Carl LaVO. Pushing the Limits: The Remarkable Life and Times of Adm. Allan Rockwell McCann, USN. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2013. 272 pp. $44.95, cloth, ISBN 978-1-59114-485-4.

Reviewed by John Kuehn

Published on H-War (February, 2015)

Commissioned by Margaret Sankey (Air University)

Admiral Alan Rockwell McCann benefted vestigating his brother ofcers for unauthorized from that old Chinese proverb, “May you live in “leaks” to the press during the so-called Revolt of interesting times.” His career spanned the frst the Admirals.[1] Given this scope and span of ex‐ half of the twentieth century, including going perience, McCann’s certainly seems an ideal ca‐ right into the navy as the United States went to reer to examine and a naval personality worth ex‐ war with Germany in 1917, the years of the inter‐ ploring in a book-length treatment. war navy and the “treaty feet,” World War II, and Unfortunately, Carl LaVO’s new book does not participation at a very high level in postwar naval tell us much about McCann’s life—his words and policy and Cold War debates. As a submariner Mc‐ thoughts--and what it does give us of his times is Cann is deserving of note for his interwar work in dealt with more correctly and comprehensively developing the famous rescue diving device elsewhere in other works, including his own Back named after him, the McCann Diving Bell, used from the Deep (1994) which tells the story of the most famously to rescue sailors in the submarine rescue of thirty-three sailors from the submarine Squalus in 1939. McCann’s experience in World Squalus. Admittedly, part of the problem is the War II was particularly broad and interesting. He subject, and LaVo addresses this challenge in the commanded everything from a submarine opening lines of his preface: “His family says he squadron in the Pacifc at the outbreak of the war, was a storyteller. Yet Vice Adm. Allan Rockwell to a , and then fnished as the de facto left no yarns or recollections, stories that might commander of the U.S. Tenth Fleet, the command reveal a deeper sense of his personality and ser‐ and control feet fghting the Battle of the Atlantic vice to the nation” (p. xi). In short, McCann’s per‐ in the fnal phases of the war against the Nazi u- sonal papers proved a very thin resource for biog‐ boat threat. He fnished his career as the navy in‐ rapher LaVO. It seems that LaVO simply may have spector general assigned the onerous task of in‐ taken his material from Back from the Deep and H-Net Reviews then built a narrative of McCann’s life from that erful individual to coordinate its planning, ship‐ and other secondary sources and newspaper sto‐ building, operations, and personnel policies” (pp. ries. 22-23). The only part of this statement that is re‐ LaVO opens the book with some promise, motely correct based on the current scholarship is starting out with a breathtaking, attention-grab‐ that one individual and his subordinate staf did bing narrative of Nazi “robot submarines” bound have control over operational planning. The rest for the United States in 1945 with weapons of is simply incorrect. Then, in the next sentence, he mass destruction. The reader learns that McCann actually identifes the organization that did have is chief of staf of the Tenth U.S. Fleet, de facto most of these characteristics—the General Board commander in charge of meeting this threat with of the , headed by its one and Operation Teardrop. Then, with the Nazi subs still only president, Admiral George Dewey, whom he out there, LaVO stops the story, makes the point fails to mention at all and who headed the Gener‐ that “surmounting challenges” is the stuf of Mc‐ al Board until his death until 1917. In fact, LaVO Cann’s life and gets in the time machine to return cannot claim ignorance of the General Board to the beginning and McCann’s boyhood in North since he continues to attribute to it, and not the Adams, Massachusetts. This reviewer skipped brand new, untested CNO ofce, all the major poli‐ ahead to a later chapter to fnd out what hap‐ cy advice and decision making in the run up to pened to those Nazi subs. In doing so it dawned (p. 23). This is all even more puzzling on him that he was reading about Operation given that Admiral McCann was actually a mem‐ Teardrop, and not much at all about McCann. The ber of the General Board after World War II, from structure of the book is designed for a popular au‐ September 3, 1948, through June 20, 1949, just pri‐ dience, using dramatic events on single days from or to the very critical period of the so-called Re‐ history to set up vignettes that include McCann as volt of the Admirals covered in chapter 16.[2] a historical cast member. For example, the chap‐ LaVO describes this assignment as brief, but, as ter on McCann’s actions as WW II opens after any naval ofcer knows, a ten-month assignment Pearl Harbor begins with a subheading entitled with any organization in Washington is not “ComSubPac Headquarters, Pearl Harbor Hawaii, “brief” (p. 200). 7 December 1941” (p. 118). This device immediate‐ LaVO misses a real opportunity to actually get ly lets the reader know the context, but in almost some of McCann’s own words on a number of is‐ every case McCann the man is a background pres‐ sues via the transcripts of the General Board hear‐ ence in this book. He is like a phantom who leaves ings. The reviewer easily found dozens of pages of his signature and not much else in the story. McCann’s testimony and comment during these Another weakness is LaVO’s limited com‐ hearings on topics ranging from the size and com‐ mand of the newer scholarship surrounding the position of the reserve feet in 1949 to the career period of McCann’s life, much of it important and path for naval ofcers in high command. LaVO revisionist to previous myths and narratives. One uses secondary sources and newspaper reports to area where LaVO’s limited familiarity with the construct McCann’s actions during this critical pe‐ new scholarship about the navy of McCann’s era riod of interservice rivalry between the navy and emerges in his discussion surrounding the cre‐ the air force, which McCann was at the center of. ation of the chief of naval operations (CNO) posi‐ The “Revolt of the Admirals” story is interesting, tion and entry into World War I. On the one hand, like all the chosen vignettes, but it misses an op‐ he characterizes the new CNO organization this portunity for the reader to “hear” McCann’s voice, way: “For the frst time, the Navy had an all-pow‐ something that LaVO seemed to long for in his prefatory comments. In other words, he tells a sto‐

2 H-Net Reviews ry that has already been told, and in the process Group 80, National Archives and Records Admin‐ does not tell us much about McCann. McCann is istration, Washington, DC (hereafter PHGB). mentioned just twice, in passing, from pp. 201 to [3]. Barlow, Revolt of the Admirals; and PHGB, 210 in this chapter. With respect to April 1949, roll 27. when the secretary of defense cancelled construc‐ tion on the USS United States, the super carrier being built to carry nuclear bombers, LaVO writes nothing about what McCann was doing or saying on these matters as the acting senior member of the General Board.[3] Factual errors further decrease the value of the book, probably because LaVO’s familiarity with the topic seems anecdotal and haphazard. For example, in writing about McCann’s service during WW I, he identifes the USS Kansas (BB-21) as a “, launched in 1905” (p. 25). The frst U.S. dreadnought battleship, Michigan, was not launched until 1909. More egregiously, the fa‐ mous British Dreadnought was not even launched until 1906—so the class did not even exist in 1905. Kansas was a pre-dreadnought battleship--this sort of mistake, popular history or not, is funda‐ mental and undermines the credibility of the au‐ thor. A comprehensive scholarly biography that takes full advantage of the archival sources has yet to be written about McCann. That said, the re‐ viewer realizes that Mr. LaVO did not write this biography for scholars and academics. Nor did he intend for it to be the last word on McCann, I hope. As an interesting and well-written book about the times surrounding an ofcer with a fas‐ cinating career, this book partly succeeds; howev‐ er, it comes up short in providing much that is new. Notes [1]. Jefrey C. Barlow, Revolt of the Admirals (Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, 1994). LaVO’s chapter 16 is essentially a recap of Bar‐ low’s account here. [2]. "Membership of the General Board," Pro‐ ceedings and Hearings of the General Board of the U.S. Navy, 1900 – 1950, microflm, roll 1, Record

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Citation: John Kuehn. Review of LaVO, Carl. Pushing the Limits: The Remarkable Life and Times of Adm. Allan Rockwell McCann, USN. H-War, H-Net Reviews. February, 2015.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=40773

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