World War II + 70 Years Forum Continuing Discussion Thread

Glantz, David M. Before Stalingrad: Barbarossa - Hitler's Invasion of Russia 1941. Stroud, Gloucestershire: Tempus Publishing Limited, 2001. 206pp. ISBN 0-7524-2692-3.

"Today begins the last great decisive battle of the year. In it we will destroy the enemy and, in so doing, England, the instigator of this whole war... We are thus lifting from Germany and Europe the danger that has hovered over the continent ever since the times of the Huns and later the Mongol invasion" - Adolf Hitler

At 3:15 am the peaceful night in Eastern Europe was shattered by artillery fire. In what Hitler had perceived as the realization of his original dream outlined in Mein Kampf, Operation BARBAROSSA began with the ferociousness that would typify the struggle in the East. The Soviets, despite numerous warnings were caught unaware and the Germans drove hard and deep into Soviet territory at breakneck speeds. In the initial months of this battle, it appeared that nothing would slow down the German divisions. To many observers, the Soviet Union was on its way to becoming the next of a long list of states conquered by the Nazis.

The reality that surrounded the battle was quite different. In David Glantz’ book, Before Stalingrad: Barbarossa – Hitler’s Invasion of Russia 1941, he evaluates the situation on the ground during Operation BARBAROSSA in stunning detail. In this book, Glantz doesn’t just look at the war in the east from a singular perspective, but tries to examine the progression of the battle from both sides of the field. This book provides a rare, but detailed examination of the Soviet point of view as they desperately tried to stem the tide against the better prepared German forces.

At the beginning of hostilities with Germany, the Soviets, on paper, were a formidable foe. Possessing an enormous Army and Air Force, it would seem that they would be able to readily stand up to the German blitzkrieg and the deadly Luftwaffe. The critical flaw in the Red Army was the same one that plagued them during the Winter War against Finland the previous year. The Stalin purges had rendered the Red Army a dragon with no head. Glantz demonstrates these failings in the Soviet leadership as he details the rash decisions by the Soviets all along the chain of command. The failings of the Soviets were on many levels and the author touches on many of them. From the upper echelon, the newly formed Stavka was constantly ordering counterattacks by forces that had already been decimated and in some cases, already completely destroyed. Operationally, commanders in the field found themselves trying to coordinate counterstrokes only be defeated by breakdowns in communications between the forces and sometimes even between the headquarters to the divisions itself. Glantz goes into detail on these missteps and the desperate situation the units were placed in as a result. He also goes over the steps that allowed the Red Army to stop the Nazi flood and even successfully counterattack as 1941 came to an end.

A strong aspect of this book is that it is extremely well organized. The first chapters go over the German invasion and the Russian response to it. This is followed by a north to south look at the three major objectives for the Wehrmacht’s Army Groups: Leningrad, Smolensk, and Kiev. This organization is maintained to the containment of BARBAROSSA by December. There is a lot of information packed into each page of this book making it of immense educational value to the reader. In fact, if there is any failing in this book at all is that sometimes it is information overload. When there are so many different army divisions getting thrown about in every page, it is possible to lose track of what is where and even what side they are associated with unless you are paying close attention. This however, is a minor issue that is more than overcome by the sheer value of knowledge in the book.

As can be expected, a book that is this detailed in information is extremely well researched. The forty-five pages of notes this book lists contains everything from entries from German field generals like Gotthardt Heinrici and Heinz Guderian, to documentation obtained from the Russian Archives in Moscow. Glantz also provides a bibliography with over one hundred different sources and two appendixes containing translated texts of Russian and German directives as well as a list of the opposing army’s organization throughout the year. The crowning addition to this book though is several pages of detailed maps showing the progression of the Wehrmacht into Soviet territory. In reading this book these maps are a great resource to get the reader situated to the region being discussed in the test and get perspective of the location of the units engaged in battle. Overall this is a very desirable book to read on the eastern front. David Glantz has shown himself to be an authority on war between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany and this book does not disappoint at all.

CougarGA7

What follows is my transcription of Hanson W. Baldwin’s four-part series of columns on the aftermath of the Pearl Harbor attack. I found it interesting to learn what questions were being asked and assumptions made about the disaster within two weeks of December 7, 1941. I decided to present the series in this way to make it more accessible and also in case our discussion of the on-going investigation needs a continuing venue – Homer.

The Events at Hawaii
By Hanson W. Baldwin

Part I, December 18, 1941

The shake-up last night in military and naval high commands in the Pacific, following hard upon the tragedy at Pearl Harbor, should do much to ease the public doubts that the attack on Pearl Harbor engendered.

The relief of Admiral Husband E. Kimmel as Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet, and of Lieut. Gen. Walter C. Short, commanding the Hawaiian Department, is undoubtedly preliminary to a more complete investigation of the circumstances of the attack upon Pearl Harbor, which is to be made by a board of inquiry appointed by the President.

The findings of the is board cannot be pre-determined, nor should individuals be prejudiced. Yet it is clear that the effect of giving fleet command to a new admiral and of placing an Army Air Corps officer – Lieut. Gen. Delos C. Emmons - in command of both ground and air forces in the Army’s Hawaiian Department, an unprecedented move, should be extremely beneficial. The new fleet commander, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, is young for such senior flag rank – 58; and General Emmons’s appointment plainly shows that Washington understands the importance of air power in Pacific strategy.

Reassurance in Board

The shake-up will undoubtedly be quickly followed by a thorough inquiry, conducted by the President’s board, of the entire disaster. The board, headed by Owen J. Roberts, associate justice of the Supreme Court, could scarcely have been better picked. The prominence, knowledge and judicial fair-mindedness of its members should insure a thorough and speedy investigation, and , above all, its finding should prevent any repetition of the Pearl Harbor tragedy.

It is this phase of the investigation that is important. Recrimination and the search for a “goat” should and will play no part in it. The first and primary job now is to repair the damages of the surprise attack; reinforce and strengthen our forces and pay back the score to the Japanese with interest. Yet if more men or methods need to be changed to insure the success of our counter-strokes they must be changed, and it is this aspect of the investigation that is of such mounting importance to the future course of this war.

For upon no one except fleet commanders at sea does there rest the same awful burden of responsibility. Planes can be wiped out – by ones, twos, scores or even hundreds – and replaced; divisions can be decimated and reorganized, but wars are usually fought largely with the fleets with which they were started, for fighting ships – particularly the great ships of the line – cannot be quickly built. Winston Churchill, writing of an earlier war and of another commander (in his book, “The World Crisis”), epitomized this frightening burden when he commented:

His [Jellicoe’s] responsibilities were on a different scale from all others. It might fall to him as to no other man – sovereign , statesman, admiral or general – to issue orders which in the space of two or three hours might nakedly decide who won the war. * * * Jellicoe was the only man on either side who could lose the war in an afternoon.

The Japanese recognized the terrific implications that destruction of the Pacific Fleet would have upon the entire course of the war; that explains the determined ferocity of their surprise assault upon Hawaii. Tactically, the enemy succeeded; they smashed many of our ships and planes, but strategically they failed, for the bulk of the Pacific Feet is still in being, still a potential menace to Japan and her hopes of empire.

The fleet commander’s present job is difficult; he must try to counter the Japanese operations, without, however, unduly risking his fleet against superior forces until such time as it has been reinforced or has received the heavy support of powerful land-based aviation.

Not Insuperable Problem

This is a considerable, though by no means an insuperable, problem – one that is probably eased by two factors: the certainty that damaged ships will soon be repaired and that reinforcements are on the way; the likelihood that only Japanese light forces and raiders – not the main Japanese fleet – are operating in mid-Pacific.

But the responsibilities for national safety imposed upon our fleet commanders and military leaders in the Pacific and our island outposts are so heavy that the shake-up of last night and an investigation such as that now started of the Pearl Harbor attack are essential to our future success. The trip of Secretary of the Navy Knox to Hawaii, his candid report, his statement that “the United States services were not on the alert against the surprise air attack on Hawaii,” and the immediate appointment by the President of the five-man board of inquiry are all reassuring evidences of the government’s determination that the same factors that contributed to the Japanese success at Hawaii – surprise, over-confidence amounting to a complacent sense of security and a lack of military alertness – will not again operate against us.

Part II, December 19, 1941

As the war in the Pacific spreads across the vast leagues of the world’s greatest ocean, the board appointed by the President to investigate the Pearl Harbor tragedy will soon commence its sittings at the scene where so many Americans died in the first act of a war for survival.

In answering the question, “What happened at Hawaii?” the investigating board will undoubtedly find that there are many aspects of the Hawaiian attack that require clearing up.

First and most obvious is an inquiry as to whether or not the War and Navy Departments in Washington and the military and naval leaders in Hawaii were kept properly informed of the serious nature of the negotiations with Japan and, if they were, whether or not the warning was properly evaluated. The fact that a large part of the fleet – an unusually large part considering the routine that the fleet had been following prior to hostilities – happened to be in Pearl Harbor on the fatal Sunday, Dec. 7, may also require some explanation, because it is apparent that if international tension is serious, the place for the fleet is at sea.

Failure to Get Data

Second, the intelligence services of the Army and Navy and counter-espionage services of the government seem to have failed to collate and correctly evaluate the Japanese military strength; to obtain any warning of the impending Japanese attack, preparations for which must have been started weeks before Dec. 7, “a date that will live in infamy,” or to counter Japanese fifth columnist and espionage activities in Hawaii.

Third, there is considerable mystery as to how the Japanese carriers and planes reached the Island of Oahu undetected until the bombs started to fall. There are many aspects to this phase of the problem and some possible explanations, but, to understand the relationship of the army and Navy in Hawaii and their joint responsibilities, it is essential that the function of Pearl Harbor be understood.

Pearl Harbor is the raison d’etre of all other military installations in the Hawaiian Islands. It was supposed to provide a secure base for the fleet, with repair and docking facilities, oil tanks, a naval air base, a submarine base and all the other appurtenances common to a great fleet base. The Army airfields, land garrisons, coast defense, anti-aircraft guns, etc., were there primarily for one purpose – and one alone – to protect the Navy’s base at Pearl Harbor, to make it secure against attack. A later and increasingly important function of the Army land garrisons is to protect the bases of air power at Hawaii with ground anti-aircraft defenses and against landing attacks.

The primary responsibility for defending a fleet base like Pearl Harbor, therefore, rests with the Army, not the Navy. The very essence of a naval base is security; it exists, not to be defended by the fleet, but to service the fleet, to provide it a safe haven when ships and men return from the sea weary from the vigil never-ending.

There has been too much public criticism of gallant and able officers and men of the Navy because many of them were sleeping late on the fatal Sunday, or were ashore playing golf or enjoying rest and recreation from the grind at sea; there has been too much criticism because ships were dismantled and being repaired beside docks, unable to get up steam. Yet this is what men and ships were in Pearl Harbor for; this is what a naval base means; if the ships and men cannot rest in a reasonable degree of security in a naval base, than the base is not worth having.

Responsibilities Shared

The primary job of the Pacific Fleet is not, therefore, the defense of Pearl Harbor; its job is to use Pearl Harbor as a mid-ocean point d’appui from which to manoeuvre against the enemy navy. Nevertheless, the Navy shared with the Army certain responsibilities for the safety of the fleet in Pearl Harbor; indeed, the primary responsibility for the safety of a fleet (as distinct from the security of a naval base) can never be delegated to any other than its commander.

The Navy’s responsibilities in this regard consisted chiefly of distant scouting duties, in the air and on the sea, of anti-submarine patrol and of close-in defense by patrol craft, nets, mines, etc., of the immediate sea entrances to Pearl Harbor.

The Army was charged with close-in air reconnaissance in which it cooperated with the Navy’s inshore patrol; it was responsible for coast defense and manned all the land batteries, fixed and mobile, on Oahu; it was primarily responsible for anti-aircraft guns, etc.; it manned and operated all the fighter planes intended for the defense of Oahu against air attack; it manned the land-based bombers intended to assist the Fleet in repelling surface attack.

In other words, distant sea and air scouting far from Hawaii was primarily the responsibility of the Navy; the close-in immediate defense of Pearl Harbor and Oahu was primarily the responsibility of the Army.

Part III, December 20, 1941

As the Japanese continued their desperate bid for empire yesterday the pertinence of the inquiry into what happened at Hawaii was again emphasized.

For Japanese air power, operated from carriers and from land bases, again played major roles in yesterday’s actions, and it was Japanese air and sea power, nicely synchronized, that achieved tragically large results at Pearl Harbor.

One of the questions that the board investigating the Pearl Harbor tragedy must determine is how Japanese aircraft carriers, presumably accompanied by protective cruisers and destroyers and by a mother ship for Japan’s two-man submarines approached to within a few hundred miles of the island of Oahu unobserved.

Many Observation Posts

Normally in times of tension both the Army and the Navy, who were jointly responsible for the safety of the fleet while in Pearl Harbor, maintained far-flung and close-in scouting and reconnaissance lines, and the tasks of both services were lightened by the string of island outposts – 100 to 1000 miles distant, many of them with airfields or patrol plane anchorages – which almost surround Pearl Harbor. Only to the north of Oahu, the island on which Pearl Harbor is located is there open water, but our Aleutian bases and our base on Midway (it is 1,613 nautical miles from Midway to Dutch Harbor) permitted overlapping aerial patrol of this area.

The Navy’s “screen” of air and surface ships – all intended to get information of enemy movements – should have started hundreds, indeed thousands, of miles from Oahu. Ordinarily in time of war or tension submarines maintain a “periscope watch” outside the principal naval ports of the enemy or potential enemy in order to radio back warnings of enemy ship movements.

Hundreds of miles eastward of the submarines there should have been – and probably were – aerial patrols maintained from outlying islands like Midway and Wake by our Navy’s long-range flying boats. Supplemented by patrol planes based on Midway and flying almost continuously from dawn to dusk, covering sectors around Hawaii in a 360-degree circle, these planes – if they were operating as they normally are – might have been expected to pick up some trace of the enemy approach the day before – or even several days before – the attack occurred.

The same thing might normally be expected of the surface scouts, which usually operate in long patrol lines at approximately twice-visibility distance away from each other. It should be impossible for an enemy to pass this surface scouting line at night, for the line moves ahead at moderate speed during the daytime, but at night – to prevent any enemy from slipping between its ships – the entire line reverses its course and during the hours of darkness steam back toward its base at a the maximum speed of the enemy, resuming the search the next morning.

Some Answers Suggested

How, then did the enemy elude these far-flung scouting lines if the Navy was operating as it had done month after month in the past? Two possible explanations have been advanced. A “cold front” was approaching the Hawaiian Islands from the open ocean to the north and northwest on the fatal Sunday The Japanese carriers may have had the luck to fall in with the cold front’s fog and rain and low visibility and “ride” it in to within striking distance of the islands.

The carriers may then have used their high speed to seek temporary clear weather in which to launch their planes and may then have steamed back into the moving area of storm until the raid was finished. This trick has been successfully employed in manoeuvres; it might have been used by the Japanese.

Another suggested explanation might lie in the Japanese carriers themselves. The Japanese are known to have converted a number of merchantmen into auxiliary carriers; it is conceivable that some of these carriers might have been disguised with removable superstructures to look like merchantmen.

But even if the Japanese eluded the far-flung scouts of the Navy in some such manner, there is still no easy explanation of how they eluded the Army’s close-in aerial reconnaissance patrol or the Navy’s inshore surface patrol.

Part IV, December 21, 1941

As operations in the Western Pacific continued yesterday over widespread areas, the importance to our war effort of determining and analyzing what happened at Hawaii was again underscored.

The Presidential board that is now investigating the tragedy must attempt to determine how and why Japanese forces were able to make a surprise attack upon the fortress island of Oahu after apparently penetrating far-flung naval scouting lines and close-in reconnaissance by Army planes.

One would have anticipated that, even if all other informational methods had failed, the Army’s infallible radio detectors on the fortress island of Oahu would have picked up the Japanese planes soon after they took off from the decks of the carriers and long before they reached the island. Here, there is one coincidence which is perhaps to striking to be accidental and which may illustrate the effective nature of that Fifth Column work in Hawaii that Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox mentioned.

Some of our own bombers – Boeing Flying Fortresses – flying from the West Coast to Hawaii, were scheduled to come into Oahu for a landing at just about the time the Japanese raiders attacked. The radio detector operators may well have been warned of the impending approach of our planes and may have mistaken the Japanese bombers for our own.

But the most inexplicable part of the Hawaiian attack is not that it was made, for bombing raids cannot be stopped altogether and some bombers will always get through, but that it accomplished what it did. The great loss of ships, planes and lives was largely due not to the fact that the surprise attack was accomplished but that we were not prepared for attack at all. The following mistakes seem to have been made:

1. Our fighting services, particularly the Navy, definitely under-estimated Japan and were over-confident to the point of complacency, an attitude that was only a reflection of the national psychology. In manoeuvres and war studies we had frequently reckoned with the possibility of a Japanese attack upon Midway and had deemed as quite practical carrier-based air attacks upon Japan – similar to the one launched by the Japanese upon Pearl Harbor. We had always contemplated the possibility, indeed the probability, that war with Japan would start by a surprise attack without benefit of declaration, and we had Port Arthur, in the Russo-Japanese war, as a foreboding precedent. Yet we apparently felt so secure behind the barriers of distance that such an attack upon Oahu was scarcely considered

2. There was no unity of command in Hawaii. The admiral commanding the Pacific Fleet had headquarters both afloat and ashore, but his responsibility was the fleet. The admiral commanding the Fourteenth Naval District (Hawaii) had headquarters at Pearl Harbor, but his responsibility was Pearl Harbor and naval installations ashore in the Hawaiian Islands. The Army’s air field and fortifications were under command of the general commanding the Hawaiian Department. The board investigating the Pearl Harbor tragedy will undoubtedly endeavor to ascertain whether there was adequate coordination or liaison between these commanders.

3. The Navy concentrated too many ships in Pearl Harbor at a time of tension.

4. Apparently the ships in port were not protected by torpedo nets.

5. Apparently much of our gasoline and oil storage in the islands was not underground, or at least was not sufficiently protected.

6. Our Army and Navy planes on Oahu were jammed together in small areas – the Army’s principally at Hickam and Wheeler fields; the Navy’s principally at Ford Island in the middle of Pearl Harbor.

But full study of these and many other factors will undoubtedly be made by the competent investigating board headed by Associate Justice Owen J. Roberts.

What is most important is to assimilate the major lessons of Hawaii.

First, we made the same mistake that Britain and France made at the start of this war: we thought we could maintain the political status quo in the Far East (one of the objectives of our foreign policy) against an aggressive nation with what was essentially a defensive strategical concept and with inadequate force.

Second, nationally and militarily, we were overconfident to the point of complacency.

Third, there were probably too many different independent, or semi-autonomous, commanders with divided and overlapping responsibilities at Hawaii. The major lesson in modern war is the absolute necessity for complete coordination of all effort.

We must not make the same mistakes again.

Good read.

First, we made the same mistake that Britain and France made at the start of this war: we thought we could maintain the political status quo in the Far East (one of the objectives of our foreign policy) against an aggressive nation with what was essentially a defensive strategical concept and with inadequate force.

The exact same statement could be made today and be just as correct.

Wow. That is some great work right there on that post.
Fantastic.

It will be interesting to contrast the Pearl Harbor Commission with the 9/11 Commission of 60 years later.

It is this phase of the investigation that is important. Recrimination and the search for a “goat” should and will play no part in it. The first and primary job now is to repair the damages of the surprise attack; reinforce and strengthen our forces and pay back the score to the Japanese with interest.

The difference between America in 1941 and America in 2011 is stark. It doesn't appear that too many Americans or political leaders were apologizing to Japan in 1941, or claiming America secretly destroyed its own military base in Hawaii and then framed Japan.

I have little doubt that both the Pearl Harbor Commission and the 9/11 Commission were political ass-covering operations, but I also have little doubt that the Pearl Harbor Commission was more serious and independent. Remember what a disgraceful laughingstock the 9/11 Commission was? How the rats made sure to appoint operatives who could cover for the Clinton administration's criminal negligence? The rats actually had the nerve to appoint Jamie Gorelick, the archiect of the CIA/FBI "wall" memo, and the woman who most clearly had the blood of 3,000 American citizens on her hands!

It will be interesting to follow the progress of the Pearl Harbor Commission. I agree that Justice Owen J. Roberts looked like a good choice to lead that Commission.

As always, thanks for the pings. You are doing truly great work on this project.

FRegards,
LH

Lancey Howard: "I have little doubt that both the Pearl Harbor Commission and the 9/11 Commission were political ass-covering operations, but I also have little doubt that the Pearl Harbor Commission was more serious and independent."

There were nine official Pearl Harbor Investigations during the 1940s, plus at least one more in the 1990s, iirc.
In addition, dozens of authors have done their own Pearl Harbor investigations, attempting to tease out of existing data support for their favorite theories.

The Knox Investigation Dec. 9-14, 1941.
The Roberts Commission Dec. 18-January-23, 1941
The Hart Investigation Feb. 12-June 15, 1944
The Army Pearl Harbor Board Jul. 20-Oct. 20, 1944
The Navy Court of Inquiry Jul. 24-Oct. 19, 1944.
The Clarke Investigation Aug. 4-Sep 20, 1944
The Clausen Investigation Jan. 24-Sep. 12, 1945
The Hewitt Inquiry May 14-July 11, 1945
The Joint Congressional Committee Nov. 15, 1945-May 23, 1946

The results of all these investigations have not been 100% satisfactory to anyone -- those looking for data to support their conspiracy theories find no "smoking guns", while those wishing to prove President Roosevelt's inner circle "innocent" of all conspiracy charges have plenty that can't be 100% dismissed.

The relevant question here is: why weren't Kimmel and Short better warned?

The relevant question here is: why weren't Kimmel and Short better warned?

The trip of Secretary of the Navy Knox to Hawaii, his candid report, his statement that “the United States services were not on the alert against the surprise air attack on Hawaii,” and the immediate appointment by the President of the five-man board of inquiry are all reassuring evidences of the government’s determination that the same factors that contributed to the Japanese success at Hawaii – surprise, over-confidence amounting to a complacent sense of security and a lack of military alertness – will not again operate against us.

(snip)

Second, the intelligence services of the Army and Navy and counter-espionage services of the government seem to have failed to collate and correctly evaluate the Japanese military strength; to obtain any warning of the impending Japanese attack, preparations for which must have been started weeks before Dec. 7, “a date that will live in infamy,” or to counter Japanese fifth columnist and espionage activities in Hawaii.

It looks to me like there were plenty of shortcomings. Just as with the terror attacks of 9/11, America was simply not vigilant enough, and we should have done better. The similarities between the TWO dates that will live in infamy are striking. The relevant question today is: Are we NOW vigilant enough?

The following excerpts are from the Wikipedia entry on author Hanson W. Baldwin:

Hanson Weightman Baldwin (March 22, 1903 - November 13, 1991) was the long-time military editor of the New York Times. He won a Pulitzer Prize for "for his coverage of the early days of World War II". He authored or edited numerous books on military topics.

Hanson Baldwin was the son of Oliver Perry and Caroline (Sutton) Baldwin. He was born in Baltimore, Maryland on March 22, 1903.

He attended the Boys' Latin School of Maryland in Baltimore and graduated from the naval academy in 1924. After three years of naval service he began his newspaper career in 1927 as a reporter for The Baltimore Sun. He joined the New York Times in 1928 and wrote for them for the next forty years. In 1937 he became the paper's military analyst. That year, he spent four months in Europe reporting on the military preparedness for what was viewed as the coming war. One of his first major stories in 1938 was of the interception of the ocean liner Rex by U.S. B-17 Flying Fortresses, in which he personally participated.

During World War II he wrote from the South Pacific, North Africa and Europe. His dispatches from Guadalcanal and the Western Pacific won him the Pullitzer Prize in 1943. In 1959 he broke the news of high-altitude atomic bomb test by the United States, known as Project Argus. Besides working for The Times, he lectured and wrote regularly for magazines, scholarly quarterlies and for professional military publications.

Thanks for retrieving the biographical info on Baldwin. I didn’t know he will be heading for the different combat zones as things develop, although it makes sense that he would. After all, he went to Louisiana last September for the war games. I also never would have guessed the W. stands for Weightman.

Homer

Thanks for the post from Baldwin. I must say, he is spot on with many of his observations. He correctly identified the Japanese success as an Army failure, since they were responsible for defense of the islands. He also knew of the Japanese “hiding” behind the weather front. He criticized the Americans for lack of preparation for the attack and lack of clear delineation of authority in the Hawaiian Islands. And he knows full well the value of land-based aviation in dominating the surrounding seas.

In reading this article, I get the feeling that Baldwin has some very well-placed sources in the US defense establishment. What he has written cannot entirely come from the information that has been made public.

Lancy Howard: "The similarities between the TWO dates that will live in infamy are striking.
The relevant question today is: Are we NOW vigilant enough?"

One undisputed reason for the Second Amendment is: our Founders well understood the price of freedom is constant vigilance, and preparation.
Of course they knew nothing about air attacks or suicide bombers, but they did know that citizens had to be ready for just about anything.

At the same time they were hugely concerned with individual liberties, so in no way, shape or form would they countenance a police state in peace-time.
And official peace-time is what we had on December 6, 2001.

The problem today is... I want to say "faux war", but that term is totally unfair to those brave Americans who risk their lives for us.
A more accurate term might be "low level kinetic actions", but using such language should be a jail-able offense. ;-)
We are really talking about military actions at the same levels of intensity as, for example, Indian wars in the time of Custer at Little Big Horn.
These were important events, but in no way comparable to the national effort required for, say, the Civil War or First World War.

So here's my point: how many personal liberties did Americans sacrifice in those days, compared to the liberties we have freely given up today?
Or to put it another way: when did the Land of the Free, Home of the Brave first become the Land of Class Warfare, Home of Unlimited Entitlements?

And how much of that can be blamed on the current war, versus how much would have happened anyway?

I don't know, but don't like what I see now.
Somebody who understands the original concept of our Free Republic needs to take a close look at our current Big Government, and cut it back down to some more reasonable size.

So, necessary vigilance is one thing, unnecessary government is something else entirely.

Homer:

Today in Fort Myers, FL, by chance, I had the pleasure of meeting one of “America’s Greatest Generation.”

An elderly gentleman climbed into the Buick dealer’s courtesy van behind me after I was picked up and he was introduced by the driver as “Jim Sibert.”

Making light conversation, he said “In ’42 I was flying out of Page Field.” (Local Fort Myers air field)

“With the Navy?”

“No, big four-engined bombers with the Army Air Corp.”

“B-24’s?”

“Yes. We were “staging” them to prepare to take them to the theater of operations.”

“Did you fly by way of Greenland?” “How did you get there?”

“San Juan, Trinidad and the Recife, Brazil. From there we flew across the South Atlantic to Accra (Ghana).

“Were you trying to get to England?”

“Oh No, we were supposed to be heading towards Japan! But we were diverted to Egypt”

Now, my mental wheels were spinning! Egypt? B-24’s? Ploesti?

I said “Didn’t they fly the Ploesti raid with B-24’s?

“That was my first combat mission!”

“They didn’t give you much fighter cover on that mission”.

“None. They told us it was going to be a surprise attack, but when we got there, they were ready for us and opened fire. I flew 32 missions and we had NO fighter cover for any of them."

By now we were at the Buick dealer. I told him that it was an honor to meet him and thanked him for his service. He must be about 92 years old.

When I got home I went on the web and searched “James Sibert Ploesti".

It turns out there were two James W. Sibert flying B-24 Liberators during WWII. One of them was killed in a freak accicent testing the planes in Alaska during cold weather conditions and included in the exchange below is the information on eventual Squadron Commander, Major James W. Sibert, who piloted the B-24 Liberator named "Queen B" on the Ploesti Raid.

http://forum.armyairforces.com/tm.aspx?m=65554&mpage=&print=true

Dog Driver: : [Dog_Driver] First Raid on Ploesti (HALPRO) - 09/09/2004

"I just came across a website that includes a "virtual" B-24 museum. In it, they list a group of 15 B-24s that made the first raid on the European continent on 11 June 1942 when they flew from Fayid, Egypt to Ploesti, Romania. The pilot of the "Queen Bee" was a man by the name of Lt. James Sibert. One of the crewmen who died in the crash I am investigating was also named Lt. James Sibert. Does anyone out there now anything about his first raid on Ploesti and in particular have any information regarding Lt. Sibert? I would like to find out if he may have rotated back to the states and gone to work at Wright AAF Base in Dayton, Ohio as a propeller specialist. As always, thanks for your help!!!"

mcoffee:

Re: [Dog_Driver] First Raid on Ploesti (HALPRO) - 09/09/2004 06:42:12 AM

"The 1/Lt. James W. Sibert that piloted Queen B on the HALPRO Ploesti mission remained with the group as it became the 376th Bomb Group. He became 514th Squadron Commander by the Spring of '43, and was promoted to Major. It appears he rotated home in April '43. His rank would preclude him being the Lt. Sibert you seek. The website you referenced lists the 23 HALPRO a/c and their originally assigned pilots. The asterisks denoting those flying the first Ploesti mission are not entirely accurate, as some pilots flew different a/c on this mission due to maintenance concerns. Sibert and Queen B are not indicated as flying, but they did make the mission."

Doing a little more web searching before hitting the send key I just found out what Jim Sibert did after his 32 WWII combat missions. Sibert was an FBI agent until 1972...and was one of the two agents who witnessed the JFK autopsy.

In the interview at the link Sibert says he doesn't buy the single bullet theory and doesn't dismiss the idea that there might have been a conspiracy!

http://jfkfiles.blogspot.com/2009/11/james-w-sibert-witness-to-history.html

Great story. Thanks for sharing it with the group.

Mr. Sibert is one of what must be a very small handful of living veterans of the Ploesti raids. What a career. He not only had a front row seat for history during his interesting times, he also made some.

Air Power in the War

By HANSON W. BALDWIN

Part I – April 9, 1942

Plane has a Major Role but Is Useless Save When Joined With Ships and Men

The ominous roar of flying squadrons in the skies of Europe and Asia Heralded the commencement of the Spring offensives yesterday as air power – weapon of destiny – started 1942’s decisive struggle for the domination of the world.

The air raids over Western Europe, the fighting in the skies of Libya and the Japanese carrier-based raids on India are plainly a preface to all-out campaigns in which land power and sea power will be joined with air power in the conflict.

The plane, which already has revolutionized war and altered the whole meaning of our civilization, will undoubtedly continue to play a major role in 1942’s battles. For the plane-tank team on land has spearheaded the Nazi advance across Europe just as the plane-ship team at sea has spearheaded the Japanese drive into the southwestern Pacific. The successful British attack at Taranto, the Battle of Cape Matapan, the destruction of the Bismarck, the Battle of France, the conquest of Crete, our losses at Pearl Harbor, the sinking of the Prince of Wales and Repulse have all shown what should have been obvious – that the plane is an indispensable instrument of modern global power. It is a truth that we have learned late and slowly but we are learning it well.

It must be emphasized, however, that the plane cannot today be a soloist in the symphony of battle. There is far more to air power than planes, and air power alone has not won any of the major campaigns of this war; land power and sea power and air power closely allied and coordinated have been the “combat team” that have provided military victory.

What the plane can do in war has been illustrated in part by the headlines of this war; what it is capable of doing must be judged in part by those achievements, in part by its present combat capacity and technical characteristics. Just as this capacity and these characteristics have been often grossly underestimated in the past, partly because of the conservatism of the general staff mind, so this capacity and these characteristics are frequently overestimated today. What the plane can do tomorrow no man can say with certainty, though what the plane can do today and in the foreseeable future – say within the next two to five years - is possible to estimate from an actual technical study of the characteristics of modern planes.

Such a study brings the role of the plane in war within proper perspective. It eliminates immediately grandiose claims for the plane made by ardent extremists; it pushes far into the realm of future wars – if indeed such a scheme is ever practical – what has been seriously suggested by one man as a means of winning this war; the transoceanic bombardment of Japan from bases in Alaska and the Aleutians. Such a study illustrates as nothing else can do that today armies and navies without planes are “gone goslings”; but planes without armies and navies are also futile. Indeed, the danger of basing a war-winning strategy on one without the other is in no way better epitomized than by paraphrasing the remarks of a British committee that once studied the question of air attack upon capital ships:

“The advocates of the extreme air [or land or sea] view would wish this country to maintain no armies or navies [or air fleets] – other powers still continuing to maintain them. If their theories turn out well founded, we have wasted money; if ill founded, we would, in putting them to the test, have lost the war.”

Part II – April 11, 1942

Raids Against Targets More Than 500 Miles Away Are Unprofitable

The importance of the plane in modern war was again emphasized by yesterday’s news that another proud ship bearing the White Ensign was sunk by Japanese carrier-based planes in the Indian Ocean.

But despite these and similar successes for air power – over sea and over land – the plane is not a self-sufficient weapon; it has limitations. What it can do today and what it may be expected to do in the immediate tomorrows has been brilliantly explained recently by Edward Warner, former assistant secretary of the Navy for aeronautics, now vice chairman of the Civil Aeronautics Board, writing in the January issue of Foreign Affairs. He said: The modern plane, and the plane of our immediate tomorrows, will find great difficulty in achieving speeds higher than 450 miles per hour. “Actually, there is no fixed barrier beyond which speed cannot increase.” However, resistance mounts so much in these high speed brackets that “we may consider it at least four times as difficult to increase the speed of an airplane from 500 miles an hour to 550 miles an hour as it was to make the increase from 350 to 400.” Today, only a relatively few of the world’s fastest fighters make 400 miles an hour.

The bomber, Mr. Warner finds, obviously also has strict limitations in performance. If a bomber flies at 200 miles an hour at 20,000 feet altitude, a fully loaded 40,000-pound plane – carrying about 10 per cent of its total weight, or 4,000 pounds, of bombs – should be able to raid targets at a maximum distance of about 1,500 miles away and return to its base.

Long Range Raids Not Efficient

This distance – 1,500 miles – represents about the maximum practical for raiding today; raids have been made, and will be made, at distances greater than this, but such raids are generally militarily inefficient and uneconomical since the bomb load that can be carried decreases rapidly with increased distance flown. Indeed, the lessons of the war have shown that raids against target more than 500 miles away have generally been unprofitable or of limited effect. Continuous and large-scale bombing raids are generally the only kind that militarily matter, and heavy and continuous bombing – day after day, night after night – against targets much in excess of 500 miles distance are not yet practical

The special pleaders for air power who have urged that a single type of plane – such as the heavy bomber or the long-range fighter - would “win the war,” find no encouragement in Mr. Warner’s article.

“The airplane that accepts the handicap of carrying bombs will always be at a disadvantage as against the machine that carries only offensive armament and the crew to operate it,” he wrote. “The airplane specialized for a single function will continue to maintain superiority in that function over the machine designed with some other objective, or with a multiplicity of objectives.”

Air power quite clearly is more than a single type of plane; it is all types, plus thoroughly trained air crews and ground crews – seven to fifteen men per plane; plus a great nexus of airfields and ground facilities; plus anti-aircraft guns and ground troops in considerable numbers to protect the airfields; plus surface transport for bombs and gasoline and other supplies; plus industrial facilities without end to provide planes, engines, and replacements; plus training fields for personnel.

Part III – April 13, 1942

The Plane teamed With Naval Forces Or Ground Units Found Most Effective

The influence of air power upon war was again demonstrated last week over Western Europe, in the Indian Ocean and in Burma.

The operations in the various theatres of action illustrate the three principal ways in which the plane can be used. Perhaps the most spectacular has been the use of the plane in conjunction with, or in support of, naval forces against naval forces of the enemy. Another principal use is in conjunction with, or support of, land forces against land forces of the enemy.

The third use, which some writers have called “pure air warfare,” typified by the British and Germans’ exchange of bombing raids – is in independent missions, not against the enemy’s armed forces, but against enemy industrial centers, cities, railroads, and other facilities on the Home Front, against the ability and will of the enemy people to fight.

The role of the plane used in conjunction with land power is now rather clear. Air superiority, or at least air equality, is now a sine qua non for success in land fighting. There have been some few exceptions to this generalization, where terrain, the lop-sided superiority of one side in land forces, superior tank strength, or other special factors temporarily nullified – as in the early days of the Burma and Bataan campaigns, and in periods of the last Libyan campaign – the enemy’s air superiority.

The plane-tank team has spearheaded the German conquests in Europe and has revolutionized war; the plane, used as flying artillery and for “vertical envelopment” – with parachute troops and air-borne infantry – is indispensable to modern armies; indeed, used in this role, it is one of the two principal weapons of land warfare.

”Pure Air Warfare” Limited

Used in ”pure air warfare,” the plane has by no means as yet reached its ultimate evolution, nor have Douhet’s and Mitchell’s theories received their final test. Range, speed and power will all increase, and in future years and future wars the devastating attacks of the plane – unless some defense is found against it, which is probable – may in themselves force decisions without the assistance of land or sea units.

But that day is not yet. Today the technical limitations of the plane make most bombing raids at distances much in excess of 1,500 miles from base to target uneconomical and militarily inefficient; indeed, bombing raids at distances of much more than 500 miles from base to target only occasionally pay military dividends.

Continuous and heavy bombing assaults – day after day, night after night – are the only kind that can hope to win a decision in “pure air warfare” and no nation today has enough heavy, long-range bombers or other facilities to keep intensive raids of this type going over great distances. They will get them, the United States probably first. Bombing ranges will increase as the war continues and in time, perhaps in future wars, bombers will shuttle back and forth across the oceans as they now leap across the English Channel.

But we have to fight this war with the planes we now have and are building and with the best we can design, not with blueprints of the future. And the best are not good enough to win a war by themselves, although they are so good they will be a major factor, perhaps the preponderant factor (but not the only factor), in tipping the scales toward victory.

Part IV – April 15, 1942

Sea Control Is Now Three-Dimensional – The Plane Supplements the Surface Ship

Wings over the sea have modified Mahan’s traditional concept of sea power. Sea power is now a three-dimensional element; it is idle to talk of control of the sea unless one also controls the air above it and the depths beneath the surface.

Air power shares with sea power the function of controlling ocean lines of communication. The two are indivisible elements of modern global power. Either is incomplete without the other.

The old argument that “planes can sink ships” is as much beside the point as it ever was. No proof of that statement was ever needed – though, for the doubting Thomases the headlines have offered redundant proof. But sunken ships – no matter how sunk – no more invalidate the concept of the ship as a commerce carrier and man-of-war than wrecked planes invalidate the concept of the plane as a commerce carrier and aerial man-of-war.

Any ship ever built, no matter how strong, can be sunk by air attack if enough force can be concentrated against it. Planes and fleets of planes can be destroyed if enough force can be concentrated against them.

Ships Not Yet Supplanted

The air extremists have now dismissed navies and merchant navies as obsolescent, if not obsolete, just as the surface-ship conservatives in the past blocked the full development of naval air power. Neither is right. The plane is a commerce carrier and an aerial man-of-war; but, despite the predictions of a few air extremists, it probably will never totally replace – certainly not within the foreseeable future – the surface ship in either function.

The quantity of air freight carried will unquestionably increase in the future, but today and tomorrow and probably throughout our generation the red-leaded tramp and the humble, smoking freighter will continue to carry the great majority of the world’s bulk freight. Heavy machinery, heavy munitions, wheat, manganese, railroad rolling stock, crude rubber, oil, gasoline – indeed, nearly all of the important international commodities except those items relatively light in weight and small in bulk – will certainly continue to be carried by surface carriers.

In the same way it is certain that aerial men-of-war, at least for the duration of this war, will continue to supplement, but never to replace, surface men-of-war. Neither can exercise effective control of the sea without the other.

What form the surface man-of-war must take to meet the menace from the skies and to adjust itself to the new meaning of sea power is a different question It is already possible to discover part of the answer to that question in past events.

Carrier may Be Principal Ship

Today the capital ship, or principal ship of surface navies, may well be the aircraft carrier, in so far as its actual operational use or value is concerned, yet battleships – the new ones just launched and the old ones that are the heritage of another war and another era of naval thought – still possess primary strategical importance. For the battleship is the backbone of the “fleet in being” school of naval strategy; so long as any belligerent possesses a battleship fleet, it will hold in reserve a powerful potential threat to its enemies.

This is in no way better illustrated than by contemporary events. It was the battleship that was the target of the British at Matapan and Taranto. It was the battleship against which the Japanese concentrated the full force of their attack at Pearl Harbor. It was the loss of the Prince of Wales and Repulse that upset the balance of naval power in the Southwestern Pacific. It was the battleship against which the British concentrated such efforts and which the Germans strove so ardently to save when the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau escaped up-Channel.

It was the battleship against which great air power and great sea power were concentrated. It was the battleship Bismarck – capital ship of the new sea power, not of an age that is gone – that withstood, before sinking, a minimum of seven and a maximum of ten torpedo hits and scores of hits from 16-inch and 14-inch shells and smaller projectiles. And it is the battleship that the navies of our enemies are carefully conserving for possible use as their trump card in the war at sea.

Part V – April 16 1942

Plane Carrier Is Major Naval Factor In Pacific and Only Offensive Hope

As the bitter and unending struggle for control of the oceans – the struggle that may decide this war – continued during the week, there was slowly emerging from the crucible of conflict some faint outline of the new sea power.

It was an outline that was still blurred, for the technical lessons of this war are by no means ended and the weapons of defense – particularly against air attack – have not yet caught up with the weapons of offense.

But it is plain that the influence of air power upon war has greatly emphasized the importance of the aircraft carrier. It is the carrier, accompanied by fast cruisers and destroyers, and organized in a striking group or task force, that has been the major naval factor of the war in the Pacific. Today it is the carrier that is tactically the most important naval type. This is true, not only because of the plane launched from the carrier deck greatly extends the hitting range of navies, but because the carriers of our fleet and their protective light forces are faster than any of our battleships – even including the new North Carolina and Washington – and modern naval tactics demand speed that our battleships do not possess. It is true because for the time being, at least, the torpedo and the bomb, rather than the gun, are the principal naval weapons.

Battleships Still Important

Yet when all this is said, the battleship – even the old ones that compose the bulk of our own and Japan’s battleship fleet – retains considerable strategic importance, though it is a potential importance and one that may never be realized in this war. Yet both the battleship and the carrier are in an evolutionary state. Naval design and naval tactics are in flux, violent flux; changes of greater import than any since the substitution of steam for sail are now in the making. The capital ship of tomorrow will certainly not be either the carrier of the battleship of today.

The battleship, if it is to survive even in vestigial form, must meet the menace of the torpedo to its unarmored underwater hull (the Bismarck class has come closer to doing this than any other, but the problem is not solved) and the carrier of yesterday and today is slowly becoming an armored ship with side belt and armored decks, and a thoroughly sub-divided, compartmentalized underwater hull. Thus, the two types – battleship and carrier – are in one sense merging to make the capital (principal) ship of tomorrow. The question still remaining for decision is whether the gun will regain its former ascendancy as a principal naval weapon, or whether the plane-carried weapons – torpedo and bomb – will retain their present ascendancy. The capital ship of tomorrow may well be the heavily armored carrier equipped with medium three-fourth-sized guns (six inch to eleven inch), though many designers believe that compromise types of this sort are always unsuccessful. The two types may therefore continue in separate and distinct evolution, with the new battleship a heavily armored ship of somewhat lesser gun power, but with far greater anti-aircraft protection, far greater speed, and far better protection than today’s battleships, and with the new carrier larger, and more heavily protected.

U.S. Needs More Carriers

Viewed against this perspective it seems clear that the proportion of carriers to other ships should be very greatly increased; the thirteen regular carriers we are building, plus the sixteen to thirty auxiliary carriers we are converting from merchant ships, should be many times increased. The construction time of carriers has been greatly decreased, and the giant battleships that we had planned do not now have comparable priority. It is questionable, moreover, whether battleships of such size and gun power are worth the cost and effort; it is more probable that the design of tomorrow’s battleship should be modified. But certain it is that that sea power that possesses in goodly number both the new carrier and the new battleship – regardless of which is the capital ship of the new navy – will win the struggle of the seas.

And certain it is that the surface ship is not only indispensable for control of the seas, but without it the United States can never develop in this war a decisive offensive

The war has shown the smashing tactical strength of air power, used independently or cooperatively. But the United States lies behind two oceans – and we cannot hope in this war to develop a bombing offensive across those oceans. Defensively, against any forces coming across the seas to attack this country, American air power can be used to great strategic purpose. But today, given the limitations of the plane, air power can develop a decisive strategic offensive, particularly against Japan, only when used in conjunction with sea power. It is around the plane-ship team that we must build our hopes of controlling the seas – and consequently our hopes of eventual victory.

That is interesting

Mr. Baldwin wrote this before the atomic bomb was delivered by a plane.

Curtis LeMay does not agree. Nor do I...

What the plane can do tomorrow no man can say with certainty, though what the plane can do today and in the foreseeable future – say within the next two to five years - is possible to estimate from an actual technical study of the characteristics of modern planes.

Colonel Tibbets, please pick up the white courtesy phone.

Baldwin is responding to the book “Victory Through Air Power” by Alexander de Seversky, a best seller in 1942.

Baldwin is responding to the book “Victory Through Air Power” by Alexander de Seversky, a best seller in 1942.

See pages 10 and 11 of today's regular news thread.