MWSA Review

Thomas M. Mitchell has provided an exhaustively researched and heavily annotated academic volume on a resolutely esoteric topic—the study of the developing discipline of oceanography and the new war-time skill of wave forecasting—and it often reads like a Michael Crichton thriller. He explains in authoritative but easily understood principles how knowing the nature and effect of ocean currents, winds, and waves helped the success of the World War II and key battles in Korea, saving actual lives.

"With very intricate planning, General Douglas MacArthur used the unfavorable bottom and tidal conditions at Inchon to surprise the North Koreans, who thought no one would dare attack at a location with so many natural obstacles."

This work trembles with the impressive weight of its research authority. The details are copious and vivid, and so extensive as to render this work as an important reference for future scientists, meteorologists, and history buffs alike. It is exhaustively well organized and, though the topic is necessarily technical in nature, the writing doesn't rely on pedantic recitation of wave science; instead, it offers a well-organized and accessible style that not only improves the reading experience but also improves the transfer of information. It's science, but it reads like a novel.

Before WWII, sea conditions were assessed using a system known as the Beaufort Scale that was developed in 1805 with anecdotal observations—based on what someone saw and reported. Hardly scientific. The U.S. Army saw the need to know more, and more reliable, information about winds and waves and how they interacted, and the first warrior meteorologists were commissioned. From Normandy to Tarawa to Inchon, their work affected not only how invaders came ashore during initial assaults, but also how essential follow-on tasks such as resupply and logistical needs were met.

The level of detail is as impressive as it is exhaustive, from tidal times to how many tanks made it to Normandy's Omaha and Utah beaches between 0540 and 0640 on D-Day (twenty-eight of fifty-seven skirted, dual-drive Shermans were swamped and lost).

A history buff will find a new favorite topic in Winds Waves & Warriors, and a new expert witness in Dr. Mitchell. Strongly, unequivocally recommended.

Review by Daniel Charles Ross (April 2020)

Author's Synopsis

Mention the word ‘oceanography’ in relation to the military, and for most people images of the navy come to mind. Wartime oceanography reaches farther though, to the lives and deaths of foot soldiers and marines. Invasions at Normandy and Sicily during WWII, and at Inchon in Korea, for example, would have been suicidal without knowledge of the ocean’s potential for disruption.

Winds, Waves, and Warriors is not a re-telling of the D-Day weather forecast. That story has been told many times. This book goes beyond the D-Day weather forecast to describe the oceanographic phenomena at Normandy June 6, 1944, and at other locations where US soldiers and marines fought the ocean just to reach the beach.

From America’s first D-Day landing at Vera Cruz during the War with Mexico, through the Korean War, the stories of the soldiers and marines who fought and died in these battles have been told mostly in terms of the military strategy, tactics, and maneuvers used to overcome the enemy. Winds, Waves, and Warriors tells of their struggles with a foe that sometimes was as formidable as the opposing army – the ocean. It explains how the ocean caused the havoc it sometimes did to provide a unique and insightful glimpse into this little-recognized, yet extraordinary aspect of ground warfare.

The challenge was to move men and equipment from ship to shore, through the surf, surviving both the enemy and the sea. Winds. Waves. Tides. Currents. Beach and bottom conditions. Weather and wave forecasting. For example, the oceanography of tides is explored so the reader understands the impact tides had on selected operations. What causes tides? Why is the tide range so great at some places and nearly imperceptible at others? Why do tides vary in range throughout the month and year at a given place? How did these factors affect the Normandy and Inchon landings? Did the enemy think the tides and other natural obstacles protected him at these places?

Clever methods to determine water depth, beach slope, underwater shoals, etc. were developed out of wartime necessity. An Army Air Corps lieutenant dug a hole on the beach at Normandy to help him predict tides more accurately. Decades before we had weather satellites, the Army’s Beach Erosion Board and research groups such as the Scripps Institution of Oceanography exploited basic concepts and principles of physical oceanography to develop crude, but effective instruments and techniques for ocean remote sensing and forecasting.

Winds, Waves, and Warriors goes beyond examining the role of oceanography in military operations to tell the stories of some of the people involved in these actions, and how they used the ocean to their advantage. Soldiers, marines, staff planners, commanders, oceanographers and meteorologists, and research institutions all contributed to some of the largest and most important military invasions in history.

The army commissioned courses in meteorology, primarily at UCLA and the University of Chicago, to teach Army Air Corps officers to forecast weather conditions. They later added a four-week course in oceanography and ocean wave forecasting at UCLA and Scripps Institution of Oceanography to teach selected graduates of the meteorology course to make detailed forecasts of beach and surf conditions at planned amphibious landing sites.  Several hundred officers completed the courses and went on to forecast for operations at Normandy, throughout Europe, and in the Pacific campaigns. The author had the pleasure and honor to interview and correspond with three of these remarkable gentlemen and one of the professors at Scripps who taught them.

ISBN/ASIN: 978-0-8071-7223-0
Book Format(s): Hard cover
Review Genre: Nonfiction—History
Number of Pages: 154