Bath, Alan Harris. Tracking the Axis Enemy: The Triumph of Anglo-American Naval Intelligence. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1998

ISBN 0-7006-0917-2
308 pages

Preface; Notes; Selected Bibliography; Index.

University Press of Kansas has developed a top-notch military publishing program including, among other successes, this year's highly-regarded Stopped at Stalingrad by Joel Hayward and Stumbling Colossus by David Glantz. Another 1998 product of UPK is Tracking the Axis Enemy by Alan Harris Bath.

Unlike the books by Hayward and Glantz -- both of which appealed to the relatively large audience for material about the Russian Front -- Bath's subject matter is far more specialized and obscure: the administrative history of Allied interaction in the realm of naval intelligence. Tracking the Axis Enemy is not about how secrets gleaned by Allied intelligence helped decide the outcome of the war, neither is it about just what those secrets were, or even how the Allies obtained the secrets. Instead, Bath writes about the gradual evolution of Anglo-American coordination, cooperation, and collaboration in regard to naval intelligence. In a sense, what we have here is the history of bureaucracies and administrative procedures.

Upon outbreak of the war in Europe, the flow of information between London and Washington, DC about the naval forces and capabilities of the Axis nations was almost nonexistent. Still neutral, and with the Roosevelt administration constrained by Isolationist sentiment, the US Navy was in no hurry to rush into active intelligence-sharing activities with the Royal Navy. Similarly, the admirals of the RN could in 1939 see no compelling reason to provide hard-won intelligence "product" to the United States without receiving something of value in exchange. At a more personal and practical level, coordination and cooperation were stymied by a certain amount of Anglophobia among the top brass of the USN while the Admiralty held genuine concerns about the ability of the USN and its civilian overseers to keep its secrets. There was also the feeling, as Bath puts it, that "Anglo-American cooperation meant adoption of British ways."

Spurred in large measure by the top-level contacts between Winston Churchill (as head of the Admiralty and then Prime Minister) and President Franklin D. Roosevelt, this state of affairs would not last for long. A series of personal emissaries -- notably William J. "Wild Bill" Donovan, who would go on to form the Office of Strategic Services -- from Roosevelt to London began to move the American Office of Naval Intelligence and the Admiralty's Naval Intelligence Division and their controlling bodies toward closer coordination. With German victory over France, Britain's sudden vulnerability, and the ascension of Churchill to wartime leadership in London, the RN's policy was fully reformed from quid pro quo exchanges to one of generously preparing for the day when modest cooperation would blossom into full collaboration and alliance. In much the same way, as the USN became embroiled in the U-boat war even while still at peace, the pressure for fuller exchanges grew stronger.

This coming together of naval intelligence infrastructure was by no means smooth or without setbacks. Bath makes it clear that inter-Allied cooperation was in many instances hindered by personalities, local turf battles, bureaucratic red tape, and in-house power struggles that had nothing to do with international relations. On the American side of the Atlantic, there were disagreements over which Navy organizations would be responsible for which aspects of intelligence gathering, analysis, and dissemination. There were also many instances of what in later years would be called the "not invented here" syndrome as not all players proved entirely willing to accept the advice or experience of British intelligence experts. This was true not only of Anglo-American dealings, but could be further exacerbated by the inclusion of the governments and intelligence agencies of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, all of which played important roles. For example, Bath relates how some years before the war the Canadian navy sought advice on setting up its own intelligence organization.

   The Admiralty was cool to the suggestion, replying that the Canadian navy had not yet reached a state of development that would call for a separate intelligence organization.... Thanking the Admiralty for its advice...the Canadians proceeded to establish an independent naval intelligence capability.

Although allied in the war against the Axis, each player had its own national interests. Canada in particular wanted to deal directly with the United States on, among other issues, naval intelligence matters, rather than being treated as an outpost of London. There were also differences of opinion about the best techniques -- and indeed the overall value of -- intelligence methods such as POW interrogation, aerial photo-reconnaissance, traffic analysis, "Y" intercepts, and so on. Likewise, Allied agreement and cooperation did not always function as fully in the Pacific as they did in the Atlantic.

In the long run, though, the spirit of assisting and sharing continued to grow and bear fruit. The USN, for example, adopted the British "tracking room" system (for keeping tabs on enemy ships, in particular U-boats) with much success. More and more each Allied intelligence agency was charged with one particular area of specialization, with the results of this specialized work then shared fully among the appropriate Allied departments. Nowhere was this more successful than in the U-boat campaign, and Bath ranks such collaboration as the most important aspect of wartime combined activities.

   ...[W]as the cooperative effort of greater value than the sum of its parts? Nowhere is the worth of this synergism better demonstrated than in the use of communications intelligence during the Battle of the Atlantic. The Americans' sometimes reckless zeal to produce the most helpful product was tempered by well-founded British concern about protecting the source of the information. As Kenneth Knowles put it, "Perhaps it is fair to say that the British were more clever in its [ULTRA's] use, and we, more daring." Combining these talents produced a vastly superior product than could have been achieved individually.

Bath also shows how, just as the levels of cooperation and collaboration rose when the threat to America and Britain were greatest, those levels declined as Allied victory became more certain. Unlike the period following World War I, however, the aftermath of World War II saw Anglo-American agreements that kept in place certain aspects of the wartime combined naval intelligence structure.

Admirably researched and written though it is, Tracking the Axis Enemy is unlikely to appeal to readers other than those interested in this specific subject matter: the bureaucracy of inter-Allied naval intelligence gathering and dissemination in WWII. It's a solid, academic treatment of a topic that simply has no zest or drama.

Available from online booksellers, local bookshops, or directly from University Press of Kansas.

Thanks to UPK for providing this review copy.