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Opere di Tom Womack

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The interesting result of a chance encounter. Some years back I was sitting in the Trident Coffee Shop in Boulder, reading History of the Dutch Speaking Peoples, 1555-1648. A passerby glanced at the cover and said “Oh! I am a Dutch Speaking Person!”. This turned out to be a lady from the Netherlands, but residing in the USA for years and a habitué of The Trident. Various subsequent encounters ensued. Most recently my Dutch friend showed me a certificate from the Netherlands government dating to 1947 and confirming the award of the Bronze Cross with two clasps (posthumously) to her uncle, Oskar, for action in the Netherlands East Indies while a crewman of the flying boat Y-63.


Well, I needed an excuse for another book, so I picked up The Dutch Naval Air Force Against Japan, which turned out to be pretty interesting. The Marine Luchtvaartdienst (which will be subsequently called the MLD, for obvious reasons) had the same problem as the WWII Dutch armed forces, whether in Europe or Asia, had in general – being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Netherlands East Indies government (which will subsequently called the NEI, also for obvious reasons) was approached by the Japanese and offered the same deal as the Vichy French government in Indochina – accept protectorate status or else. Reassured by promises of assistance from the UK and the USA, the Dutch said no; they also joined the economic boycott and refused to sell oil to Japan (alternate history enthusiasts are invited to speculate on what would have happened otherwise; the author of The Dutch Naval Air Force Against Japan, Tom Womack, speculates a little himself which I will comment on in due time).


There were various ominous signs – Japanese fishing boats suddenly found NEI waters very attractive, for example – and the Dutch government in exile in London tried to purchase whatever extra armament was available (which wasn’t very much, since most US capacity was going to the UK). The only large score the Dutch were able to get was 48 PBY-5 Catalinas, and even that was due to a mistake on the part of the UK which somehow believed that PBY production was much greater than it actually was and thus that they could spare some for the Dutch. Thus the NEI was more or less in the same boat as the UK and the USA after December 7, 1941 – outgunned, outairplaned, outshipped and outeverythingelsed by the Japanese armed forces. The Allies set up ABDA commands – ABDA-GROUND, ABDA-FLOAT, and ABDA-AIR, with a Dutch general (Hein ter Poorten), an USN admiral (Thomas Hart), and a USAAF general (Lewis Brereton) in the respective commands, with overall command to RAF general Sir Richard Peirse. The parties cooperated with strained courtesy, each believing that they were more qualified than the others – the UK because they had been fighting for two years, the USA because they knew they would eventually be the dominant partner so why not start now, and the Dutch because it was their territory where most of the action was going to take place (the Australians presumably kept their comments about Pommies, Yanks, and Dutchmen to themselves).


Womack argues – without a lot of physical evidence but not unreasonably – that the Dutch had a case. As might be expected of the owners of the world’s largest archipelago, they had far and away the bulk of maritime air reconnaissance assets in the theater – 37 Dornier 24Ks, 36 Consolidated PBY-5s (they had more on order but they had not arrived before the balloon went up) and an assortment of older aircraft – altogether more flying boats and floatplanes than the other ABDA powers combined. The Dutch aircrews complained they were sent on difficult and dangerous air reconnaissance and attack missions in the interest of the UK and USA; Womak notes that the prewar NEI military got the results of air reconnaissance missions in a few hours while under ABDA it could take days to go through channels. Eventually ADBA officially recognized the problem by setting up ABDA REC-GROUP under a Dutch captain.


As already mentioned, the MLDs initial problems were the same as the USA in the Philippines and the UK in Malaya – they greatly underestimated Japanese capabilities. In the Dutch situation, flying boats were dispersed to bases thought to be outside Japanese aircraft range – and they weren’t. In a particularly unfortunate case, two squadrons of Do 24Ks on Celebes were fueled, bombed up, and had their engines running ready to take off after a Japanese convoy whey they were caught by Zeros flying from Davao in the Philippines. The same story was repeated over and over – it’s pretty hard to defend an island chain, no matter how bravely you fight, if you don’t control the air or sea.


The MLD did have a few successes – a Japanese destroyer was sunk, an air raid on Davao supposedly produced good results, and a number of air-sea rescue missions picked up RN, USN, MLD and civilian survivors. Some ground personnel were evacuated to Australia; the few surviving Catalinas made it to Ceylon where they were used on search and rescue missions, and the Dorniers were sold to Australia for miscellaneous duties until the spare parts supply ran out.


As mentioned Womack speculates a little on different political outcomes. If the Dutch had gone the way of the French and accepted a Japanese protectorate, he thinks it pretty unlikely that either the UK or the USA would have been able to intervene – the UK because they just didn’t have the resources, and the USA because the political milieu wouldn’t have justified it. While the US public was generally supportive of Roosevelt’s belligerent neutrality toward Germany and Japan, Womack considers it dubious that they would have acquiesced to a American adventure to support a colonial power seemingly totally unconnected to American interests (perhaps Womack is projecting 2012 attitudes backward – but perhaps not).


The author is a public relations executive, not a historian – but the research seems quite well done. There are a number of photographs, which must have been hard to come by even in the age of the Internet. Maps are frequent, but the scale generally includes all of the NEI which is a little too large to track action details. There are more typographic errors than you expect in the age of spell checkers, but none affect facts or understanding. Extensive appendices list the history and fate of every documented MLD base and aircraft.


Oh; I almost forgot. Catalina Y-63 was on a reconnaissance mission near North Gebroeders Island on February 27 1942 when she was intercepted by six Ki-27 Nates. In a running battle, she shot down a Nate and damaged another before making a powerless landing in Force 3 sea conditions. All crew survived the landing, despite wounds to the pilot and copilot; after 22 hours in a leaky rubber boat they made their way to North Gebroeders Island, where they found an abandoned motor launch. The motor could not be repaired so they paddled the launch to Sumatra, then purchased as series of native proas and made their way to Java. The wounded copilot had to be left behind. On Java, they split into two groups of three and tried to make their way overland through Japanese-held territory. One group was betrayed by Indonesians and turned over to the Japanese; the other was surrounded by Indonesians and murdered. My friend’s uncle Oskar was in this group; his fate wasn’t learned until after the war.
… (altro)
 
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setnahkt | 1 altra recensione | Dec 21, 2017 |
Questa recensione è stata scritta per Recensori in anteprima di LibraryThing.
I spent the 1980s reading World War II history and I was left with one question - what happened to the USS Langley, the US Navy's first aircraft carrier. Even after searching out books like Edwin Hoyt’s “The lonely ships : the life and death of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet” (1976) and W. G. Winslow’s “Fleet the Gods Forgot” (1982) all I knew was that after it was refitted as a seaplane tender and was stationed at the Manila’s navy base when the war broke out. As W. L. Wright wrote in his 1942 book “They Were Expendable” (Yes, the book made into the John Wayne movie.) as the Japanese closed in on Manila the Langley and what remained of the Asiatic fleet was sent to Java with weapons and supplies. They were never heard from again.

When I first saw Tom Womack’s book “The Allied Defense of the Malay Barrier, 1941-1942” I hoped that another 30 years of archival research and the birth of the internet would uncover the answer. It did. Womack’s book is the most detailed history I have ever read. At times I questioned if all the detail was a good thing. Charts explained every ship and airplane’s horsepower, armament, and crew. Maps showed ship movements during almost every engagement. Details on Dutch naval and air bases defenses and repair / maintenance capabilities, often with maps. All this in addition to the normal explanations of diplomatic and military decisions and background information on the important commanding officers. Some of the information will be valuable to wargamers and perhaps other readers even if I got a little impatient with it.

In spite of my impatience I read every word and the fate of the Langley was not the only thing I learned. The book is daunting, more like a textbook than a history book but it is well worth the effort.
… (altro)
 
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TLCrawford | 10 altre recensioni | Apr 26, 2017 |
Questa recensione è stata scritta per Recensori in anteprima di LibraryThing.
Earl and ugly days in the Pacific. This thoroughly researched, data-dense history of Allied naval action in early and obscure battles with the Japanese belongs in any serious WW2 Pacific War library. The bibliography is dauntingly complete and supports the copious notes provided. It aptly documents how badly prepared; were ABCD commanders that faced the Japanese invaders. Unfortunately, there were no lessons learned and the many bad decisions occurred again in the battles off Guadalcanal.
 
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jamespurcell | 10 altre recensioni | Oct 19, 2016 |
Questa recensione è stata scritta per Recensori in anteprima di LibraryThing.
A surprisingly well written and researched book on the part of World War II which is often not read about in English. The author has this book well organized to such an extent that it is an excellent book to use for reference. The information covered is detailed and in depth and starts in the early 1930‘s. It is obvious a lot of work went into this fine book. The author also used the research he found from not only the Dutch but from Japanese sources giving the book a very object view point. If you are interested in World War II and or the Pacific Theater of War in particular this book is a must read book. Every naval historian will want a copy on his shelf.… (altro)
½
 
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hermit | 10 altre recensioni | Oct 14, 2016 |

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