by RNS | Jun 4, 2024 | Beating Tsundoku
Cameron Colby, Jamestown (Osprey, 2024)
For some of the Indian tribes along the James River in what would become Virginia, the arrival of English ships in April 1607 meant little more than a new neighbour to accommodate and bargain with; for others, they were a threat to be destroyed. The first Englishmen came to exploit the land and local tribes then return to England wealthy men. That conflict of interest led to raids, skirmishes, open warfare, and two massacres along with other atrocities. Cameron Colby surveys those opening decades in Anglo-Indian affairs.
Colby begins with the English poking around in the New World in the late 16th Century before building Jamestown in 1607. Awaiting them was the Powhatan confederacy, a group of local woodland indigenous tribes, living in a very different political and cultural landscape than the English. Misunderstandings were almost inevitable. From its inception, the Jamestown settlement was rife with internal dissension and mutual distrust with the Indians. Under the leadership of John Smith, however, relations with the Indians improved for a while, but that broke down in 1609 prompting raids and counter-raids. This escalated into war after Smith returned to England. The Indians besieged Jamestown almost causing its abandonment, but instead, the English took the offensive.
The often fragmented nature of politics and war in the Chesapeake region is evident from Colby’s discussion of the leaders on both sides. Subordination was a flexible, sometimes nominal, concept among the Indian tribes, and perhaps surprisingly, at Jamestown too. The ebb and flow of conflict and peace was, therefore, driven by the character of the leaders on both sides. Colby next considers organisation and tactics. The Powhatan Confederacy lacked warriors, and their main mode of warfare was raiding, though some larger engagements took place. For defence, they built palisades around their towns. The bow-and-arrow was their primary weapon with clubs and rudimentary swords used in close-quarters. The English were often battle-hardened veterans of European wars and brought their tactics and weaponry with them. That meant muskets, pikes, and armour, and cannons to defend their fortified settlements. The opposing sides also had different strategic goals. Not all the Powhatan tribes sought the total destruction of the English, preferring to keep them penned into the Jamestown area. The English initially wanted conquest and booty before settling in to defend what they had before subsequent expansion.
Serious organised violence began in 1609. Colby narrates the First Anglo-Powhatan War, which began with a misunderstanding and an atrocity followed by the destruction of a native village and then a war in which English fort building failed, John Smith was wounded and evacuated, and his successor made a mess of things. The Indians besieged Jamestown for six months. Then, on the point of abandonment, a relief fleet arrived, and the tide of war turned in favour of the English, though not without setbacks. A new English commander, Thomas Dale, arrived in 1611 to press the advantages bestowed by armour and muskets. By 1612, the exhausted Powhatan curtailed their war effort and diplomacy ruled, ending with the marriage of Pocahantas to John Rolfe in 1614. By 1622, English settlement had expanded, but the colonists had grown complacent. On 22 March 1622, nine tribes of Indians struck across the colony and massacred everyone they could find. When the news hit England, reinforcements were sent, while the survivors in the colony counterattacked. Reorganised and regalvanised, the English turned the tide again until both sides were exhausted and a standoff ensued, though peace was not established fully until 1632. War erupted again in 1644, but by 1646, the English had finally pushed out the Indian tribes in the region. Colby concludes with a brief description of the area today with its ‘historic triangle’ of museums and sites.
Jamestown 1622 is one of the longer Osprey books you will read in the Campaign series format. Cameron Colby has a lot of ground to cover though for a complex series of engagements driven by misunderstandings between cultures that barely had anything in common – the longer than usual bibliography attests to that. Colby succeeds admirably for a survey such as this. Moreover, he balances the history by starting with the Powhatans in each section, steering away from the traditional Anglocentric narratives. He is ably supported by some excellent maps and artwork by Marco Capparoni. Students of Early Colonial America will undoubtedly enjoy this book, as will military history readers, wargamers, and anyone else in search of a fascinating story from the foundational period in Anglo-American history.
by RNS | May 30, 2024 | Beating Tsundoku
Gregg Adams, US Marine versus Japanese Soldier (Osprey, 2024)
In just three months, between 15 June and 15 September 1944, US Marines launched three amphibious assaults on the Japanese held Mariana islands in the Pacific Ocean. The combat was brutal and fought mainly between infantrymen, sometimes hand-to-hand. Gregg Adams surveys those soldiers on both sides of the bayonet and has a fascinating story to tell.
Adams begins by describing the organisation and equipment of the US Marine Corps. The Corps underwent a thorough reorganisation before the Marianas campaign, though on the ground that made little difference to Marines who considered themselves elite. That was helped by their having greater firepower at squad level than the Japanese and every Marine knew how to fight. Adams also describes the Japanese organisation in some detail down to the battalions with the unenviable task of defending the islands in the Marianas. Moving on to doctrine and tactics, Adams considers the development and application of US amphibious warfare, which in WWII was a constant work-in-progress. That included naval bombardment, aspects of pre-landing demolition, and command and communications. Japanese defensive doctrine had dictated trying to defeat the enemy at the beach, including counter-attacks, but in Summer 1944 that prudently changed to defence in depth tactics with limited counter-attacks. The result either way was total destruction of the Japanese forces, though the cost to the Marines was always high.
Turning to his case studies, Adams narrates the assaults on Saipan, Guam, and Peleliu. He provides the background to the battles, the forces involved, and an account of the fighting for each one. These were hard fought battles with the Japanese using the numerous caves in the coral to their advantage, and the Marines struggling to grab a foothold on the islands. Once they did, the battles were attritive in nature with Marines winkling out dug-in Japanese defenders. Nowhere was this tactic more difficult than on Peleliu where the Marines suffered staggering casualties as they inched forward, but the Japanese still wore down in an ultimately one-sided fight. Perhaps the futility of the Japanese efforts is best described by one source on Guam where counter-attacking Japanese soldiers resorted to kicking and pounding on Marine tanks, such was their desperation.
Adams concludes that these assaults in the Mariana Islands ‘validated US amphibious doctrine’, though they still had many lessons to learn, particularly concerning how to overcome Japanese defensive positions. For the Japanese, Adams highlights deficiencies in artillery, a lack of infantry, and often suicidal counter-attacks. The change to defence-in-depth tactics proved somewhat more effective at Peleliu and later island defensive actions. Adams closes with a note on the consequences of the US capture of Saipan, which was a turning point in the Pacific War.
Some Osprey books read like chapters in larger works, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In this case, US Marine versus Japanese Soldier builds on Adams’ previous volume in the Combat series and other Osprey books on the Pacific Campaign, and as you collect these books, as so many do, they create a mosaic effect covering different aspects of the conflict. In effect, as a student, you can choose your own reading path towards understanding the whole campaign. However, US Marine versus Japanese Soldier is also a self-contained volume covering all the aspects you need to know about how these men executed and defended against amphibious assaults. Adams doesn’t take his story much further than the beaches, but there are other more targeted Osprey books for that. Adams’ engaging and informative text is well supported by Osprey’s usual quality artwork and photograph selection, which military history readers will undoubtedly enjoy.
by RNS | May 26, 2024 | Beating Tsundoku
Romain Cansière, Tanks on Iwo Jima 1945 (Osprey, 2024)
The enduring image of the Battle of Iwo Jima, in 1945, is that of US Marines stuck on a volcanic ash beach with Japanese fire raining down on them. What followed was a brutal slugfest across that small island where 49,000 men died on both sides. Less well known is the role of tanks in this battle. Both sides deployed tanks on Iwo Jima with varying fortunes. In this survey, Romain Cansière introduces those machines and the men who fought and, too often, died in them.
Cansière begins with a brief survey of Japanese tanks on Iwo Jima, all 35 of them, split into three Companies of light and medium tanks and an HQ Company, which were then allocated to different parts of the island to await the Americans. The invaders’ first wave alone consisted of 70 amphibious LVTs with 75mm guns. They were followed by M3 half-tracks, also with 75mm guns, and three Battalions of Shermans, including flamethrower variants. The Japanese also lacked anti-tank guns, preferring to attack with magnetic grenades for the most part, though they also improvised some guns and mines, some of the latter proved effective against Shermans. What they did have was mastery of the terrain, as the Americans soon found out. The US tankers improvised too, adding bits of wood, concrete, and steel to their armour to reduce the effect of Japanese attacks.
We move on to how tanks were used in combat. The amphibious tanks bogged down on the ash beaches, as did the M3s. Of those, the ones that did get off the beach were held back because they were too open and vulnerable. The Shermans would do the heavy lifting as the US Marines pushed inland, but as the tanks rolled forward, they encountered the mines and greater opposition. Despite losses, the US tanks worked with the infantry to methodically clear Japanese bunkers, though sometimes they had to retire because they drew fire down on the accompanying Marines. Elsewhere, Cansière notes, well-placed Japanese anti-tank guns and mines took their toll on the tanks and crews. The Japanese also used some tanks in counterattacks, but Shermans and Marine bazookas had the edge on them.
Cansière concludes with US casualty figures, and he observes that the US tanks on Iwo Jima fought differently than on other islands and that the new M4A3 Sherman had a significant advantage over the M4A2. As for the Japanese, they did the best they could but were annihilated, and they learned few lessons from the battle. The main US lesson was to increase battlefield support for their tanks and add more flamethrowers and dozer tanks. Cansière closes with a note on where you can visit the few remaining tanks from Iwo Jima. Although a slim volume, Tanks on Iwo Jima is an interesting read. Cansière covers all the bases in a survey style that doesn’t go too deep into his subject, though he includes a useful bibliography at the end for further reading. The photographs and artwork are first class as you might expect from Osprey. Modellers, wargamers, and military history buffs will all take something positive from Cansière’s book.
by RNS | May 21, 2024 | Beating Tsundoku
Thomas McKelvey Cleaver, Going Downtown (Osprey, 2022)
For many of us, the Vietnam War conjures up images of ‘grunts’ wading through paddy fields or hacking through the jungle. When the air war is mentioned, we picture B-52 strikes at a distance or Phantoms dropping napalm onto the aforementioned jungle. But, as Thomas McKelvey Cleaver illustrates in Going Downtown, the air war over Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1961 to 1975 was a complex and ever-changing combat environment that in many ways echoed the struggles on the ground yet in others differed little from by then traditional methods.
Cleaver sets the background of the Vietnam War with its deep roots and a foreboding about the inevitability of US involvement. A sense of ‘mission creep’ is also there from the beginning in his account, as with so many others, when initial clandestine involvement developed quickly into an all out war that the US had not planned for as a Cold War scenario. They didn’t need to, or so they thought, because the North Vietnamese would fold against superior US technology and numbers. It would not take long for the US planners to discover their ‘deficiencies’ and ‘failures’. Cleaver narrates the various operations the US launched, such as Rolling Thunder, Barrel Roll, and Steel Tiger. Most early actions took place over South Vietnam, but it was missions in North Vietnam where the SAMs, AAA, and MiGs would take the greatest toll on American planes and pilots.
President Johnson escalated the air war, but as Cleaver notes, most USAF pilots were not initially trained for air-to-air combat. North Vietnam had its issues too, and Cleaver covers those, though his focus is on the US Air Force. He also describes and assesses the various warplanes and missiles that flew through Vietnam’s lethal skies. Much of Cleaver’s narrative is set in 1967, which makes sense because of the increasing level of combat, and by the end of that year, he notes, the US was running out of targets in North Vietnam. The tail-off in bombing North Vietnam came in November 1968, with some clandestine bombing in Cambodia and Laos continuing until 1972 when fighting ramped up again to counter the threat of invasion from North Vietnam. Then Nixon unleashed the Christmas bombing campaign over North Vietnam in 1972, which brought the North Vietnamese to the peace table. US drawdown was already underway by then and continued until very few USAF units remained. The last US action Cleaver describes took place in May 1975.
That summary is not the whole book, however. What lifts Cleaver’s work from other nuts-and-bolts histories are his frequent accounts of combat told mostly by the pilots that fought in them. What becomes clear is that while the technology of aerial warfare had advanced in leaps and bounds from previous wars, what combats often came down to were individual duels between courageous men that combat pilots of all eras could attest to. Cleaver has a real knack for telling pilots’ often hair-raising stories (the rescue of two downed pilots in 1969 should be a movie!) At the higher level of operations, Cleaver is often scathing of the US command and bureaucracy. There is an argument that US forces fought with one arm tied behind their backs, and Cleaver does little to dispel that. His Vietnam heroes were the ones doing the fighting, perhaps as it should be. Overall, this is an outstanding account of the USAF in southeast Asia, and one that every student of the war should read.
by RNS | Apr 29, 2024 | Beating Tsundoku
Nikolaos Theotokis, Airborne Landing to Air Assault (Pen & Sword, 2020)
Jumping out of a slow moving aeroplane and drifting to the ground under enemy fire takes a different kind of mentality, the bravery is a given. Perhaps that is why military history students find the paratroopers so fascinating? Nikolaos Theotokis surveys the history of paratroopers from their origins in World War I through the Gulf Wars and Afghanistan, and their geographical spread across the continents. He stops along the way to narrate specific operations that illustrate this mode of taking the fight to the enemy, usually behind their lines.
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The ‘heyday’ of military paratroopers was World War II with the Germans, British, and Americans to the fore. But many other nations deployed paratroopers; the Poles, Canadians, Japanese, and Soviets might be expected, but Finland, Serbia, Romania, and Peru might not. Similarly, Theotokis narrates the major paratrooper actions of WWII, including Crete, Normandy, and Arnhem, but he also describes lesser known missions, such as those undertaken in the Pacific Theatre. The use of gliders and airborne units deployed on the ground are included in these examples. Along with ‘regular’ paratrooper units, Theotokis adds special ops and parachute use by Airforce personnel, usually from burning planes, and the dangers that entailed.
It is apparent from Theotokis’s survey that while parachute missions declined after WWII, the use of paratroopers in combat did not. Indeed, it would be difficult to think of a post-WWII conflict in which they were not used. Theotokis considers the major actions, such as Suez, French Indochina, and Korea, alongside less familiar actions in, for example, Aden, The Congo, and the Dominican Republic. He explains that part of the reason for the reduction in parachute missions was the increasing use of helicopters to take men into battle, and nowhere was that more evident than in the Vietnam War. Thus, with helicopters, we are fully into the air assault phase of airborne warfare. Theotokis notes, however, that improving transport plane capabilities renewed parachute drops, notably in Afghanistan. He concludes that the days of elite soldiers parachuting into combat are not yet over.
Surveys like this one can often be dry and dusty reads, but by emphasising what paratroopers have accomplished over the bare bones of unit histories, Theotokis has written an engaging and informative book, which is full of wee surprises mixed in with more familiar history. Moreover, there is enough meat in here to make you want more, and Theotokis hits that mark with an excellent bibliography that will have military history students reading happily for quite a while. My only real quibble is the inclusion of peripheral forces such as special ops and an odd chapter on pilots and aircrew, where more room could have been made for combat descriptions or primary source material from regular units. Set that aside, and this is a solid military history of very brave soldiers.
