MacArthur v Truman

[BrevetorCoffin]

Just finished The General v. The President by H. W. Brand. Having read very little in the subject therefore little to compare it against, it is well written, an interesting read and the author attempted to be very subjective in his portrayal of the events leading up to MacArthur's ouster. Solid 4 out of 5 stars.

Also recently finished James Donovan's A Terrible Glory. 3.5 of 5 stars. Get very tired of authors trying to pawn their opinions of what happened with Custer after Martini was sent off as fact. Otherwise well written interesting read.

Next up THE big one: William L. Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Give me a few weeks.

Best,

David

[dave]

David
Allow yourself plenty of time when reading "The Rise and Fall" as it well written and full of information especially dealing with man's inhumanity to man! I have read it twice.
Regards
Dave

[BrevetorCoffin]

Jun 3, 2017 1:53:05 GMT dave said:

David
Allow yourself plenty of time when reading "The Rise and Fall" as it well written and full of information especially dealing with man's inhumanity to man! I have read it twice.
Regards
Dave

You are a better man than I Gunga Din! Have read parts of Rise and Fall but never start to finish. After this some lighter reading. Maybe Mein Kampf.

Fishing derby tomorrow with granddaughter so likely not posting again till Sunday.

Best,

David

[quincannon]

So what did you learn?

Let me also recommend that you find a copy of "The Forgotten War" by Clay Blair. I think it will add to some of the Korea centric background that Brand may have missed.

Also while I have the attention of both of you and in light of our recent discussion, I received the new Naval Institute book catalog yesterday and the lead "new book" is "Stanley Johnson's Blunder"  by Elliot Carlson. Carlson's previous book was "Joe Rochefort's War" which got very good reviews.

[BrevetorCoffin]

I had little to no knowledge of the political machinations going on behind the scenes. That was a huge learning experience. Also MacArthur's obsession with Formosa and rhe Chinese Nationalists.

I was aware of Mac's ego but he really seemed to be losing his grip on reality after the Chinese crossed the Yalu River in force. Lots of kudos to subordinates for getting him out of that mess.

That is the nutshell version of the learning experience.

As to Donovan, not buying into his certainty that Reno was drunk all day at LBH or Custer just wanted the ammo packs.

More on Shirer later.

[yanmacca]

This reminds me of a debate on a military web site from years ago, the topic then was Montgomery v Slim for the best British WW2 general, and some of the things wrote really opened my eyes.

[quincannon]

So which one of the two do you think better Ian, the one who got all the publicity, or the one that got the job done?

[dave]

QC
If you were asking me what I learned from "The Rise and Fall" the best analogy for me would be the frog being roasted alive. Germany and her citizens were slowly being over taken by Hitlerr and his policies a little at a time before they realized what had and was happening.

I have read Clay Blair's "Silent Victory" a classic source of information about operations of US subs in WW II but have not "The Forgotten War." Rochefort was a fascinating man and somewhere in the past I read about the conflict between his Pearl Harbor operations and the intel section in DC, which was run by 2 brothers, I think, right?
Regards
Dave

[Beth]

Jun 3, 2017 14:14:14 GMT dave said:

QC
If you were asking me what I learned from "The Rise and Fall" the best analogy for me would be the frog being roasted alive. Germany and her citizens were slowly being over taken by Hitlerr and his policies a little at a time before they realized what had and was happening.

I have read Clay Blair's "Silent Victory" a classic source of information about operations of US subs in WW II but have not "The Forgotten War." Rochefort was a fascinating man and somewhere in the past I read about the conflict between his Pearl Harbor operations and the intel section in DC, which was run by 2 brothers, I think, right?
Regards
Dave

It's been ages since I have read "Rise and Fall" I also read Speer's book probably back to back.  I would also recommend Hitler's Thirty Days to Power: January 1933

[quincannon]

Silent Victory, by Blair is a classic, so is his "Hitler's U Boat War".

Rochefort was in constant conflict with those two brothers whose names escape me at the moment, but the conflict was not really between them so much as between the Nimitzites and the Kingites for who was to control the Pacific Fleet/Central Pacific Theater. They were in constant conflict over nearly everything, intelligence being only one part.

King was very much old school, and I think he deeply resenting Washington not having more control than it did. Also Nimitz was prone to giving his commanders a mission and letting them get on with it, which was diametrically opposed to the way King thought. King was what is best termed a control freak, and those that worked directly for him, including those two brothers, tended to be the same way. I do not believe had it been King at Pearl, that he would have ever acted on what Rochefort came up with, like Nimitz did. King trusted no one. Nimitz did.

All this distracts me from today's book mission. My intention was to go to the basement early this morning and dig out my copy of the follow on novel to the "Dirty Dozen". Can't even remember the name but I know I have it down in that dungeon somewhere. I will make it by nightfall. This coming week therefore will be OSS wild hair up my ass week.

[yanmacca]

Well I have read the posts on that site so anything I say will be tainted, but they said that Monty was above him in officers collage and they were saying that Slim wouldn't be able to handle large armoured forces as good as Monty could.

One guy also said that the tactics that Slim applied in the far east were taught as standard and he simply applied those tactics well.

I must admit though that Monty made sure that the British public knew what he as achieving, but Slim just got on with his job.

[quincannon]

I think those that were saying Slim "couldn't" did not know their own ass from first base.

I think those that said that Monty could handle armor, would not know a chocolate bar from a pile of shit.

The secret of military success is knowing the tactics and applying them well. That I fully agree with. That IS what Slim did.

Slim wrote better than Monty. "Defeat Into Victory" is a military classic.

Monty was a horrible commander of armor. Armor commanders who know their stuff, give their subordinates an order then turn them loose. Monty could never turn anything loose. He had Sommeitis. Never recovered from it.

I do not believe that there were any British commanders at higher levels that were particularly adept at handling armor. Slim of course never got a chance to do it, so I don't know how he would have operated. What I do know about him is that he was not particularly fond of special operations forces like the Chindits so that gives me a clue that he would not have done well. When I say at higher levels I mean corps and above. Some of your brigadiers and division commanders were fair, but no better than fair.

The success we had with armor I believe comes from our national makeup, a cultural more than a military thing. Our society is much less ridged than yours. We are less inclined to stick to the rule book. With armor you stick within the wide parameters, but as long as you play within those broad restrictions, it's pretty much a free for all. There is something to the cavalry mindedness of the Queen's Musketeer. Not what he makes it to be of course, but he is an idiot.  An armor commander must be aggressive, but in such a deliberate manner that the deliberation does not really show. All you see looking from the outside is the aggressiveness. That is the complete opposite of a good commander of an Infantry force where it is the deliberation that shows and the aggressiveness is hidden within.

[mlynn]

Jun 2, 2017 23:37:02 GMT BrevetorCoffin said:

Just finished The General v. The President by H. W. Brand. Having read very little in the subject therefore little to compare it against, it is well written, an interesting read and the author attempted to be very subjective in his portrayal of the events leading up to MacArthur's ouster. Solid 4 out of 5 stars.

Also recently finished James Donovan's A Terrible Glory. 3.5 of 5 stars. Get very tired of authors trying to pawn their opinions of what happened with Custer after Martini was sent off as fact. Otherwise well written interesting read.

Next up THE big one: William L. Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Give me a few weeks.

Best,

David

I am reading A Terrible Glory now.

[quincannon]

I'd give Donovan 1 star, reluctantly, for the same reason David gives it three and a half.

He did a much better job with his Alamo book. Makes a boo boo or two in that one also. At least he did not sheep dip himself in Texas mythologicalbovineexcrement before he set pen to paper.

[yanmacca]

Well I would say that we were and everyone else for that matter, were caught cold by the German tactics employed in 1940, our officers were also not trained to act on their own gut feelings and went by the book, our armour was lacking behind the Germans because we had to fight with what we had and could not change our infrastructure to compensate this.

The US on the other hand, watched developments and learned a great deal from what they saw, that being said, the US units were still green as shown by the Italian Centauro division at Kasserine, they broke through and did a lot of damage.

Officers from all countries are different, but they have their own characteristics, not all British officers were bad, but on the other hand not all US officers were good.