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Reviews ‘Masterpiece of Historical Scholarship’ the Second World War Reviews ‘Masterpiece of Historical Scholarship’ The Second World War. Antony Beevor. membered as the Battle of the Bulge) but In Beevor’s view, the Sino-Japanese Little, Brown and Company. 863 pages; also British airborne operations in conflict is “a missing section in the jig - black-and-white photographs; maps; notes; Greece to prevent a communist takeover saw of the Second World War.” He ar - index; $35. Publisher website: www.ha - in the midst of the Greek Civil War. gues convincingly that Japanese ag - chettebookgroup.com/publishing_little- Perhaps the most novel idea in the gression and militarism led directly to brown-and-company.aspx. book is the conscious decision to date the widening of the war, observing that the start of the war not with the Ger - the struggle began well before the By COL Kevin W. Farrell man invasion of Poland on September fighting in Europe, and lamenting that U.S. Army retired 1, 1939, or even the Japanese invasion “the conflict in China has often been of China on July 7, 1937, but rather treated as a completely separate affair, arely in recent years has a book on with the so-called Nomohon Incident even though it saw the largest deploy - RWorld War II forced a fundamental (termed the Battle of Khalkin Gol by ment of Japanese ground forces in the reappraisal of the war as a whole, but the Soviets) of May 12, 1939. Beevor de - Far East, as well as the involvement of Antony Beevor’s The Second World War both the Americans and the Soviet certainly makes a case for it. As knowl - Union.” In particular, “Chapter 4: The edge of the most costly war in human Dragon and the Rising Sun: 1937–1940” history fades from living memory—a shows Beevor at his best: The strategic war that left between 60 to 70 million considerations of China, Japan and the people dead—reassessment correspond - Soviet Union are interwoven with im - ingly becomes more essential. With en - portant battles and campaigns at the gaging prose and a remarkable ability operational level while the situation, to clarify and simplify massive and motivation, and suffering of ordinary complex events, Beevor has once again soldiers and civilians are movingly por - demonstrated why he is a preeminent trayed. Somewhat surprisingly, Chi - historian on the subject. Two previous nese Nationalist leader Chiang Kai- works, Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege, shek is presented sympathetically as “a 1942–1943 and Berlin: The Downfall tireless modernizer … inspired by gen - 1945 , established him as a leading uine idealism.” Beevor goes on to de - scholar on the war; both books remain scribe in gut-wrenching detail Japanese definitive accounts. As before, Beevor’s depredations committed against the forte is his ability to address the grand Chinese population including mass sweep of monumental campaigns while rape, forced prostitution, bayonet prac - never forgetting the individual human tails how Soviet efforts to thwart Japan - tice on civilian prisoners, wholesale experience. Perhaps his only contem - ese aggression in the Soviet sphere in murder and widespread torture. The porary peer in this regard is fellow 1939 directly affected the outcome of eyewitness account of a German busi - British historian, Max Hastings. the war and demonstrates that Khalkin nessman provides fitting commentary Coherently and chronologically or - Gol is the primary event linking the on the Japanese conduct in Nanking: a ganized into 50 compact chapters, this outcomes of the Pacific and European “crudity, brutality and bestiality that lengthy book is actually a quick read. In theaters of war. As a result of this de - bears no comparison except with the addition to the great campaigns and feat, Imperial Japan redirected its ag - hordes of Genghis Khan.” important strategic decisions familiar gression to the South Pacific against Well versed in the various historical to the casual World War II student, French, Dutch and British colonies, and debates related to the war, Beevor does Beevor explores lesser known, but still ultimately American interests. Japan’s not mince words and weighs in clearly crucial, events. Throughout every chap - subsequent refusal to join Hitler’s war with his opinions, ranging from the ef - ter he alternates between grand strategy, against the Soviet Union allowed Stalin fectiveness of the Allied strategic bomb - operational concerns and tactical fight - to concentrate his assets against Ger - ing campaign to the Holocaust. On the ing. A prime example is “Chapter 43: many, while the industrial might of the latter topic in particular, he is quite The Ardennes and Athens: November United States was brought to bear clear. Correctly linking Adolf Hitler’s 1944–January 1945,” where the focus is against both Nazi Germany and Imper - racial ideology to the fatally flawed not only the famous German Ardennes ial Japan. The Axis powers were there - Nazi military strategy, Beevor suggests Offensive of December 1944 (better re - fore doomed. mass murder was not Adolf Hitler’s November 2012 I ARMY 67 original intention, but rather that the just with the Holocaust, but also re - sions, the book is always captivating chaotic and competitive administrative garding the plight of Allied prisoners of and informative. Beevor covers the structure and ruthless personalities of war whom the Japanese subjected to broad sweep of grand strategy and the the Third Reich worked toward the torture and even as a food source for a poignant details of ordinary people liv - policy over time. Following a graphic cannibalistic Japanese army in the wan - ing through the greatest conflagration passage describing ghastly medical ex - ing months of the war. the world has known. It is hard to periments committed by Nazi physi - Despite occasional minor missteps— imagine how he will ever top this mas - cians, Beevor observes, “Such a mental - for example, the notorious Leibstandarte terpiece of historical scholarship. ity in a doctor may be beyond our Adolf Hitler is termed an SS division comprehension, but as a traumatized during the invasion of Poland (it would COL Kevin W. Farrell , Ph.D., is chief of Vasily Grossman observed after de - not become a division until 1941)—and military history at the U.S. Military scribing the horrors of Treblinka: ‘It is the absence of conventional endnotes, Academy. He commanded a combined the writer’s duty to tell this terrible the book is essential reading for anyone arms battalion in Iraq. His most recent truth, and it is the civilian duty of the seeking to learn more about World War book is The Military and the Monar - reader to learn it.’” Consistently, Beevor II and its consequences. Although not chy: The Case and Career of the Duke follows Grossman’s advice, and not every reader will agree with its conclu - of Cambridge in an Age of Reform. Lessons from the Hunting Season Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for lines. When it comes to the business of capabilities have come since Operation Bin Laden from 9/11 to Abbottabad. tracking down terrorists, life, it seems, Eagle Claw, the disastrous 1980 failed Peter L. Bergen. Crown. 359 pages; in - is not stranger than fiction. On the rescue of U.S. hostages in Iran. dex; notes; bibliography; color pho - other hand, while Manhunt reads like In describing Neptune Spear, the raid tographs; $26. Publisher website: the inside story of how America got bin that finally got bin Laden, Bergen www.crownpublishing.com. Laden, it likely is not the whole story. draws particular attention to the rapid Like any complex historical event, there evolution of the Joint Special Opera - By James Jay Carafano are bound to be more facts, revelations tions Command (JSOC) over the last and interpretations to follow. Indeed, few years. “In the decade after 9/11,” here are few journalists working Bergen notes, “JSOC mushroomed Tthe terrorist beat I respect more from a force of eighteen hundred to than Peter Bergen. He was on the story four thousand, becoming a small army of Osama bin Laden long before 9/11. within the military,” and it was a force He has written three well-regarded and that delivered. Bergen writes that informative books on al Qaeda: Holy JSOC’s jackpot rate, “the rate of mis - War, Inc.: Inside the Secret World of sions in which Special Operations Osama bin Laden, The Osama bin Laden I forces captured or killed their targets in Know , and The Longest War: The Endur - Afghanistan or Iraq—soared from 35 ing Conflict Between America and al- percent to more than 80 percent.” Clearly, Qaeda . No one is better suited to write special operations forces (SOF) have be - bin Laden’s last chapter, the story of the come a force to be reckoned with. In ad - global manhunt documented in Man - dition to the expansion of SOF, Bergen hunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden notes that a network of CIA and FBI ana - from 9/11 to Abbottabad . It is no sur - lysts, interrogators and field operatives prise that Bergen delivers a solid, com - played important roles as well. pelling and informative narrative of It took years to build the capabilities both the al Qaeda mastermind’s activi - to shut down these global terrorist net - ties after the terrorist attacks on New Bergen looks to be on the front of a works. What happens to these assets York and Washington, D.C., and the ef - tsunami of new books on the topic. now that bin Laden is dead and Wash - forts by the U.S. government to hunt Perhaps what is more important than ington is facing a budget crunch? While him down. what Manhunt tells us about what hap - the appetite for covert operations still If Manhunt reads like the latest Brad pened from the bright cloudless morn - seems insatiable, it is an open question Thor novel, that’s not because he has ing of 9/11 to the pre-dawn hours over if there is the will to sustain covert ca - embellished his topic.
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