Carrier Battles: Command Decision in Harm's Way

by Douglas V. Smith

A longtime professor at the Naval War College who once directed strategic and long-range planning for the Navy and Marine Corps in Europe considers the transformation of the U.S. Navy from a defensive-minded coastal defense force into an offensive risk-taking navy in the very early stages of World War II. Noting that none of the Navy's most significant World War II leaders were commissioned before the Spanish-American War and none participated in any important offensive operations in World War I, Douglas Smith examines the premise that education, rather than experience in battle, accounts for that transformation. In this book, Smith evaluates his premise by focusing on the five carrier battles of the second world war to determine the extent to which the inter-war education of the major operational commanders translated into their decision processes, and the extent to which their interaction during their educational experiences transformed them from risk-adverse to risk-accepting in their operational concepts. His book will interest students of the Pacific War, naval aviation, education, and leadership.

Genres: History, World War II, Military History, Naval History, Nonfiction, Military Fiction

352 pages, Hardcover

First published December 14, 2006

Reviews

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the sinking of Britain's most powerful surface units in Asia and the occupation of the Philippines, the Japanese Imperial Navy became the most powerful naval force in the Pacific. Despite that, in the two years that followed, the US Navy was able to not only prevent Japan from consolidating it's defensive perimeter but was actually able to defeat the Japanese in a series of carrier battles that set the stage for the great offensives of 1944-1945. Vice Admiral Frank J. Fletcher stated after the war that it was not so much the atomic bomb nor the Russian entry into the Pacific War that defeated Japan, but the complete destruction of the island nation's navy (and merchant fleet) by the USN that sealed it's fate.

This book is a fascinating study of the five carrier battles (the author excludes the Battle of Leyte Gulf, since Ozawa's carriers were used as bait and had no airpower aboard in that action) examines the decision processes of the top US commanders at each of these battles. He argues that pre-war education, specifically that of the Naval War College, was key in creating doctrine, strategy and tactics that allowed inferior US forces to successfully counter The Japanese Combined Fleet until the full weight of US industrial might could be brought to bear. Each chapter begins with an overview of a specific battle and closes with an assessment and grading of the key commanders based on criteria set forth in the introduction.

This is not a book for the casual history buff, but for anyone with a keen interest in the Pacific Theater of the Second World War, this book provides an invaluable and unique analysis.

[Michael Toleno · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good analysis of every major carrier-to-carrier battle in the Pacific theater of World War II.

I recall that I started reading this book in manuscript form before it was published, then finished it on line (possibly also before it was published). Portions of this book were required reading for Strategy & Policy course for JPME I (Joint Professional Military Education, phase I), a war college–level course of instruction that most officers complete by the O-5 level (lieutenant colonel or Navy commander rank). Years after I completed JPME I (in 2009 through the U.S. Naval War College), I went back and read the entire books from which portions had been selected for JPME. I completed this book while I was still in, but almost finished with, the JPME I course.

[William McLoughlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting analyses of major WWII sea battles. Often seems like the author is forcing them into his foregone conclusions.