This is the first of two histories of the war at sea in WW II that I got in New Orleans last month. I chose to read this one first since it was the older, written in 1986. Overall I enjoyed it until, literally, the very end. The writing is fairly good, although in numerous places the sentences get difficult to interpret, since some of the allusions and metaphors are hard to follow, so it's not clear what he is trying to say, or which side he is referring to (there are usually at least two, so knowing the subject of the sentence is sometimes a bit of a trick). I learned a great deal about different aspects of the war that I hadn't read on before - an advantage of a book that covers all aspects of the war (again, until close to the end). For example, aside from C.S. Forester's books on them (both of which I have and need to reread) I knew nothing about the Mediterranean war or the Arctic convoys. I didn't understand the critical significance of Malta, or the horrific losses that the naval war in the Med resulted in. And the story of Midway was - to my surprise - told in great detail and rather well. It's a good account of the battle. There were also detailed accountings of minor engagements I had never heard of which presumably illustrated an important, but neglected, aspect of the naval war.
Hough also repeatedly explains how naval actions determined control of the seas, which was the prerequisite for many land engagements. Without winning the Battle of the Atlantic, the invasion of Normandy could not have taken place. Without winning naval superiority in the Med, Malta would have fallen, and Rommel would have received the reinforcements necessary to take Egypt, cutting England's supply lines. Without the Pacific Fleet providing the air cover and bases, Japan could not have been rolled back up to her doorstep. Everything is connected, and in so many cases control of the sea (and of the air, which are often inextricably intertwined) is a necessary requirement for everything. That he makes this useful connection time and time again - that sea power was a necessary prerequisite to so many other things (admittedly I'm not a hostile audience to the concept, especially after reading Nimitz' emphasis of this point immediately after the war as told in Potter's biography) makes his ending so much more baffling, as I'll explain in a moment.
But here is the first problem. The chapters were by subject area, which - perhaps due to careless organization - resulted in major discontinuties in the story, because they went back and forth chronologically, so that in one chapter the U.S. was solidly in the war, whicle in the next it wasn't. In the next it was. The Bismarck and Tirpitz were a threat, then they weren't, then they were. It's hard to take a major player like the U.S. or the bogeyman of the German surface fleet and show it to be not a crucial factor and then that it is, and preseve any sense of drama. For example, I already knew from Heinrichs' The Threshold of War how hopeless the battle of the Atlantic was prior to Pearl Harbor and how close-run afterwards, but Hough repeatedly gave away the ending, so to speak, so this became a minor side-show - just a temporary problem for several months early in the war. It was never a major issue in the book, because from the outset it was shown to have been under control by the time related in the chapters. Separating actions by subject matter is fine and good, but the author must be careful not to let the chapters anticipate the action too much. Even if it means separating the subject matter into chronological steps rather than dealing with it all at once, I think it is crucial that the book not give away the endings too soon. This is not analysis of how a result was achieved, it is a narrative, and as such it has to have some kind of dramatic arc. You really blow the drama by pulling the teeth of the menace too early.
But the more objectionable part of the book, which infuriated me to the point that if I could throw it out the window I probably would (a drastic statement from a bibliophile like me) was the conclusion of the book. I had always recognized that as the author was a former RAF pilot in the war the story probably gave a little more attention to the British side of the war, but as he was particularly complimentary of the often unfairly maligned U.S. admiral Frank Jack Fletcher, and uniformly seem to understand the American side, I let it slide. Until I read the last six pages of the book this morning. Here's what happened.
He concludes the story of the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944 pretty well. He makes clear that even if the U.S. had lost the various battles it wouldn't really have mattered, although he never explains what actual "loss" would have meant, i.e. that the transports at Leyte would have been brought under attack by Japanese battleships. But even if they had been, that would have resulted in the eventual destruction of the Japanese fleet by Halsey's carriers when they eventually showed up, so the net loss would have still favored the U.S. They could afford to lsoe unloaded transports and the Japanese couldn't afford the loss of their remaining fleet. Although he makes the point that at this stage it really didn't matter - after Philippine Sea there was nothing the Japanese could do to forestall the inevitable - they could just increase the body count. He also, inexplicably, concludes that Halsey's actions deserve no blame which, when you leave out the fact that he left the landing forces undefended unnecessarily, is probably right. But a major omission. Or at least I thought it was major until I read the next section.
After Leyte, he goes into a charming little discussion for six pages about how the British fleet got into the Pacific War in late 1944 and early 1945 over Admiral King's vehement objections. The discussion includes one sentence regarding their actual operations - as opposed to anecdotes about their commanders' interactions with the Americans - and then the book ends! My jaw just dropped. Not a single word about the invasion of Okinawa, or the titanic battle against the kamikaze, or halsey's typhoons, or Iwo Jima, or the bombing of Japan (would have been nice to see some analysis of how effective carrier planes were or were not against Japan in the final stages of the war). The book totally dispenses with any narrative or discussion of the closing phase of the war, even though it is the best illustration of a naval force providing the land forces the ability to take an objective. As Nimitz famously told the Army commander on Okinawa, he was losing a ship and a half a day supporting the landings, yet this chapter in the war is completely absent. In my opinion, this is an unforgivable omission in a book of this nature, making it unredeemably flawed. The British contribution in the Pacific was a minor side note to the end of the war, but apparently in order to end the book on a British note, he completely dispenses with the last ten months of the Pacific War! The casulaties an a night action by PT boarts off the Italian coast gets several pages, but the death of thousands of sailors and damage or destruction of hundreds of ships supporting the land operations in the final phase of the war gets no mention at all - only an oblique reference in one sentence to the effect that the British fleet shouldered its fair share of the load during this period. Okinawa itself merits only two pages in the index - two mentions at all.
The full story of the war at sea will have to be told be someone else - this is not it.