Engineers of Victory: The Problem Solvers Who Turned The Tide in the Second World War by Paul Kennedy

Engineers of Victory: The Problem Solvers Who Turned The Tide in the Second World War Reviews

• 
  Nick

  One of the more mis-titled books in recent memory and one of the more disappointing. The writer indicates that the engineering feats cannot be vioewed in a vaccuum and that some background is needed. Fair enough. Unfortunately, what you get for the rest of the book is almost entirely background and not particularly good background, either. Most of his sources are over a decade old an he ends up spouting conventional wisdom, regardless of whether it has much foundation or not. And the amount of detail about the "engineers" is rather sparse.
  
  For instance, in disussing the solutions to the U-Boat threat, the book jacket, itself, boasts of the invention of the cavity magnitron. In the entire first chapter, this so-called vitally important invention (and it was) is described in two paragraphs. I didn't expect to get a technical manual but something a bit more than a paragraph is warranted.
  
  And so it goes, throughout the book. The book isn't terrible; neither is it enlightening. you can get more, and better, information in a number of sources.
  
  If you must read this, get it from the library.
• 
  Jonny

  Taking into account the Allies overcoming of five problems in the mid-war years 1943-44 that allowed for the successful conclusion of the Second World War, this is an interesting take on the period.
  
  First of all, while engineering does have it's place within the narrative, this is not a nuts and bolts title; the majority of the engineering is in the more abstract "to plan or do something in a skillful way". As such, the book is more about how weapons systems were integrated into working tactical systems than the description of how there was any one 'war winning' weapon within each theatre.
  
  The book examines the height of the Battle of the Atlantic, focusing on the battles of March 1943 and how these became the killing ground of 'Black May'; then moves on to the turning around of the USAAF fortunes in the skies over Europe in the period, covering the nadir of the dual Schweinfurt missions in August and October 1943, and the tortured development of the P-51, a contributing factor in the defeat of the Luftwaffe. After this, there is an examination of the development of strategy and tactics to defeat the German forces on land, looking at the learning curves experienced by both the Allies and the Soviets (including an examination of the T-34 that is equally as interesting as the development of the Mustang). The following chapter brings the preceding threads together, looking at the development of amphibious tactics in the Mediterranean and European theatres, and the final chapter expands further on this too look at the way the American forces expanded (literally) on these in the immense spaces of the Pacific. This chapter includes an interesting look at the development of the Seebees and the B-29.
  
  All in all, although it's ground that's been tread individually a number of times, I've never seen all these threads brought together and tied in at an operational level, and it's a good jumping off point for further reading.
• 
  Boudewijn

  An analysis of the problems that the Allies faced in the defeat of the Axis powers, how these problems were solved by small groups of individuals and institutions, both civilian and military, succeeded in enabling their political masters to achieve victory in the critical middle years of the Second World War.
  
  At the Casablanca Conference of January 1943, the Allies created a blueprint for the defeat of the Axis powers and defined five military-operational problems that needed to be solved in order to reach the defeat. Those five problems were the safe convoying merchant ships across the oceans, landing on an enemy-held shore in Europe (Operation Overlord), grappling with the Wehrmacht's armored-warfare techniques (the defeat of the Americans at Battle of the Kasserine Pass was still fresh in the memory), reaching aerial dominance in Western Europe (as a prerequisite for the invasion) and the defeat of the Japanese.
  
  This book is an analysis on how this grand strategy is achieved with the explicit claim that victories cannot be understood without a recognition of how those successes were engineered, and by whom. The book is structured in 5 chapters, each dealing with one of the five operational problems that the Allies faced in 1943.
• 
  Mason Barge

  I'm sorry to give this book two stars, since it is both amiable and revolves around questions that are interesting to me, but it consists of paragraph after paragraph of broad statements with an unfortunate lack of content.
  
  Here, I'll grab a random paragraph:
  
  "Nonetheless, the warding off of a submarine attack and the destruction of the attackers had to be done through technology, that is, by defensive and offensive weapons platforms. It was true, obviously, in all theaters of war and at all times, but it is astonishing how much much the exigencies of total war, and the terrible importance of winning the Battle of the Atlantic to both sides, led in the single year . . . "
  
  Well, I'm tired of typing. Now that might sound like the introduction to an interesting chapter describing one or more specific aspects of the technology: how it worked, how it was deployed, the history of its creation, etc., but it isn't. The specifics never come.
  
  I seriously recommend that you save your money on this one; there are way too many good books about WW2.
• 
  Jonathan

  I'm a big fan of Paul Kennedy. I have read and enjoyed his previous works on power politics, diplomacy and strategy, including his highly praised "The Rise And Fall Of The Great Powers." So, when I saw that he had decided to focus his formidable talents to the Second World War and using an unconventional approach, I was thrilled. Nonetheless, upon finishing this work, I have to say that I found it disappointing. While Professor Kennedy certainly seems to have taken the time to master all of the latest and best books on World War II, and, unlike many academic historians, was not ashamed to admit that he used (and enjoyed!) the vast literature of illustrated books of weaponry, usually demoted to the interest of "history buffs," he actually seems not to have much that is original or insightful to add to our knowledge of that conflict. He is certainly right to stress the role of what he calls "middle management" in the solving of tactical problems or the introduction of potentially decisive weapon systems (such as the P-51 Mustang) and the importance of the interrelationships of the various far-flung theaters of war, but most of this has already been said by various historians. I am fortunate enough to have been able to read many of the works he quotes, so I have to say that almost every insight Kennedy proposes, has already been made known to the interested scholar, or even a "buff." He himself admits that most of those middle managers are unknown to us, and probably always will be, so even the title is a bit of a misnomer, although the issues that they wrestled with are famous to those who study WWII. If you are already familiar with the great campaigns, battles and leaders of that war, this book while it is certainly a pleasurable read, doesn't have that much to offer.
• 
  Mal Warwick

  What use is history?
  
  This question has been kicked around for centuries, but I’m not certain that those who venture opinions about it have bothered to ask a follow-up question: What do you mean by history?
  
  Most of what we’re force-fed in school — even, all too often, in university courses — consists primarily of a recitation of “facts” (dates, names, events, trends). To make matters worse, those facts typically revolve around the reigns of kings and the battles they fought. That sort of “history” is not only boring, it’s essentially useless.
  
  To be truly useful, I believe, a work of history must be informed with deep knowledge of a particular event or period of time and include some judicious analysis of what’s most important about it, so I can understand why things happened as they did — and cull lessons from the experience that will help me make more intelligent judgments in the future.
  
  Engineers of Victory, Paul Kennedy’s penetrating study of what mattered most in World War II, is precisely that sort of book.
  
  Why and how did the Allies win World War II?
  
  Unlike the superb story-telling about the war in Rick Atkinson’s brilliant trilogy and other books that bring the period back to life but offer few if any judgments, Kennedy’s work — in a single volume, after all — sifts through the accumulated evidence in official records and memoirs and the opinions of other leading historians to arrive at conclusions about why and how the Allies really won the war. It’s fascinating — and, in the end, it’s useful, because there are lessons to be learned about management and leadership that can be applied in so many other spheres of work as well as military planning.
  
  Kennedy focuses on the period from the beginning of 1943 until the middle of 1944, during which the Allies turned the tide in the war and set a course for victory. He explains what happened then, and why, concentrating on five strategic campaigns: the Allies’ desperate and protracted effort to clear the North Atlantic of German submarines; the Russians’ monumental resistance to the Nazi invasion (occupying three-quarters of Germany’s troops); the war in the air in both Europe and the Pacific; the Allies frequent use of amphibious landings in both theaters; and the strategy employed both in Russia and the Pacific to take advantage of German and Japanese overextension.
  
  Some of Kennedy’s judgments challenge the conventional wisdom about the conduct of the war:
  
  ** For example, was the breaking of the Germans’ Enigma code the “secret weapon” that won the war, as so much popular historical writing has suggested in recent years? No way! The Ultra project, as the Allies called it, made a valuable contribution by eavesdropping on the German general staff, especially in the late stages of the war, but it was far from decisive.
  
  ** Was the US and British strategic bombing of Germany’s cities the key to victory? Not at all. In fact, Kennedy and many others, including some senior commanders in the air war, judged the strategic bombing an utter failure.
  Did General Douglas MacArthur win the war in the Pacific? No. While MacArthur’s drive from the far south to the Philippines and points north chewed up enormous numbers of Japanese troops, the winning strategy of the US rested more squarely on Admiral Chester Nimitz, driving from Hawaii to capture Japan’s island outposts and provide a platform for the B-29 bombers to attack the Japanese homeland.
  
  ** Was the American entry into the war in Europe the decisive factor in the Allies’ victory, as so many of my countrymen seem to think? Perhaps not. The war in Europe was won on the plains of European Russia and in the North Atlantic sea lanes, Paul Kennedy suggests. Clearly, the phenomenal output weapons and ammunition by US factories and the addition of millions of American soldiers to the front lines were strategic factors. But it was Soviet Russia who ultimately won the ground war against Hitler and the US and Britain together who won the war on the seas and in the air.
  
  However, digging a little deeper, the true cause of the loss of the war by the Axis (principally Germany and Japan) was their territorial overextension — in other words, they bit off more than they could chew. Hitler’s thrust so deeply into Russia was ultimately the death knell for the Nazi regime, as was the Japanese militarists’ foolish expansion throughout China and in South Asia as far as the borders of India. Neither country possessed the resources to defend all that territory.
  
  Another clearly significant factor was micromanagement of the war from Berlin and Tokyo by Hitler and Japan’s Imperial War Cabinet. Again and again, decisions made by those at the top — based on rigid ideology or flaring tempers — hindered the Axis generals’ management of the war at the front. (While Churchill constantly intervened in military decision-making, he proved to be a supremely talented strategist and was usually proved right. Roosevelt trusted his generals and admirals.)
  
  So, who was it who really won the war?
  
  The thesis of Engineers of Victory is that subordinate officers were the ultimate architects of their militaries’ successes. These were the men whose brilliant inventions of new weaponry, detection technology, or organizational design accounted for the breakthroughs in the field:
  
  ** The test pilot who insisted on installing the newest and most powerful Rolls-Royce engine in the poorly performing P-51 Mustang fighter plane, eventually bringing it into service on the front and delivering a devastating blow to the Luftwaffe.
  
  ** The major general whose seemingly whimsical inventions to turn his tanks into mine-sweepers helped make possible the Allies breakthrough from the Normandy beaches.
  
  ** The admiral who persuaded FDR to allow him to establish the Construction Battalions (CBs or SeeBees) within the US Navy, a force that played such a critical role in the Allies’ many amphibious landings, including Normandy.
  
  ** The graduate students whose breakthrough on sonar technology played such a large role in enabling the Allies to destroy the Nazis’ U-boat fleet and free the North Atlantic for the merchant marine to save Britain from starvation.
  
  ** The admiral who was the organizational genius under Dwight Eisenhower, designing and coordinating the Normandy invasion on five beaches simultaneously with significant problems at only one.
  
  These are just a few of the many fascinating vignettes in Engineers of Victory. For any student of military history — or anyone who seeks to understand the most consequential event of the 20th century and the largest event in all human history — this book is a must read.
• 
  Michael Burnam-Fink

  Engineers of Victory is an immensely frustrating book. Brilliantly conceived and written by an author who is obviously a talent, it nonetheless fails to address to its thesis or contribute to scholarship.
  
  Kennedy's thesis is that WW2 was won in those critical months between the Casablanca Conference in January 1943 and early 1944. More specifically, it was won by "Organizers", men at the middle levels of the military, government, and vital industries who invented new weapons systems, sent them into the field, and used them to defeat the Nazis and Imperial Japan. He takes as his case studies the Battle of the Atlantic, strategic bombing in Europe, the rollback of Blitzkrieg on the Eastern Front, the amphibious assaults in the Mediterranean and at Normandy, and the logistical and naval victory in the Pacific. There's nothing to argue with there: Clearly something did happen between the dark days of the early war and the triumphant conquests of 1945, and looking at the causal factors as a matter of organization, rather than the psychology of great men (FDR, Eisenhower, and Churchill. Always Churchill) or the superiority of a certain weapon over a comparable model (M4 Sherman vs Panther vs T-34, Go!) is an neat take. After all, it's like Napoleon (supposedly) said: "Amateurs study strategy. Professionals study logistics" (and procurement, and maintenance, and training...).
  
  All the pieces of a really interesting story are there, but Kennedy fails to connect them, or even bring in his anonymous organizers. For a book that alleges to valorize the unsung heroes in the middle, it mentions shockingly few of them. For example, the Battle of the Atlantic would be a great place to talk about Alfred Loomis of the MIT Radiation Laboratory and centimeter radar, or Patrick Blackett's work on operational research in anti-air and anti-sub warfare, along with strategic bombing. Blackett gets one mention in the context of the Casablanca Conference (Roosevelt and Churchill again), and the MIT Radiation Lab isn't mentioned at all.
  
  Omission of vital details are constant. It seems like wherever there's a chance to dive deeply into a topic, and the men and women who organized the Allied victory, the book bounces off and away into a digression of something that we've heard 100 times before on a History Channel documentary. This is a popular book and I don't expect heavy theory, but a passing mention of the literature on organization or innovation would be nice, or perhaps positing this book as a vindication of Robert Merton's sociology of science, and its position that only liberal democracies could take full advantage of science and technology. I'm not even an expert on WW2, and I feel like I could put together a more insightful book on the subject talking about
  radar-assisted naval gunfire,
  logistics in distant theaters, and
  special operations missions as starting points, and then blending in some STS and strategic theory. I expect a history of this caliber to offer a deep dive into new material, or a broad synthesis of exist evidence in favor of some novel insight, or at least to satisfactorily meet its thesis, and Engineers of Victory does none of that. It's downright embarrassing.
• 
  S. Shelton

  Kenny posits that there were five key tactics to the Allied victory in World War II.
  1. How to Get Convoys Safely Across the Atlantic
  2. How to Win Command of the Air
  3. How to Stop a Blitzkrieg
  4. How to Seize an Enemy Shore
  5. How to Defeat the “Tyranny of Distance.”
  
  Kennedy discusses, at great length, the singular elements in each item: intelligence, technology, tactical and long-term strategies, planning, and the civilian and military scientist and engineers who fashioned new weapons to counter the enemy’s initial advantage, and the verve of military leaders.
  
  In item one, for example, Kennedy avers that victory over the Kriegsmarine’s U-boats—the scourge of the North Atlantic—sinking merchantmen at an alarming rate and practically serving the life line to an isolated and embattled Great Brittan was a combination of several factors: long-range aircraft with new anti-submarine weapons, cryptographers at Bletchley Park who broke the German Navy’s Enigma code, the Hedgehogs multiple mortar weapon system, advanced and more powerful dept-charges, introduction of Jeep aircraft carriers with their anti-submarine aircraft, and other items all combined to defeat the U-boat menace in the North Atlantic.
  
  In item two, Kennedy details the appalling loses of the Eight Air Force’s B-17 and B-24 bombers in their 1943 daylight raids on the Third Reich—each aircraft with a ten-man crew. For example, on the raids on the ball-bearing factories in Schweinfurt in October 1943, on just one day the Luftwaffe’s experienced pilots shot down sixty of our bombers—a staggering loss rate of twenty percent. Dozens of other aircraft were badly damaged and limped home to their airfields in England—almost all with severely wounded airmen. For the experienced Luftwaffe pilots the Schweinfurt raids were a “turkey shoot”—some aces had over one-hundred kills at war’s end. Simply, the United States Army Air Corps did not have a long-range fighter aircraft that could escort our bombers to their targets and return and to fend the Luftwaffe.
  
  Meantime, the North American Company produced the P-51 fighter, powered by the Alison V1710 engine. At best, the Allison-powered P-51 was marginally satisfactory as a low-altitude interceptor. A Royal Air Force test pilot flew the P-51 and recognized its superior aerodynamics and very low drag. He recommended that the Rolls Royce Merlin V-12, in-line, liquid cooled 1,500 horsepower engine be installed in the aircraft. Viola! History was made. Now the high-altitude P-51, fitted with two, 108 gallon drop tanks, escorted our bombers all the way to Berlin. The slaughter of the B-17s ceased and the Luftwaffe fighter pilots suffered appalling loses.
  
  For a comprehensive understanding of this excellent book, the reader must have an in-depth knowledge of World War II, a worldwide atlas stored in the mind, and a compelling appetite to ferret the myriad details of the five key battles of the last world war. Clearly, Engineers of Victory is not for the average reader. This book is more appropriate as a textbook for the military academies or a war college, or for academic researchers.
  
• 
  Kay

  Painstakingly argued, authoritative, original, and engrossing, this is the sort of book that I could read again soon and still profit from. (Which means, of course, that I couldn't digest everything on the first reading -- but that's my failing, not the author's.)
  
  As many others have commented, the focus here is less on engineers than on how Allied and Axis strategies changed (or didn't) in response to problems and failures. The five central problems Kennedy examines are interlocking pieces of a puzzle: how to get convoys safely across the Atlantic, how to win command of the air, how to stop a blitzkreig, how to seize an enemy-held shore, and how to defeat "the tyranny of distance."
  
  As Kennedy points out repeatedly, the solving of each of these problems increased the ability to solve the others. In the final analysis, the Allies' "war-making systems that contained impressive feedback loops, flexibility, a capacity to learn from mistakes, and a 'culture of encouragement'" assured their victory.
  
  At times Kennedy seemed to downplay the importance of WWII intelligence, which was a disappointment for me as I've long been fascinated by the topic. However, he made a good case that "victory went to the side with the smartest and most powerful weaponry, not the one with the better decrypts."
  
  The chapter I enjoyed the most was the one I knew the least about -- the aerial war. In fact, this chapter so inspired me that I took a trip to the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum shortly after I finished the book to look at the WWII-era planes. I'd been there before -- several times -- but after Kennedy's account I viewed the B-29 Superfortress, P-38 Lightning, Focke-Wulf 190 and other aircraft with new interest. But it was the Rolls Royce Merlin 61 engine sitting unobtrusively in a display case of engines that I viewed with most respect.
  
  Kennedy's book bristles with statistics, many impressive and some surprising. I learned, for example, that "in late 1943, new airfields were opening up every six days across the topographically convenient flatlands of East Anglia," a fact which explains something that puzzled me years ago when we lived in Cambridge: there seemed to be disused airfields scattered everywhere in the surrounding countryside.
  
  Books I admire invariably send me on a quest to find out more about the subject. This one, I have to say, has more than succeeded as I now have dozens of new books in my "to read" wishlist concerning WWII. (By the way, if anyone out there can recommend a good book on the convoy battles in the Atlantic, I'd appreciate it.)
• 
  Nooilforpacifists

  Miss-titled, and Kennedy doesn't know submarines (which hinders his first 75 pages), but after that, decent work. Kennedy not a 5 star writer. See Blackets's War for a similar work.
• 
  DeAnna Knippling

  The engineers, inventions, and process improvements that helped the Allies win WWII.
  
  This was solidly written. I think my only problem with it was that I wanted it to be about twice as long and get into more detail; it felt like a lot of the statements weren't necessarily well backed up in this book. The author referred a lot to other works that he seemed to assume I read, or other bits of history that I was supposed to have known or at least not questioned, which was frustrating. (For example the various types of British WWII planes and why certain types were assumed to be so important--he gave the explanation of why people were wrong about the relative importance of certain planes, but not why certain planes were assumed to be so important in the first place!)
  
  I was hoping for a book about how the victory in WWII was engineered from a strategic standpoint; this was a book about engineering problems during WWII. So this was not the book I was expecting, but certainly a good read, with a lot of insight--just not as much context as I wanted.
  
  I would not recommend this as a book for readers not steeped in the lore of WWII, but if you have basic reading done in the period it's probably a great book. WWII just isn't my period, and I felt a bit adrift here.
  
• 
  Christopher

  For us armchair generals/historians who have become used to reading books where great generals and/or their ground-pounding foot soldiers are glorified, this book's overall theme may come as a shock to us: the victories of the generals and soldiers wouldn't have been possible without the "problem-solvers" and the technologies and tactics they developed to overcome the great battlefield problems of World War II. Mr. Kennedy tackles these problems and their solutions in a balanced, holistic (that is a term he uses) approach that shows where tech and know-how to defeat the Axis powers came from. Although highly analytical, Mr. Kennedy never loses sight of a good story and how they support his overall thesis, so you will rarely be bored reading this. It also is great at giving readers a larger sense of the problems that military planners faced during the war as Mr. Kennedy meticulously breaks down each of WWII's five major "problems" and shows how they were overcome. In a way, it puts into the head of a WWII general better than any biography ever could. The only problem I had with this book was that there weren't any ONE easily identifiable person or tech that turned the tides of battle. Mr. Kennedy, instead, talks about all the factors that combined to solve problems inherent in such things as amphibious warfare and control of the sea and skies. Thus, it may be difficult for average readers at first to understand what Mr. Kennedy is getting at. In the end though, this book is a much-need, and much-welcomed, addendum to every WWII history and memoir you've ever read as it shows you how innovation was nurtured and allowed to flourish in order to win the most destructive war in human history. I highly recommend this book to all WWII history buffs who are looking for something a little different to read.
• 
  Margaret Sankey

  Kennedy focuses on 1943-44, as planners identified interlocking military problems with possible technological solutions--control of the air, convoy protection, stopping German army advances, and tied to find solutions. The key here is the how things played out, since a good idea means nothing without the economic and resource means to produce it, the logistical ability to get it into use, commanders willing to employ it and trained people who can do so, and Kennedy highlights the near failures of these steps with the Merlin engines, among other key pieces. He has to walk a fine line between technical detail needed to make things make sense, and technical detail that detracts from the bigger argument but pleases people who specialize in these areas, and does so pretty successfully.
• 
  Sebastián Jaén

  I think the book is very disappointing because it focuses a lot on the background of the battles and very little in the engineering solving problem. At the same time the reading is dense and full of unnecessary historical details. There is no account of how the engineers gathered and solve the challenges presented by war. In the book, the solutions appear, but the author does not explain how they got the work done.
  
  There is no doubt the author is an erudite in the topic. However, the book is not what its tittle tells. I stopped reading it.
• 
  Casey

  A good book, providing a series of vignettes on major technical and operational innovations made by the Allies to attain victory in WWII. As with all of Paul Kennedy’s works, the joy of the book isn’t so much the content in and of itself, but his conversational method of delivery. Reading it feels less like reading a book and more like attending a seminar lecture. He seems to know the questions that would be asked and provides just enough “side-bars” to keep your attention.
  The book cover five major developments in WWII: defeating the U-Boats, gaining air dominance for European strategic bombing, defeating Germany’s armor advantage, honing Allied amphibious skills, and overcoming the Pacific’s vast distances. The history behind these issues are presented, the problems the Allies faced are outlined, and the solutions arrived at are dismantled. The “Engineers” of the title are not specific inventors or Generals, but rather the un-sung “middle managers” whose individual works combined to create the various system of systems which brought victory.
  The work very much stresses that the period early-1943 to mid-1944 was a hotbed of military innovation for the Allies, across both spectrums of military technology and operational process. Though I was not fully convinced of the innovative nature of this particular period (I think brute application of existing tools and actions may be as important as shepherding forward new developments), Kennedy’s writing style and ability to coherently link far-ranging thoughts make a very strong case for an innovative ‘golden age.’
  I did feel that parts of the book felt forced. My impression is that a few vignettes were readily constructed for the thesis (primarily the maritime ones) and that others had to be strenuously made to fit (the aviation and land based ones). But, even when forced, the vignettes are all enjoyable to read and very educational.
  A bit of icing on the cake, Kennedy continues his practice of giving commentary style endnotes and footnotes. Not only do you get the references for the presented material, you also get a quick rating and background on the sources. That is, far and away, one of my favorite things to see in a book.
  Highly recommended for those wanting to better understand the technical developments and procedural updates made by the Allies in the middle years of WWII.
  
• 
  Marcia

  This book is fabulous for anyone who wants to know "How did they do it?" I loved the way the author structured the information in terms of several significant problems to solve. It not only talks about the technological breakthroughs, but also what it took to organize victory.
• 
  Marvin Goodman

  Gosh, I toyed with the idea of giving my first five star review to this, so completely satisfied with it was I. But then I started to think about the list of books that would be on my five-star list, and didn't want to dilute them with a moment of hysteria.
  
  But I'll give it an unabashed four stars largely because, as I said, it so thoroughly met my expectations. With "Engineers" in the title, I expected to read something that discussed these wartime innovations from an engineering perspective, featuring discussions of problem analytics, available technology and the need for it to evolve, trial and error, and so on. I was not disappointed by Kennedy, who thankfully had the patience (not to mention a patient editor) to weave each of these chapters gradually, providing a thorough understanding of the problem that each of these inventions ultimately targeted and then patiently explaining the dynamics of innovation, including the hurdles and back-steps, and ultimately analyzing why they were successful, and how they changed the balance of power. That thorough, measured treatment alone would have been enough for me, and given this book a three and a half star review.
  
  What blasted this book out of the pleasantly workmanlike and informative, and into truly eye-opening, paradigm-busting work that it is, were two things:
  
  1. Weaving these individual stories of innovation into a cohesive whole
  2. Debunking much of the conventionally held wisdom about wartime innovation
  
  First the weaving: Kennedy makes a point of stating that none of these things - while seeming to be individual problems with individual solutions - was truly developed in isolation, or singly contributed to Allied victory in WWII. While occurring at different times during the conflict, and directly impacting different locales, their broader effects could be felt throughout the arena. Solving a crippling problem in locale would allow Allied planners to shift resources to affect a completely different locale. War movies and individual narratives tend to place too great an importance on a particular place or event. While undeniably important to those participants, it's rare that we get the opportunity to assess the war from such a macro perspective, and it's really interesting to do so.
  
  And the debunking. I get that people are proud of their contribution to the war, and I get that they're colored by their particular experience (because of where they fought or lived) but it's always been a bit frustrating to hear someone extoll the virtue of one particular wartime innovation, and brashly proclaim it to be the "reason we won the war." If you're a macro thinker, you know that that's rarely the case. But, it just doesn't sound as impressive to the masses to say that "this was an extremely important innovation that - taken together with some similarly important innovations, countless brave soldiers, occasionally brilliant leadership and a resilient home front, helped spur the Allies on to victory." That appeals to ME, obviously, but it doesn't make for very successful sound bytes.
• 
  Jan

  Paul Kennedy explores two fundamental military relationships in this book. That of organisation, doctrine and materiel plus the ageless military principle of the coordinated application of forces. He does that with the well-travelled and explored background of the Second World War and claims to focus on the less well known individuals and organisations that provided either materiel like the P-51 fighter, the B-29 bomber, the T-34 tank, organizations such as the US Seabees and the Allied U-boat defence or the US Marine Corps doctrine for amphibious assault. But he fails. His heartfelt interest is with the grand strategic sweep and perspective and where the reader expect in-depth and coherent research into the nuts and bolts, Kennedy lapses into anecdotes and dramatic accounts of battles.
  
  As a result the book is more a slightly differently structured general history of WW2 and not what it intends to be. But still an entertaining, occasionally enlightening read.
• 
  Steve Chilton

  Disappointing, and didn't deliver on the title. There weren't really any interesting revelations on engineering ingenuity. Even his definition of engineer left me wanting, often meaning managers or strategists. Nevertheless, some aspects of the war that I wasn't aware of were covered and increased my knowledge somewhat.
• 
  Daniel

  I give the book five stars, mainly for readability. When I can get through such a thick and factually dense book in as little time and with minimal attention drift, I know I'm reading an author who can write. Yes, I agree with the other reviewers who decry the somewhat misleading title - it isn't mainly about "engineering" in the strict sense that an actual engineer might expect, as it's equally about mid-level management, organization, and liaison - and the book is rather light on technical details. But the subject matter is vast, and the details are readily available in Wikipedia articles on virtually every device, event, battle, place, and person mentioned in the book. Thus I don't think this book suffers much from failing to quadruple its own size with the details. The relatively non-self-contained nature of the book might be annoying for readers of a paper copy without ready access to a library or the Web - but anyone who can complain about a book on Goodreads can surely access the Web.
  
  I only noticed one error of fact, where Kennedy refers in passing to the Aleutian Islands of Attu and Kiska as "atolls." I'm pretty sure coral doesn't grow at 51-52 degrees north latitude, as corals are confined to tropical and subtropical waters.
  
  I think Kennedy might have slightly over-concluded from the importance of the
  North American P-51 Mustang in the Allies' defeat of the Luftwaffe. While the Mustang undoubtedly was decisive in that defeat, and its development is a classic story of serendipitous invention, Kennedy writes about it as though no other aircraft could possibly have done the job. That isn't quite right, as efforts were underway to extend the range of the
  Republic P-47 Thunderbolt, as Kennedy himself acknowledges. According to Wikipedia, "With increases in fuel capacity as the type was refined, the range of escort missions over Europe steadily increased until the P-47 was able to accompany bombers in raids all the way into Germany." While the P-51 certainly had its strengths, it's not clear that the job of wrecking the Luftwaffe couldn't have been done with further improvements to the P-47. Even if the P-51 was more efficient, building a few thousand more P-47s wouldn't have been a problem for American industry.
  
  Furthermore, the Grumman Corporation was developing an even more advanced fighter aircraft, the
  F7F Tigercat. It was faster than the P-51, with a better climb rate, comparable range, and more powerful guns, although as a larger aircraft I imagine it was less maneuverable. It didn't see combat in WWII as Grumman was building it for the US Navy for the most obvious deployment to the Pacific Theater. Its large size and weight would have restricted it to the
  Midway class aircraft carriers, with the lead ship of that class only being commissioned just after the war ended. Plus the US Navy had things well in hand by 1944 with its existing aircraft types. However, a land-based version would have made obvious sense for the European Theater. As it used two of the same Pratt & Whitney R-2800 double Wasp engines as the P-47, in theory it could have been developed as early. As to why nobody thought to build a comparable machine for the USAAF I have no idea. In the event, the P-51 happened to get developed in time to take the war to the Luftwaffe, but that certainly wasn't the only way things could have played out.
  
  Kennedy's Conclusion chapter nicely ties the whole book together. In hindsight,
  it does seem baffling that the Japanese and Germans didn't sieze the critical Allied bases of Gibraltar, Malta, and Pearl Harbor in the early phase of the war when they seemed to hold all the cards. Imagine how many more people would have died had the Axis been more competent.
• 
  Charles Inglin

  The author gives an overview of major aspects of World War II and discusses the technical problems that had to be solved to achieve victory, and the people, many relatively unknown, who made it possible. Often, personal relationships were instrumental in getting things done. For example, the creation of the Naval Construction Battalions, which were critical to building the infrastructure needed for the advance across the Pacific was directed by Ben Moreel, the only non-combat naval officer to achieve admiral rank during the war. Moreel was a talented engineer who joined the Navy during WWI and became acquainted with Franklin Roosevelt. In 1937 FDR appointed Moreel, a civilian again, chief of the Bureau of Docks and Yards and also chief engineer of the Navy in 1937. Moreel pushed the construction of repair facilities at Pearl Harbor that turned out to be vital for repairing damaged ships after the surprise attack and during the war. Moreel also conceived of the naval construction battalions and with FDR's backing and returning to active duty created and led the organization.
  
  Another example was the P-51 Mustang. Originally designed to meet a British requirement. the P-51 had lackluster high altitude performance and would have been relegated to a ground attack role except for Rolls Royce test pilot Ronnie Harker being asked to evaluate it. Harker decided it needed a better engine. Rolls Royce engineer Witold Challier calculated the probably performance with the Rolls Royce Merlin engine. Rolls Royce general manager E.W. Hives took the idea to Air Marshall Sir Wilfrid Freeman, RAF head of supply, who ordered five aircraft converted and tested. The tests were successful but adoption ran into a roadblock from competing demands for resources and a "not invented here" attitude in the USAAF. It took the efforts of the US ambassador, the assistant air attache, FDR adviser Harry Hopkins and a number of other well connected individuals, as well as the disastrous Schweinfurt raids, to get the USAAF to accept the P-51, which would turn out to be critical to the bombing campaign because of it's long range combined with excellent performance.
  
  A good read for students of World War II interested in the story behind the combat.
• 
  Jay Vinayak

  An excellent account of what Kennedy calls the 'middle level' of the war. The subtitle is more appropriate than the title because, as you'll find out in the introduction, it isn't about a few clever boffins making 'wonder weapons', but about the war machine: how the whole organisational structure of command, control, and information was built up which allowed the British, Americans, and Russians, to defeat the Germans and Japanese.
  
  That's not to say there aren't many excellent character sketches. The ones of Lt. Col. Stewart Blacker, the somewhat pyromaniacal public schoolboy who developed the hedgehog grenades which helped defeat the U-boats, and of Ben Moreell, the US Naval Engineer who converted hundreds of Pacific Islands into workable air-bases.
  
  Many of the conclusions are not explicitly stated, but a lot of gold on planning and organisation is to be found in these chapters after you meditate on them for a bit.
  
  It suffers from a few weaknesses. First, as Kennedy himself admits, he could not go into much detail on the 'middle level' of the Great Patriotic War (that is, the Eastern Front), due to the inaccessibility of Russian archives. I also feel there are areas which would have benefited from more detailing.
  
  For example, in the section on the B-29 bomber, while discussing the difficulties of getting the new technology to work, Kennedy writes:
  
  "Engineers at the giant Wichita plant, ordered to get four entire groups upgraded and completed, ironically referred to their work as 'the Battle of Kansas'...the planes came through, due to the hundreds of minor adjustments by the Boeing engineers." (p.325)
  
  I think talking about a few illustrative adjustments, how and why they improved the plane for the purposes intended, and even the bureaucratic battles which must have had to be fought, would have enriched the discussion. There are a few such cases.
  
  On the whole, very much worth reading for anyone with even a passing interest in World War 2 history.