PDF Ebook Engineers of Victory: The Problem Solvers Who Turned The Tide in the Second World War
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Engineers of Victory: The Problem Solvers Who Turned The Tide in the Second World War
PDF Ebook Engineers of Victory: The Problem Solvers Who Turned The Tide in the Second World War
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Review
“Superbly written and carefully documented . . . indispensable reading for anyone who seeks to understand how and why the Allies won.”—The Christian Science Monitor “An important contribution to our understanding of World War II . . . Like an engineer who pries open a pocket watch to reveal its inner mechanics, [Paul] Kennedy tells how little-known men and women at lower levels helped win the war.”—Michael Beschloss, The New York Times Book Review “Histories of World War II tend to concentrate on the leaders and generals at the top who make the big strategic decisions and on the lowly grunts at the bottom. . . . [Engineers of Victory] seeks to fill this gap in the historiography of World War II and does so triumphantly. . . . This book is a fine tribute.”—The Wall Street Journal “[Kennedy] colorfully and convincingly illustrates the ingenuity and persistence of a few men who made all the difference.”—The Washington Post “Kennedy has produced a fresh perspective on the war, giving us not just another history of an overfamiliar conflict, but a manual of technical problem-solving, written in the clearest and most compelling style, that could still prove useful to modern management today.”—The Telegraph (UK) “This superb book is Kennedy’s best.”—Foreign Affairs “Paul Kennedy . . . has thus achieved a notable feat in bringing a large dose of common sense, historical insight and detailed knowledge to bear in his refreshing study of what might be called the material history of the second world war. . . . This material history of strategy asks the right questions, disposes of clichés and gives rich accounts of neglected topics.”—Financial Times“Paul Kennedy’s history of World War II is a demonstration not only of incisive analysis and mastery of subject, but of profound integrity, and a historian’s desire to celebrate not great leaders but the forgotten scientists, technicians, and logisticians who gave us the tactical edge, without which the strategic designs could never have been achieved.”—Robert D. Kaplan, author of The Revenge of Geography “Kennedy’s fine-grained analysis and suspicion of any one single cause—like cipher cracking, intelligence and deception operations, or specific weapons systems, like the Soviet T-34 tank—permit him to persuasively array his supporting facts. . . . An absorbing new approach to a well-worked field.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “A fresh and stimulating approach.”—Publishers Weekly
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About the Author
Paul Kennedy is internationally known for his writings and commentaries on global political, economic, and strategic issues. He earned his B.A. at Newcastle University and his doctorate at the University of Oxford. Since 1983, he has been the Dilworth Professor of History and director of international security studies at Yale University. He is on the editorial board of numerous scholarly journals and writes for The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, and many foreign-language newspapers and magazines. Kennedy is the author and editor of nineteen books, including The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, which has been translated into more than twenty languages, followed by Preparing for the Twenty-first Century (1993), and The Parliament of Man (2006).
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Product details
Paperback: 480 pages
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks (December 10, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0812979397
ISBN-13: 978-0812979398
Product Dimensions:
5.5 x 1.1 x 8.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
3.9 out of 5 stars
306 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#340,158 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Having read a great many books of the role of technology in the Second World War I looked forward to reading this book, thinking it would add detail to that covered by excellent books like R. V. Jones' "The Wizard War," in which he described projects he worked on during the war under the auspices of the Tizard Committee, or Robert Burden's history of radar, "The Invention That Changed the World." But despite the subtitle of this book, "The problem solver who turned the tide in the Second World War," there is little or nothing on the men and women who were responsible for the great technological inventions like radar, radio navigation, landing craft and so on. In fact, much of the narrative has nothing whatsoever to do with engineering and technology, and is instead about how various political, tactical, and strategic decisions affected the outcome of the war.Where Kennedy does get into the details of the machinery of war or its creators he gets much of it wrong, like referring to legendary Supermarine Spitfire designer R. J. Mitchell as "J. R. Mitchell." It's hard to imagine how a mistake like this made it into print. In the section on the battle for the Atlantic, he states that antisubmarine rockets SQUID and LIMBO could actively search for their targets, which is not true (they were time fused) and that SQUID is still used "in vastly improved form in today's navies" which is certainly not true as SQUID was replaced by the active seeking Mk44 torpedo twenty years ago.Kennedy also suggests that the Rolls Royce Merlin engine was a copy of the Curtis D-12 (which he calls the Curtis V-12) and that Rolls Royce imported the engines to copy them. Actually the engines were imported by Fairey, later well known as the builders of the Swordfish Biplane. Regardless, the Merlin is not a copy of the D-12 but rather a much more advanced engine that was in part influenced by the D-12, as were many other European aircraft engines. He then tells a story of how an RAF test pilot suggested that the P-51 would be improved by the substitution of a Merlin engine, after which clever RAF mechanics slipped one in, the engine compartment of the P-51 coincidentally being just the right size for the Merlin. But as Peter Pugh's history of the company, "Rolls Royce: The Magic of a Name" points out, there's a good reason the Merln fit in the P-51. The Ircraft had already been tested with both the Packard and Merlin engines at Wright Field, long before any aircraft reached England. The US Army initially chose the Packard in order to simplify the supply chain but quickly came around to the choice of the supercharged Merlin once the RAF showed its superiority.In his chapter on amphibious assault, Kennedy states that the "Cockleshell Heroes" arrived at Gironde in midget submarines. What he's referring to is Operation Frankton,in which commandos were delivered offshore via submarine (not a midget submarines) and paddled folding canoes (nicknamed "cockles") into the Gironde estuary. "Cockleshell Heroes" was the name of a movie about this raid. When he finally gets around to discussing technology, Kennedy does manage to devote a few paragraphs to the specialized mine clearing and bridging tanks known as "Hobart's funnies" but never touches on the most important technological innovation of the invasions, the specialized landing craft used to deliver men and machinery to the beaches. Whole volumes have been written about the role played by these craft but they seem to have escaped the author's notice. (The Higgins boat get a one sentence reference in a later chapter.) Neither is their any mention of PLUTO, the cross-channel pipeline developed to supply the invading force with fuel. Kennedy does mention the Mullberries, the artificial harbors towed across the channel, but than says they were erected by Seabees, which is incorrect, as others note.A great many critically important scientific and engineering advances never get mentioned at all. Kennedy credits allied success in the Battle of the Phillipine Sea (aka the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot) to US aircraft superiority, but an even more important factor was the combination of radar guided antiaircraft guns firing shells equipped with radar proximity fuzes that protected the Allied ships and allowed for unprecedented success in shooting down attacking aircraft. Those same proximity fuzes were a massive force multiplier in the European theater, making US artillery far more effective than German artillery, which was impact fused, but no mention is made of this, either.There is much in the book that is both accurate and interesting, but unfortunately ths is outweighed by the scores of historic and technological errors and omissions that abound. Add to that the fact that it doesn't actually live up to its title and discuss the technology that contributed to victory or those engineers behind the technology, and I cannot by any means recommend this book. Instead, I recommend that readers interested in the technological history of WWII start with the two books I referenced in the first paragraph, Richard Rhodes' "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" and go on from there.
While Professor Kennedy professes to focus on the men–in-the-middle and engineering, too much actually focuses on the strategy, his true love. I also think his British heritage shows through many times even though he completely ignores Englishman Frank Whittle, inventor of the Allie's jet engine. While Hobart's flail tank was important, the USA sergeant who created the rhino tank won the day in terms of cutting through the bogage and getting the invading armies off the beach. Once off the beach, the Red Ball Express and their Duce-and-a-Half trucks did noble service thanks, in part, to the black drivers who receive no mention. The USA's ability to repair these trucks and have tank retrievers and repair depots is one thing that separated our mechanized forces from the Germans who could not repair their disabled tanks and used horses to an unappreciated extent. The flame-thrower tank really was the most effective weapon for winkling out the Japanese in the Pacific, and he completely neglects Harvard's role in inventing napalm both for the flamethrower devices and the instruments of Japan's "rain of ruin" from the B-29s. Generally, Harvard has chosen NOT to highlight its contributions in this matter. Kennedy might have mentioned how Churchill had a blind spot in the matter of "The Prof" {Lindeman} who took the English down a number of technical blind alleys. For instance, Englishman Bernard Lovell developed the H2S radar for target location and, at last, precision night bombing—after having to beat back Lindeman's quack science and going directly to Churchill to get a commitment to its rapid development in quantity. This radar was the first which gave accurate radar scope images of the ground and thus allowed for accurate bombing late in the war for all-weather and night situations. R.V. Jones is another example and he had the fortitude to attend cabinet meetings and confront Lindeman during the "battle of the beams" phase of The Blitz. Churchill was foolishly loyal to Lindeman but enjoyed seeing his discomfort and sided with the young upstarts from academe. The British gave such characters the nickname: boffins.This book is really for the initiated. He covers significant items in a throwaway sentence or two which may be enough for the cognoscenti but will hardly due for substance. He actually gives a fair amount of space to the torpedo problem but fails to mention the advent of Western Electric's electric torpedo and the willingness of submarine commanders to ignore torpedo orders which came from the Freemantle command {headed by the stubborn Admiral Christie who earlier commanded the Newport Station which developed the duds.} He never mentions Vice Admiral Lockwood's stunning feat of sending the USN submarines on 10,000-mile patrols. Who developed their diesel engines and who designed those boats with a Japanese war in mind {and therefore with air conditioning and powerful engines and room for an appropriate-size crew}? The submarine service's reputation for its good chow was done on the back of their refrigeration units.There is only a one-phrase mention of George Marshall's weeding out the Army's incompetent leaders, but Lockwood did it on a mass scale with the early submarine commanders he inherited. In only one sentence does he mention that the submarine forces destroyed the Japanese economy by depriving it of needed materiel. I think he does acknowledge that the Allies did to Japan what the Nazi's failed to do to the Allies in regard to submarine warfare. If ever there was a man-from-the-middle-ranks it was Cmdr. Joseph Rochefort who convinced Nimitz that Midway was the target he should set up for his ambush. Even though he was berthed in Pearl Harbor, Rochefort only met face-to-face twice with Nimitz to preserve his objectivity. He worked almost entirely through his agents on Nimitz's staff. The second meeting Nimitz had with Rochefort was to interrogate him on why he thought {despite Washington's constant carping} that Midway was the goal.MIT's radiation lab is, again, a toss away item. How did the Tizard mission come into being and which brought the cavity magnetron to the U.S.? Why was ULTRA held back until much later? Alfred Loomis's role in organizing the radar effort is a great example of Kennedy's point about the spirit of innovation. Loomis may have been a rich snob {Tuxedo Park was his development}, but he was tremendously effective in organizing the development of US radar and then selling it to Henry Stimson. He even managed to develop Loran which became a key Allied navigational aide which has been superseded only recently. One of its towers still stands on Nantucket. Surely the men-in-the-middle engineers did wonders in jump starting the U.S. aircraft industry and tank arsenals on an enormous scale in an amazingly-short time. This was both a design coup and a production feat. If ever there was an engineering project it was the Manhattan Project, but like the other items just mentioned: No or little mention. How the USA managed to organize war production and herd U.S. businessmen into cooperation would seem to be major grist for his mill, especially given the author’s introduction.One meaty and additional chapter could have done justice to almost all these quibbles. I think a somewhat labored read could have been turned into a thrilling reading experience if Kennedy had taken the time to do an additional chapter and mine the gold that the reader deserves. I believe Kennedy appears to lack the background and appreciation for such a chapter and, perhaps, a co-author would have furthered his cause immensely.
This book was a disappointment to me. I was looking for a book that would delve into topics like the use of operations research, the strategic bombing campaign survey, and the USAAF team in the Pacific that would result in the Whiz Kids of the 60's. Kennedy groups a series of Allied innovations around a group of challenges, such as winning the war in the Atlantic, storming an enemy held shore, and solving the challenge of distance in the Pacific. I think it's an interesting way to look at the war, but I think his discussion is often superficial and lacks depth. The chapters feel like a set of anecdotes strung together, and the analysis of impact and events is often oversimplified. It's an okay book, but I expected much more.
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