Memorial Day “Prometheus”

(Memorial Day began as “Decoration Day” after the Civil War, a war successfully fought and ended by Commander-in-Chief President Abraham Lincoln.  As a young man, Lincoln was an avid reader of Shakespeare, the Bible and Lord Byron.  This poem, “Prometheus,” was first published in 1816, when Lincoln was only 7 years old.  It weaves themes of mythology, mortality and heroism. -- Bill Doughty)

by George Gordon (Lord) Byron (1788-1824)

TITAN! to whose immortal eyes
The sufferings of mortality,
Seen in their sad reality,
Were not as things that gods despise;
What was thy pity's recompense?
A silent suffering, and intense;
The rock, the vulture, and the chain,
All that the proud can feel of pain,
The agony they do not show,
The suffocating sense of woe,
Which speaks but in its loneliness,
And then is jealous lest the sky
Should have a listener, nor will sigh
Until its voice is echoless.
 
Titan! to thee the strife was given
Between the suffering and the will,
Which torture where they cannot kill;
And the inexorable Heaven,
And the deaf tyranny of Fate,
The ruling principle of Hate,
Which for its pleasure doth create
The things it may annihilate,
Refus'd thee even the boon to die:
The wretched gift Eternity
Was thine--and thou hast borne it well.
All that the Thunderer wrung from thee
Was but the menace which flung back
On him the torments of thy rack;
The fate thou didst so well foresee,
But would not to appease him tell;
And in thy Silence was his Sentence,
And in his Soul a vain repentance,
And evil dread so ill dissembled,
That in his hand the lightnings trembled.
 
Thy Godlike crime was to be kind,
To render with thy precepts less
The sum of human wretchedness,
And strengthen Man with his own mind;
But baffled as thou wert from high,
Still in thy patient energy,
In the endurance, and repulse
Of thine impenetrable Spirit,
Which Earth and Heaven could not convulse,
A mighty lesson we inherit:
Thou art a symbol and a sign
To Mortals of their fate and force;
Like thee, Man is in part divine,
A troubled stream from a pure source;
And Man in portions can foresee
His own funereal destiny;
His wretchedness, and his resistance,
And his sad unallied existence:
To which his Spirit may oppose
Itself--and equal to all woes,
And a firm will, and a deep sense,
Which even in torture can descry
Its own concenter'd recompense,
Triumphant where it dares defy,
And making Death a Victory.

James D. Hornfischer's Five Navy Reads

(Author James D. Hornfischer sent us five picks, all focusing on “Warfighting First,” the first tenet of CNO Adm. Greenert’s “Sailing Directions.”  The author of  Ship of Ghosts and The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors, as well as Neptune's Inferno, Hornfischer, who was involved “one way or another” in helping these books get published, is a recipient of the Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature. -- Bill Doughty)

by James D. Hornfischer

The following books may be of interest to your readers:

“Enterprise: America's Fightingest Ship and the Men Who Helped Win World War II” by Barrett Tillman.

As the nuclear-powered USS Enterprise CVN-65 prepares for deactivation and decommissioning, naval aviation historian Barrett Tillman opens the book anew on the ship's legendary World War II forebear: the seventh carrier Enterprise, whose crew fought her from Pearl Harbor to Okinawa, earning twenty battle stars along the way. If a single ship can tell the story of the Pacific War, the old CV-6 was that ship. Tillman tells the story better than anyone.

“Battleground Pacific: A Marine Rifleman's Combat Odyssey in K/3/5” by Sterling Mace with Nick Allen.

Since HBO aired the miniseries The Pacific there's been an explosion of excellent memoirs by World War II-era Marines. Mr. Mace, who enlisted in 1942, served as a rifleman in Company K, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, fighting at Peleliu and Okinawa. You haven't seen the war clearly until you've seen it through his unsentimental eyes.

“Outlaw Platoon: Heroes, Renegades, Infidels, and the Brotherhood of War in Afghanistan” by Sean Parnell with John Bruning.

The story of this much-decorated 10th Mountain Division platoon during their 14-month deployment to eastern Afghanistan in 2006 is very relevant to Navy readers at a time when our NSW operators, corpsmen, EOD techs, pilots and many others are deeply involved in the war against terrorism in that forsaken place. Parnell's platoon took 80 percent casualties fighting formidably talented enemy light infantry, and his book brings you right into their desperate situation.

“Neptune's Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal” by James D. Hornfischer.

If you serve in our surface-warfare fleet and marvel at the fighting spirit of the best warfighters around you, you might want to know where that spirit came from. At Guadalcanal, in seven major naval actions from August to November of 1942, our peacetime black-shoe fleet transformed itself into a world-beater. You will not soon forget the stories of men like Rear Admirals Norman Scott, Daniel Callaghan, or Willis Lee -- or countless bluejackets who helped seize Imperial Japan's crown as masters of nighttime surface warfare.

“Service: A Navy SEAL at War” by Marcus Luttrell.

The "Lone Survivor" returns with a powerfully drawn story of modern warfare and the brotherhood of all those who serve. The book follows the legendary SEAL back to war after Operation Redwing -- this time to Ramadi, Iraq, as SEAL Team 5 takes on Al Qaeda and other insurgents in the most violent city in the Middle East. Marcus gives tribute to all the warfighters who helped his teammates get the upper hand in 2006, before the "Surge."

(Special thanks to Jim Hornfischer! Look for more surprising recommendations on Navy Reads in the months ahead. Navy Reads will also have more to say about the bicentennial of the War or 1812 and the 70th anniversary of Battle of Midway.  “Joe Rochefort’s War” by Eliott Carlson, published by USNI, follows...)

Happy Birthday Joe Rochefort - Midway Legacy

by Bill Doughty

Today is the 112th anniversary of the birth of Joseph John Rochefort.  Tomorrow, May 13, 2012, is the 70th anniversary of Rochefort’s discovery of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s plan to attack Midway Atoll.

The Battle of Midway altered the course of World War II and saved Hawaii, Australia and perhaps the West Coast of the United States from further attacks by Japan.

With a reporter’s skills, Elliott Carlson shows the influence of one man on the outcome of Midway in “Joe Rochefort’s War: The Odyssey of the Codebreaker Who Outwitted Yamamoto at Midway.”

Carlson employs dogged research, personal interviews, presentation of facts and a resistance to speculate.  Thanks to his access to Rochefort’s family members and Navy archives he is able to paint a picture of the complicated man and the political intrigue that marked his naval career.

Rochefort is revealed as a “restless maverick” -- caustic, acerbic, sarcastic.  But he was also gifted with extraordinary memory, able to solve puzzles and synthesize complex shifting information.

These abilities proved indispensable in the Pacific War.  Rochefort implemented actionable intelligence in an independent, decentralized setting at Pearl Harbor’s Station Hypo -- predicting the future for Adm. Nimitz and Adm. King and allowing them to develop strategies to defeat the enemy.

Rochefort, the youngest of seven children, was born May 12, 1900 to Irish immigrant parents.  To put things into historical context: his father, Frank, was born in Dublin 160 years ago (1852), only forty years after the War of 1812 and nine years before the American Civil War.  One hundred years ago (1912), the Rochefort family moved from Dayton, Ohio to Los Angeles, where Joe would be recruited into the Navy.

With no college or even a high school diploma, Joe Rochefort joined the Navy in 1918.  His science and math abilities propelled him to the rank of ensign, and he served on training ships, tankers, a mine sweeper, and a destroyer.  He served aboard the cruisers USS New Orleans and USS Indianapolis, as he was recruited into the intelligence field, and on several battleships, including USS Maryland, USS California, USS Pennsylvania and USS Arizona.

Author Carlson shows how Rochefort was haunted by the attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.  Rochefort felt a sense of guilt for not being able to predict the attack.  But Pearl Harbor motivated him, as it did for the rest of the nation.

Rochefort redoubled his efforts to crack the JN-25(b) code, analyze radio transmissions and track the Imperial Japanese Navy.  Carlson provides just enough information about the art of codebreaking -- in an era of nascent computing and related technology -- to show how daunting the task was for Rochefort’s team: 50,000 possible meanings of 33,333 5-digit codes with an indeterminate, shifting beginning.

Despite the challenges, Rochefort correctly predicted the location of the Imperial Fleet in the western Pacific as early as January 1942.  He gave Nimitz information that proved correct in the Battle of the Coral Sea, setting the stage for Midway.

“Gains registered in cryptanalysis and codebreaking permitted Rochefort to practically look over Yamamoto’s shoulder as he moved his forces around the Pacific,” Carlson writes.

On May 13, 1942, Rochefort decrypted information that the IJN was focusing on areas near Midway and the Aleutians.  Rochefort analyzed the information and made a case for an impending attack on Midway, suspected as being “AF” in the Japanese code.  He presented his analysis on sheets of paper on plywood and wooden sawhorses; PowerPoint would not be available for decades.

With help from former submariner, engineer and University of Hawaii faculty member Jasper Holmes, who knew Midway’s infrastructure, Rochefort devised a ruse so the Japanese would reveal their plans.  Nimitz approved the plan, and a fake message was issued that Midway was running short of fresh water.  The IJN then sent out their own message about the water shortage in code, thus confirming that “AF,” “Affirm Fox,” was indeed Midway.

Scene on board USS Yorktown (CV-5) during Battle of Midway. (Navy photo) 

Nimitz carried out his own subterfuge, directing fake carrier transmissions in the Coral Sea and a bombing of Tulagi by PBYs that fooled the Japanese into thinking that U.S. aircraft carriers were still on location.

With intelligence, guts and luck the United States Navy defeated the Imperial Japanese Navy at Midway.

Carlson writes: “Eventually the Battle of Midway would be compared with Trafalgar, Jutland, and other major campaigns at sea that turned the tide of history.  The battle transformed the conflict between the United States and Japan.  Many agonizing years of combat loomed ahead, but after Midway the United States would remain on the offensive.  ‘Midway was the crucial battle of the Pacific War, the engagement that made everything else possible,’ Nimitz said after the war.”

Rochefort’s contributions continued despite political intrigue and infighting within the intelligence community and a resistance to innovation and free-thinking by some leaders and colleagues.

Rochefort tracked Japanese action in Guadalcanal, acoustic mines, oil supplies and access to sea lanes and even the Japanese view of the situation in Germany late in the war.  He had other challenging assignments, as well, including working on floating drydocks, but he soon retired on Jan. 1, 1947 at the rank of captain and at 46 years old, returning to the Navy briefly during the Korean War.

The attack of Dec. 7, 1941 brings inevitable comparisons to Sept. 11, 2001, and, though he does not make the comparisons himself, several jump out in Carlson’s book.  Among the biggest: a lack of imagination in predicting the attack and a failure for agencies to share information, what Carlson quotes as “fatal defects in the Army-Navy relationship.”

Interservice rivalry continued to challenge Rochefort when the Army’s 7th Air Force doubted Hypo’s information analysis and resisted the evidence that Midway would be a target in June 1942.

Another 9/11 comparison comes after the war when consipiracy theories abounded.  Groups targeted FDR, accusing former President Roosevelt of knowing about the attack on Oahu and allowing it to happen in order to push the country into WWII.

Carlson shows the lack of evidence for the conspiracy theories and gives credit to Rochefort for resisting political and peer pressure to fix blame.

Author Elliot Carlson speaks at the National WWII Museum.

Time and perspective, combined with evidence and good sources, are a strong combination, and Carlson wields a deft pen in describing the life and impact of Joe Rochefort and his role in winning the Battle of Midway.

The book is made even better with the inclusion of photos, including rare family pictures.  Among the more fascinating are photos of a young Rochefort in Tokyo, 1929-32, where he studied Japanese and gained an understanding of the culture.

“Joe Rochefort’s War” is a tour de force and a top ten read for the history of the Battle of Midway.

Battle of Midway: NHHC's Top Ten

(When we asked Rear Adm. (ret.) Jay DeLoach for his recommendations of the top ten books about the Battle of Midway, he immediately suggested the Craig Symonds’s book about the decisive turning point in the War in the Pacific 70 years ago. DeLoach, former Director of Naval History and Heritage Command, and his team at NHHC provided this top ten, which includes Elliot Carlson’s “Joe Rochefort’s War,” soon to be reviewed here on Navy Reads. -- Bill Doughty.)  

“Joe Rochefort’s War: The Odyssey of the Codebreaker Who Outwitted Yamamoto at Midway.”

Carlson, Elliot.

Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2011.

“‘A Glorious Page in Our History’: The Battle of Midway, 4-6 June 1942.”

Cressman, Robert J., et al.

Missoula, MT: Pictorial Histories Pub. Co., 1990.

“Incredible Victory.”

Lord, Walter. 

New York: Harper & Row, 1967.

“The First Team: Pacific Naval Air Combat From Pearl Harbor to Midway.”

Lundstrom, John B.

Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1984.

“Black Shoe Carrier Admiral: Frank Jack Fletcher at Coral Sea, Midway and Guadalcanal.”

Lundstrom, John B.

Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.

“A Dawn Like Thunder: The True Story of Torpedo Squadron Eight.”

Mrazek, Robert J.

New York: Little, Brown, and Co., 2008.

“Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway.”

Parshall, Jonathan, and Anthony Tully.

Washington: Potomac Books, 2005.

“Midway: Turning Point of the Pacific.”

Smith, William W.

New York: Crowell, 1966. [Written by the commander of the escort force responsible for protecting Yorktown].

“The Battle of Midway.”

Symonds, Craig L. 

Oxford University Press, 2011.

“Climax at Midway.”

Tuleja, Thaddeus V.

New York: Norton, 1960.

(For a full bibliography, readers can visit the Naval History and Heritage Command website at http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq81-2.htm.  Special thanks to Robert J. Cressman, NHHC historian, for assistance in compiling this top ten.)

From Battle of the Coral Sea to Victory at Midway

(Craig Symonds, author of “The Battle of Midway” was one of five authors recommended by distinguished historian Eric Foner in his post to Navy Reads last February.  Foner called Symonds’s “Lincoln and this Admirals” “the first full study of Lincoln’s relationship to the war at sea and it reveals him mastering the nuances of naval warfare...”  Dr. Symonds, professor emeritus of history at the U.S. Naval Academy, brings his own nuanced insights and context to a full study of the Battle of Midway.  In this blog post we’ll look briefly at a key event leading up to Midway but in another corner of the Pacific Ocean almost exactly 70 years ago.)

by Bill Doughty

Craig Symonds devotes an entire chapter of his great work “The Battle of Midway” to the Battle of the Coral Sea, one of the key sea battles of World War II, occurring in early May, one month before Midway.

“The Coral Sea is one of the world’s most beautiful bodies of water,” writes Symonds.  “Named for the coral reefs that guard Australia’s northeast coast, it is bordered by Australia on the south, New Guinea on the west, the Solomon Islands on the north, and the New Hebrides on the east.”  That area was key to Imperial Japan’s attempt to control the sea lanes for commerce and logistics.

By April 1942 Imperial Japan controlled a wide area of the Pacific.

On May 1, 1942, Adm. Halsey’s Task Force 16 left Pearl Harbor, while the Yorktown and Lexington carrier task forces joined to become Task Force 17 southeast of Guadalcanal.  On that same day the Imperial Japanese aircraft carriers Shokaku and Zuikaku and their escorts got underway from Truk and headed toward the Coral Sea.

“Also on that busy May 1st, eighteen hundred miles further north, a group of senior officers met on board the Combined Fleet flagship Yamato, anchored in Hashirajima Harbor near Hiroshima, to participate in a war game for the attack on Midway.”

Symonds shows how logistics-related issues -- particularly access to fuel oil -- were among the biggest challenges for the American fleet, who didn’t have the same proximity to island footholds and captured foreign ports as their enemy. 

The author dissects the battle of May 7 and the death of USS Lexington on May 8.  He analyzes the strategy, tactics and mixed result: despite the significant losses to the Americans, the United States Navy had stopped the Imperial Japanese Navy’s advance toward Port Moresby.

“Over time, the assessment of historians has been that the Battle of the Coral Sea was a tactical victory for the Japanese but a strategic victory for the Americans.”

Navy pilots gained experience.  Japanese aircraft were destroyed.  The United States gained a better advantage in the Pacific, where carrier-based aviation surpassed battleship-firepower in strategic importance.

The Battle of the Coral Sea also proved the value of radio intelligence, particularly as interpreted in the Pacific.  Symonds shows how Lt. Cmdr. Joseph Rochefort demonstrated his superior codebreaking abilities and analysis to Adm. Nimitz, first by predicting  an invasion of Rabaul in January and then revealing the Japanese fleet’s plans in the Coral Sea in May.

Credibility created confidence.

The credibility earned by Pearl Harbor’s Station Hypo, the team of codebreakers under Rochefort, would lead directly to success in the Battle of Midway June 4-7, 1942.  

(The well-written and well-researched “Battle of Midway,” published in 2011 by Oxford University Press, was also recommended to Navy Reads by the Naval History and Heritage Command as one of the top ten books published about the Battle of Midway.)

Just Solutions - USS Barb and ‘Thunder Below’

by Bill Doughty

Thunder Below! is a first-hand report of submarine warfare by Medal of Honor recipient Adm. Eugene B. Fluckey (1913-2007).  As commanding officer of USS Barb (SS-220), Fluckey led some of the most daring missions of the War in the Pacific in WWII -- the attack of the Namkwan Harbor anchorage of the Imperial Japanese fleet and the assault of Kaihyo To (island), among others.

Thunder Below! is Fluckey’s account of USS Barb’s undersea (and above ground) warfare mostly from April 1944 when Fluckey became CO to August 1945 when the Japanese surrendered aboard the battleship USS Missouri (BB-63).  

The narrative, written chronologically like a journal, tracks the action between Pearl Harbor and Midway Atoll north to the Sea of Okhotsk, Sakhalin and the Kuriles and south to the Marshalls, Saipan, Guam and into the South China Sea and East China Sea near Formosa (Taiwan).

USS Barb was the only submarine to fire rockets in wartime, writes Fluckey.  An attack by a saboteur party against an enemy at harbor and inland echoed techniques used by the Navy in the Revolutionary War, War of 1812 and Civil War.

In WWII USS Barb sunk more than 29 enemy ships, nearly 150,000 tons.  But Fluckey’s proudest achievement, he says, is that not one of his Sailors was killed or wounded.  The submarine crew’s average age was 23, according to Fluckey, who was 30 in 1944.

While Thunder Below! is filled with at-the-moment action and you-are-there realism, Navy readers/leaders will also enjoy the occasional bits of philosophy Fluckey shares:

“Fear is a natural characteristic of all living creatures, necessary for self-preservation.  To win, however, fear must be controlled, enabling expertise to determine when to fight and when to run away -- to be able to fight another day.”

“The Barb was never in competition with anybody but herself.  We were determined on each patrol to do better than the last one.  And we should have, since we had more experience as tactics, weapons, targets, and the war moved on.”

In Lessons Learned from the war, he said:

“We did not know our enemy -- his history or his language -- as well as he knew ours...”

“The Japanese are disciplined, brave, professional warriors.  As U.S. allies, they must be permitted to be an asset.”

Fluckey’s theory of leadership is “reciprocal trust”:  “Simply put, ‘I believe in you.’”  He said, “(USS Barb) enriched our lives and gave us our philosophy.  We don’t have problems, just solutions.”

USS Barb in 1945.

“Honey, are you a WAVE?” No ma’am, we’re all Sailors now!

By Nancy Harrity

Walking down Chicago’s Michigan Ave. in my dress whites in July 1996, more than one older person asked me, “Honey, are you a WAVE?”  I’m not one of the WAVES, nor are the nearly 55,000 women serving in the Navy today.  We’re Sailors, and I’m sure a good number of us would have been honored to have been one of the Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service during World War II. 

Then, as is the case now, war enabled women to break barriers. “When World War II came to an end, women had established a remarkable legacy of womanpower in the U.S. military.  The Navy in 1942 originally visualized the maximum strength of the naval women reserve at approximately 11,000, and plans were formulated with that number in mind. It soon became evident that this thinking was not sufficiently imaginative.  Shortly before Japan was defeated, there were approximately 86,000 women in the Navy and 19,000 women in the Marines, stationed at some 950 shore activities in the United States and Hawaii and serving in practically all ratings except those from which they were excluded because of physical limitations, combatant nature or sea-going requirements,” according to Capt. Winifred Quick Collins in her memoir, “More than a Uniform: A Navy Woman in a Navy Man’s World.”   Quick Collins served as one of the first WAVES in WW II and retired as the chief of navy personnel for women in 1962.

At every command where the WAVES were stationed,  their presence brought about change for the better for both the men and women serving there.  In her memoir, “Lady in the Navy:  A Personal Reminiscence,” retired Capt. Joy Bright Hancock, who retired as the chief of navy personnel for women in 1953, writes of a chaplain who told her “that the WAVES brought an air of refinement to the service…’The mere presence of WAVES in the chow line brought more orderliness and courtesy than was ever achieved by the stoutest chief boatswain.  And we do know that with more and more men staying on board instead of going out on the town, the discipline cases have decreased tremendously.’”

During her tenure as the chief of naval personnel for women, Quick Collins traveled throughout the fleet on inspection trips of Navy women paying particular care to their health and morale issues.  In more than one place,  the women’s barracks and morale facilities were lacking, a state she worked tirelessly to improve.  “Oddly – or maybe not so oddly – the improved housing arrangements for Navy women led to improved housing arrangements for Navy men, since it was not long afterwards that newly constructed or renovated barracks with private rooms were also built for Navy enlisted men, as well as new bachelor officers’ quarters for men and women.”

These two ladies made such significant contributions to the Navy they have leadership awards named for them,  the Joy Bright Hancock Leadership Award and the Captain Winifred Quick Collins Award for Inspirational Leadership.

Just as quickly as WWII made a great many things possible for women in the Navy, the end of the war brought a desire to for things to return to normal, which included sending the women home.   “Although high-level military officials were enthusiastic supporters of bringing women into the postwar military, I don’t think that they – or anyone else – fully understood at the time the difficulties of implementing the policy,” writes Quick Collins. “Once that nucleus was established, the status of women in the armed forces evolved to a point at which women achieved higher ranks, a broader range of assignments, and greater recognition than many males in the military ever imagined – or ever wanted.  Every gain for women in the military was achieved only after a long battle with ignorance, military tradition, entrenched interests, male chauvinism, or some combination of these tough barriers.  And the battle started within a few months after Japan had been defeated, mostly because many civilians and politicians held negative attitudes about the need for military women in peacetime.”

Thankfully, women like Bright Hancock and Quick Collins persevered, worked with leaders to change policy and laws as necessary to enable women to continue serving in the post-WWII peace through today.  I’m certain they would be proud to call the women serving in the Navy today, “Sailors.”
Senior Chief Aviation Machinist's Mate Lora D. Porter, leading chief petty officer of the aircraft intermediate maintenance department aboard the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75), speaks with Sailors at the women's personal and professional growth symposium March 7, 2012.  (U.S. Navy Photo by MCSN Kristina Young)
(Special thanks to Navy Reads contributor, mentor and thinker Nancy Harrity for this guest post for Women's History Month examining how far we've progressed since World War II.  Coming soon, posts related to Battle of Midway in this 70th anniversary year of the War in the Pacific. -- Bill Doughty)

Who are Your Favorite Women Authors?

(Fun, insight and inspiration are at the heart of Rear Adm. Kate Gregory’s selection of top ten women authors and their works for Navy Reads -- in honor of Women’s History Month.  Her top recommendation: exercise your mind, stretch your imagination and read!  -- Bill Doughty)

By Rear Adm. Kate Gregory

I think reading is great fun and terribly important.  For me, it provides an escape to times in history, new ideas, and great adventures and imaginary worlds.  I feel sorry for those who don't enjoy reading.  I believe it's often a learned skill and would recommend to those who don't enjoy it to simply try reading a little a day -- it's a lot like any exercise as it gets easier and more fun the more you do it.  I like to read some fiction and non-fiction because both have a lot to offer.

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand.  This is a wonderful, true story about the determination and strength of a great athlete and soldier.  She also wrote Seabiscuit, which I didn't read but understand was excellent.

The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman.  This tells the story of the crazy events and unique personalities that led the world into WWI.  Even though you know how this all ends, the book is hard to put down!

The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean.  Ms. Orlean is a great writer and her book about the black-market business and crazy characters who steal rare orchids, grow, breed and sell them for millions is a bit wacky but oddly fun and unusual.  Orlean just finished another book on Rin Tin Tin.  She makes an enjoyment of atypical topics.  

Either O Pioneers! or My Antonia by Willa Cather.  I grew up in the Midwest and think it's an area often overlooked today.  

I think about (and admire) the people who settled the American plains, and have read these books to learn more about the settlers, especially pioneer women.  These books show the challenges of their lives and the great courage and fortitude it demanded.   

Nothing Daunted by Dorothy Wickenden.  This book is about two East Coast society-girls who boarded a train from the East Coast in 1916 to Colorado and, five days later, opened a new school and taught the children of frontiersmen and settlers.  Their lives were full of surprises and adventures, and make me wish for such experiences.  It really is very, very interesting to see what their lives were like.

Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin.  Ms. Goodwin's telling of how President Lincoln selected his Cabinet and closest advisors from his greatest critics and political enemies was a lesson for me in leadership and vision.  In reading how President Lincoln used their assaults on him to strengthen his plans, policies and actions, it's clear why he's one of our nation's greatest statesmen, and his strategy in selecting staff is pretty fascinating.  

Either Persuasion, Pride and Prejudice, or Emma by Jane Austen.  While Ms. Austen may be viewed by many as simply a romantic writer, I like the way she describes the characters of life -- smart, silly, vain, weak, arrogant, virtuous -- they're all here.  The stories are set in 19th century Great Britain, but the personalities are as prevalent as any I know today.

Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt.  This is actually a children's book that I first read in 5th grade, but I end up reading it again every few years.  It's a coming-of-age tale about an adolescent in Illinois during the Civil War, and shows how the war touched all aspects of the family and shaped the boy's future.

Any mystery by P.D. James in the Adam Dalgliesh series.  I'm not a big mystery reader, but these are interesting and have strong characters facing moral challenges, and I like them even though I can never solve them!

Italian Days by Barbara Grizutti.  Having been stationed twice in Naples, I like to read this armchair travel book when I start to long for the place.  If someone has been or is about to be stationed in Italy, I recommend it.

In 2010 Rear Adm. Katherine Gregory assumed command of Naval Engineering Command Pacific. (Photo by MC2 Robert Stirrup)

From Battle of Trafalgar to War of 1812

by Bill Doughty

Acts of valor were commonplace in the days of sailing ships, conquest and experimental new techniques of warfare in the early 1800s.  So were acts of terror and subversion.

A European perspective of those events and an amazing beginning for modern military techniques and weaponry can be found in the pages of Tom Pocock’s The Terror Before Trafalgar: Nelson, Napoleon, and the Secret War.

The late historian shows that for Britain, at least, the War of 1812 began in 1801 when the mighty British navy was challenged by Napoleon Bonaparte and France, assisted by the Spanish fleet.

Other countries or territories drawn into the conflict or directly affected by it included Denmark, Austria, Russia, Prussia, Italy and Egypt, according to Pocock.  Even Sweden, Peru and Jamaica were impacted.

In fact, a case can be made that the Napoleonic Wars were the first world war. 

The Battle of Trafalgar, death of Lord Nelson (told in painful detail in this book), and rise of Robert Fulton’s experiments certainly marked the beginning of the end of ancient warfare and military customs.  The savagery of the guillotine, also described in great detail, and the finery of national leaders’ costumes were on their way to becoming historic artifacts.

Read Pocock’s description of Napoleon Bonaparte on the day of his coronation as Emperor of France by Pope Pius VII.

“The Emperor was dressed in crimson velvet, embroidered with gold and silver, in lace, white silk stockings, white velvet slippers embroidered in gold; he wore a diamond-encrusted sword and carried the sceptre of Charlemagne and the Bourbons’ symbolic Hand of Justice.  He had become a glittering pantomime figure...”

Other parallels from the early 1800s to world wars more than a century later:  Napoleon/Hitler, shifting European alliances, assault landing crafts (catamarans with ramps), similar battle/invasion plans, and the spotty success of torpedoes at the beginning of the war.

Fulton's submarine.

Pocock profiles American inventor Robert Fulton as friend of Thomas Paine who first sought to develop a submarine for France before working with the British navy to deploy the first submarine and torpedoes, known as “carcasses,” “coffers” and “hogsheads.”

“The two-ton ‘coffer’ was the largest, twenty-one feet long, boat-shaped, with wedge-like bow and stern; wooden, but caulked, lead-lined and covered with tarred canvas, it was packed with forty barrels of gunpowder.  The coffer was ballasted so that its deck was flush with the surface and fitted with a buoyed grappling hook to catch the mooring cable of an enemy ship...”

Fulton and fellow inventors Sir Sidney Smith and Charles Rogier were under-appreciated for their innovative machines and experiments, called “infernals,” which often had less-than-perfect results.  The European military hierarchy, only a generation removed from those who were shocked at the guerilla tactics of the colonists, spoke out strongly against the SEALs-like attacks at night with torpedoes and mines.

Others, like Rear Adm. Home Popham, had the view that “battles in the future may be fought under water: our invincible ships of the line may give place to horrible and unknown structures, our frigates to catamarans, our pilots to divers, our hardy, dauntless tars to submarine assassins, coffers, rockets, catamarans, infernals...”

Published in 2002 by the Naval Institute Press, The Terror Before Trafalgar is understandably linked to the events of 9/11.

With a fascinating cast of characters, including wives, lovers (like Lord Nelson's married mistress Lady Emma Hamilton), soldiers and spies, Pocock shows how espionage and terror influenced -- or failed to influence events.  A cart of explosives was used in an attempt to kill Napoleon and Josephine (Fail).  Catholic insurrections in Ireland were planned as a diversion timed to allow France to invade across the Channel (Fail).  Plots of assassination were hatched in Egypt against the British sovereignty and coup attempts were launched in Paris (Fail and Fail).

Speaking of “fails”....

British impressment, capturing suspected British citizens who were sometimes Americans, became necessary in the early 1800s to fill the ranks of the British navy.  The issue led directly to the War of 1812.  At the same time, Napoleon knew he could not hold territory on the other side of the Atlantic while he tried to wage war in Europe and eastward, with his sights on India.  He sold the Louisiana Territory -- the whole Mississippi valley, from the Rio Grande to the Rocky Mountains, New Orleans to Canada -- to the United States, in what would become known as the Louisiana Purchase, for $15M -- a win for Thomas Jefferson and the United States but a huge loss for Napoleon and France.

According to Pocock:

“Ironically, Bonaparte had sought war but was not ready for it, while the British had hoped for peace and were ready to fight.”

France dominated the land war, but Britain controlled the seas, successfully defending the homeland.  The British navy proved that a commitment to maintaining peace must be tied to a readiness for war.

Grace Hopper Author Williams - Top Picks

(Prof. Kathleen Broome Williams, author of  Grace Hopper: Admiral of the Cyber Sea, on the Navy Professional Reading Program list and published by the Naval Institute Press, offers her suggestions for Navy Reads...)

by Kathleen Broome Williams

I’d like to start with an unconventional suggestion, but one that has been highly rewarding for me. There are two series of books -- both of which have been around for some time -- which anyone interested in the origins of naval theory and practice in the age of sail should read. 

HMS Tremendous engages French naval man-of-war Cannonierre, April 26, 1806.

In addition, they are rip-roaring good tales. 

Both series deal with the Royal Navy during the turbulent era of the Napoleonic wars, stretching from the end of the eighteenth century into the early nineteenth when England and France were locked in a life and death struggle covering much of the maritime world. 

First, and the quickest and easiest reading, are the books by C.S. Forester based on the naval career of Horatio Hornblower. Forester follows Hornblower from his days as a midshipman through ten books until he reaches the exalted rank of admiral. Each book is marked by Forester’s depth of knowledge of the times and of the details of naval life. 

A more recent series, and one that closely mirrors the first in subject, is Patrick O’Brian’s novels about the naval career of Jack Aubrey and of his inseparable physician friend, Stephen Maturin. Some readers may have been introduced to the two men through the movie Master and Commander, starring Russell Crowe. 

O’Brian’s twenty books, or so, are denser than Forester’s and marked by even more penetrating research and meticulous attention to nautical detail. Like the Hornblower books, too, the memorable characters and their gripping adventures make for irresistible reading.

There are a great many books about the Battle of the Atlantic that lasted from the beginning of World War II until the end of the war in Europe. For those unfamiliar with the subject a recent one worth reading is Bitter Ocean: The Battle of the Atlantic 1939-1945 by David Fairbank White. Based on secondary literature, as well as on archival sources and interviews, White presents a 300-page romp through the campaign in its entirety, on the way touching on many, perhaps most, of the most important issues. This is a useful introduction and a quick read.

Switching to the Pacific Ocean in World War II, Carl LaVO’s The Galloping Ghost: The Extraordinary Life of Submarine Legend Eugene Fluckey, tells the tale of the skipper of the submarine USS Barb, engaged in hair-raising and highly effective operations against the Japanese. Fluckey arguably sank more enemy tonnage than any other U.S. submarine commander and LaVO’s account is valuable for shedding light on the whole man, going beyond his wartime exploits to examine his personal life and postwar career. 

Nothing, however, can match Fluckey’s own memoir -- Thunder Below! -- for sheer suspense. Fluckey’s account is written with such immediacy and directness that the reader feels, sees, hears, and smells what it was like to be in action on a submarine in wartime. This is a must read for anyone interested in the Silent Service.

(Thank you to Dr. Kathleen Broome Williams, Director of General Education and Professor of History at Cogswell Polytechnical College. Dr. Williams has served and taught at the City University of New York, Sophia University in Tokyo, and at Florida State University, Republic of Panama. She has served on the editorial advisory board of The Journal of Military History and as executive director of the New York Military Affairs Symposium. She is the author of three books on naval history published by the Naval Institute Press. Read a review of her book Grace Hopper: Admiral of the Cyber Sea here.  Navy Reads will continue to have guest lists and reviews from noted authors and thinkers joining Navy Reads in the months ahead.  We will have some special reviews coming soon related to the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Midway. -- Bill Doughty)