Savannah, GA is one of my favorite cities and so it was a real treat to e-interview Tony Cope about his book, On The Swing Shift:  Building Liberty Ships in Savannah.

What inspired you to write On the Swing Shift: Building Liberty Ships in Savannah?

I am a native of Savannah and was a child during World War II. I never saw the shipyard, but remember hearing the various whistles during the day and seeing the lights from my second story bedroom windows at night. The yard closed just after the war and the site remained basically derelict for many years. As an adult I drove past the site twice a day on the way to work with no recollection of what took place there. In the late 1980s, I was asked to chair a local committee established to develop some interest in establishing a museum to commemorate the Mighty Eighth Air Force which was created in Savannah and then moved to Britain to fight the air war against Germany. To create this interest, I wanted to come up with a slide show to use for talks to civic clubs and other groups and asked a friend at the local paper to run a request in his column for wartime photographs of Savannah. I received a call from a woman who had a set of six photos of her mother christening one of the Libertys launched by the yard in Savannah. That got me thinking about the yard and wondering that if I had forgotten what happened there maybe most other Savannahians had as well. That assumption was correct…the only people who remembered it were the people who had worked there or sailed on the ships. I just thought that there was a great story there and those people ought to be remembered.

What were some of your more insightful sources for On the Swing Swift?

The most insightful sources were certainly the people involved…the 120 shipyard workers, merchant seamen, Navy and Coast Guard personnel that I was able to interview. All were so excited to talk about their experiences and that someone was taking an interest in what they had done. Some were people that I had known in other circumstances, but never knew anything about this part of their lives. All were fascinating, but one early interview stands out. A friend who worked at the Georgia Ports told me of a retired Merchant captain who had sunk a U-boat, but warned me that he didn’t suffer fools gladly. I had a great two hour interview with Capt. Clifford Thomas who was master of a number of Libertys after the war, but was Third Mate on the S. S. James Jackson when it did fire on a U-boat, but was not credited with its sinking. Captain Thomas not only related his own experiences, but also gave me many names of other merchant seamen who could help with my project. It was a really enlightening and enjoyable interview and contrary to my friend’s warning, we got along splendidly. Unfortunately, when I got home, I found that I had failed to punch the record button on my brand new tape recorder. It was with great fear and trepidation that I called Capt.Thomas and asked if he could do the interview over again. He understood perfectly and we did the two hours again the next night. After I moved to Ireland, we talked by phone a number of times and he wrote very detailed accounts of situations that I asked him about. Unfortunately, he died before the book was published.

Can you tell us a little bit about a day in the life of a shipyard worker?

From the various interviews that I conducted with workers, a typical day at Southeastern was exciting and often very dull. The assembly line method of building Libertys meant that much of the work was repetitious; doing the same job over and over. Many of these workers had never seen a ship before much less built one and had to be trained to be welders, shipwrights and the various other skills necessary to building a ship. It was hot…over 100 degrees in the summer made even hotter by working on and around so much steel. It was freezing in the winter with any bare skin sticking to frozen steel. Then there were the bugs, swarms of mosquitoes and deer flies that bred in the marshes close by the yard in the summer. It was dangerous work; banging, cutting, shaping steel, huge ship parts being carried overhead by gantries. It was exciting though…to see a completed hull slide down the ways or a fully loaded Liberty sail down the river past the yard on its way to a war zone, to know that they were part of the effort to defeat the Axis powers.

Savannah has such a proud history. Can you tell us a little bit more about the city’s contribution to the war effort?

Savannah’s contribution to the war effort was certainly great. Southeastern was one of three shipyards building ships during the war and many other industries produced ammunition, trailers, boxes and bags for military use and many other products vital to the war effort. Many of its sons and daughters went to war and many never returned. As school children we participated in scrap drives, war bond drives, collecting Bundles For Britain and tending Victory gardens. There are monuments dedicated to the dead of that war and The Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum is now a very successful reality in Savannah. There is no monument to commemorate the shipyard and those who worked there. There are displays in the Savannah History Museum and the Ships of the Sea museum. There was a monument to Merchant Marine seamen killed in that war and the other prior wars that our nation has been involved in, but it was taken down and replaced with a monument to commemorate the Viet Nam War dead. The bronze plaques from the Merchant Marine monument are in storage somewhere in Savannah and it is my hope that “On The Swing Shift” will help to develop interest in restoring that monument and recognizing the workers at Southeastern, some of whom died or were injured doing very dangerous work there.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

The research for and the writing of this book was an amazing experience for me; meeting the people and hearing their stories, trying to find information from a variety of sources in an attempt to be as accurate as possible in telling the story of this shipyard. It was a bit like a detective trying to find pieces of evidence in different places and putting it all together to solve a case. For me, some of that evidence came from across the continent and across the Atlantic Ocean. I have been fortunate in that I have had the opportunity to do a lot of very interesting things during my lifetime. This ranks right up there.

If you need additional information, I have a website, http://ontheswingshift.wordpress.com which gives a description of the book, my bio and some reviews.

Posted by Jim Dolbow in Books, Travel | read comments (2)

CDR Aboul-Enein’s finally done it. I’m going to rave about it sight unseen, based solely on his reputation.

Back in the mid-nineties, the Navy tried to build a Foreign Area Officer program. It didn’t work due to structural problems, but I was selected for the subspecialty along with a few other officers. I built a professional relationship with a few, including one guy with an unusual name who seemed to know a lot about the Middle East. As soon as I got back into port after 9/11, he was the first guy I emailed; I was worried about the potential for him to get caught up in harassment or trouble.

Turns out the opposite happened. He wound up being the guy who in the E-ring. He taught his fellow Americans about the insidious nature of islamist ideology and how normal folks in the Middle East think about warfare, a quiet, professional voice between the appeasers and the overly Jacksonian militants. This is very hard to do when so many people who oppose American values speak different things to different audiences, and lie to calm rational concerns about threat to people very willing to accept a reasonable-sounding voice. (Other officers I know have failed at this. Perhaps you remember a particularly ugly catfight between two in ‘07 in the Pentagon from people who may resemble this.)

You know CDR Aboul-Enein if you took JPME II and studied the region, or were in the E-ring after 9/11, or in a variety of jobs we shall not mention here. He has written regularly in a number of publications, and has a particular skill in reviewing a book and giving you the essence of what’s going on–and he does that with books in Arabic that normally we would have no idea about. I’ve learned a lot about the region from his scholarship–and this has served me well when I got yanked from my previous warfare community into a new FAO community, language training, and work in the Middle East, where I’m deployed.

So he’s a friend of mine. I trust his instincts and read what he has to write.

And the guy snuck up on me and finally wrote a book. It’s a summary of years of work he’s done, looking at who these people we’re fighting are. How do these people think? What’s the pump that draws from the pool of normal people and spits out these jerks? What’s the scholarship trail?

Here’s the book, published by USNI. Admiral Stavridis has written the foreword. Can’t get much higher recommendation than that.

Posted by Chap in Books, Foreign Policy, Navy, Soft Power, history | read comments (2)

To beat the drum harder; in this profession a sound knowledge of history is absolutely critical. A love of books is essential. A long and clear perspective, understanding the paths and lessons of those who came before is a professional foundation stone.

Without that foundation, mistakes will be repeated. Debunked theories will be born anew …. with the same results at the terminal end. In our line of work, a terminal end usually results in dead Sailors, sunk ships, and a nation in extreme Strategic risk.

Every now and then a quote comes up from someone that just sets me back. Makes me take a deep breath and read again. Makes me go back to the beginning to look for some contextual clue that I missed. Makes me try to find some mistake in the reporter’s note taking or the editor’s red pen that truncated a quote to mean something the speaker did not intend.

Sadly, often times I find myself looking at another transformationalist – someone who thinks that war is new – a huge paradigm has occurred – “old” things will “never” happen again – a new kind of war that only the select few see will make all other things unneeded.

When you combine a transformatinalist with someone looking at the future Fleet with a more bureaucratic than strategic POV – then you often have this.

From Dan Taylor at InsideDefense;

The fiscal year 2010 defense authorization bill allocates $15 million for the Navy to look into a “mobile maritime sensor” that would essentially be a dedicated radar ship for use in sea-based ballistic missile defense, according to Senate Armed Services Committee staff.

An Oct. 7 committee press release following the passage of the conference report on the bill announces that the funding would be added “for a mobile maritime sensor development program to provide options for the Navy in meeting its sea-based missile defense requirements.”
…
Dave Baker, a naval author and analyst, said a dedicated radar ship “is not a bad idea.” The option would be “infinitely cheaper” than doing it on a CG(X), and the service could use cruiser hulls or even merchant designs instead of developing a whole new platform.

“There’s no sense in going out and building something specialized for that role,” he told ITN Oct. 21. “A bulk cargo ship could do it.”

Baker said such ships might preclude the need for some CG(X) hulls in the future. It would also be important for the surface warfare community to get a new mission, he said.

“They’re not going to be shooting at other ships at sea,” he said. “Getting a new mission for the surface community is important to the surface community.”

Sigh.

We have been here before. Remember when the depth charge, ASDIC, aircraft, and the homing torpedo would make the submarine no longer a threat? Remember when the B-36 and nuclear weapons made the Aircraft Carrier obsolete? Remember when the jet and guided missiles made a gun on a fighter a romantic anachronism? Remember when MIW was a problem for just the European navies to take seriously?

This is the same thought process that told the Royal Navy in the late ’70s early 80s that they would never need a gun on their ships again and that there was no use for Aircraft Carriers in the “new navy.” They got kicked in the teeth by the Argentines to prove otherwise.

I don’t know who this dude is – but I am sure he is a great, fun, and exceptionally smart guy – but someone get him a subscription to USNI’s Classics of Naval Literature series and Naval History magazine – please.

To steal a phrase:

Only the dead have seen the end of “…shooting at other ships at sea.”

If you plan the core of your Fleet with the assumption that you will not have to face another – you will cause Sailors to be killed – you will cause ships to be sunk – and you will cause your nation to be put in extreme Strategic risk.

“Phibian Salamander, a naval author and analyst, said that Dave Baker needs to read some more.”

Do we ever learn?

Posted by CDRSalamander in Books, Soft Power, history | read comments (28)

It was 31 years ago today that AF 586 (a P-3 Orion flying a sensitive mission in the north Pacific) was forced to ditch into the empty, mountainous seas off the Aleutian Islands.  What follows is an amazing rescue that could only be written by a P-3 pilot like Andrew Jampoler.

Could you provide a short synopsis of Adak: The Rescue of Alfa Foxtrot 586?

AF 586, a nearly-new Navy P-3 “Orion” from Patrol Squadron 9’s detachment at Naval Station Adak, Alaska, took off the morning of October 26, 1978, for a nine hour special mission flight off Soviet Kamchatka. Some six hours later the aircraft was down in the North Pacific, midway between the Soviet Union and Attu (the last American outpost in the Aleutian Islands) with fourteen of its fifteen men afloat in two rafts and their plane commander lost at sea.

“Adak” is the story of that mission, the crew, and their ordeal, and the astonishing and successful effort that brought ten men home alive.

Who are some of the heroes of Adak?

LCDR Jerry Grigsby’s superb airmanship put the big aircraft into stormy waters intact on three engines. LT(JG) Matt Gibbon’s cool preparations for the ditching while AF 586 limped toward Shemya with recurrent fires in the No. 1 nacelle made the crew’s escape from the aircraft possible. The ditching triggered a determined SAR operation which, at one time, had planes from the Air Force, the Navy, and the Coast Guard in the air at the same time–together with some Soviet Air Force observers.

Soon after midnight three men of the crew were dead from exposure. The others in the rafts were in extremis, too.

Can you tell us a little bit about the inter-agency cooperation that was involved in the rescue?

Fast and close overnight cooperation between the Departments of Defense and State, and Washington and Moscow, remarkable at the height of the Cold War, diverted a Soviet fishing trawler to the scene early on October 27th, and it was this ship–the only vessel near enough to help in time–that saved the living. The survivors were returned to US custody a week later.

What are some of the lessons learned that are applicable to today’s aviators?

AF 586 proved to maritime patrol aircrews flying over northern waters that survival was possible under almost unimaginably harsh conditions.

Who should read Adak: The Rescue of Alfa Foxtrot 586?

Anyone who flies (or has flow) over open water would enjoy this adventure story, described by “The Wall Street Journal” as “an adventure story to rival the best you’ve ever read.”

Posted by Jim Dolbow in Books | read comments (0)

Making a return visit back to Meet the Author on USNI Blog is Vincent P. O’ Hara.  He has authored another masterpiece in my opinion.  You are in for another treat.

Could you provide a short synopsis of Struggle for the Middle Sea:  The Great Navies at War in the Mediterranean Theater, 1940-1945?

Struggle for the Middle Sea describes the naval war fought in the Mediterranean and Red Sea from June 1940 to May 1945 in terms of the five great navies that participated: Great Britain’s Royal Navy, Italy’s Regia Marina, France’s Marine Nationale, The United States Navy and the German Kriegsmarine. It examines the national imperatives that made the Mediterranean such a vital theater for each of these powers and it analyses their actions and performances over the entire five-year campaign. The book has an unusual depth of detail, particularly in its coverage of naval surface combat and it is filled with fresh viewpoints that are supported by extensive research in Italian and French sources. The thirteen chapters range from the pre-war situation to France’s defeat, Italy’s parallel war, convoy actions, France’s naval campaign off Syria, the period of Axis domination, the Italian armistice and Germany’s war in the Aegean, Adriatic and Ligurian Seas. Struggle for the Middle Sea ends with an analysis of the campaign and draws some unconventional conclusions.

How does Struggle for the Middle Sea fill a void in Navy historiography?

Struggle for the Middle Sea fills several voids. First, despite the importance of the Mediterranean and the fact it saw more combat than the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans, remarkably little has been written about the naval struggle fought there. Most of what has been written treats the theater in segments such as the 1940-43 Anglo-Italian convoy war or the 1943-44 Allied amphibious expeditions. Struggle for the Middle Sea covers the entire theater and campaign and it does it, I believe, from a neutral viewpoint, treating all the major participants equally. Readers are surprised, for example, to learn that the French had such profound interests in the region and were fighting from the very beginning to the very end, or that the Germans deployed more than fifty destroyer-sized warships in the Mediterranean and conducted a successful littoral campaign in the face of what should have been overwhelming Allied strength.

The Mediterranean war’s historiography is also deficient in that it has been strongly influenced by received interpretations that are rooted in wartime propaganda. These are so pervasive they have entered popular culture. How does an Italian admiral see his fleet? In a glass-bottomed boat. The July 1940 Action off Calabria (the English name) is a good example of what I mean. This battle involved five battleships and nineteen cruisers and was the largest fleet action fought in European waters during the war. When I sat down to read about Calabria—every author, including luminaries like Stephen Roskill, P. K. Kemp, Martin Stephen, Nathan Miller and Julian Thompson—stated that in this action the British asserted a moral ascendancy over the Italians. They all used these words. In reading and re-reading their accounts, I couldn’t see how the facts squared with such a unanimous conclusion. Well, it turned out they were quoting Admiral Cunningham’s report to the Admiralty, made five months after the fact. His contemporary comments are much less confident. Meanwhile, the Italian admiral who was second in command wrote just after the battle, “One result that occurred . . . was that all personnel felt . . . our ability to confront and beat the enemy.” Clearly, the whole notion of moral ascendancy is an after-the-fact invention. Authors, like James Sadkovich and Jack Greene have helped clarify the record regarding the performance of Italy’s navy in WWII, but the historiography remains heavily weighted on the side of the old interpretations.

Did the research for your other two books (The German Fleet at War and The U.S. Navy Against the Axis) lay the foundation for this one?

Yes. My original concept, which dates back nearly twenty years, was to write a history of all naval battles fought by surface combatants during the Second World War. Thus, elements of all three volumes were in place when Naval Institute accepted the German Fleet at War for publication in 2003. However, while German Fleet, U.S. Navy Against the Axis and Struggle share a focus on naval surface combat, they also differ in many respects. I consider Struggle for the Middle Sea to be more integrated and readable because it has a stronger narrative than its predecessors.

For this book, what were some of your more insightful sources?

The Mediterranean campaign featured strong and colorful personalities—the British Admirals Andrew Cunningham and James Somerville and the Italian Angelo Iachino come to mind. The Cunningham and Somerville papers edited by Michael Simpson and published by the Naval Records Society are outstanding for the attitudes and actions of the British admirals. Iachino’s history, Tramonto di una grande marina was helpful. Many sources play up the impact of intelligence, but F. H. Hinsley’s British Intelligence in the Second World War put this factor into perspective. The British staff histories and battle summaries—contemporary documents intended to pass along lessons learned–along with the volumes of La Marina Italiana nella Seconda Guerra Mondiale that I consulted allowed me to include considerable detail in my battle accounts. Where they were available, action reports of individual ships or commanders were invaluable. Finally, I must mention memoirs and correspondence. These don’t always get the facts right, but they deliver the spirit. For example, an Italian sailor recalled that his ship, the torpedo boat Perseo refused to sink after being wrecked by British destroyers. Her crew, floating nearby on rafts, joked that the ship’s armor, hundreds of accumulated coats of paint, was proving sound.

What advice do you have for potential naval history authors?

Every author follows their own path, but I think it all boils down to writing (not thinking about writing) and hard work. With respect to writing naval history it’s good to finish projects once started. Write for publication and know that presentation matters. New authors break into the field every year. The best pay attention to historical method and they weigh their sources.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

After seventy years people might think that the history of the Second World War has been told, but that isn’t the case. Much like the history of the American Civil War underwent a reevaluation and a new synthesis after the intense passions provoked by the war cooled down, the historiography of the Second World War is undergoing a similar process. Struggle for the Middle Sea highlights the importance of perspective in the consideration of past events. The book has provoked controversy, especially in Great Britain and Italy, and I confess to being happy about that. It indicates that some arrows struck flesh.

Click here to read my previous interview with the author regarding The U.S. Navy against the Axis.

Posted by Jim Dolbow in Books | read comments (0)