Abstract
Professor Trimble has written a number of excellent scholarly books on early US naval aviation and the individuals behind it; perhaps the best known is a 1993 biography of Admiral William Moffett. The present book extends his work into World War II. A great deal has been written about the events of 1941–1945 in the Pacific, but Trimble contributes here a very high level of scholarship and attention to detail.
‘Slew’ McCain is not as well known as other senior commanders of the wartime US Navy in the Pacific, such as Chester Nimitz, Bill Halsey, Raymond Spruance or Marc Mitscher. To Americans he may be known through his grandson, the late Senator John McCain III, who ran unsuccessfully for President in 2008. The lack of public familiarity with the older McCain also stems from his early death; he suffered a heart attack in September 1945, two days after returning to San Diego, exhausted by the war. It would perhaps be an exaggeration to put him among the very top builders of naval air power; McCain was commander of the ‘fast carriers’ of Task Force 38 (under Bill Halsey) for only four months. This was in the last period of the war, when the Japanese sea-going forces had already been defeated by other admirals. And appointment to TF 38 came partly from the patronage of Admiral Ernest King, and to some extent against the better judgement of Nimitz, Mitscher and Admiral John Towers. Unlike Towers and Mitscher, McCain was not even a pioneer aviator, having opted for the aviation branch as what was called a ‘Johnny Come Lately’ in 1935, at the age of 51.
Even so, McCain was a highly ambitious officer and he played an important role both in Washington and the Pacific. Professor Trimble’s biography is both a comprehensive treatment of the ‘aviator’ period of McCain’s career, and a thoughtful discussion of the workings of the higher echelons of the US Navy over a decade. There is much information here about McCain’s work in Washington, especially in 1943–1944 when he was chief of the Navy’s Bureau of Aeronautics (BuAer) and then Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (Air), albeit under the thumb of Ernest King and caught in the byzantine naval politics of the time. His actions at the second level of operational command were also significant; he was overall commander of land-based air formations in the South Pacific in 1942 (under Vice Adm. Ghormley) and commander of a carrier ‘task group’ in the Battle of Leyte Gulf (under Mitscher). His career was caught up in some controversy, and Trimble is certainly not uncritical, objectively laying out shortcomings and achievements. Fortunately, when McCain came in for criticism, he faced it in good company. In the case of the Battle of Savo Island it was with Kelly Turner, and in the case of the damage suffered by the fleet in the typhoons of 1944 and 1945 it was with Halsey himself.
One might have liked more about McCain’s personality or family life (although there is an interesting first chapter including his background in the rural South). Mitscher’s biographer, Theodore Taylor, described McCain as ‘a volatile little man from Mississippi’ (Magnificent Mitscher, p. 246). But unlike earlier biographers of naval leaders, writing in the 1960s and 1970s (such as Thomas Buell, Clark Reynolds or Elmer Potter), Trimble was too late to interview many senior colleagues or family members. Overall, this is an excellent, well-written book, making extensive use of primary sources and presenting sound judgements.