Thomas McKelvey Cleaver

If you're looking for a contemporary accounting of U.S. naval activities in the Korean War, you could do a lot worse than this synthesis. Cleaver tells a good narrative story and though he bleeds Navy blue and gold, he's quite forthright about his loyalties. What he probably does best is capture how hard it was for the U.S. and British carriers to function in the winter environment of Korea, while dealing with a near-crash transition to jet aircraft. Also good is that Cleaver is appropriately skeptical of many US strategic choices in the war, and is aware of the pattern of bad thinking that carried into Vietnam and, arguably, beyond.

Less good is that Cleaver can be a little weak on the U.S. Army, as witnessed by the meme that won't die; the invocation of George S. Patton's "pearl-handled" guns. This leads us to suggest two books for further reading: "Combat Ready?" (Texas A&M, 2010) by Thomas E. Hanson and "Forgotten Warriors" (Kansas, 2010) by T.X. Hammes. These are excellent monographs that examine what the U.S. Army and Marines were respectively doing to prepare for the next war on the eve of Korea.… (mais)

Battle of Philippine Sea ("Marianas Turkey Shoot") & Battle of Leyte Gulf.
The record of Carrier Air Group 15 in World War II is astonishing by any measure: it scored 312 enemy aircraft destroyed, 33 probably destroyed, and 65 damaged in aerial combat, plus 348 destroyed, 161 probably destroyed, and 129 damaged in ground attacks. Twenty-six Fighting 15 pilots became aces, including their leader, Commander David McCampbell, who became the U.S. Navy's "Ace of Aces." Twenty-one squadron pilots were killed in action and one in an operational accident aboard the carrier Essex.
The fighter squadron's partners, Bombing Squadron 15 and Torpedo Squadron 15, scored 174,300 tons of enemy shipping, including 37 cargo vessels sunk, 10 probably sunk, and 39 damaged. As well, Musashi, the world's largest battleship, was sunk, along with a light aircraft carrier, a destroyed… (mais)

It turns out that this booklet has a rather wider remit than the title would suggest, as a significant amount of the page count is devoted to the unit's service as the so-called "Flying Chiefs," where the bulk of the pilots were non-commissioned officers who basically served with the unit the whole of their flying career. From there, Cleaver provides details of the unit's wartime aboard "Lexington" (CV-2), "Enterprise" (CV-6), and "Hornet" (CV-12). Since Cleaver writes well, and has done his footwork, including hunting down the last surviving combat veterans of the squadron, this is one of the better numbers I've read in this series and is well-worth acquiring if the subject interests you.… (mais)