Naval War College Review Volume 60 Article 16 Number 2 Spring

2007 The aB ttle for Leyte, 1944: Allied and Japanese Plans, Preparations, and Execution Donald M. Goldstein

Milan Vego

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Recommended Citation Goldstein, Donald M. and Vego, Milan (2007) "The aB ttle for Leyte, 1944: Allied and Japanese Plans, Preparations, and Execution," Naval War College Review: Vol. 60 : No. 2 , Article 16. Available at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol60/iss2/16

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158 NAVAL WAR COLLEGE REVIEW Goldstein and Vego: The Battle for Leyte, 1944: Allied and Japanese Plans, Preparatio

welfare, and this extends even to the vigor and depicts the battle with clarity moral authority of the military to en- and in great depth. force its regulations regarding adminis- The book is organized into eleven chap- tration of such agents as Anthrax vaccine ters. Chapters 1 through 5 show how to military forces, or to new but not yet both sides planned and organized for fully recognized scientific discoveries. the battle, and chapter 6 discusses the Equally provocative is the thesis that background and operations just before medical contributions to interrogational the engagement. However, the heart torture may be morally defensible under and soul of the book are in the final sec- conditions that offer the possibility of tion that depicts the battle itself. preventing egregious harm to others. Vego begins by noting that in the early As a treatise addressing contemporary days of the Pacific War the Americans ethical issues in military medicine, this split their command arrangements, is a useful contribution. Unfortunately, with General Douglas MacArthur in the writer’s style at times intermixes el- charge of the South West Pacific Area ements of the arcane phraseology of the (SWPA) and Admiral Chester Nimitz professional academic ethics commu- commanding the Pacific Ocean Area nity. “The uninitiated” must read and (POA). This scheme worked well reread some passages if they are moti- enough until the Leyte operation, when vated to comprehend fully the ethical it produced much confusion over com- dilemmas being debated and dissected. mand relationships, leading to prob-

ARTHUR M. SMITH, MD lems between Fleet Admiral William F. Captain, Medical Corps Halsey and Vice Admiral Thomas U.S. Navy Reserve (Retired) Kinkaid, Commander Allied Naval Forces that almost lost them the battle. Vego is critical of the delays in commu- nications between various American components. He concludes that the Vego, Milan. The Battle for Leyte, 1944: Allied Americans relied too much on Japanese and Japanese Plans, Preparations, and Execution. intentions—as interpreted via informa- Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2006. 479pp. $55 tion gleaned from the MAGIC intercepts —and less on actual capability. He be- There have been many books published lieves that the Americans’ strength was about the battle for Leyte Gulf. This in their operational-logistic plans and book, however, is unique, because it is programs. not only a narrative but also a critical However, Vego argues, the Japanese analysis of the planning, preparation, were even worse in comparable ways. and execution of that famous battle as Parochial competition between the viewed by both the Americans and the army and navy cost them dearly. The Japanese. Milan Vego, professor of mil- Japanese had little intelligence that itary operations at the Naval War Col- could compare with that of the Ameri- lege and author of a textbook on cans, and they had serious logistical operational warfare, is also a former problems that were never properly merchant marine officer. He has tack- resolved. led the subject of this work with much

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BOOK REVIEWS 159 Naval War College Review, Vol. 60 [2007], No. 2, Art. 16

Among the book’s strengths are the work is now outdated and seriously subheadings of each chapter, which al- flawed. What makes Tyerman’s work low the reader to skip around. Vego’s stand out is the extent of his knowledge sixty-seven pages of notes are excellent, of the entire crusading era and his abil- enabling the reader to delve deeper into ity to deploy that knowledge in a clear, the battle, and his bibliography is out- concise, and generally readable manner standing. There are sixteen appendixes in the course of a single (if massive) showing the order of battle of the ad- volume. versaries, as well as six excellent maps. God’s War is reasonably if not totally Vego’s conclusion, while offering noth- comprehensive. The first four Crusades ing new, does an outstanding job of are covered in minute detail, the later summarizing the battle. Also, his sum- Crusades less so. Tyerman, however, mary of Halsey’s failure in the battle is also discusses many related movements superior. Professor Vego concludes that not normally considered as crusades, “the Japanese came close to accom- such as the Reconquista in Spain and plishing their mission not because of Teutonic campaigns in the Baltic, and their skills but because of the mistakes even the expansion of the concept of that Halsey made.” holy war to the conquest of the New

DONALD M. GOLDSTEIN World. This breadth of coverage makes University of Pittsburgh up for an occasional lack of depth. At times the book does suffer from an overreliance on name-dropping, some of which is repetitive and, for the nov- ice, confusing. Tyerman, Christopher. God’s War: A New History Tyerman stresses that one cannot know of the Crusades. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. how the Crusaders thought or felt— Press, 2006. 1,024pp. $35 making it ironic when he comments, as Christopher Tyerman, a lecturer in me- he frequently does, on what did or did dieval history at Oxford University, of- not motivate them. This is peculiar, as fers this work at a crucial moment. With one of the strongest points of the book is world attention focused as it is on the its explanation of how the movement Middle East and on the social, political, originated and the ways in which the religious, and military interactions be- Crusades were products of the sometimes tween the Muslim East and Christian paradoxical social, religious, and political West, God’s War could not have come at forces of the Middle Ages. Another strong a more opportune time, especially for point is his descriptions of the personali- those who wish to have a better under- ties of the Crusaders. Tyerman fleshes out standing of this exotic and violent pe- the leaders, men like the Christians riod. Over the past decade, the subject of Godfrey of Bullion and Bohemond, the Crusades has become a popular one Frederick Barbarossa, or Richard of for writers, but Steven Runciman’s Anjou, and the Muslim leaders Saladin three-volume History of the Crusades re- and Baybars. These people are described mains the primary standard of compari- from the standpoint both of their apol- son. Tyerman accurately, if perhaps with ogists and their critics and enemies, a bit of hubris, notes that Runciman’s and thus as true three-dimensional

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