Reviews for If Mahan Ran the Great Pacific War: An Analysis of World War II Naval Strategy

The average rating for If Mahan Ran the Great Pacific War: An Analysis of World War II Naval Strategy based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2008-11-17 00:00:00 Kell Wallart At first, the title sounds very presumptuous. How can an airline executive who researched military history on the side speak for one of the giants of military history? Adams swings for the fences by applying a very thorough reading of Alfred Thayer Mahan to a re-examination of WWII/Pacific. The US and Japanese navies were both institutionally immersed in Mahan's "Influence of Sea Power Upon History," the bible of naval warfare. Of the two, the US Navy made the fewest mistakes applying Mahan to warfighting. Rather than playing the part of an armchair admiral, Adams does take the trouble to explain why. In doing so, King emerges as king and MacArthur as a petulant political general who lacked the vision to drive the blade home, unlike the USN. Distilling Mahan's teaching to its essence, Adams stresses that the strategic goal of a naval war is the destruction of the enemy fleet. Once accomplished, all strategic apples fall into the winner's basket as his fleet is permitted totally unfettered movement across the world's oceans. After that key win, the victor can pick and choose how to pluck the assets of the loser's empire. And never divide the fleet. Battleships were the vessels to sink prior to WWII. But the true measure of naval strength shifted to aircraft carriers around 1940, just as the strike potential of aircraft was finally beginning to be realized. Just sinking 10 ships can win the war--the enemy's carriers. The same rule applied to Japan. That ruthless reduction to that essence becomes a clear prism through which the Pacific War gets refracted, and the resulting spectrum of options and operations then colors the book's narrative. Why should Japan waste assets seizing southeast Asia when it could gain all be default by using the same land forces to isolate Oahu by landing on Kaui and Hawaii? Why should the US waste time advancing through New Guinea and the Phillipines when advancing Marshalls/Marianas/Okinawa or Formosa can make the same line of supply cut faster for a lower expenditure in lives? Why should Japan bother with New Guinea if it can cut Australia's line of supply by advancing along the line of Solomons/Fiji? Why should Japan even bother raiding Ceylon? Adams rates the commanders by applying that simple measure of strategic vision. King had it, Nimitz less so, Spruance not really, Mitscher hell yes. Yamamoto comes in second to Ozawa. MacArthur proves a sump on limited means, sucking effort away from the direct approach towards Japan, even if MacArthur's leapfrogging in New Guinea was brilliant. New Guinea, Cape Gloucester, Bougainville, Palau, Tarawa and Iwo Jima prove unecessary. Taking the Marshalls gains the intermediate base needed to pluck the Marianas from Japan and force the fleet battle--a move in the right direction. US should have gone for Formosa, then Luzon. Adams is cognizant of changes in technology and resources, all the time reminding the reader that no matter how much technology changes, strategy remains constant while tactics always change. Bundling 6-10 Essex-class carriers into a strike force negates the supposed advantages of land-based air, a reality US commanders were slow to realize. That would give greater scope to US fleet movement, but the goal remained the same--destruction of the Japanese fleet. Mahan is one of the few authors who deserves the five-star rating. Adams obviously could not top the captain, but he has earned his four stars. "if Mahan Ran the Pacific War" is a useful companion to any narrative on WWII/Pacific. Broader histories will lay out the who, what, when, where. Adams will go into why and how, and Mahan is the razor he uses to shave the problem down to its barest truth.

Review # 2 was written on 2018-12-16 00:00:00 Kevin Wiswniewski The Mahanian part is fantastic but the stuff about the Japanese character is racist nonsense - a grotesque caricature, but actually this is only a small part of the book. Ultimately, much of the work is extremely well done, well explained and insightful. He does offer some clear-headed analysis about the Japanese cabinet & high command. He uses some expressions that perplexed me and probably some readers i.e. "he sent the ships to Davy Jones" = "sunk the ships", a tin can is I think a destroyer, still not sure what a dogleg is. Also, someone told him maru in Japanese means cows, I don't think it does, it just means round, circle, or boat. Any one who is a casual reader in World War would thoroughly enjoy it, this is highly readable, exciting, informative, illuminating. I think many people would enjoy it.