| Title | : | History of US Naval Operations in WWII 1: Battle of the Atlantic 9/39-5/43 |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0316583014 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780316583015 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | cloth |
| Number of Pages | : | 434 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1947 |
The present book deals with the defense of our own shores and ships. It describes the gradual emergence of the Navy from the neutrality patrol and Western Hemisphere defense, through the "short-of-war" phases to full-fledged war with Germany and Italy. Much of it is devoted to the history of transatlantic, coastal, Russian, Caribbean and Brazilian convoys, and to the war on the U-boats. There are chapters on the fearful ordeal of the North Russian run, on the experiences of lonely merchantmen with Naval Armed Guards, on operations off the coast of Brazil, and on auxiliary efforts such as the Coastal Picket Patrol by sailing yachts (the "Hooligans"), the Mystery Ships, and the Civil Air Patrol.
History of US Naval Operations in WWII 1: Battle of the Atlantic 9/39-5/43 Reviews
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In the spring of 1980 I decided to drop my PhD aspirations and return to active duty. 6 years from regular instrument flying and 4 since any flying. Scared the poor instructors at Little Rock AFB. At the squadron, our average mission was 11.3 hours and we'd be gone regularly for a couple of weeks. Lots of reading time, so I decided to read all the volumes of this series. Morison can carry a narrative. And bring the tissues. Sailors die hard. While Lee's Lieutenants has reached a certain level of notoriety, we should be more aware of King's Admirals - quite a gathering.
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The final review of my bout of submarine warfare book reading. I read this sandwiched between Gannon's "Operation Drumbeat" which covered the devastating U-Boat attacks on unprotected merchant shipping of the US Coast in H1 1942 and his "Black May" that covered an epic convoy battle in May 1943 that broke the back of the U-Boat campaign.
Morison wrote the official history of US Naval Operations during World War II - and he wrote parts of this book while it happened, taking various as we would now call it 'embed' roles in the Navy to get a first hand account and to meet the major players.
Morison obviously knew nothing about Enigma but was fully conversant on the other technologies that won the campaign - HF/DF, Operations Research, air cover, and so on. He also had access to the German U-Boat command war diaries captured at the end of the war.
Why is this book interesting?
1. Morison goes into detail over the effectiveness of various desperate counter measures that the US Navy threw into the fight - including private yachts, blimps, Q-Ships, and more.
2 - The maps and tables are superb
3 - You get to understand what happened in the Caribbean and in the Brazil-to-United States convoys
4 - Because a lot of the book was written in 1943, the reader gets a good feel for being back in that time and place.
A good complement to Gannon due to its overview and comprehensiveness but obviously not as an exciting of a read because of its broader focus. -
this had some interesting parts, but was an odd mix of technical navy stuff (light on explanations of various acronyms, i thought) and anecdotal history. the organization also made it hard to follow as history, as it was divided into chapters that described different theaters (the US coastal regions, Brazil's entry into the war and their naval experience, etc) and tactical issues (training, technology development in anti-sub warfare, how the coast guard was used, how 'amateur forces' (yachts, fishing boats) were used, and so on.
that said the book does give a strong impression of the immense complexity, difficulty and danger of the U-boat war, and how diligently and selflessly our forces worked to overcome the threat.
I plan to read the other volume (of the 12 about the naval war in general) that covers the second phase of the U-boat war, when the Allies prevailed on the seas. -
the author was a commissioned officer in the US Navy in World War Two and was commissioned because he was a prominent historian and he went all over the place because his job was to write the unofficially "offical" history of the US Navy in World War Two.
All of these books were written long before we knew how deeply the Allies had penetrated the German enciphering machine known as Enigma.
These can be good references for statistics et al but all of these volumes---I think there are 30---in the series are dated and as well as lacking objective criticism of the US navy.
If you want to read about the Battle of the Atlantic in one volume I would recommend "The Atlantic War" by Dan van der vatt -
If you're into the gritty details and arcane facts of US Naval Convoys in the Atlantic in World War II, look no further.
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Excellent review to follow.
