ISBN: 1-59114-096-X
Pages: xiv + 351

Introduction; maps; photos; OBs; Acknowledgments; Notes; Bibliography; Index

Appendix: U.S. and Australian Combat Aircraft Losses

   In Fortnight of Infamy John Burton conducts an informative and enjoyable survey of air operations in the western Pacific at the end of 1941. "The Collapse of Allied Airpower West of Pearl Harbor" in the subtitle includes the Philippine Islands, Malaya, and Singapore, with much briefer looks at Wake Island, Hong Kong, and Guam. Burton makes a strong case that compared to the vastly more publicized but relatively less strategically significant raid on Pearl Harbor, the disaster befalling Allied air forces in Malaya and the Philippines on 8 December 1941 played a far more important role in determining the successful execution of the ambitious Japanese offensive in the Pacific. He also points out that senior Allied commanders such as Air Chief Marshal Sir Robert Brooke-Popham, General Douglas MacArthur, and General Lewis Brereton should have borne the brunt of culpability for the catastrophe, but all escaped the kind of opprobrium heaped upon General Walter Short and Admiral Husband Kimmel at Pearl Harbor. Nevertheless, Fortnight of Infamy mostly focuses on individual sorties and air-to-air combat.
   Burton's Introduction lays out the topics of his survey:

• Three chapters on the background, strategy, and military capabilities of the combatants
  
• One chapter on the events of the last week of peace before the Japanese attacks
  
• Two chapters on air-to-air combat in the first days of the conflict as seen from inside aircraft cockpits
  
• Five chapters on the disintegration of Allied airpower (although the final chapter mostly represents a review and assessment of the campaign)

   The first chapter sets the tone of Burton's book with a compressed but very cogent discussion of Japan's path to the Pacific war. The author discusses the Imperial Japanese Navy's innovative use of aircraft in the 1914 attack on the German port of Tsingtao, air warfare over China in the 1930s, and the major technological accomplishments of the Japanese aviation industry. In particular, in terms of range and maneuverability some Japanese aircraft were so far ahead of their American counterparts that many US experts refused to believe the accuracy of technical reports forwarded from China by Claire Chennault. In conjunction with his text concerning Japanese warplanes and overall strategic intentions, Burton also provides maps pinpointing dispositions of Japanese air units on the eve of the war, showing bases, unit IDs, models with which the units were equipped, and numbers of planes.
   The second chapter takes much the same approach for the United States, outlining the strategic background and describing how the situation developed. In particular, the chapter explains how the increase of Japan's military power and its League of Nation's mandate over former German territories in the Pacific effectively demolished the longstanding contingency plan for the US fleet to sail to the relief of the Philippines in the event of outbreak of war in the Far East. Burton also has much to say about the rather sudden change in plan when General Marshall decided to overturn years of strategic planning by not writing off the Philippines after all, but instead to reinforce the islands with a large offensive air striking force, including the bulk of the available B-17s. None of this material is especially novel (see, for example, William Bartsch), but Burton does a good job of explaining the situation in a fairly short space, and he takes care to compare US aircraft with Japanese warplanes. He closes the chapter with a map showing the disposition and strength of USAAF formations in the Philippines.
   Interestingly, Burton's third chapter turns to Australia. Compared to the strategic positions and planning of Japan and the US in the Pacific, this is relatively uncharted territory, and Burton carefully paints the picture as seen from Canberra. In addition to discussing Australian aircraft and aviation planning, he naturally looks at how the Aussies primarily relied on London for a large measure of protection. This equation was entirely upset by events in Europe and the Mediterranean, forcing Australia to expand its defensive shield to Singapore and Malaya while already burdened with the commitment of three divisions in North Africa. In particular, estimates indicated more than 500 warplanes would be required to defend Singapore, a figure far beyond the reach of the RAF and RAAF. Quality of the competing aircraft also presented a problem, one which Burton aptly illustrates in regard to the relative climb rate of the Zero and the considerably less impressive Brewster Buffalo:

   This was a problem. In order to engage Japanese fighters effectively at combat altitude, Brewster pilots would need a very early warning of their enemy's approach. To illustrate the dilemma: if a Mitsubishi Zero and a Buffalo both took off at the same time in a race to ascend from sea level to thirty thousand feet, the Japanese fighter would actually have time to climb to the objective, dive back down, touch its wheels on the runway, and then rise back up again to meet the Brewster before the U.S. plane got to the finish line.
   To those unfamiliar with the capabilities of Japanese aircraft, the Buffalo may have appeared up to the task of defending Malaya. As it happened, the British Far East Command had little choice of fighters because the Buffalo was the only type available in sufficient numbers for deployment to Asia. Britain, at the height of its own battle for survival against the German Luftwaffe, could not spare any of its first-line Spitfire or Hurricane fighters. The British Purchasing Commission had already turned to the United States to provide additional fighter aircraft, and even took over all French contracts with U.S. manufacturers after the collapse of France. However, no designs suited for the high-altitude combat over Europe were available from the United States. RAF testing of the first three 339Es and a batch of Belgian-specification 339Bs in the fall of 1940 indicated that the Brewsters had neither the speed nor altitude performance to compete with Axis fighters over Europe or the Mediterranean. Since the Curtiss P-40 was being manufactured in large numbers and was reasonably capable of countering Italian and French fighters on duty in the Middle East and North Africa, the RAF was anxiously absorbing all Tomahawk production not critical to the U.S. Army. Apart from Curtiss, Brewster was the only U.S. company producing any fighters in quantity at the time.

   The chapter concludes with a map of British, Australian, and New Zealand air deployments and strengths in Singapore and Malaya as of 7 December 1941. (The map is not perfect, misidentifying NZ No. 488 Squadron as 288.)
   In "A Matter of Hours" Burton recounts the final days before the outbreak of hostilities. When the "war warning" reached the Philippines from Washington, DC on 28 November, American air units went to full alert and began flying daily recon patrols. In addition to missions directed toward Formosa where the Japanese air striking force waited in readiness for the Philippines campaign, USN PBYs flew toward French Indochina where on 2 December and 3 December, according to the author, they reported 30-50 Japanese freighters, transports, and warships, including IJN cruisers. When Patrol Wing Ten's recon aircraft discovered Cam Ranh Bay empty on 4 December, Burton marks this as the first certain indication that a Japanese invasion would soon occur. (Although he seems to attach some importance to this series of sightings, and indicates Allied intelligence paid heed to it, in retrospect it might be less significant, because Japanese shipping at Cam Ranh Bay comprised only a few light vessels, with the main invasion force sailing from Hainan Island on 4 December and Saigon on 5 December.) The author also astutely lays out the dilemma facing the Yanks in the Philippines about how to deploy their new offensive weapons—the B-17 Flying Fortresses—upon receipt of the war warning:

   The week after Marshall issued his memo, military installations in Hawaii continued to operate at a somewhat relaxed pace, while units of General Douglas MacArthur's USAFFE command were poised on a razor edge of alertness. Regardless of other possibilities, it was absolutely clear that a Japanese attack on the Philippines would come soon. Unfortunately, any possibility of containing Japanese incursions at their beachheads depended completely on an ability to deploy the planned level of airpower. Without local air superiority, a campaign to secure the Philippines was doomed to the fate delineated in the War Plan Orange scenarios—in other words, a guaranteed loss.
   Even with the allocated air fleet in place, an initial failure of MacArthur's forces to protect Clark Field would lead to disaster. Once Japanese bombers were allowed to strike the vital base successfully, U.S. offensive operations in the air over the Philippines would surely cease. There was no other suitable location from which to sustain extended operations of the FEAF heavy-bomber force.
   To equip the hastily cleared airstrip at the Del Monte plantation with facilities equal to those at Clark would have required at least another six months of intensive effort. In the larger scheme of things, this would not have been done. The island of Mindanao had the smallest of army garrisons. Therefore, it would have been virtually impossible to defend Del Monte against an enemy ground assault. Additionally, Del Monte was too far away for Flying Fortresses to directly attack Japanese installations on Formosa without using an intermediate staging base. Another bomber field was under development at San Marcelino, between Iba and Olongapo, on Luzon's western coast, but Colonel George wanted this new base to serve as a home for the 27th Bombardment Group. It would not be ready for regular operations for several months. Even when functional, San Marcelino would have no fixed service facilities. The remote airstrip could provide only for dispersal, refueling, and rearming of aircraft. Repairs for the bombers would still have to be made at dark. Without Clark's service facilities, the B-17 squadrons would be forced to send their planes back to Australia for all but the most minor maintenance procedures.

   In the final pages of the chapter, Japanese aircraft shoot down Australian Flying Officer Patrick Bedell's RAF Catalina as it searches for the Japanese invasion fleet in the Gulf of Siam, drawing the first blood of the war in the Pacific.
   The battle is joined in Chapter 5 with the Japanese invasion of Siam and Malaya and the bombing of Singapore. The author reminds readers that the initial bombing of Singapore came as a surprise to the defenders. Despite reports dispatched from China, the British staff had no idea Japanese aircraft had sufficient range to fly 700 miles from their bases in Indochina to attack the city. Burton describes in considerable detail the exploits of the Hudson bombers of RAAF No. 1 Squadron attacking the Japanese invasion fleet and landing barges off Kota Baru in the pre-dawn darkness. This is part of what the author in his Introduction describes as his intimate, "in the cockpit" account, and he does indeed meticulously explain exactly what some of the pilots experienced in the air. He also writes a few paragraphs about the sophisticated Japanese air plan for rapidly knocking out British air forces in northern Malaya, capturing RAF airfields, and achieving air superiority by quickly transferring fighters to the new bases. In this case, as he does consistently throughout his book, Burton devotes space to both Japanese and the Allies when it comes to strategy, tactics, and aircraft, but he reserves his "in the cockpit" material almost exclusively for Allied pilots.
   After a single day of combat—with a great many stories of individual Allied pilots in action—RAF losses were alarmingly high, and forward squadrons were ordered to begin withdrawing to less exposed airfields, leaving ground troops at the front even more vulnerable to Japanese airpower. In this manner Kota Baru fell into the hands of the invaders. "With great surprise, Japanese officers marveled at their good fortune in capturing the best runway in Malaya completely intact—with the undreamed-of bonus of vast stores of aviation gasoline, weapons, and food in perfectly usable condition." It should be noted, by the way, that most of the footnotes in this chapter—especially in regard to the cockpit view—lead to Bloody Shambles by Chris Shores.
   Burton's next chapter moves the scene to the Philippines. Here the American defenders, already on alert due to the earlier "war warning" signal, learned about the attack on Pearl Harbor well before Japanese aircraft appeared over Luzon. Despite all the evidence of the impending Japanese assault, including a carrier-based attack on the seaplane tender Preston and destruction of two Patrol Wing Ten aircraft at Malalag Bay, the American offensive weapon, the B-17s, were not ordered into action. Although Brereton was called to Fort Santiago to meet with him, MacArthur would not see the airman. Burton suggests, without providing any source, that "presumably" MacArthur was in conference with President Manuel Quezon. Other authors have offered different interpretations of this situation, and the exact nature of events has been highly controversial, but in any event Brereton was not permitted to see MacArthur or launch his B-17s against Japanese bases on Formosa. The opportunity for such a strike soon passed, and in any event, as permission failed to arrive from Fort Santiago, Brereton eventually revised his plan, further delaying the possibility of offensive action. At this point, any delay was too long. Despite repeated warnings, the American response was completely botched. Everything seemed to go wrong for the airmen, from communications failure to inoperative equipment and weapons to weather conditions to poor decision-making. In line with the latter, Burton labels decisions made by Major Orrin Grover (commanding 24th Pursuit Group) as "bewildering and fatal," which is sure to rile some who defend the officer as "...a heroic figure, and a man of vision, intelligence and keen foresight." Of course, Bartsch is also critical of Grover, and Burton relies heavily on Doomed at the Start (along with Edmonds, Shores, and Brereton's autobiography) in his footnotes for this chapter.
   Although the author doesn't ignore the broader situation and wider implications, he doesn't spend a great deal of time analyzing the day's failures or attempting to assign blame. Instead, the bulk of the chapter is made up of detailed, plane-by-plane descriptions of the utter devastation of American airpower on the first day of war in the Philippines.
   Nevertheless, by assembling information he provides in the early chapters, the following pattern emerges:

• The "war warning" message from Washington arrived on 28 November
• MacArthur and Brereton were aware of the concentration of Japanese aircraft on Formosa
• MacArthur and Brereton were aware of Japanese recon flights over the Philippines
• Shortly after midnight on 8 December, radar detected an incoming flight of Japanese aircraft which was unsuccessfully intercepted but subsequently turned back
• By 3:00 AM on 8 December the Philippines had confirmation of the attack on Pearl Harbor
• At 7:00 AM Japanese aircraft attacked the seaplane tender Preston in Malalag Bay
• Even so, all the Far East Air Force aircraft were caught on the ground or out of position when the main attacks materialized after 9:00 AM

   The next chapter begins to assess the overall damage done on 8 December.

   As the sun rose on Tuesday, December 9, 1941, U.S. and British air force personnel reeled in disbelief at the nearly fatal blow just dealt them by the Empire of Japan. It was like awakening from a nightmare only to find out that the memory was real. Allied offensive airpower in both the Philippines and Malaya had been crippled. To the east, the vital supply line from the United States was in shambles: Guam was surrounded by the enemy; the critical air-transit point at Wake Island was threatened; Midway lay isolated and defenseless; and the men at Pearl Harbor struggled to contain the damage caused by Admiral Chuichi Nagumo's fliers.
   The initial Japanese bombing missions in the Far East had been incredibly effective in disabling Allied air force assets. Two bomber squadrons and four fighter units were literally blasted out of existence: the 28th and 30th Bombardment and the 20th Pursuit Squadrons of the AAF would not fly again. VMF-211 was left with only three fully functional Wildcats. RAF 27 Squadron was reduced to just one plane. None of RAAF No. 21 Squadron's four flyable Buffaloes could be considered combat ready. Four key airfields had been taken out of operation entirely, and a fifth was marginally usable. The sheer magnitude and unexpected accuracy of Japanese bombardments left many witnesses on the ground in a state of shock. From the fighter base at Iba Field, frantic airmen chaotically abandoned their posts, literally taking to the hills in the aftermath of the heavy strike. Iba was so heavily cratered by the blasts that it was no longer used as an airfield. As at Iba, the devastation of Sungei Patani and Alor Star was complete; neither would be used again&3151;at least not by British air forces.
   From the frontline location at Kota Bharu, RAAF personnel evacuated the airfield in near panic when Japanese troops encroached on its borders just before sunset. Word of this Japanese occupation quickly spread to other frontline locations in Malaya. At the heavily bombarded Alor Star field, knowledge that enemy troops were motoring down the road in their direction motivated dazed RAF crews to feverishly patch up whatever aircraft they could in preparation to flee southward at dawn. The squadrons would be gone before a single gunshot had been fired.
   Clark Field was still operational, but just barely. Only a portion of one runway was usable, and most of the critical structures had been gutted by fire. To make matters worse, U.S. Army leadership demonstrated a nearly complete—and quite embarrassing—inability to cope with the carnage around the base. On the night of December 8, the living and the dead mingled together at Clark amid the wreckage of aircraft, trucks, and buildings in a macabre moonlit silence. Airplanes had to be serviced, but "the brass" could not agree who was responsible for collecting corpses and handling death records and burial services. That bizarre argument would persist for more than a week as bodies of the deceased Americans lay bloated and rotting on the runways and parking areas—a grotesque reminder that the United States was as mentally unprepared for war as it was militarily ill equipped.

   For Malaya, 9 December was much the same as the 8th in terms of Japanese air attacks and Allied losses. On the other hand, bad weather over Formosa prevented the major air strikes planned against the Philippines. Nevertheless, the Yanks managed to lose several aircraft and pilots in accidents during night operations on damaged airfields, and Major Grover comes in for another round of criticism of his handling of 24th Pursuit Group. Burton goes on to describe the dramatic events of 10 December 1941, including loss of Prince of Wales and Repulse, another round of Japanese air raids on Luzon, American attacks on the Japanese invasion fleet at Vigan, and downing of Captain Colin Kelly's B-17. (The author skips over the myth that Kelly sank a battleship.) If any doubt remained about Japanese control of the skies of southeast Asia after their strikes on the 8th, continued successes by the Emperor's airmen on the 10th proved the point.
   The final chapters of the book continue the same story. Burton describes more air-to-air combat—very little of which came out favorably for the Allies—and looks at constant withdrawals as the Japanese made more airfields untenable, the exploits of Pappy Gunn, action on Wake Island, more unsuccessful American air attacks which nevertheless received wide acclaim for wildly inflated victories, and General Brereton's comedy-of-errors departure from the Philippines. In one of the more remarkable aspects of operations in both Malaya and the Philippines, large numbers of Allied aircraft were lost to accidents and equipment failure.
   Burton devotes his final chapter, "To Fight Another Day," mostly to reviewing what went wrong for the Allies. He makes the point that no one in the US military establishment expected the Japanese to open hostilities with a strike at Pearl Harbor, yet the local commanders—General Short and Admiral Kimmel—were held accountable and dismissed amid considerable public humiliation. In the Philippines, on the other hand, MacArthur and Brereton had adequate warning of a strike that had been expected, in one form or another, for years (Burton doesn't address what additional secret sigint might have been made available to MacArthur), and they nevertheless failed to prevent a disaster that in many ways proved worse than the losses suffered in Hawaii. The result? Brereton, a senior airman caught with his pants down, went on to more important commands and MacArthur, who in the author's opinion deserves the bulk of the blame, became one of the most important generals of the war. Admiral Hart, judged by Burton as the only one of the three senior American commanders in Luzon to perform well, was soon retired. In Malaya, Brooke-Popham was transferred away from Singapore in the nick of time and escaped public inquiry into his role in the disaster. His subordinates, on the other hand, paid a high price for London's decision to strip Asian defenses to the bare minimum. In both Malaya and the Philippines, a large part of the Allied catastrophe stemmed from unwillingness to accept the competence of Japanese troops and commanders, and—even more—the extraordinary performance of Japanese aircraft and their pilots.

   After the first fortnight of battle, the Japanese were ready to shift their offensive into its next phase (and their primary objective): the seizure of the resource-rich Netherlands East Indies. Japan expanded the scale of its invasions during the Christian holiday to include Kuching (on the western side of Sarawak) and the island of Jolo (between Mindanao and northern Borneo). One could see an emerging parallel between the situations at Singapore and Hong Kong. As Japan swept through the islands south of Singapore, the "Gibraltar of the East" soon became just as isolated and nearly as vulnerable as Hong Kong had been at the start of the war.
   The upcoming campaign would no longer be Air Chief Marshal Sir Brooke-Popham's concern. Conveniently, the term of his leadership agreed upon before he was sent to Malaya would expire on December 28. General Sir Henry Pownall was already on his way to relieve the British Commander in Chief, Far East. Because of this changing of the guard, there would be no serious inquiry regarding Brooke-Popham's performance in the defense of Malaya. He would be gone before Singapore fell. Nor would there be any investigation of Admiral Tom Phillips's role in the leadership of the campaign—he had already paid the ultimate price.
   Brooke-Popham evidently came to understand some of the failings in the air campaign and had a few things to say about them. He issued a rather scathing confidential memorandum to Air Vice Marshal Pulford that remains one of the strongest appraisals of the RAF defense of Malaya—and, by proxy, Singapore....
   Pulford would bear this parting shot steadfastly and soldier on, leading the air units through the downfall of Singapore. A number of mid-level officers in charge of the Malayan air stations would be forced to stand before formal boards of inquiry at a later date. Pulford himself did not have to suffer the indignity of any official inquisition regarding his role in managing the air battle for Malaya. He died on a remote island between Singapore and Sumatra, when the Royal Navy patrol craft used for his evacuation came under attack and had to be abandoned. Seventeen of his companions, including Admiral Sir Phillips's [sic] successor. Rear Admiral E. J. Spooner, also perished. The others were eventually captured by the Japanese. Pulford's last words to General Percival at Singapore were "I suppose you and I will be held responsible for this, but God knows we did our best with what little we had been given."
   The British rout in Malaya had indeed been brought about by a failing in the employment of airpower. Even with an infusion of new fighter planes in January, the premature withdrawal from airfields in Malaya would come back to haunt the Far East Command. Too much valuable ground had been yielded, too soon. With Singapore Island air bases under constant attack by Japanese air forces, fighter dispersal and maintenance became a significant problem in January 1942. Without security in the skies above, the beleaguered defenders could not operate effectively, and the campaign was soon lost. Remarkably, very little blame for this was affixed to those in command at Singapore—despite evidence of some very poor decision making....
   On the U.S. side, only Admiral Thomas Hart and the leadership of his Asiatic Fleet emerge from history as being beyond reproach for their actions in the Philippines. In Manila, the navy faithfully followed its long-established prewar plans. If anything, Hart could receive criticism only for taking additional naval casualties by keeping too many people and resources on Luzon to assist the army.
   Significant failings in the command of Douglas MacArthur's USAFFE were essentially overlooked. In large part, this oversight could be attributed to media focus on the situation closer to home, in Hawaii. Political agenda makers followed only a few steps behind the press. To whip up the American public into a war-winning frenzy, it seemed necessary to appeal to the United States' innate disdain for unfair treatment. Shining a spotlight on the event that represented a "sneak attack" was a useful way to accomplish this....

   Of course, in the Philippines there was no "sneak attack."
   After his introductory chapters, even with the final wrapping up, for the most part Burton sticks mainly to tactical and operational issues, especially individual aircraft sorties and—as he says—taking the reader into the cockpit. Unlike Bartsch in December 8, 1941, Burton seems less inclined to examine higher level decision-making and strategic cause and effect. Although Fortnight of Infamy offers a few criticisms along the way, and provides some analysis in "To Fight Another Day," it doesn't approach the highly detailed assessment of professional incompetence found in Bartsch's book.
   Furthermore, as must be expected in a book researched and written sixty-five years after the event, Burton breaks little new ground. The original documents—those that survived, anyway—have already been thoroughly mined, and not many veterans remain to discuss the campaign. Even so, Fortnight of Infamy does a good job of utilizing the best resources, assembling all the facts, and producing an accurate, exciting account of the action. The strongest aspect of the book is the combination of all of southeast Asia within the scope of the investigation. Even at that, the book sometimes seems more like a conglomeration of separate actions rather than a seamless integration of the whole. In particular, while the Japanese perspective is by no means ignored, the overall planning and command of Japanese Army and Navy air units within the larger framework of the offensive is often overlooked, so that the clockwork appearance of Axis aircraft sometimes seems like a natural phenomenon inflicted on the Allies, rather than a result of decisions by JAAF and JNAF commanders and staffs. What mistakes were made by the Japanese? What internal squabbling did their officers face in preparing and carrying out the air offensive? How did they perceive the operation in retrospect? Those kinds of questions remain unanswered, and—other than a few noteworthy fighter pilots—most Japanese officers and commanders remain completely anonymous. Furthermore, despite setting the stage deftly with maps showing deployment of air units along with strengths and types of aircraft, the book never quite follows up with snapshots of OBs, deployments, or strengths of the opposing forces at any point after 8 December. That kind of information would make it easier to follow the ebb and flow of action.
   On the other hand, Burton does include a very nice appendix of "US and Australian Combat Aircraft Losses" from 8 through 25 December. This tabular compilation shows type of aircraft, serial number (where known), location of loss, reason for loss, unit, pilot (where known), and crew disposition (where known). The list begins with three Hudsons downed around Kota Baru and two PBY-4s strafed at Malalag Bay, and includes losses at Wake Island. For American losses, the table encompasses Army, Navy, and Marine aircraft. Note, however, that the table doesn't include British, New Zealand, or Dutch losses, and definitely no Japanese aircraft.
   Fortnight of Infamy proves somewhat derivative and omits a few pieces of the puzzle, but overall the author turns in a praise-worthy performance, especially for what appears to be his first book. No serious student will want to skip over Bartsch or Shores or Messimer or some of the other key volumes about this period, but Burton contributes a fine addition to the literature, and a good synthesis that will be sufficient for many readers. Recommended.
   Available from online booksellers, local bookshops, or directly from Naval Institute Press.
   Thanks to NIP for providing this review copy.