December 17, 2003
INTELLIMYTHS:
-REVIEW: of INTELLIGENCE IN WAR: Knowledge of the Enemy From Napoleon to Al-Qaeda By John Keegan (Joseph E. Persico, NY Times Book Review)
Keegan takes a hard look at the role of intelligence in the Battle of the Atlantic during World War II, beginning with an observation from Prime Minister Winston Churchill that ''the only thing that really frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril.'' Was Churchill's concern justified? In the conventional telling, Allied intelligence, particularly code breakers, located German U-boat wolf packs, which Allied ships and planes then sank. This, it is said, saved Britain from strangulation. But Keegan is quite ready to sacrifice the heroic legend to the duller truth. Yes, the Allies did defeat the German U-boat fleet in the Atlantic. And yes, intelligence did play an instrumental role. But, he points out, even in 1943, the year of the biggest convoy battles, 9,097 Allied ships made it safely across the ocean, while only 139 were lost. He concludes that ''the Battle of the Atlantic could have been won without the assistance of the code breakers.'' [...]Even the storied resistance fighters in occupied Europe working with Allied secret agents to harass the Nazis are not spared Keegan's relentless rationality. Granting the extraordinary courage of these men and women -- courage that nourished hope and revived the honor of conquered peoples -- their efforts provoked such brutal retaliation by the Germans, Keegan concludes, that they ''brought nothing but suffering'' to the resisters and their innocent compatriots. As for the military value of the resistance, it ''harmed the German occupiers scarcely at all.'' [...]
In this latest work, Keegan has not set out to debunk intelligence. Rather he has sought to place the clandestine underbelly of war in perspective, to wrest it from the popular imagination as some sort of entertaining shortcut to victory. In the end, as he puts it, ''It is force, not fraud or forethought, that counts.'' Whatever its truth, the roots of this conviction are not hard to divine. Keegan came to military history well before he came to military intelligence, and he understands all too well the barbarous physical reality of war as contrasted to the largely cerebral battlefields of intelligence warriors. To John Keegan, warfare has always been far more blood and guts than cloak and dagger.
You can't begrudge folks the absurd notion that WWII was a close run thing--every nation needs its myths. Posted by Orrin Judd at December 17, 2003 7:15 AM
Mr. Judd;
The Liberty ships were probably the single biggest factor in winning the Battle of the Atlantic. We could build them faster than the Germans could sink them.
Of course, like any human endeavor, the strands of victory are many (such as code breakers and long range patrol aircraft, both of which contributed as well).
This highlights Yamamato's insight, which was that it would be quick victory or none for those who opposed the USA.
Posted by: Annoying Old Guy at December 17, 2003 10:35 AMAOG:
Exactly. Our entry into the war determined its outcome.
Posted by: OJ at December 17, 2003 10:43 AMIsn't that what Churchill said all along?
Posted by: Chris Durnell at December 17, 2003 11:05 AMKeegan has always been pretty shaky on maritime strategy.
1943 was not the year of the biggest convoy battles (that was 1942) and not nearly the year of the biggest merchant ship losses. It was, however, the year in which the Atlantic balance changed with dramatic speed.
In April, the Germans had their best month of the war at sea. In May, they lost 41 Uboats and for the rest of the year and of the war, they sank very little.
The answer was convoy, primarily. And more, better and better trained escorts. And centimetric radar.
Keegan seems to have set up something of a straw man here. I don't know of any maritime historian who has ever assigned intelligence the prime role in the Battle of the Atlantic. One reason they wouldn't is that German intelligence was also very good. They read Allied naval messages throughout the war and had an excellent radiolocation service.
Late in the war, the schnorkel-equipped Uboats were almost 100% immune to countermeasures. There were not enough to affect logistics, but had the German Navy worked more efficiently at bringing those boats along; or had the Russian Army not distracted the Germans, it could have been a different story.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at December 17, 2003 5:22 PMRead an interesting thing recently in Secret Weapons of World War II by William B. Breuer. It seems that until early '43, US insurance companies continued to cable shipping information (ships, ports, cargo, departure times, etc.) to their home offices in neutral countries like Switzerland. Unfortunately, the info made its way to another office in Berlin, and then to German naval intelligence. It took an act of Congress to stop the practice.
Posted by: PapayaSF at December 17, 2003 7:31 PMHarry:
We knew there'd be a plump for Stalin in there somewhere.
Posted by: oj at December 17, 2003 7:37 PMYou bet. We owe him a lot.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at December 17, 2003 9:30 PMThe Cold War, McCarthyism, Vietnam, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, stagflation--our cup runneth over.
Posted by: oj at December 17, 2003 10:04 PM"the absurd notion that WWII was a close run thing"
In what time frame? Hitler made a bunch of serious mistakes, but he did not make all of them at once.
He made the first one early by taking his own bullshit seriously. This drove many of his best scientists out of the country. Stalin hated Jews too, but he did not let his scientists get away, he pampered them, relatively.
His second came in the summer of 1940. He did not have to engage England at that point. He controlled Western Europe and he was in a position to re-write the Versialles treaty on terms favorable to him. He could have stopped at the Channel, made vauge menaces towards England and negotiated a settlement.
Third, a full scale invasion of Russia. I have always wondered why the General Staff did not pull off a coup at that time. Invading Russia was only asking for trouble.
Fourth, declaring war on the United States. On 12/8/41, the US was at war with Japan not Germany. Hitler could have tried to prevent war with the US instead of inviting it.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at December 17, 2003 10:22 PM