Clay Blair on Admiral King and Operation Drumbeat

As a more general point, are there any writers critical of the US war effort in the mould of Correlli Barnett?

John Ellis in 'Brute Force' has a certain agenda. its aimed at all the Allied nations, & he does not hold back on certain points on Axis decisions. But yes, he rips harshly on some US policies.
 
Well it's difficult to criticize the American war effort to much because they started getting into the war around peak Axis and gained the initiative in less than a year in both theaters.

Even if you place US mobilization as starting in 1940 with the Two Ocean Navy budget, massive funds for the Army & Army Air Corps, and induction of all reservists and national guards into active Federal Service its still a impressive. From under 500,000 trained active servicemen to over ten million in effective combat forces in three years & industrial production to match.
 
Well it's difficult to criticize the American war effort to much because they started getting into the war around peak Axis and gained the initiative in less than a year in both theaters.

There's quite a few things to be critical of, if you look:
- Backing away from Germany First
- Belief in the effectiveness of the Chinese Army
- Slowness in actually getting into the fight - few divisions were in combat 2 years after the war started
- Daylight bombing
- Selection and preparation of higher commanders (sacking 3 Corps commanders in a year)
- Replacement system
- A large amount of "not invented here"
- Etc

However, there were few absolute disasters, and most memories of US performance are of the last year of the war when they were dominant in all spheres.
 

hipper

Banned
There's quite a few things to be critical of, if you look:
- Backing away from Germany First
- Belief in the effectiveness of the Chinese Army
- Slowness in actually getting into the fight - few divisions were in combat 2 years after the war started
- Daylight bombing
- Selection and preparation of higher commanders (sacking 3 Corps commanders in a year)
- Replacement system
- A large amount of "not invented here"
- Etc

However, there were few absolute disasters, and most memories of US performance are of the last year of the war when they were dominant in all spheres.


There was nothing wrong with daylight bomb8ng It was the Insistence on unescorted bombing that was error.
 
There was nothing wrong with daylight bomb8ng It was the Insistence on unescorted bombing that was error.

Agreed - bullet points don't always get the point across.

However given experience from the Battle of Britain and RAF sweeps over France, insisting that unescorted bombing would be effective is problematical.
 
- Slowness in actually getting into the fight - few divisions were in combat 2 years after the war started

Or, conversely, overeagerness to get into the fight - a cross-channel assault in 1942 or 1943, before the Battle of the Atlantic was truly won or the Luftwaffe had been decisively defeated, could have been catastrophic.
 
A lot of books in the US that are critical have a tendency toward conspiracy theories like FDR knew about Pearl Harbor or Truman ignored Japanese peace overtures in order to send a message to Stalin. Then of course there is nonsense like this:

https://www.amazon.com/Churchill-Hi...8&qid=1515105602&sr=8-1&keywords=pat+buchanan

Another thing that a lot of "critical" US written histories are geared toward are criticism of specific individuals. John Prados his a huge critic of Jack Fletcher (John Lundstrom on the other hand is a fan of Fletcher) as one example. This of course leads to those individual authors sniping at each other.
 
Or, conversely, overeagerness to get into the fight - a cross-channel assault in 1942 or 1943, before the Battle of the Atlantic was truly won or the Luftwaffe had been decisively defeated, could have been catastrophic.

Catastrophic for the British mainly, as US involvement would have been limited, especially in 1942.


with 57% giving it 5 stars, which is just depressing.
 
Catastrophic for the British mainly, as US involvement would have been limited, especially in 1942.

Catastrophic for the UK, the US, Germany, and the rest of continental Europe, because it would probably have led to the Red Army advancing all the way to the Atlantic.
 
Both CNO, Starke & King had some distractions. The Japanese attacks were occupying a lot of attention. I also notice US Naval intelligence gave credibility to the idea the Germans were about to make major moves in West Africa, South Atlantic, and Brazil. German inquiries to Petains government about air reconissance bases in Morroco & Dakar were apparently discovered. The Brits were fretting about possible Axis air & submarine bases in the Spanish/Portuguse Atlantic islands. January-March King gave some attention to this, including plans for the Atlantic fleet to seize assorted Atlantic islands and Plan RUBBER for chasing a Nazi airborne corps off the north coast of Brazil.

That last would have been ASB, but the Brits were taking the possibility of naval/airbases in Morroco & the Atlantic islands seriously at the time. They had their own ideas in 1941 for seizing the islands, and Op GYMNAST started as a counter to Axis use of Morroco. Churchill was anxiously inquiring of the Americans about carrying part of the load in those actions. Globally Churchill was presenting a lot more urgent actions for the US in general & the USN specifically. He wanted a considerable portion of the US Navy to rush off to the South Pacific to save the Dutch East Indies, he urged the USN prob=vide more escorts for the mid and south Atlantic battles, the USn needed to put priority on helping in upgrading the ports in the Persian Gulf to assist the USSR, could the USN assist in the Mediterranean battle & supplying Malta? Point here is that while the Brits did urge the USN to do something about the danger of submarines off the East Coast, Carribean, and Gulf of Mexico they were also urging major action by the USN on a half dozen other points. Churchills management style tended to lose the message in the noise and leave priorities adrift. So its not suprising the Brit advice about one of several factors in the anti submarine battle was not taken into imeadiate action.
 
Both CNO, Starke & King had some distractions. The Japanese attacks were occupying a lot of attention. I also notice US Naval intelligence gave credibility to the idea the Germans were about to make major moves in West Africa, South Atlantic, and Brazil. German inquiries to Petains government about air reconissance bases in Morroco & Dakar were apparently discovered. The Brits were fretting about possible Axis air & submarine bases in the Spanish/Portuguse Atlantic islands. January-March King gave some attention to this, including plans for the Atlantic fleet to seize assorted Atlantic islands and Plan RUBBER for chasing a Nazi airborne corps off the north coast of Brazil.

That last would have been ASB, but the Brits were taking the possibility of naval/airbases in Morroco & the Atlantic islands seriously at the time. They had their own ideas in 1941 for seizing the islands, and Op GYMNAST started as a counter to Axis use of Morroco. Churchill was anxiously inquiring of the Americans about carrying part of the load in those actions. Globally Churchill was presenting a lot more urgent actions for the US in general & the USN specifically. He wanted a considerable portion of the US Navy to rush off to the South Pacific to save the Dutch East Indies, he urged the USN prob=vide more escorts for the mid and south Atlantic battles, the USn needed to put priority on helping in upgrading the ports in the Persian Gulf to assist the USSR, could the USN assist in the Mediterranean battle & supplying Malta? Point here is that while the Brits did urge the USN to do something about the danger of submarines off the East Coast, Carribean, and Gulf of Mexico they were also urging major action by the USN on a half dozen other points. Churchills management style tended to lose the message in the noise and leave priorities adrift. So its not suprising the Brit advice about one of several factors in the anti submarine battle was not taken into imeadiate action.

That makes a lot of sense regading one of my major bugbears of WW2 - that is the USAAF basing its somewhat then limited number of dedicated VL Liberator MRAs being based to cover the South Atlantic and in fact as it turned out they ended up everywhere the Uboats were not.

I never understood why this was the case and now with that nugget of data it makes sense that those Aircraft were perfect and probably easy to move/base in that region of the world.

So thanks for that!
 
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