Sorry for not getting this up earlier. Honey do season has begun.

This chapter, beachhead, has quite a lot going on. The USN gets into some interesting action, the Army has some pitched battles, and the entire situation with the French comes to a head.

I've mentioned that I discussed portions of this book on another forum a while ago. One of the portions concerned the naval battle off Casablanca. Some points I wanted to point out about this. In keeping with his "theme" of how totally unprepared the US was Atkinson does seem to pick on the USN a bit more than I think is needed. Early in the book he mentioned how the fleet had only one "true" carrier, USS Ranger, with four escort carriers that he mentions were just oil tankers with flight decks added. That's true but these four carriers were among the best of the converted carriers, and certainly light years ahead of anything the Germans or French had. In the passage from "An orgy of Disorder", beginning "The Jean Bart..." pg 131, he talks about how Jean Bart was hit by 5 shells, where I believe it was actually 6, and how "not one of the shells exploded...the consequence in part of fuzes dating to 1918." I'm no expert on how fuses are used I know for a fact the US didn't have any 16 inch naval guns in service in 1918, and that the shells used by the Massachusetts were far different from those used by the first USN 16 inchers. Finally at least one of the shells, I actually think two of them, did in fact explode, and that two of the remaining shells didn't, not because they were duds, but rather because they didn't encounter enough armor where they hit to cause the fuses to explode. Atkinson also seems to blame the USN on poor performance on the next page in the passage "French shells were dye loaded..." when he mentions "The concussion of their own big guns knocked out the radar range finders on Tuscaloosa and Massachusetts so the gun teams had to aim crudely by sight (my italics) waisting quantities of shells." I'd like to point out that even without radar American gunnery was excellent, and that the Germans managed to sink four British battlecruisers in two wars using "crude" optical sights!

I will give Atkinson credit in that he recalls an incident I've never heard about. In the section "It's all over for now" the passage beginning on pg 148 "Hewitt resumed his station..." is the story of how the French navy had worked for two days getting the guns of Jean Bart back in action. They managed some 10 two gun salvos before being knocked out again for good. I'm a big fan of naval fiction from the days of "fighting sail." I've read how the French were famous, some could say notorious, for their habit of firing a final broadside, "for honor", just before surrendering. This incident might be a good example of this.

So what points of interest have you noticed in your reading this chapter gang?

I am not certain about how the fuzes used in large naval ammunition are, but one thing I do know is that as far as US Army Field Artillery is concerned, the size of the projectile is of NO factor with respect to the fuze. All FA rounds (105mm, 155mm, 175mm and 203mm) use identical Fuzes. While there is no question that the projectiles used by the Massachusetts, as 16" would not have been left over from any US Naval projectiles from 1918, it is certainly plausible to me that perhaps some of the fuzes may have been.

The four basic fuze actions are point detonating, delay, timed and proximity (this is a bit simplified). For most applications, the difference between PD and delay is an adjustment on the standard fuze, and the other two actions each use a different fuze.

For Naval gun fire, 16" guns had both High Explosive, and Armor Piercing Projectiles, and if I'm not mistaken, the AP rounds were almost 1000 lbs heavier than HE. Against another battleship, you'd absolutely use the AP rounds, and you'd want the "delay action" on the fuze. The HE rounds would be used in shore bombardment.

I don't know if on naval ammo they use the same fuze with two settings or a unique fuze on the AP, but it isn't too difficult to believe the older style fuzes for smaller caliber projectiles would still be in use. As long as the cavity in the nose of the shell and the threads are the same, they'd fit, and if they fit, they'd work unless there was something in the design that went bad over time.

As far as the time setting and proximity fuzes since the purpose of these is to have the round go off in the air, I don't even know why you'd use these on main gun ammunition, although I suppose you COULD.

The one thing I DO know is that the "proximity" fuze was definitely NOT used in WW I. One of the reasons the 5" gun was so successful in bringing down enemy aircraft was the capability of the proximity fuze to detonate when it was near to an enemy plane regardless of whether the plane changed height after the shell was fired. As you can imagine this was a HUGE advantage against a diving kamikaze such as we faced in Okinawa.

Tom

I liked the section about dealing with the French, especially the piece about Dickinson's orders to deal with Darlan if he tried to leave confinement..

Other than that, Atkinson has about wore me out with his useless tidbits, extraneous comments, and faulty allegories, not to mention dubious military terminology.

Since we're talking about "Orgy" & the Jean-Bart, how about turrets "heavy as a frigate" -- now just what does that mean ? From the Age of Figthing sail until now, the definition & design of frigates has changed and certainly so has the weight.

It might be grammatically correct, but I don't think I've ever seen "Junkerses" as a plural ...

At one point soldiers are crammed into "two British half-tracks" -- just what might they be ??? If US Lend Lease then they aren't "British" ...

In a dogfight, we have "fuselage and aileron fragments" falling to the ground -- what no wings ? And I'd have to check the likelihood they were fabric covered ailerons ...

I think he went overboard on Truscott (I've read some about him, bio & stuff & like him) to start with -- the exagerrated negativism, or focus on a quirk of dress or stature, is starting to wear on me ...

OTOH, I give him credit for the passage on St Cloud & the choices Allen made -- the signs of an awareness of global/political considerations & not just the "blow my way thru" attarition warfare of the US tradition.

Also the summary at the end of the chapter is rather nice, it shows some learning taking place ...

But I'm unable to get over my nit-picking and I think that is a bad sign ... The book is starting to turn me off and I haven't had that happen since I read Trulock's "In the Hands of Providence" about Joshua Chamberlain.

John

Tom, that's interesting about the fuses. (I still don't know the proper spelling for that, fuzes like Atkinson uses, or fuses like I think it should be.)

John, I understand where you're coming from about Atkinson. I'm not 100% crazy about his style either, but I'm not willing to give up on him yet. As far as I'm concerned what he does well, makes it interesting and easy to read, he does very well. He's not a miltiary scholar though, as far as I'm concerned. The book won the Pulitzer Price. I don't know if the people who give out that award are mostly news people, or if they have historians on the staff as well. This is certainly a '"popular history" and not a schorlarly work.





I'm curious about this. I've read some things about Chamberlain that makes him sound less the terrific hero that Gettysburg and Gods and Generals made him out to be. Are you saying you don't like the book because of what it tells about Chamberlain, good or bad, or because you don't like the authors style?

Rodger:

I'm charter life member of the Army Historical Foundation -- one reason I got the book is that AHF pretty much loved it .... gues if the Pulitzer folks liked it, I'm a minority ...

On Chamberlain, no it is Trulock's style -- just about everything she writes smacks of hero-worship with a heavy touch of infatuation ... I put it down half-way through ... I couldn't learn anything because the material was tainted by the style ...

John

I must say that phrase struck me strange when I read it also. To be fair to Atkinson, and obviously I'm one of his biggest critics, Frigate was a type of fighting ship in WWII. If you've read The Cruel Sea the second ship they got after Compass Rose was sunk was a River class frigate. Frigate's in both the RN and USN were around 1500 tons, which I imagine is about what a quad 15" gun turret would way. I suppose he could have said "heavy as a contemporary frigate" I wondered why he used "frigate" as a comparison. I've seen quite often a turret compared to a destroyer, so frigate isn't too much of a stretch.




There is a very good sentance near the end of chapter three that I felt would have been a good thesis statement if placed at the beginning of the book. On page 159 of my copy, the paragraph beginning "TORCH had lured..." The truth was that a callow, clumsy army had arrived in North Africa with little notion of how to act as a world power." THat pretty much says it all as far as Atkinson's major thesis for this book seems to be so far.

Rodger:

My point on the "frigate" thing was that outside of some grognards, who knows what a frigate weights -- vertainly not this ol' Army guy ... why not say 1500 tons instead of wasting everybody's time with meaningless analogies designed to show whatever you know and not help the reading audience ...

BTW, I note that Atkinso got the Pulitzer, but not for this book -- my faith in the Pulitzer is restored ...

I have nothing but picky comments about Chapter 4, but am enjoying the start of Chap 5 much more ...

John