Journal of Military History
Vol. 88, No. 4
October 2024
Articles
“‘I Have Never Seen the Hour in Which I Regretted Having Enlisted’: The Motivation Bolstering Union Occupation Troops at the Dry Tortugas and Key West, Florida, 1862–1864,” by Angela Zombek, The Journal of Military History 88:4 (October 2024): 893–922
During the American Civil War, many Union volunteers occupied Southern towns after conquering them through active military campaigns, but the 90th and 91st New York, 47th Pennsylvania, and 7th New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry occupied Key West and Fort Jefferson (Dry Tortugas), Florida as their first assignment prior to experiencing combat. Though they were stationed in the most remote locations that the U.S. held in the South, these volunteers felt connected to the Union war effort and to the issues that it inspired. The New York, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire soldiers revered commanding officers of the Regular Army and believed that their assignment to garrison these strategic military and economic points was compatible with the American conceptualization of the citizen-soldier and integral to the Union cause.
“Rescuing Heritage from Humiliation: The Navalist Reinterpretation of the Sino-French and Sino-Japanese Wars,” by Tommy Jamison, The Journal of Military History 88:4 (October 2024): 923–48
In the late-nineteenth century, U.S. “navalist” historians reinterpreted defeat in the War of 1812 as an argument for an ocean-going battlefleet. Something similar is underway in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as historians and propogandists reimagine the Qing Dynasty’s defeats in the Sino-French (1883–1885) and Sino-Japanese Wars (1894–1895) as sources of naval heritage. Discarding Mao-era orthodoxies, the navalist reinterpretation rescues an origin story for Chinese sea power from the “century of national humiliation.” As in the nineteenth-century United States, historical example and myth stress China’s identity as a maritime state and contextualize the ongoing modernization of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). By highlighting these parallel revisionist efforts, this article draws attention to the instrumentalization of historical memory in the service of navalism as well as the comparative history of the United States and China: two continental empires that justified battlefleet navies.
“Destroyer Demobilization Plan 5: Fighter-Director Destroyers at Okinawa and the Limits of Strategic Capacity,” by Christopher Waddell, The Journal of Military History 88:4 (October 2024): 949–78
Specially modified fighter-director destroyers were critical to amphibious air defense against Japanese suicide air attacks during the Battle of Okinawa from April to June 1945. They suffered extremely high and unanticipated losses, especially during the first month of the battle. This paper analyzes the operational and strategic impacts of insufficient initial resourcing and the high losses. Insufficient numbers of fighter-director-equipped destroyers forced ad hoc assignment of available ships incapable of adequately defending themselves. This prevented the development of effective doctrine and degraded fleet readiness, affecting future operations in the summer of 1945.
“Fête Diplomacy and the American Military Government’s Cultural Mission in Postwar Germany,” by Brandon Kinney, The Journal of Military History 88:4 (October 2024): 979–1001
In 1948, the United States military government (OMGUS) played a crucial but invisible role in helping Germans in the western zones of occupation celebrate the centennial of the German Revolution of 1848. American officials viewed these celebrations as an important component in the democratization of Germany and as a means of demonstrating German-American cultural reconciliation in a highly public manner. Caught in an ambiguous, transitional period between punitive occupation and full civilian control, OMGUS pursued cultural diplomacy in the hopes that concretizing an ideological and cultural relationship based on history and shared values would help reorient German democracy and create a stable partner in central Europe, thereby serving long-term strategic goals in the Cold War.
“Why did Congress Amend the Articles of War after World War II?” By Fred L. Borch, The Journal of Military History 88:4 (October 2024): 1002–27
In 1948 and again in 1950, Congress made significant changes to the military criminal legal system in the U.S. armed forces. It abolished the army’s Articles of War (and the navy’s counterpart) and created a new criminal code that was uniformly applicable to all the services, including the newly created air force. This article examines the social and cultural factors that were the impetus for congressional reform and demonstrates that there was a definite link between the post-World War II changes to military criminal law and earlier reform efforts that occurred after World War I.
“Soldiers’ and Dayak Sense of Self and Other on Borneo during Confrontation between Britain and Indonesia, 1962–66,” by Matthew Hughes, The Journal of Military History 88:4 (October 2024): 1028–61
Confrontation on Borneo tests a thesis on counterinsurgency: winning hearts and minds succeeds if object place/people win over the hearts and minds of subject counterinsurgency soldiers. This psychological transformation depends on fixed objects that counterinsurgency cannot easily change: the counterinsurgency destination and the counterinsurgents’ place of origin that formed soldiers’ unconscious selves. Soldiers encountered on Borneo a transformative, attractive, alien destination that changed their behavior. Soldiers then ratified unconscious behavior by asserting that the cause was their innate decency and official hearts and minds policy. But Borneo had formed the unconscious self that gave form to hearts and minds. This article argues that altered states of being shape counterinsurgency.
Adams Center 2023 Cold War Essay Contest Winner
“Getting ‘On the NATO Map’: Marine Corps Innovation and Late Cold War Exercises, 1975–1978,” by Brian Donlon, The Journal of Military History 88:4 (October 2024): 1062–84
“Getting ‘On the NATO Map’: Marine Corps Innovation and Late Cold War Exercises, 1975–1978,” by Brian Donlon, The Journal of Military History 88:4 (October 2024): 1062–84
This article examines two pairs of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) exercises—Teamwork/Bonded Item 76 and Northern Wedding/Bold Guard 78—that had a significant impact on the United States Marine Corps of the late Cold War. These exercises reversed the service’s previous ineptitude, repairing its reputation in NATO and helping to quiet U.S. critics of the corps. More importantly, they spurred innovation and boosted deterrence, inspiring enduring changes in service training, equipment, and doctrine while also increasing Soviet perceptions of the conventional threat posed to their flanks. This article adds both to the study of peacetime military change and the historiography of the late Cold War.
Book Reviews:
Machiavelli on War, by Christopher Lynch, reviewed by Timothy J. Lukes and by Sean Erwin, 1085–88
Uncertain Warriors: The United States Army Between the Cold War and the War on Terror, by David Fitzgerald, reviewed by Mark R. Folse and by John Worsencroft, 1089–92
Persia Triumphant in Greece: Xerxes’ Invasion: Thermopylae, Artemisium, and the Destruction of Athens, by Manousos E. Kambouris, reviewed by Glenn R. Bugh, 1092–94
The Ptolemies, Rise of a Dynasty: Ptolemaic Egypt 330–246 BC; and The Ptolemies, Apogee and Collapse: Ptolemaic Egypt 246–146 BC, by John D. Grainger, reviewed by Brian Muhs, 1094–96
The Army of Ptolemaic Egypt, 323–204 BC: An Institutional and Operational History, by Paul Johstono, reviewed by Jonathan P. Roth, 1097–98
Vandal Heaven: Reinterpreting Post-Roman North Africa, by Simon Elliot, reviewed by R. Bruce Hitchner, 1099–1100
The Life and Legend of the Sultan Saladin, by Jonathan Phillips, reviewed by Bart Talbert, 1100–2
Geoffroy of Villehardouin, Marshal of Champagne: His Life and Memoirs of the Fourth Crusade, by Theodore Evergates, reviewed by Kyle C. Lincoln, 1102–3
They Called It Peace: Worlds of Imperial Violence, by Lauren Benton, reviewed by Tony R. Mullis, 1103–5
The Great Defiance: How the World Took on the British Empire, by David Veevers, reviewed by Padraic X. Scanlan, 1105–7
Indian Wars Everywhere: Colonial Violence and the Shadow Doctrines of Empire, by Stefan Aune, reviewed by Justin F. Jackson, 1107–8
The Compleat Victory: Saratoga and the American Revolution, by Kevin J. Weddle, reviewed by Andrew O’Shaughnessy, 1109–10
Russia’s Turkish War: The Tsarist Army and the Balkan Peoples in the Nineteenth Century, by Victor Taki, reviewed by Lucien Frary, 1110–12
The Crimean War and Cultural Memory: The War France Won and Forgot, by Sima Godfrey, reviewed by Daniel J. Sherman, 1112–14
American Civil Wars: A Continental History, 1850–1873, by Alan Taylor, reviewed by Earl J. Hess, 1114–15
The Army under Fire: The Politics of Antimilitarism in the Civil War Era, by Cecily N. Zander, reviewed by Andrew F. Lang, 1115–17
Miserable Little Conglomeration: A Social History of the Port Hudson Campaign, by Christopher Thrasher, reviewed by Debra Sheffer, 1117–19
The Cassville Affairs: Johnston, Hood, and the Failed Confederate Strategy in the Atlanta Campaign, 19 May 1864, by Robert D. Jenkins Sr., reviewed by Heath M. Anderson, 1119–21
War on Record: The Archive and the Afterlife of the Civil War, by Yael A. Sternhell, reviewed by G. David Schieffler, 1121–22
Sea Power and the American Interest: From the Civil War to the Great War, by John Fass Morton, reviewed by Alan M. Anderson, 1123–24
Bismarck’s War: The Franco-Prussian War and the Making of Modern Europe, by Rachel Chrastil, reviewed by Timothy C. Dowling, 1124–26
African American State Volunteers in the New South: Race, Masculinity, and the Militia in Georgia, Texas, and Virginia, 1871–1906, by John Patrick Blair, reviewed by Alexander M. Bielakowski, 1126–28
The Book at War: How Reading Shaped Conflict and Conflict Shaped Reading, by Andrew Pettegree, reviewed by E. J. Christie, 1128–29
Massacre in the Clouds: An American Atrocity and the Erasure of History, by Kim A. Wagner, reviewed by Adrian De Leon, 1130–31
Fighting From Above: A Combat History of the US Air Force, by Brian D. Laslie, reviewed by Nate Padgett, 1131–33
Strategy and Command: The Anglo-French Coalition on the Western Front, 1915, by Roy A. Prete, reviewed by Michael A. Boden, 1133–35
Genocidal Conscription: Drafting Victims and Perpetrators under the Guise of War, by Christopher Harrison, reviewed by David J. Simon, 1135–36
A Nasty Little War: The Western Intervention into the Russian Civil War, by Anna Reid, reviewed by Paul J. Welch Behringer, 1137–38
The Soviet-Polish War and Its Legacy: Lenin’s Defeat and the Rise of Stalinism, by Peter Whitewood, reviewed by Jerzy Borzecki, 1138–40
Fighting Retreat: Churchill and India, by Walter Reid, reviewed by Richard Toye, 1140–41
Franco’s Pirates: Naval Aspects of the Spanish Civil War 1936–39, by E. R. Hooton, reviewed by Angus Konstam, 1141–43
Bernhard Sindberg: The Schindler of Nanjing, by Peter Harmsen, reviewed by Daqing Yang, 1143–44
Stalin as Warlord, by Alfred J. Rieber, reviewed by David R. Stone, 1144–46
The Big Three Allies and the European Resistance: Intelligence, Politics, and the Origins of the Cold War, 1939–1945, by Tommaso Piffer, reviewed by Ryan Shaffer, 1146–48
Blue Water War: Maritime Struggle in the Mediterranean and Middle East, 1940–1945, by Brian E. Walter, reviewed by Robert B. Kane, 1148–49
The Convoy, HG-76: Taking the Fight to Hitler’s U-Boats, by Angus Konstam, reviewed by Steven S. Minniear, 1150–51
The Crisis of British Sea Power: The Collapse of a Naval Hegemon 1942, by James P. Levy, reviewed by John R. Satterfield, 1151–53
Traces of Aerial Bombing in Berlin: Entangled Remembering, by Eloise Florence, reviewed by Douglas Peifer, 1153–54
Mastering the Art of Command: Admiral Chester W. Nimitz and Victory in the Pacific, by Trent Hone; and Nimitz at War: Command Leadership from Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay, by Craig L. Symonds, reviewed by Timothy J. Orr, 1155–58
Sicily 1943: The German View, by Pier Paolo Battistelli, reviewed by Klaus Schmider, 1158–59
From World War to Postwar: Revolution, Cold War, Decolonization, and the Rise of American Hegemony, 1943–1958, by Andrew N. Buchanan, reviewed by Donald Stoker, 1160–61
Derricks’ Bridgehead: The 597th Field Artillery Battalion, 92nd Division, and the Leadership Legacy of Colonel Wendell T. Derricks, by Major Clark, edited by Vivian Clark-Adams and Wenona Clark, reviewed by John M. Hinck, 1161–63
Breaking Point: The Ironic Evolution of Psychiatry in World War II, by Rebecca Schwartz Greene, reviewed by John M. Kinder, 1163–64
World War Two Simulated: Digital Games and Reconfigurations of the Past, by Curtis D. Carbonell, reviewed by Robert Whitaker, 1165–66
Tripped: Nazi Germany, the CIA, and the Dawn of the Psychedelic Age, by Norman Ohler, reviewed by Gates M. Brown, 1166–67
Black Soldiers in the Rhodesian Army: Colonialism, Professionalism, and Race, by M. T. Howard, reviewed by Luise White, 1168–69
Nostalgic Virility as a Cause of War: How Leaders of Great Powers Cope with Status Decline, by Matthieu Grandpierron, reviewed by Paul K. MacDonald, 1169–71
Tactical Inclusion: Difference and Vulnerability in U.S. Military Advertising, by Jeremiah Favara, reviewed by Michel M. Haigh, 1171–73
The Shining Path in Huancavelica, Peru: Conflict and the Legacy of Exclusion, by Nicholas A. Robins, reviewed by Anna Cant, 1173–74
Weapons in Space: Technology, Politics, and the Rise and Fall of the Strategic Defense Initiative, by Aaron Bateman, reviewed by James F. Pasley, 1175–76
Charging a Tyrant: The Arraignment of Saddam Hussein, by Greg Slavonic, reviewed by Daniel Chardell, 1176–78
The Russian Art of War: How the West Led Ukraine to Defeat, by Jacques Baud, reviewed by Anton Fedyashin, 1178–80
BOOKS RECEIVED: 1181–83
RECENT JOURNAL ARTICLES: 1184–91
DOCTORAL DISSERTATIONS IN MILITARY HISTORY: 1192–1202
Machiavelli on War, by Christopher Lynch, reviewed by Timothy J. Lukes and by Sean Erwin, 1085–88
Uncertain Warriors: The United States Army Between the Cold War and the War on Terror, by David Fitzgerald, reviewed by Mark R. Folse and by John Worsencroft, 1089–92
Persia Triumphant in Greece: Xerxes’ Invasion: Thermopylae, Artemisium, and the Destruction of Athens, by Manousos E. Kambouris, reviewed by Glenn R. Bugh, 1092–94
The Ptolemies, Rise of a Dynasty: Ptolemaic Egypt 330–246 BC; and The Ptolemies, Apogee and Collapse: Ptolemaic Egypt 246–146 BC, by John D. Grainger, reviewed by Brian Muhs, 1094–96
The Army of Ptolemaic Egypt, 323–204 BC: An Institutional and Operational History, by Paul Johstono, reviewed by Jonathan P. Roth, 1097–98
Vandal Heaven: Reinterpreting Post-Roman North Africa, by Simon Elliot, reviewed by R. Bruce Hitchner, 1099–1100
The Life and Legend of the Sultan Saladin, by Jonathan Phillips, reviewed by Bart Talbert, 1100–2
Geoffroy of Villehardouin, Marshal of Champagne: His Life and Memoirs of the Fourth Crusade, by Theodore Evergates, reviewed by Kyle C. Lincoln, 1102–3
They Called It Peace: Worlds of Imperial Violence, by Lauren Benton, reviewed by Tony R. Mullis, 1103–5
The Great Defiance: How the World Took on the British Empire, by David Veevers, reviewed by Padraic X. Scanlan, 1105–7
Indian Wars Everywhere: Colonial Violence and the Shadow Doctrines of Empire, by Stefan Aune, reviewed by Justin F. Jackson, 1107–8
The Compleat Victory: Saratoga and the American Revolution, by Kevin J. Weddle, reviewed by Andrew O’Shaughnessy, 1109–10
Russia’s Turkish War: The Tsarist Army and the Balkan Peoples in the Nineteenth Century, by Victor Taki, reviewed by Lucien Frary, 1110–12
The Crimean War and Cultural Memory: The War France Won and Forgot, by Sima Godfrey, reviewed by Daniel J. Sherman, 1112–14
American Civil Wars: A Continental History, 1850–1873, by Alan Taylor, reviewed by Earl J. Hess, 1114–15
The Army under Fire: The Politics of Antimilitarism in the Civil War Era, by Cecily N. Zander, reviewed by Andrew F. Lang, 1115–17
Miserable Little Conglomeration: A Social History of the Port Hudson Campaign, by Christopher Thrasher, reviewed by Debra Sheffer, 1117–19
The Cassville Affairs: Johnston, Hood, and the Failed Confederate Strategy in the Atlanta Campaign, 19 May 1864, by Robert D. Jenkins Sr., reviewed by Heath M. Anderson, 1119–21
War on Record: The Archive and the Afterlife of the Civil War, by Yael A. Sternhell, reviewed by G. David Schieffler, 1121–22
Sea Power and the American Interest: From the Civil War to the Great War, by John Fass Morton, reviewed by Alan M. Anderson, 1123–24
Bismarck’s War: The Franco-Prussian War and the Making of Modern Europe, by Rachel Chrastil, reviewed by Timothy C. Dowling, 1124–26
African American State Volunteers in the New South: Race, Masculinity, and the Militia in Georgia, Texas, and Virginia, 1871–1906, by John Patrick Blair, reviewed by Alexander M. Bielakowski, 1126–28
The Book at War: How Reading Shaped Conflict and Conflict Shaped Reading, by Andrew Pettegree, reviewed by E. J. Christie, 1128–29
Massacre in the Clouds: An American Atrocity and the Erasure of History, by Kim A. Wagner, reviewed by Adrian De Leon, 1130–31
Fighting From Above: A Combat History of the US Air Force, by Brian D. Laslie, reviewed by Nate Padgett, 1131–33
Strategy and Command: The Anglo-French Coalition on the Western Front, 1915, by Roy A. Prete, reviewed by Michael A. Boden, 1133–35
Genocidal Conscription: Drafting Victims and Perpetrators under the Guise of War, by Christopher Harrison, reviewed by David J. Simon, 1135–36
A Nasty Little War: The Western Intervention into the Russian Civil War, by Anna Reid, reviewed by Paul J. Welch Behringer, 1137–38
The Soviet-Polish War and Its Legacy: Lenin’s Defeat and the Rise of Stalinism, by Peter Whitewood, reviewed by Jerzy Borzecki, 1138–40
Fighting Retreat: Churchill and India, by Walter Reid, reviewed by Richard Toye, 1140–41
Franco’s Pirates: Naval Aspects of the Spanish Civil War 1936–39, by E. R. Hooton, reviewed by Angus Konstam, 1141–43
Bernhard Sindberg: The Schindler of Nanjing, by Peter Harmsen, reviewed by Daqing Yang, 1143–44
Stalin as Warlord, by Alfred J. Rieber, reviewed by David R. Stone, 1144–46
The Big Three Allies and the European Resistance: Intelligence, Politics, and the Origins of the Cold War, 1939–1945, by Tommaso Piffer, reviewed by Ryan Shaffer, 1146–48
Blue Water War: Maritime Struggle in the Mediterranean and Middle East, 1940–1945, by Brian E. Walter, reviewed by Robert B. Kane, 1148–49
The Convoy, HG-76: Taking the Fight to Hitler’s U-Boats, by Angus Konstam, reviewed by Steven S. Minniear, 1150–51
The Crisis of British Sea Power: The Collapse of a Naval Hegemon 1942, by James P. Levy, reviewed by John R. Satterfield, 1151–53
Traces of Aerial Bombing in Berlin: Entangled Remembering, by Eloise Florence, reviewed by Douglas Peifer, 1153–54
Mastering the Art of Command: Admiral Chester W. Nimitz and Victory in the Pacific, by Trent Hone; and Nimitz at War: Command Leadership from Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay, by Craig L. Symonds, reviewed by Timothy J. Orr, 1155–58
Sicily 1943: The German View, by Pier Paolo Battistelli, reviewed by Klaus Schmider, 1158–59
From World War to Postwar: Revolution, Cold War, Decolonization, and the Rise of American Hegemony, 1943–1958, by Andrew N. Buchanan, reviewed by Donald Stoker, 1160–61
Derricks’ Bridgehead: The 597th Field Artillery Battalion, 92nd Division, and the Leadership Legacy of Colonel Wendell T. Derricks, by Major Clark, edited by Vivian Clark-Adams and Wenona Clark, reviewed by John M. Hinck, 1161–63
Breaking Point: The Ironic Evolution of Psychiatry in World War II, by Rebecca Schwartz Greene, reviewed by John M. Kinder, 1163–64
World War Two Simulated: Digital Games and Reconfigurations of the Past, by Curtis D. Carbonell, reviewed by Robert Whitaker, 1165–66
Tripped: Nazi Germany, the CIA, and the Dawn of the Psychedelic Age, by Norman Ohler, reviewed by Gates M. Brown, 1166–67
Black Soldiers in the Rhodesian Army: Colonialism, Professionalism, and Race, by M. T. Howard, reviewed by Luise White, 1168–69
Nostalgic Virility as a Cause of War: How Leaders of Great Powers Cope with Status Decline, by Matthieu Grandpierron, reviewed by Paul K. MacDonald, 1169–71
Tactical Inclusion: Difference and Vulnerability in U.S. Military Advertising, by Jeremiah Favara, reviewed by Michel M. Haigh, 1171–73
The Shining Path in Huancavelica, Peru: Conflict and the Legacy of Exclusion, by Nicholas A. Robins, reviewed by Anna Cant, 1173–74
Weapons in Space: Technology, Politics, and the Rise and Fall of the Strategic Defense Initiative, by Aaron Bateman, reviewed by James F. Pasley, 1175–76
Charging a Tyrant: The Arraignment of Saddam Hussein, by Greg Slavonic, reviewed by Daniel Chardell, 1176–78
The Russian Art of War: How the West Led Ukraine to Defeat, by Jacques Baud, reviewed by Anton Fedyashin, 1178–80
BOOKS RECEIVED: 1181–83
RECENT JOURNAL ARTICLES: 1184–91
DOCTORAL DISSERTATIONS IN MILITARY HISTORY: 1192–1202
