribed it with ‘‘Lt. Gen. G. S. Patton’’—his destiny, at least in his preadolescent mind, already had been fixed. ‘‘The Boy’’ stood at the center of the family’s universe ; he could do no wrong in the eyes of his doting father and adoring aunt. The strong-willed Nannie dominated the household, and her nephew became the object of all her warped attentions. Georgie was beyond reproach ; she spoiled him terribly from her own considerable wealth. Normally the mildest reproach produced floods of tears. If George seriously transgressed and faced discipline—which happened rarely—Nannie swooned, took to her bed, and called for a doctor. Effectively, Mrs. Patton—who remains a shadowy figure—was sidelined as mother. As pampered favorite, Patton learned early how to manipulate his parents and aunt to get whatever he desired. The birth of a sister sharpened his skills. Denied any semblance of a normal childhood, Patton believed he was special; rules never applied.

THE MADNESS OF GENERAL GEORGE

45

Patton also inherited something else from his father and aunt—a bipolar syndrome. Research indicates that children are seven times more prone to develop manic-depressive illnesses when first-degree relatives suffer from the disorder. Both George Sr. and Aunt Nannie exhibited marked symptoms of the mental ailment. Nannie was ‘‘high-strung’’—Victorian code for mentally unbalanced. In her case she probably inherited her mental condition from her mother, whom a family member described as ‘‘lost in fitful contemplations of Jesus and in various nervous disorders.’’9 Nannie bounced between mood extremes, fueled by her obsession with the Pattons. George Sr. felt a life-long frustration and deep-seated feelings of inadequacy because of his failure to follow his father’s soldier path. Although he could point to many accomplishments in business and politics, he knew they mostly derived from his wife’s inherited wealth and family’s connections. As he grew older, George Sr. experienced extended bouts of deep depression. Both buried their frustrations in the bottle ; George Sr. eventually died of acute alcoholism. Nannie suffered a complete breakdown when George Sr. died; after the funeral she left the Patton home never to return. Both George Sr. and Aunt Nannie lived their lives of transference through Patton.

THE TRANSFORMATION In September 1903 Patton headed east, following the path of two generations of Pattons, and matriculated at VMI. For Patton, this period of his life represented far more than the first step toward adulthood and a military career.10 The onset symptoms associated with bipolar disorders coincide in males with late adolescence or early adulthood—those stages most crucial in the character formation of an individual. Typically they correlate with some intense emotional trauma or life stressor and possess some genetic and/or environmental precursors. Patton was predisposed genetically to suffer from the disorder, a condition exacerbated by the peculiarities of his upbringing. Leaving the safe confines of home and family and attending university represents a rite of passage creating a certain amount of anxiety in anyone. In Patton’s case, this was magnified. In his sheltered childhood idyll in southern California, Patton acted as he pleased, with his affluent and overindulgent family catering to his every whim. ‘‘Georgie has never been away from home,’’ wrote his father, ‘‘& is in a way a pet.’’11 Now he entered an environment over which he had no control. Much more than mere apprehension about leaving home dogged Patton. He suffered under extreme pressure not just to graduate but also to succeed and succeed brilliantly. Although VMI served only as a steppingstone—both he and his father set their sights on West Point—nonetheless Patton had to prove himself worthy of the family legacy. He aimed at becoming first captain like his father. More than that, he carried the hopes and dreams of his

46

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

father—and by extension his ancestors—with him. Patton not only had to live up to ‘‘the Name’’ but also to lay the foundation of a dazzling career. ‘‘I may be a dreamer but I have a firm conviction,’’ he vowed to his father. ‘‘I will do my best to attain what I consider . . . my destiny.’’12 For the first time in his life Patton confronted his demons. At some point during the trip east Patton underwent a strange transformation. He left hypersensitive, sweet-tempered, and creative Georgie behind in California and reinvented himself in the guise of a tough and invincible warrior. He spent one year in Virginia. At VMI he put together an erratic but satisfactory academic record in the less demanding environment there, winning promotion to first corporal as the outstanding plebe (freshman). More impressive, he earned not a single demerit. His father’s tireless politicking won the coveted West Point appointment. Now Patton began the process anew, this time on a far larger and challenging stage. Patton’s affected personality was contrived to deceive others into believing he was somebody entirely different; the only person he ended up deceiving was himself.13 To a large extent he succeeded. All of the character traits of the Patton of legend were already discernible at West Point. He spent the remainder of his life honing his personal image of how a leader ought to look and behave. For hours Patton stood in front of a mirror perfecting his war face. His famous scowl, literally a masque, became part of his persona. Always dressed impeccably, he changed his uniform as many as fifteen times a day. He braced (stood at attention) longer and harder than anyone else. He scorned fellow cadets as social inferiors lacking in his unique sense of commitment. Later as an upperclassman he ruthlessly quilled (cited demerits of) his juniors. When it served his purposes he trotted out Georgie—his ingratiating alter ego—to shamelessly bootlick superiors, especially the tactical officers (known as tacs), in pursuit of preferments.14 Just as he had as a child, he employed deception, sycophancy, and posturing to get his way. Even though he failed his first year—was ‘‘found’’ deficient in math—and started his third plebe year in the Class of 1909, Patton never allowed the setback to tarnish his outward veneer of aristocratic hauteur. This conversion exacted a heavy psychological toll. In most respects Patton’s character development was arrested in late adolescence, and at West Point his bipolar disorder first manifested itself. His grandiosity and elevated sense of superiority, his poor social interactions, his obsession with appearance and what others thought of him, and his aggressive impatience all proffer classic markers of a hypomanic personality type. Patton’s transmogrification itself provides evidence of disassociated behavior. Patton the cadet and future soldier of destiny alienated himself from his true persona. He spent the rest of his life acting out a caricature of this adolescent fantasy, as the profane, coldblooded, aristocratic officer and man of destiny.15 Inwardly, Cadet Patton was tortured. His personality faults are subscribed to a learning disability. This explanation is not entirely satisfying. His

THE MADNESS OF GENERAL GEORGE

47

dyslexia was symptomatic of a more serious thinking disorder, not the author of Patton’s idiosyncrasies. His father made the conscious choice to deprive his son of a conventional education and the social interaction associated with it. When Patton finally entered school, he was illiterate. He might have closed the gap with earnest work but declined. His problems with spelling and grammar stemmed, in part, from his belated start but more from his refusal to commit the energy and time to tasks he did not enjoy. He never understood why the rules of the English language never accorded with his own—after all, George Patton made his own rules. ‘‘Any idiot can spell a word the same way,’’ he remarked, but it took real imagination to spell like he did.16 At West Point his moods oscillated dramatically between euphoric feelings of indestructibility to serious bouts of melancholia. The signposts were proximity to grading periods. The best gauge of his wild mood alterations lay in his frequent letters to his father and sweetheart cum fiancee, Beatrice Banning Ayer. The letters, filled with pressured language, racing thoughts, persecutory paranoia, and flights of fancy, demonstrate an inability to filter emotions that ranged from elevated self-esteem to abject self-abuse—often evidenced in the same letter and frequently in the same paragraph. Patton’s egocentrism, lack of coping skills, and self-isolation made the mood swings more pronounced. Patton’s letters are littered with exaggerated claims of his diligence in pursuing his studies. He spent a great deal of time studying, but not English, French, and math. He devoured the library’s extensive holdings on military history. Patton attended West Point to launch a military career, lay the foundation for an all-important reputation in the army, and train himself for generalship, not to spell correctly or learn proper punctuation. In his repeat year he began recording his thoughts concerning leadership and war—the product of an already extensive reading list—in a notebook. When not reading military history he spent hours memorizing drill manuals in order to impress the tacs, outperform his adversaries on the parade ground, and better skin his underlings. Until the final year, military subjects constituted a small portion of the curriculum, yet Patton placed his priorities on them rather than the core classes that determined academic standing. Disregarding all advice, he willfully ignored academic subjects, without regard to the painful consequences.17 ‘‘There is no use talking the only thing I am good at is military,’’ he wrote his father in his final year. ‘‘I can’t to save my life care about studies and if did care about them I have not the head for them. I can not sit down and study because I like to as some of these fools do.’’18 When the inevitable happened—he performed poorly in the daily recitations and on exams—feelings of guilt, remorse, and ‘‘an over powering sense of . . . worthlessness’’ engulfed him.19 Typically his letters indicate wild shifts in mood between highs and lows; but in the aftermath of a particularly poor exam result or failure on the sports field he experienced a major depressive episode. Patton felt persecuted, blamed others for his setbacks, and cursed

48

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

himself for being stupid. Although Aunt Nannie took up residence first in Lexington and then Highland Falls to be near ‘‘the Boy,’’ often joined by Mrs. Patton for lengthy periods, Patton ignored them. Only his father offered any meaningful support. Reassuring letters from his enabling father soon arrived. Buttressed by this father’s faith, Patton regained his self-confidence and the cycle began anew. Another manifestation of a bipolar personality involves excessive risktaking stunts that carry with them high potentials for painful—emotional and physical—consequences. In extreme cases the dangerous exploits appear foolhardy, even bizarre. During an electricity lecture the instructor indicated that a spark from an induction coil might prove fatal. After the class Patton insisted on testing the theory. He did not die, but his arm went numb. On another occasion, during rifle practice, Patton suddenly stood up in the direct line of fire. Bullets flew all around him, but none found the mark. These two episodes—one foolish, the other bizarre—point to a life-long urge in Patton to recklessly expose himself to mortal danger, in part to demonstrate his audacity to himself and others but mostly to reaffirm in his own mind that he retained a singular providence.20 His letters also demonstrate an obsession with his destiny that ruled his every action; Patton always held this faith and never could be dissuaded otherwise. As he approached graduation, the demons again assailed him. ‘‘God knows I am worried to death,’’ he wrote his parents. ‘‘I have got to, do you understand got to be great it is no foolish child dream it is me as I ever will be. I am different from other men my age. All they want to do is to live happily and die old. I would be willing to live in torture, die tomorrow if for one day I could be truly great. . . . There is inside me a burning something,’’ he wrote his parent. ‘‘I wake up at night in a cold sweat imagining that I have lived and done nothing. . . . Perhaps I am crazy.’’21 Although he struggled, Patton eventually graduated in the middle third of his class—which says more about the unregenerative nature of West Point’s educational system than about any improvements in Patton’s study regime. He knew academic grades bore no bearing on rank in the cadet corps. During Beast Barracks, the plebe camp preceding formal entry to West Point, an upperclassman challenged him and asked what he hoped to be. Patton coolly answered: ‘‘First, Adjutant of the Cadet Corps and then Chief of Staff of the Army, sir.’’22 The adjutant occupied center stage; he marched the corps onto the parade square and read the orders of the day. The position much appealed to the self-centered showman in Patton. In February 1908 he fulfilled his plebe ambition. Named adjutant, he held the rank throughout his final year. Despite scholastic mediocrity, Patton emerged triumphant from his first trial— and he achieved this personal victory according to his own rules. He left the military academy with a commission in the cavalry, the underpinning of the reputation he so desired, and a full-blown case of bipolar syndrome. Also indicative, he left West Point without having made a single friend. None of that

THE MADNESS OF GENERAL GEORGE

49

mattered, as by his own reckoning he had completed the first hurdle in his path to greatness. ‘‘I SHALL LIVE TO RETIRE A USELESS SOLDIER’’ Demonstrating his characteristic impulsiveness, in rapid succession Patton graduated in 1909, married the wealthy Boston heiress Bea Ayer in 1910, fathered a child in 1911, and used connections, money, and his talent for selfpromotion to secure desired postings in the army. As a second lieutenant stationed in Washington he rode with the secretary of war, Henry Stimson, and dined with the chief of staff, Leonard Wood. He served both as aide before inveigling his way onto John J. Pershing’s staff, first in Mexico during the Punitive Expedition and then in France in 1917. In between he honeymooned in England, competed in the 1912 Olympiad in Stockholm, attended the French cavalry school, and killed a Villista colonel—Patton styled him a bandit—in a wild West shootout in Mexico. After serving as Pershing’s ‘‘errand boy’’ in France, Patton became the first officer attached to the Tank Corps, charged with forming the Tank School. In his spare time he completed the AEF Staff School at Langres. In a year he rose from junior lieutenant to lieutenant colonel in command of a tank brigade. His baptism of fire came in the Saint Mihiel Offensive. Ordered not to go into the combat zone in a tank, Patton followed the letter of the command by going to battle ‘‘on’’ a tank. It would not be the last time he willfully ignored a direct order. On 26 September 1918 Patton led his brigade forward on the first day of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. Fighting dismounted, he found himself pinned down and exposed to concentrated machinegun fire. Concluding it was ‘‘time for another Patton to die,’’ he advanced into what he considered ‘‘certain death’’; only six men followed, and five were immediately cut down, including Patton. His war was over.23 The Armistice fell on Patton’s thirty-third birthday. He did not share in the joy of his fellow officers. He had every reason to be pleased with his war record: promotion to colonel, a chest full of medals including a Distinguished Service Cross, and like his grandfather, command of a brigade in combat. But the end of the war left Patton empty. All told, he spent three days in combat and failed to become the ‘‘boy’’ general of his dreams ; and he feared he might never get the chance again. He wrote a poem, ‘‘Peace—November 11, 1918,’’ which summed up his emotions: I stood in the flag-decked cheering crowd. My heart shrank in dismay.24

Patton thought the future looked bleak, but the reality of peacetime soldiering exceeded his worst fears. Returning to the States, he served at Camp Meade, Maryland, the home of the Tank Corps, where his career took two blows in rapid succession. In June 1920 Patton reverted to his permanent

50

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

regular army rank of captain but received promotion to major the next day. That autumn, the army decided, for the foreseeable future, that tanks would remain linked to the infantry and disbanded the Tank Corps. Although an article Patton wrote in support of armor did not sit well with the chief of cavalry, he recanted and willingly abandoned tanks, becoming one of the most vocal proponents of horse cavalry and cold steel.25 Posted to Fort Myer, he started keeping his Little Black Notebook and filled it with aphorisms about leadership and command, most of which came from his West Point journals. Reading them suggests that Patton’s peculiar ‘‘way of war’’ already had taken root in his fertile mind. In an army where duty usually ceased at noon, Patton kept busy with his many diversions—horseman, polo player, yachtsman, swordsman, student of war, and poet. Despite his frenzied lifestyle, he somehow found time to write articles—eventually some sixteen for the Cavalry Journal alone—and to continue his autodidactic military education. But his professional pursuits did little to deflect his mounting angst, especially in an army wary of intellectuals in uniform. As Bea knew well, Patton had a history of depression dating before the war. She worried her husband had ‘‘so changed since the war’’ that his dejected state might be permanent.26 Occasions other people celebrate— birthdays, the arrival of children, weddings—produced the opposite reaction in Patton. His first full-blown bout of depression occurred in 1911, prompted by the birth of an ‘‘accursed infant,’’ his daughter Beatrice. The self-absorbed Patton had always been the center of attention; his parents, aunt, and now his wife adored him, forgiving all his foibles. Now he would share the spotlight, and the affections of his wife, with a child—worse yet, a girl. Little Bee was followed by Ruth Ellen in 1915. Finally in 1924 he sired a son, duly christened George S. Patton IV. But the birth of a son gave him no particular joy. He had performed his duty, produced an heir to carry on ‘‘the Name.’’ Curiously, however, Patton never devoted much time or attention to his son. Patton’s grandson described the father/son relationship as ‘‘amiable if distant.’’27 As the years slipped away, his own birthdays—for him, that Armistice Day fell on his birthday was a particularly cruel irony—left him weeping not only because they signaled the passing of another year but also because they reminded him that ‘‘his’’ war—and his unfulfilled destiny—lay further removed. In summer 1923, Patton attended the advance course at the Cavalry School at Fort Riley, Kansas. He also spent the next year in Kansas, at the Command and General Staff School. Since competition for class standing was intense—and Patton always responded to a challenge—his mood brightened. Bea reported to Aunt Nannie, ‘‘[George] is having a grand time . . . and is busy every minute. He seems like his old self again.’’28 This happy state did not last long. After a brief posting to Bea’s hometown of Boston, Patton fumed when he discovered that his next slot would be a staff job not in the War Department but in Hawaii.

THE MADNESS OF GENERAL GEORGE

51

For most people Hawaii is close to paradise, but for Patton the worst two periods of his life were spent on the islands. He never accommodated himself to the politics of peacetime soldiering and continued acting like a World War I colonel and not a junior major. Patton always took pains to disparage virtually every officer he encountered. Exceedingly thin-skinned to criticism, he frequently clashed with mossback senior officers. In 1926 his self-importance so aggravated his superiors that he was fired as assistant chief of staff for operations of the Hawaiian Division. Majors do not correct brigadier generals. Undoubtedly the most traumatic event in Patton’s life occurred while stationed in Hawaii: the death of his father. George Sr. died in June 1927 of cirrhosis of the liver. The strongest pillar in Patton’s life had been removed. He became unhinged, ‘‘inconsolable’’ with ‘‘almost unreasonable grief.’’ He could not return to California in time for the funeral, which was just as well because he avoided the spectacle of the total breakdown of Nannie. With the parlor filled with mourners, she took to her bed, where she screeched like a banshee for her lost ‘‘husband.’’ ‘‘Wait for me, George!’’ she wailed. ‘‘Georgie should have been our child!’’29 When Patton arrived, he proceeded straight to the cemetery. Standing before the grave, he saw an apparition of his father walking toward him on a path. ‘‘With a warm smile and a twinkle in his eye,’’ the vision continued down the path. Days later Patton sat at his father’s desk examining the contents of a safe, from which he extracted the family’s most prized heirlooms, the minie ball and shell fragment that killed his granduncle and grandfather. Just then his father reappeared in the doorway and without words reassured his son that ‘‘all was well; he was not to mourn.’’30 These were not his first visual hallucinations. A previous episode came while pinned down by German machinegun fire in the Argonne. Momentarily fear gripped him that in this first real trial he might prove a coward. As described by Ruth Ellen: He was afraid. His hands were sweating and his mouth was dry. There was a low bank of clouds behind the rising ground, and he looked up and saw, among the clouds, his ancestors. The ones he had seen in pictures looked like the daguerreotypes and their paintings: there was General Hugh Mercer, mortally wounded at the Battle of Princeton; there was his grandfather, Colonel George Patton . . . there was his great-uncle, Colonel Waller Tazewell Patton . . . there were other faces, different uniforms, dimmer in the distance, but all with his family look. They were all looking at him, impersonally, but as if they were waiting for him. He knew what he had to do, and continued the tank action.31

Deciding on death rather than dishonor, he led the forlorn assault; and the fact he survived provided evidence that he enjoyed a special destiny. Associated with his visual hallucinations was Patton’s belief in reincarnation. From childhood he experienced episodes of ‘‘daydreaming while awake’’—images of having lived prior lives. Patton believed he once hunted

52

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

mammoths, died on the plains of Troy, fought in a Greek phalanx against Cyrus, marched with Caesar’s Tenth Legion, fell at Crecy, fought for the Jacobites as a Highlander, retreated from Moscow with Napoleon, and fought with the Confederacy in the Wilderness.32 The genesis of his faith in reincarnation is obviously a product of his father’s brainwashing. George Sr.’s favorite poem was William Wordsworth’s, ‘‘Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood.’’ More than a poem, it served as a blueprint. All of Patton’s former lives came right out of the pages of the stories and books his father and aunt read him as a child, the product of a fecund imagination constantly reinforced by his father’s exhortations to his hero son. ‘‘I think there was some reason,’’ he intimated to his father, ‘‘why you read me such bloody books when I was young.’’33 But these phantasms were genuine as long as Patton believed them to be true. ‘‘I don’t know about other people,’’ he told his nephew, ‘‘but for myself there has never been any question. I just don’t think it, I damn well know there are places I’ve been before, and not in this life.’’34 In 1928 he happily left Hawaii for a posting in the office of the chief of cavalry in Washington. He remained in the nation’s capital for the next six years: three years in the cavalry’s plans and training division, one year at the War College, and two years as executive officer at Fort Myer. The most noteworthy episode in an otherwise uneventful tenure in Washington occurred in summer 1932 when Patton played a conspicuous role in the suppression of the Bonus March. After fourteen dismal years as a major he final made lieutenant colonel in March 1934. The dread that destiny had bypassed him consumed Patton. ‘‘I have always hoped that as the result of a great war,’’ he wrote Bea in one of his flights of fancy, ‘‘I would secure supreme command and such fame that after the war I would become President or dictator.’’ Now anxiety gripped him that he would ‘‘live to retire a useless soldier.’’35 As he approached his fiftieth birthday, Patton grew preoccupied with fears of growing old. In 1934 his daughter Bee married. Ruth Ellen ‘‘never forgot Georgie’s face’’ as he came down the aisle. ‘‘He looked just like a child who is having his favorite toy taken away.’’ Forty-eight and balding, Patton faced the inevitable prospect of soon becoming a grandfather. The idea terrified him. Bea once found him weeping over a copy of J. F. C. Fuller’s Generalship. Looking down she saw an appendix listing the hundred greatest generals and their age when their careers peaked. Patton was older than all but a couple. Patton’s fiftieth birthday hit him hard. That morning he refused to leave his bed; he lay in a fetal position, his head to the wall. The next year Bea bought a book, Change of Life in Men. When Patton found the book, he flew into a blind rage, seized it, marched outside, and set it alight.36 This Peter Pan complex long fueled Patton’s frenetic daredevil predilections. He took no pleasure from the luxuries his privileged lifestyle afforded—fine food and drink, grand homes and servants, upper-crust society,

THE MADNESS OF GENERAL GEORGE

53

the opportunities for travel and recreation. Eating, sleeping—which he did very little of—even fatherhood amounted to mere biological functions. Only contests of will involving danger attracted him, in which his wealth allowed him to indulge. He maintained an extensive stable and immersed himself in the horse culture, both in the army and out. Patton rode with the hounds, show-jumped, steeplechased, and played polo, all with a violent fervor. He labored to preserve his ‘‘girlish figure,’’ possessing the physical endurance and restless energy of men half his age. Patton could not sit still for fear someone or something was gaining on him. In typical Patton fashion, when he received another posting in Hawaii he purchased a schooner and, without experience in oceanic sailing or navigation, embarked for the islands. ‘‘Possibly being lost at sea,’’ he half joked, ‘‘would be a rather convenient way out.’’37 Aside from Bea’s seasickness, the voyage went off without mishap, and the Pattons received a raucous reception in Honolulu. But this triumph proved the only thing they had to celebrate in a twoyear stay that nearly wrecked his career and marriage. Patton’s alpha male pursuits produced a long list of severe injuries, a number of them life-threatening. Some of them raise the likelihood, even probability, that Patton suffered from serious mood-affective head traumas. In 1912 he suffered heat stroke and nearly died while competing in the Stockholm Olympics. Heat stroke can cause partial paralysis, brain damage, and even death. It might be that he only experienced heat exhaustion, but the fact that one other contestant died that day lends credence to the possibility that Patton in fact suffered a stroke with its attendant consequences. Then, while serving in France, his staff car rammed a railroad gate and Patton’s head went through the thick pane of the windshield. Again he narrowly escaped death; a shard of glass nearly severed his carotid artery. Patton sustained the first of many concussions. By far the most serious of his head traumas occurred in 1935 during his second tour in Hawaii. While preparing for the Inter-Island Polo Championships, Patton had a hard fall from his pony. He remounted and finished the scrimmage, then spent the rest of the weekend on his boat. Two days after the fall, while standing at the helm, he turned to Bea and asked, ‘‘Where the hell am I?’’ The last thing he remembered was ‘‘seeing the ground come up to hit my face.’’ He termed it ‘‘the lost weekend.’’ Again he had suffered a concussion.38 All of these events—heat stroke and multiple head injuries—may not have produced any adverse effects on his personality. No hard medical proof exists to suggest they did. After his death Bea guaranteed there would be none when she adamantly refused an autopsy, clear evidence she suspected the worst. Plenty of anecdotal evidence and family history point to the conclusion that his behavior did dramatically change—became more exaggerated—after each of these mishaps. Following the car crash in 1917, Patton’s fellow officers detected wild and random mood fluctuations.39 Whether these derived

54

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

from the head injury or merely resulted from his typical mood oscillations remains conjecture; but the alteration in Patton’s personality proved significant enough to prompt comment. After his fall from the polo pony, family members perceived a marked change in his conduct. The head trauma did not generate Patton’s emotional instability—that long predated the incident—but did have an unmistakable multiplier effect. Patton’s behavior became increasingly erratic, his mood shifts more dramatic. He started drinking excessively in public, often in the company of junior officers, a serious faux pas in any army. ‘‘Whatever happened to his head,’’ Ruth Ellen averred, ‘‘it cut down on his capacity to carry alcohol.’’ But Patton never stopped at a couple. Once he drank a concoction of scotch, gin, and bourbon while standing on his head. That kind of activity might be expected from a subaltern, but not a fifty-year-old lieutenant colonel. And he was a vicious and maudlin drunk. If Bea abraded him, he lashed out with venom. ‘‘It was horrible to see feet of clay,’’ his daughter remarked, ‘‘where the winged heels once were.’’40 His mental condition seriously impaired his social functioning and threatened his future in the army. In 1936 at the polo championships—a major item on the Honolulu social calendar—Patton’s foul mouth during a match propelled him into a very public imbroglio with MG Hugh Drum, commander of the Hawaii Department and officer tabbed as future chief of staff. As family members recognized, Patton no longer mastered his emotions. ‘‘His frenetic tour under General Drum, his growing discouragement with lack of promotion, and his ever present worry that he would never have ‘his war’ piled up on him,’’ his daughter remembered, ‘‘and he was suicidally depressed.’’41

‘‘I WAS CRAZY’’ Patton’s rash behavior, depressed mood, and abuse of alcohol all acted as signposts for his deepening mental confusion. Bipolar sufferers may also fall prone to sexual excess, a product of increased libidinous drives. While in Hawaii, Patton added adultery to his growing list of offenses; worse yet, he seduced a family member. Jean Gordon was the daughter of Bea’s half-sister. To the Patton girls, Jean was more a sister than cousin. As a teenager Jean spent her vacations with the Pattons; she also served as bridesmaid in both the girls’ weddings. But more attracted Jean to the Patton household than girlish amusements. According to Patton, Jean ‘‘had been mine’’ since 1932, when she was seventeen years old. In 1936 Miss Gordon arrived in Honolulu en route to a tour of the Far East. Patton and Jean made no attempt to conceal their mutual attraction. It apparently never crossed Bea’s mind that anything indecent was going on between her fifty-year-old husband and her niece. But after Patton and Jean

THE MADNESS OF GENERAL GEORGE

55

returned from an unchaperoned tour of the big island, all doubt melted away.42 The affair with Jean Gordon highlights a constellation of Patton’s warped personality traits. Clearly, seducing a seventeen-year-old family member constitutes a high order of extreme risk-taking. The fact that he made no particular effort to hide his actions indicates that Patton reckoned that, once again, the normal rules did not apply to him. He calculated he could pull off this outrage with impunity—which essentially happened. Here we see the Peter Pan principle in operation. A sexual affair with a teenage girl acted as a restorative and proof of his undiminished virility. Patton’s defenders go to great lengths to argue that the middle-aged Patton merely enjoyed the company of ‘‘a lovely young women of great charm, intelligence, and sensitivity.’’ But to surmise that the relationship remained platonic amounts to denying Patton being Patton. Given Patton’s fragile and declining mental state, the last thing he could have handled was divorce. Patton had inherited considerable wealth from his parents and aunt, but like the Pattons before him, his high social status derived mostly from Bea’s money and family connections. Divorces were not unknown in the officer corps, but failed marriages still carried some opprobrium in the 1930s. A celebrated divorce would do nothing to enhance Patton’s career prospects. Beyond practical financial and social considerations, a divorce also would have pushed Patton over the psychological edge. Bea constituted Patton’s only remaining mental buttress, and she knew it. Although ‘‘a powerful tension settled over the family’’ and she considered leaving him, Bea decided to stick with Patton because, she said, ‘‘I am all that he really has.’’43 Though he was doubtless relieved to leave Hawaii, Patton’s condition did not improve with his return stateside. On leave in Massachusetts, Patton experienced another brush with death, a result of one more equestrian accident. Breaking the rules, Patton rode his horse too close to Bea’s during a difficult jump. Her horse kicked him, snapping his leg like ‘‘a dry stick.’’ The severe break created life-threatening complications; clots released into his blood stream produced an embolism, cutting off the flow of blood to Patton’s brain and momentary congestive lung failure. Patton came within seconds of dying on a hospital bed. Patton’s near-death experience produced another visual hallucination. He visualized himself on a battlefield, lying on a large Viking shield. Two armored Norsemen prepared to carry him to Valhalla. One of them silently shook his head and gestured to lower the shield. As Patton told his nephew, ‘‘I guess they’re not ready to take me yet. I still have a job to do.’’44 Researchers who study near-death and out-of-body phenomena credit these hallucinations to physiological or psychological sources. Patton saw his experience as reaffirmation of his faith in the afterlife. A devout tithe-paying Episcopalian, he also believed in the pagan gods of war. From childhood he

56

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

never doubted the existence of Valhalla. Brave men fallen heroically in battle never die; they are born again as warriors. While believing fervently in his Christian god and his protection, Patton placed equal trust in the pagan gods and their powers of resurrection, seeing no paradox. Nor did he offer any suggestion how the imperative to fulfill ‘‘the Name’’—his ethereal connection to his mythologized forebears—connected with Norse gods.45 But in his mind, he never doubted that his multiple faiths coalesced to guide his fate. The broken leg and complications arising from thrombophlebitis laid him up for over six months, half of it spent in a hospital. A board of army doctors investigated the accident to determine if Patton had been drinking. Although army regulations mandated no such inquiry, Patton’s antics in Hawaii— questions about his mental stability, fitness to command, and problem drinking—set off alarm bells in high places. The inquisition came to nothing, but Patton had been warned. Suddenly in 1938, the veil of Patton’s depression lifted. Healthy again and returned to his beloved cavalry, Patton received his first field command since the war—the 5th Cavalry Regiment at Fort Clark, Texas—and promotion to colonel. Patton felt energized, and his mood brightened. Ruth Ellen remembered the time in Texas as among their best. But the fates dealt Patton a cruel hand. After less than six months he received reassignment to Fort Myer. The officer commanding the 3rd Cavalry, Col. Jonathan Wainwright, could not afford the monetary burden of serving at Myer. The wealthy Patton could. Devastated, Patton regressed into a deep funk. He blamed Bea and her wealth for taking him from an active command to a ceremonial post in Washington. Patton’s infantile tyranny finally broke Bea’s defenses, and she developed something termed colic of the kidney, a product of her choleric husband. ‘‘When Ma got sick,’’ their daughter remembered, ‘‘Georgie fell to pieces.’’ Patton’s mental condition deteriorated to the point that the post doctor treated him with powerful sedatives.46 Upon the family’s return to Myer, Bea developed her ‘‘sanity plan,’’ cultivating new friendships and interests that excluded Patton. She took daily horse rides, often in the company of Eleanor Roosevelt, and the two became fast friends. Patton accused her of abandoning him and became even more abusive. The ‘‘good’’ Georgie—courteous, urbane, and charming—had been vanquished by ‘‘bad’’ George. No longer were his outbursts of irrational irascibility compensated for by displays of benevolence and good cheer. His daughters even drew straws; the loser had to spend time with their father. In summer 1939 war broke out in Europe. Patton’s fixation on a single idea—his compulsion to fulfill his destiny—dominated all his thoughts, conscious and unconscious. Even with the long-awaited war in the offing, he convinced himself that fortuna had bypassed him. The day the Germans invaded Poland a new officer assumed duties as chief of staff. George Marshall began the purge of overaged senior officers; the largest cull hit the colonels.

THE MADNESS OF GENERAL GEORGE

57

Convinced he would be retired, Patton’s depressive mood became chronic and profound. As Patton’s mood darkened, his prospects brightened. Reassigned to Fort Benning, Patton assumed command of the 2nd Armored Brigade. Bea accompanied him to Georgia but, unable to cope with his cruelty, irrational behavior, and mood swings, she went home to Massachusetts. The marriage was on the rocks. His affair with Jean Gordon, the alcoholism, his alienation from his children—all left historical residue in letters and memoirs, but the family never discussed George and Bea’s estrangement. Bea summed up Patton’s self-destructive disposition by quoting Oscar Wilde: ‘‘each man kills the thing he loves.’’ Although his new command guaranteed his first star, Patton’s unbalanced mental condition deprived him of what he craved most—the adulation, recognition, and approval of the single person that mattered most, his wife. Patton’s psyche had two props: his faith in destiny and the support of his wife. By summer 1940—in his mind at least—Patton believed both had deserted him. Patton had given up polo but decided to learn to fly. Although his flying experiment may not have been inspired by an urge to commit suicide, he very nearly killed himself. As he reported to Bea only half jokingly, ‘‘you almost got your wish that I die soon.’’ Down in the dumps because Bea refused to write, Patton wished they could start their lives anew. ‘‘I don’t blame you at all I simply am sorry for both of us . . . but more sorry for you because I have shattered all your ideals.’’ Another month passed with no sign of reconciliation. ‘‘I hope some day you may forgive me,’’ he wrote. In another letter he blamed himself for the hurt he had caused. ‘‘I suppose the most charitable thing to [say about] this is that I was crazy.’’47 Patton underperformed at Fort Benning. He was uncharacteristically indecisive, and his hands-on leadership style produced only negative results. He began to think perhaps he was washed up. Outwardly he maintained his ‘‘mirthless smile,’’ but inside his demons devoured him, which was all the more curious because after thirty-one years of service he finally made general. Neither the promotion nor Bea’s eventual return altered the downward trajectory of his depression, so convinced was he that his destiny had eluded him. But destiny still favored him. To his surprise and relief, Patton went from brigade to division command. But even though he outshone other division commanders in the Tennessee, Louisiana, and Carolina maneuvers, Patton remained gloomy about the prospects of getting into the war. In 1942 he received command of I Armored Corps and a second star. Then in March 1942 he got word that he would create and command a desert training center while retaining corps command, a clear indication that he would get an operational command in North Africa. Still Patton read this assignment as a deadend training job. Even when he received command of the Western Task Force in TORCH, the amphibious attack on Vichy Morocco, he remained cynical. Hastily planned and ‘‘mostly political’’—‘‘an impossible show’’ in his

58

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

estimate—Patton never doubted he might fail but worried he could die. His destiny would end because of the inadequacies of everyone but George Patton.48 Patton’s predilection for self-destructive conduct flowed from a primitive paranoia. He saw everyone, except for Marshall, as a malefactor. Men of lesser talents conspired against him: MG Lesley McNair, the commander of ground forces; MG Jacob Devers, the chief of armored forces; BG Mark Clark, deputy commander in TORCH; the entire Navy command; even his old friend and commander of the North African operation, Lieutenant General (LTG) Dwight Eisenhower. Diagnosing the psychological state of a historical figure is laden with dangers; but by any standard Patton manifested a cocktail of tell-tale bipolar indicators. He saw himself as brilliant and called to fulfill a special providence. Supremely self-assured of success, his confidence bred charisma—at least his admirers thought so. Buoyed by this overweening egocentrism, Patton brimmed with energy, motivation, and a messianic arrogance. He thought, talked, moved, and made decisions impulsively, throwing himself headlong into whatever spiked his fancy. Although he slept little, Patton rarely felt enervated and proved capable of sustained periods of focused work. His volatile moods exhibited marked cyclothymic modulations from one extreme to the other. Patton’s voluble personality—especially during the late 1930s—also made enemies. Increasingly he felt marginalized and persecuted by those who did not share his vision or whom he perceived as a threat. Even specialists encounter problems verifying reliable boundaries between psychological categories, particularly if schizoaffective symptoms are thrown into the mix. Well-adjusted people do not commune with the dead, see visions, believe they lived before, retain an abiding faith in mythological gods, or conduct sexual liaisons with family members. Patton experienced periods of hypomania together with long major depressive episodes. He possessed all the genetic and environmental markers that made him vulnerable to a combination of disorders. On occasion he manifested clear signs of psychosis—‘‘dreaming while awake’’ and disassociate personalities associated with his reincarnation fantasies; hallucinatory visions; elevated libido; problems with alcohol; and persecutory delusions—even though outwardly he appeared stable. Finally he suffered a number of serious traumas—possible heat stroke, concussions, and embolisms—that exacerbated his preexisting mood disorders. The question arises: If Patton’s mental condition deteriorated to such an extent, why did he receive a corps command in TORCH? In today’s army, Patton would never have risen as far as he did in the interwar U.S. Army. That is the point; the interwar army bore little resemblance to today’s army. During World War I the army developed a sophisticated psychological testing regime. But in its headlong retreat back into the 19th century, the post-1918 army willfully jettisoned many of the lessons of World War I, including any faith in psychology. Save for the inexact annual assessments, the interwar

THE MADNESS OF GENERAL GEORGE

59

army possessed no mechanism for screening officers. Branch loyalties, personal connections, and class rings protected officers. Senior officers inflated performance assessments of other senior officers. As evidence, even after the clash with his troubled subordinate in Hawaii, Drum still issued a favorable annual report on Patton. A field-grade officer pretty much had to commit an axe murder to get cashiered. Patton benefited from the armywide reputation he had cultivated since his plebe year at West Point ; it did not hurt to be a Pershing protege and charter member of the Chaumont Clique. Patton’s excesses were well known and accepted with the shrug of the shoulder and a ‘‘that’s just George being George’’—usually complemented with a wry grin. His performance in the prewar maneuvers enhanced that reputation. Moreover, the U.S. Army suffered a dearth of senior leadership. Of the senior commanders who participated in the Louisiana maneuvers, only one went on to command an army ; the rest were sent out to pasture or given training commands. In 1942 twenty of twenty-seven division commanders were sacked. By comparison, Patton shone. Luck also played a role. Had Drum become army chief in 1939—and he was the odds-on favorite—Patton might never have received an overseas command. Back in 1936, Marshall had already concluded that ‘‘Patton was the type of man who would go through hell and high water.’’49 MG Lesley McNair, who would train the U.S. combat forces in World War II, rated Patton second on his list of prospective armored division commanders. McNair thought a division command Patton’s ceiling. Marshall thought otherwise. ‘‘Patton is by far the best tank man in the Army,’’ Marshall opined, and earmarked him to command a future armored corps.50 Patton’s reputation, especially in the eyes of Marshall, combined with an outstanding record in the prewar maneuvers and the abundance of senior command vacancies, guaranteed his potential as a commander and outweighed his obvious liabilities. Patton would still have his war.

OUGHT WE TO CALL HIM GREAT? ‘‘I’m going to be an awful irritation to the military historians,’’ Patton remarked, ‘‘because I do things by sixth sense. They won’t understand.’’51 Just what that sixth sense involved—his ability to ‘‘see the other side of the hill,’’ his refusal to take council in his fears, his relentless offensive daring— varied in Patton’s mind; essentially they all stemmed from a single source, his unshakeable faith in his destiny. The leitmotif of Patton’s war making never changed: attack without pause, giving the enemy neither time nor space to regroup. Chance and uncertainty—the true ambit of war’s imponderables— rest at the core of warfare. Patton’s insouciance to self-doubt and danger overcame them, but only when all the tumblers fell into place.52

60

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

The antithesis of a commander of a modern industrialized and bureaucratic army, Patton was a throwback to the age of black powder. His ‘‘dirty boots’’ command style required Patton to lead from the front. He possessed scant appreciation for the complexities of planning or logistics. Administration, supply, and planning equated to English grammar and math at West Point; Patton simply refused to drudge.53 In true cavalry fashion, Patton thrived in the cut-and-thrust environment of a fluid operational environment; the pursuit and exploitation phases of operations were his true metier. Patton’s generalship necessarily flowed from his mercurial personality. As Bradley accurately perceived, ‘‘Patton was two persons: a Jekyll and Hyde. He was living a role he had set for himself twenty or thirty years before.’’54 His mental topography consisted exclusively of hypomanic peaks and depressive valleys. When his forces were on the move, Patton stood at the top of his game: a grandiose, euphoric, loquacious, physically energized, mentally acute, supremely focused high-stakes gambler. This is the Patton of the Sicilian ‘‘end run,’’ breaking out from Normandy, rushing across France, relieving Bastogne, reducing the Saar-Palatinate pocket, bouncing the Rhine, and blitzing through Germany. His first army command in Sicily provides an ideal Petri dish to survey Patton at war. Not content to play supporting actor, he ignored orders, staged the ‘‘end run,’’ took Palermo, and then embarked on his own quixotic dash to Messina. Patton abandoned his headquarters, assumed personal control of operations, staged hasty amphibious attacks, rebuked his best division commander, and beat the British forces to Messina in a race that existed largely in his mind—all in the space of one month. The best ‘‘broken field runner’’ on the Allied team, when compelled to fight positional battles Patton fared no better than the other Allied generals he held in such contempt. Impatient for decisive results, Patton attacked with inadequate forces; his subordinates found themselves placed between Patton’s unrealistic objectives and insistence on aggressive action on one hand and the realities of supply, terrain, weather, fatigue, and the fighting power of a determined and resourceful foe on the other. His corps and divisions failed to collaborate, producing piecemeal and ultimately costly advances. This is the Patton of Casablanca and El Guttar in North Africa, before Messina, in Lorraine, and in the closing of the Bulge. Patton’s narcissism and preoccupation with achieving personal success—beating Montgomery to Messina or closing to the Rhine in summer 1944—blinded him to larger strategic considerations or less spectacular but more time-consuming operational alternatives. When things did not go his way, Patton’s martyr complex reasserted itself. He blamed everything and everyone—from the weather to his jealous superiors— but never himself. ‘‘I am being attacked on both flanks,’’ he confided in MG Everett Hughes, ‘‘but not by the enemy.’’55 In periods of inaction, during lulls in the campaign, or especially when threatened with stalemate, Patton fell prey to his emotions. He chain-smoked cigars, drank, could not sleep, and became overwrought, withdrawn, easily

THE MADNESS OF GENERAL GEORGE

61

distracted, mistrustful, and intensely irritable. Precisely during these junctures his penchant to self-destruct manifested itself. Misconduct nearly cost him each of his commands: insubordination and his refusal to cooperate with the U.S. Navy in the case of TORCH, flouting censorship regulations in North Africa, the ‘‘slapping incident’’ in Sicily, and the Knutsford affair in northwest Europe.56 What saved Patton was the same thing that gained him command in the first place; his potential value as the U.S. Army’s most experienced field commander—which at the conclusion of the Sicily campaign amounted to something less than three months—outweighed his lack of selfcontrol. A third factor enters the equation—what has been termed ‘‘the American Way of War.’’ The U.S. Army—its force structures, doctrine, weapons, and mentality—was constructed for mobility and firepower. Comparing Patton’s offensive operations to their blitzkrieg, German generals called Patton ‘‘the American Guderian.’’ The assessment was only half correct. In 1940, German panzers moved at 1940 speed against enemies and with German ground forces fighting at a 1918 pace. By 1944, aside from panzer and panzer grenadier formations, the Wehrmacht still moved with the speed of marching infantry and horse-drawn support. The U.S. Army, by comparison, was fully mechanized and motorized. Virtually every GI possessed familiarity with cars, trucks, or tractors; as long as American forces received fuel and lubricants, they moved with unprecedented tempo. In addition, the Allies possessed absolute air superiority, and Patton could call upon immediate tactical air support of a quality, quantity, and flexibility no German commander could even envision. Between the breakout from Normandy to the halt on the Moselle, barely thirty days, Patton’s army advanced nearly four hundred miles. The U.S. Army provided the perfect vehicle for Patton’s style of war fighting, provided an open warfare situation existed. The inverse existed when positional fighting prevailed. The U.S. Army and its senior commanders were not prefigured to fight attritional battles. American divisions lacked sustained combat power, and the force structures and personnel administration policies of the ground forces placed the Americans at a distinct disadvantage in set-piece fighting. The War Department gambled it could fight a multitheater war with only ninety divisions. Once an American division deployed in combat, it stayed in combat. Casualties were made good by a system of automatic resupply of replacements. As casualties mounted, the proportion of green replacements increased, all adversely impacting combat sustainability. This system—while a model of efficiency on paper—never calculated the effect on morale of ‘‘fighting until you were killed or wounded.’’ It took Patton three months and 50,000 casualties to take Metz and the rest of Lorraine ; the positional fighting to relieve Bastogne and eliminate the Bulge cost another 50,000. In close combat—when terrain and weather favored the defense—Patton’s generalship proved scarcely more inspired or less costly than that of more maligned commanders.

62

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

In a curious way, as Patton realized soon after arriving in England, the ‘‘slapping incident was a good thing’’ because it deprived him of the army group command. ‘‘The altitude is too great.’’57 Patton’s milieu was at the operational level; his personalized command style would not have functioned had he been tied to a rear headquarters. His fall from grace marginalized Patton inside the Allied chain of command. He played no role in planning the invasion, and as events developed, the 3rd Army would not be committed until two months after D-day and would occupy the outside track in the advance through France. As he predicted, he would carry no weight in the higher councils of war. All this too proved fortuitous because it bestowed on Patton, as an army commander, a measure of independence at the operational level that he otherwise would never have enjoyed. Always a maverick, Patton could never operate as an insider. However, Patton did not relish being left out. Initially he demonstrated uncharacteristic restraint because he fully appreciated his probationary status. Given the importance of Brittany—its ports and communications—to the master Overlord plan, Patton could not be faulted for delaying the movement of his armored forces eastward. When LTG Bradley, the army group commander, refused permission for 3rd Army to drive on Falaise or stage a wide envelopment east of the Seine, Patton remained quiescent, even though he burned with resentment that his cautious superiors squandered a pair of brilliant opportunities for him to pocket and destroy two German armies. Still, the outside track allowed Patton to exceed orders—advancing beyond Le Mans and crossing the Seine and the Moselle. Patton resorted to his ‘‘rock soup’’ subterfuge—making something from nothing. He exploited Eisenhower’s hesitancy in late August and early September by launching thinly disguised reconnaissances-in-force that turned into a crossing of the Moselle. Once committed, Patton reckoned that Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) would find him the gasoline to kick-start his advance. In fact, both Eisenhower and Bradley immediately saw through his ruse and, with a wink and a nod, increased his supply allotments. Constituting the southern side of the 12th Army Group’s drive against the Westwall also proffered Patton his long-awaited encounter with destiny, the ‘‘call for help’’ in the Ardennes. The drive to relieve Bastogne highlights many aspects of Patton’s genius. Foreseeing the possibility of a German offensive in the Ardennes, he ordered his staff to prepare contingency plans. At an emergency commanders’ meeting in Verdun three days after the German attack, he promised to attack north with three divisions within seventy-two hours. To halt an army of 350,000 men, with its vast logistical train, postured to open an offensive against the Westwall and turn it ninety degrees along icy roads in zero weather and move it 100 miles north seemed ‘‘fatuous’’ to Eisenhower. But Patton accomplished it. In fact he bettered it. He had 50,000 men in the attack within sixty-six hours. Patton appeared everywhere, driving his columns toward Bastogne. He abandoned his headquarters and constantly could be seen going forward—always

THE MADNESS OF GENERAL GEORGE

63

forward—in bitter cold by open vehicle; his troops never saw him return to the rear, which he did by air and only after dusk. As Patton intuitively understood, in war the moral often outweighs the material. That Patton executed his drive under the prevailing circumstances and conditions lifted Allied spirits that Christmas season—among the troops and people back home—and marked Patton as a commander of rare distinction. Other aspects of his generalship in the Ardennes were not so creditable. The drive north bore all the Patton trademarks for impetuosity. Had Patton followed Eisenhower’s advice and waited to build up a more powerful counterattack against the German flank, the 3rd Army would have inflicted greater damage, suffered fewer casualties, and relieved Bastogne just as quickly. As the fighting devolved into a slugging match, he grew increasingly embittered and estranged. The amazing thing was, despite all the adulatory press he received—his standing in the eyes of the American public would never be higher—Patton felt cheated. It was the Falaise Gap and the Seine all over again. As early as the Verdun conference Patton argued for a wide hook, a redirection of his offensive toward the Eifel. ‘‘Hell, let’s have the guts to let the sons of bitches go all the way to Paris,’’ Patton interjected. ‘‘Then we’ll really cut them off and chew them up.’’58 As he complained to journalists : ‘‘If you get a monkey in a jungle hanging by his tail, it is easier to get him by cutting his tail than kicking him in the face.’’59 Once again, his circumspect superiors took the cautious route; and once again—in his skewed view—they robbed him of his moment in history. As the fighting to reduce the Bulge wound down, Patton lapsed back into a deep depression. SHAEF decided that the principal offensives to close and cross the Rhine would be conducted by Montgomery’s army group supported by U.S. 1st and 9th Armies. Patton found himself playing a bit role; a reduced 3rd Army would launch spoiling attacks against the Eifel and Westwall. Bradley got his fourth star, and he and Hodges received recommendations for decorations for their lackluster roles in the Ardennes; Patton never so much as received a warm word of commendation from his old friend Eisenhower. ‘‘You may hear that I am on the defensive,’’ he complained to Bea, ‘‘but it was not the enemy who put me there. I don’t see much future for me in this war. There are too many ‘safety first’ people running it.’’60 ‘‘I guess Geo[rge] is through with this war,’’ reported his confidant Hughes, ‘‘and has his mind on China and a fourth star. . . . He can’t talk about anything except that. He must be getting impotent.’’61 Hughes was wrong. Patton resolved to pull a Sinatra—and do it his way. Once more consigned to the margins, Patton decided to again resort to his rock soup recipe; he would do what he did best—ignore orders, go over to the offensive, and trust in his destiny. ‘‘I am taking one of the longest chances in my chancy career ; in fact, almost disobeying orders in order to attack, my theory being that if I win, nobody will say anything, and I am sure that I will win.’’62

64

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

For all its fame, the drive to relieve Bastogne pales in comparison to what Patton accomplished in the first three weeks of March 1945. On 1 March, Trier fell; he was ordered not to take the city, much less advance beyond it. Patton then launched a hook down the Moselle, one armored division advancing to its confluence with the Rhine at Koblenz on 7 March. On 11 March the Americans began a drive south, down the Rheingraben and across the mostly trackless Hunsr€ uck. Again he attacked with the thinnest veneer of authority. ‘‘Let the gentlemen up north learn what we are doing when they see it on their maps.’’ What the gentlemen saw were Patton’s relentless converging attacks simultaneously rolling up the Westwall and enveloping the Saar-Palatinate triangle. ‘‘They did not want me to take Trier nor go to the Rhine nor to cross the Moselle southwest of Coblenz, and now, if we don’t cross the Rhine, we may be halted again’’ . . . [we must] make plans fit circumstance. The other armies make circumstances fit plans.’’63 On 22/23 March elements of the 3rd Army crossed the Rhine in two places—without heavy bombers, airborne drops, ground smoke, or massed artillery. Eisenhower remarked: ‘‘George, you are not only a good general, you are a lucky general, and, as you will remember, in a General, Napoleon prized luck above skill.’’ Patton sardonically replied, ‘‘Well, that is the first compliment you have paid me since we served together.’’64 Critics point to the disintegration of the German armies west of the Rhine; but what they miss is the state of American forces in spring 1945. Composed either of jaded veterans or fresh replacements, the troops were exhausted by the frantic pace of the advance. Patton drove them because he knew ‘‘a pint of sweat is worth a gallon of blood.’’65 Patton understood the vital time/space relationship in war and fully exploited mobility and firepower to their greatest advantage. The Eifel-Palatinate campaign—not the Bulge—would be studied by generations of officers at Leavenworth ; it represented Patton’s signature claim as a great commander. If the Palatinate operations represented Patton’s Jena-Auerstadt, the denouement offensive across Germany replicated Napoleon’s 1806 battalion carre lightning occupation of Prussia writ large.66 Swollen to thirty-eight divisions, the 3rd Army ended the war on a line from Linz in Austria to Pilsen in Bohemia. A great deal more than luck was involved. The familiar cycle reasserted itself almost immediately after the front fell quiet. Patton tumbled into a downward spiral of despair. His promotion to four stars left him embittered; he felt like an ‘‘also ran.’’ There would be no command in Asia, no more war of any sort. Despite his fame, Patton still believed he had been betrayed by his superiors and denied his true opportunity to prove himself. Deserted by fate, Patton fretted that his only remaining emotional buttress might also be lost. In summer 1944 he resumed his affair with Jean Gordon. Miss Gordon arrived in London early in July and landed in France just as Patton’s armor drove toward Le Mans. In September she managed to get attached to the 3rd Army as a Red Cross ‘‘doughnut dolly,’’ and once the front stabilized, Jean went forward. Beyond the infidelity and the

THE MADNESS OF GENERAL GEORGE

65

duplicity, Bea seethed because Jean shared Patton’s greatest triumphs in Europe while she remained the dutiful wife and Patton’s most ardent supporter in the States.67 In June 1945 Patton returned to the United States for a month-long bond drive, during which Bea gave him hell; he called it a thirtyday sentence and expressed his great relief to return to Europe. ‘‘It’s too damned bad,’’ he told his daughter before leaving, ‘‘I wasn’t killed before the fighting stopped.’’68 His death wish might have been prompted as much by his marital as his martial woes.69 Before Patton returned to the United States, Eisenhower warned Marshall that Patton was a ‘‘mentally unbalanced officer.’’ Patton wanted one last honorific posting, as commander of Army Ground Forces or superintendent of the Army War College. He received neither. Why Patton returned as proconsul in Bavaria, ‘‘obviously in a post he was unsuited by temperament, training or experience to fill,’’ remains an open question. The head of the Civil Affairs section of headquarters thought that ‘‘old George has lost his marbles’’ and dispatched a psychiatrist in the guise of a supply officer to observe Patton. The Signal Corps even bugged his phone. There was plenty to hear: wild talk about ‘‘the horrors of peace, pacaficism [sic], and unions’’ and how much ‘‘real fun [it would be] killing Mongols.’’70 ‘‘Another war has ended and with it my usefulness to the world,’’ he lamented.71 When the inevitable happened, and his airing of his ever more intemperate and virulent prejudices against Jews, his superiors, and the Soviets and his succor of Nazi functionaries in his administration reached the press, Patton lost command of the 3rd Army. What ensued was another three months holding, literally, a paper command until his slow death following an automobile accident. Patton possessed what Clausewitz called ‘‘the inner light’’—the instinctual intelligence, courage, and will to immediately grasp the opportunity and act. He believed he was blessed with a sixth sense. Rather than any sixth sense, what fueled him was blind faith in his special destiny. As he told his old mentor Pershing in August 1944, ‘‘I have consistently refused to worry about what the enemy could do to me, and have spent my time trying to decide what I could do to the enemy . . . we are still attacking—although most people continue to tell me that I am crazy.’’72 Patton never worried about his flanks. ‘‘Flanks are something for the enemy to worry about. . . . We’re not holding anything! Let the Hun do that. We are advancing constantly.’’ As Patton instructed the commander of the XIX Tactical Air Force, BG Otto Weyland, during the height of the rush through France: ‘‘You guard the right flank. I can’t be bothered. . . . You hit it and watch it; we are going straight east.’’73 Patton succeeded in intimidating his adversaries to a degree never approached by other Allied commanders. In his famous ‘‘Blood and Guts’’ speeches, Patton constantly told his men he wanted the Germans ‘‘to look up and scowl, ‘Ach, IT’S THE GOD-DAMN THIRD ARMY AND THAT SONOF-A-BITCH PATTON AGAIN !’’’ General Westphal, chief of staff in OB West, told a story that illustrates the point. When the headquarters relocated

66

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

during the Allied advance in August, every day at sunset the Germans noisily secured the compound. Every day FM von Rundstedt joked, ‘‘Can this be Patton?’’ Made in jest, nonetheless everyone knew the meaning.74 Napoleon once remarked: ‘‘Morale is to material as is the ratio of three to one.’’ Patton understood what motivated Americans to fight, and he employed that knowledge in his indoctrination speeches to the troops. The language—belligerent, profane, scatologically precise enough to make a longshoreman blanch, but unforgettable—contained a set of truisms. American troops possessed an implicit faith in the exceptionalism of their historic national mission and an innate moral sense—even if they could not much articulate these values—but proved indifferent to ideological appeals. A uniform and pragmatic American worldview of the war did exist, and Patton exploited it. Like their fathers, GIs found themselves in an army they hated, far from home fighting a war not of their choosing. They had a job to perform, and the sooner they finished it, the quicker they could go home. As he told the troops, ‘‘the shortest way home is through Berlin.’’ And they listened. Nor could they escape the logic that ‘‘No dumb bastard ever won a war by dieing [sic] for his country; he won by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.’’ No Allied commander—not even Montgomery—imprinted his own personality on the forces under his command the way Patton did. The 3rd Army was more disciplined, enjoyed higher unit morale, and scored greater successes than any other Allied army in Europe. The worms have devoured the reputations of other Allied commanders; only Patton’s stature has grown. In less than a year he transformed green divisions into the most mobile and deadly army in Europe. American troops identified with their branch or company or regiment, not their division or corps or army; they seldom knew the name of their colonel, much less who commanded their army. Nor did they care. That did not hold true for the 3rd Army. In 2004 the author found himself in a lounge in the Detroit airport awaiting a connecting flight. A group of old men stood together; all of them wearing baseball caps. Upon closer observation the hats were embroidered in gold with ‘‘3rd Army’’ or ‘‘4th Armored’’ insignias, but more than half read, ‘‘I rolled with Patton.’’ They brightened as they told of the 4th Armored Division reunion they had just attended in Minneapolis and stories of their service in Europe. Sixty years had passed, yet all of their sentiments mirrored the culminating homily in The Speech: You may be thankful that twenty years from now when you are sitting by the fireplace with your grandson on your knee and he asks you what you did in the great World War II, you WON’T have to cough, shift him to the other knee and say, ‘‘Well, your Granddaddy shoveled shit in Louisiana.’’ No, Sir, you can look him straight in the eye and say, ‘‘Son, your Granddaddy rode with the Great Third Army and a Son-of-a-Goddamned-Bitch named Georgie Patton!’’

THE MADNESS OF GENERAL GEORGE

67

Perhaps the truest measure of a general’s renown is the residue of greatness he leaves behind in the memory of those he commanded. If that be true, then Patton deserves to be called great. NOTES 1. Pulitzer Prize winner and Harvard classmate of Patton’s aide, Marquand observed Patton in Sicily. He wrote a short piece, ‘‘The General,’’ but chose, out of deference to his friend, not to publish it. Copy in John P. Marquand, ‘‘The General,’’ in John P. Marquand Papers, Beinicke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, CT. 2. Carlo D’Este, Patton: A Genius for War (New York: HarperCollins, 1995); Stanley Hirshson, General Patton: A Soldier’s Life (New York: HarperCollins, 2003); Martin Blumenson, The Patton Papers, 1885–1940, 2 vols. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1972); The Patton Papers, 1940–1945 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974); and Patton: The Man Behind the Legend, 1885–1945 (New York: Morrow, 1985). D’Este conceded that ‘‘it seems virtually inevitable . . . that Patton experienced some type of brain damage from too many head injuries,’’ but he reveals this only at the end of the book in conjunction with Patton’s increasingly uncontrolled behavior in Bavaria. D’Este, A Genius for War, p. 756. 3. The depiction of demons is particularly apt. The term genius comes from the Greek word for demon, genio. The ancients believed that demons whispered in the ears of men of superior talents. Theories for the link between madness and genius historically coalesced into two camps: those who argue for biological predeterminants and those who see the connection between psychopathology and social (family and environment) and personal (crisis, shock, emotional and physical trauma) factors. In recent years biosocial theorists have attempted to synthesize these approaches while still grounding creativity in individuals to biological causation. The author incorporated a biosocial approach. 4. In 1927, George Sr. dictated his recollections of the Civil War to Patton. ‘‘A Child’s Memory of the Civil War,’’ Papers of George S. Patton, Jr., Library of Congress, Washington, DC. In his history of the Patton family, Robert Patton, the general’s grandson, devotes seven chapters to the Patton lineage. Robert Patton, The Pattons: A Personal History of an American Family (Washington: Brassey’s, 2005 reprint), pp. 1–83 [hereafter, RP, The Pattons]. 5. The principal sources employed for insights into Patton’s childhood and his relationship with his parents and aunt come from published and unpublished accounts written by family members. RP, The Pattons ; Ruth Ellen Patton Totten, ‘‘My Father as I Knew Him and of Him from Memory and Legend,’’ Papers of George S. Patton, Jr. [hereafter, REPT, ‘‘My Father as I Knew Him’’]; Ruth Ellen Patton Totten and James Patton Totten, The Button Box: A Daughter’s Loving Memoir of Mrs. George S. Patton (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2005) [hereafter REPT, Button Box]. 6. REPT, ‘‘My Father as I Knew Him.’’ 7. Patton’s credo came from Proverbs 23:7: ‘‘for as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.’’ Blumenson, Behind the Legend, pp. 24–29; RP, The Pattons, pp. 88–89, 104. 8. Patton to Beatrice Ayer, 10 March 1909, Patton Papers, I, p. 186; RP, The Pattons, p. 133.

68

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

9. RP, The Pattons, p. 78. 10. Unless otherwise noted, sources for Patton’s years at VMI and West Point derive from his letters: Blumenson, Patton Papers, I, pp. 69–197. 11. George Patton Sr. to John Mercer Patton, 6 February 1903, cited in Hirshson, General Patton, p. 29. 12. George S. Patton to George S. Patton Sr., 3 July 1904, in Blumenson, Patton Papers, I, p. 101 [hereafter, GSP to GSP Sr., date, Patton Papers]. 13. Blumenson discussed this unmistakable change in Patton’s personality. According to Blumenson, Patton ‘‘killed much of his sensitivity and warmth and thereby turned a sweet-tempered and affectionate child into a seemingly hard-eyed and choleric adult.’’ Blumenson, Behind the Legend, p. 31. 14. Family members referred to Patton by his childhood name, Georgie. From his days at West Point, he hated being called Georgie, in part because the cadets used it in derision, but perhaps also because he unconsciously associated the name with his suppressed alter ego. 15. Psychology is an inexact science. Patients suffering from bipolar disorders exhibit shifts in personality between mixed high and low periods followed by a major depressive episode. During hypomanic periods, individuals manifest elevated, expansive, and irritable moods marked by thirteen characteristic symptoms: euphoria; elevated self-esteem and self-confidence ; inability to filter emotions; flights of fancy; restless energy; distractibility; loquaciousness; decreased sleep; irritability; risktaking; increased libido; substance abuse; increased goal-oriented activity. An individual need only display three of the symptoms to be classed as hypomanic; Patton virtually ran the board. These episodes produced an inverse reaction—a depressive episode— when the outcomes of actions became evident. Not only did Patton already evince clear bipolar markers, but his disassociate personality also indicates that his manic-depression might have only been a subtype of a more serious schizoaffective disorder. 16. Frederick Ayers, Before the Colors Fade (London : Cassell, 1964), p. 4. 17. GSP to GSP Sr., 11 September 1904, Patton Papers, I, pp. 109–110. At least two fellow plebes pleaded with Patton to concentrate on passing his math exam, to no avail. Edgar Puryear, Nineteen Stars (Orange, VA: Green, 1971), pp. 3–5. 18. GSP to GSP Sr., 5 February 1908, Patton Papers, I, p. 155. 19. GSP to GSP Sr., 12 November 1904, Patton Papers, I, pp. 115–116. 20. GSP to Beatrice Ayer, n.d., February 1908, Patton Papers, I, p. 144. Another indication that Patton was convinced he would become a great captain rests in the fact that he kept virtually every scrap of paper related to his life. ‘‘I am certainly giving my future biographer—if there ever is one—an easy job with all my papers on war so nicely arranged.’’ GSP to sister Nita, Patton Papers, I, p. 3. 21. GSP to his parents, 17 January 1909, Patton Papers, I, pp. 177–178. 22. GSP to GSP Sr., 24 July 1904, Patton Papers, I, p. 104. 23. GSP wrote an extended letter to his father after his death in which Patton recounts his actions that day. GSP, ‘‘My Father,’’ n.d., 1927, Patton Papers, II, p. 665. 24. ‘‘Peace,’’ Papers of George S. Patton Jr. 25. He was, after all, the designer of the M1913 Patton saber. 26. Beatrice Ayer Patton [hereafter BAP] to Aunt Nannie, n.d., June 1923, in REPT, Button Box, p. 136. 27. RP, Patton Family, pp. 142, 185, 241, 249.

THE MADNESS OF GENERAL GEORGE

69

28. BAP to Aunt Nannie, June 1923, in REPT, Button Box, p. 136. 29. RP, The Pattons, pp. 209–210. 30. REPT, Button Box, pp. 184–186. 31. REPT, ‘‘My Father as I Knew Him,’’ and Button Box, pp. 117–118. 32. D’Este devotes a chapter to Patton’s belief in reincarnation in his Genius for War, pp. 320–328. 33. GSP to GSP Sr., 16 January 1921, George S. Patton Sr. Papers, cited in Hirshson, General Patton, p. 162. 34. Patton to his nephew, Frederick Ayer. Ayer, Before the Colors Fade, pp. 94– 95. Just before the invasion of Sicily in 1943, the British commander, Gen. Harold Alexander, remarked, ‘‘You know George, you would have made a great marshal for Napoleon had you lived in the 19th century.’’ Patton’s earnest reply was: ‘‘But I did.’’ Everyone laughed except Patton. Harold Alexander, The Alexander Memoirs (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1962), p. 44. 35. GSP to BAP, 2 November 1926, Patton Papers, II, p. 876. 36. RP, The Pattons, p. 229; REPT, Button Box, pp. 240, 258. 37. RP, The Pattons, p. 229. 38. Blumenson, Patton Papers, 1940–1945, pp. 6–7. 39. Up until the period before the accident in France, Blumenson included most of the exchange of letters between Patton and his wife; thereafter he suddenly became more selective. The letters become a great deal less revealing. The Patton family, solicitous of the general’s reputation, exercised final veto over what was included in the first two editions of his published papers in 1972. The letters from Patton contained in the Patton Papers in the Library of Congress, in November and December 1917 and especially in January 1918, demonstrate many of the same traits as manifested during his troubled days at West Point. GSP to BAP, 21, 23, 25, 31 January 1918, Papers of George S. Patton. 40. REPT, Button Box, pp. 258–259. 41. Ibid., p. 268. 42. Patton told MG Everett Hughes in 1944 that Jean Gordon ‘‘has been mine for 12 years.’’ Hughes Diary, 9 July 1944, Hughes Papers, Library of Congress. Ruth Ellen acknowledges that her father’s dalliance with Jean began in 1934, but blames her cousin ‘‘for making a play on Georgie,’’ both then and in Hawaii. REPT, Button Box, pp. 260–261. No family member doubted the consummation of their tryst in Hawaii. See also RP, The Pattons, pp. 232–235. 43. REPT, Button Box, p. 261. 44. Ayer, Before the Colors Fade, p. 104. 45. In his repeat year at West Point, Patton alluded to ‘‘our ancestors the Vikings.’’ GSP to GSP Sr., 10 June 1905, Patton Papers, I, p. 129. 46. REPT, Button Box, p. 306. The doctor, Col. Albert Kenner, believed in prescribing liberal doses of sedatives. Twice during World War II, Kenner gave Eisenhower under the table ‘‘slow down medicine’’ to reduce stress and deflate the supreme commander’s skyrocketing blood pressure. Interestingly, Kenner also presided over Patton’s death. 47. GSP to BAP, 27 and 31 August, 3 and 12 September 1940, Papers of George S. Patton, Jr. Blumenson, Patton Papers, relates that Bea accompanied Patton to Fort Benning but makes no reference to the estrangement and includes no exchange of letters.

70

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

48. Patton Diary, 9 August 1942. Patton Papers, 1940–1945, pp. 81–82. 49. Marshall to GSP, 29 September 1936, in Larry Bland and Sharon Ritenour Stevens, eds., The Papers of George Catlett Marshall, 5 vols. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981–2003), I, p. 417. 50. McNair to GCM, ‘‘Higher Commanders,’’ 7 October 1941, Patton Papers; Forrest C. Pogue, George C. Marshall: Ordeal and Hope, 1939–1942 (New York: Viking, 1966), p. 103; Ladislas Farago, Patton: Ordeal and Triumph (New York: Ivan Obolesky, 1963), p. 129. 51. Cited in Alden Hatch, George Patton: General in Spurs (New York: Curtis Books, 1950), p. 204. 52. As Patton reveled to his wife, ‘‘I have a sixth sense in war. . . . I can put myself inside the enemy’s head, and also I am willing to take chances.’’ GSP to BAP, 11 August 1943, Patton Papers, 1940–1945, p. 320. 53. ‘‘George is spectacular. Does not like drudgery. And planning is drudging work.’’ Omar Bradley, ‘‘Bradley Commentaries,’’ in Papers of Omar N. Bradley, U.S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, PA [hereafter USAMHI]. 54. Bradley Commentaries. A more prosaic Hughes thought, ‘‘George has his ups and downs, but apparently he lands on his feet each time.’’ Hughes to his wife, 4 October 1943, Hughes Papers. 55. GSP to Hughes, 23 September 1944, Patton Papers, 1940–1945, p. 553. 56. The ‘‘slapping incidents’’ in Sicily not only highlight Patton’s colossal inability to control his emotions but also involved his notions of reincarnation. As Patton explained in his diary and to his friend, Hughes, ‘‘I may have saved [Pvt. Charles Kuhl’s] soul.’’ Patton Diary, 10 August 1943, Papers of George S. Patton, Jr. 57. GSP to BAP, 14 February 1944, Patton Papers, 1940–1945, p. 414. 58. There are numerous accounts of the Verdun meeting. For Patton’s version, see George S. Patton, War as I Knew It (New York: Bantam, 1980 reprint), pp. 190–192. 59. Patton press conference, 1 January 1945, Patton Papers, 1940–1945, p. 612. 60. GSP to BAP, 4 February 1945, Patton Papers, 1940–1945, p. 634. 61. Hughes Diary, 15 and 16 February 1945. 62. GSP to Frederick Ayer, 6 February 1945, Patton Papers, 1940–1945, p. 636. 63. Patton Diary, 19 March 1945, Patton Papers, 1940–1945, p. 658. 64. Patton Papers, 1940–1945, pp. 656–657. 65. One of Patton’s favorite aphorisms dating back to his first ‘‘Blood and Guts’’ speeches at Forts Benning and Knox. 66. As he explained during the Palatinate fighting, ‘‘I am going to attack as soon as possible, because at this stage of the war, time is more important than coordination.’’ Patton Diary, 9 March 1945, Patton Papers, 1940–1945, p. 653. 67. The final proof that the Patton/Gordon affair was something much more than avuncular rests in its sad aftermath. After Patton’s death and Jean’s return to the United States, Bea confronted Jean in a New York hotel room. Only days after the encounter, Jean Gordon, just days short of her thirty-first birthday, committed suicide. 68. REPT, Button Box, p. 349. 69. The chief source for Patton’s continued affair with Miss Gordon is Hughes. Historians unwilling to accept Patton’s libidinous drive instead impugn Hughes’s reputation. Hughes possessed an outstanding record in two world wars. Enemies at West Point, Patton and Hughes became friends while serving on Pershing’s staff in Mexico.

THE MADNESS OF GENERAL GEORGE

71

As deputy theater commander in the Mediterranean, Hughes interceded on Patton’s behalf after the slapping affair; he did again as Eisenhower’s ‘‘eyes and ears’’ after the Knutsford episode. In one of Patton’s deepest mental troughs in December 1943, when he described himself as ‘‘mentally up shit creek without either paddle or toilet paper,’’ he told Hughes, ‘‘I have learned my true friends—you rank #1.’’ The question has to be asked: Why would Hughes blacken the character of his best friend? That Hughes kept ‘‘a little black book’’ was no secret. He merely recorded what Patton told him. Moreover, as Eisenhower’s chief troubleshooter, it fell to Hughes to assess the state of Patton’s mind and keep him in harness. GSP to Hughes, 21 and 30 December 1943, Hughes Papers. 70. The quote comes from a letter to his wife, but Patton made no effort to disguise his views. GSP to BAP, 10 August 1945, Patton Papers, 1940–1945, p. 735. 71. Patton Diary, 10 August 1945, Patton Papers, 1940–1945, p. 736. 72. GSP to Pershing, 24 August 1944, cited in D’Este, A Genius for War, p. 912, n36. 73. Patton constantly reiterated these points in his ‘‘Blood and Guts’’ speeches. C. E. Dornbusch, Speech of General George S. Patton, Jr. to his Third Army on the Eve of the Normandy Invasion (Cornwallville, NY: Hope Farm Press, 1980). For the Patton-Weyland exchange, see Oral History of Gen. James H. Polk, USAMHI. 74. Westphal’s remarks were cited in Farago, Patton, p. 578.

4

What Do They Want, and How Can We Respond? Commonwealth Intelligence and Confrontation with Indonesia, 1963 Brian P. Farrell

THE GREATEST IMPONDERABLE of war is war itself. The violent clash of independent wills will always produce imponderable, unpredictable, sometimes incomprehensible developments. No imponderable is more important than the most obvious: to take the measure of the enemy. In most wars it was at least clear who was fighting, where and why. But this was not the case in the Confrontation between Indonesian-led armed forces and a British-led Commonwealth military coalition over the establishment of the Federation of Malaysia. The conflict, a war in fact but not in name, ran from January 1963 to August 1966. Since both feared wider consequences from open war, both euphemized their campaign. Indonesia ‘‘confronted’’ Malaysia, but also threatened to ‘‘crush’’ it. The Commonwealth ‘‘deterred’’ Indonesia, but also threatened to ‘‘destabilize’’ it. The shooting war at the sharp end was, for the most part, a fight between small infantry patrols stalking each other in a deadly game of hide and seek in jungle and mountain terrain in Borneo. Both sides matched this by sleight of hand in the central direction of their war. In 1964 the British government authorized its forces to take the fight to Indonesia by mounting covert small-unit offensive operations in Kalimantan, to disrupt Indonesian cross-border attacks before they began. But they kept the troops on a very tight leash, imposing severe rules of engagement to make sure no one could prove that British troops were fighting across the border.1 On the Indonesian side there was an even bigger gap between what their forces did and what their government took responsibility for. There was a good reason for this: the political struggle for control of Indonesia itself drove the conflict. As a result the Commonwealth coalition faced three main questions when Indonesia

74

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

became hostile in 1963: What did the ‘‘enemy’’ want? Who made their decisions? How far would they go? Neither side really wanted to destroy the other by military force. Indonesia no doubt would have tried to exploit a complete political and military collapse of Malaysia. But it never tried to make this happen by any coherent strategy, nor did it press operations with any consistent resolve. Commonwealth leaders did plan for open war with Indonesia, but they worked hard to make sure they never had to resort to such plans.2 Some Malaysian leaders wanted to implode Indonesia by stirring internal unrest and centripetal forces, and covert subversion campaigns were conducted, for a time, in Borneo, Sulawesi, and Sumatra. But the British, Australian, and New Zealand governments backed away from the idea of bringing down Sukarno’s republic, fearing it would do more harm than good. The Commonwealth war aim was more prudent. Defined in 1963, it never really changed: to resist Indonesian attempts to abort, destabilize, or splinter Malaysia until Indonesian authorities dropped the policy of Confrontation, recognized Malaysia, established normal diplomatic relations with it, and agreed to live in peaceful coexistence. Indonesian authorities matched this prudence, insofar as they had any coherent war aim or grand strategy, by observing a lowest common denominator. This was to compel an international reassessment of the Federation of Malaysia on terms acceptable to the government in Jakarta. There were unfortunately two complications. First, this minimal aim was inherently vague. Second, it was never clear whether all decision makers in Jakarta would settle for such a moderate result. The three questions added up to one overriding question: Must we fight at all? Historians can make at least two fundamental mistakes when studying intelligence in warfare. The first is to forget that these problems were dealt with by human beings—fallible creatures, hard pressed, distracted, swayed by passion or prejudice, prone to seeing things their own way, guided by unspoken assumptions of a different era. The second is to use the benefit of hindsight to grade performance according to some absolute scale of ‘‘right or wrong.’’ The historian studying the role of intelligence in the Confrontation also faces the difficulty of finding enough substantial primary sources on either side to reconstruct this most ambiguous of modern wars. There is enough archival material available in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States to allow this study to consider how Commonwealth intelligence agencies evaluated their adversary and what impact those evaluations had on the cardinal policy decision: that Malaysia must be established as and when planned, whatever the consequences. But often there is no more than a hint as to where the information came from, or how it was gathered. The system can be explained in detail, the method with some confidence, but the sources remain spotty. With those caveats, this study will discuss how Commonwealth governments and military forces produced strategic intelligence about their adversary; what impact such intelligence had on

WHAT DO THEY WANT, AND HOW CAN WE RESPOND?

75

their decision to accept Confrontation; and how it affected the interplay between foreign policy and military strategy. Taking the measure of the enemy is a constant challenge. The intelligence picture must be revisited time and again; in war, nothing stands still. The Commonwealth intelligence effort had its ups and downs. Overall, however, the following can be said. Commonwealth governments identified, with good political instincts, the main political factors—at home, in the region, and globally—that affected the conflict. Commonwealth intelligence agencies evaluated, soberly and with some confidence, the military capabilities of their enemy. They also assessed, with less confidence but still reasonable accuracy, the enemy’s military strategy. Commonwealth intelligence and diplomacy were less successful in determining the war aims of their enemy, but they at least identified the main features of the problem. They were still less successful in evaluating just who directed Indonesian policy and how the chain of command operated. But the most difficult problem came from within. Indonesian intentions were always evaluated within the context of what Commonwealth governments and armed forces wanted to achieve and the pressures within which they operated.3 This combination produced an important result. Speaking not in one voice but in what became a broad consensus, Commonwealth intelligence advisers argued that Indonesia was determined to abort the formation of Malaysia and expel Western forces and influence from the region. Such advice did not ‘‘cause’’ Confrontation, but it did confirm the predisposition of the British government to conclude that Indonesian behavior gave them no choice but to stand firm and accept Confrontation. Intelligence evaluations also did much to shape disagreements over how to handle Indonesia that influenced the direction of the war from start to finish. This puts the spotlight on our cardinal question: Why, and to what end, did Commonwealth intelligence argue that there was no alternative to Confrontation in 1963? This study will confine itself to strategic intelligence, defined as evaluating the circumstances, intentions, and capabilities of the ‘‘enemy’’ by assessing its central government and high command. Three broad themes ran through such assessments of the Indonesians in 1963. The first was Sukarno, president of the Republic of Indonesia: he made the key strategic decisions, which were implemented as he intended and driven by concrete external geopolitical ambitions. The second is that the principal political forces in Jakarta all felt, albeit for different reasons, that Confrontation was in their own as well as the national interest; therefore no political upheaval in the capital could be relied on to terminate the conflict. The third is that Sukarno and his foreign minister and director of the Central Intelligence Agency (Badan Pusat Inteligen, BPI), Dr. Subandrio, launched Confrontation as a low-risk campaign that they expected would produce quick and easy results, but when the Commonwealth showed unexpected resolution, they were trapped in a clash of prestige that no one saw any safe way to terminate. There were no watertight seals between these themes. Indeed, more often than not, all three were

76

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

discussed in the same appreciation. Closer examination of the role of intelligence in 1963 does shed important light on the question ‘‘Why Confrontation?’’ It suggests that the Indonesian and Commonwealth governments saw each other as imponderables; because their policies seemed so irreconcilable, the only credible explanation must be hostility. Both tested the intentions of the other through the Malaysia project, concluded they were right to assume the worst, and therefore had to see Confrontation through.4 Commonwealth authorities chose to emphasize the too-narrow argument that Sukarno personally directed the war and pursued concrete geostrategic aims. They did so not just because Indonesian behavior seemed to ‘‘prove’’ the case, but also because this conclusion best fit their own agendas. On the strength of it they went to war. For most of the war Commonwealth intelligence advisers correctly analyzed the enemy’s military strategy: the Indonesians were using low-intensity military operations as part of a calculated risk to try to score a relatively cheap diplomatic and political success. Unfortunately, it was harder to identify the purpose of the Indonesian grand strategy: the specific aims Indonesian leaders wanted to achieve. Commonwealth intelligence agencies identified over and over again the principal items on the Indonesian agenda. More often than not, however, they—or the authorities who read their reports—struggled to identify just how the Indonesian central direction of the war operated and what it wanted to achieve. British civil servants, military advisers, and cabinet ministers became convinced that their enemy was pursuing concrete geostrategic ambitions through an organized and disciplined political and military chain of command. A postwar British military report insisted with terse confidence: ‘‘The reason for the Confrontation between Indonesia and Malaysia was the fact that Indonesia considered (and still considers) herself as the leading emergent power in Southeast Asia, and was prepared to brook no rivals.’’5 In this picture, Indonesia had a president whose vision shaped foreign policy and grand strategy, and his orders were carried out coherently by a cabinet and military high command that supported them. This image of the enemy was neither unfounded nor accurate. There were contending political forces in Indonesia, pursuing different agendas for Confrontation. Commonwealth intelligence understood this, and they usually noted that Confrontation was directly related to political tension within Indonesia. But they often misread two things: just how much that tension drove Confrontation as a national policy, and how incoherent it made the central direction of Indonesian policy. What made this war so confusing for the Commonwealth to read was the nature of Indonesian governance and foreign policy. Sukarno certainly was central to both. Most Western observers assumed that Sukarno effectively if not fully controlled Indonesian policy, directing an erratic campaign of military and political pressure but pursuing coherent strategic ambitions. These were usually seen as to abort Malaysia, absorb the Borneo territories, and make Indonesia the leading power in Southeast Asia. This would position it as the leader of the ‘‘Newly Emerging Forces’’ (NEFOS) in global power

WHAT DO THEY WANT, AND HOW CAN WE RESPOND?

77

politics, driving ‘‘Old Established Forces’’ (OLDEFOS) and their ‘‘Nekolim’’ or neocolonial puppets out of the region. Sukarno had more influence on Indonesian national policy than anyone else in 1963, and to that extent it is fair to see him as the author of Confrontation. Had he opposed the policy it could not have proceeded. But he did not manage foreign policy or military strategy in detail, nor exercise direct or unfettered control of military operations. No one did. As with everything else in Indonesian politics, they were produced by the unstable interplay of political forces swirling around the president. By 1963 Sukarno was caught in the middle of a volatile situation, one he did much to forge through management by manipulation. Sukarno’s strategy was to play contending political forces off against each other, to keep all factions off balance and preserve his own authority and indispensability. But this policy of managing competition threatened to blow up in his face by exploding into civil war. What Sukarno wanted—needed—from Confrontation was a crisis in which the nation needed to be led, not administered. A ‘‘wayang war’’ against the ‘‘Nekolim’’ puppets and their imperialist Western allies offered a way out. It could distract the nation from its collapsing economy. It could focus the armed forces on an external foe and satisfy them with a rising budget. And it could persuade the communists to follow his lead while they tried to expand their mass base of followers, hoping that a more radical Sukarno would lead the revolution to the next phase.6 Three threads ran through Sukarno’s career: his hatred of Western imperialism, which by the 1960s expressed itself as denouncing continued Western influence in the region; his devotion to the unity and fulfillment of the Indonesian nation-state; and his dedication to revolution for its own sake, to shaking up Indonesia and the world and moving both in new directions. Confrontation fused all three together. Sukarno’s dynamism, charisma, and popularity with the Indonesian people were matched by administrative impatience and incompetence. Indonesia’s president did not know how to govern— but knew how to lead and inspire. Unfortunately, his leadership rested on maintaining this inherently volatile balance between contending forces, broadly consisting of radical elements led by the Communist Party of Indonesia (Partai Komunis Indonesia, PKI) and more conservative but reliably anti-imperialist elements led by senior officers of the army (Tentara Nasional Indonesia, TNI). The Guided Democracy he engineered from 1959 put Sukarno at the center of things again. Sukarno saw foreign policy as the way to meet this challenge. Territorial goals or diplomatic triumphs were not ends in themselves. They were means to a larger end: carry on the Indonesian revolution, using Guided Democracy to maintain a volatile but united Indonesia. There was no distinction between changing Indonesia and changing the world. Confrontation was Sukarno’s way to rewrite the rules of the game, at home and abroad. This made it more than just a campaign of intimidation against British neocolonialism on his borders. For Sukarno the bottom line was stark. His principal war aim was the war itself—the fight was the thing.7

78

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

Indonesia fighting for concrete territorial or strategic objectives, fighting against the consummation of Malaysia, could probably be brought to heel by being forced to acknowledge the goal was beyond its power to reach. But Indonesia fighting for the sake of fighting would indicate that the prime cause of the conflict lay beyond Commonwealth control. It could be intractable tensions within Indonesia. Or it could be an Indonesian approach to foreign policy per se, a determination to play by a different set of rules. And it could be both. Worse, if there was no disciplined chain of command in Jakarta, if unpredictable political rivalries generated strategic decisions, how could such an enemy be brought to heel? The first substantial effort to evaluate Indonesian intentions coincided with a dramatic shift in Indonesian policy in 1963. In 1961 the Indonesian government expressed friendly indifference to the project to establish a Federation of Malaysia. But on 20 January 1963 Subandrio declared that Indonesia would follow a policy of ‘‘Confrontation’’ against Malaya, to retaliate for its behaving ‘‘as the henchman of Neo-Imperialism and Neo-Colonialism pursuing a policy hostile to Indonesia.’’8 Subandrio’s bellicose change of direction was triggered by a rebellion in Brunei that broke out on 8 December 1962. The rebellion was instigated by A. M. Azahari, leader of the People’s Party (Partai Rakyat), which in August won very wide support in Brunei’s first general election and which objected to the Malaysia project. Indonesian government agencies supported Azahari when the North Borneo National Army (Tentara Nasional Kalimantan Utara, TNKU) tried to seize power. Brunei was a British protectorate whose economy rested on large oil deposits mainly under British control. British and Gurkha troops flew in from Singapore, regained control of the capital, main towns, and installations, drove the remnants of the TNKU into the bush, and proceeded to hunt them down.9 Intelligence reports of Indonesian support for Azahari and the TNKU upset the Malayan and British governments. Tunku Abdul Rahman, prime minister of Malaya, argued that the Indonesian government would try to prevent consummation of a federation of Malaysia because it wanted to absorb the Borneo territories of Brunei, Sabah, and Sarawak, scheduled to join Malaysia. The Tunku therefore invoked the Anglo-Malayan Defence Agreement (AMDA), by which the British pledged to defend Malaya against external attack, calling for British support to deter Indonesia. The British government agreed that Indonesia might try to abort the federation of Malaysia. Prime Minister Harold Macmillan directed the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) to evaluate Indonesian activity and intentions.10 The JIC produced three papers in January 1963 that established a foundation for Commonwealth intelligence evaluations during the Confrontation. That justifies a brief examination of the JIC and its role in policymaking, as well as the basis from which it produced these papers. The JIC was responsible for collating and evaluating intelligence collected by all sources available to the British government and armed forces. The reports it produced were

WHAT DO THEY WANT, AND HOW CAN WE RESPOND?

79

meant to inform the chief of the defense staff (CDS) and the chiefs of staff (COS), the professional heads of the armed forces, as they advised the government on the use of the armed forces as an instrument of national policy—as well as informing the Cabinet as it formulated defense and foreign policy. Chaired by a senior official from the Foreign Office (FO), the JIC was an important part of the British system of government by committee, bringing together the intelligence branches of the three armed services, plus the Security Service (MI5), Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), the signals intelligence agency or Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), and representatives from other departments as required. JIC reports were drafted by a Joint Intelligence Staff and finalized by the main committee. They were based on a wide variety of sources and were produced as periodic reviews of the general situation or in response to specific commissions. The idea was to make sure that all sources were considered, all interests involved, before presenting policymakers with a safely contextualized and vetted appraisal. Like any system, this one was only as effective as the human beings running it. An inherent drawback was the temptation to pursue service or department rivalries, given that most issues were politically sensitive or militarily dangerous, and information was usually incomplete or ambiguous. Conversely, the system could also foster circular justification or groupthink. An inherent strength was the mandate to pull together all information and evaluate it from all vantage points, to try to see the ‘‘big picture.’’ Sometimes that prevented important information from being drowned in a sea of data; sometimes it helped detect misdirection or impulsive reporting. JIC reports were not the only intelligence evaluations read by the Cabinet or their military advisers—for example, reports from embassies and high commissions often reached the red dispatch boxes—but the JIC was well entrenched as the main intelligence assessment body. Australia and New Zealand both had their own similarly constituted JIC, as did Far East Command (FEC), a new unified headquarters established in Singapore only ten days before the Brunei Rebellion. JIC Far East (JICFE) was a principal in the intelligence dimension of Confrontation, producing reports that regularly formed the basis of JIC London reports. All four JICs routinely shared information and reports as part of a wider loop that included a good deal of information sharing with Canadian and American agencies. The four repeated each other fairly often, partly because they relied on many common sources of intelligence. They also had an institutional link through the ANZAM machinery, a low-profile planning framework for coordinating British, Australian, and New Zealand defense policies and plans relating to the defense of Southeast Asia and the Australian region. Run through the Australian defense machinery in Canberra, ANZAM brought the four JICs together to provide intelligence appreciations for its own consideration.11 Macmillan’s commission was no bolt from the blue. By the time the Tunku publicly suggested forming a Federation of Malaysia, in May 1961, the British and Australian governments regarded Indonesia as a serious threat to

80

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

security in the ANZAM region. There were four main reasons for this, beyond its sheer size. First, they viewed Indonesia mainly as a volatile police state badly governed by a charismatic but erratic dictator who resented Western influence in the region. Second, they were alarmed by the rise in PKI influence after Sukarno established ‘‘Guided Democracy.’’ Third, from 1959 the Indonesian government bought large quantities of advanced military equipment, including modern jet aircraft and warships, mainly from the Soviet Union. Finally, from 1959 Indonesia waged an eclectic campaign of ‘‘Confrontation’’ to pressure the Dutch to withdraw from the last territory they controlled in the region, Western New Guinea. This campaign succeeded, forcing the Dutch to hand over the territory first to UN supervision but ultimately to Indonesian control.12 That all seemed to give the Indonesians ample motive to challenge British plans, a tested strategy to employ, and the means to stand up to British power. These perceptions shaped JIC appreciations of what Indonesia might do about British policy in the region. In September 1961 the JIC declared Indonesia ‘‘fundamentally opposed to Commonwealth interests.’’ In November 1961 the British High Commission in Canberra presented Australian prime minister Sir Robert Menzies a British position paper regarding the project to create ‘‘Greater Malaysia.’’ The paper explained the British ‘‘Grand Design’’ to merge Singapore, Sarawak, Sabah, and Brunei with Malaya to form a larger federation. This would allow the British to consolidate these territories in a new polity that would be more viable, economically and politically, than each would be if left to become separate independent states. This larger Malaysia would enable the British to reduce their commitments in the region when it developed as a stable proWestern Commonwealth ally. The paper identified the need to connect Singapore with the Malayan mainland as the most pressing problem, but it also declared that the Borneo states must be included. If left on their own, Indonesian irredentism would inevitably absorb them.13 The British were not prepared to accept this, not least because they saw Sukarno, one of the founders of the Non-Aligned Movement, as a fellow traveler of the communist bloc whose rhetoric about ‘‘new emerging forces’’ was fundamentally anti-Western. In June 1962, in a list of Militarily Significant States, the JIC put Indonesia in Category A, ‘‘in a position to threaten Commonwealth interests in Southeast Asia.’’ Finally, in November 1962 the JIC circulated a secret American report claiming that the intelligence bureau of the TNI was trying to organize support for a ‘‘Greater Indonesia’’ in Borneo and Malaya.14 These were big claims, to which the British did not overreact. Special Branch had tracked support for a Greater Indonesia in Malaya and the other territories ever since 1945; it was durable, but marginal. But mixed feelings about merging into Malaysia, especially in the Borneo territories, were another matter entirely. Here there were grounds for concern, especially in Sarawak. In this context, long-standing Indonesian support for Azahari and the TNKU, PKI activity, Subandrio’s hostility, the West New Guinea precedent, and Indonesian military

WHAT DO THEY WANT, AND HOW CAN WE RESPOND?

81

movements seemed to add up to Indonesian intentions to ‘‘fish in troubled waters.’’ That posed a real threat to the British ‘‘exit strategy’’ for their Southeast Asian colonies.15 JICFE produced two of the January 1963 papers: Indonesian Involvement in the Borneo Territories in the Next Three Months Short of Overt Aggression, and Indonesian Military Capabilities against the Borneo Territories up to the End of 1963. JICFE presented a nuanced appreciation of the different political forces and sympathies in the Borneo territories, noting, for example, that Azahari’s rebellion ‘‘probably had the support of some 80 percent of the population.’’ Many indigenous communities in all three territories were by no means pro-Indonesian, and some were ‘‘loyal to the British authorities’’; but some Malay and Kadazan communities were more pro-Indonesian, while other communities were not sympathetic to the Malaysia concept. One group in particular, the mainly Chinese supporters of the so-called Clandestine Communist Organization (CCO) in Sarawak, wanted independence rather than merger— but were also preparing an armed uprising, and probably developing ties with the PKI. The general conclusion was that the sheer size of the Borneo territories, the rugged terrain along their long border with Kalimantan, and the very mixed views of the different communities regarding their political future all made for genuinely troubled waters that the Indonesians could indeed fish in. Sending small groups across the border to stir up trouble ‘‘was possible almost anywhere.’’ Sending large groups across would be more difficult and take time to prepare ; the Indonesians would have to build staging areas on their side before they could launch such operations. That suggested that the Indonesians would try to destabilize the territories by circulating inflammatory propaganda, creating disturbances, and carrying out acts of sabotage or terrorism. If they enjoyed any success, they might try to infiltrate larger groups across the border; the most vulnerable areas were the First Division of southwestern Sarawak, with a relatively large Chinese population; the border region of northeastern Sarawak, dominated by Malay and other communities sympathetic to the TNKU; and the coastal border region of eastern Sabah, home to a large population of Indonesian migrant workers. One important conclusion referred to the armed forces: ‘‘In the present circumstances we do not think it would be Indonesian policy to employ regular Indonesian Army cadres but this cannot be discounted.’’ JICFE estimates of what the Indonesian armed forces could do against the territories, without prejudice to international repercussions, were sober. The Indonesian armed forces could infiltrate companysize parties by land, sea, and air almost anywhere along the border. If they were more aggressive, they could maintain four battalions in operations overland, three battalions in an airborne operation, mount more than one amphibious operation, and maintain a force of brigade size, or even launch a simultaneous overland, sea, and airborne operation of ten battalions. The Indonesian Navy (Tentara Nasional Indonesia-Angkatan Laut, TNI-AL) could threaten the entire coast, and the lines of communication to Singapore, with

82

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

aircraft, major and minor surface vessels, mines, and submarines. The Indonesian Air Force (Angkatan Udara Republik Indonesia, AURI) could threaten the whole Borneo territory, as well as all rear bases and lines of communication in and from Malaya and Singapore. But weaknesses in staff work, logistics, and maintenance severely constrained all three services; the air force and navy depended almost completely on Soviet technical assistance to operate their new advanced equipment and had very little experience in major operations against serious opposition. There was a big difference between Indonesian capabilities on paper and what they could really be expected to do in practice. If they did launch an open attack, they would not be able to maintain more than three airborne battalions and a brigade group in the whole area; the nature of the terrain plus their own weakness in logistics would force them to concentrate on the First Division of Sarawak, the area closest to Singapore.16 JIC London agreed that the infiltration threat was real and seconded the Delphic warning that escalation, perhaps by using regular forces to cross the border, ‘‘cannot be discounted.’’ This was of course the point on which policymakers most wanted clarity: What was the most dangerous thing the Indonesians were likely to do? Unfortunately, it was also the very point on which neither JIC could make any categorical evaluation. Both could argue with some confidence what the Indonesians could do by evaluating the Indonesian order of battle, inventory, and skill at arms. Both could be categorical about what the Indonesians could not do because of physical limits: invade the Borneo territories in great force, drawing on their very large regular army. But neither could address with much confidence the most crucial question: What would the Indonesians do? The political situation in the Borneo territories was relevant to that question, but the most important evidence lay elsewhere. The JIC paper Indonesian Aims and Intentions tackled this problem by examining ‘‘likely Indonesian aims and intentions in the next few years.’’17 This paper was an older study revised to take account of Subandrio’s 20 January speech. It concentrated on the Indonesian political and economic situation and Indonesian foreign policy. And it made an important main argument: ideology indicated that Indonesia would try to abort Malaysia, but circumstances, rivalries, and personalities would determine when and how. The JIC produced a sophisticated evaluation of the recent history and current situation of Indonesia, describing a heterogeneous and volatile state. They identified regional as well as ideological and communal frictions, often overlapping. But they also noted the government’s success in suppressing internal rebellions, in forging a functioning central administration, and in organizing an army that maintained order and helped build the nation. They identified two core weaknesses : ‘‘the fundamental clash of interests between the Javanese . . . and the rest’’ and ‘‘persistent financial difficulties.’’ And they focused on the key question: ‘‘the type of government likely to be in power in Indonesia in the next few years and secondly, the policies which we could expect it to follow.’’

WHAT DO THEY WANT, AND HOW CAN WE RESPOND?

83

Sukarno’s policy to balance the major political forces by playing off TNI and PKI against each other was inherently unstable. While he manipulated this balance, the economy unraveled. The only reason it had not yet collapsed in chaos was ‘‘because the majority of Indonesians lived by subsistence agriculture.’’ Ambitions for a Greater Indonesia were sincere, as was hostility toward Western interests and ‘‘old established forces.’’ Malaysia was a British ploy to preserve Western interests in the region and would be ‘‘confronted.’’ But other factors would determine when and how: what opportunities the external situation offered, what imperatives the internal situation produced. Friction within the Borneo territories would certainly tempt the Indonesians to stir up trouble. Success in Western New Guinea would add to this temptation. But the deteriorating national economy, plus the tense political rivalry at the center, would provide the greatest impetus. PKI wanted to press Confrontation very hard. TNI did not object to Confrontation, because they also opposed ‘‘colonial forces.’’ But they would try to prevent escalation that might risk open war, not least for fear that only the PKI would gain from such a fight. Sukarno held the initiative. There was ‘‘no obvious alternative to his rule,’’ no sign of any dangerous opposition. Neither PKI nor TNI would move against him because both needed him, especially his considerable standing with the general population, to offset the other. Sooner or later he would give in to the temptation to distract his people from internal problems by trying to repeat the success of Western New Guinea. The assessment of ‘‘Confrontation’’ over Western New Guinea summed up the JIC view of why Sukarno would ‘‘confront’’ Malaysia: the Indonesian campaign against West New Guinea was not prompted by any rational assessment of Indonesia’s requirements as a nation-state, but was developed from its emotional origins primarily to divert attention from domestic problems and to foster national unity.

Three weeks later the JIC, citing the ‘‘Irian campaign’’ against the Dutch yet again, argued that the Indonesians now intended to ‘‘wage a war of nerves which may only stop short of engaging in overt hostilities.’’ That summed up in fifteen words what happened for the next three and a half years. The JIC was surely right to suggest that the desire to paint Malaysia as colonial stooge rather than legitimate successor state was a fundamental Indonesian motive. But the question remained pressing: How did external factors relate to internal problems to define Indonesian policy? The JIC reports spelled out one central conclusion as the diplomatic war of words heated up: the various political forces in Indonesia all had many reasons to support ‘‘confronting’’ Malaysia, but few reasons to oppose it: It is unlikely that any gesture of good will or moderation on the part of the Tunku would alter the fundamental attitude of the Indonesian Government to Malaya, indeed it might only encourage the Indonesians into thinking that they were making gains in their war of nerves.

84

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

Only two things might persuade Indonesia to relent: a serious international backlash against Indonesia’s campaign to ‘‘confront’’ Malaysia, or the possibility that ‘‘the death of President Sukarno, whose emotions are deeply involved in Indonesia’s present policy, and who is bored by economic problems, might enable his successors to concentrate on internal reform rather than foreign adventures.’’18 These JIC evaluations indicated how Indonesia could wage Confrontation, and they also suggested why it would: every major Indonesian political interest needed Confrontation, either to pursue much-wanted goals or to prevent much feared calamities. The implication was stark: Indonesia’s ideologies, circumstances, and personalities combined to make Confrontation necessary as a national policy. That very worrying conclusion prompted Commonwealth governments to focus on three things as the situation deteriorated: Sukarno, the Indonesian economy, and the PKI. What did they have in common? They could all be evaluated through a framework shaped by Western experience, inclinations, and agendas. Dealing with unpredictable personal dictators struck a historic chord running back to the 1930s. This also expressed a human temptation to personalize problems that seemed elemental. Measuring the Indonesian economy could be done quantifiably; in a circular argument, the worse it became, the more this supported the idea that Sukarno was a dilettante who needed to divert his people from a problem he could not solve. Finally, Sukarno’s emotional Marxism seemed to explain his flirtation at home and abroad with the force that most worried the Commonwealth allies and their American friends: world communism. Identifying this volatile interplay of motives, agendas, players, and capabilities prodded the British government toward two fundamental decisions. First, waging open war with such a volatile state would do more harm than good, especially if the conflict imploded it. The ensuing chaos would poison the very neighborhood the Malaysia project was designed to improve. Second, the challenge was to do whatever was necessary to contain Indonesia—but no more. The Commonwealth must find and hold the threshold at which it could contain Confrontation as a war of nerves. Intelligence evaluations must underpin that policy. The British had to relate their conclusions about Indonesian intentions to two important challenges: to consummate Malaysia and to persuade key Western allies that Indonesia posed a real threat to that project. The former required difficult negotiations that exposed serious differences between the governments of Malaya, Singapore, and Brunei over the terms of federation, as well as stoking mixed feelings in Sarawak and Sabah. The latter produced a rolling discussion between the British, American, Australian, and New Zealand governments. The three Commonwealth governments agreed that it was essential to persuade the Americans to support the Malaysia project and help contain Indonesia if necessary. On the one hand, all parties confirmed their political support for the Malaysia project, but on the other hand, the Americans in particular expressed the strong desire not to allow it to prejudice

WHAT DO THEY WANT, AND HOW CAN WE RESPOND?

85

Western relations with Indonesia. The Kennedy administration was very concerned about increasingly close ties between Sukarno and the PKI, worried that this might promote more cooperation between Indonesia and the communist powers, and pressed for greater diplomatic efforts to resolve this potential clash with Jakarta before endorsing any policy that might provoke an open breach. The Americans were reluctant to agree that Indonesian designs on Malaysia reflected a broader threat to general Western interests.19 Yet this remained the view of the men on the spot. MG Walter Walker, director of Operations in Borneo, submitted his report on Operation Ale, the suppression of the Brunei revolt, in March. Walker’s forces were hunting down the remnants of the TNKU, but Walker and his headquarters were preparing to return to Malaya. Drawing on JICFE evaluations, Walker argued that the Indonesian government’s ultimate intention was to abort Malaysia and absorb the Borneo territories. As if on cue, more than thirty armed men, probably including TNI regulars, crossed the border early on 12 April, Good Friday, and attacked the police post at Tebedu in the First Division of Sarawak, south of Kuching. They killed one policeman, wounded two others, and ransacked the nearby market before returning to Kalimantan; Walker and his headquarters stood fast in Borneo. This marked the real beginning of the military struggle within Confrontation. Almost simultaneously, Sarawak Special Branch reported that CCO preparations for launching armed struggle within Sarawak were now so advanced they must be preempted.20 The general increase in tension prompted a strong response from Australia. Geopolitics drove this Australian response. Australia’s defense policy rested on the principles of ‘‘forward defense’’ and collective security, to defend Australia by working with strong allies, notably the Americans and British, to contain threats as far from Australia as possible. From the mid1950s Canberra saw China and the Cold War as the major threat and Southeast Asia as the priority region. The British strategic position in Malaya became the platform from which Australian forces supported ANZAM, as well as the South East Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) effort to contain communist expansion. Australia associated itself with the AMDA by private letter in 1959, and Canberra regarded the security of Malaya as crucial in stabilizing the Western position in the ‘‘Near North.’’ That included retaining strong British forces in the region, on top of the ultimate security guarantee: the direct defensive alliance with the Americans, the ANZUS Pact. But the stark fact was that ultimately the British had a choice, whereas Australia did not. Indonesia was its next-door neighbor and the largest country in the region, two things that would not change. Turmoil in Indonesia or the region would affect Australia more than any other Western power. The Australians showed some sympathy toward Indonesia’s violent bid for independence from 1945 to 1949, something that fostered goodwill between Jakarta and Canberra. But by 1963 Indonesian foreign policy was sorely testing that goodwill. Confrontation prodded the Australians to identify three priorities: to prevent any

86

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

breach between the Americans and British over how to handle Indonesia; to protect Australian strategic interests in Malaya; and to preserve good working relations with the government of Indonesia.21 The real challenge was to realize Malaysia without provoking a breach with Indonesia. Some senior Australian officials felt that the British were asking for trouble by pressing ahead with the Malaysia project despite mixed feelings in Sarawak and Sabah, as well as not making much of an effort to make Jakarta feel it was being honestly consulted about major changes on its borders. But the Australian Defence Committee (DC), an advisory body combining senior civil servants and the COS, pointed out that ‘‘forward defense’’ rested in practice on committing Australian forces to the Commonwealth Strategic Reserve (CSR) deployed in Malaya. Strategic partnership with the British and Malayans was a necessary ingredient for Australian policy, so if they were determined to proceed with Malaysia, then in its own larger interest Australia must accept the risk this posed to relations with Indonesia. In March the Menzies government agreed that establishing Malaysia was now essential in order to promote Australian national interests—and if necessary Australia would help defend Malaysia by word and deed.22 But the caveat was important. Australian inclination to make relations with Indonesia a priority, plus healthy government and personal relations established in Jakarta, forged an important connection between diplomacy and intelligence. The Australian ambassador, Keith ‘‘Mick’’ Shann, worked in a post rated more important by his own government than his British counterpart, and had better access to top Indonesian officials.23 The Australians drew roughly the same conclusions as the British regarding the political situation in Indonesia, the broad direction of its foreign policy, and the personalities and agendas involved. But they were less inclined to conclude that Indonesia wanted to expel Western interests from the region, more hopeful that the Malaysia issue could be resolved without a breach. They also focused on Sukarno, the economic situation, and the PKI, but made a more determined effort to establish how Indonesia might be persuaded to drop ‘‘Confrontation’’ and accept Malaysia. Because this involved speaking directly with Sukarno and Subandrio as often as possible, Australian reports became a major source in the broader effort to determine Indonesian intentions. On 27 February T. K. Critchley, Australian high commissioner to Malaya, joined Shann to call on Subandrio and Sukarno in Jakarta. Critchley and Shann drew the following conclusions: Sukarno called the shots; both Indonesians saw Australia as a viable broker in their dispute with Malaya; and Sukarno was motivated by a combination of personal animosity toward the Tunku and his government, basic distrust of Western intentions and the motives for creating Malaysia, and simple hurt pride. The latter stemmed from not being consulted over Malaysia, as well as from being insulted by the Malayan government and press. Critchley and Shann emphasized that Malaysia would be established as intended on 31 August but argued that there was

WHAT DO THEY WANT, AND HOW CAN WE RESPOND?

87

still time and space to cool down the dispute. But the two diplomats underestimated one important point the Indonesians made: it would not be easy to tamp down rising anger among many Indonesian interests, not just the PKI, over the Malaysia issue. They both felt Sukarno could manage Indonesian passions, and while it would be difficult to talk him down from the brink, it could be done. On 6 March, the day after the Australian government decided it would ultimately defend Malaysia, Shann told the Department of External Affairs (DEA) that Critchley made an impact on Sukarno: ‘‘I do not consider that they would give up altogether their opposition to Malaysia but I believe that they can be persuaded to tone it down enough so that we will not be forced to choose between Indonesia and Malaysia.’’ This suggestion that diplomacy could find a way to steer Malaysia to fruition without provoking more than irritated criticism from Jakarta, provided the right approaches were made to Sukarno, did much to shape subsequent Australian efforts. But there was more than a bit of wishful thinking in Shann’s advice. The ambassador made the point himself: ‘‘If we have any sort of spunk we must plump for the Malayans, and the long term result, in terms of our relations with Indonesia, would be pretty awful and indeed eventually suicidal.’’24 The specter of being squeezed between British determination to realize Malaysia and Indonesian inclination to confront it brought Sir Garfield Barwick, Australian minister for external affairs, into the fray. Taking advantage of Philippine president Diosdado Macapagal’s effort to promote rapprochement between Malaya, Indonesia, and the Philippines, Barwick met Subandrio in Manila on 12 and 13 March. Barwick found the Indonesian foreign minister ‘‘voluble and often illogical,’’ concluded he was determined to delay and if possible abort Malaysia, but also decided that ‘‘he felt particular resentment at the manner in which Malaysia had been pushed through.’’ Barwick insisted that the creation of Malaysia was not negotiable, but sought common ground by suggesting that China was the real threat to the region as a whole, regional stability was in everyone’s best interest, and Australia ‘‘wanted a strong Indonesia and would have no part in any plans to promote its disintegration.’’ Barwick tried at least five times to extract a clear answer from Subandrio on what the Australians saw as the pivotal point: What would it take to reassure the Indonesians that the creation of Malaysia would not pose any threat to their interests—was in fact in their interest because it would stabilize Singapore and Borneo? Barwick offered to help negotiate terms on which Indonesia could be consulted and reassured ‘‘if we only knew on what conditions the concept [Malaysia] could be acceptable to Indonesia.’’ Subandrio admitted that Indonesia might accept Malaysia if it received ‘‘clear undertakings,’’ agreed that China was an ultimate concern, but insisted that he could not make either point public ‘‘at this stage.’’ Barwick jumped to the heart of the matter: I stressed again the need for us to know what it was about Malaysia which bothered the Indonesians, in clear and precise terms, if we were to help in solving

88

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

problems which arose out of policies which had been adopted and which I frankly told him would run Indonesia ‘‘on the rocks,’’ and which would destroy its relationship with Malayans generally, and its role of leadership in the Malayan world. I got in response a great deal about public excitement and opinion in Indonesia, the attitude of the Army, and the difficulties which Subandrio would have in dealing with them or in advocating a change in present policies. I told him I did not think President Sukarno would have too much of a problem in leading his people away from the present course.

Barwick was wrong to dismiss Subandrio’s warnings as an excuse to justify Indonesia’s Confrontation policy. This overlooked the range of interests already involved in confronting Malaysia. The main reason for this misdiagnosis was the growing feeling in Barwick’s department that what really provoked Sukarno was more the manner in which Malaysia was being consummated than the act itself. Sukarno must be seen to be properly consulted, the war of words must stop, and the Malayans must make reassuring comments about working together on regional concerns. Sukarno needed ‘‘face.’’ Barwick made a direct offer. Could Subandrio: accept Malaysia in substance as a practical solution of the emergence of the Borneo Territories, if as a result of conferences Indonesian national sensibilities which had been aroused and Indonesian apprehensions as to attacks on her unity could be removed—and that he felt that this was possible as a result of talks between the three countries. He said I could make that assumption.25

Barwick informed Menzies that Sukarno endorsed the idea of trilateral talks, but wisely warned that ‘‘there is no certainty in these matters.’’ Barwick and his officials pressured the Malayan government to tone down public criticisms of the Indonesians and be forthcoming at the trilateral talks, to begin at the official level in mid-April. DEA officials suggested that Malayan officials were uneasy about Australian pressure because ‘‘We doubt whether they grasp what we are seeking to achieve in Indonesia.’’ The remedy was to remind the Malayan government that it must bear in mind the fact that Indonesia would remain a substantial force in the region. And here there was a problem: ‘‘The Malayan appreciation of Indonesian internal politics is seriously deficient although the Tunku believes his own intelligence on Indonesia is of a high order.’’26 Unfortunately, the Australian idea that pressing Malaya to make public concessions would cool down, perhaps even defuse, Confrontation rested on two shaky assumptions: their own assessment of Indonesian policy and intentions was more accurate, and there was enough political room to reorient the process of consummating Malaysia to give Jakarta the necessary ‘‘face.’’ This advice was offered the day after the raid on Tebedu, which of course undermined any claim that Jakarta sought a way to back down.27 Noisy Confrontation was already proving useful for all the major players in Indonesian

WHAT DO THEY WANT, AND HOW CAN WE RESPOND?

89

politics, for domestic and foreign policy goals. The trilateral meeting of officials produced a program for ministerial talks that stalled when the war of words between Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta flared up again. But American pressure on the British plus Australian pressure on the Malayans seems to have persuaded the Indonesians that their policy to stir up trouble was having an effect. As the raiders hit Tebedu, Sukarno ostentatiously hosted two very senior Chinese leaders on a state visit to Jakarta—a visit that forced Barwick to cancel a request to meet Sukarno. Spelling out terms by which Confrontation could be defused not only ran against the grain as far as Sukarno’s philosophy of foreign policy was concerned, but it would also divide the major political forces in Indonesia—whereas so far, Confrontation had brought them together.28 But the Indonesians in their turn misread an important problem: the delicacy of the negotiations to consummate Malaysia. In addition to the challenge of selling Malaysia to ambivalent populations in Sarawak and Sabah, the Malayan government ran into trouble over terms to bring Singapore and Brunei into the federation. The argument, which revolved around the place and powers of the different states in the new federation, ground on. So too did domestic arguments in Singapore and Borneo about whether to proceed at all. Such pressures made the British, as well as the prime minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, determined to bring about Malaysia on schedule, to seal off fault lines that might unravel the whole project.29 The British, Malayan, and Singapore governments wanted to establish Malaysia on time at the end of August, to cement the fragile structure together. The American and Australian governments felt that the British and Malayans should do more to publicly involve Indonesia in establishing Malaysia. The Australian DEA thought that being more publicly tactful toward Jakarta might persuade the Indonesians to quietly drop Confrontation. But while Sukarno flirted with the Chinese and exchanged insults with the Tunku, Indonesian officials noted British pressure to bring the Malayan parties together. The questions seemed clear. Was Indonesia trying to scuttle Malaysia or just extract a price for accepting it? Either way, how could their challenge best be met? In late May Sukarno, meeting Macapagal in Manila, invited the Tunku to meet him privately in Tokyo, the next stop on his itinerary. The British were concerned about the meeting, but could hardly prevent it. Their main concern was that Sukarno was using diplomacy as a weapon to fire up the dispute, not to resolve it—and there was room for him to do so. On 29 May, two days before the Tokyo summit, the JIC endorsed the latest JICFE report Indonesian Military Capabilities Against the Borneo Territories up to the End of 1963. The only important change from the earlier evaluation was a section entitled ‘‘Warning of Indonesian Military Operations.’’ Here, the JIC concluded, ‘‘Little or no warning of small scale Indonesian activities can be expected. However, large scale operations could not be launched without a considerable and protracted build-up which would become known to us.’’ This was

90

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

sobering. The problem that was expected to increase as the Malaysia deadline approached was small-scale incursions across the long border, such as the raid on Tebedu. They posed three dangers: they could encourage embarrassing internal opposition to federation, particularly in Sarawak ; they could encourage a more dangerous Indonesian buildup; and they could provoke more disagreement between the Quadripartite allies.30 Unfortunately, British intelligence agencies struggled to answer the same question that vexed the Australian DEA: What was the Indonesian bottom line? In late March, the JIC surmised that the Indonesians probably realized they could not abort Malaysia but were not likely to drop either their suspicions or ambitions. But on the most crucial point it suggested, ‘‘The extent to which they will press overt and covert opposition after 31 August however, is likely to depend on their assessment of the possibilities and risks.’’31 Such a stunningly unhelpful statement of the obvious no doubt helped prompt Barwick to engage as he did. But so did JIC reports of increased Indonesian activity in the Strait of Melaka and along the border in Borneo. The Sarawak crackdown on the CCO began on 19 April; the JIC reported that the organization hoped to launch outright revolution in May or June. It also cited an ‘‘unconfirmed report’’ that at a recent meeting between Subandrio and Sarawak dissidents the Indonesian foreign minister spelled out Indonesian policy. Diplomatic intrigue and pressure, plus escalating incursions across the border, as well as subversion inside Sarawak, would be used to abort Malaysia. For the moment small incursions and minor subversion would proceed, but all parties must be prepared to escalate the campaign. The ‘‘controlling factor’’ would be an Indonesian threat to intervene in force when it became clear that the population rejected Malaysia. The JIC cited a Malayan Special Branch warning that Indonesian-inspired subversive groups who wanted to topple the Kuala Lumpur government were growing in strength. Another ‘‘report’’ warned that Sukarno and Subandrio told their Chinese visitors that the PRC could help Confrontation by distracting the British, perhaps by a show of force in the South China Sea, or by putting pressure on Hong Kong. Despite the detail, the only point the JIC could assert with real confidence as the Tunku prepared to meet Sukarno was that the Indonesian leader would use their meeting to aggravate the problem, not resolve it.32 The Tokyo summit of 31 May-1 June did not at first vindicate this warning. The two leaders announced that their governments would stop publicly insulting each other, that their foreign ministers would meet after all, and that the resulting agreements would be cemented by a trilateral summit meeting ‘‘in due course.’’ Subandrio duly met Tun Abdul Razak and Emmanuel Pelaez, foreign ministers of Malaya and the Philippines, in Manila from 7 to 11 June. But their meeting produced an agreement that did appear to justify British concerns by making the whole problem even more complicated. The idea was to defuse Confrontation by changing the manner in which Malaysia was established, or at least seen to be established. But the result was a dispute

WHAT DO THEY WANT, AND HOW CAN WE RESPOND?

91

that gave all parties an excuse to argue that the other broke either the letter or spirit of a deal, forcing them to pursue a policy that escalated Confrontation. The problem was rooted in the very question that challenged Commonwealth intelligence: did Confrontation explode in September 1963 because, or in spite of, the Manila Accord and Declaration of July and August 1963? The foreign ministers agreed that the three states would work toward establishing a loose confederation, based on systematic consultation on all matters of general concern. The project, labeled Maphilindo, first raised by Macapagal in 1962, was based on the Malay concept of mushawarah, working to achieve consensus on all matters of common concern. The idea was ‘‘working together in closest harmony but without surrendering any portion of their sovereignty.’’ In return the Philippines and Indonesia would not oppose merging Sarawak and Sabah into Malaysia, provided that ‘‘an independent and impartial survey’’ ascertained this to be the will of the people. The accord should be confirmed by a summit meeting before August.33 The main attraction was the Maphilindo concept. It was such a broad abstract idea that it could be presented by different parties as meaning different things, leaving time and space to sort out details of how the three states would, in practice, reorient their relations and the region. But vagueness also posed dangers. Very different interpretations could provoke public disagreement, raising domestic pressure on governments. Malaya and Singapore faced particular concerns. Even if it did not force Kuala Lumpur to choose between the Commonwealth and Maphilindo, Indonesia’s sheer size would make it an uncomfortable partner in any relationship not grounded on clear safeguards. Most troubling, the agreement to ascertain the popular will meant almost certain delay in establishing Malaysia, M-day. This prospect of delay prompted lasting controversy over whether Confrontation escalated because or in spite of these agreements. The British and Singapore governments concluded that any delay would cause more problems than it solved. This was not groundless. Protracted negotiations in London did not persuade Brunei to accept federation, so it would remain a British protectorate. Terms for Singapore were agreed, but were fragile, sensitive and open to differing interpretation; in Borneo, vocal constituencies, particularly in Sarawak, kept pressing for reconsideration. The Singapore government’s domestic political position depended on bringing about a successful Malaysia, and Lee Kuan Yew worried that the whole project could yet collapse. The British saw these concerns as adding to their own assessments of Indonesian intentions. The Indonesians did not want to resolve the dispute, but to exploit it. They would exploit concessions to press Confrontation, not drop it. These conclusions persuaded the British to steer through the London Agreements on 9 July, committing the governments of Malaya, Singapore, Sarawak, and Sabah to establish Malaysia on 31 August on terms already agreed upon, at which time the AMDA would be extended to cover the new federation.34 Whether the British were right or wrong about Indonesian intentions, this gave Sukarno

92

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

sufficient cause to publicly denounce this action as a slap in Indonesia’s face that overruled the Manila consensus by setting a firm date for M-day before the popular will in Borneo could be properly ascertained. This produced some political theater in mid-July until Macapagal persuaded a willing Tunku, and a theatrically reluctant Sukarno, to meet after all in Manila on 31 July, to try to reconcile the two agreements.35 Six days of discussion again seemed to produce results. The Manila Accord was ratified, expanded by a Manila Declaration and Joint Statement to clarify all agreements. The declaration of ‘‘common aspirations and objectives’’ read like statements made ad nauseam by Sukarno and Subandrio, promising to respect the ‘‘spirit of Bandung’’ grounded on Afro-Asian solidarity and the Non-Aligned ideal, to combine efforts to overcome imperialism and colonialism, and to work together as ‘‘new emerging forces’’ and ‘‘take initial steps towards the establishment of Maphilindo by holding regular and frequent consultations at all levels to be known as mushawarah Maphilindo.’’ The Joint Statement announced that in line with these principles ‘‘they have resolved various current problems of common concern.’’ This of course meant Malaysia. The real crux of the deal was the provision for ascertainment, placed in the larger context of Maphilindo and foreign policy. The parties agreed to request the UN secretary general to send delegates to ascertain whether the recent elections in Sarawak and Sabah fairly expressed popular support for merger into Malaysia, to send their own observers, four each, to evaluate the ascertainment, and to abide by the secretary general’s findings. Ascertainment should be done ‘‘prior to the establishment of the Federation of Malaysia,’’ which surely suggested that M-day should be delayed if necessary. The Malayan government gained a point by linking ascertainment to the previous elections, but for their Western allies the real cause for concern was a larger promise. The three parties agreed that they were primarily responsible for ‘‘peace and security in the region,’’ that foreign bases ‘‘temporary in nature’’ should not be allowed to directly or indirectly subvert their national independence, and that all three would ‘‘abstain from the use of arrangements of collective defence to serve the particular interests of any of the big powers.’’36 This amounted to the Malayan government testing the argument that Confrontation could be stopped because the real problem was the manner by which Malaysia was being established. Given the commitment by the parties to the London Agreements to establish Malaysia, the Indonesian government had little to lose. If the Manila deal was respected and M-day delayed, they could exploit the diplomatic advantage of pulling Kuala Lumpur toward their orbit. If it was not respected, they could present themselves as the injured party, claim bad faith, and escalate Confrontation. The Singapore government saw the agreements as evidence that they were right to fear that the Malayan government might not have the resolve to push merger through on agreed terms, and stepped up pressure for M-day on schedule. The British saw a

WHAT DO THEY WANT, AND HOW CAN WE RESPOND?

93

larger problem: the Indonesians would try to dominate Maphilindo and demand that Malaysia expel British bases and Commonwealth forces. They saw the agreement as vindicating their assessment that the Indonesians were pursuing a concrete geostrategic policy to expel the West from Southeast Asia and establish hegemony.37 Indonesian behavior only fed British suspicions. On 7 June, as Razak met his counterparts in Manila, the JIC updated its report Indonesian Prospects and Intentions. It concluded that the Indonesian government was making little or no progress tackling economic problems and needed more than ever to distract its population by ‘‘external adventure.’’ A detailed evaluation of the PKI suggested that it was not likely to take power in the next few years but was strongly nationalist, unlikely to tamely follow either China or the Soviet Union, and certain to press for escalated Confrontation. Indonesian support, mostly covert, for subversive activities in the Borneo territories was escalating, as was the buildup of forces along the border. There was a long-term aim: ‘‘uniting all the Malay speaking peoples of Southeast Asia in a Greater Indonesia.’’ Most ominous was the ultimate conclusion: ‘‘opposition to Malaysia commands the support of all influential sectors of Indonesian political opinion and neither this policy nor long-term dreams of ÔGreater IndonesiaÕ are likely to be affected by any foreseeable changes in Indonesian leadership.’’38 The argument that there was a connection between the volatility of Indonesian politics and the popularity of Confrontation now seeped into the wider British ‘‘official mind.’’ The Joint Service Operational Research Team reported to the COS on 17 June with an evaluation that included comments on the prospect of ‘‘Open Aggression by Indonesia.’’ Any invasion of Borneo or attack on British bases could best be dealt with by strong and swift naval and air retaliation. To do this the government must deploy the necessary forces in theater in advance and face the international political reaction that offensive action would cause. But the team’s main warning was more pressing: Indonesia could launch low-level air attacks or mount an airborne assault on British bases with very little warning, and the threat was more serious than the JIC appreciated. The real problem was ‘‘the present unstable form of Government’’ in Indonesia. This plus geography gave the British no choice. Air defenses should be comprehensively reinforced to bolster the ‘‘present expensive token defence system in the area,’’ focusing closely on how best to face the threat of low-level surprise attack.39 The team’s conclusion spoke to the crux of the matter. No one could be sure what the Indonesians would do, but it was clear they could do much damage if they chose. So the best way to prevent escalation to open war was to be able to defeat any challenges below that level—deter and/or contain. While the Indonesians spoke of consensus, the British forged one. Making concessions on how to establish Malaysia risked giving the Indonesians enough leverage to disrupt the project, whereas there was little evidence they

94

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

could be persuaded to change course. The only prudent policy was to proceed resolutely: establish Malaysia, and deter Indonesia from mounting too dangerous a challenge by demonstrating that the Commonwealth could, and would, defeat any level and manner of pressure thrown at it. To some extent this consensus grew out of British historical experience. Men such as Macmillan and his foreign secretary ‘‘Rab’’ Butler bore the scars of 1938 and 1956, and they must have read into every report the implication that trying to appease dictatorial governments making threats only whets their appetite. But on the other hand the Indonesians, from Sukarno on down, did much to trigger those instincts by what they did on the ground in Borneo and said in the councilroom. In that context, it would indeed have been remarkable had the British government not seen the Manila agreements as designed to expel them from the region and detach Malaya from the Commonwealth. FEC made that very argument when it evaluated the talks in Manila and Tokyo on 16 July, drawing on JICFE evaluations to present a report titled Indonesia’s Policy Towards Malaysia in the Light of Recent Developments. FEC agreed that the Indonesian government had changed its public stance on Malaysia but argued this was purely tactical. They saw ‘‘no reason’’ to suppose ‘‘the Indonesians have in any way abandoned or modified’’ their basic objectives, especially: ‘‘To constitute herself [sic] the leader of the Malayspeaking peoples and accordingly to dominate the region they inhabit, at least to the extent of ensuring that its governments are amenable to the wishes of Djakarta; this will necessary involve the removal of Western influence by the pursuit of anti-colonialist policies.’’ But the Indonesians were now trying a different strategy. FEC saw five motives: hostility would not abort Malaysia, and the loss of face when it emerged would be serious; quiet long-term subversion seemed more promising than open Confrontation; Indonesia needed economic assistance from the West; Indonesia might be reconsidering the Chinese threat to the region; and the Malayans might prove friendlier once Malaysia was in being. However, FEC diluted much of this by admitting, ‘‘Although on the evidence so far available it is difficult to form a precise estimate of the reasons for the Indonesian decision and the motives behind it, it is probable that the following considerations played a part in it.’’ The optimistic ‘‘probable’’ was undermined by such caveats as ‘‘The Indonesians may also have feared a denial of further Western aid’’; they ‘‘might find it difficult to maintain internal security in the face of economic distress’’; ‘‘It is also conceivable that’’ they were rethinking the China factor ; ‘‘It may have occurred to the Indonesians that’’ they might ultimately turn Malaysia to their own advantage, so ‘‘She [sic] could well have decided’’ quiet subversion would be more effective; ‘‘They could also well calculate’’ that Malaysia would undermine the British political justification for remaining in the area as a military power, so ‘‘they might well believe’’ they could cajole their new neighbor into moving away from the British sphere of influence.

WHAT DO THEY WANT, AND HOW CAN WE RESPOND?

95

This report was unusually qualified by such ‘‘maybe and possibly’’ hedging. But this reflected two problems. First, consensus did not mean unanimity, not even within the British government and certainly not among the Quadripartite allies. In some quarters hope continued to battle evidence, while agenda battled agenda. Second, it was inherently difficult to determine any Indonesian ‘‘bottom line.’’ The very nature of Confrontation lent itself to changes in tactics or emphasis; as a strategy, it was inherently opportunistic. FEC did capture an important dynamic that drove Indonesian behavior: the volatility of Indonesian politics, where Confrontation was an integral part of the clash of contending interests, agendas, and personalities. In that context ‘‘Inconsistencies in their public statements have never worried the Indonesians—indeed they may see some advantage in contradicting each other in order to keep their opponents guessing.’’ That went for both domestic and external opponents.40 The prospect of another summit between Sukarno and the Tunku surely accelerated this review, which can also be attributed to three other calculations: the reminder that Indonesian strategy was flexible and could change very rapidly; the concern that Jakarta might feel it could well woo rather than intimidate a new Malaysia; and above all the conviction that ‘‘What is not changed is Indonesia’s basic desire to be top nation in Southeast Asia.’’ Hedged as it was, this FEC report practically shouted a cardinal point by not discussing it. It did not see any reason to feel that Confrontation could be stopped by giving Sukarno face regarding M-day. The fact that Indonesian military and political activity continued in Borneo even while their diplomacy changed direction spelled conspiracy. This was the crux of the problem. To anyone trying to draw a clear distinction between cooperation and conflict, as Barwick tried with Subandrio, the way the Indonesians conducted Confrontation was bound to appear as conspiratorial double-dealing. Indonesian determination ‘‘to keep their opponents guessing’’ only drove home this conclusion. The JICFE reinforced British suspicions on 25 July in a report titled Assessment of the Threat Presented by the CCO in Sarawak. The report argued that the communist organization posed a genuine threat to political stability in Sarawak, exploiting emotions provoked by the Malaysia project. The government crackdown that began in April prompted growing numbers of young Chinese to cross the border into Kalimantan, a movement ‘‘clearly well organized by CCO cadres.’’ According to ‘‘many’’ reports, Indonesian civil and military authorities were providing training, equipment, and other support to these dissidents. Some Sarawakian Chinese were reportedly being assimilated into Indonesian units raiding across the border. However, ‘‘general opinion’’ within the CCO was that their men, after training in Kalimantan, would be ‘‘re-infiltrated into Sarawak, where they will provide the nucleus for an internal uprising.’’ This evaluation raised an important point: Did the CCO agenda to foment revolution in Sarawak complement, or conflict with, the Indonesian desire to

96

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

confront Malaysia ? On the main point it pronounced with confidence: ‘‘Although in the long term the aims of the CCO and the Indonesian Government forces are incompatible, the Indonesians are clearly prepared to use members of the SUPP/CCO as a ready weapon for their immediate purposes in Sarawak.’’ It was indeed prudent to assume that the Indonesians would try to exploit an organization that could help them disrupt Sarawak, militarily and politically, from within. CCO operations could be presented to the world as a backlash against Malaysia from within Sarawak, rather than aggression from outside.41 This report raised a real alarm. Internal politics in Sarawak were indeed fragile and could be badly disrupted by an alliance of convenience between CCO revolution and Indonesian Confrontation. Such a partnership would not thrive because their agendas must ultimately clash. But it could badly damage the Malaysia project while it lasted. Politically it could foster international doubts about support for Malaysia in Sarawak. Militarily, the CCO would benefit from Indonesian training and equipment, and the Indonesians from CCO local knowledge and networks; each now made the other a greater threat to the security forces. This sense of internal political vulnerability did not make the British government more flexible regarding M-day after the Manila pronouncements, to say the least. On 16 August the UN Malaysia Mission arrived in Kuching to conduct its ascertainment exercise. But Indonesian demands persuaded the British, Australian, and Malayan governments that they wanted to use the mission to disturb rather than ascertain opinion: demanding to send not four but thirty observers, nominating intelligence agents and military officers as observers, wanting an AURI aircraft to fly their team directly into Sabah and Sarawak rather than flying in from Singapore with the rest of the mission, demanding multiple entry visas to give them free movement within the territories, and stepping up a public propaganda attack on the whole process. UN Secretary General U Thant, who would only endorse the mission if the British government consented to its work, pressed the parties to compromise on a total of four observers supported by four clerical assistants. Despite accepting this proposal, the Indonesians then tried to pass off four senior Foreign Ministry officials as clerical assistants. The mission finally began work on 26 August; Indonesian observers only finally joined it on 1 September.42 This transparent disruption strategy influenced a 23 August JICFE report titled Possible Indonesian Activities Against Malaysia and Singapore During the Next Three Months. The JICFE concluded that Indonesia would not abandon Confrontation after Malaysia became a fait accompli. They did not expect major acts of aggression. But in the ‘‘next phase’’ of Confrontation they did anticipate an escalated propaganda campaign to denounce Malaysia, efforts to enforce Indonesian claims to territorial waters and air space more extensive than established international norms, economic retaliation against Singapore and against Commonwealth business interests in Indonesia, greater efforts to build networks of subversion and intelligence gathering inside Malaysia, and

WHAT DO THEY WANT, AND HOW CAN WE RESPOND?

97

perhaps ‘‘some small scale sabotage might be attempted in Malaya and Singapore, possibly assisted by infiltrators from the Indonesian Armed Forces.’’ Confrontation would be escalated, not abandoned, and escalated beyond Borneo. The report noted warnings that the TNI was organizing a ‘‘Special Force’’ in the Riau Islands to infiltrate small groups into Malaya and Singapore to help local subversive groups try to disrupt Malaysia, possibly including arms smuggling and sabotage operations. The now familiar refrain warned the British government not to look for rational respect for practical constraints from this adversary: ‘‘Indonesian Confrontation policy will continue to be unpredictable and may lead her [sic] to undertake overtly hostile activities in the military and economic fields, even though these may have only a nuisance value and may harm her own interests. Isolated clashes with Indonesian naval and air units are possible.’’43 Earlier Australian efforts to smoke out a ‘‘bottom line’’ from which to resolve the problem ran up against such assessments of an adversary pursuing its own agenda, even one that meant taking action a Commonwealth government saw as cutting off its nose to spite its face. JICFE reports warned against the tendencies to see this adversary through a ‘‘mirror image’’ or search for a ‘‘rational actor’’ basis for its policy. Their advice was not subtle: there was no good faith, as the Western governments understood that term in diplomacy, on the Indonesian side. Trying to appease them by allowing them to shape timetable and process would just allow them to drive a wedge between the British and Malayan governments. The Singapore government agreed. Goh Keng Swee, Singapore minister of finance, warned the Australians that his government felt the Tunku made a mistake in Manila by ‘‘appeasing Indonesia’’ because ‘‘the harsh fact is Indonesia is not prepared to accept Malaysia.’’ Lee Kuan Yew warned the Malayan government that Singapore did not regard itself as bound by the Manila Joint Statement but rather by the prior London Agreement to establish Malaysia on 31 August, reserved its position on Maphilindo, ‘‘which was not a consideration when it agreed to merger and Malaysia,’’ and would declare unilateral independence rather than allow Indonesia to disrupt the merger.44 While Indonesian behavior only confirmed Singaporean views, it hardened Australian ones. The DEA responded to the pessimistic 7 June JIC appreciation of Indonesian intentions by calling for an exchange of views with their British counterparts, feeling the British were ‘‘inclined to take a rather too gloomy view of Indonesian intentions.’’ In August Barwick and many of his senior officials still felt that the crucial issue was that ‘‘Malaysia should be born without the unflinching hostility of its neighbours.’’ During the Manila summit they pressed the British to think hard about the problem because if any refusal on their part to accept a ‘‘brief postponement’’ of M-day ruined the negotiations ‘‘then we should be very disturbed because of the far reaching consequences for those of us who live in this area.’’ It remained vital to make sure the Americans did not blame the British for any rupture, because

98

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

only they could ‘‘apply any effective sanctions to Indonesia.’’45 But Indonesian military and diplomatic activity undercut this view that there was still diplomatic time and room to maneuver, provoking debate in Canberra. In late July the COS declared that a viable Malaysia was essential to Australian defense policy for two reasons: it provided defense in depth for forward defense through collective security against the main threat, Chinese communist expansionism, as well as an ideal position from which to contain any Indonesian threat to Western interests all over the region. The military chiefs were direct: ‘‘It is essential to resist any efforts by other countries to fragment the Federation of Malaysia once established.’’ Menzies agreed. He put his concerns directly to Barwick on 8 August and did not pull any punches: I think we are in great danger in taking and encouraging too soft a line with Sukarno. Like all the dictators he will get what he can by threat and bluff. Each concession made to him increases his appetite. In short, I fear that the conference [Manila] has resulted in: a) a substantial success for Sukarno, and encouragement to him for the future; b) a clear retreat by the Tunku; c) a substantial and perhaps fatal postponement of Malaysia Day; d) no genuine basis for peace and friendship in the region.46

Menzies spelled out what were now widely held views in London and Canberra : Sukarno was using the Malaysia issue to press an anti-Western geostrategic agenda in the region, so the Commonwealth must risk rebuffing him or face more serious political consequences within its own ranks. This more or less reversed the balance-of-risks equation pressed earlier by Barwick and his department. JIC Australia weighed into the discussion that same month in a report titled The Likelihood of War up to the End of 1968. Their report designated Indonesia a ‘‘critical area,’’ arguing that the Indonesians were unlikely to threaten Australia directly but would pursue a foreign policy based on concrete geostrategic aims: to establish Indonesia as the regional hegemon, which meant removing Western military presence and political influence. Beyond this consensus the three directors of service intelligence noted some intriguing differences in appreciation between them. The director of naval intelligence felt that the Indonesians might invade Malaysia if they underestimated Western resolve to support its efforts to resist covert attacks. The director of air force intelligence argued that the Indonesians would flaunt the threat of invasion, but probably not go that far. The director of military intelligence argued that the Indonesian agenda was more contingent. The Indonesians would not risk open war. Their strategy would depend on how they evaluated the agenda of a post-M-day Malaysia. If the Tunku’s government did not move toward the Maphilindo vision, they would escalate Confrontation to try to implode or intimidate it. This accurately described the flexible and opportunistic grand strategy Jakarta pursued, but it agreed that the Indonesian agenda was to expel Western influence from the region. Here too the implication was that further

WHAT DO THEY WANT, AND HOW CAN WE RESPOND?

99

concessions were dangerous, because Jakarta’s minimal goal was to detach Malaysia from the Commonwealth.47 The Indonesians did not make things easier by deliberately sending mixed signals. The JIC Intelligence Review of 28 August cited a ‘‘strong report’’ that Subandrio, Gen. Abdul Haris Nasution, minister of defense, and Col. Magenda, director of central intelligence, agreed to insert TNI and BPI personnel into the Indonesian observer team to disrupt the UN Mission. More incidents in the border regions suggested that reported Indonesian plans for a coordinated escalation of border crossings after 1 September were ‘‘coming to fruition.’’ On the other hand, Sukarno was relatively restrained in his annual Merdeka Day speech on 17 August, merely asserting that Indonesian policy now made other governments agree that Indonesia ‘‘should be consulted with respect to any proposed changes in the status quo of the area.’’48 Whatever the motive for mixing carrot and stick, the stick made the larger impression. This was partly because the Quadripartite allies agreed that political friction within Singapore and the Borneo territories could indeed be aggravated by Indonesian stirring, which at the very least could raise international doubts about Malaysia. Menzies emphasized these points in discussions with Barwick that clarified Australian policy: if M-day could be delayed long enough to allow the secretary general to report the findings of his mission first, this would help reassure Afro-Asian opinion about Malaysia, ‘‘but if by reason of impossible demands or obstructive tactics on the part of Indonesia, the present plans for the UN enquiry collapsed, the UK can count on the firm support of my government for its decision in bringing Malaysia into being.’’ Barwick directed Shann to tell Subandrio that the Australians were very unhappy about the haggle over the UN Mission and if Indonesia provoked a military showdown over Malaysia, which Australia saw as a necessary project in order to reinforce the containment of ‘‘our common enemy China,’’ then Australia would not remain neutral. Barwick’s warning spelled out a clear vision of Australian national interests. The imperatives of forward defense and collective security ‘‘will ensure that any Australian government must support the retention of the bases under the British Malayan Defence arrangements and the continued military commitment of the British.’’49 The British government, supported by Singapore, put strong direct pressure on the Malayan government to proceed as planned, arguing that concessions to Indonesia would compromise the whole Malaysia project. The Tunku’s government tried to navigate between the rock and the hard place by inviting Subandrio to Kuala Lumpur to discuss Indonesian concerns about Malaysia, sweetening the pill by postponing M-day to 16 September. But this only made it clear that the clash of agendas could not be reconciled. The Indonesian government argued that this was a slap in the face that set aside the Manila agreements because it did not allow the UN Mission enough time to make a credible ascertainment, so Subandrio declined the invitation. Singapore, Sarawak, and Sabah all felt the Tunku bent too far and on

100

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

31 August moved to force his hand: Singapore declared independence and the other two territories self-government ‘‘in advance of merger.’’50 This made it obvious that the diplomatic dance could not continue much longer. The JIC Intelligence Review on 4 September reported that the Indonesians were confident they had enough evidence to persuade the UN Mission to call for fresh elections before endorsing Malaysia. Jakarta now ‘‘clarified’’ its own views. Subandrio insisted that Indonesia would stand on the ‘‘spirit and letter’’ of the Manila Agreement. LTG Achmad Yani, chief of the General Staff (CGS), claimed that the TNI was ‘‘being rejuvenated and would not remain idle if Malaysia was formed without regard for the Manila Agreement.’’ This show of unity sounded in Commonwealth ears like the highest Indonesian authorities confirming the warnings of their own intelligence agencies. Nasution’s reported hostility made a particular impact, because American and Australian officials regarded him as the most professional Indonesian military officer, and therefore the one most likely to ‘‘see reason’’ and try to prevent Confrontation from escalating any further. The evidence seemed broad: the diplomatic effort to try to detach the Malayan government from its Western allies, anti-British and anti-Malaysia rhetoric at home and abroad, military activity in Riau and Kalimantan, increased cooperation with antiMalaysia groups such as the CCO, and especially increased border incursions by armed raiders. This campaign in particular undermined efforts to argue that there was a diplomatic way out of this crisis. British records listed thirty encounters between security forces and armed men presumed to have crossed the border from Kalimantan between the Tebedu raid and the end of July, in which security forces and friendly civilians suffered losses of eight killed and twenty wounded, inflicting losses amounting to eleven killed, seventeen wounded, and eight taken prisoner ; two of the prisoners were identified as Indonesian. During August at least six more violent incidents were recorded, as well as the Indonesian effort to subvert the UN Mission. The conclusion was stark: the Indonesians were determined to exploit the Malaysia controversy to expel Western influence from the region in order to establish their own hegemony. The Commonwealth opted to establish Malaysia as planned and face the consequences.51 The very essence of ‘‘Confrontation’’ as its Indonesian authors understood it was to agitate, disrupt, and disturb, to promote their own factional interests as well as advance Indonesian national desires to foster real change in the region. As long as Indonesian leaders could send mixed signals about whether they ultimately objected to the fact of Malaysia, or merely the manner in which it was established, they could keep foreign governments guessing, domestic pressures at bay, and their own rivalries in play. But when on 14 September the secretary general announced that his mission’s findings indicated there was credible majority support in the Borneo territories for merger into Malaysia, Indonesian authorities had to respond. One argument is that their own public rhetoric trapped them. When Malaysia was duly proclaimed

WHAT DO THEY WANT, AND HOW CAN WE RESPOND ?

101

on 16 September, the Indonesian government either had to explain why it was now alright for the Tunku to proceed without respecting the agreements made in Manila, respond with hostility, or lose credibility and face dangerous internal political consequences. There is some basis to this, but the problem was deeper. Confrontation was not merely fashioned by circumstances. The volatile political and economic situation in Indonesia, the articulation of broad geostrategic objectives for Indonesia and the region, the sense of Indonesia as the leader of a bloc of Non-Aligned New Emerging Forces having an example to set, the usefulness of Confrontation to different interests in domestic politics, the tendency to see Confrontation as the most appropriate trajectory for Indonesia’s foreign policy in general—these things plus the problem of losing face all made the choice after 16 September appear to Indonesian leaders as one between surrender or escalation.52 On the other hand, the Malayan government concluded that Indonesian behavior added up to a clear agenda: if not to abort Malaysia then at least detach it from its Western allies and reduce it to an Indonesian satellite. The Singapore government agreed, as did the Quadripartite allies, with varying degrees of conviction. They also concluded, from the same evidence, that they faced yet another challenge from an unstable police state dominated by a charismatic anti-Western dictator, determined to drive them from the region and align his country with their Cold War enemies. From the moment Subandrio declared Confrontation in January 1963, both sides brought preconceived impressions of the other to the problem, and collision between them would always have been hard to avoid. But both reinforced those impressions by what they said and what they did. Even if Confrontation was too convenient for too many reasons to too many Indonesian interests for them to simply drop it, there is no reason to doubt that senior Indonesian leaders believed British policy in particular to be high-handed and provocative. The fact that British policy was much influenced by sensing political fragility within the Malaysia project naturally reinforced Indonesian views that Malaysia was a sham. The transparent haste and dubious politics of ascertainment and M-day after the London Agreement also gave Sukarno and his colleagues strong political justification not to back down. On the other hand, by violently harassing Malaya, Singapore, and the Borneo territories as they did at the same time they met the Tunku face to face, the Indonesians tipped the balance in a genuine debate over Commonwealth policy. This convinced even the Australian government that Indonesia was pursuing an anti-Western agenda that jeopardized broader collective security. The Quadripartite discussion about the balance of risks in establishing Malaysia without trying harder to conciliate the Indonesians was a serious debate. But Commonwealth intelligence assessments did much to shape the consensus that settled the debate. This consensus was that Sukarno drove Indonesian policy; that he was determined to drive the Western powers out of the region; that the activities of Indonesian diplomats, intelligence agents, and military forces spelled out in practice what he was saying in principle; and

102

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

that while a firm rebuff would probably provoke unpredictable military Confrontation with Indonesia, concessions would certainly produce disastrous political consequences within Malaysia. The deepest problem here was that the two adversaries talked past each other. What one needed most, the other feared most. Where Jakarta saw calculated ambiguity, Commonwealth intelligence saw calculated hostility and duplicity. For the Indonesians, the bottom line was Confrontation itself. Only through Confrontation could the various interests keep all their agendas in play. For the Commonwealth, the bottom line had to be collective security and a viable Western political-military presence in Southeast Asia. That now required Malaysia. Intelligence evaluations did not determine this policy, nor cause this fundamental clash of agendas. But they persuaded Commonwealth governments it was too dangerous to make concessions to the Sukarno regime. As a result they validated policy. This cemented the coalition that dared the Indonesians to do their worst.

NOTES 1. NA, CAB148/1, Defence and Oversea Policy Committee minutes : 8 April, 23 April, 29 April, 8 May, 14 May 1964; CAB148/2, DO(64)29, 7 April 1964. 2. Brian P. Farrell, ‘‘Escalate to Terminate: Far East Command and the Need to End Confrontation,’’ in P. Dennis and J. Grey, eds., Entangling Alliances: Coalition Warfare in the Twentieth Century (Canberra: Australian Military History Publishing, 2005). 3. NA, DEFE5/172, COS16/67, Joint Report on the Borneo Campaign, 1 March 1967; P. Craddock, Know Your Enemy: How the Joint Intelligence Committee Saw the World (London: John Murray, 2002); P. Dennis and J. Grey, Emergency and Confrontation: Australian Military Operations in Malaya and Borneo, 1950–1966 (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1996); D. Easter, Britain and the Confrontation with Indonesia, 1960–1966 (London: I.B. Tauris, 2004). 4. For a very different interpretation, see G. Poulgrain, The Genesis of Konfrontasi: Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia, 1945–1965 (Sydney: C. Hurst, 1998). 5. NA, DEFE5/172, COS16/67, Joint Report on the Borneo Campaign, 1 March 1967. 6. J. Soedjati Djiwandono, Konfrontasi Revisited: Indonesia’s Foreign Policy Under Soekarno (Jakarta: Centre for Strategic and International Studies, 1996); John D. Legge, Sukarno: A Political Biography (Singapore: Archipelago Press, 2003 [1972]); J. A. C. Mackie, Konfrontasi: The Indonesia-Malaysia Dispute, 1963–1966 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974); F. B. Weinstein, Indonesian Foreign Policy and the Dilemma of Dependence: From Sukarno to Soeharto (Singapore: Equinox Publishing, 2007 [1976]). 7. Harold Crouch, The Army and Politics in Indonesia (Singapore: Equinox Publishing, 2007 [1978]); Legge, Sukarno; C. L. M. Penders and Ulf Sundhaussen, Abdul Haris Nasution: A Political Biography (St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1985); Ulf Sundhaussen, The Road to Power: Indonesian Military Politics, 1945–1967 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982).

WHAT DO THEY WANT, AND HOW CAN WE RESPOND ?

103

8. NA, CO1035/164, JICFE Weekly Review of Current Intelligence, 24 January 1963. 9. NA, DEFE5/138, CINCFE77/63, Report on Operations in Borneo December 1962–January 1963, 22 April 1963. 10. NAA, A1209/1962/1010, CRO to British High Commission Canberra, 35, 12 December 1962. 11. Craddock, Know Your Enemy, is a good archive-based discussion of the JIC system; Dennis and Grey, Emergency and Confrontation, discuss ANZAM, which stood for Australia, New Zealand, and Malaya. 12. Easter, Britain and the Confrontation; Matthew Jones, Conflict and Confrontation in Southeast Asia, 1961–1965: Britain, the United States, Indonesia and the Creation of Malaysia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); John Subritzky, Confronting Sukarno: British, American, Australian and New Zealand Diplomacy in the Malaysian-Indonesian Confrontation, 1961–1965 (London: Palgrave, 2000). 13. NA, CAB158/44, JIC(61)70(Final), 22 September 1961; NAA, A1838/TS696/ 17/1 Part 3, British High Commission Canberra to Prime Minister’s Office, 17 November 1961. 14. NA, CAB158/46, JIC(62)52, Militarily Significant States, 28 June 1962; ANZ, AAFD-811-W3738, 235/1/2 Part 1, JIC Intelligence Review, 21 November 1962. 15. NA, CAB179/9, JIC Weekly Review of Current Intelligence, 18 December 1962; ANZ, AAFD-811-W3738, 235/1/2 Part 1, JIC Intelligence Review, 12 December 1962; Tim Hatton, Tock Tock Birds: A Spider in the Web of International Terrorism (Kuala Lumpur: Book Guild Ltd., 2007). 16. NA, CAB158/48, JIC(63)8, Indonesian Involvement in the Borneo Territories in the Next Three Months Short of Overt Aggression, 17 January ; JIC(63)14, Indonesian Military Capabilities Against the Borneo Territories up to the End of 1963, 31 January 1963. 17. NA, CAB158/46, JIC(62)58(Final), Indonesian Aims and Intentions, 28 January 1963. 18. NA, CAB179/10, JIC Weekly Review of Current Intelligence, 19 February 1963. 19. NAA, A1838, 3034/10/1 Part 12, Tange to Barwick, Indonesia: Quadripartite Talks in Washington, 4 February 1963; A4940, C3739, Cabinet Decision 632, 5 February, Submission 576, 26 February 1963; A1838, 3034/7/1/1 Part 2, Australian Embassy Washington to DEA, 814, 19 February 1963. 20. AWM, 125, Item 2, CBB4/12/1, Report by Maj-Gen. W. C. Walker, Director of Operations Borneo, on the Operations in Borneo 22 December 1962 to 15 March 1963; ANZ, AAFD-811-W3738, 235/1/2 Part 1, JIC Intelligence Review, 17 April 1963; NA, DEFE5/172, COS16/67, Joint Report on the Borneo Campaign, 1 March 1967; CO1030/1502, CO to Governor Sarawak, 305, 17 April 1963; Tom Pocock, Fighting General: The Public and Private Campaigns of General Sir Walter Walker (London: Collins, 1973). 21. Moreen Dee, ed., Australia and the Formation of Malaysia, 1961–1966 (Barton, Australia : Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 2005); Moreen Dee, Not a Matter for Negotiation: Australia’s Commitment to Malaysia, 1961–1966 (Barton, Australia: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 2005); Dennis and Grey, Emergency and Confrontation; Peter Edwards (with Gregory Pemberton), Crises and Commitments: The Politics and Diplomacy of Australia’s Involvement in Southeast Asian Conflicts, 1948–1965 (Sydney: Allen and Unwin in association with the AWM, 1992).

104

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

22. AWM, 121, 211/A/2, Defence Committee Minute and Report, No. 6/1963, Retention of Australian Forces in Malaya, 7 February, Minute by Secretary, 3 April 1963; NAA, A4940, C3725, Cabinet Decision 675, 5 March 1963. 23. Joan Beaumont et al., Ministers, Mandarins and Diplomats: Australian Foreign Policy Making, 1941–1969 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2003); Dee, Not a Matter for Negotiation. 24. NAA, A1838, 2498/11 Part 1, DEA to Australian Embassy Jakarta, Savingram 27, 5 March 1963; A1209, 1963/6637 Part 1, Australian Embassy Jakarta to DEA, 224, 6 March 1963; Beaumont et al., Ministers, Mandarins and Diplomats, ch. 8. 25. NAA, A1838, 2498/11 Part 1, DEA to Australian Embassy Washington, Savingram 73, 18 March 1963; Beaumont et al., Ministers, Mandarins and Diplomats, ch. 6 (Garry Woodard). 26. NAA, A1838, 3027/2/1 Part 9, Australian Embassy Manila to DEA, 188, 13 March 1963; A1838, 2498/11 Part 1, DEA to Australian High Commission Kuala Lumpur, 199, 15 March 1963; A1209, 1963/6637 Part 1, Barwick to Menzies, 18 March 1963; A1838, 3027/2/1 Part 10, DEA to Australian High Commission London, 1273, 13 April 1963. 27. NA, CAB179/10, JIC Weekly Review of Current Intelligence, 8 April 1963; CO1030/1502, CINCFE to JIC, JICFE79, 13 April 1963. 28. Dee, Australia and the Formation of Malaysia; Crouch, The Army and Politics in Indonesia ; Legge, Sukarno; Mackie, Konfrontasi; Weinstein, Indonesian Foreign Policy. 29. Easter, Britain and the Confrontation; Ho Ah Chon, ed., The Formation of the Federation of Malaysia, 1961–1963 (Kuching: See Hua Daily News Bhd., 1995); Jones, Conflict and Confrontation in Southeast Asia; Lee Kuan Yew, The Singapore Story: Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew (Singapore: Prentice Hall, 1998); Mohamed Noordin Sopiee, From Malayan Union to Singapore Separation: Political Unification in the Malaysia Region, 1945–1965 (Kuala Lumpur: Penerbit Universiti Malaya, 2005 [1976]). 30. Dee, Australia and the Formation of Malaysia; Legge, Sukarno ; Subritzky, Confronting Sukarno; NA, CAB158/49, JIC(63)52, Indonesian Military Capabilities Against the Borneo Territories up to the End of 1963, 29 May 1963. When it endorsed the report, JIC London directed the JICFE to keep it ‘‘under regular review’’ because ‘‘factors affecting this threat, e.g., further withdrawals of Soviet technicians and advisers, are particularly subject to change.’’ This reinforces the view that while neither body felt the Indonesians intended to provoke open war, both saw their adversary as unstable, therefore unpredictable. 31. ANZ, AAFD-811-W3738, 235/1/2 Part 1, JIC Intelligence Review, 27 March 1963. This was the interpretation presented by JIC New Zealand, whose weekly reports drew very heavily on JICFE appreciations. The New Zealand role as far as intelligence was concerned emerged bluntly in a meeting in London on 22 April, ten days after the Tebedu raid, filed in ANZ, LONB-106/7 Part 1, note of a meeting between Thorneycroft and Eyre, 22 April 1963. Peter Thorneycroft, the British defence minister, met his New Zealand counterpart Dean Eyre. Thorneycroft complained, ‘‘We received much contradictory advice about what was happening in the Far East and what was likely to happen’’ and requested ‘‘the views of Mr. Eyre about the trend of events, for instance, in Indonesia.’’ Eyre replied, ‘‘Our intelligence was no different from that available to the UK government since we did not have independent collection agencies. Indonesia did not create a lot of public interest in New Zealand, but apparently it had done so in Australia.’’

WHAT DO THEY WANT, AND HOW CAN WE RESPOND ?

105

32. ANZ, AAFD-811-W3738, 235/1/2 Part 1, JIC Intelligence Reviews, 10, 17, 24 April, 1 May 1963; NA, CO1035/164, JICFE Weekly Review of Current Intelligence, 26 April 1963. 33. NA, CO1035/164, JICFE Weekly Review of Current Intelligence, 14 June 1963; Dee, Australia and the Formation of Malaysia; Jones, Conflict and Confrontation in Southeast Asia; Subritzky, Confronting Sukarno. 34. NA, FO371/169703, note of meeting between the Commonwealth secretary and Malayan high commissioner to London, 24 June 1963; Easter, Britain and the Confrontation; Lee Kuan Yew, The Singapore Story. 35. NAA, A1838, 3027/2/1 Part 2, DEA to Australian Embassy Jakarta, 11 July 1963; A1838, 3006/4/7 Part 8, Australian High Commission Kuala Lumpur to DEA, 415, 16 July 1963; A1209, 1963/6637 Part 2, Australian High Commission Kuala Lumpur to DEA, 447, 29 July 1963; A1838, 3006/4/7 Part 9, Barwick to Australian Embassy Manila, 29 July 1963. 36. NA, CO1035/164, JICFE Weekly Review of Current Intelligence, 9 August 1963; Jones, Conflict and Confrontation in Southeast Asia; Subritzky, Confronting Sukarno. 37. NA, CO1035/164, JICFE Weekly Review of Current Intelligence, 9 August 1963; Easter, Britain and the Confrontation; Lee Kuan Yew, The Singapore Story. 38. NA, CAB158/149, JIC(63)41(Final), Indonesian Prospects and Intentions, 7 June 1963. 39. NA, DEFE5/139, COS218/63, Report on the Visit to the Far East by the Joint Service Operational Research Team, 17 June 1963 (revised cover sheet 24 October 1963). The similarity between this report and JICFE appreciations raises obvious questions about how much the team was influenced by their discussions at FEC headquarters in Singapore. 40. NA, DEFE5/140, COS253/63, Indonesia’s Policy Towards Malaysia in the Light of Recent Developments, 16 July 1963 (COS endorsement of CINCFE125/63). 41. NA, CAB158/149, JIC(63)64, Assessment of the Threat Represented by the Clandestine Communist Organisation (CCO) in Sarawak, 25 July 1963. See also CO1030/1503, Sarawak Monthly Intelligence Report, July 1963. 42. NA, CO1035/165, JICFE Weekly Review of Current Intelligence, 16, 23 August 1963; CO1030/1529, CO note Malaysia Observers, 16 August 1963; ANZ, AAFD-811-W3738, 235/1/2 Part 1, JIC Intelligence Review, 28 August 1963; Dee, Australia and the Formation of Malaysia. 43. NA, CAB158/150, JIC(63)71, Possible Indonesian Activities Against Malaya and Singapore during the Next Three Months, 23 August 1963. 44. NAA, A1209, 1963/6637 Part 2, Australian Mission Singapore to DEA, 421, 8 August 1963; Lee Kuan Yew, The Singapore Story. 45. NA, DO169/67, British High Commission Canberra to CRO, 5 July 1963; NAA, A4940, C3389, DEA to Australian High Commission London, 3067, 4 August 1963. 46. NAA, A1838, 3006/4/7 Part 10, Menzies to Barwick, 8 August 1963; A1838, TS696/17/1 Part 4, Australian COS minutes, 26 July 1963. 47. NAA, A1209/1960/806, JIC(Aust)(63)2(Final), The Likelihood of War to End 1968, August 1963. Garry Woodard argues in chapter 6 of Beaumont et al., Ministers, Mandarins and Diplomats, that this exchange provoked Barwick to ‘‘have it out’’ with Menzies in a dispute driven by officials in the prime minister’s department who were critical of Barwick’s effort to maintain balance in Australian policy. Barwick deserves credit for keeping channels to Jakarta open and challenging the easy tendency to apply ‘‘appeasement lessons’’ to Sukarno. But his own arguments rested on the view that

106

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

Sukarno was pragmatic enough to face facts and change course, which of course misread the prevailing Indonesian understanding of foreign policy. The COS and JIC interventions also indicate that opposition in Canberra to Barwick’s stance went well beyond Menzies’ department. 48. NA, CO1035/165, JICFE Weekly Review of Current Intelligence, 30 August 1963; CO1030/1503, CO memorandum, Sarawak Border Incidents 12/4/63–31/7/63, 2 September 1963; ANZ, AAFD-811-W3738, 235/1/2, JIC Intelligence Review, 28 August 1963. 49. NAA, A4940, C3389, Menzies to British High Commission Canberra, 22 August 1963; A1838, 3006/4/7 Part 1, DEA to Australian Embassy Jakarta, 894, 23 August 1963. 50. NAA, A9735, 221/5/5/4/2 Part 2, Australian Mission Singapore to DEA, 443, 20 August 1963; A1838, 3034/11/51 Part 2, Australian High Commission Kuala Lumpur to DEA, 476, 29 August 1963; NA, CO1035/165, JICFE Weekly Review of Current Intelligence, 23 August 1963; C. Jeshurun, Malaysia: Fifty Years of Diplomacy, 1957–2007 (Kuala Lumpur: The Other Press, 2007); ANZ, AAFD-811-W3738, 235/1/ 2 Part 1, JIC Weekly Intelligence Review, 4 September 1963; Subritzky, Confronting Sukarno. 51. NA, CO1035/165, JICFE Weekly Review of Current Intelligence, 6 September 1963; ANZ, AAFD-811-W3738, 235/1/2 Part 1, JIC Intelligence Review, 4 September 1963. CO1030/1503, CO memorandum, Sarawak Border Incidents 12/4/63–31/7/63, 2 September 1963; CO 10301/503 contains telegrams from the governor of Sarawak to the CO reporting incidents in August 1963. 52. Crouch, The Army and Politics in Indonesia; Djiwandono, Konfrontasi Revisited; Legge, Sukarno; Weinstein, Indonesian Foreign Policy.

5

Air Power Finds Its Ascendancy, at Last Christopher Clark

Air Force (RAAF) has, for the last thirty years or so, been operating the General Dynamics F-111 bomber. Australia is, in fact, the only country still using this aircraft type, since the Americans, who built it, retired it from service many years ago. Selection of a replacement aircraft type is now under consideration in Australia. Preference is being given to the Joint Strike Fighter currently being developed in the United States, the F-35 Lightning II, on the basis that purchase of this one aircraft type will allow the RAAF to retire both the F-111 and the McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet fighters, which will also shortly be reaching the end of their useful lives. Purchase of this one platform, designed for multirole configuration and multiple upgrades, will arguably give Australia a highly potent strike capability into the middle of this century. Development delays, however, as well as escalating costs that threaten to curtail the number of platforms that can be afforded by the RAAF, have made this project a matter of increasingly heated debate in Canberra. In a limited way, argument has sometimes touched on the roles the replacement aircraft will be expected to perform within our current defense structure, and hence the specific capabilities that whichever aircraft is purchased must have. It cannot be said that this has yet publicly reignited the old debate about the role of air forces, but there are elements of the current argument that at least recall it. The problem that has bedeviled air power in its long quest for legitimacy has been essentially the difficulty of measuring its effects, and hence weighing its contribution to the overall war effort in any conflict in which it has been employed. From at least the period of World War I, there has been a disconnect between the expectations of probable effect from using air power and the actual outcomes or achievements of the aerial medium. It is interesting to note that the term air power has been around since 1908, when H. G. Wells used it in War in the Air; it was the following year

THE ROYAL AUSTRALIAN

108

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

that it first appeared in Jane’s All the World’s Air-Ships.1 What, it may be wondered, was particularly powerful about the aircraft types that were then available, bearing in mind that this was still just five years after the Wright brothers staggered into the air (more a case of making a brief hop) at Kitty Hawk? The aircraft flying at that time were not specifically military in nature or capability at all, none being armed for defense or attack purposes, or fitted for delivering ordnance of any description. Most were so light and frail that they conferred no distinct benefit apart from reconnaissance. The fundamental reality had not stopped the 1907 Hague convention from agreeing to provisions that prohibited air attacks on towns, villages, churches, and hospitals.2 It was, however, another four years before the Italians got around to giving the whole concept of delivering bombs from the air a practical validation in their war against the Turks in Libya. But this was with four small bombs dropped over the side of the cockpit with no great precision, or effect.3 So much for the potency of air power! The unfortunate part of the situation was that people were busy talking up the assumed benefits of employing aircraft in war at a time when the technology was obviously incapable of delivering on that promise at any time soon. The advocates of air power were, simply speaking, letting their enthusiasm get ahead of themselves. This tendency was evident even in Australia, which in that period was hardly a world leader in technology, even if it was showing some fascinating signs of becoming a center for scientific and technical innovation in certain areas. As early as 1909 we had a lobby group called the Aerial League of Australia, foretelling the time when Australia would face an enemy cruiser ‘‘letting loose from her decks a flock of aeroplanes like falcons upon our aerial defencelessness.’’ In 1913 an enterprising filmmaker even made a movie with the title Australia Calls that portrayed an attack on Sydney by an unidentified ‘‘Asiatic’’ power involving masses of aircraft.4 So, the voices of the various pundits were leading the public to believe that the advent of the airplane had fundamentally changed all existing notions about the conduct of warfare. With the start of World War I everybody got to see if this was true. And was it? Well, yes, and no. There was no doubting that aircraft transformed the face of the modern land battlefield, especially under the impact of advances in aerial technology that were dramatically accelerated by the war. But it did so in tandem with a range of other military innovations: the tank, the machinegun, and improvements in artillery. At sea the story was the same; the employment of aircraft added a whole new dimension to how naval operations would be conducted, but so, too, did the submarine and the mine. Aircraft use had wrought huge changes in the way the sea and land forces conducted themselves, and frequently these changes were directly measurable. Once one side had achieved air superiority, no army could safely move in daylight hours—that much had been demonstrated repeatedly on the Western

AIR POWER FINDS ITS ASCENDANCY, AT LAST

109

Front but was shown nowhere more graphically than in the Middle East theater of operations on a morning in September 1918. When aircraft (incidentally, Australian) located a 7,000-strong column of the Turkish 7th Army making a retreat outside Nablus in what was Palestine, air attacks were launched that effectively annihilated it in some four hours.5 But had air power been shown to make a difference at the strategic level? Had it altered the course of the war or materially hastened its outcome? These were questions that people could only argue about for years afterwards. Some tantalizing clues had been thrown out by certain events during the war, but the conclusions that could be drawn from them depended entirely on the case one chose to defend. For instance, as early as December 1914, the Germans had launched bombing raids against towns in southern England using airships from bases across the Channel. The scope of attacks steadily widened, taking in East Anglia and the heartland of British industry in the Midlands. By June 1915, London itself was the target. The raids reached a peak during 1916, with the heaviest being an attack by fourteen airships in September. During 1917 the Germans committed new, large, twin-engined Gotha G-V bombers to the mix, making the first daylight raid on London in June, which caused nearly six hundred casualties, and these attacks continued until the summer of 1918.6 Considering the relatively few casualties caused by all these attacks against the British homeland, the purpose behind them seems highly questionable even when directed against industrial targets. The lack of concern with accuracy—many were carried out at night—means that their primary purpose was psychological, a foretaste of the sort of terror bombing that became common during World War II. Years before air power theorists identified breaking the national will of one’s adversary as a legitimate strategic objective, the Germans had instituted exactly that kind of operation. There is no question that the raids succeeded in provoking outrage among the British population, but the government succeeded in directing that anger principally back at the perpetrators instead of allowing it to translate into a public mood favoring capitulation. The difficulties the British initially experienced in coping with and responding to German air raids naturally had to be addressed, and it is those measures that constitute the other main strategic dimension to the early air power debate. The immediate response to the shock of the first Gotha daylight attack was to reform the air defense of the British homeland, so it was here that the amalgamation of the air branches maintained by the Army and Navy into a single and separate service, the Royal Air Force (RAF), was born.7 The second response, however, was to retaliate in kind. In June 1918 Britain split off a small group of bomber squadrons and dispatched them to northern France to bring them within range of cities and industrial centers in southern Germany. This so-called Independent Air Force (IAF) was placed under the command of MG Sir Hugh Trenchard, formerly

110

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

the field commander of the Royal Flying Corps in France and for a brief time (before falling out with his political master) the first chief of air staff for the new RAF.8 Initially operating obsolescent light bombers of limited capacity, the IAF made little impression on the war effort being mounted from the German centers it attacked. Such meager impact as it did have only came at the cost of heavy casualties to itself. Even Trenchard was moved to declare at the end of the war that, with regard to the IAF, ‘‘a more gigantic waste of effort and personnel there has never been in any war.’’9 In part, the problem had been— again—one of technology struggling to keep up with expectation. The aircraft that could have made a real difference to the results that might have been achieved with a campaign of strategic bombing, such as that mounted by the IAF, only became available as the war was ending. Giant two-engined heavy bombers such as the Handley Page 0/400 and the Vickers Vimy were being followed by production of even larger four-engined aircraft like the Handley Page V/1500, the so-called Berlin Bomber (of which only three were delivered before the Armistice).10 While these machines were capable of taking the war to Berlin, it remains a moot point what would have been achieved if they had, taking into account the results of a similar air campaign mounted during World War II. From what I have outlined so far, one can see the problem that emerges. Although the concept of strategic bombing had found some measure of acceptance, it had not been fully validated as a result of actual wartime experience. While it had never achieved what had been promised by air power advocates, the question of whether it could ever do so had not been answered one way or the other. This left proponents of air power free to argue, and they did, that the concept had never been fully or properly applied. Air power remained, essentially, an imponderable. One result of this unresolved debate was that, in the years immediately after the war, the British example of creating its Air Force as an independent third service was not widely adopted among the other great powers, although it was progressively embraced with the air services established among Britain’s dominions. It did not help that the RAF model itself came under concerted attack from the older services within the British defense establishment. During the 1920s and early 1930s the need for a separate air service was repeatedly challenged. What role, it was asked, did the RAF have that warranted or justified its separate status? So far as the Army and Navy were concerned, air power existed primarily as an adjunct to their operations. It could not, of itself, undertake an independent strategy, let alone win a war on its own. Several factors intervened to shape this debate. One was Trenchard’s adoption of the doctrine of ‘‘air control’’ as a justification for the RAF’s continued existence and budgetary funding. Probably very few anticipated the outcome that followed his offer to dispatch a single squadron of DH9a light

AIR POWER FINDS ITS ASCENDANCY, AT LAST

111

day bombers to British Somaliland in 1919. This colonial possession had been periodically thrown into upheaval for twenty years by the depredations of a local warlord dubbed the ‘‘Mad Mullah.’’ Three weeks after the arrival of the twelve aircraft, operations began on 21 January 1920. Just twenty-three days later the mullah’s followers had been bombed out of the stone forts they occupied and were fleeing toward the Ethiopian border. The RAF, working in conjunction with the British field force, which suffered only six casualties, achieved what was hailed as the cheapest victory Britain had won in any war.11 The experience in present-day Somalia prompted a move to emulate it on a bigger scale. Faced with serious unrest in the mandated territory of Iraq, in 1921 the Britain government decided to use the RAF as the principal means of enforcing government authority there. The next year the thirty-three battalions of infantry and six regiments of cavalry that the British army maintained for this purpose were withdrawn, replaced by a force of eight RAF squadrons of aircraft, a brigade of Indian troops, and four companies of armored cars that the RAF manned. The experiment was spectacularly successful, with the air officer commanding the garrison able to restore order by early 1923 using a judicious combination of bombing the insurgent centers and using transport aircraft to swiftly redeploy his few ground forces to best effect.12 The whole effort had supposedly cost less than £80,000 to achieve what the War Office had said it would require £20 million to do. With cost effectiveness apparently running in this order, the RAF’s position was secured. Trenchard was keen to employ air control, or what was also dubbed ‘‘air method,’’ in other reaches of the empire, such as Transjordan and along the northwest frontier of India. Although it was used in these places, the Army was careful to fend off Trenchard’s efforts to implement his favored doctrine of substituting air units for costly ground forces. Air control there usually entailed using aircraft to target centers of opposition in locations where they would otherwise be inaccessible to ground attack. These were essentially joint constabulary operations, with air power used to compensate for and overcome the obstacles faced in particular types of terrain. Air power in these circumstances proved a powerful adjunct to traditional means of colonial policing, but nowhere had it actually completely ended conflict outside of Somalia (and only there because the Mad Mullah had died the year after he and his followers had been pushed into Ethiopia).13 It also needs to be said that there is contention over the results that could be claimed as measurable from these operations. There are suggestions that their cost effectiveness, relative ‘‘humaneness’’ through the issuing of notices demanding compliance before bombing, and the deliberate limitation placed on destruction through the targeting of specific troublemakers are all highly suspect. Emphasis on air control had another consequence in that throughout the 1920s and early 1930s the RAF structured itself primarily around a core force of light day bombers for taking out selected or strategic targets.14 This

112

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

approach flowed not solely from the concentration of the RAF on colonial policing duties in the period, but also from Trenchard’s realization that strategic bombing provided a viable rationale for maintaining a separate and independent air force, since this was a role that neither of the other services could be expected to fulfill. As it happened, the 1920s was also the period in which the principal air power theorists were beginning to come to the fore—men such as Giulio Douhet in Italy and William (‘‘Billy’’) Mitchell in the United States. Both became controversial advocates of employing air power as the primary means by which countries would wage war in the future, but it was Douhet who expounded the most extreme set of views on this aspect. One can only wonder at the fact that the country that gave the world the political amorality of Nicola Macchiavelli in the 17th century also gave us the military amorality of Douhet. In a publication called Command of the Air, first published in 1921 but subsequently reissued in revised form in 1927, Douhet postulated that air power ought to be the prime and preferred means of fighting a war or campaign. His solution was to launch a full-scale aerial assault on the civilian population of an adversary, using a combination of high-explosive, chemical, and incendiary bombs. Ruthlessly prosecuted, such a campaign would, he argued, quickly break the will of the population to resist and place pressure on their government to capitulate. Although destructive in the short term, his approach was arguably more humane in that it would militate against protracted conflicts such as the four years of World War I, with its casualty toll in the tens of millions. It would be easy to overrate the intellectual impact of Douhet’s theories and ideas. As has been pointed out, it was unlikely that RAF officers had access to translations of Command of the Air until the mid-1930s, and it is claimed that an imperfect translation was available at the Air Corps Tactical School in America only in about 1933.15 Douhet’s writings nonetheless form part of the context for the period of rearmament in Europe that preceded World War II. It is striking that many popular writings of the interwar period disclose a conviction that a wide-scale air campaign would be a feature of any new conflict between the major powers, most likely involving concerted and unrestricted attacks on civilian population centers.16 Interestingly, for a force that supposedly set so much store in the tenets of strategic bombing, the RAF was surprisingly unprepared for conducting the sort of campaign it had said it expected. RAF Bomber Command was weak in the types of multiengined bombers that it would need to strike at strategic targets in the homeland of its most likely enemy after 1935, that is, Germany. In part this might be explained by the need that was recognized for the RAF to devote substantial attention to the capacity to defend against an air campaign of strategic attack that it believed would be launched against Britain, as happened in World War I. Either way, it seems obvious that strategic attack was taken seriously on both sides of the Channel.

AIR POWER FINDS ITS ASCENDANCY, AT LAST

113

What actually happened over the course of the war is both intriguing and highly instructive. Neither side launched immediately into the full-scale mass attacks on civilians that had been fearfully predicted. Eventually the scope of air operations widened to include the London blitz by the Luftwaffe in 1940 and an equivalent campaign by the British and Americans against occupied Europe culminating in the so-called Battle of Berlin in 1943–1944. Neither side completely achieved the avowed aims behind its respective operations, neither breaking the will to resist of the respective populations nor shutting down the capacity of each other’s wartime industry to keep producing, although by the time Germany collapsed in May 1945 it is clear that the Allies had come close. Could it be that the theory of strategic bombing was fundamentally flawed, or was the technology of the day insufficiently developed to produce the promised effect? It had certainly been true that RAF Bomber Command had only been dabbling at the margins until it replaced the medium bombers with which it entered the war, the semiobsolescent Blenheims and Hampdens, with the Wellington and Lancaster heavy bombers. It also needed to develop navigation and bomb-aiming equipment and techniques that ensured that a sufficient weight of bombs was delivered onto designated target areas.17 By late 1944 the RAF was as proficient as it ever was during the war in engaging and destroying strategic targets using area bombing techniques. But despite the fearsome devastation caused by the combined air offensive mounted by the RAF and U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF), Germany did not sue for peace until Soviet troops had taken Berlin’s ground defenses and forced a conclusion to a conflict that had outlasted the four years of World War I and exacted an even more horrific toll of human life. So was the theory behind offensive use of air power ever true, either in whole or part? An answer to that question seemed to have been provided in the Pacific theater, where the employment of two atomic bombs against cities in the Japanese homeland brought speedy capitulation in August 1945. Viewed at one level, had not this validated Douhet’s argument that if enough civilians were killed—in this case 150,000—no government would have the will to resist? Unfortunately, the situation had not been as clear-cut as to allow such a judgment to be made. The fact was that Japan had been subjected to devastating air attacks by American long-range heavy bombers for many months before the atom bombs were used. During the second week of March 1945 massive raids began, employing a mix of high explosives and incendiaries that generated firestorms that put a large proportion of the Japanese population through an experience every bit as bad as Douhet had predicted. By the end of July around 60 percent of the country’s sixty largest cities had been destroyed, including huge areas of the capital Tokyo. Industry had ground to a halt, civilian deaths were approaching 300,000, and there was between 9 and 13 million people left homeless—but still the Japanese government refused to surrender.18 This was

114

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

not a case of air power bringing a speedy resolution to conflict, but a matter of delivering a coup de grace to an adversary already on its knees, so much so that after the war there would be debate about whether the use of such terrible weapons of mass destruction had been justified. So there the debate seems to have rested for many years. Air power alone had not proved capable of ending a war by itself, notwithstanding the colossal advances made in aviation and weapons technology in the thirty-one years that separated the start of World War I in August 1914 and the end of World War II in August 1945. Even the advent of nuclear technology had not changed the equation, especially once a range of major powers had acquired such weapons and fears of mutually assured destruction became a factor inhibiting a repeat of their use. Moreover, air power became no longer the sole (or even preferred) means of delivering such weapons once missile technology came into its own. Since nations have still engaged in warfare with one another using weapons and tactics regarded as conventional, air power has continued to have a highly relevant part to play. But, again, the effects of air operations have rarely been of a scale or a nature that could be described as ‘‘war-winning.’’ In Korea, air power had at best contributed to staving off a land defeat at the hands of invading communist forces and reaching and maintaining the stalemated position with which the conflict ended in 1953. When used effectively in conjunction with other arms, such as during the several wars between India and Pakistan in the 1970s and during the Falklands War of 1982, air power had helped shorten the duration of the land campaign that was needed before hostilities ended. America’s involvement in Indochina in the 1960s and early 1970s, popularly known as the Vietnam War, produced a more complex and confusing outcome for the air power debate. This began essentially as an exercise in air control measures, employing bombing against a limited range of targets in North Vietnam as punishment for involvement in an insurgent campaign being waged in the south and as a warning against continuing that involvement.19 When that effort failed and the insertion of sizeable American ground forces became necessary, the air war against the north changed to a more conventional strategic campaign that itself underwent a steady process of escalation. The air campaign against North Vietnam was undertaken on a massive scale, with the result that 8 million tons of bombs were dropped in Indochina between 1962 and 1973—twice the tonnage delivered by all the warring nations during World War II.20 Using area bombing techniques that mirrored those of the previous war in Europe, large parts of northern population centers—particularly Hanoi and Haiphong—were reduced to rubble, but American will in Vietnam still did not prevail. This has been the source of much heartburn and soul-searching for the Americans ever since. It certainly seemed to represent further confirmation that air power was not capable of producing a conclusive outcome, even against a third-rate military power with military capabilities at the lower end of the conventional scale. Perversely, to the

AIR POWER FINDS ITS ASCENDANCY, AT LAST

115

extent that American air power had prevented the communists from achieving their war aims quickly or at small cost, it had actually caused the conflict to become more protracted and hugely expensive. It is ironic, then, that the conflict that did more in recent decades to undermine the case put forward by proponents of air power also saw first use of the next technological leap capable of altering the apparent verdict of history. On the main communication route from Hanoi to the south was a roadrail bridge over the Ma River at Thanh Hoa. Because of its strategic importance, this target had been attacked with more than seven hundred sorties over seven years, sometimes sustaining damage but never destroyed. Only on 13 May 1972 was the bridge finally dropped, hit by a single laser-guided bomb dropped from a U.S. Air Force F-4 Phantom.21 Subsequent development of precision-guided munitions (PGMs), combined with new advances in targeting systems, electronic warfare, and communications, has greatly enhanced the effects that air operations can contribute to present and future campaigns. The devastation inflicted on Iraqi forces during the First Gulf War of 1991 was in some respects only the precursor of this transformation. The prebombardment of Iraq while a coalition of forces assembled to liberate Kuwait was a foretaste of what came with the unleashing of Operation Desert Storm, so chillingly demonstrated by the socalled highway of death.22 While air power had regained some of its credibility and respectability in the first war against Saddam Hussein, this experience had not altered anything in respect to arguments about whether air power could or should become the dominant factor on the modern battlefield, even a war-winning one. It actually required several further conflicts to revive this aspect of the debate. Two episodes that have been noted for closer consideration occurred in the wake of the disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. During 1995 the United Nations had attempted to mandate safe areas to protect civilian populations from warring factions in Bosnia. After the Bosnian-Serbs repeatedly violated these restrictions, Operation Deliberate Force was launched by NATO air forces to reduce the capacity of Serb forces to threaten the zones and UN peace monitors on the ground. During the first two weeks of September, over seven hundred PGMs were used, along with more conventionally aimed munitions, against heavy weapons, command and control centers, and military support facilities. These achieved a degree of accuracy that was staggering, far better than in even the Gulf War, and produced so much less collateral damage that civilian casualties were reputedly nil.23 The outcome of these operations, which were among the most cost effective since the days of the Mad Mullah in Somalia, was that the warring factions in Bosnia agreed to the conditions set by the United Nations. A not entirely dissimilar outcome followed in Kosovo in 1999, after Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic attempted to ‘‘ethnically cleanse’’ the

116

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

province of its Albanian population. When NATO countries decided this time to act, they employed air power to bring Milosevic to heel while minimizing the risk of NATO casualties. Here was a clear case of air power becoming a weapon of first political choice to perform what amounted to a task of coercive diplomacy. Although in many respects Operation Allied Force was a dismal episode, due to problems of allowing the campaign to be run by a risk-averse alliance, it did succeed in defeating Milosevic.24 Next, in Afghanistan, when the Americans and allies retaliated against the Taliban regime for support given to the terrorist attacks against U.S. territory on 11 September 2001, air power again came into its own. Finding themselves dealing with a land-locked enemy, whose neighbors were reluctant to allow their own territory to provide bases for a large-scale land operation like Desert Storm, the Americans struck at the Taliban regime with sustained air attacks. In Operation Enduring Freedom, only minimal American ground forces were deployed, these being chiefly special forces that conducted long-range patrolling to pinpoint enemy locations for the bombers and to mop up surviving opposition afterwards. Although it is tempting to view the toppling of the Taliban and the dispersal of the Al-Qaeda terrorist network in Afghanistan as a triumph of the air-power-alone solution, a degree of caution must be noted. First, the concept of using aircraft to provide firepower under the direction of friendly forces on the ground is nothing new; operations have been conducted this way since World War I, and the only difference here was that Americans had few other courses open to them but to adopt this tactic. Second, as with air control operations from the 1920s and 1930s, it is not as though Enduring Freedom was conducted in the absence of sizeable ground forces. In the case of Afghanistan, the Americans merely looked to the homegrown anti-Taliban coalition of forces, known as the Northern Alliance, to provide foot soldiers on the ground.25 In keeping with the shift in emphasis that was becoming apparent, the contribution of air power to the 2003 war to force Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq was very different from the part played in that country twelve years earlier. This time there was no prolonged deluge of bombs and missiles raining down for forty days and forty nights before the ground offensive began. The air and ground campaigns were started and conducted together, forming a combined juggernaut that simply steamrolled the Iraqi defense. Attacking forces were in Baghdad in just sixteen days, and four days later they had achieved the goal of toppling Saddam Hussein’s Baath regime—all with less than half the troops available in 1991. What was more notable about Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 was the way in which air operations had become an integral component of the maneuver plan for coalition forces, making the air campaign part of a truly joint strategy. The key to success still lay in the availability of an array of enhanced PGMs, which was estimated to have given the air force ten times

AIR POWER FINDS ITS ASCENDANCY, AT LAST

117

the destructive effect of last time, but these weapons were not employed on simply softening up the enemy or degrading his forces. This time air strikes were focused on achieving specific effects that directly supported the campaign’s overall objectives. Instead of a grab-bag of targets, the air effort was directed against just three specific categories intended to discourage the Iraqis from putting up a fight and disabling them whenever they did so. There was no letup in this air campaign, which operated in tandem with the ground forces and across an entire theater of operations. Even a sandstorm did not stop the air force from detecting and engaging Iraqi armored units that tried to use the swirling sand to conceal their movements. What was especially striking was that ‘‘it was ground forces which had in many cases supported air forces in this fight—a complete reversal of a hundred years of combat experience. . . . A rapid, light ground advance had compelled the Iraqi ground commanders to move and concentrate their armored units south of Baghdad; when they did so they were detected and annihilated by air power.’’26 So overwhelmed were the Iraqis that their air force did not even take to the air, in recognition that its aircraft would not survive any encounter with coalition aircraft.27 The debate over air power and its uses and abuses is not over by any means. Just last year the world saw a new upsurge in fighting in the Middle East, where the total supremacy of the Israeli Air Force over Lebanon could not prevent a constant barrage of short- and medium-range missiles being fired into Israeli territory over a period of several weeks. What this says about the contribution of air power in the circumstances of asymmetrical warfare is still in the process of being defined.28 Asymmetrical operations carried out by nonstate entities is the new challenge of our time for military planners. Air power will still be relevant to such conflicts, but perhaps not always in the forms we have become most used to seeing. Around-the-clock surveillance—both long and near distance, and increasingly by unmanned aerial vehicles—is certain to receive greater emphasis in the force structure of most world air forces, since the technology is relatively cheap and expendable. The full range of advanced manned aircraft will become the province of a diminishing number of wealthy and advanced nations, and will chiefly serve to discourage potential adversaries with similar capabilities, while also ensuring that asymmetrical threats are not likely to assume more potent and conventional forms. The trend discernible from the century-long history of air power is now clear. With the newfound ability to eliminate important targets precisely and economically, air power will be used on many future occasions as the preferred means, possibly the sole means, of engaging an adversary. This will, of course, depend on the circumstances. In February 2007 the world witnessed an American air strike to eliminate terrorist training camps discovered to be operating in southern Somalia close to the Kenyan border.29 In September

118

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

there was also an Israeli strike against a mysterious facility near Deir Az-zov in northeastern Syria.30 For these sorts of operations, requiring near surgical precision at great distance, air power will continue to be highly attractive. But situations where air power alone is employed in an attempt to resolve a conflict or produce a desired political outcome will probably remain rare. Based on historical experience, it seems more likely that the future of air power lies in highly integrated and networked joint operations. That certainly seems to be the conclusion on which the most forward-thinking military powers are working. But guessing the direction and shape of future wars is really the ultimate imponderable of warfare.

NOTES 1. Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), p. 282. 2. AP 3000 British Air Power Doctrine, 3rd ed. (London: HMSO, 1999), p. 3.12.2. 3. George Odgers, The RAAF: An Illustrated History (Sydney: Child and Henry Publishing, 1984), pp. 12–13. 4. M. McKernan and M. Browne, eds., Australia: Two Centuries of War and Peace (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1988), p. 138. 5. F. M. Cutlack, The Australian Flying Corps, vol. 8, The Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918 (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1923), pp. 159–161. 6. Anthony Livesey, Great Battles of World War I (London: Guild Publishing, 1989), pp. 140–141. 7. H. Montgomery Hyde, British Air Policy Between the Wars, 1918–1939 (London: Heinemann, 1976), pp. 29–35. 8. H. Probert, High Commanders of the Royal Air Force (London: HMSO, 1991), p. 2. 9. M. J. D. Cooper, The Birth of Independent Air Power: British Air Policy in the First World War (London: Allen and Unwin, 1986), p. 136; Hyde, British Air Policy, p. 44. 10. Robert Jackson, Before the Storm: The Story of Bomber Command, 1939–1942 (London: Arthur Barker, 1972), pp. 23–24. 11. http://www.chakoten.dk/mad_mullah.html. 12. http ://www.raf.mod.uk/rafcms/mediafiles/F21C6257_ABD1_7132_E8716B8C2 DA98948.pdf. 13. James S. Corum, ‘‘The Myth of Air Control : Reassessing the History,’’ Aerospace Power Journal (Winter 2000); see http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0ICK/ is_4_14/ai_75578180. 14. Neville Jones, The Beginnings of Strategic Air Power: A History of the British Bomber Force, 1923–1939 (London: Frank Cass, 1987), p. 55. 15. Robert T. Finney, History of the Air Corps Tactical School, 1920–1940 (Washington, DC: Air Force History and Museums Program, 1998), p. 57. This conflicts with claims by an English cousin of MG ‘‘Billy’’ Mitchell that in the mid-1960s

AIR POWER FINDS ITS ASCENDANCY, AT LAST

119

an American scholar, Raymond R. Flugel, discovered a partial translation dated 1922 in the U.S. Air Service archives but failed to properly appreciate the significance of his find; see http://www.christopherlong.co.uk/per/mitchell.html. This does not alter the fact that Douhet’s writings never received widespread exposure among proponents of strategic bombing in that country either. 16. Jones, The Beginnings of Strategic Air Power, pp. 35–41. 17. Richard Overy, Bomber Command, 1939–1945 (London: HarperCollins, 1997), pp. 69–71. 18. John Keegan, The Second World War (Sydney: Hutchinson Australia, 1989), pp. 576–578. 19. Mark Clodfelter, The Limits of Airpower: The American Bombing of North Vietnam (New York: Free Press, 1989), pp. 56–60. 20. Earl H. Tilford Jr., Setup: What the Air Force Did in Vietnam and Why (Maxwell, AL. : U.S. Air War College, 1991), p. 293. 21. AAP 1000 Fundamentals of Australian Aerospace Power (Canberra: Aerospace Centre, 2002), p. 134. 22. Air Chief Marshal Sir Patrick Hine, ‘‘Air Operations in the Gulf War,’’ in Alan Stephens, ed., The War in the Air, 1914–1994 (Canberra: Aerospace Centre, 1994), p. 256. 23. AAP 1000 Fundamentals of Australian Aerospace Power, p. 175. 24. Patrick Sheets, ‘‘Air War over Serbia,’’ in Larry Wentz, ed., Lessons from Kosovo: The KFOR Experience (Washington, DC: CCRP, 2002). 25. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/enduring-freedom-ops.htm. 26. Stephen Budiansky, Air Power: The Men, Machines, and Ideas That Revolutionized War, from Kitty Hawk to Gulf War II (New York: Viking Penguin, 2004), pp. 434–439. 27. The War in Iraq: ADF Operations in the Middle East in 2003 (Canberra: Department of Defence, 2004), pp. 26–27. 28. See Sanu Kainikara and Russell Parkin, Pathways to Victory: Observations from the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah Conflict (Canberra: Air Power Development Centre, 2007). 29. CNN in Somalia, 11 January 2007; see http://insidecable.blogsome.com/2007/ 01/11/4492. 30. Jane’s Defence Weekly, 19, 26 September, 3, 10 October 2007.

6

Three of a Kind? Fisher, Rickover, and Gorshkov and the Management of Naval Change Geoffrey Till

the imponderables of war: the elements of military conflict that are clearly important, perhaps vital, to its outcome but that nonetheless remain hard to identify, measure, and develop. Military leadership in general, and in particular the kind of leadership that comes to the fore in policymaking rather than in the din and confusion of battle, is one of the biggest imponderables of all. The deliberations and decisions of leaders of this sort produce the context and the material with which battles are won or lost, but the qualities and the methods that make for good and bad decisions, good and bad leadership, remain elusive. The challenges facing such policymaking leaders are particularly acute at times of great technological and contextual change when they are navigating waters that are by definition quite uncharted. Certainly, now in the early 21st century, the management of change has become a topic of considerable importance. The appointment by Donald Rumsfeld, the U.S. secretary of defense, of Admiral Cebrowski as his ‘‘transformation tsar’’ in 2001 was a response to a widespread view that today’s rate of change—strategic, social, economic, environmental, but especially technological—was so extraordinary that military forces needed to take extraordinary measures to cope with it.1 This impulse was partly fueled by a very human desire to come to grips with a rate of change that many were finding, and continue to find, unprecedented and bewildering, if not frightening. Much of the concern was based on a feeling that our future (if we have one) might depend on getting the management of change right. What, more precisely, has to be ‘‘got right,’’ of course, is an accurate assessment of the strategic context and especially of the threats that derive

THIS VOLUME EXPLORES

122

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

from it, as well as the means by which those threats can be dealt with. As far as the military were, and are, concerned, it is largely a matter of securing desirable outcomes. Navies that improve their management of change fight better and stand a better chance of securing their aims. So, they say, we need to think about change, and more specifically about how military innovation occurs and is best ‘‘managed.’’2 Hence the interest of the world’s navies in the general issue of technological change, and indeed in the particular notion of the ‘‘revolution in military affairs.’’ Even before Cebrowski’s arrival, this notion had generated an academic industry that was keen to deal with several questions: When is change to be regarded as evolutionary and when revolutionary ? What helps it, what hinders it? What are the pitfalls? And, of course, what do we mean by a ‘‘revolution in military affairs’’ anyway? How do we know when we are in one? The U.S. Department of Defense seemed to sum it all up quite well : ‘‘A major change in the nature of warfare brought about by the innovative application of technologies which, combined with dramatic changes in military doctrine, and operational concepts, fundamentally alters the character and conduct of operations.’’3 But how new is all this, really? To what extent have earlier naval leaders faced similar problems, and how did they cope? Can we learn anything from their experience ? But, on the other hand, can we safely generalize about the management of technological change across eras and about very different technological phenomena? Fisher is famous, among other things, for his view that history is no more than a record of exploded ideas. But if we instead take history as accumulated experience, it might well provide us with some insights into this process. A sound understanding of how technological change has happened, or perhaps been brought about, in the past surely can only help. This of course is a gigantic topic. Elsewhere, I have argued for a ten-part strategy for managing transformational change, but this chapter will only deal with one aspect, namely, the need for strong, sustained leadership.4 This focus in turn brings us to the notion of the ‘‘naval transformer’’: the individual, or group of individuals, who spark the process, who make things happen. Do they have some common characteristic ? Do they have some techniques that can help their successors cope with equivalent problems today? So, what do Admirals Fisher, Rickover, and Gorshkov have in common, and how can their experience help?

THE NAVAL TRANSFORMER: SOME GENERALIZATIONS Fisher, Rickover, and Gorshkov certainly all had a very real sense of their own individual historical role and importance. Rickover often compared himself to Fisher quite explicitly.5 In the rather more corporatist and ideologically

THREE OF A KIND?

123

disapproving atmosphere of the Soviet system, it would be unreasonable to expect Gorshkov publicly to admit such comparisons, but it is hard to resist the conclusion that one of the reasons that he stuck so tenaciously to his post as commander-in-chief of the Navy was a strong sense that he had something very important to offer. Certainly Gorshkov gives a degree of credit to the general role of individuals such as Peter the Great, and Admirals Ushakov and Markov, that is a touch surprising from a good Marxist. All three had the sense of battling against the forces of obscurantism. ‘‘It is a historical fact that the British Navy stubbornly resists change,’’ said Fisher. Bacon, his first biographer, agrees that the Navy was ‘‘ultra-conservative and hated reforms’’; another biographer adds that Fisher ‘‘realised that unscrupulous toughness alone would shake the Navy out of its sail-and-cannon-ball mentality.’’6 Rickover thought likewise. Gorshkov, struggling with the inherited weight of centuries of maritime neglect inflicted by the ‘‘influential satraps of Russian Czarism,’’ would have felt the same.7 None of them were narrowly technological; they were all fully aware that technology was but a part of the ‘‘revolution in military affairs’’ over which they presided. Fisher was clear that the new technology of his era would affect everything else, and that much of it depended in turn on major changes elsewhere. His very wide-ranging reforms in the Mediterranean Fleet during his time there, his major reform of the way in which the Navy educated and deployed its officers, his controversial bid to redistribute the fleet, and his catalytic effect on naval thinking and British foreign policy and military strategy generally were all animated by the sense that only such reforms as these would ‘‘enable’’ the transformational technology he wanted to see.8 Fisher was a polymath because he had to be for the available technology to be properly acquired, sustained, developed, and exploited. Rickover was the same. Enormously well read, he was perfectly well aware that there was far more to the effective management of technological change than simply producing the kit. Success depended on the context. Accordingly, he determined the way that nuclear officers in the U.S. Navy were trained. By 1982, 8,400 officers and 44,500 enlisted men had passed through his system.9 It was almost a navy within a navy. From this he developed very strong ideas on modern education, becoming something of a crusader in this respect. Rickover’s interests extended way beyond the naval sphere in other ways too, not least into the issue of the civilian generation of electricity. Gorshkov, if anything, went even further. He was much less of a technologist; his whole career, and indeed his book, were about much more than simply getting the right technology into the Soviet Navy. He was perfectly aware that ‘‘a revolutionising influence on the development of the armed forces and the art of deploying them has always been exerted by technical discoveries.’’ But his book was also about encouraging a proper appreciation in Russia, but also in the world more widely, of the place of the sea in

124

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

mankind’s future destiny. In his introduction, he warns us that ‘‘oceanic problems are regarded from different points of view: economic, political and military—with their dialectical links and mutual dependence.’’10 But the most obvious characteristic that all three had in common was their effect. In their way, they all changed the course of naval history in the 20th century. Fisher ushered in a capital ship construction program that revolutionized the world’s navies; this applied across the board: to hulls, armor, propulsion, gunnery. He encouraged radical thinking about even more revolutionary naval developments: mines, submarines, torpedo boats, and aircraft. He changed the way the Royal Navy did business and transformed its educational system. Rickover’s achievement was narrower but still substantial. He ensured a proper priority for the development of nuclear propulsion at a time when the Navy was for institutional reasons perhaps overly preoccupied with nuclear weapons. By the time he was retired (a deliberate expression, as will be seen), the naval nuclear reactor program had accumulated over 2,300 years of operation. Nuclear ships had steamed over 49 million miles, and about 40 percent of the U.S. Navy’s major ships were nuclear powered. His equivalent of the Dreadnought and the battle cruiser was the nuclear-propelled submarine—most dramatically the USS Nautilus, which demonstrated its revolutionary impact on naval warfare by running rings around the NATO fleet in the exercises of 1955.11 Gorshkov’s achievement was the Soviet Navy at his highwater mark from about 1975. When set against the maritime and other disadvantages facing the Soviet Union, this was an extraordinary accomplishment. It certainly changed, and at times seemed to upset, the whole global naval balance of power. THE SECRETS OF SUCCESS Having reviewed their achievements, what can we say about their methods, and the transferability of their methods to a later era? How did they achieve what they set out to achieve? First, all three had what we would now call ‘‘the Vision thing’’—a burning conviction that there were crucial things that needed to be done on their watch. For Gorshkov and Fisher, this was at the level of grand strategy; it was about enhancing the role of the Navy in national defense against the major challenges of their time. For Rickover, the focus was more at the operational level: of developing and exploiting nuclear propulsion as the crucial enabler for the U.S. Navy of the sort he wanted to see. They all knew, in short, what they needed to achieve. Leadership Style and Personality Fisher’s approach to everything was to admit no possibility of doubt, to persuade by the appearance of decisive certainty, a style quite at odds with that of people like Balfour, who ‘‘saw too much of both sides and was never

THREE OF A KIND?

125

violent.’’12 Fisher, in contrast, claimed to see incompetence and sloth all around him that had to be blasted away. ‘‘Every day,’’ he wrote in 1914, ‘‘I find evidence of utter incapacity and no one shot! . . . this Admiralty is really a terrible place for apathy. I have to lose my temper every day to push things.’’13 Rickover was likewise acutely aware of the importance of his own credibility, and he did not take criticism or dissent, however mildly expressed, at all well, whether this criticism came from within or without his organization. While some of us book writers might rather sympathize with him on this, he took violent exception to what might seem to most a moderate and balanced review of his book on the sinking of the USS Maine. He denounced the reviewer in forthright terms and tried to get the U.S. Naval War College Review, which had had the temerity to publish it, closed down.14 Rickover was likewise perfectly prepared to engage in personal vendettas against people, especially protegees, who he thought had ‘‘gone over to the ÔBuships crowd.Õ ’’15 Both Fisher and Rickover had a top-down leadership style that rested on their personal credibility and infallibility. Accordingly, criticism could be fatal to their whole enterprise, especially if there was some truth in it. There is some temptation to see some element of compensation for some deep personal insecurity in all of this too. Fisher was almost abandoned by his family and maintained only distant relations with many of them. When dealing with stylish aristocrats like Beresford and Battenberg, he remained sensitive to the relative modesty of his social background. As Fisher put it himself, ‘‘I entered the navy penniless, friendless and forlorn. I have had to fight like hell, and fighting like hell has made me what I am.’’16 As one reviewer in the Pall Mall Gazette put it, ‘‘It is difficult for any English naval officer to be cruel, but cruelty is part of the surgery of the great reformer. . . . There is undoubtedly a useful dash of the savage in Fisher’s nature.’’ According to Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, he had ‘‘what the Americans call hustle.’’17 There are echoes of this in Rickover’s career. Often said to have suffered from anti-Semitism and other remembered humiliations at the Naval Academy, he was unsporty and physically diminutive. He struck one reviewer as ‘‘churlish, angry, full of the rage of a man who saw a world that affronted him,’’18 and, like Fisher, he was restlessly determined to change it. Like Fisher, too, he was a relentlessly hard worker, full of zeal and energy, demanding the same of his subordinates. It is more difficult to analyze Gorshkov’s character. He had much more war experience than either Fisher or Rickover, and his capacity to survive the savage uncertainties of the Stalin era suggests toughness and a strong survival instinct. He stuck to his guns through successive regime and strategic policy changes, without engaging in futile and dangerous polemics. When he had to be ruthless and determined, such as when sending submarines to sea with

126

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

known safety deficiencies, he was.19 No one prospering in the Soviet system, after all, was likely to be a pussycat. Creating an Internal Power Base All three of them, however, had to develop a strong power base within the navy. Navies were large and complex organizations with different and often competing subgroups within them. All three ‘‘transformers’’ set out to establish a centralized power base and developed a strong, even assertive leadership style. Fisher deliberately cultivated a dominating image. Famously, in the Mediterranean he had the mast of HMS Renown altered so that his flag would fly higher than anyone else’s. His quarters were got up like one of the grander suites in a Marienbad hotel, and his barge was ‘‘the envy of the German emperor.’’ He delegated as much as he could, but only to trusted subordinates and confederates—the Fishpond—men like Jackson, Jellicoe, Madden, and Bacon. Such was his dominance that there was truth in Marder’s comment: ‘‘In effect, if not in fact, he was the Board of Admiralty between October 21st 1904 and Jan 25th 1910.’’20 Fisher himself thought in 1904 that he was open to the charge of ‘‘packing the Admiralty with his creatures.’’ Anyone opposing his schemes was to be ruthlessly squashed: ‘‘My three Rs are Ruthless, Relentless and Remorseless. Anyone who opposes me, I crush, I crush,’’ he said in 1904. Partly, of course, this was theater, designed to deter opposition as well as to overwhelm it. But there is little doubt that he could be harsh, revengeful, and vindictive, and he certainly became increasingly autocratic.21 This failing is illustrated by Admiral Oliver’s story about Fisher’s hatred for Admiral Leveson. ‘‘I asked him once what he had against Leveson and he said he could not remember but he knew he had something.’’ At this time, Richmond commented that it was ‘‘rather pitiable . . . [that] . . . Fisher . . . seems more busy in getting at his enemies than at those of his country.’’22 Since this ruthlessness created enemies as well as allies, it played a part in Fisher’s forced retirement in 1910. But there is no doubt that Fisher attracted at least as much as he repelled. He inspired legions of admirers and supporters by his zeal, honesty, and humor. Some of his strongest support came from the junior officers of a technical bent to whom he often directly appealed.23 Likewise, he was fully prepared to go against the views and inclinations of his superiors. He was especially pleased when the board appointed him Second Sea Lord in 1902, ‘‘considering the way I have embarrassed and pestered them during the last three years.’’24 This apparent need to short- circuit blockages in the system by interacting with the people he thought mattered and by ignoring much of the normal reporting chain above and below them is common among such ‘‘change managers.’’ Routine business should not be neglected, but the essential thing was to create enough space and human resource to come up with

THREE OF A KIND?

127

new ideas, thereby emulating the ‘‘Athenians and strangers who spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing.’’25 Fisher was likewise popular with his crews and always concerned with the welfare of the lower deck.26 Rickover’s organizational methods look very similar. Acutely aware, like Fisher, of the need for a solid power base, he cultivated a coterie of fellow believers; only in his case the scale was much larger. All officers with aspirations to serve in nuclear submarines or ships underwent an induction course under his auspices. Their personal interviews with him were often searing experiences, breaking every rule in the book, something of a rite of passage for the survivors. The result was the so-called nucs, a nuclear community of officers in whose subsequent careers he kept a close interest and who often rose to high positions.27 Many of them regarded Rickover as their mentor, with a level of loyalty bordering on veneration. They formed something of a navy within a navy, something that certainly did not aid the U.S. Navy’s corporate identity. But it did mean that Rickover had potential allies at every turn for his struggles amid the Byzantine labyrinth of special interest groups within the U.S. Navy. Rickover’s personal fiefdom was the Nuclear Reactors Branch (NRB) of the Naval Ships Systems command (the old Bureau of Ships). Novitiates to this ‘‘nucleus of martyrs’’ were expected to engage in 854 hours of study in personal time covering physics, metallurgy, chemistry, and engineering and also to find time for field trips to various Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) facilities. Under him, the NRB’s influence expanded into almost every aspect of nuclear ship and submarine construction and operation. As its tentacles spread, it became known as ‘‘City Hall.’’28 Rickover frequently claimed that he had no organization, once famously putting out a wiring diagram when required to do so, perfect and complete except in that it was written in Chinese. In truth he did have an organization, but it was centered on his own dominating personality; the ‘‘pinks’’ system, by which Rickover personally checked the transcript of every letter leaving the organization, exemplifies a system of centralized decision making that most regarded as extraordinary. As one commentator put it, he ‘‘did business by yelling at people and when Rickover was yelling, his voice seemed to boom beyond the limit of his elfin frame.’’ The whole organization was quite unique, extremely hard-working, and thoroughly meritocratic; in a manner quite unlike the rest of the Navy, the organizational hierarchy bore no relation whatsoever to service or seniority. It all depended on the particular project in hand. It was ‘‘horses for courses,’’ but Rickover himself decided who went where and did what.29 In theory, there was less room for individual aggrandisement of this sort in the more corporatist Marxist system of the Soviet Navy. But in fact Gorshkov, too, had an absolute ascendancy that depended on the power of his personality, his experience, his rank, and his connections outside the Navy. He

128

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

knew Brezhnev and his second minister of defense Marshal Grechko from serving together in the war and was well acquainted with and respected by Marshal Malinovskii and many others in positions of influence. His position was assiduously cultivated by a group of officers who, at the very least, ‘‘helped’’ him write his books. He clearly attracted respect and fierce loyalty in the Navy. The ‘‘Gorshkovschina’’ that resulted was a cause of some resentment in some senior naval circles and, no doubt, in the General Staff as well.30 Powerful Allies Outside the Navy All three were very skilled in the art of bureaucratic politics: the ability to manipulate the system to get things done. Part of this skill was based on the clear recognition that, in developing radical new policies, it was not only the navy that mattered. The system included those elements that could influence naval policy from outside. Fisher assiduously cultivated the mighty and the influential. He exploited the opportunity of HMS Inflexible being the guard ship during Queen Victoria’s holiday at Mentone in 1882 to develop good relations with the Royal Family and to nurture them whenever the opportunity offered. This was to pay off handsomely in the reign of Edward VII. He was excellent at what we would now call information operations. W. T Stead, who wrote in 1884 a seminal and shocking series of articles entitled ‘‘The Truth About the Navy’’ in the Pall Mall Gazette, was a major opinion former who argued Fisher’s case for him, providing a flank attack on the gradualistic reform policy of the then first naval lord, Admiral Sir Astley Cooper-Keys. J. P. Garvin of the Observer was one of many journalists who served the same function later on. Fisher also benefited from winning over the Hon. Reginald Brett, later Lord Esher, that highly influential eminence grise who by 1901 regarded Fisher as the leading sailor of the time and who advanced his cause whenever possible.31 This was more than mere showmanship; it provided Fisher with thirdparty reinforcements who could make his case for him. But this was clearly a dangerous game. There were many in the Navy who absolutely hated the service admitting outsiders to its private counsels like this. One naval officer, who represented a substantial body of opinion, claimed that Fisher ‘‘would never have secured all he wanted had he not secured the support of the press and parliament. On the other hand the introduction of the Press and politicians had landed the service in the degradation of the propaganda and publicity departments . . . men of all ranks court the press and the politicians to the detriment of discipline and efficiency.’’32 The problem was also that the forces of darkness could do the same thing. Fisher’s b^ete noire, Admiral Beresford, was even better at winning over public opinion, and the resultant public battle between the two camps was

THREE OF A KIND?

129

wholly destructive of the ‘‘band of brothers spirit’’ to which so much of the Royal Navy’s success was due. Complaints about Fisher’s methods, rather than, or as well as, his objectives swelled the ranks of his opponents and diminished the support from his allies. Toward the end of his time as first sea lord, Fisher was accordingly much less successful than he had once been. Rickover was criticized for exactly the same thing. He too cultivated the press and developed a separate power base that was, in effect, outside the U.S. Navy, and he used it to attack those inside it who he thought were hindering his nuclear propulsion program, directly and indirectly. Public opinion served as one of Rickover’s patrons. The launch and Arctic voyage of the USS Nautilus were major media events. A crowd of 250,000 gave the crew of the Nautilus a classic ticker-tape motorcade down Broadway on their return from the North Pole. Putting Rickover’s portrait on the front cover of Time magazine established the press as a major ally in Rickover’s campaign.33 Other external allies were developed from the senior political establishment. Presidents Nixon and, especially, Jimmy Carter (who trained under Rickover) were close associates and allies. The supreme need to maintain unbreakable standards of safety in all aspects of naval propulsion, as well as the cause of civilian nuclear power generation, made the AEC a major power base. While Rickover once specifically denied doing so, he was widely believed to use AEC stationery to prod the U.S. Navy into action but naval stationery against the AEC.34 In Congress, Rickover had ‘‘the strongest personal following of any modern military officer.’’ Leading members of Congress were persuaded he was on their side, were convinced by his arguments, and gave him money as a person, because he was who he was; they were fully prepared to back him up against a naval establishment that they were wont to think hostile to their role in helping frame defense policy and that they suspected was much at fault in setting its details. They were fulsome in their praise of Rickover: ‘‘We have with us this morning not only one of the most indispensable men in national defense but one of the most remarkable men in our history and in world science.’’35 Congressional hearings provided Rickover with a splendid arena in which he could publicly attack the policy of his naval superiors. ‘‘It was the backing Congress gave me that made the nuclear ship program possible,’’ Rickover once said with rare, if somewhat disingenuous, humility.36 Congress was important not only in advancing Rickover’s construction program but also in supporting his personal career and in helping him survive attempts to dismiss him. Although Rickover denied any personal lobbying, it was Congress, not the Navy, that got him his promotions. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara was one who wanted to see the old man gone twenty years earlier than he eventually did go; but, after suffering one particular example of insubordination, he was told by Congress that, ‘‘if he wanted to give Admiral Rickover a court-martial that was fine, but then he would run

130

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

into Mr Rivers, Mr Bates, Mr Philbin, Mr Hosmer, Senator Anderson, Mr Holifield, the Speaker of the House, the entire House of Representatives, the entire Senate, the Jews, the Catholics, the Protestants, and anyone else you wanted to name.’’37 Rickover’s problem was that he outlived not only his adversaries but many of his main allies too. Moreover, his ruthless interference in the business affairs of both main submarine builders, Newport News and Electric Boat, eventually backfired when all sides got mired in destructive controversy over cost overruns. This weakened Rickover at a time when President Reagan and another innovator of the time, Navy Secretary John Lehman, were determined to get rid of him. The extraordinary way in which Rickover took his enforced retirement, which included shouting at both Reagan and Lehman in the Oval Office, was a twisted reflection of his past bureaucratic strength.38 Gorshkov likewise cultivated important bureaucratic relationships outside the Navy to advance his cause, but such was the Byzantine nature of the system within which he worked that we are only beginning to understand it. It was clearly important that Gorshkov was closely associated with Brezhnev from their time together in Black Sea Fleet operations during the Great Patriotic War. With the support of a team of high-ranking ghost writers, Gorshkov published several books and many articles that were plainly works of advocacy describing his view not merely of what was, but of what should be. They were cleverly modulated and occasioned the establishment of a major cottage industry, especially in the United States, devoted to identifying from minute textual examination exactly what the commander-in-chief of the Soviet Navy was advocating; his writings were part and parcel of a brilliantly successful political campaign to win for the Navy the support and the resources from the party and state he thought it needed.

LONGEVITY: THE REINFORCEMENT OF SUCCESS The first and most obvious point of similarity here is the comparative longevity of the three transformers in a naval world otherwise dominated by people coming and going. Gorshkov was in his post from 1956 (in fact 1955) to 1985; even by Soviet standards this was exceptional. Many of his senior colleagues were likewise in their posts for much longer periods than applied in the here-today-gone-tomorrow ethos of the West.39 Certainly there were disadvantages in this, but the extraordinary growth of the Soviet Navy during this period suggests that the advantages of continuity outweighed them. What this meant was that the people who had the vision were likely to stay around long enough to be held accountable for the results of the policy they initiated in order to implement it. There was therefore a very real sense of responsibility and ownership.

THREE OF A KIND?

131

Rickover dominated his field in the U.S. Navy from 1949 to 1982. Even by 1977 he had dealt with fourteen secretaries of defense, fifteen navy secretaries, eleven chiefs of naval operations, and so on. The same went for the people who worked for him. On his retirement the top hundred of his people had been in post for an average of fifteen years and the top twenty divisional heads for twenty. The application of continuous pressure over a long period helped him achieve his objectives. Asked once how he solved problems and got things done, he replied: ‘‘You just outlive them.’’ The designation SSN is a nice case in point. Initially the U.S. Navy wanted it to be SS(N). Rickover thought this could be seen as implying that nuclear propulsion was just an add-on rather than the determining characteristic of nuclear submarine design, but he did not waste his energy in a fight. He simply told them to drop the parentheses, or brackets, in all their reports. ‘‘The other people rotate, we endure. Before long, the parentheses will be gone.’’ And of course, he was right.40 Compared to this, Fisher seems more transient, even if he did provide more continuity in high levels of policymaking than was normal in the Royal Navy of that era. Since his approach to the management of change from the time of his appointment as director of naval ordnance in 1886 to his retirement as first sea lord in 1910 was comprehensive throughout, he provided a great deal of continuous pressure over the years. There was a characteristic reference to this in one of his letters of resignation in May 1915: ‘‘The 60 percent of my time and energy which I have exhausted on 9 First Lords in the past, I wish to devote to the successful prosecution of the war.’’41 But the real point is that longevity in a system normally resting on the transience of post holders is to be seen as much as a symptom of success as a cause of it. Gorshkov was much more of a ‘‘trimmer’’ than either Fisher or Rickover: he did not make waves when particular schemes failed and so was able quietly to keep plugging away, securing, in the end, nearly everything he wanted. But all three were successful in that they survived beyond the normal term, and because they survived longer than most, they had more opportunity to put their schemes into effect. But, in the end, of course, they all proved institutionally mortal.

WARNINGS AND CAVEATS To conclude, a few final questions should be asked about, and perhaps a few caveats set against, the model of a ‘‘naval transformer’’ just sketched out. In other words, how necessary are naval transformers such as Fisher, Gorshkov, and Rickover when their influence is set against the determining effect of the strategic context in which they operate? Would not their revolutions have happened in any case, and perhaps in a more measured way? Did Fisher, Rickover, and Gorshkov transform, or just accelerate, a process already under way?

132

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

As far as Fisher was concerned, the situation facing the Royal Navy in the period before the First World War required decisive, immediate, and innovative action. New potential adversaries were appearing in the shape of the American, German, and Japanese navies alongside the more familiar threats presented by the French and Russians. But when he was appointed first sea lord, Fisher was told by Selborne in no uncertain terms that ‘‘economy was to be the essential basis of Admiralty policy.’’ Moreover, this reflected an increasing acceptance of the fact that the era of Britain’s unchallengeable industrial supremacy was over. Part of the solution might in due course be for the ‘‘weary Titan’’ to seek some new diplomatic accommodation with some of its erstwhile rivals, and/or more help from the empire.42 Radical solutions were needed. In any case, Fisher was famous for his dislike of waste at every level. An advocate of what would now be called the ‘‘lean and mean,’’ he regarded excessive naval funding as a danger not just to the national economy but also to the internal health of the Navy, since it could corrupt the Darwinian search for the surviving fittest: ‘‘Lavish naval expenditure, like human high-living, leads to the development of latent parasitical bacilli which prey on and diminish the vitality of the belligerent force, whether in the human body or in the fighting ship!’’43 For all these reasons, the Royal Navy could not merely spend its way out of trouble; it needed something radical, not just more of the same. And this first radical departure was the Dreadnought, the battle cruiser concept, and their subsequent development. Fisher saw the Dreadnought in particular as a naval transformation: ‘‘The great secret is to put off to the very last hour the ship (big or little) that you mean to build (or perhaps not build her at all). You see all your rivals’ plans fully developed, their vessels started beyond recall, and then in each individual answer to each such rival vessel you plunge with a design 50 percent better !’’44 And Fisher’s notions of such ‘‘plunging’’ departures were by no means restricted to technological fixes such as the Dreadnought. In due course they could lead to substantial reliance on the even newer and more challenging possibilities brought about by the torpedo boat, submarine, and aircraft. The submarine, he thought, would bring about an impending revolution in naval warfare : ‘‘The Submarine is the coming type of war vessel for sea fighting. And what is it that the coming of the submarine really means? It means that the whole foundation of our traditional naval strategy . . . has broken down!’’45 As a result of such views and policies, Britain went to war in 1914 with the world’s biggest and most advanced submarine service, and that war was to show that there was much in what Fisher said. Likewise, Rickover was absolutely clear that the strategic context demanded that the U.S. Navy ‘‘plunge’’ as well, in this case into nuclear propulsion. The Soviet submarine threat was forging ahead. Even by 1968, Congress was being told that all the U.S. submarine building yards, including

THREE OF A KIND?

133

Newport News and Electric Boat, could be slotted into the single Soviet submarine yard at Severodvinsk with ample room left over. There was alarming talk of the Soviets having an SSN fleet double the size of the American within a decade, and of the menace its Victor and Charlie submarines posed to the Atlantic communications by which American reinforcements would come to Europe and to the all-important U.S. carrier battle groups on which all depended.46 For Rickover, the essential task then was to build enough fast, safe nuclear submarines and other warships to ensure American command of the seas, which everyone accepted as crucial to the country’s prosperity and security. Only this could prevent a dramatic reversal of American strategic fortunes. Gorshkov had a much more difficult mountain to climb in this respect, because an awareness of the importance of the maritime dimension of security was nothing like as widely accepted in the Soviet Union as it was in the West, especially in the volatile, hostile, Khrushchev era. Nonetheless, Gorshkov plugged away at the need to challenge overwhelming Western naval power. For him, too, there was a need to ‘‘plunge.’’ First, at the level of grand strategy, Soviet leaders had to be persuaded to spend far more on the Navy than they were used to. Second, the Soviet Navy had to change the rules in a competition it thought the West might otherwise win—hence the need for revolutionary technology. In this case, the initial stress was on long-range missiles, innovative submarines, and aircraft rather than conventional surface forces, even nuclearpropelled ones: ‘‘The combat potential . . . of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers is inferior to the strike potentials of submarines and air-forces.’’47 But ‘‘transformation’’ in the Soviet case did not stop there. The Soviet Navy led the way in a host of other directions, too: long-range naval missiles, the bastion concept for the deployment of SSBNs, the doctrine of the close embrace, under-ice deployments, even the welding of titanium for submarine hulls. These were all what might be termed asymmetrical counters to Western superiorities. Considering the unfavorable situation faced by the Soviet Navy in 1956, culturally, strategically, and industrially, Gorshkov’s transformation of the Navy is quite extraordinary, and in relative terms much more of an achievement than Fisher’s or Rickover’s, even though it was not in the end sustainable. And yet, even in this case, it is possible to argue that Gorshkov and the other two as well are better understood not so much as ‘‘transformers’’ themselves creating revolutionary change, but more as accelerating change already under way. As such, they were floating down a river, affecting the rate of change by how hard they paddled, not by their direction of travel. Moreover, their reputation as transformers may rest in some degree on an overemphasis on the alleged ‘‘conservatism’’ and general stupidity of their predecessors and opponents. Gorshkov, to some extent at least, in fact benefited from a tradition for innovative technological advances, in, say, torpedo boats, mine-laying submarines, naval aviation, and fast battleships, that had distinguished the Russian

134

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

Navy in the past and also from Stalin’s acceptance of the need for a bluewater fleet from the late 1930s on. The ten-year plan of 1946–1955 provided a basis for the Navy’s renaissance, even though much of it was discarded during Khrushchev’s ‘‘revolution in military affairs.’’ Gorshkov’s predecessor, Admiral Kuznetsov, was a big Navy man, and some of the key decisions about its future were made in his time rather than Gorshkov’s, not least an early and particularly important decision to invest in naval missiles. Gorshkov was clearly not the only major influence on Soviet naval construction; some believe the Ministry of the Defense Industry to have been much more important in framing the Navy’s plans.48 Equally important, it is far from clear that the new Russia regards Gorshkov’s navy as a unique aberration not to be repeated in less confrontational times; in sum, there have always been important continuities in Soviet/Russian naval thinking from which even a transformer like Gorshkov could benefit. Fisher’s views on submarines and aircraft were likewise by no means unique. In many respects, he was echoing the views of the French Jeune Ecole on the torpedo threat and the contemporary difficulties of battle fleet blockade. In regard to the Dreadnought, Fisher was anticipating the realization of the ‘‘Cuniberti disposition’’ of the all big-gun battleship then being developed by several other navies at the time. Moreover, the notion that the Royal Navy of the late 19th century was quite as bad as Fisher portrayed it can itself be subjected to challenge. Lord Esher, at least, thought the sailors of his era much more ‘‘professional’’ than Army officers and told the king so.49 The same observations may be made about Rickover, in his much more restricted area. There were many other people actively advancing the possibility and desirability of nuclear propulsion in submarines and surface ships for the U.S. Navy. Moreover, Rickover’s NRB was deliberately kept at arm’s length by the U.S. Navy in developing the Polaris and Trident submarine systems. The success of these large and complex programs showed that very different methods within the U.S. Navy system proper could work perfectly well, too.50 Neither the Royal Navy nor the French found it necessary to emulate Rickover’s methods when instituting their nuclear propulsion programs. Indeed, Rickover was very unpopular with the Royal Navy, despite their having every reason to be grateful to him for his help, and despite the personal support of Zuckerman and Mountbatten. Generally he was considered ‘‘conceited, arrogant, self-centered and impossibly rude,’’ and even Zuckerman pointedly remarked that as far as the generation of civilian nuclear power was concerned, Britain’s Calder Hall had been pumping nuclear power into the national grid for months before Shippingport, according to Rickover, ‘‘the world’s first nuclear reactor for civilian electricity,’’ came on line.51 And it is altogether clear that such ‘‘accelerators’’ were in any case an unadulterated ‘‘good’’ for the Navy in question. Rickover has been accused of being ‘‘conservative’’ when it came to other people’s innovative ideas, for example, in the development of small lightweight reactors of greater

THREE OF A KIND?

135

thermodynamic efficiency.52 The Los Angeles class of submarine has been criticized for being expensive, unable to go deep, and not significantly faster than some of its predecessors. The emphasis on submarine speed in any case may have been out of balance with other factors such as tactics, sonar effectiveness, and torpedo performance.53 Believing that only what he considered the best would do, Rickover was violently opposed to many of the ideas of another major innovator of the time, Admiral Zumwalt (not least the latter’s research emphasis on the development of radical new ways of detecting submarines),54 suspicious of the concept of the balanced fleet advocated by the Navy and to the ideas of ‘‘cost-effectiveness’’ associated with McNamara. Rickover delayed the introduction of gas-turbine propulsion in the U.S. Navy and perhaps fundamentally damaged its esprit de corps.55 It all looks like what the Germans call Einseitigkeit, a lack of balance and proportion. Fisher at the time and since has been subjected to a barrage of criticism not merely for his methods but also for his ideas. His confidence in the sufficiency of his battleship and battle cruiser construction program remains highly controversial on both quantitative and qualitative grounds. Richmond, initially a supporter, turned against Fisher, particularly over the latter’s resistance to the idea of developing a fully fledged naval staff: ‘‘The Admiralty plans are to my mind the vaguest amateur stuff I have ever seen . . . the worst of it all is that I do not see who is going to carry through a reorganization. Fisher, supreme in his contempt for history and distrustful of all other men, will neither seek nor accept counsel.’’56 But the biggest single criticism of Fisher has to be the deleterious effect his reforms had on the Royal Navy’s esprit de corps, creating what even his ally Lord Esher called a ‘‘dangerous . . . state of unrest in the Navy.’’57 It is harder to come up with equivalent criticisms of Gorshkov, because his personal achievement was arguably the greatest of the three, but nonetheless his very success was a mixed blessing for the Soviet Union, since it came at some cost to the Soviet economy, significantly contributing to the weakening of the political system it was intended to defend. Moreover, it led to a vigorous counterreaction from the United States and its allies and a naval arms race that the Soviet Union—less maritime in character, more geographically constrained, and much less economically secure—was in the end bound to lose.

CONCLUSION A mixed picture emerges. Fisher, Rickover, and Gorshkov were undoubtedly three towering naval figures of their era. Trying to generalize about their impact or the secrets of their success is not at all easy. Success in the management of change remains an imponderable. But there were some very obvious similarities in the leadership and change-management methods of all

136

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

three of them as naval transformers. We cannot be so sure about Gorshkov, but Fisher and Rickover were complex characters, hard to summarize. In the webs of their character, ‘‘the threads were of many colors and they ran crossways in many directions.’’ They all had ‘‘the Vision thing,’’ taking a comprehensive and long-lasting view of their task. They were all relentless workers, skilled in the complex and arcane world of bureaucratic politics and institutional centralizers who thoroughly understood the system in which they operated. But those systems were so very different that it is not at all clear that a single model of change management can be derived from their experience or that, if located, it could be exported anywhere else or to any other time. This goes back to the interesting question raised at the beginning of this chapter, namely, whether such experiences have anything to teach us now, or whether the contexts in which these three transformers operated were so different as to militate against the transferability of the skills and procedures they illustrated. Certainly it is easy to spot similarities between what they did and what modern change-management theory says transformers should do. Such notions as ‘‘creating a burning platform’’ or unfreezing a situation so people have to change things certainly strike a chord.58 Likewise, J. Kotter’s muchquoted eight-step model for leading change contains elements such as creating and communicating a vision, ‘‘creating short-term wins,’’ and establishing a sense of urgency, and these would all seem entirely consistent with what Fisher, Gorshkov, and Rickover actually did. At the very least, processing such past experience, looking at the issues raised, and trying to spot the differences and the similarities with today provides, if not answers, at least a set of useful and interesting questions for contemporary transformers. But for all that, change leadership of the kind these three transformers represented seems bound to remain an imponderable. Perhaps one of the most interesting of the issues to emerge both from the practice and the theory of change management, however, is the question of whether there really can be such a thing as a ‘‘naval transformer’’ anyway, as opposed to someone who floats on the river, steers and paddles hard—who responds intelligently, in another words, to a determining context. And since all three figures were the cause of quite high levels of perhaps unnecessary pain and grief for their navies and their countries, legitimate doubts might also be raised about whether we should emulate their methods, even if we could.59 NOTES 1. Jen DiMascio, ‘‘Transformation Office Realignment Makes Change Part of Pentagon Mainstream,’’ Defense Daily, 27 February 2007. 2. For general explorations of this theme, see Williamson Murray and Allan R. Millett, eds., Military Innovation in the Interwar Period (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996); and Emily Goldman, ed., Information and Revolutions in Military

THREE OF A KIND?

137

Affairs (London : Frank Cass, 2004); Andrew Krepinevich, ‘‘Cavalry to Computers: The Pattern of Military Revolution,’’ National Interest, No. 37 (Fall 2004). 3. Cited in E. H. Tilford, ‘‘The RMA: Prospects and Cautions,’’ U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute paper, 1995, p. 1. 4. Geoffrey Till, Seapower : A Guide for the Twenty-First Century (London: Frank Cass, 2004), pp. 141–147. 5. Francis Duncan, Rickover and the Nuclear Navy: The Discipline of Technology (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1999), p. xxiii. 6. Admiral Sir Jacky Fisher, Records by Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1919), p. 177; Ruddock F. Mackay, Fisher of Kilverstone (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), pp. 66, 300; Richard Hough, First Sea Lord: An Authorised Biography of Admiral Lord Fisher (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1969), p. 77; Arthur Marder, ed., Fear God and Dread Nought: The Correspondence of Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher of Kilverstone (London: Jonathan Cape, 1956), pp. 35–36, 73. 7. Sergei Gorshkov, The Sea Power of the State (London: Pergamon, 1979), pp. 68–69. 8. Mackay, Fisher of Kilverstone, pp. 228–252, 277ff. 9. Duncan, Rickover and the Nuclear Navy, p. 290. 10. Gorshkov, The Sea Power of the State, pp. xi, xiii. 11. Duncan, Rickover and the Nuclear Navy, p. 290. See Vice-Admiral Sir Hugh Mackenzie, The Sword of Damocles (Gosport, UK: The Royal Navy Submarine Museum, 1995), p. 193. 12. Marder, Fear God and Dread Nought, p. 14. 13. Cited in Hough, First Sea Lord, p. 326. 14. Norman Polmar and Thomas B. Allen, Rickover: Controversy and Genius: A Biography (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982), p. 528. 15. Ibid., p. 150. 16. Cited by Marder, Fear God and Dread Nought, p. 15. 17. Cited by Hough, First Sea Lord, p. 77; Mackay, Fisher of Kilverstone, p. 54. 18. Polmar and Allen, Rickover, p. 464; Lord Zuckerman, Six Men Out of the Ordinary (London: Peter Owen, 1992), pp. 184–186. 19. Gary E. Weir and Walter J. Boyne, Rising Tide: The Untold Story of the Russian Submarines That Fought the Cold War (New York: Perseus Books, 2003), pp. 3, 5, 129–130, 202. 20. Marder, Fear God and Dread Nought, p. 15. 21. Ibid., p. 77; Fisher, letter to Lord Esher, 21 August 1904, in Maurice V. Brett, ed., Journals and Letters of Reginald Viscount Esher (London: Ivor Nicholson and Watson, 1934), vol. 2, p. 60; Hough, First Sea Lord, pp. 173–174. 22. Cited by Mackay, Fisher of Kilverstone, p. 470. 23. Admiral Lord Chatfield comment, cited in ibid., p. 230; Hough, First Sea Lord, p. 124. 24. Mackay, Fisher of Kilverstone, p. 273. 25. Cited by Hough, First Sea Lord, p. 29. 26. Mackay, Fisher of Kilverstone, pp. 149, 172, 329. 27. A not altogether admiring analogy discussed by Navy Secretary John Lehman, Command of the Seas (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1988), pp. 19–26.

138

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

28. Theodore Rockwell, The Rickover Effect : How One Man Made a Difference (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1992) (Authors Guild backinprint.com edition), p. 75; Polmar and Allen, Rickover, p. 102; Patrick Tyler, Running Critical: The Silent War: Rickover and General Dynamics (New York: Harper and Row, 1986), p. 20. 29. Duncan, Rickover and the Nuclear Navy, pp. 234, 236, 280 ; Rockwell, The Rickover Effect, p. 65. Rockwell, one of Rickover’s technical directors, paints a more sympathetic picture. For the Naval Reactors Branch portrayed as more of a team effort, see ibid., pp. 78–80, 380–381; Tyler, Running Critical, p. 22. 30. Evan Mawdsley, ‘‘The Russian Navy in the Gorshkov Era,’’ in Phillips Payson O’Brien, ed., Technology and Naval Combat in the Twentieth Century and Beyond (London: Frank Cass, 2001), pp. 174–175; particularly Rear-Admiral N. P. V’yunenko. See Robert Weinland, ‘‘Developments in Soviet Naval Strategy,’’ in John Pay and Geoffrey Till, eds., East-West Relations in the 1990s: The Naval Dimension (London: Pinter Publishers, 1990), pp. 139–146. 31. Hough, First Sea Lord, pp. 66, 78–84, 127–129; Mackay, Fisher of Kilverstone, pp. 121–122, 147, 181–182, 394; Brett, Esher, vol. 1, p. 312. 32. Cited by Mackay, Fisher of Kilverstone, pp. 121–122. 33. Polmar and Allen, Rickover, pp. 174, 177, 367; Rockwell, The Rickover Effect, p. 114; Zuckerman, Six Men Out of the Ordinary, p. 181. 34. Rockwell, The Rickover Effect, p. 45. 35. Cited by Polmar and Allen, Rickover, p. 230. 36. Rockwell, The Rickover Effect, pp. 120, 123; Francis Duncan, Rickover: The Struggle for Excellence (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2001), pp. 212–213. 37. Representative Mendell Rivers quoted in Duncan, Struggle for Excellence, p. 221. 38. Ibid., p. 286; Tyler gives a detailed account in Running Critical, pp. 321–323; Lehman, Command of the Seas, p. 1; and Zuckerman, Six Men Out of the Ordinary, pp. 184–185. 39. Mawdsley, ‘‘The Russian Navy in the Gorshkov Era,’’ p. 173. 40. Polmar and Allen, Rickover, p. 245; Duncan, Rickover and the Nuclear Navy, p. 284; Rockwell, The Rickover Effect, p. 320. 41. Letter of 19 May 1915, cited by Hough, First Sea Lord, p. 344. 42. A phrase first used by Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain to the 1902 Colonial Conference. This is the thesis advanced by Jon T. Sumida, In Defence of Naval Supremacy: Finance, Technology and British Naval Policy, 1889– 1914 (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989); and Nicholas Lambert, Sir John Fisher’s Naval Revolution (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1999). 43. Letter of May 1907, reproduced in Marder, Fear God and Dread Nought, p. 124. 44. Letter of 13 February 1912 to Churchill. In ibid., p. 431. For the defense of Dreadnought as just such a ‘‘plunge,’’ see Fisher letter to Esher, 2 April 1912, in ibid., p. 442. This is the major theme in the excellent Sumida, In Defence of Naval Supremacy. 45. Fisher, Lord Fisher, pp. 174, 182–183. 46. Tyler, Running Critical, pp. 48–49; Polmar and Allen, Rickover, p. 147; Rockwell, The Rickover Effect, p. 63—but see also Duncan, Rickover and the Nuclear Navy, p. 35.

THREE OF A KIND?

139

47. Cited in Tyler, Running Critical, p. 49. 48. Mawdsley, ‘‘The Russian Navy in the Gorshkov Era,’’ pp. 172, 176. 49. Brett, Esher, vol. 1, p. 389; vol. 2, p. 49. Recent scholarship rather challenges the notion that the Victorian Navy was sunk in a conservative stupor that prevented its absorption of new technology. For example, see Andrew Lambert, The Last Sailing Battlefleet, 1815–1850 (London: Conway Maritime Press, 1991). 50. Polmar and Allen, Rickover, pp. 139, 551. 51. Zuckerman, Six Men Out of the Ordinary, pp. 190–191, 197. For the Shippingport point, see ibid, p. 181; Duncan, Struggle for Excellence, p. 265; Duncan, Rickover and the Nuclear Navy, p. 3. 52. Rockwell, The Rickover Effect, p. 159. For Rickover’s suppression of the revolutionary ‘‘Conform’’ submarine, see Duncan, Struggle for Excellence, p. 216. 53. Polmar and Allen, Rickover, pp. 405–406, 409, 413; Rockwell, The Rickover Effect, p. 123. 54. Tyler, Running Critical, p. 103. 55. Polmar and Allen, Rickover, p. 229. This was certainly Lehman’s view. 56. Cited by Mackay, Fisher of Kilverstone, p. 397. For both sides of this dispute, see Brett, Esher, vol. 2, pp. 135, 142, 144–145, 148–149, 263, 374, 429, and vol. 4, p. 115. 57. Brett, Esher, vol. 2, p. 328. 58. For a guide to change-management models applied in the defense area, see Derrick Neal, ‘‘Do We Really Understand What Is Meant by Transformational Change for Defence ?’’ Defence Studies (March 2006), pp. 73–96. 59. It is fortunately beyond the scope of this chapter, but some future study might usefully engage in a contrast and comparison exercise between the approaches of these three transformers, and that employed by Donald Rumsfeld when U.S. secretary of defense. See Anna Mulrine, ‘‘Rumsfeld’s Unfinished Plans,’’ U.S. News and World Report, 16 April 2007; and Andrew Cockburn, ‘‘No, He Wasn’t a Good Manager,’’ Washington Post, 25 February 2007.

7

Measuring Defeat: Imponderables of the American Experience in Vietnam Ronald Spector

ago a young infantry officer, teaching in the Department of Social Sciences at West Point shortly after receiving his Ph.D. from Princeton, wrote a paper on the lessons of the Vietnam War. He concluded, ‘‘The military has drawn from Vietnam a reminder of the finite limits of American public support for U.S. involvement in a protracted conflict . . . when it comes to intervention time and patience are not American virtues in abundant supply.’’1 The author of that paper, now LTG David H. Petraeus, was subsequently appointed the top U.S. military commander in Iraq by President George W. Bush. General Petraeus is too young to have served in Vietnam, and we do not know to what extent he may find the analogies frequently drawn between the two wars convincing or useful. But he must be all too aware that his observations about Vietnam and the limits of public patience with ambiguous, protracted conflict have been amply borne out during the last three years. Whether the United States will now make progress in Iraq remains a matter of controversy, just as the question of whether the United States was making progress in Vietnam was always subject to debate. A majority of the American public became impatient and disillusioned with the war by 1968, and the media coverage became increasingly critical, but there were always high-level military and political leaders who continued to insist that things were going well. Even in 1970–1971, when only a small minority of Americans still believed in the possibility of a favorable outcome, few members of the Nixon administration ever suggested that the president’s much discussed policies of pacification and Vietnamization would fail to bring the Vietnam War to a successful conclusion. The fact was that no one could ever agree on how to measure progress in Vietnam, just as no one can agree on

ABOUT TWENTY YEARS

142

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

how to measure it in Iraq. This failure to find commonly agreed upon measures or indicators of victory and defeat had a wide-ranging impact on American domestic politics, public opinion, military operations, leadership, and morale, even as it continues to influence discussions of the Vietnam War up to the present day. The Vietnam conflict has been variously described as a war of attrition, an insurgency, and a ‘‘war without fronts.’’ Insofar as it fit any of these characterizations, it was by its nature harder to measure than the wars that most civilians and soldiers best understand. It is probably no coincidence that the two best remembered battles of the Vietnam War, the siege of Khe Sanh and the contest for the city of Hue, are those that conform most closely to what people mean by battle in the conventional discourse of war. Each engagement had an easily understood beginning, course of development, and conclusion. The siege of Khe Sanh began with an apparent attempt by communist forces to neutralize and capture the base in mid-January 1968 and ended with the reopening of land communications to the base and destruction of much of the besieging force by the Americans in early April. The Battle for Hue began with the sudden seizure of the historic capitol by the communists on the first day of the Tet Offensive and ended with the recapture of the city by South Vietnamese and U.S. forces on March 2. These are the Vietnam ‘‘battles’’ that are mentioned in the history books, but there were hundreds of other battles, most of which have no names, were often episodic in nature, and produced no clear outcome. The great majority were short, sharp clashes between company- or platoon-size units. Most lasted only a few hours, some only a few minutes.2 In contrast to Vietnam, the first few weeks of the Iraq War seemed to fit very well into the discourse of war that Americans could understand and with which they were comfortable. When American troops captured Baghdad and helped pull down the statue of Saddam Hussein, there seemed little doubt about who had won the war. Members of the Bush administration and their admirers could barely contain their feelings of self-congratulation, and few of them tried. But after that things became steadily murkier. In Vietnam things seemed murky from the very beginning. The United States had begun a sustained bombing campaign against North Vietnam in the spring of 1965. That summer American combat forces arrived in South Vietnam to remain for the next six years. There was from the beginning considerable confusion about what the bombing and the fighting in the south were supposed to accomplish. When American combat troops first came in force to South Vietnam in the summer of 1965, it was to rescue an ally that appeared on the verge of defeat. The South Vietnamese Army, repeatedly battered by the communist-led Viet Cong, appeared close to collapse. President Lyndon Johnson and his advisors believed that the introduction of U.S. forces could halt this slide toward defeat and ‘‘break the will of the Viet Cong by depriving them of victory.’’3 Defense Secretary McNamara estimated, ‘‘It will take more than six months, perhaps a year or two to demonstrate VC failure in the south.’’4

MEASURING DEFEAT

143

By the end of 1966 it seemed clear that the intervention of U.S. forces had guaranteed the survival of the U.S.-backed regime in Saigon. They had also successfully ‘‘demonstrated to the Communists that they cannot win.’’ Unfortunately, the communists appeared to have demonstrated the same to the Americans. North Vietnam matched the buildup of U.S. forces with increased infiltration of troops from the north and increased supplies of new weapons supplied by the Soviets and Chinese. As 1966 drew to a close, there were more than 400,000 U.S. soldiers in Vietnam engaged in battle against the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese, from the northern edge of South Vietnam to the Central Highlands and from Saigon to the Cambodian border. So who was winning? Both sides announced their success. Washington claimed to have inflicted heavy losses on the communists and shaken their hold on the countryside. The Thirteenth Party Plenum, meeting in Hanoi, predicted a ‘‘decisive victory in a short period of time.’’ But there was no way to know for sure. In World War II and the Korean War, the progress of the fighting could be roughly gauged by the movement of the front lines on a map and the capture of a key hill or town. In Vietnam, by contrast, key terrain was often abandoned almost as soon as it was secured, leaving GIs with a feeling of confusion and futility. ‘‘They did not know the feeling of taking a place and keeping it,’’ recalled novelist Tim O’Brien. ‘‘No sense of order and momentum. No front, no rear, no trenches laid out in neat parallels, no Patton rushing for the Rhine, no beachheads to storm and win and hold for the duration. . . . On a given day they did not know where they were in Quang Ngai or how being there might influence larger outcomes.’’5 With no front lines to follow, great cities to capture, commanding terrain to seize, fortresses to destroy, or armies to envelop, the Pentagon and the American high command in Vietnam, called ‘‘MACV’’ (U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam), turned to statistics. As early as 1964, MACV had developed a system for collecting, classifying, and reporting quantitative data about the war in the south. This involved identifying what were thought to be indicators of military progress that could be measured each month and compared to previous months to identify trends, problems, and areas of success. They included the number of sorties flown, the time spent on various types of operations, enemy losses, the percentage of population controlled by the Saigon government, and many other sets of figures. Eventually hundreds of officers and enlisted men were assigned full time to the job of churning out periodical statistical reports on the war. The Pentagon under the leadership of Defense Secretary McNamara was accustomed to analyzing issues in quantitative terms so that a steady flow of statistics from Vietnam was welcome and indeed expected. Sometimes the demand for statistics appeared to create rather than simply measure activity. The commander of an artillery battery recalled that division headquarters advised him ‘‘on a number of occasions that I wasn’t firing enough. My reply was, in my judgment, the targets are just not there to warrant expenditure of any more ammo.

144

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

And their reply was Ôyou will fire more rounds.Õ I was given a quota of rounds.’’6 The best-known and most controversial means of measuring the progress of the war was the so-called body count. Ironically, this practice, often criticized for its inaccuracy and dishonesty, originated as an attempt by MACV to improve the accuracy of its reports by insisting that all claims about enemy casualties be based solely on an actual count of enemy bodies, not on estimates as had often been done in previous wars. Body count appeared critically important when General William Westmoreland, the top American commander in Vietnam, adopted a strategy in 1965 of wearing down the communists’ strength in the south through inflicting more casualties on the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong than the enemy could replace through recruitment. ‘‘We’ll just go on bleeding them until Hanoi wakes up to the fact that they have bled their country to the point of national disaster for generations.’’ Westmoreland explained at a press conference, ‘‘Then they’ll have to reassess their position.’’7 Precisely when that point might be reached was a matter of considerable debate, even among those privy to all the secret reports from Vietnam. Toward the end of 1967 Westmoreland announced that the critical ‘‘crossover point’’ had been reached. The enemy was now losing more men than he could replace through adding new recruits in the south or infiltrators from the north. Westmoreland’s statement was based on careful estimates of the numbers in the body count needed to achieve this goal. Yet intelligence reports found enemy strength to have actually increased during the previous year.8 A fundamental problem with the attrition strategy was the fact that the communists could, to a large extent, control their casualties. If pressure from American operations became too intense, the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese could always withdraw to their bases across the borders of Laos and Cambodia and wait for more favorable opportunities. Whatever effect the body count may have had on the behavior of the communists, it had a marked impact on the behavior of the Americans. In many units the size of the body count reported by unit leaders was regarded as a measure of the leader’s effectiveness. The number of U.S. and enemy dead in each engagement determined the ‘‘kill ratio,’’ and many officers complained that their superiors tended to judge their performance by their kill ratio and that the obsessions with these numbers corrupted the reporting system and prevented a realistic assessment of operations. ‘‘That was the measure of effectiveness,’’ recalled Vice Admiral Robert Salzer, who served in the Mekong Delta, ‘‘number of weapons captured, number of bodies, ratio with your side. It was ghoulish. I told you [how they made] Colonel—deploy some battalions to dig up a graveyard. That was the kind of degenerate statistical specter we had foisted on us.’’9 With the importance that Washington, MACV, and unit commanders placed on the body count, it is not surprising that many soldiers chose to err

MEASURING DEFEAT

145

on the optimistic side in their reporting. While some commanders may have insisted on a literal interpretation of the body count, many other units included bodies seen from the air, bloodstains on the ground, and rough estimates by combatants. From privates to generals, most soldiers in Vietnam believed the body count to be at best inaccurate and at worst deliberately exaggerated. A survey of 173 generals who had served in Vietnam found that 61 percent of those who responded believed the body count to be ‘‘often inflated,’’ and only 26 percent thought it accurate.10 ‘‘A fake—totally worthless’’ was how one general described it. Another said that ‘‘the immensity of false reporting is a blot on the honor of the Army.’’11 Some observers suspected a more sinister aspect to the preoccupation with body count. The pressure for a high kill ratio might lead not only to the inclusion of corpses of unarmed civilians in the body count but also to an inclination to disregard whatever restraint may have existed against killing apparent noncombatants. In operations in the Mekong Delta from December 1968 to June 1969, the 9th Infantry Division reported a body count of almost 11,000 enemy dead against only 267 U.S. soldiers killed. That yielded a kill ratio of over 40 to 1 in favor of the Americans. However, the division was able to report only about 800 weapons captured in the course of destroying this large enemy array. (Weapons were harder to fudge than corpses because captured weapons would have to be turned in.) In 1972 Newsweek reporter Kevin P. Buckley charged that close to half of the 11,000 ‘‘enemy’’ killed by the 9th Infantry Division had been civilians.12 Admiral Salzer believed that one brigade commander in the 9th Infantry Division was ‘‘psychologically unbalanced. He was a super fanatic on body count. He would talk about nothing else during an operation. . . . Maybe he was a good commander but you could almost see the saliva dripping out of the corners of his mouth. An awful lot of his bodies were civilians.’’13 While many Americans might have found the logic of the body count as a measure hard to follow, if they bothered to give it any attention at all, there was one type of casualty statistics about which the American public did display a deep concern. That was the count of American killed and wounded in the war. And during 1965, 1966, 1967, and 1968 that number appeared only to increase. During just six months in the first half of 1967, the total of American GIs killed in Vietnam was more than all of U.S. and Coalition military fatalities during the entire four years of the Iraq war. American casualties during a single week in May 1968 exceeded those of the entire seven months in Iraq between the official turnover of sovereignty to Iraq (June 2004) and the elections in January 2005.14 Statisticians were able to demonstrate a direct connection between casualty rates and public support for the Vietnam War effort in the United States, and both Johnson and Nixon were keenly aware of the political impact of high casualties. Many observers blamed questionable American operational methods and tactics. The most famous example was the so-called Battle of Hamburger Hill,

146

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

which occurred in the Ashau Valley during May 1969. In ten days of heavy fighting, four battalions of the American 101st Airborne Division and the South Vietnamese First Division assaulted a heavily fortified network of bunkers on a densely wooded promontory designated Hill 973. The hill was finally captured after the Americans had suffered almost 500 casualties, including 56 dead. Then it was abandoned a few days later after the bunker complex had been destroyed. The costly and apparently pointless struggle for Hamburger Hill drew a storm of criticism from the United States. Senator Edward Kennedy called it ‘‘madness,’’ and President Nixon later recalled that he directed General Creighton Abrams, General Westmoreland’s successor, to avoid situations or operations likely to result in heavy U.S. losses. In retrospect it is questionable whether any particular American method or tactic consistently resulted in more or fewer casualties than any others. As Army historian Jeffrey J. Clarke has suggested, the level of American combat deaths in Vietnam appears to be more a function of U.S. troop levels in the country than of any other factor. ‘‘The more U.S. ground combat troops in Vietnam, the greater the number of American war casualties.’’15 The air campaigns against North Vietnam appeared to lend themselves far more easily to quantitative measurement than the ground war in the south. When the bombing began in 1965, Washington leaders believed that the action would demonstrate America’s will and determination to support its South Vietnamese ally. The pain and shock of the attacks were expected to persuade North Vietnam to scale back the war effort it was encouraging and directing against the Saigon regime. While soldiers were often puzzled and resentful toward the requirement to collect statistics, the airmen whose doctrine called for destroying the enemy’s means to fight, rather than simply his army, were accustomed to measuring progress in this way. And the statistics were impressive: 148 sorties flown during 1966 alone, 130,000 tons of bombs dropped. By the end of 1967 the United States had dropped a total of 860,000 tons of bombs on ammunition depots, rail yards, naval bases, barracks, and communication facilities in North Vietnam. That was more than the 630,000 tons dropped during the Korean War and far more than the 500,000 tons dropped on Japan in the course of World War II. An estimated 500,000 to 600,000 North Vietnamese workers and soldiers were kept busy full time simply repairing the damage and concealing or hardening important targets. Another 150,000 had to be involved in passive and active air defense measures.16 In June 1966 American Air Force and Navy aircraft struck at North Vietnam’s petroleum, oil, and lubricants (POL) resources. This was the supposed Achilles heel of the communist war effort, with 97 percent of all POL available in the north concentrated at only about a dozen sites. Within a few weeks almost 80 percent of North Vietnam’s bulk fuel storage capacity had been destroyed.17 In addition to destroying North Vietnam’s energy supplies, the Pentagon claimed to have destroyed about 4,000 motor vehicles and 2,300 rail cars or locomotives.18

MEASURING DEFEAT

147

Despite these impressive figures, it gradually became obvious that North Vietnam did not share the vulnerabilities of Germany and Japan. The bombing of the north had little impact on the war in the south. Indeed, during the 1965–1968 period almost half a million combatants from the north arrived in South Vietnam. These troops required only a tiny fraction of the supplies consumed by a German panzer division or a Japanese carrier task force. In the north, while there were food shortages and widespread economic disruption, little impact was made on Hanoi’s ability to wage war. The Chinese and Soviets continued to supply the north with whatever it needed to keep fighting, including trucks, rail cars, artillery, ammunition, and, when necessary, even food. ‘‘It’s not like it was in Germany where the war resources were being fabricated in the country,’’ declared General William Momyer, the Air Force commander in Vietnam.19 In the case of POL, for example, less fuel might be stored in North Vietnam, but more could be sent in from China already drummed and ready for use. After reaching Vietnam, the drums would be dispersed along transportation routes or in small underground storage sites. Three months after the start of the POL campaign, the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency were reporting ‘‘no evidence yet of any shortage of POL in North Vietnam . . . no evidence of insurmountable transport difficulties . . . no significant economic dislocation and no weakening of popular morale.’’20 Nor had the bombing made Hanoi any more willing to either scale back or negotiate about its war in the south. Indeed, when viewed from a strictly statistical point of view, the air campaign against the north made no sense whatever. A Pentagon study in 1967 showed that every dollar of damage caused to North Vietnam by the bombing cost the United States about nine and a half dollars in terms of fuel costs, wear and tear on aircraft, personnel deployed, ordnance expended, and planes lost to North Vietnam’s efficient, Soviet-supplied air defenses. During 1967 alone approximately one out of every forty sorties by U.S. aircraft into the Red River Delta area of the north failed to return.21 Meanwhile, the bombing had stimulated a wave of criticism from abroad against the spectacle of the world’s most powerful country relentlessly bombing one of the world’s poorest. In the United States the growing number of critics of the president’s Vietnam policies often made the bombing the focus of their protests. They argued that bombing would never force the communists to the peace table but instead actually constituted an obstacle to negotiations. As early as October 1966 Defense Secretary McNamara had secretly advised that the bombing could never fundamentally alter Hanoi’s ambitions, leadership, or morale and that the United States should continue scaling back its attacks as a means of encouraging movement toward negotiations by the communists. But the Air Force and Navy continued to insist that the bombing was effective. They could not claim that the bombing had stopped the reinforcement and supply of the communists in the south or that it had crippled North

148

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

Vietnam. Instead they fell back on what might be called the statistics of what did not happen. ‘‘Perhaps the most important measure of the effects of the bombing would be the consideration of the situation if there had been no bombing at all,’’ wrote Admiral Ulysses S. Grant Sharp, who, as CINCPAC, directed the air campaign in the north. ‘‘The uninhibited flow of men, weapons, and supplies through North Vietnam to confront our forces in South Vietnam could have had only one result for the United States and its allies— considerably higher casualties at a small cost to the enemy. Since this alternative was unacceptable, the bombing of North Vietnam as an essential element of the overall strategy, was clearly successful.’’22 Both the debate over the strategy of attrition in the south and the air campaign in the north were, in the end, never really resolved but were overtaken by events. The Tet Offensive of January-February 1968, which saw simultaneous attacks by North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces against five major cities, dozens of military installations, and more than 150 towns and villages, erased any belief in the minds of the American public that the United States was progressively weakening the communists through the attrition strategy and gradually winning the war. With the Tet attacks, support for President Johnson’s conduct of the war plummeted to 26 percent. The Wall Street Journal declared that ‘‘the American people should be getting ready to accept, if they haven’t already, the prospect that the whole Vietnam effort may be doomed.’’23 Confronted with this new situation, President Johnson and his advisers decided to halt the bombing of North Vietnam and call for negotiations. Such an action would mollify Americans calling for a new course of action in Vietnam and put the onus of refusing to talk peace on the communists. The United States had tried the tactic of bombing halts coupled with secret proposals for negotiations before but without result. This time, however, Hanoi responded positively and announced that it was ready for talks. The communists had little to lose. Besides, they knew, even if the American media did not, that the Tet attacks had fulfilled few of the high expectations Hanoi had held for them and, in many cases, had resulted in devastating military defeats and loss of key personnel. So the air campaign finally did produce a positive result—as a bargaining lever. It did so again toward the end of Johnson’s term, when the president halted all remaining bombing of North Vietnam in return for secret assurances from the Soviets that Hanoi would agree to substantive negotiations with the South Vietnamese present at the table. The connection between bombing and negotiating continued into the Nixon administration. In 1972, when the South Vietnamese government balked at signing a peace agreement secretly negotiated by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger with Hanoi representatives, Kissinger attempted to obtain additional modifications to the treaty. Negotiations broke down, and Nixon, in the so-called Christmas bombing, ordered B-52 air strikes against Hanoi to

MEASURING DEFEAT

149

induce the North Vietnamese to return to the bargaining table. They did come back, but the Paris Peace Agreement, signed early in 1973, contained few changes from the original draft. Unfortunately, there were no statistics developed to measure the bargaining power of air attacks during the last five years of the war. Although the bombing of North Vietnam had largely ceased by the end of 1968, the Air Force was far from idle. Its new focus of attention after November 1968 became the Ho Chi Minh Trail, a major communist network of supply routes for men and equipment destined for the war in South Vietnam. The trail had always been a target, but with the cessation of attacks against the north more planes and other resources were available for that effort. By the end of 1968 bombing missions against the trail had increased 300 percent.24 Through the entire Vietnam War, Air Force, Navy, and Marine aircraft would drop three times as many bombs on the trail through Laos as they had dropped on North Vietnam. The targets were the streams of truck traffic passing down the road, as well as truck parks, repair facilities, and supply points along the route. Bombing could also crater the roads and create landslides that might halt or slow traffic through certain areas. Of course, this new effort demanded new quantifiable measures of success. The new gauge of effectiveness adopted was ‘‘the truck count,’’ referring to the number of North Vietnamese vehicles damaged or destroyed. Like the body count, the truck count appeared to some suspiciously high. Air Force reports estimated that about 9,000 trucks had been destroyed during 1969 alone. This figure seemed a bit high, since the CIA estimated that only about 6,000 trucks had embarked on the trail that year.25 Live fire tests on the Air Force range at Bien Hoa air base suggested that trucks could survive a surprising number of hits by 20- and even 40-millimeter cannon.26 Whatever the actual number of trucks destroyed, damaged, or delayed, it did not prevent Hanoi from replacing many of the Viet Cong fighters lost at Tet and during smaller ‘‘mini-Tet’’ offensives in May and August with fresh troops from the north. Like the air war, the ground war in Vietnam also changed after Tet. The war of attrition had been discredited, and Westmoreland had been succeeded by General Creighton Abrams in June 1968. Abrams was open to new approaches and agreed that communist setbacks in their unsuccessful round of offensives in May and August provided fresh opportunities for the Saigon government to reassert its control and influence in the thousands of rural villages and hamlets of South Vietnam. This effort, which involved weakening or destroying the Viet Cong’s organization and influence, providing security and social services—such as public health, education, and medical care—to the rural population, and winning loyalty to the Saigon government, was referred to as ‘‘pacification.’’ In May 1967, after many false starts, all pacification programs had been put under the direction of the office of Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support, known as CORDS. This organization reported directly

150

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

to the Commander U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (COMUSMACV) and was headed in succession by two CIA veterans, Robert Komer and William Colby, who, in effect, functioned as civilian generals subordinate only to COMUSMACV. General Abrams promised to devote the maximum possible number of troops to operations in direct support of pacification. Abrams and his staff claimed to have adopted a new approach, which they called the ‘‘One War’’ concept, that gave local security and improvement of Vietnamese government and military forces the same priority as operations against the enemy’s regular units. President Nixon, increasingly desperate to find some way to decouple the United States from the war without appearing to lose it, soon discovered that withdrawing American troops from the war zone was the only measure he could take in regard to Vietnam that increased his popularity and support. Yet it was hard to see how the United States could withdraw all its forces without conceding the struggle to the communists. Nixon’s answer was that the new efforts in pacification would ensure Saigon’s control of its territory. At the same time a program of ‘‘Vietnamization’’ would be put in place, while preparing the Vietnamese Army to stand on its own through improved training and the acquisition of more effective weapons and equipment. The success of Vietnamization could be measured, in theory (although not in reality), by the number of American troops, aircraft, and naval forces withdrawn from the war zone every few months, but pacification was harder to judge. Yet the Americans in Vietnam never lost their faith in quantitative measures of effectiveness. So the pacification program gave birth to the most sophisticated and controversial measure of the Vietnam War, the Hamlet Evaluation Survey (HES): an attempt to quantify and rank the progress of pacification in each of South Vietnam’s 44 provinces, 250 districts, 2,300 villages, and 13,000 hamlets.27 The survey took the form of a standardized monthly questionnaire in which American province and district advisers were asked to respond to a series of questions about conditions in each village and hamlet in their region. Naturally, many of the questions called for answers in the form of numbers. Based on these reports, hamlets were rated as (A and B) secure; (C) relatively secure; (D and E) contested; or Viet Cong controlled. The HES was harder to fudge than the body count, and CORDS (Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support) headquarters in Saigon constantly tried to devise methods for making it less subjective, but the barriers to cheating were far from insurmountable. There were frequent claims that the figures were being inflated to reflect more favorable developments in the hamlets and villages.28 ‘‘I soon realized that they were distorting the facts’’ recalled a former Department of Defense contractor. ‘‘A report was prepared each month for every single hamlet by the U.S. district advisor, an Army captain or naval equivalent. . . . Like any good soldier they wished to show that things were going well, a typical outcome of surveys that lack reliable ways of validating the responses and challenging the findings.’’29

MEASURING DEFEAT

151

Even with the most honest intentions, Americans in the pacification program usually lacked any in-depth knowledge of their district, did not speak the language well, if at all, and were dependent on local Vietnamese officials for much of their information. ‘‘We were to rate numerically dozens of villages on everything from morale to sanitation,’’ recalled a member of an advisory team. By then, after 25 years of war, most of the hamlets on the survey had ceased to exist or never had, at least not under the names supplied [in the survey]. There were hamlets we could identify with certainty but these we had seldom seen except from the air or while on patrol. . . . No matter, our teams’ orders were to complete this detailed survey—and so we did, by rolling dice. Likely, all over Vietnam that week dice were being rolled, coins were being tossed, and darts thrown, all to complete the Hamlet Evaluation Survey.30

Not surprisingly, the Hamlet Evaluation Survey showed steady improvement in the situation in the countryside. By 1971, 84 percent of the population of South Vietnam lived in hamlets rated A or B, 13 percent lived in hamlets rated C, only 3 percent lived in contested hamlets, and none lived in Viet Cong-controlled hamlets. In fact, since 1969, according to the survey, the Viet Cong had never controlled more than 2 percent of the hamlets or been able to contest more than 5 percent.31 In fact, the security situation and the degree of government control did improve after 1968, perhaps because of more effective work by CORDS and its South Vietnamese partners, but more likely because, with the devastating communist losses during their 1968–1969 ‘‘Winter-Spring’’ offensives and the corresponding increase in troops and local security forces brought about by South Vietnam’s belated military mobilization in 1968, Saigon was able to flood the country with manpower. More importantly, the 1968–1969 fighting had cost the Viet Cong many of their most experienced military leaders, political cadre, and administrators. These had to be replaced by inexperienced northerners who often were as unfamiliar with local conditions as the Americans.32 Between 1969 and 1971 the South Vietnamese and their American ally came as close as they would ever come to winning the war for the countryside. Yet it was not close enough. The Viet Cong were much reduced in strength but did not surrender or disintegrate. During 1969, 264 people were assassinated by the communists in a single province, one in which pacification was supposedly going very well.33 HES reports themselves, if taken at face value, suggested that in 1971 nearly 45 percent of the rural population lived within 100 meters of the site where a terrorist incident had occurred during that year.34 In I Corps a senior adviser reported that ‘‘the enemy can use the majority of the land with total and complete impunity.’’35 An experienced CIA interrogator estimated, on the basis of information supplied by defectors, that the number of Vietnamese in III Corps still actively working for the Viet

152

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

Cong exceeded 100,000.36 U.S. advisers also reported large enemy forces massed across the Laotian and Cambodian borders. More significantly, while the rural citizen might be persuaded or coerced into ending his support of the Viet Cong, that did not mean a transfer of loyalty to the Saigon government. ‘‘The VC’s loss has not been the GVN’s [Government of Vietnam] permanent gain,’’ observed one American adviser. ‘‘People follow the GVN now because it is strong and offers a chance to make a living. . . . Villagers all readily acknowledge that if the VC came back in force, recalculation of behavior would be in order. In fact, the GVN is surrounded by fair-weather friends.’’37 Long after the fall of Saigon, some former pacification advisers continued to insist that the South Vietnamese government had completely defeated the insurgency in the south and it was only the conventional military invasion from the north in 1975 and the significant drop in U.S. aid that brought down the Republic of Vietnam. Perhaps the most unequivocal statement of this view can be found in Lewis Sorley’s book, A Better War. Sorley asserts that at some point during 1970 ‘‘there came a time when the war was won.’’38 What is significant about Sorley’s startling assertion is that the declaration of victory is based entirely on statistics, primarily on various quantitative measures reported to or collected by the highest-level U.S. headquarters in Vietnam. There was no decisive battle, no surrenders, no retreat, not even a cessation of the fighting. To Sorley this does not matter. In a war that had been conducted and evaluated primarily through statistics, it was logical that victory should be won through statistics.

NOTES 1. Major David H. Petraeus, ‘‘The Lessons of History and the Lessons of Vietnam,’’ in Lloyd Mathews and Dale Brown, eds., Assessing the Vietnam War (Washington, DC: Pergamon-Brassey’s International Defense Publishers, 1987), p. 173. 2. M. E. Arnstein and F. J. West Jr., ‘‘A Tabular Method for Comparing Friendly and Enemy Casualties,’’ RM-6378-ARPA, December 1970, pp. iii–iv. Copy in J. R. Chaisson Papers, Hoover Institute Archives, Stanford University, Stanford, CA. 3. Telegram, McNamara to Johnson, April 21, 1965, The Senator Gravel Edition of the Pentagon Papers (Boston: Beacon Press, 1972), vol. 3, pp. 705–706. 4. Ibid. 5. Tim O’Brien, Going after Cacciato (New York: Delacourt, 1978), p. 61. 6. Lieutenant Colonel NSV, Interview, p. 44, Company Command in Vietnam Oral History Collection, U.S. Army Military History Research Center, Carlisle, PA. 7. Quoted in Gunther Lewy, America in Vietnam (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), p. 73. 8. Ibid., p. 74. 9. Reminiscences of Vice Admiral Robert Salzer, pp. 433–434, U.S. Naval Institute Oral History Program. Copy in Naval Historical Center, Washington, DC.

MEASURING DEFEAT

153

10. Douglas Kinnard, The War Managers (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1977), p. 75. 11. Ibid. 12. Kevin P. Buckley, ‘‘Pacification’s Deadly Price,’’ Newsweek, June 19, 1972, pp. 42–43. 13. Reminiscences of Vice Admiral Robert Salzer, p. 434. 14. Lewy, America in Vietnam, p. 73. Ronald Spector, After Tet: The Bloodiest Year in Vietnam (New York: Free Press, 1993), p. 319. ‘‘U.S. Military Fatalities: A Three Year Perspective,’’ icasualties.org.oif. 15. Jeffrey Clarke, ‘‘On Strategy and the Vietnam War,’’ in Mathews and Brown, Assessing the Vietnam War, p. 73. 16. Lewy, America in Vietnam, pp. 381, 390. 17. Mark Clodfelter, The Limits of Airpower: The American Bombing of North Vietnam (New York: Free Press, 1989), pp. 93–99. 18. Lewy, America in Vietnam, p. 381. 19. Earl H. Tilford Jr., Crosswinds: The Air Force’s Setup in Vietnam (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1993), p. 94. 20. Gravel Edition of the Pentagon Papers, vol. 4, p. 111. 21. Tilford, Crosswinds, p. 92. 22. U.S. Grant Sharp and William C. Westmoreland, Report on the War in Asia (as of 30 June 1968) (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1969), pp. 53–54. 23. ‘‘The Logic of the Battlefield,’’ Wall Street Journal, February 23, 1968. 24. Tilford, Crosswinds, p. 109. 25. Ibid., p. 117. 26. Ibid. 27. Kinnard, The War Managers, p. 107. 28. See Albert G. Bole Jr. and K. Kobata, An Evaluation of the Measurements of the Hamlet Evaluation System (Newport, RI: Naval War College Press, 1975). 29. David Gurr, ‘‘Footprints in the Sand: My Time in Vietnam,’’ www.Peacecorps writers.orgipages/2005/0507. 30. Terry Graves, ‘‘The Buck Stops Where?’’ May 24, 2004, www.enterstageright.com/ archive/articles. 31. Lewy, America in Vietnam, p. 192. 32. Spector, After Tet, pp. 288–290. 33. Eric Bergerud, The Dynamics of Defeat: The Vietnam War in Hau Ngia Province (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991), p. 261. 34. Ibid., p. 311. 35. Memo by Colonel Joseph E. Pizzi to Headquarters I Corps MR2, sub: Study Directive: ‘‘Assessment of Combat Power’’ (2 October 1971). MACV Records, National Archives, Washington, DC. 36. Spector, After Tet, p. 291. 37. Lewy, America in Vietnam, p. 193. 38. Lewis Sorley, A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America’s Last Years in Vietnam (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1999), p. 217.

8

What’s Luck Got to Do with It? Random Elements That Affected the Naval Campaigns of 1939--1945 Malcolm H. Murfett

DEFECTIVE EQUIPMENT LETS down even the most hardened of military experts, neutralizing their operational skill in battle conditions and undermining their overall effectiveness. No matter how experienced naval commanders may be, when their best work is compromised by matters beyond their control, high levels of aggravation and frustration are guaranteed. Despite being extraordinarily successful in waging their war on trade in the Atlantic, throughout the Caribbean, and in coastal waters on either side of the North Atlantic in the early years of World War II, Karl Dönitz’s German U-boat commanders found themselves with two types of torpedoes—the Mark G7a and the Mark G7e—that became notorious for their guidance system failures, inadequate depth keeping, defective pistols, and faulty detonators.1 Evidence that something was amiss was present within a fortnight of the start of the war when the British aircraft carrier Ark Royal was fortunate to survive a torpedo attack by U39 off the west coast of Scotland on 14 September 1939. Two torpedoes that were on course for the carrier prematurely exploded, to the chagrin of Gerhard Glattes and his crew, whose presence was given away by the abortive attack. Instead of enjoying the exhilaration of a triumphant feat, U39’s captain and crew were then subjected to the cruellest fate of being promptly sunk by the surviving carrier’s three escorting destroyers : Faulknor, Firedrake, and Foxhound. A case of so near and yet so far, U39 became an unwanted statistic for the German Navy (Kriegsmarine) as its first U-boat casualty of the war.2 Malfunctioning torpedoes became an even greater issue at the time of the Norwegian campaign when some of Dönitz’s top submarine aces, such as Günther Prien and Herbert Schultze, worked their way into position time and again to sink significant amounts of Allied shipping, only to be denied by

156

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

equipment failures on a quite staggering scale.3 In the early years of the war no less than 30 percent of all German torpedoes would fail either to reach their assigned target or to explode upon impact when they did.4 Operational firing errors made by U-boat captains as well as good avoidance maneuvers exercised by their intended victims also helped to restrict the destructive toll wrought by the torpedo. While greater sophistication in torpedo control and warhead reliability was finally achieved with the Zaunkönig (Wren) acoustic torpedo in August 1943, it is astonishing to think that Dönitz’s fleet of U-boats had caused such mayhem up to this point in the war with a weapon that was genuinely unreliable. Goodness knows what would have happened to the Allies and their war effort if these faults had been sorted out prior to the commencement of war.5 Torpedo defects weren’t confined to the Germans alone; they also afflicted the U.S. Navy. Apart from having problems maintaining their prescribed running depth, American torpedoes often suffered from malfunctioning exploders; both the magnetic and contact varieties gave persistent trouble in the early stages of the Pacific campaign. Once again, these issues might have been resolved had adequate research and development been budgeted for and strenuous testing procedures had been put in place during the interwar years. They weren’t, and as a result the American Mark 14 submarine-launched torpedo failed to perform in the Pacific until late 1942 and early 1943 with anything like the kind of lethality that was required by those seeking to use them.6 Inadequate torpedo research and development on the part of the Germans and the Americans in the interwar era was matched by a strange and recurring British complacency with regard to asdic. While a useful start had been made in the detection of submarines by acoustic means during the latter stages of World War I, the system was still lacking in sophistication two decades later when the European phase of the naval war broke out in September 1939. One could hardly claim that the submarine threat had been neutralized—a boastful claim that endured for too long after the war ended in 1918—when asdic or sonar (the American equivalent) was still incapable of detecting a surfaced target, a severe limitation that would be exploited by U-boat crews during the hours of darkness—much less penetrating waters with dense thermal layers, such as those present in the Arctic or in the St. Lawrence Seaway.7 Submerged U-boats in these waters could often remain undetected even when active searches were being conducted by enemy hunting groups operating in their near vicinity. More frustrating still, when asdic had detected a submerged vessel, it could often lose that contact the closer the asdic-equipped warship came to the target. Essentially blind, the attacking vessel tossed its conventional depth charges in a range of patterns but more in hope than expectation of success. In this situation, therefore, destroying an enemy submersible became far more problematic than it would be several years later, when the throw-ahead mortar was revived as a weapon and became standard issue in antisubmarine warfare (ASW).8

WHAT’S LUCK GOT TO DO WITH IT?

157

This failure to link detection and destruction was demonstrated in the grotesque problems encountered by Allied aircrew when using the antisubmarine (AS) bomb. Several dive bombers were lost because their own AS bomb exploded before it could be released from the aircraft’s bomb bay or because the bomb ricocheted off the surface of the sea and struck the very aircraft that had dropped it in the first place! Two Skua bombers from the Ark Royal were lost in this way when mounting an attack on U30 on 14 September 1939. To add insult to injury, their aircrew were rescued by the very U-boat they had tried to sink!9 Ultimately, the unlamented AS bomb was finally abandoned in favor of a modified Torpex-filled depth charge whose settings would be made shallower to pack an even greater punch than the earlier conventional versions.10 While improvements in both weaponry and detection methods would be made by both sides in the war, the real technological challenge was to stay ahead of the enemy in as many fields of research and development as possible. This was easier said than done for Dönitz and his U-boat arm once Hitler and Mussolini had gratuitously declared war on the United States in the wake of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Allied progress in signals intelligence, radar, radio direction finding (RDF), and magnetic anomaly detection methods (MAD), combined with rigorous convoying and greater use of very long range (VLR) and carrier aircraft to close the mid-Atlantic air gap, as well as the implementation of the ‘‘Leigh Light’’ to identify surfaced or diving U-boats, together with better mortars and more effective aerial bombs to deal with these submersible targets once they had been identified— all had a hand in eventually defeating the U-boat.11 Dönitz wasn’t helped by the often inadequate countermeasures adopted by the Germans to try to keep the Allies at bay. None of the main radar warning devices they developed (Borkum, Metox, Naxos, Tunis, and Wanze) operated flawlessly against aircraft; their own active radar sets (Gema, Hohentwiel, and Lessing), while effective, only went into operational service tardily; what decoys they produced against radar (Aphrodite and Thetis) and sonar (Bold, Sieglinde, and Siegmund) failed to achieve any lasting success ; and the antisonar synthetic rubber Oppanol coating they used on the hulls of the U-boats to disguise their acoustic signature (Alberich) had major adhesive problems that restricted its application. In the end, however, while all of the modern Allied developments contributed to the defeat of Dönitz’s beloved U-boat arm, the greatest single factor in eventually rescuing trade from the ravages made upon it by that service was convoy, a practice known for centuries and one that was anything but random.12 Despite all these issues, Dönitz believed that deliverance would finally arrive when the engineering problems associated with safely powering the new-generation U-boat by hydrogen-peroxide propulsion could be overcome. Professor Hellmuth Walter had been holding up the specter of just such a vessel with considerable underwater speed and cruising endurance from as

158

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

early as 1936. Despite all the time, money, and effort put into this gilded project, however, the promise of such a revolutionary vessel was never realized. Instead the Kriegsmarine was forced to settle for an inferior engineering compromise, the schnorchel-equipped elektroboote, which came in the shape of the long-range, oceangoing Type XXI and the smaller coastal Type XXIII. While both offered improvements in performance over existing classes, they were not the equivalent of the frustratingly elusive Walter boats, and they entered service too late in the war to make much of a difference. Moreover, to make matters worse, living on board them was often uncomfortable and potentially hazardous because problems could arise with the schnorchel mechanism and lead to air being sucked out of the boat to run the air-breathing diesel engines. If this happened, the possibility of oxygen deprivation for all those on board couldn’t be ruled out.13 Although when it worked perfectly the schnorchel air induction tube enabled submariners to run their diesel engines and recharge their batteries while they were still submerged, the U-boat was still vulnerable because even when the schnorchel mast was treated with a camouflage antiradar coating of synthetic rubber and iron oxide powder (Tarnmatte), the motion of the mast as it slid through the waves created a minor, but nonetheless discernible, wake on the surface of the sea that could be detected from the air.14 At least Dönitz knew he had problems with his U-boat fleet that needed to be addressed urgently. This wasn’t the case with the Japanese submarine arm. Its problem was more acute and reprehensible because it was selfinflicted. Possessing by far the best torpedo of any of the combatants in the shape of the Type 93 (or ‘‘Long Lance’’) and the even faster and longer-range Type 95, the Japanese submarines had the means to inflict serious harm on the Allied cause if they had been deployed sensibly. All too often they were not. Senior officers ashore often meddled with their operational assignments and by so doing unwittingly limited the havoc their fleet could have caused throughout this theater. It was yet another case of where what ought to have happened didn’t.15 They were also to blame for remaining skeptical about the merits of convoy and for rarely applying either the principle or practice of it in defending their trade both on the high seas and within their own coastal waters. As a result, the war on trade was carried on with the same kind of remorseless savagery that characterized the action in the Western Hemisphere, but with one singular difference: the Allies (primarily the Americans) in the Pacific theater were the ones conducting an increasingly stifling campaign against Japanese shipping wherever it could be found. In destroying a total of 8.1 million tons of enemy merchant shipping, these Allied attacks savaged Japanese industrial strength and reduced its overall military effectiveness. Convoy was therefore neglected just when it was needed most. One may lay the blame for this maritime disaster squarely with those running the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) and ask why its leaders had failed so abjectly to learn the lessons of the First

WHAT’S LUCK GOT TO DO WITH IT?

159

World War. Its institutional culture didn’t help in this regard, but neither did its blatant overconfidence. Once again, the Allies, through no skill of their own, had managed to dodge a metaphorical bullet, and it was just as well for the sake of their ships and crews that they were allowed to do so.16 Success in the war at sea obviously wasn’t helped by either intermittent mechanical and technological failures on board ship or when the naval staffs on shore performed in a generally lackluster fashion. None of these undesirable outcomes were supposed to happen, but they did, in an utterly haphazard fashion. Exposure of the extent of these problems, however, didn’t mean they could be easily solved. A whole range of imponderable elements that made naval warfare even more unpredictable included those brought about by accidental mistakes. While sensible contingency plans can be devised in advance to deal with potentially dangerous scenarios once they occur, accidents rarely conform to such measured forecasts. There is often a randomness about them that undermines the notion that life and inevitability go hand in hand.17 Nothing underscores that truth more vividly than when warships succumbed to lethal incidents of ‘‘friendly fire,’’ those incidents when a vessel was attacked and in some cases sunk or damaged by a member of her own side. None of the major combatants were immune from misidentifying their own vessels. For instance, Heinkel aircraft mistakenly bombed and destroyed the German destroyer Leberecht Maass off Borkum on 22 February 1940, but Royal Air Force (RAF) Typhoon fighter bombers did the same to three members of the British 1st Minesweeping Flotilla off the Normandy coast on 27 August 1944. U333 erroneously thought the German blockade runner Spreewald was an enemy vessel and eliminated her on 31 January 1942 and U43 did the same to Doggerbank on 3 March 1943. As one might expect, virtually anything could happen if battles or skirmishes took place in wretched weather, a fact discovered by the British E class destroyer Eclipse when she was attacked by her F class compatriot Fury as they shepherded the same convoy to Murmansk in March 1942. Night fighting was always likely to be a source of confusion and certainly was on 28 May 1940, when the minesweeper Lydd and the destroyer Grafton mistook the noncombative drifter Comfort for a German S-boat and opened fire on her from close range. Lydd compounded the problem by colliding with Comfort in such a brutal fashion as to cut her in half. Sometimes wolf pack coordination also left a lot to be desired, as when U221 rammed and sunk U254 on 8 December 1942, as both were gearing up to carry out an assault on convoy HX.217. U254’s fate was shared a few months later by both the Type VIIC U-boats U439 and U659, which collided with such force off Cape Finisterre during the night of 3–4 May 1943 that both sank without troubling the enemy they were seeking to destroy.18 As I have mentioned elsewhere, there were already enough ways to lose in naval warfare without having to absorb any self-inflicted blows, but even these grotesque mistakes could not be ruled out. At least two U-boats were thought to have been sunk by their own malfunctioning T5 torpedoes in the

160

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

later stages of the war, and the British Fiji class light cruiser Trinidad was hit by one of her own rogue torpedoes that came back to blast a large hole in her port side and a smaller, but still significant, hole in her starboard wing. While she didn’t founder on this occasion, the starboard patch gave way some six weeks later, and Trinidad’s crew was forced to abandon her. At least the light cruiser had a second chance, but the German S-boat S.26 wasn’t so fortunate. One of her own errant torpedoes homed in and destroyed her in the Black Sea on 5 September 1942. A similar fate afflicted the previously very successful Balao class submarine USS Tang in the Formosa Straits on 25 October 1944. Ironically, on this occasion, her last Mark 18 electric torpedo came back to haunt the Tang and smash it beyond repair.19 While accidents can make nonsense out of the best-laid plans, so too can adverse weather conditions. Driving sleet and snow, monsoonal rain, fog, and tempestuous squalls all make for poor visibility, while freezing temperatures and mountainous seas, by adding a thick layer of ice on the superstructures of all vessels ploughing through the extreme northern latitudes during the winter months, imperil even some of the stoutest warships without the added danger of enemy submarines and aircraft hunting for them. Ironically perhaps, dreadful weather was not always a bad thing. Indeed, sometimes it was a merciful relief for those under sustained pressure. Battle situations that looked hopeless and forlorn could be rescued by a sudden squall that would hide the apparent victim from its predatory foe. Captain Robert Sherbrooke’s destroyer captains could attest to that fact at the time of Fall Regenbogen in late December 1942 when they were hidden by a storm from the German heavy ships that were hunting vainly for them. By the same token, the overmatched ships of ‘‘Ziggy’’ Sprague’s ‘‘Taffy 3’’ were relieved to find a convenient rain squall in which to hide for a time from Kurita’s Center Force off Samar on 25 October 1944.20 Bad weather was, however, far from an Allied preserve. A mixture of low clouds and poor visibility complicated aerial reconnaissance, often disrupted ASW operations, and turned bombing runs into gigantic cases of wishful thinking. Convoys could be disrupted in the foulest weather, and ships could and did fall out of line and were forced to sail independently. In these circumstances, anything could happen, and usually dire things did. Acute weather systems—the wildest and most dangerous of them all—can play havoc with anything in their way, as the Americans found out to their cost when confronting two typhoons in the Pacific in the latter stages of the war. If anyone needed a demonstration about the raw power of nature and what damage it could do even in reasonably sheltered locations, these two typhoons provided it.21 It’s manifestly clear that nature can on occasion be a savage beast. From time immemorial experienced sailors have known that they cannot take the elements for granted. In modern times, even though ships can be built in a much more robust manner and are designed to ride out the worst storms, some don’t. In some cases the ship may have foundered because of catastrophic

WHAT’S LUCK GOT TO DO WITH IT?

161

failures in hardware or human error, but sometimes it can just be overwhelmed by forces beyond its capacity to endure. These accidents are often referred to by insurers as ‘‘acts of God’’ and are classified as being beyond human control. They could just as easily be referred to as acts of fate. In the war at sea, fate was never far away even when the weather behaved itself. Would a stray shell or an unseen mine strike a ship, wiping out those unlucky enough to be close to the point where it struck home? Would sailors of both sides be able to avoid enemy submarines, aircraft, and/or surface vessels seeking to destroy them? As the war in the Pacific entered its final phase, would the Allied sailors be able to avoid the suicidal intentions of the Japanese kamikaze? Unsatisfactory though it may be for some, another most inexplicable and indefinable element—luck—could also be seen as playing a vital, if random, role in naval warfare. One hears so much about this elusive gift—those fortunate ones who seem to possess it and benefit from its largesse—and those who for some imponderable reason never seem to enjoy its benefits at all.22 Some situations seem to be suffused with one of its variants, while others appear to be devoid of its unfathomable embrace. While perhaps too much may be made of the ex post facto aspect of luck, let alone the unsubstantiated claims that certain people make their own luck, to deny entirely the existence of luck or fate in life may also be churlish in the extreme.23 Aspects of luck (or fate, or both) could be detected in countless ways in the war at sea: the bombs that struck the battle cruiser Hood but bounced off her deck and fell harmlessly in the sea in September 1939; the final shell from the Duke of York that hit the Scharnhorst at maximum range in the Battle of the Barents Sea; the somewhat fortuitous hit that succeeded in puncturing the Bismarck’s fuel line and led to its tell-tale oil slick in May 1941; the discovery of the Japanese light carrier Shoho in the Coral Sea on 7 May 1942 by a Dauntless dive-bomber that had gone astray and lost touch with its flight group in cloudy weather; and the Japanese reconnaissance plane, running low on fuel and returning to base by the shortest route, that unexpectedly came across the Prince of Wales and Repulse in the South China Sea on that fateful morning of 10 December 1941.24 When luck or fate strays into the realm of ill health, however, it’s neither cause nor effect that is bewildering but far more the random nature of why it strikes whom it does that becomes the central issue. Therefore, Vice Admiral Takao Kurita may well have had good cause to curse his bad luck if, as Eric Grove asserts, he had been bitten by a dengue-infected mosquito before he could get to grips with his American enemies at Leyte Gulf in October 1944. Why him? Who knows? He just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Anyone who has read about the enervating effects of dengue fever, let alone experienced the ‘‘bone-breaking’’ pain of this vector-borne infection, could hardly imagine doing anything other than lying down for hours on end once the disease took hold. Kurita, who had already been

162

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

ditched in the sea when his original flagship had been sunk, fevered and cripplingly tired from not having slept for a couple of days, refused the sanctuary of a darkened cabin and remained propped up with cushions on the bridge of his new flagship, the superbattleship Yamato. It’s clear that he ought to have yielded command to Vice Admiral Matome Ugaki, his deputy fleet commander, but he didn’t. Too proud or too stubborn to go below and miss out on the action as it unfolded, he stoically carried on, making a series of poor executive decisions that did little to aid the Japanese cause. Leyte Gulf was definitely not Kurita’s finest hour. His decision making was often faulty, haphazard, and lacking in any kind of verve. Is it any wonder that it was so poor? Good health may often be taken for granted. It is also safe to assume that most people perform their duties better when they are well than when they are incapacitated by some form of illness. In fact, it would be almost perverse if there were an inverse relationship between health and performance. Kurita, whether afflicted by dengue or not, was clearly not at his best during the Leyte Gulf operation, and it showed. Ugaki is known to have enjoyed robust health at this time, but he was denied the chance of taking the lead as the battle progressed. All other things being equal, therefore, it is arguable that there may well have been a different outcome with Ugaki at the helm, but the definitive answer is, of course, unknown and unprovable.25 Of all the random elements that are encountered in naval warfare, however, the human factor is the one that remains infinitely variable. This was clearly demonstrated throughout the war in innumerable ways in different disciplines. For example, stunning breakthroughs were made in intelligence gathering in World War II, and the awesome and prodigious capacity of some brilliant minds to crack even the most sophisticated and complex enemy codes if given sufficient time to do so still remains a breathtaking achievement some six decades later. It was the good fortune of the Allies that they were able to recruit such a pool of supremely talented codebreakers and cryptanalysts at selected sites around the world just when they needed them. It was a significant coup for them, but it’s one that can never be guaranteed in advance.26 While some of these individuals were clearly eccentric and bizarre, all brought special gifts to bear on their work, and each made a singular contribution to unraveling the enemy’s signal traffic.27 Despite the fact that some observers feel that the impact of intelligence upon the fortunes of the war may have been overstated, the majority view remains that their work was of critical importance to the Allied war effort in every theater, not least because it was able to provide a window in advance on enemy plans and deployments that simply could not be gained by any other means. No wonder Churchill referred to the decrypted information as ‘‘Ultra.’’28 While all powers recognized the importance of encrypting their messages so that their instructions shouldn’t be read and acted upon by their enemies, the security features of any code could be undermined by those operating the cipher system. All too often a series of operational shortcuts resorted to by

WHAT’S LUCK GOT TO DO WITH IT?

163

those enciphering the code would unwittingly provide the enemy cryptanalysts with a key for breaking into parts of a message. Despite the fact that codes needed to be as secure as possible, some of the systems in place were actually too complex and sophisticated for everyday use and were abandoned precisely because of the time it would take operators to encipher and decipher the contents of these messages accurately. It was clear that vital information had to be relayed and understood in a timely fashion. If the complexities of the cipher ensured that this could not be done expeditiously, the naval powers would be forced to settle for a somewhat inferior solution. Opting for second best doesn’t seem a particularly wise decision to make in matters of critical importance, but it was resorted to when there was little alternative on offer. Sometimes, of course, those responsible for implementing and maintaining the cipher system regarded even the inferior substitute as being unbreakable. Both the Germans and the Japanese fell into this trap. Hubris of this kind would cost them dearly during the Second World War. Ultimately, the human variable represented the core underlying weakness of any cipher system.29 For all the positive attributes that shone brightly through the fog of war, there were also, alas, a range of distinctly abject qualities that could dim or undo much of the good that had been forged in war. Sometimes, of course, desirable qualities, such as confidence and optimism, can give way to brashness and arrogance. Once self-belief assumes too great a hold on one’s emotions, the effects can be disastrous for all concerned. Brilliant ship handler and daring adventurer on the high seas though he was, Hans Langsdorff paid the price for ignoring the instructions of the Seekriegsleitung (German Naval War Staff) in the early months of the Second World War. Instead of concentrating on raiding mercantile shipping in the South Atlantic and eschewing the temptation of tackling enemy warships that could put his pocket battleship (Admiral Graf Spee) at risk, Langsdorff chose to do his own thing. A master of ‘‘hit and run’’ tactics against largely defenseless, slow-moving craft, Langsdorff seems to have become bored by these routine exploits and yearned for a grander stage on which to display his tactical art and wiles. Instead of being content to lie low for a time in the vastness of the South Atlantic, picking off any commercial vessels sailing independently that he happened to come across, he couldn’t resist the lure of the Brazilian coastline south of Rio, where mercantile traffic was seemingly just waiting to be sunk or scattered. Langsdorff was a bright individual; he realized that such a deployment carried a far greater risk of detection than if he maintained his ghostly presence in the empty wastes of the midocean. Equally, he knew that the engines of the Graf Spee would need to be overhauled within the next few weeks and that he would have to make his way home to Germany for these repairs to take effect. Not knowing when he might be back in these waters again, he clearly wished to leave South America with something of a bang. It is clear that he thought he had the potential to overwhelm any defended convoy plying the routes both north and south of the Plate estuary and sought deliberately to do

164

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

so. By this stage it’s difficult not to see him as something of a glory hunter; his vanity was such that he wanted to exceed the Emden’s record haul of enemy tonnage in the last war and establish a new standard for the Graf Spee. Driven by pride and total self-belief, Langsdorff wasn’t fazed by the knowledge that the Allies had the cruiser Achilles based in Montevideo, and he felt that his Panzerschiff could overwhelm her if need be.30 Lured then by the prospect of further bounty and the fame that would be attached to it, he put himself deliberately in harm’s way, contrary to his established orders. Presumably he thought he would be forgiven by the German naval authorities once he had created further mayhem off the Uruguayan coast. He was wrong on all counts. His enemies were gaining on him; the Allied noose was closing around him, and he unwittingly drew it ever tighter. This was not what was supposed to have happened. Langsdorff brought his fate and that of his ship upon himself. He made a gross error of judgment in adopting a policy of reckless abandon rather than one of sensible caution. He compounded that initial mistake by engaging an enemy that proved to be a lot stronger than he imagined it would be. Once he realized his mistake, it was too late to escape. That the end came in a somber and distinctly nondashing way—by scuttling and committing suicide—did nothing to elevate him in Hitler’s affections.31 Identifying totally with the national cause and wishing to make a name for himself as swiftly as possible, Fritz Julius Lemp, the captain of the U30, had set the tone for disobedience within hours of the outbreak of hostilities by ignoring the existing rules of engagement and ruthlessly dispatching the Atlantic liner Athenia off the northwest coast of Ireland. Few doubted that it was a deliberate and callous act on his part and not the tragic case of mistaken identity brought on by overexcitement that he and his supporters subsequently claimed it was. More than a hundred innocent victims, including many women and children, lost their lives in this unscheduled and provocative start to the war at sea in September 1939. Lemp was reprimanded but not relieved of his command in the official inquiry that followed his return to port.32 While not actively condoning his attack, such a tepid verdict suggested that Dönitz, Raeder, and their führer had a certain measure of sympathy for Lemp’s predicament. It also reinforced the impression that they looked upon restricted submarine warfare as an unwelcome political encumbrance and one that they would gladly remove when circumstances permitted them to do so. Lemp’s active disobedience, fueled by a similar pursuit of personal and national glory that Langsdorff was to succumb to, had not cost the Germans anything but international goodwill, and that was in very short supply for the Nazis by this time. Langsdorff’s ambition, on the other hand, had cost the Germans a Panzerschiff and given an unintentional psychological boost to the enemy. It didn’t matter that he was by far the more honorable man; Langsdorff remained unforgiven even in death by his naval masters.33 Misjudging a situation is such a part of the human condition that it should never surprise anyone that many instances of it occur in wartime. That said,

WHAT’S LUCK GOT TO DO WITH IT?

165

the scale and the repercussions of the misjudgment are arguably often far graver in war than in peace. This certainly proved to be the case in July 1942 when Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound, the first sea lord, made a tragic miscalculation and decided to scatter convoy PQ 17 in the face of what he assumed would be overwhelming odds posed by the combined weight of the Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe in Arctic waters. Denied the latest intelligence reports from Ultra, he became convinced that Raeder’s heavy ships were about to join the already formidable enemy dragnet of wolf packs and aircraft that was already attacking the convoy in a virtually ceaseless manner. Pound panicked ; he didn’t place much trust in the principle of convoy in such a dire situation and assumed that the Allied ships would simply be overwhelmed by the strength of the enemy forces. Had there not been an intelligence blackout at this time, the whereabouts of Tirpitz and her battle group might not have been an issue for Pound. As it was, however, he had nothing but his senses to go on, and these let him down at the vital moment. Who knows what he would have done if he had known that the heavy ships had been confined to port and hadn’t ventured out to sea? Would it have affected his decision to break up the convoy, call off the escorting forces, and force the merchant vessels to sail independently? Unfortunately for PQ 17, he didn’t know, and he chose wrongly. It was a striking case of a very poor decision that was to have massive consequences for his ships and men, who were forced to sail on their own and mostly to their doom.34 Tom Phillips was another largely desk-bound admiral who had spent years devising plans and policy in Whitehall until he was controversially chosen by Pound and Churchill to command the ill-fated flying squadron that made its way to Singapore just before the outbreak of the Pacific war in December 1941. Phillips made a number of key decisions once he had decided to ‘‘sail to the sound of the guns’’ and engage the Japanese as they were putting men ashore in northern Malaya and southern Thailand. While some may regard this adventurous foray as a miscalculation in itself, since Force Z would arrive off the assault beaches too late to prevent the invasion from taking place, the greatest criticism is reserved for his subsequent decisions, most notably his ponderous deployment off Kuantan, where he wasted a couple of hours in searching for a nonexistent invasion fleet, and an obsessive unwillingness to break radio silence and request whatever fighter cover there was in Singapore to come to his aid as he resumed his journey to the south, even when he knew his two capital ships had been spotted by a Japanese reconnaissance aircraft. Deploying to Kuantan was not necessarily an error given the information he had received from Singapore, but dwelling there was. Refusing to break radio silence thereafter proved to be both an absurd and catastrophic mistake to make. It was one that was to cost hundreds of lives and still seems virtually inexplicable more than six decades later.35 Naturally, miscalculations were not confined to only the Allied side in the war. A couple of instances drawn from the Regia Marina and the IJN will

166

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

demonstrate that point fairly conclusively. In the case of the former, the misjudgment came from the admirable humanitarian instincts of Admiral Angelo Iachino off Cape Matapan on the evening of 28 March 1941. Responding to a request from one of his senior divisional officers, Iachino decided to send two of his heavy cruisers (Fiume and Zara) and four destroyers back to rescue the crippled heavy cruiser Pola and her crew, even though he knew the Allies were at sea and in considerable strength. While his concern for his officers and men was laudable, Iachino’s decision to go back for them was perilous in the extreme because he didn’t have a clue as to where Cunningham’s heavy ships were. In the event, they turned up just as the Italians appeared on the scene, and the rest was carnage. Over 2,300 Italian sailors perished in the action that followed, prompting one Italian author to describe Matapan as the naval equivalent of Caporetto.36 Mineichi Koga, who had inherited Admiral Yamamoto’s position as naval commander-in-chief but not his abilities, demonstrated just what the IJN had lost in this unplanned succession by transferring the aircraft from six of his carriers to Rabaul in November 1943 in what was obviously a highly unorthodox and ultimately vain effort to beef up the air defenses of the beleaguered naval base. Koga’s idiosyncratic deployment was wrecked within hours of the carrier aircraft arriving on the island of New Britain when a series of massive air raids conducted by George Kenney’s 5th and 13th Air Forces destroyed the majority of them. Those that survived these attacks were flown out of danger to Truk within a few days.37 So much for the diminished status of Rabaul and the denuded and virtually defenseless Japanese carriers! Koga’s bizarre decision looks both flawed and reckless and is perhaps only marginally explicable if he genuinely underestimated the strength of U.S. air power in the region. But if he did so, what did that say about the quality of Japanese intelligence available to the Imperial General Headquarters (IGHQ) by this stage in the Pacific war? There are, of course, degrees of recklessness, and Koga’s was bad enough, but some naval officers were guilty of behaving in an even more thoroughly irresponsible fashion without proper regard to the consequences of their actions. One need go no further than the wretched behavior of Guy D’Oyly-Hughes, the commanding officer of the aircraft carrier Glorious, to illustrate this point most emphatically. Embittered and obsessive, D’OylyHughes, a decorated submariner but inexperienced carrier captain, was at this time waging a personal vendetta against one of his former junior officers and was determined to have him appear before a courtmartial at Scapa Flow in June 1940. Although given permission to leave Norwegian waters along with the two fleet destroyers Acasta and Ardent so that he could press his charges of insubordination against his former commander of air operations, D’OylyHughes steamed home without posting either aerial or ship-borne reconnaissance and remained blissfully unaware of the presence of the German battleship sisters Gneisenau and Scharnhorst until they came into sight and

WHAT’S LUCK GOT TO DO WITH IT?

167

shortly afterwards began shelling him. Compounding the gravity of the situation, he proved slow to respond in every way. Although it didn’t take the German ships long to put him out of his misery, D’Oyly-Hughes’s irresponsible behavior was to cost the lives of more than 1,500 valiant officers and men who perished in the Norwegian Sea over the course of the next few hours.38 Failing to maintain adequate surveillance when the means exist to mount even the most rudimentary inspections is reprehensible and smacks of complacency. Lulled into a comfortable state of denial by the tedium of patrolling and the presumed long odds of interdiction taking place at sea, some captains (who knows how many?) may have dispensed with the ‘‘safety first’’ approach without paying any kind of penalty. Howard Bode was not so fortunate. His failure to assume active command in the absence of Vice Admiral Crutchley and post sufficient radar pickets by the exit of ‘‘The Slot’’ allowed Gunichi Mikawa’s ships to sweep down this narrow funnel of water and overwhelm four U.S. heavy cruisers at Savo Island in August 1942. It could have been far worse had Mikawa proceeded on to attack Kelly Turner’s undefended transport fleet off Guadalcanal and Tulagi. As it was, sufficient damage was done to the Allied cause that Bode, his naval career in tatters, committed suicide in the aftermath of the Hepburn inquiry some eight months later.39 A heady but toxic mixture of complacency, wishful thinking, and ponderous institutional practices combined to elicit mistakes from both Vice Admiral William ‘‘Bull’’ Halsey and Vice Admiral Thomas Kinkaid at Leyte Gulf in October 1944. Surveillance, or the lack thereof, lay at the root of a series of grave tactical blunders that built one upon the other to expose the entire U.S. 7th Fleet to the predatory attentions of Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita’s Centre Force. That Kurita didn’t grasp the golden opportunity unintentionally cast before him by Halsey’s impetuous nature and Kinkaid’s faulty logic is yet another feature of why Leyte Gulf should be seen as a classic microcosm of imponderability at sea. Faulty assumptions about Japanese intentions, airborne surveillance, and battle group deployment off the San Bernardino Strait littered Allied decision making throughout the latter stages of the series of Leyte battles and encouraged Halsey to go chasing off after Ozawa’s decoy carrier force, leaving Kinkaid to hold a watching brief on the invasion force to the south. To make matters far worse, Kurita’s ships defied Halsey’s dismissive predictions and suddenly appeared off Samar, much to the consternation of Kinkaid’s overmatched task groups, who could hardly believe just what was confronting them. Despite a gallant and heroic delaying action by Ziggy Sprague’s task group (‘‘Taffy 3’’), Kurita’s Centre Force looked poised to begin the mopping up of the rest of Kinkaid’s forces in short order. To the astonishment of virtually all the combatants, however, Kurita failed to press home his considerable advantages against a vulnerable set of support vessels. Unpredictable to the last, he chose to retire precipitously from the fray just when he appeared to be on the verge of a stunning victory. Did it make sense? No, but somehow it was in keeping with the set of quite staggering

168

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

developments that took place during the five stages of this epic encounter in Philippine waters.40 While some of the leading figures in this sustained drama showed recklessness and seemingly irrational behavior, others allowed their personal animosity toward their colleagues in arms to fester, with wretched repercussions for many innocent victims. Vice Admiral Shoji Nishimura and Vice Admiral Kiyohide Shima had a history of deep-seated jealousy and contempt between them. They shouldn’t have been required to work closely together. It was the proverbial accident waiting to happen. Nishimura, an officer whose career at sea had been stalled by occasional bouts of ill luck, was disdainful of Shima for taking the soft administrative option within the IJN, enjoying a succession of comfortable, shore-based billets and conspiring for promotion rather than rising through the ranks as a result of his operational experience. Marked by a personal tragedy that left him with little to live for, Nishimura chose not to liaise with his nemesis and deliberately acted alone.41 Ignoring his orders to wait for Shima’s group to arrive and supplement his own Southern Force before entering the narrow Surigao Strait en route to Leyte Gulf, he plunged on ahead in the dark. Mayhem resulted. Drawn into the ingenious trap set for him, Nishimura’s fate was soon sealed as his force was literally taken apart by Jesse Oldendorf’s powerful Fire Support Group waiting for them between the islands of Dinagat and Leyte. Masterfully deployed on both sides and at the end of the strait, the American warships afforded Nishimura and his men little chance of escape. He may well have suspected that this was likely to be his last mission. As an old experienced naval hand, however, he was resolved to do his duty to Emperor Hirohito, even if it meant perishing in the attempt. He did; but he would also take many other Japanese sailors with him in his final joust with death.42 Stubborn, irresponsible, and reckless though he had become by October 1944, no one should doubt Nishimura’s courage. He didn’t shirk from the challenge presented before him. On the contrary, he embraced it willingly— rather too willingly, perhaps, for the sake of his other officers and men. Facing certain death, he never flinched from doing what he saw as his duty. All wars bring forth shining examples of courage, bravery, and steadfastness, sometimes from the unlikeliest of quarters. While Courage 101 is not a compulsory discipline at service academies and basic training units, it is not just an instinctive gift that is given to the few rather than the many. It’s a misnomer to imagine that wartime gallantry is always associated with the Hollywood cult all-action hero. Many of those who performed extraordinary feats in the naval war were ordinary servicemen who through training, discipline, and bold examples of stoical leadership seemed to put their fears on hold and persevered in violent and dangerous situations regardless of their own personal safety. Humble Japanese soldiers, dug in on an array of Pacific islands and atolls, fought as though they were elite troops and more often than not preferred death over life in a POW camp. By the same token, the quiet

WHAT’S LUCK GOT TO DO WITH IT?

169

resolution and extraordinary persistence of those Allied, Axis, Japanese, and Soviet seamen who ran the gauntlet of enemy forces to bring relief supplies to beleaguered fortresses or shrinking beachheads deserve our admiration, for they put themselves in harm’s way for the sake of others. Other unsung heroes can be found in the crews of the Italian Maiali chariots, the British X-craft submersibles, and the German K-Verband—all of whom performed daring exploits with great panache and skill and yet had to reckon more often with death rather than survival. No wonder Dönitz referred to the German Special Forces as Opferkämpfer (sacrificial fighters).43 Warfare makes many demands upon all those individuals involved in it. Quality training and experience count, as the Japanese discovered late in the day after squandering many of their ace pilots on risky missions from which they failed to return. Airframes could be fairly easily replaced; really proficient pilots with the right kind of tactical and predatory instincts could not. Raw Japanese pilots did indeed replace the lost aces, but they usually couldn’t replicate the aces’ skill at handling their highly sophisticated aircraft or match their predecessors’ achievements in aerial combat with the Americans. While there was a qualitative difference in skill level between the various pilots at the end of the Pacific war broadly favoring the Americans, the gulf was certainly not there in the early months of it. At the outset of hostilities Japanese pilots had been grievously underestimated by their adversaries, who held idiotic notions that they were all short-sighted and couldn’t see in failing light, and that these and other perceived failings (most especially technical incompetence and an absence of flair) would quickly become apparent in the business of war. These so-called failings didn’t manifest themselves in the early campaigns, as the Japanese pilots performed with panache and skill of the highest possible level. It was only when pilot losses mounted as the Pacific campaigns wore on that something of a ‘‘soft underbelly’’ was discovered in the ranks of young, raw, and inexperienced pilots who were forced into flying without the necessary training and technical mastery that their predecessors had in abundance.44 Underestimating one’s potential or actual opponents wasn’t confined to the Americans and to pilot and aircraft capabilities. Immediately before the European phase of the war began, the Admiralty in London confidently estimated the IJN as being only about 80 percent as efficient as the Royal Navy.45 Naval intelligence should have known better, but, fueled by outdated information and faulty assumptions and underpinned by more than the merest smidgeon of institutional arrogance and complacency, the Admiralty’s condescending mindset was part of a wider British-held view about the minor parties of the Axis. For example, few in the service ministries of Whitehall had much, if any, respect for the Italians and had little difficulty in describing them as the weakest link in the Axis chain. While there was more than a grain of truth in such an unflattering assessment, it still didn’t mean that the Italians could be subjugated in short order.46

170

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

Even while surprises aplenty lay in store for the Allies once conflict began, these hoary old myths about the supposed weakness of the enemy persisted. Vice Admiral Kelly Turner believed that racial stereotyping lay behind the underestimation of the Japanese, inducing what he regarded as ‘‘a fatal lethargy of mind’’ on the part of the Americans. Despite the disaster they were to suffer at the hands of Gunichi Mikawa’s forces at Savo Island (8–9 August 1942), the quality of the IJN’s optics, torpedoes, and night fighting tactics was not finally appreciated until Raizo Tanaka’s sterling performance in the battle off Tassafaronga on the night of 30 November–1 December 1942 forced a rethink in U.S. Navy circles. It was high time that a reassessment was ordered.47 An abundance of flair and the use of initiative were not doled out solely to the Allies either. While daring and innovative tactics, shrewd hunches, and brilliant ship-handling skills were much in evidence in the naval war, exponents of these gifts were to be found in the ranks of all the major combatants. Much, of course, is made of those who engage in or are responsible for stunning naval victories and successful amphibious landings on hostile shores, but some of the most astonishing feats at sea were conjured up by those who organized retreats and evacuations under intense fire. Successful amphibious operations require logistical prowess and an almost flawless attention to detail of a quite staggering degree, but even those qualities are rarely enough on their own; various imponderable elements also need to be present (or missing) for the operation to succeed. In the shape of Konrad Engelhardt, Sergei Gorshkov, Friedrich Grattenauer, Matsuji Ijuin, Gustav Kiersitzky, Oskar Kummetz, Gustav von Liebenstein, and Bertram Ramsay, all of the leading naval powers had, at their disposal, officers who possessed all the necessary qualities and something indefinably more.48 What those imponderable elements may have been can only be guessed at. Genius is usually inexplicable. NOTES 1. Arnold Hague, The Allied Convoy System, 1939–1945: Its Organization, Defence, and Operation (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2000), pp. 48–50; David Miller, U-Boats: History, Development, and Equipment, 1914–1945 (London: Convoy Maritime Press, 2000), pp. 86–97; Peter Padfield, War Beneath the Sea: Submarine Conflict, 1939–1945 (London: John Murray, 1995), pp. 44, 58, 66–67, 81-84, 89, 191. 2. Jürgen Rohwer, Chronology of the War at Sea, 1939–1945: The Naval History of World War Two (London: Chatham Publishing, 2005), p. 3; Clay Blair, Hitler’s U-Boat War: The Hunters, 1939–1942 (New York: Random House, 1996), pp. 87–88. 3. Blair, Hitler’s U-Boat War: Hunters, pp. 145–157. 4. Anthony Newpower, Iron Men and Tin Fish: The Race to Build a Better Torpedo during World War II (Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, 2006), pp. 33–54; Edwyn Gray, The Devil’s Choice: Robert Whitehead and the History of the Torpedo (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1991), pp. 222–226.

WHAT’S LUCK GOT TO DO WITH IT?

171

5. In the period from 3 September 1939 to 31 August 1942, German and Italian submarines sank 1,904 vessels belonging to Allied and neutral nations, at the cost of 9,235,113 gross registered tons. Blair, Hitler’s U-Boat War: Hunters, p. 771. 6. Padfield, War Beneath the Sea, pp. 31–32, 166, 185–186, 191, 245–246, 252, 281, 338, 346–354, 387, 403–404, 442–443, 478. 7. At distances of roughly 100 to 200 yards (91 to 183 meters) from the contact, the sound transmission would consistently overshoot the target and fail to register an echo. Ibid., pp. 23–24; John Costello and Terry Hughes, The Battle of the Atlantic (London: Collins, 1977), pp. 31–34; Hague, Allied Convoy System, p. 62. 8. Development work on it had been abandoned by the British in 1934, ostensibly because of a lack of finance for weapons research and development. W. J. R. Gardner, Anti-Submarine Warfare (London: Brassey’s, 1996), and his chapter ‘‘Anti-Submarine Warfare,’’ in Richard Harding, ed., The Royal Navy, 1930–2000: Innovation and Defence (London : Frank Cass, 2005), pp. 117–134; Correlli Barnett, Engage the Enemy More Closely: The Royal Navy in the Second World War (New York: W.W. Norton, 1991), pp. 44–46; Hague, Allied Convoy System, pp. 65–71; John Terraine, Business in Great Waters: The U-Boat Wars, 1916–1945 (London: Mandarin, 1990), pp. 160, 176–178, 245, 250, 264, 278, 280, 439–441. 9. Both sets of aircrew were put ashore as POWs. Hague, Allied Convoy System, p. 62; Alfred Price, Aircraft Versus Submarine in Two World Wars, pp. 34–35, 39–40, 62–64, 85–86, 91–93, 127, 157; Rohwer, Chronology of the War at Sea, p. 3. 10. After extensive study and in the light of practical experience, Operational Research determined that the settings for the depth charge could be much shallower at 25 feet than they had been once the AS bomb had been replaced by the conventional depth charge in June 1941, when they had been set to explode in 50 feet of water. Hague, Allied Convoy System, pp. 62–63. 11. Ibid., p. 83; Kathleen Broome Williams, Secret Weapon: U.S. High-Frequency Direction Finding in the Battle of the Atlantic (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1996), pp. 75–99; Jürgen Rohwer, ‘‘The Wireless War,’’ in Stephen Howarth and Derek Law, eds., The Battle of the Atlantic, 1939–1945: The Fiftieth Anniversary International Naval Conference (London: Greenhill Books, 1994), pp. 408–417; Padfield, War Beneath the Sea, pp. 400–402, 447–448; Terraine, Business in Great Waters, pp. 661–662. 12. As Hague points out, the first recorded use of convoy in British waters was by Julius Caesar over 1,900 years ago. Hague, Allied Convoy System, pp. 18–19. 13. Miller, U-Boats, pp. 60–72; Robert Gardiner, ed., Conway’s All the World’s Fighting Ships (London: Conway Maritime Press, 1980), pp. 240, 244. 14. If that wasn’t enough to betray its whereabouts, a cloud of diesel exhaust fumes would give trained aerial observers further clues as to what was lurking under the surface. Miller, U-Boats, pp. 111, 122–124. 15. Carl Boyd and Akihiko Yoshida, The Japanese Submarine Force and World War II (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1996), pp. 53–107, 120–127, 133–190; Malcolm H. Murfett, Naval Warfare, 1919– 1945: An Operational History of the Volatile War at Sea (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2009), pp. 465–466. 16. Ibid; Michel Thomas Poirier, ‘‘Results of the American Pacific Submarine Campaign of World War II’’ (30 December 1999) (accessed through www.navy.mil/ navy-data/cno/n87/history/pac-campaign.html on 14 February 2008); Steven Trent

172

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

Smith, Wolf Pack: The American Submarine Strategy That Helped Defeat Japan (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley, 2003). 17. For an illuminating discussion of randomness in some of its many forms, see Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets (New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2005). Whether random or deliberate, the subtitle of the hardback version of his book published by Texere in 2001 stressed the markets before life. Clearly, a subtle change took place over the four years as life trumped the markets in the paperback version. It just shows what a little fame can do to widen the appeal for any product! 18. Paul Kemp, Friend or Foe: Friendly Fire at Sea, 1939– 1945 (London: Leo Cooper, 1995), pp. 40–46, 54, 112–116, 130–133, 144–146. Fortunately, not all cases of ‘‘friendly fire’’ end up in death and destruction. Witness the brilliant ship-handling skills of Crace at the Battle of the Coral Sea on 7 May 1942, when he was forced to duck and weave to avoid the bombing and strafing of his ships by USAAF B-26s. Murfett, Naval Warfare, 1919– 1945, pp. 178–179, 483. 19. Kemp, Friend or Foe, pp. 151–157, 160–161; Murfett, Naval Warfare, 1919– 1945, p. 497. 20. Murfett, Naval Warfare, 1919–1945, pp. 495–496. 21. Ibid., pp. 410, 442, 496. 22. Rear Admiral Stuart Bonham-Carter may be a case in point. A chain of wretched experiences on ill-fated cruisers that had succumbed to the Germans during the early stages of World War II led his ratings to describe their lifejackets as ‘‘Bonhams.’’ It was clear they thought their skipper was more likely to attract fate than repel it and therefore fully expected to be ditched in the sea at some stage in the future as long as Bonham-Carter remained on board. Martin Stephen, Sea Battles in CloseUp: World War 2 (London: Ian Allen, 1988), p. 180. 23. In his inaugural lecture at the University of Lille on 7 December 1854, the brilliant French chemist and microbiologist Louis Pasteur offered his thoughts on the subject of luck: ‘‘In the fields of observation chance favors only the prepared mind.’’ Pasteur was obviously referring to seizing upon and making the most of the good luck that might come one’s way in a laboratory experiment. He didn’t have an answer to why luck should arise or what type it might be. Justin Kaplan, ed., Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, 16th ed. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1992), p. 502. Nassim Nicholas Taleb isn’t so restrictive and contends that everything is transitory. ‘‘Luck is the grand equalizer, because almost everyone can benefit from it.’’ I’m tempted to add: ‘‘or not, as the case may be.’’ After all, one can hardly describe the recipients of bad luck as beneficiaries. Taleb, The Black Swan, p. 222. 24. Murfett, Naval Warfare, 1919–1945, pp. 177–179, 494–495. 25. Ibid., pp. 393–394, 495; Eric Grove, Sea Battles in Close-Up: World War 2, vol. 2 (Shepperton, Surrey: Ian Allen, 1993), pp. 198, 207; Evan Thomas, Sea of Thunder: Four Commanders and the Last Great Naval Campaign, 1941–1945 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006), p. 192. 26. Of the many really gifted individuals working on breaking signal codes and analyzing the information that was thereby gleaned from them, the work of the following commands the greatest possible respect: Hugh Alexander, Agnes Driscoll, Hugh Foss, Jack Good, John Herivel, Harry Hinsley, Dilly Knox, Mavis Lever, Eric Nave, Wilfrid Noyce, Joe Rochefort, Francis Raven, David Rees, Joseph Richard, Margaret Rock, Alan Ross, Frank Rowlett, Peter Twinn, Alan Turing, and Gordon Welchman.

WHAT’S LUCK GOT TO DO WITH IT?

173

27. While works of genius are rarely conceived of by those living conventional lives, some inspired acts do flow from those whose world is neither eccentric nor extreme. Harry Hinsley would never claim to be a Turing or a Welchman, but his hunches led to the acquisition of Enigma machines and their parts from the weather ships that he targeted. F. H. Hinsley and Alan Stripp, eds., Codebreakers : The Inside Story of Bletchley Park (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993); Murfett, Naval Warfare, 1919–1945, pp. 70, 110, 119, 467. 28. For a glimpse of the work carried out by these individuals in breaking the German, Italian, and Japanese codes at various Allied centers around the world that were devoted to handling intercepted enemy signals traffic, see Hugh Sebag-Montefiore, Enigma: The Battle for the Code (London: Phoenix, 2001); Michael Smith, The Emperor’s Codes: Bletchley Park and the Breaking of Japan’s Secret Ciphers (London: Bantam, 2007). 29. Patrick Beesly, Very Special Intelligence: The Story of the Admiralty’s Operational Intelligence Centre, 1939–1945 (London: Sphere, 1980), pp. 93–107; John Winton, Ultra at Sea: How Breaking the Nazi Code Affected Allied Naval Strategy During World War II (New York: William Morrow, 1988), pp. 181–196; Murfett, Naval Warfare, 1919–1945, pp. 466–467, 502–503. 30. Eric Grove, The Price of Disobedience: The Battle of the River Plate Reconsidered (Stroud, Glos.: Sutton Publishing, 2000), pp. 16–45. 31. Murfett, Naval Warfare, 1919–1945, pp. 54–61, 485–486. 32. Peter Padfield, Dönitz: The Last Führer (London: Victor Gollancz, 1984), pp. 191–194; Fuehrer Conferences on Naval Affairs, 1939–1945 (London: Chatham Publishing, 2005), p. 39. 33. Langsdorff committed suicide in the early hours of Wednesday, 20 December 1939, in his room in the Naval Arsenal. Grove, Price of Disobedience, pp. 135–139. 34. Patrick Beesly, ‘‘Convoy PQ 17: A Study of Intelligence and DecisionMaking,’’ in Michael I. Handel, ed., Intelligence and Military Operations (London: Frank Cass, 1990), pp. 292–322; Richard Woodman, Arctic Convoys, 1941–1945 (London: John Murray, 1994), pp. 204–212. 35. Murfett, Naval Warfare, 1919–1945, pp. 138–140, 485, 494. 36. Ibid., pp. 105–107, 483, 487, 492; Marc Antonio Bragadin, The Italian Navy in World War II (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1957), pp. 85–98; Jack Green and Alessandro Massignani, Naval War in the Mediterranean, 1940–1943 (London: Chatham Publishing, 1998), pp. 148–160; James J. Sadkovich, The Italian Navy in World War II (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994), pp. 125–134. 37. Murfett, Naval Warfare, 1919–1945, pp. 304–305, 489; Paul S. Dull, A Battle History of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1941–1945 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1979), pp. 286–294. 38. Murfett, Naval Warfare, 1919–1945, pp. 81–82, 489. 39. Ibid., pp. 220n.106, 489; Richard B. Frank, Guadalcanal (New York: Random House, 1990), pp. 104–123; G. Herman Gill, Royal Australian Navy, 1942–1945 (Sydney: Collins in association with the Australian War Memorial, 1985), pp. 131–155. 40. Murfett, Naval Warfare, 1919–1945, pp. 377–402, 409, 412n.25, 446, 483–484, 487–488, 490–492. 41. His only son, upon whom he had entertained great hopes of a distinguished naval career, had perished only shortly before Nishimura took up his assignment.

174

IMPONDERABLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE

42. Murfett, Naval Warfare, 1919–1945, pp. 249, 379, 387–393, 398, 464, 483, 491–492. 43. Heroic status may also be conferred upon individuals for their extraordinary feats under great duress, such as the destroyer commanders Ernest Evans, Charles Glasfurd, Gerard Roope, and Robert Sherbrooke, or for such brilliant tactical awareness and initiative as displayed by Sergei Gorshkov, Henry Harwood, Helmut Klassman, Gunichi Mikawa, and Raymond Spruance; however, fame, as those who survived could attest, was often a transitory commodity and could be tarnished once things began to go awry. Even those who were thought to have generally had a ‘‘good war’’ came up short on occasion: Churchill over reinforcements for Greece ; Dönitz and the ‘‘Laconia’’ orders ; Mountbatten’s responsibility for the Dieppe fiasco; Nimitz’s stubborn insistence on the need to take Peleliu; Spruance’s handling of the Battle of the Philippine Sea; and Yamamoto’s planning for the Battle of the Coral Sea. Ibid., pp. 56–60, 64n.40, 71, 92n.12, 141, 165, 176–183, 185–186, 188, 190, 193–195, 203, 207–209, 212–213, 215n.31, 216n.60, 220ns.101 and 105–106, 223, 226–227, 232, 244–245, 249, 256n.67, 295, 309, 327, 345, 348–356, 360, 366n.75, 369, 372–373, 381, 385, 412n.22, 430, 438–439, 442, 471, 474, 480–489, 493, 495, 507ns.86–87, 508n.90, 509n.100, 510n.119. 44. Ibid., p. 475. 45. COS 931, ‘‘Situation in the Far East,’’ 24 June 1939, DP(P)61, para.10, Cab 16/183a, quoted in Malcolm H. Murfett, Fool-Proof Relations : The Search for AngloAmerican Naval Cooperation During the Chamberlain Years, 1937– 1940 (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1984), p. 76. 46. Lawrence R. Pratt, East of Malta, West of Suez (Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1975), pp. 106–134. 47. Murfett, Naval Warfare, 1919–1945, pp. 206–209, 248–250. 48. Ibid., pp. 77–79, 157, 278–280, 295–296, 339–342, 345–346, 431–433, 480–481.

Selected Bibliography

PRIMARY SOURCES Official Records Australian War Memorial 121, 211/A/2, Defence Committee Minute and Report, No. 6/1963, Retention of Australian Forces in Malaya, 7 February, Minute by Secretary, 3 April 1963. 125, Item 2, CBB4/12/1, Report by MG W. C. Walker, Director of Operations Borneo, on the Operations in Borneo 22 December 1962–15 March 1963.

National Archives (Australia) A1209, 1960/806, JIC(Aust)(63)2(Final), The Likelihood of War to End 1968, August 1963. A1209, 1962/1010, CRO to British High Commission Canberra, 35, 12 December 1962. A1209, 1963/6637 Part 1, Australian Embassy Jakarta to DEA, 224, 6 March 1963. A1209, 1963/6637 Part 1, Barwick to Menzies, 18 March 1963; A1838, 3027/2/1 Part 10, DEA to Australian High Commission London, 1273, 13 April 1963. A1209, 1963/6637 Part 2, Australian High Commission Kuala Lumpur to DEA, 447, 29 July 1963. A1209, 1963/6637 Part 2, Australian Mission Singapore to DEA, 421, 8 August 1963. A1838, 2498/11 Part 1, DEA to Australian Embassy Jakarta, Savingram 27, 5 March 1963. A1838, 2498/11 Part 1, DEA to Australian Embassy Washington, Savingram 73, 18 March 1963.

176

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

A1838, 2498/11 Part 1, DEA to Australian High Commission Kuala Lumpur, 199, 15 March 1963. A1838, 3006/4/7 Part 1, DEA to Australian Embassy Jakarta, 894, 23 August 1963. A1838, 3006/4/7 Part 10, Menzies to Barwick, 8 August 1963. A1838, 3006/4/7 Part 8, Australian High Commission Kuala Lumpur to DEA, 415, 16 July 1963. A1838, 3006/4/7 Part 9, Barwick to Australian Embassy Manila, 29 July 1963. A1838, 3027/2/1 Part 2, DEA to Australian Embassy Jakarta, 11 July 1963. A1838, 3027/2/1 Part 9, Australian Embassy Manila to DEA, 188, 13 March 1963. A1838, 3034/10/1 Part 12, Tange to Barwick, Indonesia: Quadripartite Talks in Washington, 4 February 1963. A1838, 3034/11/51 Part 2, Australian High Commission Kuala Lumpur to DEA, 476, 29 August 1963. A1838, 3034/7/1/1 Part 2, Australian Embassy Washington to DEA, 814, 19 February 1963. A1838, TS696/17/1 Part 3, British High Commission Canberra to Prime Minister’s Office, 17 November 1961. A1838, TS696/17/1 Part 4, Australian COS minutes, 26 July 1963. A4940, C3389, DEA to Australian High Commission London, 3067, 4 August 1963. A4940, C3389, Menzies to British High Commission Canberra, 22 August 1963. A4940, C3725, Cabinet Decision 675, 5 March 1963. A4940, C3739, Cabinet Decision 632, 5 February, Submission 576, 26 February 1963. A9735, 221/5/5/4/2 Part 2, Australian Mission Singapore to DEA, 443, 20 August 1963.

National Archives (New Zealand) AAFD-811-W3738, 235/1/2 Part 1, JIC Intelligence Review, 12 December 1962. AAFD-811-W3738, 235/1/2 Part 1, JIC Intelligence Review, 17 April 1963. AAFD-811-W3738, 235/1/2 Part 1, JIC Intelligence Review, 21 November 1962. AAFD-811-W3738, 235/1/2 Part 1, JIC Intelligence Review, 27 March 1963 AAFD-811-W3738, 235/1/2 Part 1, JIC Intelligence Review, 28 August 1963. AAFD-811-W3738, 235/1/2 Part 1, JIC Intelligence Reviews, 10, 17, 24 April, 1 May 1963. AAFD-811-W3738, 235/1/2, Part 1, JIC Intelligence Review, 4 September 1963. AAFD-811-W3738, 235/1/2, Part 1, JIC Weekly Intelligence Review, 4 September 1963. LONB-106/7 Part 1, note of meeting between Thorneycroft and Eyre, 22 April 1963.

National Archives (United Kingdom) Cab 148/1 Defence and Oversea Policy Committee Minutes & Cab 148/2 DOPC Memoranda. Cab 158/149, JIC(63)41(Final), Indonesian Prospects and Intentions, 7 June 1963. Cab 158/149, JIC(63)64, Assessment of the Threat Represented by the Clandestine Communist Organisation (CCO) in Sarawak, 25 July 1963. Cab 158/150, JIC(63)71, Possible Indonesian Activities Against Malaya and Singapore during the Next Three Months, 23 August 1963.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

177

Cab 158/44 Joint Intelligence Committee Papers: JIC(61)70(Final), 22 September 1961. Cab 158/46 JIC(62)52, Militarily Significant States, 28 June 1962; JIC(62)58(Final), Indonesian Aims and Intentions, 28 January 1963. Cab 158/48, JIC(63)8, Indonesian Involvement in the Borneo Territories in the Next Three Months Short of Overt Aggression, 17 January 1963; JIC(63)14, Indonesian Military Capabilities Against the Borneo Territories up to the End of 1963, 31 January 1963. Cab 158/49, JIC(63)52, Indonesian Military Capabilities Against the Borneo Territories up to the End of 1963, 29 May 1963. Cab 179/10, JIC Weekly Review of Current Intelligence, 19 February 1963. Cab 179/10, JIC Weekly Review of Current Intelligence, 8 April 1963. Cab 179/9, JIC Weekly Review of Current Intelligence, 18 December 1962. Co 1030/1502, CINCFE to JIC, JICFE79, 13 April 1963. Co 1030/1502, Co to Governor Sarawak, 305, 17 April 1963. Co 1030/1503, Co Memorandum, Sarawak Border Incidents 12/4/63–31/7/63, 2 September 1963. Co 1030/1503, Sarawak Monthly Intelligence Report July 1963. Co 1030/1529, Co Note, Malaysia Observers, 16 August 1963. Co 1035/164, JICFE Weekly Review of Current Intelligence, 14 June 1963. Co 1035/164, JICFE Weekly Review of Current Intelligence, 24 January 1963. Co 1035/164, JICFE Weekly Review of Current Intelligence, 26 April 1963. Co 1035/164, JICFE Weekly Review of Current Intelligence, 9 August 1963. Co 1035/165, JICFE Weekly Review of Current Intelligence, 16, 23 August 1963. Co 1035/165, JICFE Weekly Review of Current Intelligence, 30 August 1963. Co 1035/165, JICFE Weekly Review of Current Intelligence, 6 September 1963. Defe 5/138: CINCFE77/63, Report on Operations in Borneo December 1962–January 1963, 22 April 1963. Defe 5/139: COS 218/63, Report on the Visit to the Far East by the Joint Service Operational Research Team, 17 June 1963 (revised cover sheet 24 October 1963). Defe 5/140: COS 253/63, Indonesia’s Policy Towards Malaysia in the Light of Recent Developments, 16 July 1963 (COS endorsement of CINCFE125/63). Defe 5/172: COS 16/67 Joint Report on the Borneo Campaign, 1 March 1967. DO 169/67, British High Commission Canberra to CRO, 5 July 1963. FO 371/169703, note of meeting between the Commonwealth Secretary and Malayan High Commissioner to London, 24 June 1963.

Printed Sources AAP 1000 Fundamentals of Australian Aerospace Power. Canberra : Aerospace Centre, 2002. AP 3000 British Air Power Doctrine. 3rd ed. London: HMSO, 1999. Cutlack, F. M. The Australian Flying Corps. Vol. 8. The Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918. Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1923. Documents on German Foreign Policy. Series D. Vols. X, XI, XIII. London: HMSO, 1961. Fuehrer Conferences on Naval Affairs, 1939–1945. London: Chatham Publishing, 2005. Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade. Report on the Loss of HMAS Sydney. Canberra: The Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, 1999.

178

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

The Senator Gravel Edition of the Pentagon Papers. Vols. 3, 4. Boston: Beacon Press, 1972. The War in Iraq: ADF Operations in the Middle East in 2003. Canberra : Department of Defence, 2004.

Manuscript Sources Arnstein, M. E., and F. J. West, Jr. ‘‘A Tabular Method for Comparing Friendly and Enemy Casualties.’’ RM-6378-ARPA, December 1970, pp. iii–iv. Copy in J. R. Chaisson Papers, Hoover Institute Archives, Stanford University, Stanford, CA. Bland, Larry, and Sharon Ritenour Stevens, eds. The Papers of George Catlett Marshall. 5 vols. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981–2003. Blumenson, Martin. The Patton Papers, 1885–1940. 2 vols. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1972. ———. The Patton Papers, 1940–1945. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974. Bradley, Omar. ‘‘Bradley Commentaries.’’ In Papers of Omar N. Bradley. USAMHI, Carlisle Barracks, PA. Brett, Maurice V., ed. Journals and Letters of Reginald Viscount Esher. London: Ivor Nicholson and Watson, 1934. Vols. I, II, IV. Dornbusch, C. E. Speech of General George S. Patton, Jr. to His Third Army of the Eve of the Normandy Invasion. Cornwallville, NY : Hope Farm Press, 1980. Hughes, Everett. Diary and Papers. Library of Congress, Washington, DC. Marquand, John P. ‘‘The General.’’ In John P. Marquand Papers. Beinicke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, CT. Patton, George S., Jr. Papers. Library of Congress, Washington, DC. Pizzi, Joseph E. Memo to Headquarters I Corps MR2, sub: Study Directive: ‘‘Assessment of Combat Power’’ (2 October 1971). MACV Records, National Archives, Washington, DC. Polk, James H. Oral History. USAMHI. Salzer, Robert. Reminiscences, pp. 433–434, U.S. Naval Institute Oral History Program. Copy in Naval Historical Center, Washington, DC.

Newspapers The Bulletin Canberra Times Jane’s Defence Weekly Newsweek New York Times The Times U.S. News and World Report Wall Street Journal Washington Post

SECONDARY SOURCES Alexander, Harold. The Alexander Memoirs. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1962. Austin, Douglas. Malta and British Strategic Policy, 1925–1943. London: Frank Cass, 2004.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

179

Ayers, Frederick. Before the Colors Fade. London: Cassell, 1964. Balfour, Sebastian, and Paul Preston, eds. Spain and the Great Powers in the Twentieth Century. London: Routledge, 1999. Barnett, Correlli. Engage the Enemy More Closely: The Royal Navy in the Second World War. New York: W.W. Norton, 1991. Beaumont, Joan, et al. Ministers, Mandarins, and Diplomats: Australian Foreign Policy Making, 1941–1969. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2003. Beesly, Patrick. ‘‘Convoy PQ 17: A Study of Intelligence and Decision-Making.’’ In Michael I. Handel, ed., Intelligence and Military Operations. London: Frank Cass, 1990. ———. Very Special Intelligence: The Story of the Admiralty’s Operational Intelligence Centre, 1939–1945. London: Sphere, 1980. Benady, Tito. The Royal Navy at Gibraltar. Grendon, UK: Gibraltar Books, 1993. Bergerud, Eric. The Dynamics of Defeat : The Vietnam War in Hau Ngia Province. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991. Blair, Clay. Hitler’s U-Boat War: The Hunters, 1939–1942. New York: Random House, 1996. Blumenson, Martin. Patton: The Man behind the Legend, 1885–1945. New York: Morrow, 1985. Boardman, Tom. Britain and the Spanish Civil War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Bole, Albert G., Jr., and K. Kobata. An Evaluation of the Measurements of the Hamlet Evaluation System. Newport, RI: Naval War College Press, 1975. Boyd, Carl, and Akihiko Yoshida. The Japanese Submarine Force and World War II. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1996. Bradford, Ernle. Gibraltar: The History of a Fortress. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972. Bragadin, Marc Antonio. The Italian Navy in World War II. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1957. Brown, Anthony Cave. Bodyguard of Lies. London: W.H. Allen, 1976. Buckley, Kevin P. ‘‘Pacification’s Deadly Price.’’ Newsweek, 19 June 1972. Budiansky, Stephen. Air Power: The Men, Machines, and Ideas That Revolutionized War, from Kitty Hawk to Gulf War II. New York: Viking Penguin, 2004. Clarke, Jeffrey. ‘‘On Strategy and the Vietnam War.’’ In Lloyd Mathews and Dale Brown, eds., Assessing the Vietnam War. Washington, DC: Pergamon-Brassey’s International Defense Publishers, 1987. Clodfelter, Mark. The Limits of Airpower: The American Bombing of North Vietnam. New York: Free Press, 1989. Cockburn, Andrew. ‘‘No, He Wasn’t a Good Manager.’’ Washington Post, 25 February 2007. Cooper, M. J. D. The Birth of Independent Air Power : British Air Policy in the First World War. London: Allen and Unwin, 1986. Corum, James S. ‘‘The Myth of Air Control: Reassessing the History.’’ Aerospace Power Journal (Winter 2000). Costello, John, and Terry Hughes. The Battle of the Atlantic. London: Collins, 1977. Craddock, Percy. Know Your Enemy: How the Joint Intelligence Committee Saw the World. London: John Murray, 2002.

180

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Crouch, Harold A. The Army and Politics in Indonesia. Singapore: Equinox Publishing, 2007 (1978). Crozier, Brian. Franco: A Biographical History. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1967. Dallek, Robert. Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932– 1945. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981. Dee, Moreen. Not a Matter for Negotiation: Australia’s Commitment to Malaysia, 1961–1966. Barton, Australia: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 2005. ———, ed. Australia and the Formation of Malaysia, 1961–1966. Barton, Australia: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 2005. Dennis, Peter, and Jeffrey Grey. Emergency and Confrontation: Australian Military Operations in Malaya and Borneo, 1950–1966. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1996. D’Este, Carlo. Patton: A Genius for War. New York: HarperCollins, 1995. DiMascio, Jen. ‘‘Transformation Office Realignment Makes Change Part of Pentagon Mainstream.’’ Defense Daily, 27 February 2007. Djiwandono, J. Soedjati. Konfrontasi Revisited: Indonesia’s Foreign Policy Under Soekarno. Jakarta: Centre for Strategic and International Studies, 1996. Dull, Paul S. A Battle History of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1941 –1945. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1979. Duncan, Francis. Rickover: The Struggle for Excellence. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2001. ———. Rickover and the Nuclear Navy: The Discipline of Technology. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1999. Easter, David. Britain and the Confrontation with Indonesia, 1960–1966. London: I.B. Tauris, 2004. Edwards, Peter, with Gregory Pemberton. Crises and Commitments : The Politics and Diplomacy of Australia’s Involvement in Southeast Asian Conflicts, 1948–1965. Sydney: Allen and Unwin in association with the AWM, 1992. Fa, Darren and Clive Finlayson. The Fortifications of Gibraltar, 1068– 1945. Oxford: Osprey, 2006. Farago, Ladislas. Patton: Ordeal and Triumph. New York: Ivan Obolesky, 1963. Farrell, Brian P. ‘‘Escalate to Terminate: Far East Command and the Need to End Confrontation.’’ In Peter Dennis and Jeffrey Grey, eds., Entangling Alliances: Coalition Warfare in the Twentieth Century. Canberra : Australian Military History Publishing, 2005. Finney, Robert T. History of the Air Corps Tactical School, 1920–1940. Washington, DC: Air Force History and Museums Program, 1998. Fisher, Sir Jacky. Records by Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1919. Frame, Tom. HMAS Sydney: Loss and Controversy. Rydalmere, NSW: Hodder Headline Australia, 1998. Frank, Richard B. Guadalcanal. New York: Random House, 1990. Gardiner, Robert, ed. Conway’s All the World’s Fighting Ships. London: Conway Maritime Press, 1980. Gardner, W. J. R. ‘‘Anti-Submarine Warfare.’’ In Richard Harding, ed., The Royal Navy, 1930–2000: Innovation and Defence. London: Frank Cass, 2005, pp. 117–134.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

181

———. Anti-Submarine Warfare. London: Brassey’s, 1996. ———. Decoding History : The Battle of the Atlantic and Ultra. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 1999. Garrett, Richard. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau: The Elusive Sisters. Newton Abbot, Devon: David and Charles, 1978. Gill, G. Hermon. Royal Australian Navy, 1939–1942. Sydney: Collins in association with the AWM, 1985. ———. Royal Australian Navy, 1942–1945. Sydney: Collins in association with the AWM, 1985. Goldman, Emily, ed. Information and Revolutions in Military Affairs. London: Frank Cass, 2004. Gorshkov, Sergei. The Sea Power of the State. London: Pergamon, 1979. Gray, Edwyn. The Devil’s Choice: Robert Whitehead and the History of the Torpedo. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1991. Greene, Jack, and Alessandro Massignani. The Naval War in the Mediterranean, 1940–1943. London: Chatham Publishing, 1998. Grove, Eric. The Price of Disobedience: The Battle of the River Plate Reconsidered. Stroud, Glos: Sutton Publishing, 2000. ———. Sea Battles in Close-Up : World War 2. Vol. 2. Shepperton, Surrey: Ian Allen, 1993. Hague, Arnold. The Allied Convoy System, 1939–1945: Its Organization, Defence and Operation. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2000. Hamer, David. Bombers Versus Battleships: The Struggle Between Ships and Aircraft for the Control of the Surface of the Sea. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1998. Haswell, Jock. The Intelligence and Deception of the D-Day Landings. London: B.T. Batsford, 1979. Hatch, Alden. George Patton: General in Spurs. New York: Curtis Books, 1950. Hatton, Tim. Tock Tock Birds: A Spider in the Web of International Terrorism. Kuala Lumpur: Book Guild Ltd., 2007. Hesketh, Roger. Fortitude: The D-Day Deception Campaign. London: St. Ermin’s Press, 1999. Hills, George. Rock of Contention: A History of Gibraltar. London: Robert Hale, 1974. Hine, Sir Patrick. ‘‘Air Operations in the Gulf War.’’ In Alan Stephens, ed., The War in the Air, 1914–1994. Canberra: Aerospace Centre, 1994. Hinsley, F. H., and Alan Stripp, eds. Codebreakers : The Inside Story of Bletchley Park. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993. Hirshson, Stanley. General Patton: A Soldier’s Life. New York: HarperCollins, 2003. Ho Ah Chon, ed. The Formation of the Federation of Malaysia, 1961– 1963. Kuching: See Hua Daily News Bhd., 1995. Hough, Richard. First Sea Lord: An Authorised Biography of Admiral Lord Fisher. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1969. Howard, Michael. Strategic Deception in the Second World War. London: Pimlico, 1990. Hyde, H. Montgomery. British Air Policy Between the Wars, 1918–1939. London: Heinemann, 1976.

182

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Jackson, Robert. Before the Storm: The Story of Bomber Command, 1939–1942. London: Arthur Barker, 1972. Jeshurun, Chandran. Malaysia: Fifty Years of Diplomacy, 1957–2007. Kuala Lumpur: The Other Press, 2007. Jones, Matthew. Conflict and Confrontation in Southeast Asia, 1961–1965: Britain, the United States, Indonesia and the Creation of Malaysia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Jones, Neville. The Beginnings of Strategic Air Power: A History of the British Bomber Force, 1923–1939. London: Frank Cass, 1987. Kainikara, Sanu, and Russell Parkin. Pathways to Victory: Observations from the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah Conflict. Canberra: Air Power Development Centre, 2007. Keegan, John. The Second World War. Sydney: Hutchinson Australia, 1989. Kemp, Paul. Friend or Foe: Friendly Fire at Sea. London: Leo Cooper, 1995. Kinnard, Douglas. The War Managers. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1977. Koop, Gerhard, and Klaus-Peter Schmolke. Battleships of the Scharnhorst Class: The Scharnhorst and Gneisenau: The Backbone of the German Surface Forces at the Outbreak of War. London: Greenhill Books, 1999. Krepinevich, Andrew. ‘‘Cavalry to Computers: The Pattern of Military Revolution.’’ National Interest, No. 37 (Fall 2004). Lambert, Andrew. The Last Sailing Battlefleet, 1815–1850. London: Conway Maritime Press, 1991. Lambert, Nicholas. Sir John Fisher’s Naval Revolution. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1999. Lee Kuan Yew. The Singapore Story: Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew. Singapore : Prentice Hall, 1998. Legge, John D. Sukarno: A Political Biography. Singapore: Archipelago Press, 2003 (1972). Lehman, John. Command of the Seas. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1988. Lewis, Tom. ‘‘The Truth about Sydney.’’ Australian Warship, no. 45 (2008), pp. 18–19. Lewy, Gunther. America in Vietnam. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978. Livesey, Anthony. Great Battles of World War I. London: Guild Publishing, 1989. Lucas, Laddie. Malta—the Thorn in Rommel’s Side: Six Months That Turned the War. London: Stanley Paul, 1992. Mackay, Ruddock F. Fisher of Kilverstone. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971. Mackenzie, Sir Hugh. The Sword of Damocles. Gosport, UK: Royal Navy Submarine Museum, 1995. Mackie, J. A. C. Konfrontasi: The Indonesia-Malaysia Dispute, 1963–1966. New York: Oxford University Press, 1974. Marder, Arthur J., ed. Fear God and Dread Nought : The Correspondence of Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher of Kilverstone. London: Jonathan Cape, 1956. Mawdsley, Evan. ‘‘The Russian Navy in the Gorshkov Era.’’ In Phillips Payson O’Brien, ed., Technology and Naval Combat in the Twentieth Century and Beyond. London: Frank Cass, 2001. McDonald, Glenys. Seeking the Sydney: A Quest for Truth. Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press, 2005.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

183

McKernan, M., and M. Browne, eds. Australia: Two Centuries of War and Peace. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1988. Miller, David. U-Boats: History, Development and Equipment, 1914–1945. London: Convoy Maritime Press, 2000. Montgomery, Michael. Who Sank the Sydney? North Ryde, NSW: Cassell Australia, 1981. Mulrine, Anna. ‘‘Rumsfeld’s Unfinished Plans.’’ U.S. News and World Report, 16 April 2007. Murfett, Malcolm H. Fool-Proof Relations: The Search for Anglo-American Naval Cooperation during the Chamberlain Years, 1937– 1940. Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1984. ———. Naval Warfare, 1919– 1945: An Operational History of the Volatile War at Sea. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2009. Murray, Williamson, and Allan R. Millett, eds. Military Innovation in the Interwar Period. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Neal, Derrick. ‘‘Do We Really Understand What Is Meant by Transformational Change for Defence ?’’ Defence Studies (March 2006), pp. 73–96. Newpower, Anthony. Iron Men and Tin Fish: The Race to Build a Better Torpedo during World War II. Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, 2006. O’Brien, Tim. Going after Cacciato. New York: Delacourt, 1978. Odgers, George. The RAAF: An Illustrated History. Sydney: Child and Henry Publishing, 1984. Olsen, Wesley. Bitter Victory: The Death of HMAS Sydney. Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press, 2000. Overy, Richard. Bomber Command, 1939–1945. London: HarperCollins, 1997. Padfield, Peter. Dönitz: The Last Führer. London: Victor Gollancz, 1984. ———. War beneath the Sea: Submarine Conflict, 1939–1945. London: John Murray, 1995. Paret, Peter, ed. Makers of Modern Strategy: Military Thought from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986. Patton, George S. War as I Knew It. New York: Bantam, 1980 reprint. Patton, Robert. The Pattons: A Personal History of an American Family. Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 2005 reprint. Patton Totten, Ruth Ellen, and James Patton Totten. The Button Box: A Daughter’s Loving Memoir of Mrs. George S. Patton. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2005. Payne, Stanley G. The Franco Regime, 1936– 1975. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987. Penders, C. L. M., and Ulf Sundhaussen. Abdul Haris Nasution: A Political Biography. St. Lucia, Australia: University of Queensland Press, 1985. Perrault, Gilles. The Secrets of D-Day. London: Arthur Barker, 1965. Petraeus, David H. ‘‘The Lessons of History and the Lessons of Vietnam.’’ In Lloyd Mathews and Dale Brown, eds., Assessing the Vietnam War. Washington, DC: Pergamon-Brassey’s International Defense Publishers, 1987. Pocock, Tom. Fighting General: The Public and Private Campaigns of General Sir Walter Walker. London: Collins, 1973.

184

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Pogue, Forest C. George C. Marshall: Ordeal and Hope, 1939–1942. New York: Viking, 1966. Polmar, Norman, and Thomas B. Allen. Rickover: Controversy and Genius: A Biography. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982. Poulgrain, Greg. The Genesis of Konfrontasi: Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia, 1945– 1965. Sydney: C. Hurst, 1998. Pratt, Lawrence R. East of Malta, West of Suez. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975. Preston, Paul. Franco: A Biography. London: HarperCollins, 1993. Price, Alfred. Aircraft Versus Submarine in Two World Wars. Barnsley : Pen and Sword Aviation, 2004. Probert, H. High Commanders of the Royal Air Force. London: HMSO, 1991. Puryear, Edgar. Nineteen Stars. Orange, VA: Green, 1971. Rockwell, Theodore. The Rickover Effect: How One Man Made a Difference. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1992. Rohwer, Jürgen. Chronology of the War at Sea, 1939–1945: The Naval History of World War Two. London: Chatham Publishing, 2005. ———. ‘‘The Wireless War.’’ In Stephen Howarth and Derek Law, eds., The Battle of the Atlantic, 1939–1945: The Fiftieth Anniversary International Naval Conference. London: Greenhill Books, 1994. Sadkovich, James J. The Italian Navy in World War II. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994. Samuels, John. Somewhere Below: The Sydney Scandal Exposed. Sydney: Halstead Press, 2007. Sebag-Montefiore, Hugh. Enigma: The Battle for the Code. London: Phoenix, 2001. Sharp, U. S. Grant, and William C. Westmoreland. Report on the War in Asia (as of 30 June 1968). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1969. Sheets, Patrick. ‘‘Air War over Serbia.’’ In Larry Wentz, ed., Lessons from Kosovo: The KFOR Experience. Washington, DC: CCRP, 2002. Shores, Christopher, and Brian Cull, with Nicola Malizia. Malta: The Hurricane Years, 1940– 1941. London: Grubb Street, 1987. ———. Malta: The Spitfire Year, 1942. London: Grubb Street, 1991. Smith, Michael. The Emperor’s Codes: Bletchley Park and the Breaking of Japan’s Secret Ciphers. London: Bantam, 2007. Smith, Steven Trent. Wolf Pack: The American Submarine Strategy That Helped Defeat Japan. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley, 2003. Smyth, Denis. ‘‘Franco and the Allies in the Second World War.’’ In Sebastian Balfour and Paul Preston, eds., Spain and the Great Powers in the Twentieth Century. London: Routledge, 1999, pp. 188–189. Sopiee, Mohamed Noordin. From Malayan Union to Singapore Separation: Political Unification in the Malaysia Region, 1945–1965. Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya Press, 2005 (1976). Sorley, Lewis. A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America’s Last Years in Vietnam. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1999. Spector, Ronald. After Tet: The Bloodiest Year in Vietnam. New York: Free Press, 1993. Spooner, Tony. Supreme Gallantry: Malta’s Role in the Allied Victory, 1939– 1945. London: John Murray, 1996.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

185

Stephen, Martin. Sea Battles in Close-Up: World War 2. London: Ian Allen, 1988. Subritzky, John. Confronting Sukarno: British, American, Australian and New Zealand Diplomacy in the Malaysian-Indonesian Confrontation, 1961–1965. London: Palgrave, 2000. Sumida, Jon T. In Defence of Naval Supremacy : Finance, Technology and British Naval Policy, 1889– 1914. Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989. Sundhaussen, Ulf. The Road to Power: Indonesian Military Politics, 1945–1967. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982. Taleb, Nassim Nicholas. The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. London: Penguin Books, 2007. ———. Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets. New York: Random House, 2005. Terraine, John. Business in Great Waters: The U-Boat Wars, 1916–1945. London: Mandarin, 1990. Thomas, Evan. Sea of Thunder: Four Commanders and the Last Great Naval Campaign, 1941–1945. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006. Tilford, Earl H., Jr. Crosswinds: The Air Force’s Setup in Vietnam. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1993. ———. ‘‘The RMA: Prospects and Cautions.’’ U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute paper, 1995. ———. Setup: What the Air Force Did in Vietnam and Why. Maxwell, AL: U.S. Air War College, 1991. Till, Geoffrey. Seapower: A Guide for the Twenty First Century. London: Frank Cass, 2004. Tyler, Patrick. Running Critical: The Silent War: Rickover and General Dynamics. New York: Harper Row, 1986. Weinland, Robert. ‘‘Developments in Soviet Naval Strategy.’’ In John Pay and Geoffrey Till, eds., East-West Relations in the 1990s: The Naval Dimension. London: Pinter Publishers, 1990. Weinstein, F. B. Indonesian Foreign Policy and the Dilemma of Dependence: From Sukarno to Soeharto. Singapore: Equinox Publishing, 2007 (1976). Weir, Gary E., and Walter J. Boyne. Rising Tide: The Untold Story of the Russian Submarines That Fought the Cold War. New York: Perseus Books, 2003. Williams, Kathleen Broome. Secret Weapon: U.S. High-Frequency Direction Finding in the Battle of the Atlantic. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1996. Winton, John. Ultra at Sea: How Breaking the Nazi Code Affected Allied Naval Strategy During World War II. New York: William Morrow, 1988. Woodman, Richard. Arctic Convoys, 1941–1945. London: John Murray, 1994. ———. Malta Convoys, 1940– 1943. London: John Murray, 2003. Zuckerman, Lord. Six Men Out of the Ordinary. London: Peter Owen, 1992.

Online Sources Asmussen, John. ‘‘Scharnhorst: The History: Operation ÔCerberusÕ (11–13 February 1942).’’ www.scharnhorst-class.dk/scharnhorst/history/scharncerberus.html. Graves, Terry. ‘‘The Buck Stops Where?’’ (24 May 2004). www.enterstageright.com/ archive/articles.

186

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Gurr, David. ‘‘Footprints in the Sand: My Time in Vietnam.’’ www.peacecorpswriters .orgipages/2005/0507. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0ICK/is_4_14/ai_75578180. http://insidecable.blogsome.com/2007/01/11/4492. http://www.chakoten.dk/mad_mullah.html. http://www.christopherlong.co.uk/per/mitchell.html. http://www.defence.gov.au/sydneyii/Index%20to%20Submissions.htm. http://www.gibraltar.costasur.com/en/guns.html. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/enduring-freedom-ops.htm. http://www.raf.mod.uk/rafcms/mediafiles/F21C6257_ABD1_7132_E8716B8C2DA98948. Poirier, Michel Thomas. ‘‘Results of the American Pacific Submarine Campaign of World War II’’ (30 December 1999). www.navy.mil/navy-data/cno/n87/history/ pac-campaign.html. ‘‘U.S. Military Fatalities: A Three-Year Perspective.’’ icasualties.org.oif.

Index

Abrams, Gen. Creighton, 146, 149–150 Abwehr (German Military Intelligence), 4, 12, 15, 21n53 Acasta, HMS, 166 Accidents, 14, 24, 55–56, 65, 69n39, 159–161 Achilles, HMS, 164 Admiral Graf Spee (German pocket battleship), 163–164 Admiralty, 26–27, 30, 125–126, 132, 135, 169 AEF Staff School (Langres), 49 Aerial League of Australia, 108 Afghanistan, 116 Afrika Korps, 7 Air control, 110–111, 114, 116 Aircraft, 2, 6, 8–9, 11, 20n27, 80, 107–111, 116–117, 124, 132–134, 147, 149–150, 155, 157, 159–161, 165–166, 169 Aircraft carriers, 6, 8, 36, 133, 147, 155, 157, 161, 166–167 Air power, 107–118, 166 Alamein, Battle of El, 6–7 Alberich (Oppanol antisonar synthetic rubber coating), 157 Alexander, Gen. Harold, 69n34

Alexandria, 5, 7, 26 Al Qaeda, 116 AMDA (Anglo-Malayan Defence Agreement), 78, 85, 91 Amphibious operations, 5–7, 11–14, 17, 57, 60, 81, 170 Angkatan Udara Republik Indonesia (AURI), 82, 96 Anglo-American relations, 4, 7. See also United Kingdom; United States Anti-Comintern Pact, 2 ANZAM (Australia, New Zealand, and Malaya), 79–80, 85, 103n11 ANZUS (Australia, New Zealand, United States) Pact, 85 Aquitania, 28 Arctic Ocean, 156 Ardennes, 62–63 Ardent, HMS, 166 Ark Royal, HMS, 8, 155, 157 Armistice Day, 49–50, 110 Army Group B, 15–16 Arrogance, 36, 58, 163, 169 AS (antisubmarine bomb), 157, 171n10 Asdic (underwater acoustic detection system), 156, 171nn7–8 Ashau Valley, 146

188

INDEX

Asquith, Herbert Henry, 125 ASV Mark 2 radar, 9 ASW (antisubmarine warfare), 156, 160, 171nn7–8, 171n10 Asymmetrical warfare, 117, 133 Athenia (Atlantic liner), 164 Atlantic Ocean, 17, 133, 155, 157, 163 Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), 127, 129 Austin, Douglas, 6 Australia, 23–26, 28–31, 34–37, 39n8, 74, 79–80, 84–90, 96–101, 103n11, 105n31, 106n47, 107–109 Australia, HMAS, 26 Australia Calls, 108 Australian National Memorial (VillersBretonneux), 34 Australian War Memorial (Canberra), 25 Axis powers (Rome-Berlin Axis), 2–8, 19n18, 20n27, 169 Ayer, Beatrice Banning. See Patton, Beatrice Ayer Ayer, Frederick, 69n34 Azahari, A. M., 78, 80–81 B-52 Stratofortress (long-range, subsonic strategic bomber), 149 Bacon, Adm. Sir Reginald, 123, 126 Badan Pusat Inteligen (BPI), 75, 99 Badoglio, Marshal Pietro, 5 Baghdad, 116–117, 142 Balearic Islands, 6 Balfour, Arthur J., 124 Ballard, Robert, 33 Bandung, 92 Bartolomeo Colleoni (Italian light cruiser), 26 Barwick, Sir Garfield, 87–90, 95, 97–99, 106n47 Bastogne, 60–64 Batavia (Jakarta), 24, 29 Battenburg, Adm. Prince Louis of, 125 Battle cruisers, 124, 132, 135, 161 Battle of Barents Sea (1943), 161 Battle of Berlin (1943–1944), 113 Battle of Britain (1940), 3 Battle of the Bulge (1944–1945), 60–61, 63–64

Battleships, 8, 133–135, 162–163, 166 Bavaria, 42, 65, 67n2 Bay of Bengal, 25 Beaufort (torpedo bomber), 9–10 Beigbeder, Col. Juan, 18n8 ‘‘Belgian Gates,’’ 11 Belgium, 11, 15, 36 Benady, Tito, 18n1 Berchtesgaden, 17 Beresford, Adm. Lord Charles, 125 Berlin, 3, 66, 110, 113 Bien Hoa, 149 ‘‘Bigots,’’ 12–14 Bipolar disorder, 45–46, 48, 54, 58, 68n15 Bismarck (German battleship), 161 Black Sea, 160 Black Sea Fleet, 130 The Black Swan, ix, xiii, 22n67 ‘‘Black Swan’’ phenomena, x, 17–18, 21n67 Blenheim (medium bombers), 113 Bletchley Park, 5 Blitz (1940), 113 ‘‘Blood and Guts’’ speeches, 65, 70n65, 71n73 Blue Division, 4, 19n17 Blumenson, Martin, 42, 68n13, 69n34 Bode, Capt. Howard, 167 Body count, 144–145, 149–150 Bodyguard (deception plans), 14–15, 21n58 Bohemia, 16, 64 Bomber Command (RAF), 9–11, 112– 113 Bonham-Carter, Rear Adm. Stuart, 172n22 Bonus March, 52 Borneo, 73–74, 76, 78, 80–83, 85, 87–95, 97, 99–101 Bosnia, 115 Boston, 49–50 Boulogne, 15 Bradley, Gen. Omar N., 60, 62–63, 70n53 Brauschitsch, Gen. Walter von, 3 Brazil, 163 Breconshire, HMS, 8

INDEX

Brest, 8–9 Brezhnev, Leonid, 128, 130 Britain. See United Kingdom British Somaliland, 111 Brittany, 11, 62 Brunei, 78–80, 84–85, 89, 91 Brunei Rebellion, 79, 81 Brunsbuttel, 8 Buckley, Kevin P., 145 The Bulletin, 39 Burnett, Capt. Joseph, 24, 26–28, 31, 36 Bush, President George W., 141–142 Butler, R. A. B., 94 Cabinet Office (UK), 76, 79 Calais. See Pas de Calais Calder Hall, 134 California, 42–43, 45–46, 51 Cambodia, 143–144, 152 Camp Meade (Maryland), 49 Canaris, Adm. Wilhelm, 4, 15, 21n53 Canberra, 34, 79–80, 85, 98, 106n47, 107 Canberra, HMAS, 26 Canberra Times, 36–37, 39n8 Cape Finisterre, 159 Cape Matapan, 166 Cape of Good Hope, 2 Caporetto, 166 Carelessness, 13 Caribbean, 155 Carley float (raft), 32 Carter, President Jimmy, 129 Casablanca, 60 Casualties, 21n49, 61, 63, 109–111, 115–116, 144–146, 148 Cavalry, 48–49, 52, 56, 60, 111 Cavalry Journal, 50 Cavalry School, 50 Cebrowski, Adm. Arthur Karl, 121–122 Centurion, HMS, 8 Chamberlain, Joseph, 138n42 ‘‘Channel Dash,’’ 8, 11 Charisma, 58, 77, 80, 101 Charlie class (ballistic missile nuclear submarine), 133 Cherbourg, 9 Chicago, 13

189

Chiefs of Staff (UK), 79, 86, 93, 98, 106n47 China, 63. See also People’s Republic of China Christmas Island, 32–34, 37 Churchill, Sir Winston, 5, 7, 21n58, 30, 162, 165, 174n43 CIA (U.S. Central Intelligence Agency), 147, 149–151 Ciliax, Vice Adm. Otto, 8–11 Ciphers, codes, and cryptanalysis, 5, 162–163, 172n26, 173nn27–28 Civil War (U.S.), 43–44, 67n4 Clandestine Communist Organization (CCO), 81, 85, 90, 95–96, 100 Claridges Hotel (London), 13 Clark, BG Mark, 58 Clarke, Jeffrey J., 146 Clausewitz, Carl Philipp Gottlieb von, 26, 65 Coastal Command (RAF), 9–10 Coburg, 26 Cocos Islands, 25 Colby, William, 150 Cole, Hon. T. H., 37, 39n8 Collins, Capt. John (RAN), 26 Comfort (noncombative drifter), 159 Command of the Air, 112 Commando Special Services, 11 Commonwealth, 2, 73–76, 80, 84, 86, 91, 93–94, 96–102 Commonwealth Strategic Reserve (CSR), 86 COMUSMACV. See MACV Concussion, 53, 58 Confidence, 6, 12, 48, 58, 68n15, 74–76, 82, 90, 96, 135, 159, 163 Confrontation (Konfrontasi), xi, 73–80, 83–86, 88–98, 100–102 Congress. See United States Conventional warfare, 114–115, 117, 133, 142, 152, 156–157, 171n10 Convoy, 1, 6–7, 9, 13, 25, 157–160, 163, 165, 171n12 Cooper-Keys, Adm. Sir Astley, 128 Coral Sea, 161, 172n18, 174n43 CORDS (Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support), 149–151

190

INDEX

Courage, 10, 44, 65, 168–169 Crace, Rear Adm. John, 172n18 Crete, 26 Critchley, T. K., 86–87 Criticism, 27–28, 51, 87–88, 125, 135, 146–147, 165 Crozier, Brian, 19n18 Crutchley, Vice Adm. Victor A., 167 Cunningham, Adm. Sir Andrew Browne, 5, 166 Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 36 Dartmouth, 12 Dauntless (U.S. dive bomber), 161 D-Day, 11–14, 17, 62 Deception plans, 14 Defective equipment, 155–156 Defence Committee (Australia), 86 Defense Intelligence Agency. See United States Defense Intelligence Agency Deir Az-zov, 118 Dengue fever, 161 Department of External Affairs (Australia), 87–90, 97 Depression, 45, 50, 56–58, 63, 68n15 Depth charges, 156–157, 171n10 D’Este, Carlo, 42, 67n2, 69n32 Destiny, 41, 44, 46, 48, 50–52, 56–59, 62–63, 65, 124 Detmers, Kapitän Theodor, 24, 27–28, 30–31 Devers, MG Jacob, 58 Devon, 12 DH9a (light bombers), 110 Dieppe Raid, 174n43 Dinagat, 168 Disobedience, 164 Doggerbank (German auxiliary minelayer), 159 Dönitz, Adm. Karl, 4, 17, 155–158, 164, 169, 174n43 Douhet, Giulio, 112–113, 119n15 Dover, 10, 16 Dover, Strait of, 8–9 D’Oyly-Hughes, Capt. Guy, 166–167 Dreadnought, HMS, 124, 132, 134, 138n44 Drum, MG Hugh, 54, 59

Duke of York, HMS, 161 Dunkirk, 9, 15 Dyslexia, 42, 47 Eagle, HMS, 8 East Anglia, 109 Eclipse, HMS, 159 Edinburgh, 14 Education, 43–44, 47–48, 50, 123–124, 149 Edward VII, King, 128 Egypt, 6–7, 25 Eifel, 63–64 Eighth Army, 6 Eisenhower, Gen. Dwight D., 14, 17, 58, 62–65, 69n46, 71n69 Elbe, 8 Electric Boat Corporation, 130, 133 Elektroboote (electric boat), 158 El Guttar, 60 Emden (German light cruiser), 25, 164 ‘‘End Secrecy on Sydney’’ group, 33 Engelhardt, Konteradmiral Conrad, 170 English Channel, 3, 8–9, 15–17, 109, 112 Enigma enciphering machine, 173nn27– 28 Esher, Lord, 128, 134–135 Essex, 16 Ethiopia, 111 Evacuations, 9, 170 Evans, Commander Ernest, 174n43 Eyre, Dean, 104n31 F-4 Phantom (supersonic fighter-bomber), 115 F-35 Lightning II (joint strike fighter), 107 F-111 (multipurpose tactical fighter bomber), 107 Falaise Gap, 62–63 Falangists, 1, 4 Falklands War, 114 Fall Cerberus, 11, 21n49 Fall Herkules, 6 Fall Regenbogen, 160 Far East Command (FEC), 79, 94–95, 105n39

INDEX

Farncomb, Capt. Harold, 26 Fate, 4–5, 9, 25, 28, 35–36, 43, 56, 64, 155, 159–161, 163–165, 168, 172n22 Fatigue, 14, 60 Faulkner, HMS, 155 FHW (Fremde Heere West), 15 Firedrake, HMS, 155 Fisher, Adm. John Arbuthnot (Jacky), xi, 121–129, 131–136, 138n44, 139n59 Fishpond, 125 Fiume (Italian heavy cruiser), 166 Fleet Air Arm, 9 Flugel, Raymond R., 119n15 Fog of war, 27, 163 Fooled by Randomness, 22n67, 172n17 Force Z, 165 Foreign Office (UK), 79 Formosa Straits, 160 Fort Benning, 57, 69n47, 70n65 Fort Clark, 56 Fortitude (deception plans), 14–15, 21n59 Fort Knox, 70n65 Fort Leavenworth, 64 Fort Myer, 50, 52, 56 Fort Riley, 50 Foxhound, HMS, 155 Frame, Dr. Tom, 31, 37 France, 2, 12, 15, 19n23, 49, 53, 60, 62, 64–65, 69n39, 109–110 Franco, Francisco, 1–5, 19nn18–19 Franklin, Benjamin, x Fremantle, 24, 29, 39n9 French Resistance, 12 ‘‘Friendly fire,’’ 159, 172n18 Frisian Islands, 11 Fromelles (1916), 34 Fuller, J. F. C., 52 Furious, HMS, 8 Fury, HMS, 159 FUSAG (First U.S. Army Group), 15–16 G7a torpedo, 155 G7e torpedo, 155 Garvin, J. P., 128 Gazala Line, 6 Genius, 2–3, 41–42, 62, 67n3, 170, 173n27 George VI, King, 8

191

Germany, 1–4, 6, 8–17, 18nn8–9, 21n49, 21n53, 23–27, 29–31, 37–39, 51, 56, 60–66, 109–110, 112–113, 126, 132, 135, 147, 155–157, 159–160, 163–164, 166–167, 169, 171n5, 172n22, 173n28 Gibraltar, 1–6 Gibraltar, Strait of, 18n1 Gill, G. Hermon, 38 GIs (U.S. troops), 143, 145 Glasfurd, Commander Charles, 174n43 Glattes, Korvettenkapitän Gerhard, 155 Glorious, HMS, 166 Gneisenau, 8, 10–11, 166–167 Goh Keng Swee, 97 Gordon, Jean, 54–55, 57, 64–65, 69n42, 70n67 Göring, Hermann, 19n15 Gorshkov, Adm. Sergei, xi, 121–125, 127–128, 130–131, 133–136, 139n59, 170, 174n43 Gotha G-V (bomber aircraft), 109 Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS), 7 Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), 79 Grafton, HMS, 159 Grand Strategy, 74, 76, 98, 124, 133 Grant Sharp, Gen. Ulysses S., 148 Grattenauer, Kapitän zur See Friedrich, 170 Graziani, Marshal Rodolfo, 6 Great Britain. See United Kingdom ‘‘Greater Malaysia,’’ 80 ‘‘Greater Indonesia,’’ 80, 83, 93 Great Patriotic War, 130 Grechko, Marshal Andrei, 128 Greece, 7, 14, 174n43 Grove, Eric, 161 Guadalcanal, 167 Guderian, Gen. Heinz, 61 Guided democracy, 77, 80 Gulf War (I), 115 Gurkhas, 78 GVN (Government of Vietnam), 152 Hague, Arnold, 171n12 Hague Convention (1907), 108 Haiphong, 114

192

INDEX

Halder, Gen. Franz, 3 Hal Far, 7 Hallucinations, 51, 55, 58 Halsey, Vice Adm. William ‘‘Bull,’’ 167 Hamburger Hill, 145–146 Hamer, David, 10 Hamlet Evaluation Survey (HES), 150–151 Hampden (medium bomber), 113 Handley-Page 0/400 (heavy bomber), 110 Handley-Page V/1500 (heavy bomber), 110 Hanoi, 114–115, 143–144, 147–149 Harwood, Commodore Henry, 174n43 Hawaii, 50–56, 59, 69n42 Heberlein, Erich, 19n17 Heerlingen, 17 Heinkel (German medium bomber), 159 Hendaye, 3, 18n8 Hepburn, Adm. Arthur J., 167 Heroism, 12, 56, 167, 174n43 Hill 973, 146 Hinsley, Cardinal Arthur, 19n19 Hinsley, Professor Harry, 173n27 Hirohito, Emperor, 168 Hirshson, Stanley, 42 Hitler, Adolf, 2–4, 6–9, 11, 14–17, 18n8, 19n15, 19n18, 21n53, 157, 164 Hoare, Sir Samuel, 19n18 Ho Chi Minh Trail, 149 Hodges, Gen. Courtney Hicks, 63 Holland, 80, 83 Hong Kong, 90 Honolulu, 53–54 Hood, HMS, 36 Howard, John, 33 Hudson (light bomber aircraft), 9–10 Hue, 142 Hughes, MG Everett, 60, 63, 69n42, 70n54, 70n56, 70n69 Human condition, 74, 79, 84, 121, 126, 132, 161–164, 166 Hunsrück, 64 Hurricane (fighter aircraft), 6 Hussein, Saddam, 115–116 Hydrogen-peroxide propulsion, 157 Hypomania, 58

Iachino, Adm. Angelo, 166 IGHQ (Japanese Imperial General Headquarters), 166 Ijuin, Rear Adm. Matsuji, 170 Illustrious, HMS, 8 Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN), 29, 30, 132, 147, 157–158, 161–163, 165–170 Impetuosity, 63, 167 Incompetence, 8, 12, 26, 77, 125, 169 Independent Air Force (IAF), 109–110 India, 111, 114 Indian Ocean, 25, 35 Indochina, 114 Indomitable, HMS, 8 Indonesia, Republic of, 73–102, 104nn30–31, 106n47 Indonesian Prospects and Intentions, 93 Inevitability, 1, 8, 11, 17–18, 159 Inflexible, HMS, 128 Innovation, 108, 122, 132–134, 170 Intelligence services, 5, 7, 12–13, 15, 73– 76, 78–80, 84, 86, 88, 90–91, 96, 98– 102, 104n31, 144, 147, 157, 162, 165– 166, 169. See also Abwehr Iraq, 111, 115–117, 141–142, 145 Ireland, 164 Irian, 83 Irresponsibility, 166–168 Israel, 117 Israeli Air Force, 117–118 Italy, 1–2, 5–7, 30, 108, 112, 166, 169. See also Regia Marina Italiana Jackson, Adm. Sir Henry, 126 Jade estuary, 8 Jakarta, 74–75, 78, 85–89, 94–95, 98– 100, 102, 106n47 Jane’s (publisher), 108 Japan, 2, 29–30, 33, 37, 39n8, 113, 146– 147, 157–158, 162–163, 165–170, 173n28. See also Imperial Japanese Navy Jealousy, 60, 168 Jellicoe, Adm. Sir John, 126 Jena-Auerstadt, 64 Jeune Ecole, 134 JIC Intelligence Review, 99–100 Jodl, Gen. Alfred, 3

INDEX

Johnson, President Lyndon Baines, 142, 145, 148 Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC): Australia, 97–98, 106n47; London, 78–80, 82–84, 89–90, 93, 97, 104n30; New Zealand, 104n31 Joint Intelligence Committee Far East (JICFE), 79, 81, 85, 89, 94–97, 104nn30–31, 105n39 Joint Parliamentary Committee (Australia), 33 Joint Service Operational Research Team, 93 Judgment, 23, 112, 143, 164–166 Julius Caesar, 171n12 Kadazans, 81 Kalafrana, 7 Kalimantan, 73, 81, 85, 95, 100 Kamikaze, 161 Kane, Sgt. Thomas, 13 Kansas, 50 Kennedy, President John F., 85 Kennedy, Senator Edward, 146 Kenner, Col. Albert, 69n46 Kenney, Gen. George C., 166 Kent, 8, 10, 15–16 Ketty Brövig, 26 Khe Sanh, siege of, 142 Khrushchev, Nikita, 133–134 Kiersitzky, Vice Adm. Gustav, 170 ‘‘Kill ratio,’’ 144–145 Kinkaid, Vice Adm. Thomas C., 167 Kissinger, Dr. Henry, 148 Kitty Hawk (North Carolina), 108 Klassman, Kapitänleutnant Helmut, 174n43 Knutsford Affair, 61, 71n69 Koblenz, 64 Koga, Adm. Mineichi, 166 Komer, Robert, 150 Konfrontasi. See Confrontation Korea, 114, 143, 146 Kormoran (Schiff 41), x, 24–32, 36–37, 39n8 Kosovo, 115–116 Kotter, John, 136 Krancke, Adm. Theodor, 17

193

Kriegsmarine (German Navy), 4, 10, 155, 158, 165 Kuala Lumpur, 89–92, 99 Kuantan, 165 Kuching, 85, 96 Kuhl, Pvt. Charles, 70n56 Kummetz, Generaladmiral Oskar, 170 Kurita, Vice Adm. Takeo, 160–162, 167 Kuwait, 115 Kuznetsov, Adm. Nikolai G., 134 K-Verband (German special naval services command), 169 ‘‘Laconia’’ orders, 174n43 Lambert, Andrew, 139n49 Lancaster (heavy bomber), 113 Langsdorff, Kapitän zur See Hans, 163– 164, 173n33 Laos, 144, 149, 152 Lazaretto Creek, 7 Leadership, 5, 47, 50, 57, 59, 77, 88, 93, 121–122, 124–126, 135–136, 142–143, 147, 168 Lebanon, 117 Leberecht Maas (German destroyer), 159 Lee Kuan Yew, 89, 91, 97 Lehman, John, 130, 137n27, 139n55 ‘‘Leigh Light,’’ 157 Leigh-Mallory, Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford, 14 Le Mans, 62, 64 Lemp, Kapitänleutnant Fritz-Julius, 164 Leveson, Adm. Sir Arthur, 126 Lewis, Dr. Tom, 38 Leyte Gulf, 161–162, 167–168 Library of Congress, 69n39 Libya, 108 Liebenstein, Kapitän zur See Gustav Freiherr von, 170 Linz, 64 ‘‘Little Black Notebook,’’ 50 Logistics, 60, 82, 170 London, 2, 13–14, 30, 64, 91, 98, 104n31, 109, 113, 169 London Agreement, 91–92, 97, 101 Longevity, 130–131 ‘‘Long Lance’’ (Type 93 Japanese torpedo), 158

194

INDEX

Lorraine, 60–61 Los Angeles Class (submarine), 135 Luck, 59, 64, 155, 161, 168, 172n23 Luftwaffe, 2–3, 6, 16, 113, 165 Luqa, 7 Lydd (British minesweeper), 159 Lyme Bay, 13 Ma (river), 115 Macapagal, President Diosdado, 87, 89, 91–92 Macchiavelli, Nicola, 112 Macmillan, Harold, 78–79, 94 MACV (U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam), 143–144, 150 MAD (magnetic anomaly detection), 18n1, 157 Madden, Adm. Sir Charles, 126 ‘‘Mad Mullah,’’ 111–112 Madness, 9, 41–66, 67n3, 146 Madrid, 2 Magenda, Col., 99 Maiali chariots (Italian submersible), 169 Maine, USS, 125 Malacca (Melaka), Strait of, 90 Malaya, 25, 78, 80, 82–92, 94, 96–97, 99–101, 165 Malays, 81, 88–89, 91, 93–94 Malaysia, Federation of, 73–76, 78–102 Malinovskii, Marshal Rodion, 128 Malta, 5–8, 20n24, 20n27 Management of change, 121–135 Manila, 87, 89–94, 96–101 Manoel Island, 8 Manston, 10 Maphilindo (Malaya, Philippines, Indonesia), 91–93, 97–98 Marder, Arthur J., 126 Mark 14 torpedo, 156 Mark 18 electric torpedo, 160 Markov, Adm. Stepan Osipovich, 123 Marquand, John P., 41, 67n1 Marshall, Gen. George C., 56, 58–59, 65 Massachusetts, 55, 57 McDonald, Glenys, 39n9 McNair, MG Lesley, 58–59 McNamara, Robert, 129–130, 135, 142– 143, 147

M-day (Malaysia Day), 91–92, 95–99, 101 Mearns, David, 36 Mediterranean, 1–2, 4–5, 7, 18n1, 20n24, 26, 32, 71n69, 126 Mekong Delta, 144–145 Melaka (Malacca), Strait of, 90 Menin Gate (Ypres), 34 Menzies, Sir Robert, 80, 86, 88, 98–99, 106n47 Mercer, BG Hugh, 43–44, 51 Messina, 60 Meuse-Argonne Offensive, 49, 51 Mexico, 49, 70n69 MI5 (UK Security Service), 79 MI6 (UK Secret Intelligence Service), 79 Michel, Roger, 15 Middle East, 2, 109, 117 Mikawa, Vice Adm. Gunichi, 167, 170, 174n43 Miles, Capt. Edward, 14 Miller, MG Henry, 14 Milosevic, Slobodan, 115–116 Mines, 11, 82, 124 Minesweeping, 159 Missiles, 114, 116–117, 133–134 Mitchell, MG William (Billy), 112, 118n15 Mitsubishi Corporation, 30 Moltke, Helmuth Karl Bernhard Graf von, x Momyer, Gen. William, 147 Montevideo, 164 Montgomery, Field Marshal Bernard Law, 60, 63, 66 Montgomery, Michael, 29–30, 38 Morocco, 4, 57 Mortars, 18n9, 156–157 Mosby, Col. John Singleton, 44 Moselle, 61–62, 64 Mountbatten of Burma, Adm. Earl, 134, 174n43 MTB (motor torpedo boat), 8, 10, 13 Mulberry harbors, 16 Murmansk, 159 Mushawarah, 91–92 Mussolini, Benito, 2–3, 5–6, 19n23, 157

INDEX

Nablus, 109 Napoleon I, 44, 52, 64, 66, 69n34 Nasution, Gen. Abdul Haris, 99–100 National Archives (Kew Gardens, London), 30 NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), 115–116, 124 Nautilus, USS, 124, 129 Naval construction, 124, 127, 129, 134–135 Naval Historical Section (RAN), 25 ‘‘Naval Transformer,’’ 122, 126, 130– 131, 133–134, 136, 139n59 Naval War College Review (U.S.), 125 Navy Office (RAN), 26, 28 Negotiations, 3, 84, 89, 91, 97, 147–148 Nekolim, 77 Nelson, HMS, 8 Neptune, HMS, 32 Netherlands, 80, 83 Netherlands East Indies (Indonesia), 24 New Britain, 166 Newly Emerging Forces (NEFOS), 76, 92 Newport News Corporation, 130, 133 Newsweek, 145 New Zealand, 74, 79, 84, 104n31 Nimitz, Adm. Chester W., 174n43 Nishimura, Vice Adm. Shoji, 168, 173n41 Nixon, President Richard M., 129, 141, 145–146, 148, 150 Non-Aligned Movement, 80, 92, 101 Norfolk, 9–10 Normandy, 9, 11, 13–14, 16, 60–61, 159 North Africa, 2, 5–7, 57–58, 60–61 Northern Alliance, 116 North Pole, 129 North Sea, 8, 17, 26 North Vietnam, 114, 142–144, 146–149 North Vietnamese Army, 143–144, 146, 148 Norway, 14, 155, 166–167 Nuclear: officers, 123, 127; power, 124, 127, 129, 134; propulsion, 124, 127, 129, 131–134; reactors, 134; ships, 124, 129, 131, 133; technology, 114; weapons, 114, 124

195

O’Brien, Tim, 143 Observer, 128 OKW (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht), 4, 15–17 Olderdorf, Rear Adm. Jesse B., 168 Old Established Forces (OLDEFOS), 77 Oliver, Adm. Sir Henry, 126 Olsen, Wesley, 31 Olympic Games, 1912 (Stockholm), 49, 53 Operational research, 93, 171n10 Operations: Ale, 85; Allied Force, 116; Barbarossa, 3; Cerberus, 11, 21n49; Deliberate Force, 115; Desert Storm, 115–116; Dynamo, 9; Enduring Freedom, 116; Felix, 3–4; Gisela, 4, 19n16; Hercules, 6; Husky, 7; Ilona, 4; Iraqi Freedom, 116; Isabella, 4; Neptune, 12, 14; Regenbogen, 160; Sealion, 3; Torch, 7, 57–58, 61 Operazione C3, 6 Opferkämpfer (sacrifical fighters), 169 OPINTEL (operational intelligence), xi Optimism, 94, 145, 163 Ordnance, 1, 10, 18n1, 18n9, 24–25, 28, 31–32, 108, 131, 147 Ozawa, Vice Adm. Jisaburo, 167 Pacification program, 141, 149–152 Pacific Ocean, 30, 160 Pacific War, 25, 113, 156–158, 160–161, 165–166, 168–169 Pakistan, 114 Palermo, 60 Pall Mall Gazette, 125, 128 Panzerschiff (German pocket battleship), 163–164 Paris, 63 Paris Peace Agreement (1973), 149 Partai Komunis Indonesia (PKI), 77, 80– 81, 83–87, 93 Partai Rakyat (People’s Party), 78 Pas de Calais, 8, 14–16 Pasteur, Louis, 172n23 Patton, Beatrice, 50, 52 Patton, Beatrice Ayer, 47, 50, 52–57, 63, 65, 69n47, 70n52, 70n67 Patton, Col. George S., 43, 51

196

INDEX

Patton, Gen. George Smith, Jr., xi, 15–16, 41–67, 67n2, 67n5, 67n7, 68nn13–15, 68n17, 68n20, 68n23, 68n25, 69n32, 69n34, 69n39, 69n42, 69nn45–47, 70nn52–53, 70n56, 70n58, 70nn65–67, 70nn69–70, 71n73, 143 Patton, George, Sr., 42–46, 48, 51–52, 67n4 Patton, George S., IV, 50 Patton, John Mercer, 43 Patton, Robert, 43 Patton, Ruth (nee Wilson), 43–44, 48 Patton, Susan, 43 Patton, Waller Tazewell, 43, 51 Patton Totten, Ruth Ellen, 44, 50–52, 54, 56, 65, 69n42 Pearl Harbor, 157 Pelaez, Emmanuel, 90 Peleliu, 174n43 Pentagon, 143, 146–147 People’s Republic of China (PRC), 85, 87, 89–90, 93–94, 99, 147 Pershing, Gen. John J., 49, 59, 65, 70n69 Peter Pan complex, 52, 55 Peter the Great, 123 Petraeus, LTG David H., 141 Philippines, Republic of, 90–91, 97, 167–168 Philippine Sea, Battle of, 174n43 Phillips, Acting Adm. T. S. V., 165 Pierse, Air Marshal Sir Richard, 10 Pilsen, 64 Plate estuary, 163 POL (petroleum, oil, and lubricants), 146–147 Pola (Italian heavy cruiser), 166 Poland, 56 Polaris (submarine-launched ballistic missile), 134 Polo, 50, 53–54, 57 Portsmouth, 10 Pound, Adm. Sir Dudley, 165 PQ 17 (Allied convoy), 165 Precision-guided munitions (PGMs), 115–117 Preston, Paul, 19n18 Prien, Korvettenkapitän Gunther, 155 Prince of Wales, HMS, 161

Prinz Eugen, 8, 10 Psychological issues, 46, 55, 58, 68n15, 109, 145, 164 Quang Ngai, 143 Quicksilver (deception plan), 15 Rabaul, 166 Radar, 7, 157–158, 167 Radar stations, 9 Raeder, Adm. Erich, 3–4, 6, 164–165 Rahman, Tunku Abdul, 78–79, 83, 86, 88–90, 92, 95, 97–99, 101 Ramsay, Vice Adm. Sir Bertram, 9–10, 12, 170 Ranke, Leopold von, 23 Razak, Tun Abdul, 90, 93 RDF (radio direction finding), 157 Reagan, President Ronald, 130 Recklessness, 48, 164, 166, 168 Reconnaissance, 2, 6, 9, 11, 16, 62, 108, 160–161, 165–166 Red Army (USSR), 17 Red River Delta, 147 Regia Marina Italiana (Royal Italian Navy), 5–6, 165 Reincarnation, 42, 51–52, 58, 69n32, 70n56 Renown, HMS, 125 Report on the Loss of HMAS Sydney (1999), 23–24 Repulse, HMS, 161 Research and development (R&D), 135, 156–157, 171n8, 171n10 ‘‘Revolution in Military Affairs,’’ 122–123, 134 Rheingraben, 64 Rhine, 16, 60, 63–64, 143 Riau islands, 97, 100 Ribbentrop, Joachim von, 4, 18n8, 19n17 Richmond, Adm. Sir Herbert William, 126, 135 Rickover, Adm. Hyman G., xi, 121–125, 127, 129–136, 139n52, 139n59 Rio de Janeiro, 163 Rockwell, Theodore, 138n29 Roenne, Col. Alexis von, 15 Roman Catholic Church, 19n19

INDEX

Romania, 14 Rommel, Field Marshal Erwin, 6–7, 11, 15–17 Roope, Lt. Commander Gerard, 174n43 Roosevelt, Eleanor, 56 Roosevelt, President Franklin Delano, 19n23, 30 Rosebud (deception plan), 14 Royal Air Force (RAF), 3, 5, 8, 11, 109– 113, 159 Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), 107 Royal Australian Naval College (Jervis Bay), 26–27, 36 Royal Australian Navy (RAN), 24–27, 29, 33, 36 Royal Flying Corps, 110 Royal Navy (RN), 5, 8, 26, 29, 109–110, 123–125, 128–129, 131–132, 134–135, 139n49, 169; Mediterranean Fleet, 5, 123 Ruhrgebiet, 16 Rumsfeld, Donald, 121, 139n59 Rundstedt, Field Marshal Gerd von, 15–16, 66 Russia, 4, 123, 132–134 S.26 (German S-boat), 160 Saar-Palatinate, 60, 64 Sabah (British North Borneo), 78, 80–81, 84, 86, 89, 91–92, 96, 99 Saigon, 143, 146, 149–152 Saint Mihiel Offensive, 49 Salzer, Vice Adm. Robert, 144–145 Samar, 160, 167 Samuels, John, 39n8 San Bernardino strait, 167 Sarawak, 78, 80–82, 84–86, 89–92, 95–96, 99 Savo Island, 167, 170 Scapa Flow, 166 Scharnhorst (German battleship), 8, 10–11, 161, 166–167 Scheldt (river), 11 Schellenberg, Walther, 15 Schiff 41 Kormoran (armed raider). See Kormoran Schnorchel, 158, 171n14

197

Schultze, Korvettenkapitän Herbert, 155 Scotland, 9–10, 155 Scotland Yard, 14 SEATO (South East Asian Treaty Organization), 85 Seekriegsleitung (German Naval War Staff), 163 Seine, 62–63 Selborne, 2nd Earl of, 132 Serbia, 115 Severodvinsk, 133 SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force), 13–14, 62–63 Shann, Keith ‘‘Mick,’’ 86–87, 99 Sherbrooke, Capt. Robert, 160, 174n43 Shima, Vice Adm. Kiyohide, 168 Shippingport (Pennsylvania), 134 Shoho (Japanese light carrier), 161 Sicherheitsdienst (German Security Services), 15 Sicily, 5, 7, 42, 60–61, 67n1, 69n34, 70n56 Singapore, 7, 24, 29, 78–82, 84, 87, 89, 91–92, 96–97, 99–101, 165 Sixth sense, 59, 65, 70n52 Skill, 11, 16, 44, 47, 64, 82, 128, 136, 155, 159, 169–170, 172n18 Skua (British dive bomber), 157 Skye (deception plan), 14–15 ‘‘Slapping episode’’ (Patton in Sicily), 42, 61–62, 70n56, 71n69 Slapton Sands, 12–13 Sliema, 8 ‘‘The Slot,’’ 167 Smith, G. Hugh, 43 Somalia, 111, 115, 117 Somme, 34 Sonar (U.S. equivalent of asdic), 135, 156–157 Sorley, Lewis, 152 South Atlantic, 163 South China Sea, 90, 161 Southeast Asia, 76, 79–81, 85, 93, 95, 102 Southern Pacific Railway, 44 South Vietnam, 142–143, 146–152 South Vietnamese Army, 142; First Division, 146

198

INDEX

Soviet Union (USSR), 3–4, 17, 65, 80, 82, 93, 104n30, 113, 123–124, 126– 127, 130, 132–135, 143, 147–148, 169; Navy, 123–124, 127, 130, 133– 134 Spain, 1–4, 18nn8–9 Special Branch, 80, 85, 90 Spies, 12 Spitfire (fighter aircraft), 6 Spooner, Tony, 8 Sprague, Rear Adm. Clifton ‘‘Ziggy,’’ 160, 167 Spreewald (German blockade runner), 159 Spruance, Adm. Raymond, 174n43 SSBN (nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine), 133 SSN (nuclear-powered submarine), 131, 133 Stagg, Capt. John, 17 Stalin, Joseph, 125, 134 St. Andrew’s Cathedral (Sydney), 24 Statistics, 143, 145–146, 148–149, 152 Stead, W. T., 128 Stimson, Henry, 49 St. Lawrence Seaway, 156 Straat Malakka (Kormoran), 27 Strategic bombing, 110, 112–113, 119n15 Subandrio, Dr., 75, 78, 80, 82, 86–88, 90, 92, 95, 99–101 Submarines, 5–8, 18n1, 108, 124–125, 127, 130–135, 155–158, 160–161, 164; American, 124, 127, 130–35, 160; British, 5, 7–8, 132; German, 155, 158, 171n5; Indonesian, 82; Italian, 6, 171n5; Japanese, 29–30, 37, 39n8, 158; Soviet, 125, 132–133 Suez Canal, 1, 7 Suicidal tendencies, 54, 87, 161 Sukarno, President, 74–77, 80, 83–92, 94–95, 98–99, 101–102, 106n47 Sulawesi, 74 Sumatra, 74 Sumida, Jon Tetsuro, 138n42, 138n44 Sunda Strait, 24 Suñer, Ramon Serrano, 3, 18n8 Surigao Strait, 168 Surveillance, 13, 16–17, 27, 117, 167

Sussex, 16 Swordfish (torpedo bomber), 10 ‘‘Sword of the Spirit’’ movement, 19n19 Sydney, 24, 34, 108 Sydney, HMAS (I), 25 Sydney, HMAS (II), x, 23–38, 39nn8–9 Sydney Memorial (Geraldton), 35 Sydney Morning Herald, 35 Syria, 118 Tactics, 25, 27, 29, 85, 99, 114, 135, 145, 163, 170 Ta Kali (Malta), 7 Taleb, Nassim Nicholas, ix, x, xiii, 21n67, 172n17, 172n23 Taliban, 116 Tanaka, Vice Adm. Raizo, 170 Tang, USS, 160 Tangier, 4 Tarnmatte (antisonar coating), 158 Tassafaronga, 170 Tebedu (Sarawak), 85, 88–90, 100, 104n31 Technology, 108, 110, 113–114, 117, 123, 133, 139n49 Tehran, 21n58 Tentara Nasional Indonesia (TNI), 77, 81, 97, 99–100 Tentara Nasional Indonesia–Angkatan Laut (TNI-AL), 81–82 Tentara Nasional Kalimantan Utara (TNKU), 78, 80–81, 85 Terrain, 60–61, 73, 81–82, 111, 143 Terrorism, 81, 109, 116–117, 151 Tet Offensive, 142, 148–149 Texas, 56 Thailand, 165 Thames estuary, 16 Thanh Hoa, 115 Thorneycroft, Peter, 104n31 Tilbury, 16 Time (magazine), 129 Tirpitz (German battleship), 165 Titanic, RMS, 33, 35 Tobruk, 6 Tokyo, 89–90, 94, 113 Toohey, Brian, 37 Torpedo boats, 124, 133

INDEX

Torpedoes, 10, 13, 24, 28, 39n8, 134– 135, 155–156, 158–160, 170 Torpex (secondary explosive), 157 Tower, HMS, 26 Transjordan, 111 Trenchard, MG Sir Hugh, 109–112 Trident (Allied Conference at Teheran), 21n58 Trident Class (submarine-launched ballistic missile system), 134 Trier, 64 Trinidad, HMS, 160 Trocas, MV, 28 Truck count, 149 Truk, 166 Tulagi, 167 Turing, Alan, 172n26, 173n27 Turkey, 108–109 Turner, Adm. Richmond Kelly, 167, 170 Type 93. See ‘‘Long Lance’’ Type 95 (Japanese long-range torpedo), 158 Typhoon (British fighter bomber), 159 Typhoon (storm), 160 U30,157, 164 U39, 155 U43, 159 U221, 159 U254, 159 U333, 159 U439, 159 U659, 159 U-boats, 2, 155–159 Ugaki, Vice Adm. Matome, 162 ‘‘Ultra,’’ xi, 7, 162, 165 Underestimated, 3, 87, 98, 166, 169–170 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). See Soviet Union United Kingdom (UK), 1–14, 17, 19nn18–19, 30, 60, 73–81, 83–87, 89– 97, 99–101, 104n31, 109–113, 123, 132, 134, 155–156, 159–160, 169, 171n8, 171n12 United Nations Organization (UNO), 80, 92, 96, 99–100, 115 United States (U.S.), 2, 4, 7, 13–16, 30, 34, 43, 61, 63–64, 66, 70n67, 74, 79–

199

80, 84–86, 89, 97, 100, 107, 112–117, 119n15, 125, 130, 132–133, 135, 141– 148, 150–152, 156–158, 160–161, 168–170; Congress, 129–130 United States Army, 42, 47–50, 53–54, 56, 58–66, 145–146, 150; I Armored Corps, 57; 1st Army, 63; III Corps, 151; 3rd Army, 42, 62–66; 3rd Cavalry Regiment, 56; 4th Armored Division, 66; 5th Cavalry Regiment, 56; 9th Army, 63; 9th Infantry Division, 145 ; 12th Army Group, 62; 101st Airborne Division, 146 United States Army Air Forces (USAAF), 113–116, 142, 146–149, 166, 172n18 United States Army War College, 52 United States Defense Intelligence Agency, 147 United States Department of Defense, 122, 129, 131, 139n59, 142–143, 147, 150 United States Navy (USN), 58, 61, 123– 124, 127, 129–132, 134–135, 146–147, 149, 156, 170; Nuclear Reactors Branch (NRB), 127, 134, 138n29 Uruguay, 164 Ushakov, Adm. Fyodor, 123 Utah Beach, 13 U Thant, 92, 96, 99–101 Utrecht, Treaty of (1713), 1 Valetta, 5, 7 Valhalla, 55–56 Verdun, 62–63, 70n58 Vichy Morocco, 57 Vickers Vimy (heavy bomber), 110 Victor class (Soviet nuclear submarine), 133 Victoria (Australia), 28 Victoria, Queen, 128 Viet Cong, 142–144, 148–152 Vietnamization, 141, 150 Vietnam War, xii, 36, 114, 141–152 Virginia, 43–44, 46 Virginia Military Institute (VMI), 43–46, 68n10 Vision, 58, 76, 98–99, 124, 130, 136 Vlieland, 11 VLR (very long range), 157

200

INDEX

Wainwright, Col. Jonathan, 56 Walker, MG Walter, 85 Wall Street Journal, 148 Walter, Prof. Hellmuth, 157–158 War Office, 111 Washington, DC, 2, 49, 52, 56, 143–144, 146 ‘‘Wayang war’’ (shadow war), 77 Weather, 9, 11, 16–17, 60–62, 159–161, 173n27 Wehrmacht, 3, 15, 61 Welchman, Gordon, 172n26, 173n27 Wellington (heavy bomber), 113 Wells, H. G., 107 Western Approaches, 17 Western Australia, 24, 28, 30, 35, 39n8 Western New Guinea, 80, 83 West Irian, 83 Westmoreland, Gen. William, 144, 146, 149 Westphal, Gen. Siegfried, 65 West Point, 14, 45–48, 50, 59–60, 68n10, 68n14, 69n39, 69n45, 70n69, 141 Westwall, 62–64 Weyland, BG Otto, 65 Whitehall. See London Wilde, Oscar, 57 Wilhelmshaven, 8

Wilson, Annie (Nannie), 43–45, 48, 50–51 Wood, Leonard, 49 Woodward, Garry, 106n47 Worcester, HMS, 10 Wordsworth, William, 51 World War I, 36, 51, 58, 107–108, 110, 112–114, 116, 156 World War II, xi, 1–2, 23–24, 30, 59, 66, 69n46, 109–110, 112, 114, 143, 146, 155, 162–163, 172n22 Wright Brothers, 108 X-craft (British experimental submersible), 169 Yamamoto, Adm. Isoroku, 166, 174n43 Yamato, 162 Yani, LTG Achmad, 100 Yugoslavia, 14, 115 Zara (Italian heavy cruiser), 166 Zaunkönig (acoustic torpedo), 156 Zealandia (troopship), 24 Zeppelin (deception plan), 14–15 Zuckerman, Baron (Solly), 134 Zumwalt, Adm. Elmo R., Jr., 135

About the Editor and Contributors

MALCOLM H. MURFETT is the Senior Europeanist in the Department of History at the University of New South Wales. He is the author of several books on the use of naval power for foreign policy purposes, including FoolProof Relations: The Search for Anglo-American Naval Cooperation During the Chamberlain Years, 1937–1940 (1984), Hostage on the Yangtze: Britain, China and the Amethyst Crisis of 1949 (1991), and In Jeopardy: The Royal Navy and British Far Eastern Defence Policy, 1945–1951 (1995). He was also the lead author of Between Two Oceans: A Military History of Singapore from First Settlement to Final British Withdrawal (1999) and the editor of The First Sea Lords: From Fisher to Mountbatten (1995). His latest publication is a major study of the war at sea that took nearly a decade to complete : Naval Warfare, 1919–1945: An Operational History of the Volatile War at Sea (2009). CHRISTOPHER CLARK is the official Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Historian and Head of the Office of Air Force History in Canberra. He is also a visiting Fellow at the University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra. His main publications in air force history have been The Third Brother (1991), the story of the RAAF during the interwar period, and a volume of the Official History of Australia in SouthEast Asian Conflicts, 1948–1975, called The RAAF in Vietnam (1995). He has also written several biographical monographs and shorter studies on aspects of Australian air force history, most recently an account of RAAF involvement in the Berlin Airlift of 1948–1949 called Operation Pelican (2008).

202

ABOUT THE EDITOR AND CONTRIBUTORS

DANIEL K. R. CROSSWELL is currently completing a rework of his awardwinning biography of General Walter Bedell Smith for joint publication by the U.S. Army Center of Military History and the University of Kentucky. He is a graduate of Kansas State, Western Michigan, and the University of Windsor, Ontario, and has taught at Kansas State, James Madison, and both the National University of Singapore and the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. His research interests focus on American leadership within the European theater during World War II, while his sporting interests largely surround the baseball mound. PETER J. DENNIS is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra. A graduate of the University of Adelaide and Duke University, he has taught at the Royal Military College of Canada and the University of Western Ontario, and has been a Senior Visiting Fellow at the National University of Singapore (twice) and the University of Ulster. Among his many publications is Troubled Days of Peace: Mountbatten and South East Asia Command, 1945–1946 (1987); he is also joint editor of The Australian Centenary History of Defence (7 vols., 2001) and The Oxford Companion to Australian Military History (2nd ed., 2008). In 1999 he was historical adviser to the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Defence, Foreign Affairs and Trade’s inquiry into the loss of HMAS Sydney. He continues to administer and expand the AIF Project database (www.aif.adfa.edu.au), which has occupied much of his time over the past eighteen years. BRIAN P. FARRELL is Deputy Head of the Department of History at the University of New South Wales, where he has been teaching military history since 1993. His research interests include the military history of the British Empire and coalition warfare. His major publications include The Basis and Making of British Grand Strategy, 1940–1943: Was There a Plan? (1998) and The Defence and Fall of Singapore, 1940–1942 (2005). He is currently working on a military history of the confrontation between the Commonwealth and Sukarno’s Indonesia from 1962 to 1966. RONALD SPECTOR is Professor of History and International Affairs in the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. He is the author of seven books, including Eagle against the Sun: The American War with Japan (1985), After Tet: The Bloodiest Year in Vietnam (1993), At War at Sea: Sailors and Naval Combat in the 20th Century (2001), and In the Ruins of Empire: The Japanese Surrender and the Struggle for Postwar Asia (2007). GEOFFREY TILL is the Professor of Maritime Studies at the Joint Services Command and Staff College at Watchfield and a member of the Defence Studies Department, part of the War Studies Group, at King’s College

ABOUT THE EDITOR AND CONTRIBUTORS

203

London. He is also the Director of the Corbett Centre for Maritime Policy Studies. In 2007 he was a Senior Research Fellow at the Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore and in 2008 the inaugural Sir Howard Kippenberger Visiting Chair in Strategic Studies at the Victoria University of Wellington. In addition to many articles and chapters on various aspects of maritime strategy and policy defense, he is the author of a number of books, the most recent being Seapower: A Guide for the 21st Century (2004, but with a new edition pending) and The Development of British Naval Thinking (2006). He has just completed a major study on the impact of globalization on naval development, especially in the Asia-Pacific region. This will appear as an Adelphi paper for the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.