Abstract
Norman Polmar is a prolific naval author. I first met him in 1980 at Annapolis and he was the primary influence in my writing Vanguard to Trident for the Naval Institute Press. Dr Edward Whitman is a former Department of Defence civil servant with an background in electrical engineering and a former editor of the magazine Underwater Warfare They have joined forces to write a new history of anti-submarine warfare (ASW). In two volumes, splitting the story at the Allied victory over the U-boat in the Atlantic in May 1943.
The book begins, rather optimistically, with a description of the ‘operations’ of the supposed submarine Turtle in 1776, exposed many years ago as rebel propaganda by the late Richard Compton-Hall. The difficulty Americans have in accepting the truth of this completely unworkable hoax is quite remarkable. However, the precautionary measure taken by the British at reports of such potential activities might – perhaps – be seen as the first ASW effort. The book repeats other legends, like the old canard about Sir Arthur Wilson’s supposed denunciation of submarines, in 1901 – just as the British were embarking on the largest submarine building programme of the early Twentieth Century! Nick Lambert knocked that legend on the head several years ago. It is hard to understand why his important work on British submarine policy was was not consulted.
An even more important gap in research is missing the absolutely key study of British Anti-Submarine Capability 1919–39 by George Franklin. The authors repeat the old stories told by Captain Roskill about lack of preparation for ASW in Britain in this period, especially in the defence of merchant shipping. Franklin systematically exploded these influential myths and it would have been good if the authors of what purports to be a new comprehensive history had recognised this. The British were much better prepared for ASW than the authors argue. This is a great opportunity missed and a glaring mistake.
This is a pity as much of the book’s content is a sound enough account of ASW developments, especially in the USA and latterly in the USSR/Russia. The account of the World War Two campaigns in both volumes makes sense and I liked the willingness to accept Clay Blair’s critique of the extent of the Atlantic crisis in the Spring of 1943. However, the discussion of shipping requirements and availability is not developed sufficiently and reverts to simplistic notions that every ship was crucial. Each was important but not necessarily vital.
The post war period was indeed dominated by the super powers but the British were more important in ASW than implied by the rather throwaway comments in Volume 2. The Mk X mortar was an excellent weapon for its day worthy of some mention, as was the RN’s pioneering work with weapons delivery helicopters for ASW frigates and towed array frigates, that, for a time reversed the effectiveness of submarines and surface ships as ASW assets.
More importantly, British ASW leadership in NATO Striking Fleet operations in the 1980s is completely overlooked. The ASW Striking Force that grouped a British ASW carrier with an international set of towed array surface assets deserved at least a mention. It was a crucial part of the shift in Allied strategy that substituted forward operations for an emphasis on convoy escort. The ASW Striking Force, as I found out in its flagship on exercise ‘Teamwork’ in 1988, was to draw Soviet submarines to their destruction as they tried to attack the NATO Carrier Striking Fleet. The book’s argument that, contrary to persistent NATO conviction, the Soviet Navy never contemplated a real ‘Third Battle of the Atlantic’ against NATO reinforcement shipping is an interesting and probably valid one with a considerable impact on this development.
Another strange gap is the lack of reference to ‘Operation Barmaid’, HMS Conqueror’s daring operation to cut and recover a towed sonar array from a Warsaw Pact intelligence gatherer. This has been publicised for some time. Perhaps the American authors find it a little embarrassing that a British submarine had to be used for such a tricky operation, rather than an American boat. This has some impact also on the rather limited approach taken by the authors to United States SSN capabilities; it is clear that British boats can do things US ones cannot, something that is still true.
Perhaps the most important positive part of the whole book is Volume 2’s excellent chapter on the SOSUS sound area surveillance system that truly revolutionised Cold War ASW. There is, however, rather too much in later chapters on contemporary Cold War commentary of rather unrealistic concepts of ‘strategic ASW’ and a contemporary tendency to talk up Soviet capabilities and talk down western. Criticisms of the loss of expertise in ASW in the post-Cold War period are very well made, although one doubts that Russian or Chinese future capabilities offer quite such a challenge as the authors argue in their conclusion.
It is a pity that the study stops just as the strategic situation has changed to the current one of potential state on state conflict rather than the ‘inter war period’ from which we have just emerged when the dynamics of ASW seemed to have morphed into littoral warfare against conventionally powered boats. Norman Polmar, a long-standing enthusiast for these submarines, cannot resist a tilt at the US Navy’s policy of emphasis on nuclear power. It is true that conventionally powered submarines seemed to emerge as the main threat in the last decades. They remain so, although not an overwhelming one as the tactics a nuclear powered submarine can use decisively to outmanoeuvre them are easily underestimated. Moreover, in the new strategic world, nuclear powered submarines are re-emerging as the main enemies again.
These are useful, interesting and well produced volumes but they are not quite ‘the most in depth history of ASW’ yet published. There are too many gaps in research and resulting serious errors of analysis. They are far from being the final word on the subject.