Books in Progress

One of the interesting things about Stalin is that he was more faithful in keeping his agreements with his enemies than his allies. Hitler could have continued to receive the massive quantities of supplies from the Soviets throughout the war if he he had not invaded the USSR. Stalin signed a non-aggression pact with Japan that he faithfully kept until the summer of 45. American ships sailing to Soviet ports were never attacked by Japan. Stalin had no reason to invade Germany; reports are that he was stunned when the Germans attacked. On the other hand Stalin was his expected lying self when dealing with Churchill and Roosevelt, every word was nuanced. His son Obama is the same.

The understanding between the big three was that the Soviets would fight the bulk of the land war against the Germans and the Americans and English would take care of the war with Japan. This, I suspect was part of the Germany first strategy. At any rate the US economy would not be able to produce enough landing craft to invade Europe before the summer of 44 at the earliest and Stalin was well aware of it. The invasion of Sicily set Overlord back by 6 months. When Roosevelt and Churchill met at Casablanca in 43 Marshall told Churchill there would be no landings in 43 if resources were committed to Sicily. For reasons passing understanding, Churchill continued to hold to the "soft underbelly" fantasy. Some of the worst fighting in the entire European war was done by the 10th mountain trying to get up Italy. 

Allen Brooke (I read Sir Arthur Bryant's books based on Brooke's diaries) wanted to avoid through the Ljubljana Gap.  I asked Professor Haywood, who taught History of East-Central Europe, about this, and he didn't think there was any easy route in that era.  Think of Cumberland Gap or Khyber Pass; many such gaps are very strong defensive positions.  The Allies suffered heavier losses than the Germans in Italy, despite all their advantages and German losses in their offensives at Anzio, until Diadem in May 1944.  The Germans never fully recovered from the losses then (partly because of the heavy losses they soon suffered in France and then on the Eastern Front).  It would have been worse if Mark Clark hadn't sent VI Corps to Rome by way of the Alban Hills instead of going to Valmontone to cut off the retreat of most of the Germans to the south.  (Of course, Diadem might not have worked so well, despite the massive air support, had it not been for General Juin's mountain troops, many of them North African, who ruptured the German line in the Aurunci Mountains.)

The stab in the back would probably still have been argued, though it might have been less effective.  Most importantly, the High Command wouldn't have been able to argue that they were in fact unbeaten, which was a related but different issue. 

Taking the book I’m reading as gospel, the Marines (and Holland) had some legitimate beefs with Ralph Smith.

Let us remember that the one and only point of Saipan was to gain an airstrip. And that airstrip was left unsecured likely far longer than it need have been. Hundreds of Japs were left isolated on the southern tip of the island. And that was fine. They could be mopped up later (which, of course, the Marines had to do). But the army was keeping a thin perimeter. The Army wanted to keep even more men there. But Holland Smith needed the Army to surge into the middle, the Marines being on (I believe) the left and right flanks of the island and driving. He didn’t need glorified guards back at the airfield.

As was pointed out, he could have easily covered a line and handled any infiltration with minimal men if they would have just walked the line up a couple hundred yards where the point would quickly narrow. Later, the Japs made a fairly substantial run on the base and through Smith's "guard" and shot things up pretty good. They were repelled, but damage done.

So, from what I can see, Ralph Smith just lacked basic operation competence. And he didn’t seem all that fired up to do a hell of a lot. And apparently by his own admission he admitted he was a bureaucrat, not a field commander. The Marines were shedding lots of blood and yet you had this Army clown who seemed to have other things on his mind. It was “good riddance” to him finally coming from as high up as King, I think. Certainly it did say that Nimitz readily signed onto dismissing Smith even that would cause friction with the Army.

What you learn about any large operation like this is that any organization is full of clowns. I certainly come with no prejudices, one way or another in this regard. But going by this book, it would seems the Marines were a magnitude of order more professional than the Army personnel on Saipan.

But not all of Navy came off well. Interestingly, the book describes a lot of untoward radio chatter of the planes coming back from their raid on the Combined Fleet after that fleet was fleeing west after the Turkey Shoot. A lot of American flyers were lost and/or had ditched in the water. And there was a lot of actually crying (literal crying) coming over the radio. A lot of people were a bit shocked by this, things having gone so well and been done so professionally up to this point. Pure battle fatigue was considered a likely culprit.

Dozens, if not in the low hundreds, of America flyers were unaccounted for. Mitscher asked for permission to take the fleet back through the path the flyers had came to find who they could. Spruance readily gave permission. This was, at the time, considered an extraordinary act and endeared the flyers to the Navy command for the duration. This was a clear signal that the pilots were not considered expendable.

Mitscher also had a surprise for the flyers as they straggled home, low on fuel, and navigating at night, often in planes that had been shot up a bit and with many of the flyers suffering wounds. But Mitscher didn’t want to let on to his pilots beforehand what he was going to do lest it take away from the sharpness of the effort they put into navigation. They would need all the careful skill they had to make it home.

But when the flyers came near to home, many thought they had navigated badly and had stumbled onto a hostile Japanese city on a nearby island. The entire Pacific was lit up like city at night. Mitscher had turned every conceivable light on. The cruisers and destroyers even were aiming some of their search lights down to illuminate the water to make ditching easier. There were so many flares and other things bursting in the sky, it looked like a 4th of July celebration.

It obviously did finally occur to the flyers that they were home. And there were, unfortunately, quite a few deadly accidents in trying to land so many planes that were low on fuel being piloted by exhausted airmen. And it was a case of land where you could. Each carrier was instructed to land the planes regardless of where they actually belonged.

Back-biting in the services definitely goes with the territory. There was all kinds of fault-finding of Spruance after Midway. We was definitely vindicated regarding one malicious bit of fault-finding that said he should not have retired east at one point but should have pressed forward so he could attack the Japs in the morning. Captured documents show he would have run smack dab into the Japanese battleships and stuff. Not good.

And after the Battle of the Philippines, the fault-finding continued. They said Spruance should have gotten all the carriers. The author (either his own opinion or paraphrasing Spruance) noted that without planes and pilots, those carriers we as good as at the bottom of the sea.

Great minds think alike, Mr. Kung.



It’s a terrible numbers game to play, but something in that range is very likely true.

That reminds me of an interesting section in this book. The military leader in Saipan, General Yoshitsugu Saito, saw the writing on the wall. He (or someone else there….Chūichi Nagumo?) ordered (I forget the Japanese word for it) a basically symbolic suicide attack by everyone left. Both Saito and Nagumo committed ritual suicide before this was to happen.

But they later got a message from Tokyo (or at least a higher authority) not to do so. It was a plea to not waste lives, that if they would serve their Emperor, they would make the best use of what they could do. It was a call to guerrilla action. I’m not much forward in the book from here so I’m assuming some made the suicide gesture and others didn’t.

Wiki lists 5000 suicides amongst the Japaese military on Saipan plus many Japanese civilians.



There are a lot of Hollywood assholes out there. Lee Marvin should forever deserve a pass.



Let’s just say that from what I’ve read in this book, they didn’t take a lot of prisoners.



This has to be very close to the truth.