Reviews for Cantebury 2000 Years of History

The average rating for Cantebury 2000 Years of History based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-03-07 00:00:00 Bernd Bell Unlike others here I found that many of the separate accounts presented in this book were very interesting and informative. I consider myself an amateur Navy historian. I've read over 100 books on carrier warfare and nearly three dozen books on the Battle of Midway yet I've never read that Jimmy Thatch blamed Admirals Nimitz, Fletcher, and Spruance for the loss of the carrier, USS Yorktown. Thatch argues that our three carriers should not have been divided into two task groups, separate from one another. While the Yorktown was under attack the carriers Enterprise and Hornet were sitting about 50 miles away under protection of their own combat air patrols and did not send a single fighter to assist in the protection of the Yorktown. Thatch credibly argues that one of the principles of naval warfare - concentration of force, was thereby violated. He insisted that if there had been just one or two more fighters in the air to fight the attacking Japanese aircraft, the Yorktown would never had been sunk. The account that completely stunned me was the one about the attack on the USS Franklin on 19 March 1945 by Captain Stephen Jurika, Jr. Jurika ends his account with the following comments "If I had to go to war in the same kind of position, I couldn't ask for a better skipper like Captain Gehres. He was a naval officer's naval officer, the kind of person you worship and you follow in wartime." No words could be further from the truth. Captain Leslie Gehres was a martinet and an embarrassment to the U.S. Navy. "The kind of person you worship and you follow in wartime"? Explain then why more than 300 sailors jumped ship when the Franklin made port in Bremerton, Washington following repairs from a kamikaze attack. Capt Gehres had taken command of the Franklin shortly after this attack (which killed 56 and wounded dozens of its crew). At the change-of-command ceremony he blamed the crew for this attack proclaiming " It was your fault because you didn't shoot the kamikaze down. You didn't do your duty; you're incompetent, lazy and careless. Evidently you don't know your jobs and I'm going to do my best to shape up this crew!" I think you can make an argument that more than a few of the 300 who jumped ship did so because they detested Gehres and did not wish to follow him in wartime. When struck by bombs in the attack on 19 March 1945 tragedy and triumph occurred as the crew fought to save the ship. Gehres first ordered the wounded evacuated then directed the air officer to evacuate anyone who "would not be needed to save the ship". A mass exodus ensued because of this vague order and in the confusion many crewmen believed "abandon ship" had been ordered. Gerhes than stopped the evacuation and refused to allow those who had left the ship to come back onboard. He then tried to bring up some 200 desertion charges to those crew members that had left the ship- including those who has been blown overboard during the initial explosions and others who had to jump overboard to escape raging fires. The Navy properly ignored those charges. I question why Jurika held Gehres in such high regard. In every other writing I have read on the Franklin and Capt Gehres he is portrayed as a tyrant and terrible commander. Cynically, I suggest could it be because Gehres got the Navy to award Jurika the Navy Cross?

Review # 2 was written on 2020-10-03 00:00:00 Thomas Harvey Outstanding book for the Naval Historian or WWII Serious buff! This compilation of narratives from naval aviators of the time provide first hand information on tactics, the "real" operations and skill sets, personalities of Task Force and theater admirals. Worth the read.