The battleship Jean Bart was under construction when the German offensive smashed the French army in 1940. She was being built in Saint-Nazaire, on the country's Atlantic Coast, and after defeating the armies in Belgium, the Germans took some time to prepare for further offensives, giving the French a chance to get her to sea and safely out of German hands. This would only become possible around June 20th, when the tides were right, a channel to her building dock had been dredged, and last-minute efforts would make her about ready for sea.

French dredge Pas de Calais II being launched in 1933

As the departure day approached, it looked like things were coming together. The channel was on schedule for completion, and Jean Bart would be met by HMS Vanquisher, who would escort her to safety on the Clyde. But the political situation was in flux, and on the 17th, her destination was changed to North Africa. The British were not informed. But bigger changes came the next day, when word reached Saint-Nazaire that the Germans were approaching, and the ship needed to leave as quickly as possible. The need to fill the dock meant they'd miss the next tide, so the first opportunity would come at 0300 on the 19th, and a bit of unfinished work in the channel meant that at one point it had lost 5m of its 50m width, making a narrow squeeze for Jean Bart's 33m beam. But the bigger challenge was that it would have to be navigated in the dark. Two teams spent the afternoon of the 18th frantically working, one to make the final preparations for sailing, the other planting scuttling charges in case she was unable to do so. Read more...

And now we come to the naval climax of the war, the greatest of all sea battles: Leyte Gulf. This chapter is jam-packed, and as such, Morison keeps the strategy section fairly short, and with only one obvious lie, that Admiral King wasn't anti-British. He was in fact a very confirmed Anglophobe, although possibly only as an extension of general misanthropy. Then there's the decision to massively accelerate the landings on Leyte, which Morison if anything undersells as a truly awe-inspiring logistical achievement. The actions of TF 38 before the attack get fairly short shrift, with the escape of Houston and Canberra from the waters off Formosa getting only a brief mention. It's one of the war's great epics of naval engineering, and I really need to write it up at some point.

But all of this brevity is in service of getting to the main event. Sibuyan Sea is quickly dealt with, but he spends plenty of time on Suriago Strait, the last action between battleships, which Morison gives a fitting rhetorical sendoff to. Then Samar, where I would complain that he falls into the too-common trap of focusing on Johnston over the other escorts in Taffy 3, but I'm also wildly biased in favor of Hoel for various reasons. The other major factor that I think gets ignored in Morison's account of Samar is Kurita's probable sleep deprivation, and the mental strain of having a couple flagships shot out from under him, which likely contributed to his remarkably bad decision-making.

And then there's Cape Engano and the infamous incident with Task Force 34, and I think Morison sort of drops the ball on this one, because there's really no discussion of the confusion that led to the San Bernadino Strait being uncovered beyond the bare fact that it happened. For those who don't know, the conventional view is Halsey is primarily responsible for the screwup, although I'm in the more recent revisionist camp that points out that Halsey's priority was the Japanese carriers, not covering the landings directly, so it was ultimately up to Kinkaid to make sure he was covered. (Although this doesn't excuse Halsey's poor phrasing of his orders, which everyone outside Third Fleet misunderstood.) I also feel compelled to point out that if he had left TF 34 to block Kurita, it would have done wonders for the historical reputation of the battleship, because nobody would believe how little damage Kurita's fleet did to Taffy 3 in real life. But Morison basically skips all of this because he can gloss over it and talking about it doesn't really make the USN look good.

When the French resumed battleship construction in the 1930s after the lapse of the Treaty System, they were faced with a problem. A large infrastructure program in the early part of the century had left them well-equipped to build battleships 200 m long, but as ships got faster, they also got longer, and by the mid-30s, 200m was typical for a heavy cruiser, and battleships would need to be considerably longer. A few 250m drydocks were available, but most building facilities were still at the old limit. To get around this, Dunkerque, the first of the new ships, was built in two sections, a 197m main hull and a 17 m bow, the two then being attached in one of the longer drydocks.

Strasbourg is launched in Saint Nazaire

This worked quite well, and when the only long set of ways available, originally used to build the liner Normandie, was taken up by Dunkerque's sister Strasbourg, the decision was made to build Richelieu, the first of their 35,000-ton treaty battleships, in the same manner. The center section, 197m long, was built in the same drydock as Dunkerque, while the 43m bow and 8m stern were built elsewhere and mated up in drydock. Read more...

It's time once again for our regular Open Thread. Talk about whatever you want, so long as it isn't Culture War.

Overhauls are Falklands Part 1, The Spanish-American War Part 4, LCS Parts one, two and three, A visit to Texas, and for 2025, Orbital Missile Defense and Carrier Operations Parts one, two and three.

And now we come to the last full chapter of the European War, a naval account of the invasion of France. I quite enjoyed this chapter, probably because, unlike so many other chapters, none of it felt rushed. There was good coverage of everything from the strategic background to Overlord and Anvil/Dragoon (and yes, you might claim that it went on a bit too long dumping on Churchill's opposition to the second one, but I am absolutely here for dumping on Churchill's screwups like that) to the logistics of the invasion and the action on the beaches. I also like that the Southern France invasion wasn't shortchanged as it so often is in discussions of the European War. Normandy was undoubtedly important, but I'm not sure I've ever seen it undercovered in any history of WWII ever.

Beyond that, the only thing of particular interest in this chapter was Morison's point about the ways in which the different logistical situations of the Americans and British drove their approaches to planning. I had never quite put that together before, but it does make a lot of sense of why there was tension between the two sides over how much planning needed to happen and when.

Also, a couple of brief notes. First, Arkansas was firing 12", not 14", and I also think Morison underrates how difficult the fighting was for some of the British troops on June 6th. But that's about it, although I am reminded that I should look more into the coastal gun battles during this period.

Reader Ryan recently was in Hawaii, and kindly agreed to share his review of the various facilities there, ranging from the battleship Missouri to the air museum on Ford Island and various facilities ashore.

December 7th, 1941 – A day that shall live in infamy August 15th, 1945 – We hereby proclaim the unconditional surrender to the Allied Powers of the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters and of all Japanese armed forces and all armed forces under Japanese control wherever situated. Read more...

So here we have another chapter that mixes the Mediterranean with the Atlantic, as the Allies go ashore in Italy, beginning with the landings at Salerno. Salerno, south of Naples, is plausibly the most undercovered of the war's amphibious operations relative to how hot it was as a battle. The traditional story of amphibious warfare in Europe is about 90% Normandy and the remaining 10% gets sliced up among, prominently, Torch and Anzio, with Sicily probably also coming in ahead of Salerno. But it was the first large-scale deployment of guided bombs, as well as being the American landing that came closest to disaster of any in the war.

Of course, disaster is not the same thing as failure, which brings us to Anzio. Morison prefers not to dwell on it, but I think it's worth quoting cartoonist Bill Mauldin's excellent book Up Front to give a sense of what it was like there: "Anzio was unique. It was the only place in Europe which held an entire corps of infantry, a British division, all kinds of artillery and special units, and maintained an immense supply and administration setup without a rear echelon. As a matter of fact, there wasn’t any rear; there was no place in the entire beachhead where enemy shells couldn’t seek you out. Read more...

Starting in the 1840s, the electric telegraph began to link together the world's cities. Initially, this was only over land or bridgeable rivers, but soon, efforts were made to pass cables underwater, at least over short distances. Intercontinental cables remained a dream until the arrival of Cyrus Field, an American who put together a company to bridge the North Atlantic. His first attempt, laid by American and British warships in 1857, failed when the cable snapped 300 miles out from Ireland, but he raised more money and tried again the next year. That cable was more successful, in that it did provide a telegraph link between the two countries, but it was so noisy that it would take hours to send a message. To make matters worse, construction and operational defects meant that it failed completely in only a month.

Inside a cable tank

The cable's failure provoked widespread skepticism, a matter made worse by the failure of an even more expensive cable through the Red Sea to India, and a commission of inquiry was set up to investigate the problems of submarine cables. The commission, a joint effort of the British government and the Atlantic Telegraph Company whose members included physicist Charles Wheatstone, published a 560 page report that confirmed that the problems with the cable were ones of design and operation, and that the concept itself was not inherently flawed. Unfortunately, it would take many years for Field to raise the money necessary to try again. Pretty much everyone in his own country was distracted for some reason, and the British ended up providing the lion's share of the money for the second attempt. This time, there was no rush to prepare the cable, and samples were made and thoroughly tested, with the final version being over twice as strong and three times as conductive as the first cable. Read more...

This is another chapter that is basically a straight adaptation of one of Morison's books, in this case Volume 8, with which it shares a title. Unfortunately, the first half gets extremely short shrift, which I think is sad. As much as I am not a fan of Douglas MacArthur, Morison's full account of the New Guinea campaign has long convinced me that it is one of the great military accomplishments of WWII, and he simply doesn't use enough space here to do it justice. I also am not sure that Morison's claims about only MacArthur being able to pull it off are true, but I will agree that it is the one unambiguous piece of evidence the case in favor of him being a great general has going for it.

One thing that jumped out was Morison ascribing the inactivity of the Japanese fleet to American air superiority. While that's certainly part of the picture, the increasingly perilous oil situation the Japanese found themselves in was also a major component not only of the ships not moving, but also of the Japanese inability to train replacement pilots, and it's weird that he doesn't even mention that. That section also has another veiled reference to codebreaking in the Pacific Fleet "finding out" where the enemy submarines were and sending hunter-killer groups after them. And of course, this is where England put up an unmatched score of 6 boats in 12 days, despite the efforts of the group commander to spread kills out among the ships of the unit. For kill number 6, she was only allowed in after 3 other DEs had failed, and promptly added to her tally. Read more...

37 years ago today, while conducting gunnery exercises off the coast of Puerto Rico, Turret II exploded aboard Iowa. 47 members of her crew were killed. Every year, a memorial ceremony is held for them, and I was able to attend in 2019 and honor the men who died.

• Tung Thanh Adams - Fire Controlman 3rd class (FC3) Alexandria, VA
• Robert Wallace Backherms - Gunner's Mate 3rd class (GM3) Ravenna, OH
• Dwayne Collier Battle - Electrician's Mate, Fireman Apprentice (EMFA) Rocky Mount, NC
• Walter Scot Blakey - Gunner's Mate 3rd class (GM3) Eaton Rapids, MI
• Pete Edward Bopp - Gunner's Mate 3rd class (GM3) Levittown, NY
• Ramon Jarel Bradshaw - Seaman Recruit (SR) Tampa, FL
• Philip Edward Buch - Lieutenant, Junior Grade (LTjg) Las Cruces, NM
• Eric Ellis Casey - Seaman Apprentice (SA) Mt. Airy, NC
• John Peter Cramer - Gunners Mate 2nd class (GM2) Uniontown, PA
• Milton Francis Devaul Jr. - Gunners Mate 3rd class (GM3) Solvay, NY
• Leslie Allen Everhart Jr. - Seaman Apprentice (SA) Cary, NC
• Gary John Fisk - Boatswains Mate 2nd class (BM2) Oneida, NY
• Tyrone Dwayne Foley - Seaman (SN) Bullard, TX
• Robert James Gedeon III - Seaman Apprentice (SA) Lakewood, OH
• Brian Wayne Gendron - Seaman Apprentice (SA) Madera, CA
• John Leonard Goins - Seaman Recruit (SR) Columbus, OH
• David L. Hanson - Electricians Mate 3rd class (EM3) Perkins, SD
• Ernest Edward Hanyecz - Gunners Mate 1st class (GM1) Bordentown, NJ
• Clayton Michael Hartwig - Gunners Mate 2nd class (GM2) Cleveland, OH
• Michael William Helton - Legalman 1st class (LN1) Louisville, KY
• Scott Alan Holt - Seaman Apprentice (SA) Fort Meyers, FL
• Reginald L. Johnson Jr. - Seaman Recruit (SR) Warrensville Heights, OH
• Nathaniel Clifford Jones Jr. - Seaman Apprentice (SA) Buffalo, NY
• Brian Robert Jones - Seaman (SN) Kennesaw, GA
• Michael Shannon Justice - Seaman (SN) Matewan, WV
• Edward J. Kimble - Seaman (SN) Ft. Stockton, TX
• Richard E. Lawrence - Gunners Mate 3rd class (GM3) Springfield, OH
• Richard John Lewis - Fire Controlman, Seaman Apprentice (FCSA) Northville, MI
• Jose Luis Martinez Jr. - Seaman Apprentice (SA) Hidalgo, TX
• Todd Christopher McMullen - Boatswains Mate 3rd class (BM3) Manheim, PA
• Todd Edward Miller - Seaman Recruit (SR) Ligonier, PA
• Robert Kenneth Morrison - Legalman 1st class (LN1) Jacksonville, FL
• Otis Levance Moses - Seaman (SN) Bridgeport, CN
• Darin Andrew Ogden - Gunners Mate 3rd class (GM3) Shelbyville, IN
• Ricky Ronald Peterson - Seaman (SN) Houston, MN
• Mathew Ray Price - Gunners Mate 3rd class (GM3) Burnside, PA
• Harold Earl Romine Jr. - Seaman Recruit (SR) Brandenton, FL
• Geoffrey Scott Schelin - Gunners Mate 3rd class (GMG3) Costa Mesa, CA
• Heath Eugene Stillwagon - Gunners Mate 3rd class (GM3) Connellsville, PA
• Todd Thomas Tatham - Seaman Recruit (SR) Wolcott, NY
• Jack Ernest Thompson - Gunners Mate 3rd class (GM3) Greeneville, TN
• Stephen J. Welden - Gunners Mate 2nd class (GM2) Yukon, OK
• James Darrell White - Gunners Mate 3rd class (GM3) Norwalk, CA
• Rodney Maurice White - Seaman Recruit (SR) Louisville, KY
• Michael Robert Williams - Boatswains Mate 2nd class (BM2) South Shore, KY
• John Rodney Young - Seaman (SN) Rockhill, SC
• Reginald Owen Ziegler - Senior Chief Gunners Mate (GMCS) Port Gibson, NY

They came to the Navy as strangers. Served the Navy as shipmates and friends and left the Navy as brothers in eternity. - George H.W. Bush