Weapons and Warfare | History and Hardware of Warfare

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Web Name: Weapons and Warfare | History and Hardware of Warfare

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In January 1935 Major Wilson drafted the tactical school comment on a proposed Air Corps doctrine prepared by the General Staff’s War Plans Division. Wilson’s concepts about the proper use of air force were explicit: “The principal and all important mission of air power, when its equipment permits, is the attack of those vital objectives in a nation’s economic structure which will tend to paralyze that nation’s ability to wage war.” Wilson believed that such a decisive use of air power would “contribute directly to the attainment of the ultimate objective of war, namely, the disintegration of the hostile will to resist.” Wilson continued, stating matter-of-factly that in a “war between major powers, an air force phase, which may be decisive, will be initiated prior to the contact of ground armies.” Additionally, the air force plan, once decided on, must have “unwavering adherence” to be effective. Finally, in an ironic twist, the Tactical School also noted that the importance of aviation justified the diversion of ground troops to guard air bases.Quite simply, the Tactical School proposed that air power by itself could be the decisive factor in war if its control was left to those who knew how to employ the weapon—air officers. Furthermore, the study admitted that this doctrine was offensive and was to be directed against modern industrial nations once a suitable airplane made the theories feasible. Bomber technology was driving the development of a doctrine to exploit its potential, regardless of whether this doctrine was appropriate to stated American defense policies, but two crucial elements were still missing. First, the vital objectives in a nation’s economic structure that could paralyze its ability to wage war had to be identified. Second, an airplane capable of executing the doctrine was needed.Key elements in the industrial web were identified through research at the Tactical School. Captain R. M. Webster decided that New York City was a good example of a city “highly dependent upon the mechanisms of modern civilization.” Accordingly, he wrote to the commander of the 2d Corps Area at Governor’s Island, New York, asking for assistance. He noted that he was conducting research to determine the “sensitive points in that city to air attack” to evaluate “the probable effects induced by their destruction.” Webster specified that he was particularly interested in the relation of New York City to the national economic structure as well as the city’s water, food, electric power, illuminating gas, and transportation systems.Major F. V. Hemenway, an officer assigned to Governor’s Island, responded that the data were available but could be viewed only at the headquarters due to their nature. If Webster could not visit, Hemenway suggested he write to a number of New York state agencies for assistance. Webster took the advice and began a letter-writing campaign that included the National Board of Fire Underwriters, the New York City Board of Water Supply, the Director of the Bureau of the Census, the Museum of Sciences and Industry, and the Consolidated Gas Company. Most of the addressees provided Webster with the information he requested, and he soon amassed an impressive amount of data. From such efforts the Tactical School determined the targets most vulnerable to bombardment attack.Technology supporting the evolving doctrine was also forthcoming. In August 1935 the Douglas, Martin, and Boeing aircraft companies each sent bomber prototypes to Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio, to compete for the Air Corps multiengine bomber contract. The Martin entry was a larger version of the firm’s B-10, while the Douglas airplane was a derivative of its commercial DC-2 design. Each had two engines and were evolutions of existing aviation technology.The Boeing entry, the four-engined model 299, was revolutionary. It had flown nonstop the 2,100 miles between the Boeing plant in Seattle, Washington, and Wright Field, at an impressive average speed of 232 miles per hour. The operational capabilities promised by the model 299 were impressive: a top speed of 251 miles per hour; a cruising range of 2,600 miles, with an increase to 3,150 miles feasible; a normal bomb load capacity of 2,500 pounds; and a service ceiling of 27,600 feet.The Boeing airplane caused General Foulois, chief of the Air Corps, to rethink the entire Air Corps procurement program for fiscal year 1936. On October 1 Foulois requested that the approved requirements of 438 airplanes of all types be revised downward to a total of 333 so that 65 Boeing bombers could be purchased.Within the month, however, the airplane procurement plan again had to be revised. On October 30 the Boeing prototype bomber crashed, not because of any defect in the airplane but because the crew had neglected to unlock the rudder and elevator controls during preflight checks. Unfortunately, the crash occurred before the necessary regulatory evaluations of the airplane had been completed, precluding “an award being made to the Boeing Aircraft Company under competitive conditions for 65 of these bombers.”Still, Westover believed that the Boeing plane was a “remarkable aeronautical development” and that thirteen of the bombers should be procured “under Section 10 (k) of the Air Corps Act for experimental service test.” Westover went on to recommend that in addition to the thirteen Boeing planes, eighty Douglas prototypes be purchased if they proved superior to the Martin entry. Colonel William T. Carpenter, Supply Division, G-4, advised the chief of staff to approve Westover’s new Air Corps plan.On November 21 the chief of staff approved the request, and thirteen Boeing airplanes were ordered. The contract for the Boeing bomber, designated the Y1B-17 pending service test, was closed on January 17, 1936. Delivery began the following January, and by August 1937 all thirteen of the B-17 bombers had been accepted by the Air Corps.Over the next three years, the Air Corps asked for more B-17s and bombers of even greater range, but the War Department resisted. Its position stemmed from two considerations. First, the department believed that the twin-engined B-18 (the standardized Douglas prototype) was adequate for national defense purposes, particularly since substantially more B-18s than B-17s could be purchased with the limited budget.55 Second, the War Department argued that bombers with greater ranges than that of the B-17 were out of step with American policy, since they could “bomb points in Europe and South America and return without refueling.” Consequently, such an airplane was inappropriate “in the armament of a nation which has a National Policy of good will and a Military policy of protection, not aggression.”The Air Corps arguments were articulated well by General Andrews. At a September 1936 conference concerning the continued funding of the Project D airplane, Andrews stated that the Army needed “airplanes of long endurance” to “stop hostile air expeditions at their sources,” to maintain continuous reconnaissance to guard against sea invasion, and to bomb enemy aircraft carriers at distances from national coasts that would prevent them from launching their aircraft. Andrews argued that the Air Corps should have the most advanced equipment available. Since “a future international situation may set up a need for planes of greater power,” the War Department authorized research and development of a generation of bombers beyond the B-17 but offered little more.General Andrews undoubtedly envisioned roles for long-range bombers, including the B-17, beyond those he mentioned in the conference. The missions he discussed were those sanctioned for the GHQ Air Force by the October 1935 War Department training regulations—that is, air operations that were “beyond the sphere of influence of ground forces,” in the “immediate support of ground forces,” or involved “in coastal frontier defense and in other joint Army and Navy operations.”Even in the unlikely event that Andrews wanted more bombers at least as capable as the B-17 to perform only the War Department–authorized missions, some air officers at the Tactical School believed strongly in the old adage “the best defense is a good offense.” In a 1936 lecture on the principles of war, Major Harold George blithely dismissed American military policies in the face of the new bomber technology:I like to compare the strategy of an air force with the measures used by the Medical Department in ridding the Canal Zone of mosquitoes. That department did not put fly swatters in the hands of the population and then go back to its hospitals. Not by any means. The Medical Department went to the places where those mosquitoes lived and breeded and there they exterminated them,—not by defensive action but with offensive action.This offensive doctrine called for an airplane of great range, whose “ultimate radius of action…is that which will enable us to strike the nerve centers of any potential enemies from our own territory.” The B-17 was a major step in this direction. Here, for the first time, was an airplane capable of transforming the bomber advocates’ theory into reality.Aside from its range and bomb load, the B-17 had capabilities that seemingly made it virtually invincible. Its demonstrated speed of 250 miles per hour was faster than the standard Air Corps pursuit airplane, the P-26, whose maximum speed was 234 miles per hour.61 Increased speed also enabled bomber advocates to dismiss antiaircraft fire as a threat. The 1935 Bombardment text proclaimed confidently: “Higher speeds will also give the bombardment airplane a higher degree of immunity from antiaircraft fire than it already enjoys.” Furthermore, it appeared that bomber speed would only increase as bomber design advanced, further widening the gap between the bomber and pursuit aircraft. The reigning wisdom among American aviation engineers, particularly in the matériel division of the Air Corps, was that “increased aerodynamic efficiency could be achieved with increased size.” The apparent solution to increased speed, range, and carrying capacity was to design airplanes with larger airframes and powered by multiple engines of great horsepower.In addition to the B-17’s impressive performance characteristics, it was the Air Corps’s first bomber large enough to mount guns larger than .30 caliber. The capability to carry heavier armament meant that the B-17 had a much greater chance of defending itself. Many Air Corps officers thus came to believe that when bombers were flown in tight formations the synergy of their massed weapons would create a wall of fire through which no pursuit plane could pass. For the bomber advocates, the B-17 settled the issue of the ascendancy of the bomber over the pursuit airplane. They were convinced that the “present and potential single engine pursuit planes” were “ineffective” against the new bomber since they were slower and had less range and weaker armament. Quite simply, the Air Corps was convinced the B-17 was an unstoppable weapon. Brigadier General Henry H. Arnold, commander of the 1st Wing, GHQ Air Force, asserted that “with the wide variety of targets available to long range bombardment, it is out of the question to expect that pursuit can be so placed as to intercept all air raids.”The conviction that long-range bombers could not be deterred, reinforced by the technological breakthrough of the B-17, was the catalyst that made American air doctrine dogma. The invincibility of the bomber was a powerful assumption on a number of levels. First, if the United States could develop such a formidable bombardment capability, it had to be assumed that potential enemies could do so as well. Therefore, since their bombers would be invulnerable to defensive means, they could be stopped only by counter–air force operations. This mission, which required strategic long-range bombers in a defensive role, did not tie their procurement to the contentious coast defense. Second, the mission against an enemy’s air force, if presumed to be the most important role for aviation, gave the Air Corps additional arguments for autonomy. How could such a valuable weapon possibly be tied to the support of ground forces? The Air Corps understood clearly the implications of such arguments: “The United States must provide bombardment aviation at least the equal in numbers, range and speed performances, and striking power, to that of any other nation or possible coalition.”From these crucial assumptions the Tactical School made the final refinements to Air Corps doctrine. The doctrine had two fundamental premises. First, “modern nations cannot wage war if their industries are destroyed.” Second, “aircraft can penetrate any known air defenses and destroy any known targets with bombs.” These premises led to the conclusion that “air warfare is…a method of destroying the enemy’s ability to wage war. It is primarily a means of striking a major blow toward winning a war, rather than a direct auxiliary to surface warfare.”The conviction that the bomber was all important and all but unstoppable had a telling effect on how the Air Corps viewed other classes of aviation. By 1937, when the rout of the pursuit advocates was complete, their most vocal champion, Claire Chennault, retired. Forty years later General Laurence Kuter, a former bombardment instructor, recalled the victory of the bomber advocates: “We just overpowered Claire; we just whipped him.”Kuter further explained that the bomber advocates defeated Chennault and the pursuit boosters by edging them out in a number of crucial areas, including “attention by the chief’s office, for appropriations, for personnel assignment, appropriations primarily. We got money for B-17s; he didn’t get anything.” Kuter also noted that Chennault was myopic about pursuit: “He wouldn’t talk about a fighter to accompany a B-17, a supporting defensive fighter, because that put the fighter in a secondary role.” Finally, Kuter noted the chasm between the competing camps in the Air Corps: “We wouldn’t talk about it [pursuit] either because that implied some of the limited funds might have to go to a supporting fighter of some sort. We didn’t believe we needed it in the first place, and where there was doubt, we believed that the limited amount of money was barely enough to get a bomber program started.”The crucial assumption that enemy pursuit would be ineffective against American bombardment was repeated in the Air Corps doctrine about its own pursuit tactics. The 1939 Pursuit text noted that although the role of pursuit remained the attack of enemy bombers, the mission was questionable. Since pursuit had lost its speed advantage and had limited range, its attacks on heavily armed enemy bombardment formations “must be confined to harassing by long-range fire or by bombing if so equipped.”The conviction that air power was potentially decisive also shaped the doctrine for support of the ground battle. The Tactical School rationalized that since air forces were so powerful the best service the Air Corps could provide to the ground commander was the defeat of enemy air power. Thus, the “neutralization of the hostile air attacking force” became the principal Air Corps contribution to the ground battle. Furthermore, the old contention that aviation was viewed by ground officers as “long-range artillery” was now used to the aviators’ advantage by asserting that “air attacks are not made against objectives within the effective range of friendly artillery, or against deployed troops, except in cases of great emergency.” Finally, Tactical School instructors emphasized that bombardment was simply too valuable to use in any type of ground support role.Attack aviation doctrine was radically altered by this view that counter-air force operations were primary, since attack aviation had as its principal role “the attack of hostile ground forces…in close cooperation with ground forces in battle.” By 1935 targets for attack aviation were enemy air bases and parked airplanes; coast defense; antiaircraft defenses; and “the destruction, or the interruption of movement of personnel and materiel through the attack of factories, logistical establishments, lines of communication, and concentrated bodies of troops.”The Tactical School’s marginalization of the ground support mission extended to the integration of tanks and airplanes into a combat team. In October 1938 Colonel John H. Pirie, acting commandant of the school, wrote to the chief of the Air Corps that he believed that airplanes, when compared with tanks, were fragile and susceptible to ground fire and that using them in a close support role jeopardized a valuable weapon system. Furthermore, air power was most effective when employed “beyond the local ground combat zone.” Therefore, using airplanes to “clear the path of the more rugged tank…clearly appears to be tactically unsound…except in the gravest emergency.”The deteriorating European situation provided the impetus to expand the Air Corps into a force capable of executing the doctrines espoused at the Tactical School. When in September 1938 British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain acceded to Adolf Hitler’s demands to dismember Czechoslovakia, George Fielding Elliot, a respected military commentator, suggested that Chamberlain had capitulated because of Germany’s immense advantage over England in air strength. Elliot concluded: “It is blackmail which rules Europe today, and nothing else: blackmail made possible only by the existence of air power.”Joseph P. Kennedy, the American ambassador in London, shared Fielding’s opinions about the power of the Luftwaffe. On September 22 he informed the secretary of state of his recent conversation with Charles Lindbergh, who had just returned from a review of European air forces. Lindbergh’s opinions were alarming. He asserted that “Germany’s air strength is greater than all other European countries combined and that her margin of leadership is constantly being increased…. If she wishes to do so, Germany now has the means of destroying London, Paris, and Prague.” He further observed that only the United States could hope to compete with Germany in the aviation field.On October 13 William C. Bullitt, the American ambassador to France, told President Roosevelt that Hitler had been able to dictate his terms at Munich because of his vastly superior air strength. He echoed Lindbergh’s conviction that only the American aviation industry could compete with Germany’s. Bullitt also told the president that the French believed that they and the British would have to rely on American production to counter the threat posed by the Luftwaffe.Roosevelt soon settled on how America would respond to German military power. On November 14 he assembled key civilian and military advisers and sketched the outlines of a new national defense policy based on his belief that American defenses had to be bolstered in light of the situation in Europe. The country had to be “prepared to resist assault on the Western Hemisphere ‘from the North to the South Pole.’” The key to the plan, the president argued, was a massive expansion of American air power. Although he wanted an Army air corps of 20,000 planes and an annual production capacity of 24,000, he realized that Congress would not support such numbers and instead directed the War Department to develop a program based on 10,000 planes.Roosevelt’s pronouncement produced mixed views in his military subordinates. General Arnold believed “that the Air Corps had achieved its Magna Carta.” He was fully receptive to the president’s conclusion that a strong air corps, not a large ground force, was the best way to deter aggression in the American hemisphere. Arnold also concluded that “the president had not only made permissible but had required the development of the long-range heavy bomber.” He left the White House with the seed of an idea for a balanced American air force branch planted firmly in his mind.General Marshall, who had openly opposed the president’s fixation on air power during the conference, preferred to strengthen the entire Army, not just one component. Furthermore, he and Arnold both agreed that “a lot of airplanes by themselves…were not air power.” Consequently, the War Department, applying its best military judgment, planned a balanced program.The War Department did not grasp that what the president wanted was airplanes. Marshall later realized that the president “was principally thinking at that time of getting airships for England and France,” but when in December the military officers returned to Roosevelt with their conventional program, the president was incensed. The military leadership interpreted his anger as an inability to understand the complexities of modern armies, but they misread Roosevelt’s intentions. They recommended a professional approach that would develop an army capable of defending the hemisphere. Roosevelt simply wanted airplanes. When his military chiefs made their recommendations, he retorted that the “services were offering him everything except planes” and that “he could not ‘influence Hitler with barracks, runways, and schools for mechanics.’” The military chiefs failed to recognize that Roosevelt’s “emphasis on sheer numbers of planes and his irritation at arguments for the supporting apparatus that would make them effective attested to an interest similar to Hitler’s in an air force whose appearance would be more important than its use.”In spite of the president’s wishes, the military chiefs prevailed and Roosevelt “felt compelled to accept a balanced force.” The War Department modified the 10,000-airplane program: by January 1939, the totals had been adjusted to 6,000 aircraft.For the Air Corps, the president’s sudden emphasis on air power was an institutional windfall. In September 1939 the appointment of General Marshall as chief of staff further enhanced the air arm’s position. Marshall understood the importance of aviation in a political as well as an operational sense.In May 1940 President Roosevelt told Congress that he wanted a program that could produce 50,000 aircraft a year and “provide us with 50,000 military and naval planes.” Shortly thereafter, on June 26, Marshall approved the first aviation objective of organizing fifty-four combat groups by April 1942. The size and complexity of the expansion program resulted in a reappraisal of the air arm’s position within the War Department. General Arnold became the deputy chief of staff for air in November, a position above both the office of the chief of Air Corps and the GHQ Air Force. Robert A. Lovett was appointed as the special assistant to the secretary of war in December to manage air affairs. In April Lovett filled the reestablished position of assistant secretary of war.These new arrangements were not satisfactory, because the office of the chief of the Air Corps and the GHQ Air Force still shared the management of air matters. Henry L. Stimson, the secretary of war, directed in March 1941 the placement of the air arm “under one responsible head.” He also told the War Department “to develop an organization staffed and equipped to provide the ground forces with essential aircraft units for joint operations, while at the same time expanding and decentralizing our staff work to permit Air Force autonomy in the degree needed.” In June 1941 the Army Air Forces was created, with General Arnold as its chief, assisted by an air staff.On July 9, 1941, President Roosevelt directed the secretary of war and the secretary of the Navy to begin “exploring at once the over-all production requirements required to defeat our potential enemies.” By September the “Joint Board Estimate of United States Over-all Requirements,” a document designed to support the ABC-1 and Rainbow-5 war plans that assumed an Anglo-American coalition, had been prepared. The plan was based on defeating Germany first. The Joint Board’s report included an air section prepared by the new Air War Plans Division (AWPD). This document, called AWPD-1, would form the basis for the organization of the American air effort in the coming war.Four officers prepared the important sections of AWPD-1: Colonel Harold L. George, Lieutenant Colonel Kenneth N. Walker, Major Laurence S. Kuter, and Major Haywood S. Hansell. All were staunch bomber advocates and former instructors at the Tactical School. The plan they prepared reflected the essence of the radical air power doctrine that focused on the preeminence of the long-range strategic bomber:The effectiveness of an Air Force in contributing to the defeat of an enemy is measured by the efficiency of the bombardment component in destroying vital enemy objectives. Day bombing, in which the target may be most readily seen, will result in the highest bombing accuracy.AWPD-1 proceeded to explain how Germany could be defeated by air power. The plan recognized three major tasks for the Army air forces:The air planners outlined 154 targets that would “virtually destroy the sources of military strength of the German state.” These targets were grouped into six prioritized target categories that would ensure the disruption of the German industrial fabric: fifty to disrupt electric power, forty-seven to disrupt the transportation system, twenty-seven to destroy 80 percent of the synthetic petroleum production, eighteen to destroy airplane assembly plants, six to destroy 90 percent of aluminum production, and six to destroy magnesium production.The air planning team realized that its entire plan hinged on the question of whether it was feasible to deeply penetrate German territory and conduct precision bombing without prohibitive losses. They themselves raised this issue and outlined the threat posed to their plan by German air defenses. German fighter opposition had made “daylight bomber operation excessively expensive” until “the appearance of the British Sterling bomber and the American [B-17] Flying Fortress.” The defensive fire power of these more capable bombers would enable them to cope with the fighter problem. German antiaircraft artillery, although capable, would not prevent success. These assumptions led the planners to the conclusion that “by employing large numbers of aircraft with high speed, good defensive fire power, and high altitude, it is feasible to make deep penetrations into Germany in daylight.”AWPD-1 conceded that the failure of the German daylight bombing offensive over England had been caused by the superiority of British pursuit airplanes. The planning group believed that the Germans had had to meet the “British pursuit on unequal terms.” The solution posed to redress the German “technical deficiency” was to increase the armament and armor on bombers. The planning group recognized that this approach might not work, since it was “not impossible that the present relative superiority of the interceptor over the bomber may be maintained.” In that event, they recommended the development of escort fighters “designed to enable bombardment formations to fight through to the objective.”The planners, even after revealing a crucial weakness in one of their key assumptions—that bomber formations could rely on their own defensive armament to fight their way through to their objectives—did not give high priority to any alternative plan. Although they concluded that pursuit could pose a significant threat to bombardment and recognized a “possible need” for escort fighters, the project received little attention. AWPD-1 recommended a research and development effort, not a crash program. A squadron of thirteen escort fighters would be established to test the concept. Furthermore, only “if the need for this weapon is determined” would production plans be altered.AWPD-1 was the quintessential expression of American strategic bombing theory. The plan was alluring because the airmen seemed to promise that “precision bombing will win the war.” Indeed, AWPD-1 specifically stated that “if the air offensive is successful, a land offensive may not be necessary.” Furthermore, the air offensive could be initiated in April 1942, well in advance of any possible major ground operations. The air officers asked only “that this project be given priority over all other national production requirements.” And it needed a high priority. The plan called for an Army Air Force of 251 combat groups equipped with more than 63,000 operational aircraft and staffed by 2 million officers and enlisted men.AWPD-1 was approved by Secretary of War Stimson on September 25. His endorsement was significant on two levels. First, it recognized that the air effort would require immense resources. Second, and perhaps more important for the air power advocates, it provided license for the air arm to try to prove that it could be a decisive, independent force. Regardless of whether ground officers believed the air power advocates’ claims, they had pragmatic reasons to at least try to implement the plan, because “there was certainly much to be gained if it worked. If it did not, the Army and Navy would be called upon to do what they had been planning on doing anyway.”For air officers, AWPD-1 had enormous significance. It was the enunciation of an air power manifesto that had been twenty years in the making. Clearly, the future institutional form of the air arm depended on its contribution to winning the impending war, but the Air Forces had also staked out an irreversible position: unescorted, high-altitude, daylight precision bombing would have a decisive impact on the outcome of the war.General Arnold understood the implications of AWPD-1. Realizing he would be hard-pressed to stay abreast of the expansion program, and when war came, the deployment of the air arm, he moved to forestall any further calls for independence. In late August General Marshall learned that the American Legion planned to introduce a “storm of resolutions” for a “unified air service or independent striking arm” at its national convention. Marshall apparently asked Arnold to help defuse this movement. In September 1941 Arnold sent letters to Norman M. Lyon, chairman of the National Aeronautics Commission, American Legion, and Warren Atherton, chairman of National Defense, American Legion. In these letters, Arnold explained his position: “Our expansion is being effected in accordance with ou[r] plans and program but not without the greatest effort on the part of all of our Air Force officers…. Additional work, and no one can gainsay but that there will be a tremendous amount of it in connection with the transformation from an Air Force organization to a separate Air Force, may be just enough to ‘break the camel’s back.’” On September 2 Arnold informed Marshall that he had written Lyon and Atherton and had explained to them “why a separate Air Force is undesirable [at this time].”Arnold’s stance that the Air Forces should remain within the War Department did not mean that he did not try to gain greater autonomy over air operations. He and his subordinates did not find the arrangements for control of the air arm satisfactory. The air staff members chafed under their continued subordination to the War Department General Staff. Furthermore, the chief of the Army Air Forces only “coordinated” the operations of the office of the chief of the Air Corps and the former GHQ Air Force, now renamed the Air Force Combat Command.The War Department reorganization in March 1942, discussed in the next chapter, corrected most of these deficiencies. The Army Air Forces was made an autonomous force, coequal with the Army Ground Forces and the Services of Supply. Furthermore, the War Department General Staff was restructured so that 50 percent of its members were air officers.As the War Department grappled with its organizational problems, the planning and production to deploy American air power against Germany accelerated. Ominous lessons from the air war in Europe also began to surface. In the closing months of 1941 the British had determined that daylight bombing was suicidal and that existing technologies employed under combat conditions precluded precision bombing. A September 1941 report by the Royal Air Force (RAF) noted that performance of American-supplied B-17s in “daylight Continental bombing missions thus far are not encouraging.” German fighters had shot down two B-17s, while “as yet the B-17’s gunners have failed either to shoot down or damage a single enemy plane.” Furthermore, German antiaircraft weapons were reported to be accurate up to 30,000 feet. Eventually, the British abandoned daylight precision bombing for a new strategy centered on area bombing of German cities at night.The American bomber enthusiasts were not deterred by either the British experiences or the earlier German failure during the Battle of Britain. In a January 1942 memorandum for General Marshall, Laurence Kuter faced the issue squarely by posing the question: “How can the AAF [Army Air Forces] (Victory Program) succeed in softening up the enemy when the RAF and GAF [German Air Force] have been unable to do the same thing?” Kuter explained that the issue was one of training:Attrition in airplanes in the Bomber Command of the RAF is over 50% per month and at the same time they are accomplishing no material results. The inevitable consequence of this vicious cycle which is initiated by entering combat without the training required to effect material accomplishment and at the same time having to withstand extraordinary attrition has resulted in the unpalatable fact that the bombardment combat crews of the RAF are no longer trying.General Arnold was as confident as Kuter but more diplomatic. He wrote in a March 1942 letter to Air Chief Marshall Sir Charles F. A. Portal, British chief of air staff, that he believed that with the “greater defensive fire power of our bombers, and a carefully developed technique of formation flying with mutually supporting fire, that our bombers may be able to penetrate in daylight beyond the radius of fighters.” American airmen were convinced that their doctrine and technology, in the hands of trained bomber crews, could succeed where others had failed. They soon had the chance to prove their contentions.On February 20, 1942, Brigadier General Ira Eaker and six other air officers arrived in England. Two days later Eaker assumed command of the newly established VIII Bomber Command. Over the coming months he and his staff laid the foundations for the envisioned American bomber offensive against the Continent. It was a difficult task. Plans for the invasion of North Africa and diversions of air groups to the Pacific theater sapped the strength of the force being assembled for what the air officers viewed as the main effort against Germany. In mid-June the Eighth Air Force became operational under the command of Major General Carl “Tooey” Spaatz. In early August Eaker wrote Arnold that the initial B-17 group appeared ready for its first mission. In his letter, he also expressed the crucial assumptions developed by American air power advocates between the two world wars:The tempo is stepping up as we approach the zero hour. Tooey’s and my theory that day bombardment is feasible is about to be tested where men’s lives are put at stake.It will interest you to know that several months ago when the date of our entering operations seemed far away, a great many people told us that day bombing could be done by well trained crews and airplanes despite the stiffness of fighter opposition. As the hour approaches for the test, with the chips down, a lot of these people have grown luke warm or actually deserted our camp. Tooey and I however, remain steadfast in the belief that it can and must be done. Everything depends on it. Here are the reasons, well known to you why we must bomb by daylight:We can hit point targets in day bombing. A smaller force can therefore destroy vital objectives.The British bomb by night and the German defences sleep by day; when we are at them in the day time, they will be alerted 24 hours a day and get no rest.The operational losses will be greatly reduced; It is much better to combat the normal weather in this theater in daylight than at night.Navigation will be greatly improved; crews with much less training and experience can do an acceptable job.Our aircraft, super-charged and unflamed dampened, are not well suited for night bombardment.We can see the enemy fighters and knock them down; we shall not be slinking through the forest evading the enemy, but shall be boldly looking for him; asking for combat in order to reduce his air power, knowing that our production and replacement capacity is superior to his.By chance, or by keen foresight on your part, you have two zealots in Tooey and myself who believe whole-heartedly that the foregoing reasons are compelling and that daylight bombing can be done without irreplaceable losses.Spaatz also wrote Arnold and was more to the point: “The question of the ability of a formation of B-17’s to take care of itself against fighter attack must be decided.”Their confidence seemed justified. On August 17 twelve B-17s of the 97th Bombardment Group flew the first American mission against the Rouen-Sotteville marshaling yard in occupied France. The force suffered no losses, and Sergeant Kent R. West, a B-17 gunner, bagged a German fighter. On August 19 twenty-two B-17s hit the Abbeville/Drucat airfield, again without loss. The next day eleven bombers attacked the Longeau marshaling yard, with all planes returning to base. Spaatz, as assured as Eaker, wrote Arnold on August 21 that these first three missions proved the soundness of American training and equipment. He further noted that “our daylight bombing of precision objectives will be decisive provided we receive an adequate force in time.” Three days later, after only one week of operations, Spaatz concluded that “daylight bombing with extreme accuracy can be carried out at high altitudes by our B-17 airplanes.” Furthermore, Spaatz was convinced “that such operations can be extended, as soon as the necessary size force has been built up, into the heart of Germany without fighter protection over the whole range of operation.”Arnold used Eaker’s and Spaatz’s reports as ammunition to obtain more resources for the Eighth Air Force. Early in September he wrote Harry Hopkins that the Eighth Air Force’s operations had shown the validity of American bomber doctrine and the B-17’s worth in battle. Therefore, it was time to concentrate the air resources for a decisive effort against the “German war machine.”Arnold also wrote to Spaatz that AWPD-1 was being revised. He noted that the underlying premises for the new plan remained the same, with Germany the principal enemy. He asked Spaatz to keep up the pressure for more resources and to continue to send him reports on the bombing effort, which he was using to show that precision bombing was the correct strategy. Arnold also stressed the importance of the Eighth Air Force’s success to supporting a “lick Germany first” policy and in arguing that the air offensive should be extended against Germany itself: “The accuracy of your precision bombing to date and the remarkable record with respect to losses that you have established has done much to convince everyone that our former theories are now facts.”General Arnold was exuberant. By late October it seemed that two decades of struggle to build American air power were finally paying off. Arnold wrote to Hopkins about “miraculous results,” noting that the Eighth Air Force had conducted 16 missions, with 336 bombers reaching their targets. Only 9 bombers had been lost, and 498 enemy airplanes had been engaged, 63 of which had been destroyed, 97 probably destroyed, and 107 damaged.The airmen’s claims about the invincibility of the B-17 and the soundness of their doctrine were, Arnold believed, being proven. This initial success probably further confirmed in his mind the validity of the advice he had received from Eaker earlier in the month. Eaker believed that as soon as the Eighth Air Force bomber strength had increased, an air assault against Germany proper was possible. On October 20 he wrote: “I am absolutely convinced that the following answers are sound and I am certain Tooey agrees with me. Three hundred heavy bombers can attack any target in Germany by daylight with less than four percent losses…. The daylight bombing of Germany with planes of the B-17 and B-24 types is feasible, practicable and economical.”In the next year, Arnold provided Eaker with enough planes and air crews to test their shared assumptions.The Dhow is not an Arab ship, it is a veritable family of vessels sharing common characteristics, such as the hull, large (about 4 to 1), with straight cut lines, with three masterpieces whose bow, long and the keel, and the stern, less inclined, and one or two masts carrying sails Latin-setie.The smallest ones are only eight meters for 50 tons. The larger ones, like the Baghala, up to 500 tons and more. Their construction has not varied since their appearance, presumably in the late Middle Ages. Dams were rarely decked to maximize load carrying. It was a coaster, which could be stranded on the shore, and resume the sea with the tide every day, like the cargo ships of antiquity.The rise of Islam in the Hijaz in the early seventh century affected the Indian Ocean in several important ways. Describing these changes will be the main concern of this chapter, which uses material from the period up to the end of the fifteenth century. In this period there was both continuity and change. It would certainly be incorrect to write of an Islamic period or ocean. Many others traded and travelled, and coastal routes remained relatively unchanged. However, over a few centuries most of the population of the coasts of the Indian Ocean became Muslims, so that a large share of both coastal and oceanic trade was handled by the adherents of this new religion. It was much more centralised than was either Hinduism or Buddhism. This was especially manifested in the requirement, one of the most basic tenets of the faith, that if at all possible Muslims should perform the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca, at least once in a lifetime. A Muslim community developed around the shores of the Indian Ocean, linked by religion, whose commonality, while this must not be exaggerated, was created and reinforced by travelling scholars. Yet Islam s success was to a large extent a result of its tolerance of local traditions, so that scholars distinguish between prayers and other religious activities in the mosque, and those performed outside it. Rather than the coastal populations converting to Islam, they accepted it.What was the attitude of the new religion to sea matters and to merchants? As to the latter, the normative position was well set out by the great fourteenth century social scientist Ibn Khaldun. He claimed countrymen were morally superior to townsmen, with merchants lower again: traders must buy and sell and seek profits. This necessitates flattery and evasiveness, litigation and disputation, all of which are characteristic of this profession. And these qualities lead to a decrease and weakening in virtue and manliness. Some claim that normative Islam had a similarly negative attitude to sea travel. The Arabs as men of the desert used to be the prevalent western stereotype: they rode camels, not ships. Today we realise that Muslims had an early and very successful interest in sea trade. The first Arab sea migration was to Abyssinia, in the time of the prophet. On several occasions in the previous chapter we described Arabs engaging in extensive sea voyages. This continued when Arabs became Muslims.Authentic Islamic sources display a positive attitude to the sea. The Quran itself has several passages which speak approvingly of sea trade and maritime matters. As the Holy Book says, And of His signs is this: He sendeth herald winds to make you taste His mercy, and that the ships may sail at His command, and that ye may seek His favour, and that haply ye may be thankful. And again: your Lord is He who driveth for you the ship upon the sea that ye may seek of His bounty or Allah it is Who hath made the sea of service unto you that the ships may run thereon by His command, and that ye may seek of His bounty. And again: It is He who subjected to you the sea, that you may eat of it fresh flesh, and being forth out of it ornaments for you to wear, and thou may best see the ships cleaving through it, and that you may seek of His bounty, and so haply you will be thankful. Similarly, the Caliph Umar II was quoted as saying Dry land and sea belong alike to God; He hath subdued them to His servants to seek of his bounty for themselves in both of them. We have seen that the Indian Ocean was already a place of movement, circulation, contacts and travel over great distances. It could be that Islam fits well into this sort of environment. Later Malay literature powerfully links notions of the sea, God, man and the transitory nature of the world. The sea is a trope for Islam. O Seeker, this world is like a wave. God s condition is like the sea. Even though the wave is different from the sea, it is in reality nothing but the sea. We now have much more detail on the ships venturing out over our ocean. At the most humble level, even today one sees coastal fishers, some merely astride a log, rising and falling, vanishing and appearing, in the swell. Coastal craft, used by fisherfolk, and as lighters to take people and goods to larger ships standing off shore where no harbour or estuary was available, were described in the previous chapter. These accounts related mostly to the east coast of India, where the lack of good harbours necessitated lighters. Over much of the rest of the littoral there were estuaries or harbours, and it was here that the famous dhows were found. These larger ships however had many of the characteristics of the coastal craft we have previously described.The term dhow is used by westerners for a variety of craft, large and small, which dominated most trade and navigation in the western Indian Ocean for centuries. There are many different types, depending on size and location, yet they did share enough common characteristics for us to use a generic term for them. The actual word is not Arabic. It probably comes from the Persian word dawh. They have attracted much attention from a truly international array of scholars. These traditional dhows were found all over the western Indian Ocean, that is from east Africa around to south India, and at times much further east. This type of ship long-predates the arrival of Islam. It presumably has Gulf or Red Sea origins, but we know little about ships before Islam.Marco Polo, writing about Hurmuz, left a detailed, accurate, and rather negative account:Their ships are wretched affairs, and many of them get lost; for they have no iron fastenings, and are only stitched together with twine made from the husk of the Indian nut [coconut]. They beat this husk until it becomes like horse-hair, and from that they spin twine, and with this stitch the planks of the ship together. It keeps well, and is not corroded by the sea-water, but it will not stand well in a storm. The ships are not pitched, but are rubbed with fish oil. They have one mast, one sail, and one rudder, and have no deck, but only a cover spread over the cargo when loaded. This cover consists of hides, and on the top of these hides they put the horses which they take to India for sale. They have no iron to make nails of, and for this reason they use only wooden trenails in their shipbuilding, and then stitch the planks with twine as I have told you. Hence tis a perilous business to go a voyage in one of those ships, and many of them are lost, for in that Sea of India the storms are often terrible.A Muslim pilgrim in the Red Sea in the late twelfth century left a rather similar account. Ibn Jubayr wrote:The jilab that ply on this Pharaonic sea [that is, the Red Sea from Aydhab to Jiddah] are sewn together, no nails at all being used on them. They are sewn with cord made from the fibre of the coconut and which the makers thrash until it takes the form of thread, which then they twist into a cord with which they sew the ships. These they then caulk with shavings of the wood of palm-trees. When they have finished making a jilabah in this fashion, they smear it with grease, or castor oil, or the oil of the shark, which is best. This shark is a huge fish which swallows drowning men. Their purpose in greasing the boat is to soften and supple it against the many reefs that are met with in that sea, and because of which nailed ships do not sail through it. The wood for these parts is brought from India and the Yemen, as is the coconut fibre. A singular feature of these jilab is that their sails are woven from the leaves of the muql tree [a kind of gum-tree], and their parts are conformably weak and unsound in structure. Glory to God who contrives them in this fashion and who entrusts men to them. There is no God but He. What then are the main characteristics of these craft? As these contemporaries pointed out, teak from Malabar in southwest India was used almost universally, for this was highly resistant to decay, and provided it was treated properly, along the lines suggested by Ibn Jubayr, it would not split, crack or shrink in salt water. This wood was used to make a hull using the carvel method: that is, the wooden planks of the hull were laid edge to edge, not overlapping as in western ships. They were held together by coir fibre stitching which passed through holes in the planks. There was no iron or bolts, and no ribbing or framework. However, wooden dowels were used, at least on the bigger boats, for strength. The hull was made watertight by inserting resin or other materials between the planks. This has to be differentiated from the European practice of caulking, which was done after the ship was assembled. They had no keels, but instead used either sandbags, or heavy parts of the cargo, as ballast in the bottom of the hold. These dhows had stern post rudders, with ropes attached, not a tiller. One pulled on ropes to steer the vessel. Most had only one mast, and a sail made of matting, though late in our period cloth was also beginning to be used.The hulls were double ended rather than having square, transom, sterns. On the largest dhows there may have been a raised poop deck, with cabins underneath, but most often the holds were open and there was no deck. As Correia observed in Cannanor around 1500:in lieu of decks, the hold was built up with huts and compartments for merchandise, covered with plaited palm-leaf thatch, acting as a roof; the water would flow down to their sides, then along the hull and gather at the bottom of the hold where it could be bailed out, thus not wetting the merchandise which was kept well packed into these compartments. On top of these thatched roofs, they would dispose strong cane lattice-work, on which one could walk without damaging the huts below . People have their lodgings on top, for nobody stays below, where the merchandise is found.The lack of metal in the construction excited much comment, most of it negative, from European observers, such as Marco Polo who we quoted above. The fabulist Sir John Mandeville claimed they did not use nails as there were magnetic islands which would draw to them any ship which contained metal. At first glance the lack of metal condemns dhows as primitive craft indeed, yet their method of construction was well suited to conditions in the Indian Ocean. As Ibn Battuta wrote, The Indian and Yemenite ships are sewn together with them, for that sea is full of reefs, and if a ship is nailed with iron nails it breaks up on striking the rocks, whereas if it is sewn together with cords, it is given a certain resilience and does not fall to pieces. In Cambay he wrote of the Gulf that it is navigable for ships and its waters ebb and flow. I myself saw the ships lying on the mud at ebb-tide and floating on the water at high tide. Their flexibility, thanks to the coir, meant that they were well adapted to the sandy shores of large parts of the Indian Ocean littoral. They could be driven ashore by storms, or deliberately to unload cargo or undergo repairs or careening, and even in the breakers off the Coromandel coast their flexibility enabled them to give and survive, where a more rigidly built ship would have shattered.A considerable quantity of coir thread or rope was needed: Tim Severin built a quite small replica dhow, yet it used up about 400 miles of rope! The coir had to be kept in salt water to prevent deterioration, as Bowrey noted:The Cables, Strapps, c. are made of Cayre, vizt. the Rhine of Coco nuts very fine Spun, the best Sort of which is brought from the Maldiva Isles. They are as Stronge as any hempen Cables whatever, and much more durable in these hott climates, with this provisor, that if they chance to be wet with fresh water, either by raine or rideinge in a fresh River, they doe not let them drye before they wett them well in Salt water, which doth much preserve them, and the Other as much rott them.The coconut tree was a great provider of useful products. Indeed, in the Maldive and Laccadive islands ships were built entirely from this tree: the hull, masts, stitches, ropes, and sails. As noted, most other areas used teak for the hulls, but the sails were usually woven from the leaves of palm or coconut trees; cotton sailcloth apparently came in later, though possibly before 1500.These sails were the famous triangular lateen sails so evident even today in the Indian Ocean. The name is a misnomer, as it comes from the time of the Crusades, when western Europeans first saw them, and called them the Latin sail, from the French une voile latine. They had been used by the Arabs for some centuries before the Common Era, and were the first sails which allowed a ship to beat into the wind. As compared with European square sails, a lateen rigged ship can sail well with the wind abeam, that is 90° against the direction of travel, and even reasonably well with the wind forward of the beam, at 50° or even 60° off the bow. Some authorities say dhows tack straight across the wind as a modern yacht does, but in fact they changed course by wearing around, stern to wind, instead of tacking.Lateen sails are often described as a gift of the Arabs to western sailors. However, Campbell claims that they developed independently in several places. Their origin may be from Persia, rather than pre-Islamic Arabia, and it could be that they reached the Mediterranean via Persia. They were found in the Mediterranean from the beginning of the Common Era, and he suggests that Arabs then learnt to use them from earlier users in both the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean. Very similarly shaped sails evolved independently in eastern Indonesia and were used in the great voyages in the Pacific by Austronesian peoples which we mentioned in the previous chapter (page 60). Campbell claims that they are not particularly effective sails anyway, though this obviously raises the question of why they were used for so many centuries.To make the dhow watertight was only one reason for treating the wood. Equally important was to deter the accumulation of barnacles and other growths on the hull. Of these, the most dangerous was teredo, or shipworm, a ravenous mollusc which wreaked havoc in tropical waters. Severin described their rapid penetration. He found that if it was not treated, the timber in his replica dhow was nearly destroyed after two months. Even after this short time wormholes as big as knitting needles appeared, and one could snap with bare hands panels 2½ inches thick.The traditional solution was to smear the hull every two months or so with a combination of boiled animal or fish fat and crushed lime. In the absence of dry docks this required running the vessel aground, but thanks to the flexibility of the construction this could be done easily and safely. There were two processes involved. The carvel method of construction meant that resin was used to fill gaps between the planks while the boat was being built, but then the process of greasing and smearing was done routinely during the life of the vessel.The navigator of the dhow in our period, such as the famous fifteenth century sailor Ibn Majid, was the mu allim, who sailed the ship and was responsible for what happened on board. He checked the fitting out, stores, gear, and loading. He was in charge of the crew and passengers, looked after their safety and health and solved their quarrels. All this was laid down in the contract drawn up before the ship left. It was required to take a set number of passengers, and a set quantity of their effects. There were also bills of lading governing the cargo. His duty of care ended when he got the ship back to its home port. Ibn Majid also advised the captain toBe quick to make a decision . It is necessary when you sail to be clean . Forbid all those who sail from making fun of others on the sea; it will only result in evil, hatred and enmity and he who does this continually will not be spared from grudge or hatred or contempt . Consult other people and improve your own opinion.Dhows of one sort or another were the dominant form all over the western Indian Ocean. Their sizes covered a wide range, from less than 50 tons up to perhaps 500. Different sizes had different names. A major variation was the ships built in Gujarat, which in the period before Europeans were the largest in this region, being up to 800 tons, and on average 300 to 600 tons. By contrast, when Magellan set off to sail around the world he had five ships, the largest of which was only 120 tons and 31 metres long. In 1577 Drake sailed out of Plymouth with three ships. One was a bit over 100 tons, the other two only 80 and 30 tons. The early Portuguese found these Gujarati ships to be formidable indeed: these ships are so powerful and well armed and have so many men that they dare to sail this route [from Melaka to the Red Sea] without fear of our ships. While these large Gujarati ships still usually had no deck, their construction was different, as a process called rabetting, rather like tongue and groove, was used to join the planks together. An English traveller around 1750 praised these ships highly:Grose also approved of the coir rigging: more harsh and intractable than what is produced from hemp , but they lasted longer than hemp in salt water. Even the cotton sails were fine: true, they were not as strong as European canvas, but they were less liable to split.Barbosa s account of Calicut very early in the sixteenth century seems to point to another regional variation, that is the use of keels. He wrote of the pardesi Muslims, those from the Red Sea and Egypt, thatIn the days of their prosperity in trade and navigation they built in the city keeled ships of a thousand and a thousand and two hundred bahares burden [about 250 tonnes]. These ships were built without any nails, but the whole of the sheathing was sewn with thread, and all upper works differed much from the fashion of ours, they had no decks.Once we round Cape Comorin and enter the Bay of Bengal we encounter very different ships. Some of them were great Chinese ships, which sailed in the Bay of Bengal and around to Malabar until the mid fifteenth century. We have a charming account of Song sailing from a Chinese source:The ships which sail the southern sea and south of it are like houses. When their sails are spread they are like great clouds in the sky. Their rudders are several tens of feet long. A single ship carries several hundred men, and has in the stores a year s supply of grain. Pigs are fed and wine fermented on board. There is no account of dead or living, no going back to the mainland when the people have set forth on the azure-blue sea. When the gong sounds at daybreak aboard ship, the animals can drink their fill, and crew and passengers alike forget all dangers. To those on board, everything is hidden and lost in space – mountains, landmarks, and foreign countries. The pilot may say, To make such and such a country, with a favourable wind, in so many days, we should sight such and such a mountain, [then] the ship may steer in such and such a direction. But suddenly the wind may fall, and may not be strong enough to allow the sighting of the mountain on the given day. In such a case, the bearing may have to be changed. Then again, the ship may be carried far beyond [the landmark] and lose its bearing. A gale may spring up, blowing the ship off course, or the ship may encounter shoals or hidden rocks and be broken apart to the roofs [of the cabins]. A great ship with heavy cargo has nothing to fear in high seas, but in shallow water it will come to grief.Two foreign travellers, Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta, left more detailed descriptions. Marco Polo described the ships he saw in the thirteenth century on the Fujian coast. They had only one deck,though each of them contains some 50 or 60 cabins, wherein the merchants abide greatly at their ease, every man having one to himself. The ship hath but one rudder, but it hath four masts; and sometimes they have two additional masts, which they ship and unship at pleasure. Moreover the larger of their vessels have some thirteen [watertight] compartments or severances in the interior, made with planking strongly framed, in case maybe the ship should spring a leak, either by running on a rock or by the blow of a hungry whale . The fastenings are all of good iron nails and the sides are double, one plank laid over the other, and caulked outside and in. The planks are not pitched, for those people do not have any pitch, but they daub the sides with another matter, deemed by them far better than pitch; it is this. You may see them take some lime and some chopped hemp, and these they knead together with a certain wood-oil; and when the three are thoroughly amalgamated, they hold like any glue. And with this mixture they do paint their ships.Each of these great ships carried 200 or 300 sailors. If the wind dropped sweeps were used, each taking four sailors to row. They also each had two or three large tenders attached, with 50 or 60 sailors on each, and ten smaller boats to catch fish, bring supplies, and lay out anchors. These were slung to the side of the big ship, and put in the water as needed. Repairs were easy: they merely nailed another layer of planks over the existing ones.Ibn Battuta found a vast array of vessels in Calicut in the early fourteenth century, from Java, Ceylon, the Maldives, Yemen and Fars. However, the greatest were thirteen Chinese vessels. His eyewitness account is of very large ships indeed. He wrote that they were called junks, and had up to twelve sails, and 1,000 men on board, 600 of them sailors and 400 archers and other soldiers. All this may sound incredible, yet Ibn Battuta has a reputation for veracity, and he did travel on one of these ships himself. The oars were as large as the masts on the dhows with which he was familiar, and each was worked by ten or fifteen men. His ship had four decks,and it has cabins, suites and salons for merchants; a set of rooms has several rooms and a latrine; it can be locked by its occupant, and he can take along with him slave-girls and wives. Often a man will live in his suite unknown to any of the others on board until they meet on reaching some town. The sailors have their children living on board ship, and they cultivate green stuffs, vegetables and ginger in wooden tanks. The owner s factor on board ship is like a great amir. When he goes on shore he is preceded by archers and Abyssinians with javelins, swords, drums, bugles and trumpets.These great Chinese ships sailed south through the Malay world and on to India, and sometimes even beyond this. However, this was a rather temporary presence. They came south to the Malay world only from the twelfth century, and may have been displaced for a time in the mid fourteenth century when the powerful Javanese state of Majapahit was at its height. Under the Ming, from 1368 Chinese ships re-entered southeast Asian waters, reaching a massive peak with the Zheng He expeditions of the early fifteenth century. Soon after this, long-distance Chinese voyaging in these monsters ended.In the Malay world most of the local craft were small craft, capable of sailing between the myriad islands. As elsewhere, the vast majority of boats were humble things used by fishers, or for short fair-weather voyages using the monsoons. However, Manguin claims that from the early first millennium of the Common Era maritime powers in the region, that is especially Srivijaya and later Majapahit, built, owned and operated ocean-going ships of considerable size, up to 700 tons burthen and carrying up to 1,000 people. These were not exactly junks, for while Chinese ships had used nails for centuries, these ships did not. Nor were they sewn; rather they were held together with dowels. There was, following Chinese practice, multiple sheathing of the hull. The steering gear was different from dhows, for they had double quarter-rudders, and two to four masts and sails. Manguin claims, controversially, that these large ships were distinctively southeast Asian. This statement is to be seen as part of the general historiographical tendency to see this region as having a creativity and culture of its own, not as a passive recipient of high culture from the north or the west, that is from China or India. Rather mysteriously, these ships vanished in the later sixteenth century, possibly because they could not stand up to Portuguese cannon.How did captains find their way over the ocean? There is a contrast here between blue water sailing and finding one s way in more restricted waterways. In the treacherous Red Sea, Ibn Jubayr was very impressed with the navigational skills of sailors in these confined waters: We observed the art of these captains and the mariners in the handling of their ships through the reefs. It was truly marvellous. They would enter the narrow channels and manage their way through them as a cavalier manages a horse that is light on the bridle and tractable. It was a matter of the run of the water, experience, birds, seaweed, fishes, and sightings of known areas of land. Experienced navigators often wrote down what they had learnt. The most famous was Ibn Majid, who in the following passage, just like the Song source we quoted earlier, is using land sightings for guidance. When approaching Calicut, he says, look out for the hill between the mountains which are above the coast and there is no other such hill in these places and nothing so useful as a guide especially in the dark and its sides slope steeply. When one is approaching from the north the ship should stay in about four and three-quarters fathoms of water until this hill is north-north-east of you, then approach the coast until the water is four and one-half fathoms and the hill becomes north by east and then north, and so on.Ibn Majid s work is an example of the pilot guides and navigational literature which were commonplace in the ocean. This geographical literature, from both the Chinese and the Arab side, showed that both knew the whole ocean, though Arabs found a limit at Madagascar. Ibn Majid wrote that to its south is the sea known to the Greeks as Uqiyanus which is known to the Arabs as the Ocean which encircles the world. Here is the beginning of the southern Dark regions to the south of this island. Tibbetts claims that there really was no exclusivity in nautical knowledge. Rather there was a common body of knowledge shared by Arabs, Chinese, Indians and Malays. It may be that practical navigational charts were not known before the Europeans, but there certainly were maps, as we will see. Charts may not have even been necessary, for navigation, apart from the use of wayfaring techniques, was done by observing the sun and the stars. In this the Arabs were simply following tradition, for the Beduin had long done this to find their way across the desert.Again Ibn Jubayr tells us about this use. He was going on pilgrimage to Mecca, and embarked at Aydhab bound for Jiddah. They left on their jilabah, and on the evening of the second day thererose a storm which darkened the skies and at last covered them. The tempest raged and drove the ship from off its course and backwards. The fury of the wind continued, and the darkness thickened and filled the air so that we knew not which way lay our course. Then a few stars appeared and gave us some guidance. The sail was lowered to the bottom of the mast, and we passed that night in a storm which drove us to despair .More usually either the North or Pole Star or the sun was used as a referent, and latitude was worked out from their height, measured in finger widths. The compass was apparently already known, as it had been long used by the Chinese, but it seems not to have been very widely used. In any case, it has been claimed that Arab empirical methods were more than adequate to determine latitude quite accurately. Based largely on a technical analysis of Ibn Majid s famous work, Clark claimed that the methods he describes compare well with modern stellar methods using spherical trigonometry, the navigational triangle and data from nautical publications. In sum, we can perhaps claim that during this period Arab navigation was a mixture of a craft mystery, based on accumulated oral tradition, and an applied science, the latter being the dominant technique today. In Europe the latter was becoming dominant in the sixteenth century.While Arab navigation may ideally have served the sailors well, contemporary accounts do not always give an impression of scientific exactitude on board ship. One tale from the first half of the tenth century, no doubt based on real experience but with some embroidery, concerns a man called Allama, who was going from India to China. It came the time for the dawn prayer, so he went to the lavatory to do ablutions. Then he looked at the sea and was terrified. He forgot his ablutions and prayers, and instead rushed up on deck and got the men to lower the sails, and throw overboard all the cargo. Then he got everyone to purify themselves and pray. Sure enough, a huge storm came up that night, and only this ship survived. A similar account tells of Captain Abhara, a native of Kirman, where he was a shepherd. Later he became a sea captain, and went to China seven times, which was unheard of as it was so dangerous. If a man reached China without dying on the way, it was already a miracle. Returning safe and sound was unheard of. I have never heard tell of anyone, except him, who had made the two voyages there and back without mishap. Other similar tales make Arab navigation sound very ad hoc indeed. The same Abhara knew that on the way to China on each thirtieth day the water went down very greatly and ships ran onto rocks, especially as a violent gale would come up at the same time. Another captain proffered that if you want to know whether or not you are near land or a mountain, look out after the afternoon prayer, when the sun is going down. At that time, if you are opposite a mountain or an island, you will see it distinctly. European map making was revolutionised following Marco Polo s journey to and from China in 1271–92. Drawing on this, Europeans produced two famous maps, greatly in advance of what they had done before: the Catalan map of 1375, and especially Fra Mauro s map of 1458. East Asia had relatively sophisticated charts and maps by at least the fifteenth century. Mills has discussed in detail the Mao K un map, which refers to the time of Zheng He s voyages. He considers it to be far superior to European maps of the same time, when the Portuguese had just started voyaging down the west African coast. This Chinese chart goes all the way from East Asia to India, and on to Persia, Arabia and East Africa. Mills claim is that obviously Europeans did better in mapping the west, and Chinese the east; Chinese superiority is seen in their much better attempt to map the area in between, that is Arabia, India, and East Africa. This Chinese map showed a more accurate knowledge over a much larger area of the world than was available to Europeans at the same time. Several of their accounts depict a western and an eastern ocean, with the division at the Straits of Singapore. This is seen most clearly in the account by Wang Dayuan, who travelled extensively in the 1330s. My own brief to a large extent follows this division, for most of the time I also stop around these straits.Even more extraordinary is the Korean Kangnido Map of 1402, which seems to draw on earlier Chinese and Arab works. It has clear delineations of Africa and the Arabian peninsular, and a recognisable outline of Europe, though India is submerged in the Chinese continent. Not surprisingly, Korea is shown as very large indeed, as large as all Africa. At a time when Europeans knew almost nothing of East Asia, this map has a clearly recognisable Mediterranean Sea, and Iberia, Italy and the Adriatic Sea. There are some hundred as yet unidentified place names in the Europe area, and about thirty-five in Africa, most of them on the southern Mediterranean coast.Another example of sophisticated map making comes from Java, and like the previous two shows that there was a large degree of interaction and exchange of knowledge between map makers at this time. In 1512 the Portuguese captain Albuquerque was shown a Javanese chart which delineated the Cape of Good Hope, Portugal, Brazil, the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, the country where the gold is (Minangkabau in Sumatra), the clove islands, the Malukus, Java, the Banda islands, Siam, the navigation of the Chinese, and the courses followed by their ships. All the names are marked in Javanese script. This sort of interchange extended in some surprising directions. The Chinese, even if they did not travel, certainly picked up much information at second or third hand. One eighth-century Chinese author described the people of Bobali, which is somewhere in northern East Africa. They eat only meat. They often stick a needle into the veins of cattle and draw blood which they drink raw, mixed with milk. Intriguing to find that this is clearly a description of the same people whom a sixteenth-century Portuguese cleric found. He wrote of the Segeju that They own much cattle, the milk and blood thereof being to them as food; they eat the flesh raw without any other manner of ordinary food, as it is said, and they bleed the oxen every other day. Finally, another Muslim example, this time the Turk Piri Reis and his magnificent Kitab, completed in 1521 and now available in a stunning four volume facsimile edition with translation. He wrote of the great sea , that is the all-encircling sea:All the others are united with the Bahr-Azam. The Ocean is the sea into which they are all collected. It encircles the world. It is the head of all the seas; from it all seas emerge and to it all return. As I have told you, the fact is that all the other seas are but gulfs of the Ocean. The sea is like a tree that spreads everywhere left and right. The source of them all is the Ocean, of which they are the branches and twigs.By dusk on 24 October, Ozawa had been unsuccessful in his main mission of luring the powerful TF 38 force northward and facilitating Kurita’s penetration of Leyte Gulf. Among many problems he had to overcome was his scanty information about the situation. Most sorely lacking was up-to-date information on the actions and movements of Kurita’s force. Such information was critical if Ozawa’s force would adjust its movements to facilitate Kurita’s advance toward Leyte Gulf.Ozawa received some information in the morning and afternoon of 24 October about the enemy attacks on Kurita’s force. He learned that Nishimura’s force was advancing toward Surigao Strait as planned. At 1830 the same day, Ozawa received a query from Kurita regarding battle results east of Lamon Bay. At 2000, he received another message from Kurita saying that because of damage received during air attacks his force was temporarily retiring outside the attack range of enemy aircraft. His force would resume its easterly course depending on the results achieved by the Japanese air forces.Shortly before 0500 on 25 October, Ozawa received a message from Nishimura saying that he had planned to penetrate the Dulag area at 0400 on 25 October. Nishimura’s force, he learned, had been completely destroyed in that effort. About 0530, Ozawa received a report from Shima that his force attacked enemy ships and was temporarily leaving Surigao Strait. Another message from Kurita came in the afternoon of the same day, informing Ozawa that he had sunk three or four enemy carriers off Samar. However, he did not say anything about coming north to help Ozawa’s force. At about 0630, Ozawa received a report from the Sixth Base Air Force concerning four separate enemy carrier forces operating east and north off the San Bernardino Strait. From the Combined Fleet HQ Ozawa also received a number of intercepted plain-text messages referring to the attack by Kurita’s Main Body against enemy carriers off Samar. One such message, received at about 0950, indicated that the enemy carrier force being pursued and attacked by Kurita’s Main Body had requested urgent assistance from the (carrier) task force assumed to be operating eastward of Lamon Bay.On 24 October, Ozawa focused on ensuring that his force was detected by enemy carrier groups operating east of Luzon. He obtained first contact with the enemy force at about 0700, when the distance was about 350 miles. Ozawa decided to close the distance to about 130 to 150 miles before launching his attack. By 1115, the distance had been reduced to 180 miles. His search aircraft reported an enemy force of ten ships, without clearly identifying any as carriers. About 30 minutes later Ozawa launched the first strike group of about 75 aircraft. The enemy force was then about 150 miles from his force. Because of bad weather, Ozawa’s aircraft were directed to land at Nichols Field, Manila, or some other naval air base on Luzon. The plan was to recover these planes later on in the waters east of Luzon.By noon on 24 October, Ozawa, disappointed that the enemy had not taken his bait, formed Force A (2 BBs/XCV, 1 CL, and 4 DDs) to act as an advance guard. The latter’s task was to sail ahead of the Main Body and divert the enemy carrier force northward. This seemed to work—U.S. carrier aircraft detected both parts of Ozawa’s force. At 1650, Ozawa sent a message to all forces taking part in the operation that enemy carrier aircraft had detected his force. In fact, U.S. aircraft had detected the Northern Force ten minutes earlier, when it was about 130 miles off the northern tip of Luzon.In conducting his estimate of the situation in the late afternoon on 24 October, Ozawa concluded that the enemy had “easily grasped the operational objective of the First Diversionary Attack Force and will make an all-out effort to prevent its accomplishment.” He assumed that the enemy carriers would move south the next day and take further decisive action against Kurita’s force. Ozawa evaluated his actions up to that point as being ineffective in diverting the enemy carrier groups. He believed that it was imperative to divert the enemy force, regardless of losses inflicted upon his own force. In the worst case, his plan was to use his newly formed Advance Guard Force in combination with attacks by the Base Air Forces to divert the enemy. Ozawa’s tentative plan was that if there was no prospect of carrying out a night attack and accomplishing his primary mission, the Advance Guard would rejoin the Main Body.Ozawa was reportedly surprised that his force was not attacked during the day on 24 October. The reason for that was that Halsey’s carrier groups were busy attacking Kurita’s force in the Sibuyan Sea. However, Ozawa overly trusted reports of his pilots who claimed that they had damaged two enemy carriers. He then detached part of his force that night to carry out a surface night attack against the U.S. force, but the Japanese force was unable to obtain contact.At about 1655 on 24 October, Halsey received reports from the northernmost carrier group, TG 38.3, and from land-based air searches that suspected that an enemy carrier force, later cited as the “Northern Force,” had actually been located. He obtained some clarification from CTG 38.2 at 1730, and finally received a full report from CTF 38 at 1925. The reports from aircraft indicated the presence of two groups of enemy ships; one consisted of two fast and one light carrier, three light cruisers and destroyers on course 270°, speed 15 knots at 18° 25 north and 125° 28 east (approximately 210 nautical miles east of Cape Engano) at 1640; the other group was composed of four battleships or heavy cruisers, five cruisers, and six destroyers, on course 210°, speed 15 knots at position 18° 10 north and 125° 30 east. One of the battleships was reported to have a flight deck aft. Halsey and his staff believed the Northern Force was composed of 17 and possibly as many as 24 ships. However, these reports were widely off mark because Ozawa’s force was much weaker (1 CV, 3 CVLs, 2 BBs/XCV, 3 CLs, and 8 DDs) than reported by the TF 38’s pilots. Halsey considered the Northern Force—as it turned out, quite wrongly—as the most formidable threat to Allied operations in the Pacific, both present and future. He also learned that Kinkaid was prepared to meet any enemy force that might try passing through Surigao Strait.At 1950, Halsey made a tactical decision with potentially serious operational consequences to close in with all his carrier groups (minus TG 38.3) and proceed northward to attack Ozawa’s force. At that time Halsey with his two carrier groups was about 100 miles eastward from the entrance of San Bernardino Strait. At 2005, Halsey sent a message to Nimitz (and Kinkaid as information addressee) stating that “CTF 38.3 has scuttled Princeton and is closing 38.2 and 38.4 which are now concentrated off entrance to San Bernardino Strait. Night enemy air attack by enemy possible, more later.” He also informed Kinkaid about 2025 that the Central Force was heavily damaged and that he was proceeding north with three carrier groups to attack the enemy force at dawn. He provided estimated position of Kurita’s force as 12° 45 north 122° 40 east, course 120° and speed 12 knots but did not indicate that the enemy’s force in fact was heading toward San Bernardino Strait. Moreover, the wording of that message did not give any hint that any part of the Third Fleet was being left behind to cover San Bernardino Strait or that the composition of the three carrier groups had been changed.At 2030 on 24 October Halsey directed Rear Admiral John S. McCain’s TG 38.1 to refuel, then after joining the other two carrier groups, to sail north to Rear Admiral Frederick C. Sherman’s TG 38.3 at 14° 28 north and 125° 50 east by 2400. After completing a new estimate of the situation, Halsey repeated his orders directing TG 38.2 and 38.4 to pass through the same reference position and proceed north at 25 knots. CTF 38 would take charge of all three groups and attack the enemy carrier force. CTG 38.1 would be advised of the movements of other carrier groups and then join TF 38 as early as possible. The message about engaging the enemy’s Northern Force was addressed only to his subordinate tactical commanders.In his post-action report, Halsey insisted that “it was recognized that the Center Force might sortie and inflict some damage, but its fighting power was considered too seriously impaired to win a decision.” He also somewhat implausibly contended that the “Third Fleet forces could return in time to reverse any advantage that the Center Force might gain.” Halsey was firmly convinced that his decision would “contribute most to the overall Philippine campaign even if a temporarily tight situation existed at Leyte.”Halsey was apparently much influenced by the reports of his pilots on the damages they supposedly inflicted on the Central Force on 24 October. In addition, there was much concern on the part of Halsey and his chief of staff that the enemy carrier aircraft might conduct shuttle bombing. Halsey believed that he had sufficient force to destroy the enemy carriers, and the battleships of TF 34 would be used to finish them off. Once the enemy carriers were annihilated the way would be open for the Third Fleet to operate freely off Tokyo. No one on Halsey’s staff had offered any alternative course of action. Admiral Carney in fact fully supported the decision; the plans officer was not present when the decision was made; the intelligence officer was not consulted; and the radio officer who listened to all radio traffic all day was not present either.86 One can only conclude that Halsey and his staff in making the decision to move the entire TF 38 north and away from San Bernardino Strait did not conduct a proper running estimate of the situation. The decision was precipitous and not all aspects of the operational situation were considered or properly analyzed.In the morning of 24 October, Halsey, concerned with the security of his northern flank, had queried CTF 77 concerning the start of seaplane searches from Leyte. He learned at about 2030 that Leyte-based searches of three western sectors would start that night, and searches of two eastern sectors would start as soon as possible. At 2040, the light carrier Independence (from TG 38.2) relayed a report from one of its aircraft that the enemy force was off the west coast of Burias (between southern Luzon and Masbate). The aircraft report was sent at 2005 but the time of sighting was 1935 when the enemy force was at position 12° 45 north and 122° 40 east, course 120° and speed 12 knots and sailing on a northeasterly course. In another sighting at 2145 and transmitted 17 minutes later the Central Force was located at 12° 45 north and 123° 22 east, speed 12 knots and sailing on a northeasterly course. At 2124 Halsey transmitted the first report about the sighting of Central Force to Kinkaid, but sent no further information during the night 24–25 October.All three of Halsey’s carrier group commanders immediately grasped the gravity of the decision to engage the Northern Force and the possible consequences of leaving the San Bernardino Strait unguarded. After receiving information that the Central Force had resumed its easterly advance, CTG 38.2, Rear Admiral Gerald F. Bogan, planned to protest Halsey’s decision. He discussed the matter via TBS with his subordinate commanding officer, Captain E. C. Ewen, of the carrier Independence. Ewen confirmed the sightings of the Central Force. He also pointed out that all navigation lights in the San Bernardino Strait were brightly lit, although they were normally shut down. This was most likely a sign of unusual enemy activity. Bogan prepared a message for the New Jersey, then decided to call Halsey via TBS. He got a staff officer on the phone instead, who confirmed that the flagship had the same information. He reportedly planned to send another message recommending that only two carrier groups (TG 38.3 and TG 38.4) continue north, leaving one (TG 38.2) behind, but in the end he decided against it.Admiral Willis A. Lee seemed to be the only high-ranking subordinate commander who correctly deduced that the Northern Force must be a decoy with little or no striking power. He also believed that the Central Force’s earlier reversal of course was only temporary. Just before sunset, he sent a message to Halsey about his views. He did not get any response, except for an acknowledgment from the New Jersey that the message was received. After the report from the Independence came in, Lee sent another message via TBS to Halsey, stating, among other things, that he was certain the Central Force would pass through the San Bernardino Strait. After that message, he did not offer any further advice to Halsey.At about 2030, Vice Admiral Marc Mitscher received Halsey’s order to proceed northward. His impression was that it was a preparatory action for Halsey to assume tactical command of all carrier groups for the expected attack on the Northern Force the next day. A few minutes before Halsey’s order came in, TF 38’s chief of staff, Rear Admiral Arleigh A. Burke, received reports from the Independence indicating that the Central Force had reversed its course and was sailing on an easterly course toward the San Bernardino Strait. Both Burke and TF 38’s operations officer, Commander James Flatley, believed that it was critical that the battle line be detached from TF 38. They woke up Mitscher and urged him to send a message to that effect to Halsey. Mitscher reportedly asked, “Does Admiral Halsey have the report?” When he received an affirmative answer, he said that if Admiral Halsey needed his advice he would ask for it. Then he rolled over and went back to sleep.By 2345, after all four TF 38’s carrier groups were concentrated, Halsey had with him a powerful force of five fast and light carriers each, six battleships, two heavy cruisers, six light cruisers, and 41 destroyers.91 During the approach phase Halsey’s greatest concern was not to allow Northern Force to place itself between TF 38 and Leyte. Expressed differently, TF 38 had to sail at the speed of advance to overrun the “daylight circle” (the boundary between day and night) of Northern Force.By 2400 the TF 38 was about 165 miles away from the eastern entrance to San Bernardino Strait and 140 miles from the eastern coast of Samar. Allegedly, Mitscher was then surprised to find out that the battle line was not formed yet and all six battleships were sailing north as part of the carrier screens. Although he was nominally CTF 38 Halsey never gave Mitscher precise instructions about his future course of action. At about 0100 Halsey directed a search from the carrier Independence with radar-equipped aircraft to the north and northeast. Mitscher in contrast wanted a search-strike group to be launched. At about 0205 the first contact with the enemy force was established at the range of some 80 miles north of TF 38. The enemy forces were divided into two groups of six ships each and 40 miles apart sailing on 110° and at 15 knots. Based on that report, Mitscher believed that surface action would take place at about 0430. In fact, this report was false because the Northern Force was some 200 miles away from TF 38. Halsey then made a controversial decision by directing Lee at about 0255 to form the battle line about ten miles ahead of the carriers. This was a rather risky maneuver to pull out of three carrier groups six battleships, eight cruisers and 41 destroyers. This evolution was completed without an accident. Yet it required much more time because the ships had to sail at much-lower-than-cruising speeds. The fleet guide in TG 38.3 had to reduce speed to 15 knots in order to facilitate that evolution.By 0710, the two opposing carrier forces were about 145 miles apart. Mitscher launched his first aircraft between 0540 and 0600, before he received all the results from his search aircraft. The first strike reached the enemy ships about 0800 (0830 according to the Japanese). The weather was excellent; there were only few clouds; the wind was from the northeast at 16 knots. The second strike reached the enemy ships at about 1000; the third at 1300; and the fourth and fifth strikes were launched between 1500 and 1710. The U.S. aircraft flew about 530 sorties, of which some 200 were fighter sorties. Japanese air defenses were poor; Ozawa had only 12 to 15 aircraft for air cover—his main defenses were AA guns. The Japanese were not overly impressed with the effectiveness of the U.S. carrier strikes that day.At 0802 on 25 October, Kinkaid informed Halsey that his forces had won a resounding victory over the enemy’s Southern Force in Surigao Strait and that Allied light forces were pursuing the enemy. The situation began to change fast and dramatically after 0822, when Halsey received Kinkaid’s plain-language message (about the attack by the Central Force against TU 77.4.3 off Samar). At about 0830, Halsey received a plain message from Clifton Sprague saying that enemy battleships and cruisers had attacked his escort carriers from a distance of about 15 miles. The attacking enemy ships were apparently part of the Central Force.Halsey was reportedly surprised by that turn of events, but not gravely alarmed. He wrote after the war that Sprague’s 16 escort carriers should have had enough planes to protect themselves until Oldendorf could bring his heavy ships. He was puzzled that Kinkaid and Sprague were surprised when they had search planes available to reconnoiter the approaches of the San Bernardino Strait. Nevertheless, shortly afterward, Halsey directed McCain’s TG 38.1 to sail at best possible speed to attack the Central Force. Yet he failed to detach Lee’s TF 34 at the same time to block the Central Force’s withdrawal through the San Bernardino Strait.At 0900, Kinkaid sent a frantic message that the enemy’s force of four battleships, eight cruisers, and other ships had attacked the escort carriers. He requested an immediate strike by fast carriers, and asked Admiral Lee to proceed at top speed toward Leyte. About 20 minutes later, Kinkaid sent another message informing Halsey that TU 77.4.3 was under fire from enemy battleships and cruisers. He repeated his request for immediate air strikes and support from heavy ships. He also informed Halsey that his old battleships were low in ammunition.At 1000, Halsey received a short, coded, but important message from Nimitz: “Turkey Trots to Water. From CINCPac. Where is, repeat, where is Task Force 34. The world wonders.” The padding was nonsense phrasing added by enciphers at the beginning and closing words. The communicators were supposed to remove all the padding phrases. TF 77’s communicator did that before handing the copy of the message to Kinkaid. However, Halsey’s signalmen on board the battleship New Jersey struck off only the first phrase. The closing phrase was incorporated into the meaning of the message. By his own admission, Halsey was so angry over the last part of the message, perceiving it as a sarcastic remark by Nimitz, that he was unable to talk after reading it. This mix-up led to more delay in deciding just how to deal with the critical situation off Samar. Halsey sent a message to Nimitz informing him that TF 34 “with me engaging enemy carrier force. Am now proceeding with TG 38.2 and all fast battleships to reinforce Kinkaid. One enemy CV sunk, two CVs dead in water. No damage own force. Enemy air group flying out from Luzon arrived too late. TG 38.1 already ordered assist Kinkaid immediately.”A few minutes after 1000, Halsey received another message from Kinkaid saying that his situation was critical and that fast battleships and air strikes could prevent the enemy force from penetrating Leyte Gulf. Forty-six minutes later another message from Kinkaid said the situation had improved, that the enemy force was retiring toward the northeast. Nevertheless, the enemy still could return, and hence he needed assistance over the San Bernardino Strait. Kinkaid pointed out that there was a good opportunity for TG 38.1 to destroy the enemy forces.At 1055 (other sources say 1115), Halsey finally (but reluctantly) directed a major part of TF 34 (except for two battleships left behind to finish off Ise and Hyuga), covered by TG 38.2, to proceed on a southerly course at top speed. At that time TF 34 was only about 42 miles away from the Northern Force. TG 38.3 and 38.4 (4 CVs, 3 CVLs, 2 CAs, 3 CLs, and 25 DDs) continued with their attacks on Ozawa’s force. Admiral Lockwood directed his submarines to take positions between 120° east and 128° east to cut off retreat by the enemy force.Kinkaid sent a message at about 1320 informing Halsey that the Central Force was retiring toward the northeast, that the situation looked better, but that he still needed TF 38’s assistance because the enemy might return. A few minutes afterward he sent another message that the enemy was returning and Halsey’s assistance was badly needed. At 1412, Halsey intercepted a message from Commander Support Aircraft at Leyte that the enemy force turned away again and was headed toward San Bernardino Strait.The part of TF 34 directed to the San Bernardino Strait consisted of only two battleships (including Halsey’s flagship New Jersey), three light cruisers, and eight destroyers. It was designated TF 34.5 and placed under the command of Rear Admiral Oscar C. Badger. TF 34.5 sailed at a speed of only 20 knots and had to slow down to 12 knots at about 1345 to refuel accompanying destroyers; the refueling was not completed until shortly after 1600. Badger’s task force would arrive off the strait’s eastern entrance at about 0100 on 26 October and afterward search the strait’s approaches, proceed along the eastern coast of Samar, and destroy all enemy ships on the way. However, by the time TF 34.5 arrived off the eastern entrance, the Central Force had slipped away. The only enemy ship left was one destroyer (Nowaki), which was quickly sunk by gunfire at 0110.Halsey’s decision to release fast battleships to help the hard-pressed escort carriers and prevent Kurita’s escape through the San Bernardino Strait was made with inexplicable delay. His actions showed that he had never made up his mind to quickly release sufficient force to deal with the extremely dangerous situation. One explanation for this unusual lack of decisiveness on Halsey’s part was his obsession with completely annihilating the enemy Northern Force. He learned about the problem with the escort carriers at 0822, and one hour later he learned that the Seventh Fleet’s old battleships were not available to help escort carriers. He delayed making a decision for almost one hour after receiving Nimitz’s query at 1000. After the larger parts of TF 38 and TG 38.2 were released, they were unable to reach the San Bernardino Strait until 0100 on 26 October. TF 34.5’s two-hour refueling of destroyers further held up the schedule.TF 34.5 was too weak to engage Kurita’s force in a night engagement unless it waited in an ambushing position, as Oldendorf had at Surigao Strait on 24–25 October. TF 34.5 had only two battleships, while Kurita, after all his losses in the Sibuyan Sea and off Samar, still had four battleships with him, including the powerful Yamato. Lee’s battleships had no experience with using heavy guns in night engagement, not even with radar. Hence, the U.S. surface forces’ chances in a night engagement with Kurita’s still-powerful forces were uncertain and could have been catastrophic. TG 38.2 had only one carrier (Independence) capable of night operations; the other four carriers in the group were capable of only day operations.The Battle off Cape Engano ended as a tactical victory for the U.S. Navy, though not an operational victory. The TF 38 pilots had sunk four enemy carriers and one destroyer. In addition, U.S. cruisers and submarines sank one light cruiser (Tama) and two destroyers. Still, the Northern Force had escaped total destruction. Halsey and the Third Fleet were greatly disappointed that not all the enemy ships had been sunk. Moreover, the Central Force had escaped destruction despite all the damages inflicted on it by TF 38 aircraft on 24 October. Halsey not only greatly overestimated the strength of Ozawa’s force, he also allowed Kurita to move freely for almost 12 hours while he was pursuing the Northern Force with his entire TF 38. The U.S. carrier pilots had not been as effective at sinking enemy ships as in previous engagements. One likely reason was the fatigue; they had been in combat almost uninterruptedly since 6 October. Halsey in his post-action report added that the other contributory factor was the tendency of pilots to attack “cripples rather than undamaged ships and poor torpedo performance or too shallow depth setting.”Ozawa wrongly claimed that his aircraft had sunk one and damaged another “regular” (fast) carrier, while more than 100 enemy planes had been shot down. He gave his losses as four carriers and one destroyer sunk, one light cruiser and one destroyer missing, and about 30 aircraft lost. His casualties totaled 4,500 killed.In his post-action report, Ozawa stressed that a feint cannot be fully successful unless a diversionary force possesses a certain level of real strength. This is especially true when the enemy has a fixed operational objective and firmly maintains his “strategic” dispositions. Ozawa believed that his force would have been more effective if its attack had been launched jointly with the Base Air Forces two days before the planned penetration of Leyte Gulf. He believed that the Main Body suffered heavy losses because its best-trained air groups had been deployed to land bases. The surface forces, relying solely on AA weapons, were incapable of dealing effectively with air attacks. He recommended that in the future, in reorganizing the Mobile Force, the emphasis must be on the Base Air Forces. When tactically employed, surface forces should have minimum air search strength to ascertain the enemy’s position and movements. In his view, if his force had had aircraft to reconnoiter the enemy force on the afternoon of 25 October, he might have been able to destroy the enemy in a night battle.Halsey’s decision, made at 1950 on 24 October, to move his three carrier groups north to join Sherman’s group off Luzon, was one of the most controversial decisions of the entire operation. It was a tactical decision, made by an operational-tactical commander, with negative operational consequences. The tactical victory off Cape Engano would have been essentially useless if Kurita’s force had been successful in penetrating Leyte Gulf. This was a case where the commander because of his exclusive tactical focus employed his forces in a manner unrelated to the accomplishment of the principal objective. It was only because of Kurita’s tactical errors that the U.S. Navy did not suffer a humiliating defeat at the hands of a much smaller and poorly led force. The Japanese came close to accomplishing their mission, not because of their skills, but simply because of the mistakes Halsey made.Nimitz was not pleased with Halsey’s actions on 24–25 October. In his 28 October letter to Admiral King, marked personal and top secret, he stated two “regrets.” The first was the loss of the carrier Princeton and the use of such a valuable ship as the cruiser Birmingham instead of a destroyer to assist the stricken carrier. His second regret was that fast battleships had not been left to guard the San Bernardino Strait. It had never occurred to Nimitz that Halsey, knowing the composition of the ships in the Sibuyan Sea, would leave the San Bernardino Strait unguarded, although reports indicated that the enemy force in the Sibuyan Sea had been seriously damaged. That U.S. forces had not been wiped out by the Japanese fleet was, in his words, the “dispensation work of the Lord Almighty.” The damage inflicted on the Japanese fleet in the Sibuyan Sea, he wrote, undoubtedly affected its ability to steam and shoot when it attacked Admiral Sprague’s escort carriers. Although privately critical of Halsey’s action, Nimitz was careful to avoid public criticism or allow critical remarks to be entered into CINCPOA records.Halsey personally admitted to King in January 1945 that he had make mistakes in the Battle for Leyte. King reportedly said that he did not need to say anything more and “you’ve got a green light on everything you did.” However, his views on the matter apparently changed afterward, because in his autobiography King criticized both Halsey and Kinkaid for their actions in the battle.The Japanese aircraft carriers Zuikaku, left, and (probably) Zuihō come under attack by dive bombers early in the Battle off Cape Engaño.The four main actions in the Battle of Leyte Gulf: 1 Battle of the Sibuyan Sea 2 Battle of Surigao Strait 3 Battle of (or off ) Cape Engaño 4 Battle off Samar. Leyte Gulf is north of 2 and west of 4. The island of Leyte is west of the gulf.In Halsey’s first report on the battle, sent to Nimitz, MacArthur, and Kinkaid on 25 October, he tried to justify his decision to leave the San Bernardino Strait unguarded. Among other things, he insisted that although it was apparent that the enemy planned a coordinated attack, his real objective could not be ascertained. The enemy carrier force was not detected until late afternoon on 24 October. Halsey’s claim that just to guard the San Bernardino Strait would have been a “waste of time” is hard to understand. Halsey explained that he decided to direct all three carrier groups to concentrate and move north and then use all his groups for a surprise attack on the enemy carrier force at dawn. He estimated that the Central Force was so badly damaged that it could not pose a threat to the Seventh Fleet. In his words, this was “a deduction proved correct by events of 25 October off Surigao.” Interestingly, he did not mention events off Samar on 25 October, which would not support his case. In the same report, he regretted that “just when his overwhelming force was within 45 miles of the crippled enemy” he got a call for assistance from Kinkaid. He had no alternative but to turn south in response.Halsey believed until the very end that he had made a sound decision. Despite the facts to the contrary, he rejected all evidence that the Northern Forces had been bait and the enemy commander had deceived him. In his view, his only mistake had been the decision to turn south when on the verge of annihilating the Northern Force.Halsey maintained that he had three courses of action open to him. He could guard the San Bernardino Strait with the entire force and wait for the Northern Force to attack first. He rejected that course of action because the enemy would have the initiative for when to attack. In addition, the enemy could use his airfields undisturbed. The second course of action was to leave TF 34 guarding the San Bernardino Strait while moving the three carrier groups north to attack the Northern Force. He rejected that course as well, explaining that the attack on TG 38.3 that day (resulting in the loss of the Princeton) indicated that the enemy still had powerful air strength. He noted, correctly, that his battleships should not be exposed to the possibility of an enemy air attack without adequate protection from friendly air. He also was correct in stating that it was a danger to have divided forces, as it allowed the enemy to beat them in detail. However, forces can be divided if each element is stronger than any possible enemy combination, or if each force is deployed within mutually supporting distance of the other.In short, Halsey had an option of either leaving behind TF 34 and one carrier group, or leaving TF 34 off the San Bernardino Strait and moving with all three carrier groups north but staying at all times within supporting distance of TF 34. Halsey’s intent to attack the Northern Force at dawn to achieve a surprise does not seem terribly important, since, surprise or not, Halsey had overwhelming force to deal with Ozawa’s much smaller and less powerful force. The Northern Force, even with the full air complement on board, was no match for TF 38. As it turned out, the first strike by TF 38 did not take place until 0800.Halsey had largely based his decision on the reports of his pilots. He apparently believed that the Central Force in the Sibuyan Sea was so badly damaged that even if it sortied through the San Bernardino Strait, Kinkaid would have adequate strength to defend against it. Halsey’s decision to leave Kinkaid’s covering forces to deal with both threats could not be justified. The Third Fleet’s mission of distant cover and support was to remove or at least neutralize any enemy threat to Allied shipping at Leyte originating beyond striking distance of Kinkaid’s forces. Halsey should have done the utmost to prevent the Central Force from reaching the open waters of the Philippine Sea. It would have been much better had the U.S. carrier groups dealt with the enemy’s heavy surface forces, especially when operating without air cover, than to risk losses to friendly forces in a surface engagement.Halsey’s third course of action, the one he followed, was to leave the San Bernardino Strait unguarded and strike the Northern Force with his entire force. In his view, this option provided the advantages of maintaining the “fleet’s integrity” and preserving the initiative, and it offered the greatest chance of achieving surprise. This was a clear case of a commander observing the principle of mass and surprise but violating the principles of objective, economy of effort and security. Not all principles of war are equally important, and none is more important than adhering to the principle of objective. Also, the principle of mass should not be applied to an extreme that, in the process, violates the principle of security. If Halsey had made a decision that fully observed the principle of objective together with the principles of security and economy of effort, the situation off Samar on the morning of 25 October would simply not have occurred.Halsey insisted that even if the Central Force had slipped through the San Bernardino Strait and headed for Leyte, it could only have made a harassing hit-and-run raid. It was too weak to achieve anything more. Even so, a superior force such as the U.S. Third Fleet should not have left open the way for a much weaker force to enter a landing objective area and inflict losses upon Allied forces. This would have been an embarrassment to the Allies at a critical time in the Pacific war.Despite all that did happen on 24–25 October, Halsey stubbornly insisted of his decision that, “given the same circumstances and the same information . . . , I would make it again.” This view was easier to defend on 25 October than many years after the fact, when the events and decisions on both sides were well known. Moreover, no decision can be considered sound if the commander does exactly what the enemy wants him to do.One of the most important factors in assessing a decision is the mission of the higher commander and the information available to the commander of both the enemy and friendly forces. Other factors include the commander’s personality traits, experience, command style, biases, and predilections; the experience and effectiveness of the staff; and the commander’s relationship with subordinate commanders.Halsey’s mission of providing distant cover and support was clear and straightforward. However, he either intentionally or subconsciously misunderstood his mission. He apparently believed that his mission was offensive, even after he received orders to cover the Leyte landings. Halsey’s main tasks were to obtain air superiority over the Philippines, protect the landing at Leyte, maintain “unremitting” pressure against Japan, and apply maximum attrition by all possible means in all areas.Nimitz gave Halsey full freedom to act in employing the Third Fleet. Halsey, he hoped, would draw out and fight the enemy fleet, thereby completing the task Admiral Spruance had started in June 1944. Nimitz reiterated Halsey’s mission to Admiral King at their meeting in San Francisco in late September 1944. He explained that, unlike Spruance, Halsey would not be given vague orders—hence the inserted part to Para (3), “in case opportunity for destruction of major portion of the enemy fleet is offered or can be created, such destruction becomes the primary task.” Nimitz issued these orders allegedly without any consultation with MacArthur.Both Nimitz and Halsey had almost identical views on the need to complete the destruction of the Japanese fleet. Halsey, like many flag officers in the Pacific Fleet, was critical of Spruance’s “mistake” in not completely destroying the Japanese fleet in the Battle in the Philippine Sea in June 1944. Nimitz found a personal letter from Halsey waiting for him after his return to Pearl Harbor from Washington, D.C., on 2 October. Halsey wrote: “I intend, if possible, to deny the enemy a chance to outrange me in an air duel and also to deny him an opportunity to employ an air shuttle against mc. If I am to prevent his gaining that advantage, I must move smartly. Inasmuch as the destruction of the enemy fleet is the principal task, every weapon must be brought into play and the general coordination of these weapons should be in the hands of the tactical commander responsible for the outcome of the battle. My goal is the same as yours—to completely annihilate the Jap fleet if the opportunity offers. . . . ” This letter is a reliable indicator of his state of mind at the time.Halsey’s command style contributed to his unsound decisions. As the Third Fleet commander, he should have had Mitscher, the TF 38 commander, in charge of all fast carrier groups. Halsey, as the numbered fleet commander, should have exercised broad supervision over Mitscher, intervening only if actions by either Mitscher or subordinate carrier group commanders endangered the mission. However, Halsey consistently bypassed Mitscher. For all practical purposes, he took over the tactical command of TF 38. This was not a standard command style in the U.S. Navy of the day. Halsey defended his decision because his flagship, New Jersey, was already part of the force so it was supposedly natural that he be directly in charge of TF 38, even though Mitscher was formally CTF 38. The Third Fleet essentially consisted of TF 38 after the amphibious forces were temporarily put under the Seventh Fleet’s command. Obviously, it was difficult for Halsey to stand aside. Halsey insisted that by issuing orders directly to carrier group commanders he could reduce radio traffic and thereby enhance secrecy of the movements of his forces. Also, the communications facilities on the New Jersey were superior to those on the carrier Lexington, flagship of CTF 38. This was all true, except that operational or operational-tactical commanders should not constantly interfere with and even make decisions that are the responsibility of the subordinate tactical commanders. Halsey also preferred to exercise his command and control via radio rather than according to meticulously prepared plans.For all his aggressiveness, Halsey often lost valuable time in making a final decision. At other times, he acted too quickly, without weighing all essential elements of a situation. His subordinate tactical commanders never knew what his plans were. Halsey apparently conducted running estimates of the situation, but one has to wonder whether that process was followed properly or whether, true to his character traits, it was too quick, omitting or perfunctorily evaluating many elements bearing on making a sound decision.Halsey was not much helped by his staff. Ideally, a chief of staff should be someone who is willing to tell the unpleasant truth to the commander. This was apparently not the case with the chief of staff, Admiral Carney. Also, temperamentally he was similar to Halsey. Reportedly, he was unwilling to tell Halsey that he disagreed with certain decisions. This is just the opposite of what a good chief of staff should be or do.Halsey was intensely loyal to his officers and men, and they were in turn loyal to him. He scolded in private and praised in public, and when errors were made, Halsey took full responsibility. Halsey’s staff argued a lot. All staff officers, regardless of their rank, were able to express themselves. However, all arguments ended after Halsey made a decision; then all the staff members had to carry out that decision as their own. When more time was available, he reportedly expected the staff to prepare studies and present the options available. He listened to the staff’s advice with little or no argument. At other times, his decisions were made rather quickly and based on his intuition. Halsey was highly respected as a leader by his subordinates, yet he was said not to have earned the high respect as a professional that Spruance or Mitscher did.In contrast to Admiral Spruance who was very meticulous and methodical, Halsey did not pay much attention to written instructions to his subordinates. His staff never kept orders up to date as Spruance’s staff did. The Third Fleet staff was known for sloppiness and ad hoc planning. All too often, Halsey sent unclear and poorly written messages to both subordinates and superiors. Halsey was known for making decisions without waiting on all the information or weighing the information he had. He displayed that bad trait on several occasions during the Leyte operation. Moreover, his staff was not well suited to planning and conducting carrier operations. Both Carney and Captain Ralph E. Wilson, his operations officer, were nonaviators.Halsey showed inexperience in fast carrier operations when he ordered TF 34 on 24 October to pull out and form a battle line ten miles ahead of carriers in the middle of the night. By contrast, all four subordinate carrier group commanders, with the exception of Vice Admiral McCain, had had a great deal of experience in carrier operations because they had participated in both TF 38 and TF 58 operations.Other factors that influenced Halsey’s rash decision in the evening on 24 October included a number of assumptions later proven to be wrong. Halsey was under the impression that the attack on the Princeton and its subsequent sinking had been carried out by carrier aircraft from the Northern Force. In fact, the attacks against TG 38.3 were conducted entirely by the enemy land-based naval aircraft. Accepting the optimistic claims of his pilots, Halsey believed that the damage inflicted on the Central Force was much greater than it actually was. Similarly, exaggerated claims were made in regard to the size and composition of the Northern Force. This was not the first time Halsey had accepted his pilots’ claims at face value. He’d done the same in the air battle off Formosa.Another probable reason for Halsey’s decision was his determination to fight and win the last carrier battle of the war. He missed the great carrier battles of the Coral Sea, Midway, and the Philippine Sea and was supposedly determined to destroy the Japanese carriers at the first opportunity.Not only Halsey, but also the JCS, Nimitz, and Kinkaid share some responsibility for the course of events on 24–25 October. In the broadest sense, the divided command and the unresolved command relationships between supported and supporting CINCs were never satisfactorily resolved. The solution was in the hands of the JCS alone. Nimitz unnecessarily complicated Halsey’s mission by inserting an additional task that in fact seemed to supersede the task of distant cover and support assigned by MacArthur. This, in combination with Halsey’s distaste for providing distant cover and support, his aggressiveness and impatience, and his predilection for seeking out the enemy fleet, made the events on 24–25 October possible. Nimitz usually left his numbered fleet commanders wide freedom of action. However, in this instance he should have intervened and reversed Halsey’s decision, since it potentially endangered the success of the entire operation. Another option for Nimitz would have been to make clear to Halsey in most emphatic terms that MacArthur’s mission assigned to the Third Fleet had priority at all times.Some highly respected historians think that Kinkaid’s responsibility was more a matter of inaction than bad decisions. He relied too much on Halsey to cover the northern approaches to Leyte Gulf. Kinkaid assumed in his operation plan that any major enemy naval forces approaching from the north would be intercepted and attacked by the Third Fleet’s covering force. Reportedly, Kinkaid was not overly concerned with Halsey’s decision to go north because he had intercepted Halsey’s message about TF 34 the previous day. He also assumed that Halsey had taken his three carrier groups with him but left TF 34 to guard the San Bernardino Strait. He notified Halsey about his plans for the battle in Surigao Strait. He did not need any help, provided Halsey took care of the Central Force.131 However, Kinkaid had sufficient forces to cover all the approaches to the landing objective area from both the west and the north and thereby prevent any nasty surprise. In short, he should have taken everything that was in his power to ensure protection of his forces from the enemy heavy surface forces.Nimitz in his comments on the battle insisted that if Kinkaid had-correctly interpreted Halsey’s messages, he could have moved his escort carriers either farther southward or eastward where they would have not been so close to possible daylight circle of the Center Force. The daylight air search that Kinkaid had ordered would detect any approaching enemy force with a greater margin of time and distance. Such a force could have been kept at bay by air attacks before it closed to Leyte Gulf. Nimitz also argued that Kinkaid could have directed TG 77.4 to move inside Leyte Gulf for protection. He realized, however, that in such a case escort carriers would have had limited space for maneuver and would have had to reduce their speed. Kinkaid could have also stationed an adequate number of radar pickets to the north and east of the eastern entrance to Leyte Gulf to provide warning of the approaching enemy until daylight air search could take over.Kinkaid also allowed too much freedom of action to Oldendorf and Thomas L. Sprague. He should have taken timely and stronger measures to use his own aircraft for conducting searches of Leyte Gulf’s northern approaches. Clifton Sprague, CTU 77.4.3, claimed that his force had never been assigned any responsibility for covering the San Bernardino Strait, either by reconnaissance or surface forces. Captain Richard F. Whitehead, Commander, Support Aircraft, Seventh Fleet, advised Kinkaid to launch searches covering the approaches to the San Bernardino Strait, but they weren’t carried out expeditiously.Because of poor communications procedures between their fleets, Halsey did not obtain timely information on Kinkaid’s plans or actions. Kinkaid was unable to communicate with the Third Fleet directly. Messages sent by Kinkaid to Halsey had to be first encoded and sent to the radio station at Manus, Admiralties, which then retransmitted them on the “Fox” fleet radiobroadcast schedule. Operators on all U.S. naval ships copied the latter in its entirety. However, the communicators were expected to decode only the messages that carried the call sign of their ship or force.Another problem hindering cooperation between the Third and Seventh Fleets was that radio messages weren’t properly prioritized, a reflection of the divided theater command. Many messages were graded “urgent,” so that truly urgent messages were unable to reach the addressees in a timely manner. The operators at Manus simply stacked urgent messages in the order they were received, or made a guess as to which one had higher priority. Consequently, it sometimes took hours for a message sent by Kinkaid to reach Halsey. Also, urgent messages often arrived out of the sequence. Kinkaid’s staff, in fact, violated orders and regulations just to keep track of what was going on. It listened to Halsey’s communications and decoded everything it intercepted, whether the messages were intended for Kinkaid or not.The communications’ problem was greatly compounded by poorly worded messages, which were often misinterpreted by the recipients. Both Kinkaid and Halsey made several decisions based on misinformation. The lack of a common superior, combined with the failure of Halsey and Kinkaid to exchange information promptly, made it very difficult to achieve cooperation between their two fleets.Not until 11 December 1944 did King ask Kinkaid what actions he had taken to ensure that the Central Force did not exit the San Bernardino Strait. Kinkaid responded that he had ordered a night search by aircraft from TU 77.4.4. He told King about intercepting Halsey’s message on TF 34. His assumption was that TF 34 had been left behind to guard the San Bernardino Strait. King was also told that searches by PBYs had not resulted in any contact, because the escort carrier searches were not carried out expeditiously. However, Kinkaid, in his typical fashion, did not put the blame on Thomas Sprague or Stump, CTU 77.4.2. (Admiral Wilkinson, in fact, advised Kinkaid to order CTG 77.4 to conduct dawn searches.)In Kinkaid’s view, the real reason for the crisis off Samar was that Halsey had been unwilling to stick with his mission. He said that his own mission was different from the one given to Halsey. Halsey was supposed to provide “strategic (operational) cover,” while Kinkaid would provide direct cover and protection of landing forces. In his view, if both he and Halsey had carried out their respective missions, there would have been no confusion.Kinkaid apparently did not keep MacArthur informed of the progress of naval battles on 24–25 October. This was most likely why MacArthur did not react on the worsening situation at the approaches to Leyte, not because of his supposed lack of interest in naval matters. On 25 October, he informed Kinkaid that the Navy communications center at GHQ did not provide any information about events at sea. He requested from Kinkaid to take necessary action so that he could be fully informed. The same day Major General S. B. Akin (GHQ Chief Signals Officer) informed General Sutherland that he personally delivered messages to Kinkaid on board the flagship (Wasatch). Kinkaid reportedly expressed regrets at the lack of flow of information to the CINCSWPA and promised that he would take immediate steps to correct it.Just as Africans were taking their first, tentative steps towards nationhood and independence, Spain and Italy launched what turned out to be the last large-scale wars of conquest on the continent, in Morocco and Abyssinia. Both nations were driven by greed and historic grievances which alleged that their legitimate imperial ambitions had been frustrated or overlooked by the great powers. Jealousy and bruised pride were most strongly felt by right-wing politicians, professional soldiers, moneymen and journalists who lobbied for imperial expansion, promising that it would yield prestige and profit. In Italy, aggressive imperialism and an infatuation with the glories of the Roman Empire were central to the ideology of Mussolini’s Fascist Party which snatched power in 1922. Like Spain, Italy was a relatively poor country with limited capital reserves and industrial resources, deficiencies that were ignored or glossed over by imperial enthusiasts who argued that in the long-term imperial wars would pay for themselves.In 1900 Spain was a nation in eclipse. Over the past hundred years it had been occupied by Napoleon and endured periodic civil wars over the royal succession; it entered the twentieth century riven by violent social and political tensions. Spain’s infirmity was brutally exposed in 1898, when she was defeated by the United States in a short war that ended with the loss of Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines, all that remained of her vast sixteenth-century empire.National shame was most deeply felt in the upper reaches of a hierarchical society where the conviction took root that Spain could only redeem and regenerate itself by a colonial venture in Morocco. Support for this enterprise was most passionate among the numerous officers of the Spanish army (there was one for every forty-seven soldiers), who found allies in King Alfonso XIII, the profoundly superstitious and obscurantist Catholic Church and conservatives in the middle and landowning classes. The army had its own newspaper, El Ejército Español, which proclaimed that empire was the ‘birthright’ of all Spaniards, and predicted that ‘weapons’ would ‘plough the virgin soil so that agriculture, industry, and mining might flourish’ in Morocco.Morocco was Spain’s new El Dorado. In 1904 Spain and France secretly agreed to share Morocco, with the French coming off best with the most fertile regions. Spain’s portion was the littoral of the Mediterranean coast and the inaccessible Atlas Mountains of the Rif, home to the fiercely independent Berbers. The war began in 1909 and jubilant officers, including the young Francisco Franco, looked forward to medals and promotion, while investors touted for mining and agricultural concessions. Optimism dissolved on the battlefield and, within a year, the Spanish army found itself bogged down in a guerrilla war, just as it had in Cuba forty years before. Reinforcements were hastily summoned, but in July 1909 the mobilisation of reservists triggered a popular uprising among the workers of Barcelona. Breadwinners and their families wanted no part in the Moroccan adventure, and henceforward all left-wing parties opposed a war that offered the workers nothing but conscription and death. Resentful draftees had to be stiffened by Moroccan levies (Regulares) and, in 1921, the sinister Spanish Foreign Legion (Tercio de Extranjeros), a band of mostly Spanish desperadoes whose motto was ‘Viva la Muerte!’ These hirelings once appeared at a ceremonial public parade with Berber heads, ears and arms spiked on their bayonets.Resistance was strongest among the Berbers of the Atlas, who not only defended their mountainous homeland but created their own state, the Rif Republic, in September 1921. Its founder and guiding spirit was a charismatic visionary, Abd el-Krim, a jurist who had once worked for the Spanish, but believed that the future freedom, happiness and prosperity of the Berbers could only be achieved by the creation of a modern, independent nation. It had its own flag, issued banknotes and, under el-Krim’s direction, was embarking on a programme of social and economic regeneration which included efforts to eliminate slavery. The Riffian army was well suited to a partisan war. Its soldiers were chiefly horsemen armed with up-to-date rifles, supported by machineguns and modern artillery. The Riffians also had good luck, for they were pitched against an army with tenuous lines of communications and led by fumbling generals.Riffian superiority in the battlefield was spectacularly proved in July 1921, when Spain launched an offensive with 13,000 men designed to penetrate the Atlas foothills and secure a decisive victory. What followed was the most catastrophic defeat ever suffered by a European army in Africa, the Battle of Annual. The Spanish were outmanoeuvred, trapped and trounced with a loss of over 10,000 men in the fighting and ensuing rout. Officers fled in cars, the wounded were abandoned and tortured, and their commander, General Manuel Fernandez Silvestre y Pantiga, shot himself. The circumstances of his death were ironic, insofar as his manly bearing and extended, bushy and painstakingly groomed moustache so closely fitted the European stereotype of the victorious imperial hero. A post-mortem on the Annual debacle revealed Silvestre’s reckless over-confidence, his obsequious desire to satisfy King Alfonso XIII’s wish for a quick victory, ramshackle logistics, a precipitate collapse of morale and the mass desertions of Moroccan Regulares.Spain responded with more botched offensives, but now the deficiencies of its commanders were offset by the latest military technology. Phosgene and mustard gas bombs dropped from aircraft would bring the Riffians to their knees. This tactic was strongly urged by Alfonso XIII, a Bourbon with all the mental limitations and prejudices of his ancestors. Together, his generals persuaded him that, if unchecked, the Republic of the Rif would trigger ‘a general uprising of the Muslim world at the instigation of Moscow and international Jewry’. Spain was now fighting to save Christian civilisation, just as it had done in the Middle Ages when its armies had driven the Moors from the Iberian peninsula.The technology for what are now called weapons of mass destruction had to be imported. German scientists supervised the manufacture of the poison gas at two factories, one of which, near Madrid, was named ‘The Alfonso XIII Factory’. Over 100 bombers were purchased from British and French manufacturers, including the massive Farman F.60 Goliath. By November 1923 the preparations had been completed, and one general hoped that the gas offensive would exterminate the Rif tribesmen.Between 1923 and 1925 the Spanish air force pounded Rif towns and villages with 13,000 bombs filled with phosgene and mustard gas as well as conventional high explosives. Victims suffered sores, boils, blindness and the burning of skin and lungs, livestock were killed and crops and vegetation withered. Residual contamination persisted and was a source of stomach and throat cancers and genetic damage.4 Details of these atrocities remained hidden for seventy years, and in 2007 the Spanish parliament refused to acknowledge them or consider compensation. The Moroccan government disregarded the revelations, for fear that they might add to the grievances of the discontented Berber minority.Conventional rather than chemical weapons brought down the Rif Republic. Worrying signs that Spain’s war in the Rif might destabilise French Morocco drew France into the conflict in 1925. Over 100,000 French troops, tanks and aircraft were deployed alongside 80,000 Spaniards, and the outnumbered Riffian forces were broken. Newsreel cameramen (a novelty on colonial battlefields) filmed the captive Abd el-Krim as he began the first stage of his journey to exile in Réunion in the Indian Ocean. He was transferred to France in 1947 and was later moved to Cairo where he died in 1963, a revered elder statesman of North African nationalism.Spain had gained a colony and, unwittingly, a Frankenstein’s monster, the Army of Africa (Cuerpo de Ejército Marroquí). Its cadre of devout, reactionary officers assumed the role of the defenders of traditionalism in a country beset by political turbulence after the abdication of Alfonso in 1931. Politicians of the Right saw the Africanistas (as the officer corps was called) as ideological accomplices in their struggle to contain the trade unions, Socialists, Communists and Anarchists. The Moroccan garrison became a praetorian guard that could be unleashed on the working classes if they ever got out of hand. They did, in October 1934, when the miners’ strike in the Asturias aroused fears of an imminent Red revolution. It was forestalled by application of the terror that had recently been used to subdue Spanish Morocco. Aircraft bombed centres of disaffection and the Foreign Legion and Moroccan troops were summoned to restore order and storm the strikers’ stronghold at Oviedo. Its capture and subsequent mopping-up operations were marked by looting, rape and summary executions by the Legionaries and Regulares. Franco (now a general) presided over the terror. Like his fellow Africanistas, he believed that it was their sacred duty to rescue the old Spain of landowners, priests and the passive and obedient masses from the depredation of godless Communists and Anarchists.Red revolution seemed to come closer on New Year’s Day 1936 with the emergence of a coalition government which called itself the ‘Popular Front’. It was confirmed in power by a narrow margin in a general election soon afterwards, and the far Left began clamouring for radical reform and wage rises. Strikes, assassinations and violent demonstrations proliferated during the spring and early summer, the Right trembled, acquired arms and covertly sounded out the Africanista generals. Together they contrived a coup whose success depended on the 40,000 soldiers of the Moroccan garrison who made up two-fifths of the Spanish army.On 17 July 1936 Africa, in the form of Legionary and Regulares units from Morocco, invaded Spain. They were the spearhead of the Nationalist uprising and were soon reinforced by contingents flown across the Mediterranean in aircraft supplied by Hitler. Combined with local anti-Republican troops and right-wing volunteers, the African army quickly secured a power base across much of south-western and northern Spain. From the start, the Nationalists used their African troops to terrorise the Republicans. Speaking on Radio Seville, General Gonzalo Queipo de Llano warned his countrymen and women of the promiscuity and sexual prowess of his Moroccan soldiers who, he assured listeners, had already been promised their pick of the women of Madrid.The colonial troops fulfilled his expectations. There were mass rapes everywhere by Legionaries and Regulares, who also massacred Republican civilians. Later, George Orwell noticed that Moroccan soldiers enjoyed beating up fellow International Brigade prisoners of war, but desisted once their victims uttered exaggerated howls of pain. One wonders whether their brutality was the result of their suppressed loathing of all white men rather than any attachment to Fascism or the Spain of the hidalgo and the cleric. Muslim religious leaders in Morocco had backed the uprising, which was sold to them as a war against atheism. As the Regulares marched into Seville they were given Sacred Heart talismans by pious women, which must have been bewildering.When the Republicans were finally defeated in the spring of 1939, there were 50,000 Moroccans and 9,000 Legionaries fighting in the Nationalist army along with German and Italian contingents. Although necessity compelled him to concentrate his energies on national reconstruction, Franco, now dictator of Spain, harboured imperial ambitions. The fall of France in June 1940 offered rich pickings and he immediately occupied French Tangier. Shortly afterwards, when he met Hitler, Franco named his price for cooperation with Germany as French Morocco, Oran and, of course, Gibraltar. The Führer was peeved by his temerity and prevaricated. Fascist Spain remained a malevolent neutral; early in 1941 the tiny Spanish coastal colonies of Guinea and Fernando Po were sources of anti-British propaganda and bases for German agents in West Africa. Spanish anti-Communist volunteers joined Nazi forces in Russia.Share this:FacebookPocketPrintLinkedInMoreEmailTumblrRedditTwitterPinterestLike this:Like Loading... Franco’s demands had been modest compared to those made by Mussolini, for whom the French surrender was a heaven-sent opportunity to implement his long-term plans for a vast Italian empire in Africa. In 1940 he asked the Germans for Corsica, Tunisia, Djibuti and naval bases at Toulon, Ajaccio and Mers-el-Kebir on the Algerian coast, and he was planning to invade the Sudan and British Somaliland. Mussolini’s flights of fancy extended to the annexation of Kenya, Egypt and even, in their giddier moments, Nigeria and Liberia. Hitler’s response was frosty, for at that time his Foreign Ministry was preparing a blueprint ‘to rationalise colonial development for the benefit of Europe’. An enlarged Italian empire was not part of this plan.Fascism had always been about conquest. As a young misfit spitefully living on the margins of society, Mussolini had convinced himself that ‘only blood could turn the bloodstained wheels of history’. This remained his creed: violence was a valid and desirable means for a government to gets its own way at home and abroad. ‘I don’t give a damn!’ was the slogan of Mussolini’s Blackshirt hoodlums, and he applauded it as ‘evidence of a fighting spirit which accepts all the risks’. Violence was essential for Italy to attain both its rightful place in the world and the territorial empire that would uphold its pretensions. Yet Mussolini’s projected empire was not just about accumulating power: he promised that it would, like its Roman predecessor, bring enlightenment to its subjects. Italians were fitted for this noble task for, as the Duce insisted, ‘It is our spirit that has put our civilisation on the by-ways of the world.’Cinema informed the masses of the ideals and achievements of the new Rome. A propaganda short of 1937 entitled Scipione l’Africano blended past and present glories. There was footage of Mussolini’s recent visit to Libya, where he is seen watching a spectacular enactment of Scipio’s victory over Carthage with elephants and Italian soldiers dressed as Roman legionaries. It was followed by scenes of a mock Roman triumph alternated with shots of the new Caesar, Mussolini, inspecting his troops. There are also images of babies and mothers surrounded by children as a reminder of the Duce’s campaign to raise the birth rate, which would, among other things, provide a million colonists for an enlarged African empire.Fascism’s civilising mission was graphically portrayed in the opening sequence of the 1935 propaganda film Ti Saluto, Vado in Abissinia, produced by the Fascist Colonial Institute. Against a soundtrack of discordant music there is grisly footage of shackled slaves, a baby crying as its cheeks are scored with tribal marks, a leper, dancing women, an Abyssinian ras (prince) in his exotic regalia, the Emperor Haile Selassie on horseback inspecting modern infantrymen and, to please male cinemagoers, close-ups of naked girls dancing. Darkness and grotesque images give way to light with the first bars of the jaunty popular song of the film’s title, and there follows a sequence of young, cheerful soldiers in tropical kit boarding a troopship on the first stage of their journey to claim this benighted land for civilisation. Newsreels celebrated the triumphs of ‘progress’: one showed a Somali village ‘where the machinery imported by our farmers helps the natives to till the fertile soil’, and in another King Victor Emmanuel inspects hospitals and waterworks in Libya. In the press, Fascist hacks flattered Italy as ‘the mother of civilisation’ and ‘the most intelligent of nations’.Progress required Fascist order. Within a year of Mussolini’s seizure of power in 1922, operations began to secure Libya completely, in particular the south-western desert region of Fezzan. Progress was slow, despite aircraft, armoured cars and tanks, and so in 1927 Italy, like Spain, reached for phosgene and mustard gas. Under Marshal Rodolfo Graziani, Italian forces pressed inland across the Sahara, herded rebels and their families into internment camps and hanged captured insurgents. The fighting dragged on for a further four years, and ended with the capture, trial and public execution in 1931 of the capable and daring partisan leader, Omar el-Mukhtar. Like Abd el-Krim, he became a hero to later generations of North African nationalists: there are streets named after him in Cairo and Gaza.Somalia too got a stiff dose of Fascist discipline. Indirect rule was abandoned, and the client chiefs who had effectively controlled a third of the colony were brought to heel by a war waged between 1923 and 1927. The bill swelled Somalia’s debts, which were slightly reduced by a programme of investment in irrigation and cash crops, all of which were subsidised by Rome. Italians were compelled to buy Somalian bananas, but their consumption merely staved off insolvency. The flow of immigrants was disappointingly small: in 1940 there were 854 Italian families tilling the Libyan soil and 1,500 settlers in Somalia.Having tightened Italy’s grip over Libya and Somalia, Mussolini turned to what was, for all patriots, the unfinished business of Abyssinia, where an Italian army had suffered an infamous defeat at Adwa in 1896. Fascism would restore national honour and add a potentially rich colony to the new Roman Empire, which would soon be filled by settlers.Known as Ethiopia by its Emperor and his subjects, Abyssinia was one of the largest states in Africa, covering 472,000 square miles, and it had been independent for over a thousand years. It was ruled by Haile Selassie, ‘Lion of Judah, Elect of God, King of Kings of Ethiopia’, a benevolent absolutist who traced his descent to Solomon and Sheba. His autocracy had the spiritual support of the Coptic Church, which preached the virtues of submission to the Emperor and the aristocracy. One nobleman, Ras Gugsa Wale, summed up the political philosophy of his caste: ‘It is best for Ethiopia to live according to ancient custom as of old and it would not profit her to follow European civilisation.’Nevertheless, that civilisation was encroaching on Abyssinia and would continue to do so. In 1917 the railway between French Djibuti and Addis Ababa had been opened; among other goods transported were consignments of modern weaponry for Haile Selassie’s army and embryonic air force (it had four planes in 1935), and European businessmen in search of concessions. The Emperor was a hesitantly progressive ruler who hoped to achieve a balance between tradition and what he called ‘acts of civilisation’.Frontier disputes provided Mussolini with the pretext for a war, but he had first to overcome the hurdle of outside intervention orchestrated by the League of Nations. Abyssinia was a member of that body which, in theory, existed to prevent wars through arbitration and, again in theory, had the authority to call on members to impose sanctions on aggressors. The League was a paper tiger: it had failed to stop the Japanese seizure of Manchuria in 1931, and economic sanctions against Italy required the active cooperation of the British and French navies. This was not forthcoming, for neither power had the will for a blockade that could escalate into a war against Italy whose army, navy and air force were grossly overestimated by the British and French intelligence services. Moreover, both powers were becoming increasingly uneasy about Hitler’s territorial ambitions and hoped, vainly as it turned out, to enlist the goodwill of Mussolini. An Anglo-French attempt to appease Mussolini by offering him a chunk of Abyssinia (the Hoare-Laval Pact) failed either to deter him or win his favour. Interestingly, this resort to the cynical diplomacy of Africa’s early partition provoked outrage in Britain and France.Neither nation was prepared to strangle Italy’s seaborne trade to preserve Abyssinian integrity, and so Mussolini’s gamble paid off. The fighting began in October 1935, with 100,000 Italian troops backed by tanks and bombers invading from Eritrea in the north and Somalia in the south. Ranged against them was the small professional Abyssinian army armed with machine-guns and artillery and far larger tribal levies raised by the rases and equipped with all kinds of weapons, from spears and swords to modern rifles.The course of the war has been admirably charted by Anthony Mockler, who reminds us that, despite the disparity between the equipment of the two armies, the conquest of Abyssinia was never the walkover the Italians had hoped for. In December a column backed by ten tanks was ambushed in the Takazze valley. One, sent on a reconnaissance, was captured by a warrior who stole up behind the vehicle, jumped on it and knocked on the turret. It was opened and he killed the crew with his sword. Surrounded, the Italians attempted to rally around their tanks and were overrun. Another tank crew were slain after they had opened their turret; others were overturned and set alight, and two were captured. Nearly all their crews were killed in the rout that followed and fifty machine-guns captured. The local commander, Marshal Pietro Badoglio, was shaken by this reverse and struck back with, aircraft which attacked the Abyssinians with mustard-gas bombs.As in Morocco, gas (as well as conventional bombs) compensated for slipshod command and panicky troops, although the Italians excused its use as revenge for the beheading in Daggahur of a captured Italian pilot after he had just bombed and strafed the town. Denials rather than excuses were offered when bombs were dropped on hospitals marked with red crosses.Intensive aerial bombardment and gas swung the war in Italy’s favour. In May 1936 Addis Ababa was captured and, soon after, Haile Selassie went into exile. He was jeered by Italian delegates when he addressed the League of Nations in Geneva, and was cheered by Londoners when he arrived at Waterloo. He remained in England for the next four years, sometimes in Bath, where his kindness and charm were long remembered. In Rome an image of the Lion of Judah was placed on the war memorial to the dead of the 1896 war; Adwa had been avenged. Mussolini’s bombast rose to the occasion with declarations that Abyssinia had been ‘liberated’ from its age-old backwardness and miseries. Liberty took odd forms, for the Duce decreed that henceforward it was a crime for Italians to cohabit with native women, which he thought an affront to Italian manhood, and he forbade Italians to be employed by Abyssinians.In Abyssinia Italians assumed the role of master race with a hideous relish. Efforts were made to exterminate the Abyssinian intellectual elite, including all primary school teachers. In February 1937 an attempt to assassinate the Viceroy Graziani prompted an official pogrom in which Abyssinians were randomly murdered in the streets. Blackshirts armed with daggers and shouting, ‘Duce! Duce!’ led the way. The killings spread to the countryside after Graziani ordered the Governor of Harar to ‘Shoot all – I say all – rebels, notables, chiefs’ and anyone ‘thought guilty of bad faith or of being guilty of helping the rebels’. Thousands were slaughtered during the next three months.The subjugation of Abyssinia proved as difficult as its conquest. Over 200,000 troops were deployed fighting a guerrilla war of pacification. Italy’s new colony was turning into an expensive luxury: between 1936 and 1938 its military expenses totalled 26,500 million lire. In the event of a European war, this huge army would deter an Anglo – French invasion and, as Mussolini hoped, invade the Sudan, Djibuti and perhaps Kenya, while forces based in Libya attacked Egypt. Viceroy Graziani felt certain that Britain was secretly helping Abyssinian resistance and Mussolini agreed, although he wondered whether the Comintern might also have been involved.By 1938, his own secret service was disseminating anti-British propaganda to Egypt and Palestine via Radio Bari. In April 1939, alarmed by the flow of reinforcements to Italian garrisons in Libya and Abyssinia, the British made secret preparations for undercover operations to foment native uprisings in both colonies. At the same time, parties of young Italians, ostensibly on cycling holidays, spread the Fascist message in Tunisia and Morocco, and Jewish pupils were banned from Italian schools in Tunis, Rabat and Tangier. Africa was already becoming embroiled in Europe’s political conflicts.Outside Germany and Italy, European opinion about the Abyssinian War was sharply divided: anti-Fascists of all kinds were against Mussolini, while right-wingers tended to support him on racial grounds. Sir Oswald Mosley, whose British Union of Fascists was secretly underwritten by Mussolini, dismissed Abyssinia as a ‘black and barbarous conglomeration of tribes with not one Christian principle’. Lord Rothermere, owner of the Daily Mail, urged his readers to back Italy and ‘the cause of the white race’ whose defeat in Abyssinia would set a frightening example to Africans and Asians. Evelyn Waugh, who was commissioned by Rothermere to cover the war, confided to a friend his hopes that the Abyssinians would be ‘gassed to buggery’.Armies on Paradewwiiafterwwiiwwii equipment used after the warColonel MustardWW2 Modelling in 1/72 ScaleHuman PagesThe Best of History, Literature, Art ReligionCrusader HistoryKnights Templar - Freemasons - Secret SocietiesDarrell KindleyAerospace, Aviation, Golf, Drag Boat RacingKamarote de los Hermanos MarxAprendizaje, Difusión y partidas de ASLThe Irish at WarA Podcast on Irish Military HistoryAsinus DocetMind What You Find HereDelaram Art DesignCustom Art | Interior Design | Art Instructor | CAD Sketchup SpecialistSuburban MilitarismBehind those net curtains, one man builds an army...Not Quite MechanisedFastplay Operational-Level Tabletop Wargaming GuidelinesMilitary FantasyMilitary fantasy and historyWilliam R. Ablan, pen name of Richard L. 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