200000 Miles aboard the Destroyer Cotten (Audible Audio Edition) C Snelling Robinson James Killavey University Press Audiobooks Books
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In mid-1943, Snelling Robinson joined the crew of the Fletcher class destroyer USS Cotten as a newly commissioned ensign. The Cotten sailed to Pearl Harbor in time to join the Fifth Fleet. Under the command of Admiral Raymond Spruance, the Fifth Fleet participated in the invasions of Tarawa and Iwo Jima and several naval battles in the Philippine Sea and the Leyte Gulf. Robinson writes from the perspective of a young naval officer and integrates this with the background of the larger conflict, including the politics of command.
200000 Miles aboard the Destroyer Cotten (Audible Audio Edition) C Snelling Robinson James Killavey University Press Audiobooks Books
Review of 200,000 Miles Aboard the Destroyer Cotton by C. Snelling Robinson200,000 Miles Aboard the Destroyer Cotton is an odd kind of book. In a sense, it's an expanded logbook of a World War II era destroyer fighting the war in the Pacific. On the other hand, it's also the personal memoir of a 20-year-old Harvard ROTC graduate inducted into the Navy not long after the war began. Finally, it's also a military history told from the narrow perspective of the guns and bridge of the Fletcher class destroyer. Put these all together and it's a well-rounded book that gives a sense of the day-to-day life of a young officer serving in America's Pacific Fleets, the strategy and tactics of those two great fleets under Adm.'s Halsey and Spruance, and finally, a realistic view of the desperate measures and enormous risks are Navy undertook in fighting the forces of Imperial Japan.
There is no question that the author Robinson is a "Harvard Man." Only 20 years old when he began service as an ensign and was given charge of the ship's antiaircraft weaponry, Robinson was clearly quick-witted, ambitious, but also, one senses perhaps a bit lacking in sensitivity to those not so fortunate as himself. While the book goes into great detail as to the actions of the officers of the ship, there's virtually no mention of enlisted men, even the men he trained and personally led. It's clear that as a young man, his focus was on serving those above him, and doing his best in all that he undertook.
One of the more interesting facets of the book is the kind of mutual blindness that seems to have developed in the American Navy during the war between the three facets of the service: the carriers, the capital ships (battleships and cruisers) and the destroyer flotillas. Before the war’s start, American and British naval staffs had planned on a strategy for the defence of Singapore and the Southern Pacific. Two great capital ships from the British Atlantic Fleet would be sent to join as many as eight battleships from the American Pacific Fleet. Ostensibly, the purpose of this fleet was the defence of Singapore. More likely, the idea was to engage the Japanese in a decisive battle.
Unfortunately for Allied staff planning, the Japanese sank five of America's eight Pacific fleet battleships at Pearl Harbor and severely damaged the other three. The loss of life was of course enormous. The two capital ships sent by the British, HMS Prince of Wales and the heavy battle cruiser HMS Repulse were sunk a few days later while on patrol near Singapore with a small task force. Like the ships at Pearl Harbor, they were sunk by Japanese aircraft, not the guns of Japanese capital ships. The destruction of most of America's and Great Britain's capital ships in the Pacific made clear that these monstrous constructs were extraordinarily liable to battle damage by small aircraft. Yet throughout the Pacific war they remained the darlings of our admirals. Just how battleships-centric is made clear by Robinson's account of Adm. Halsey's repeated attempts, during the liberation of the Philippines, to bring a battle line formation of capital ships (a tactic that had failed the British at Jutland in World War I, long before the advent of effective aircraft scouting and the invention of radar) into battle with the Japanese. In this infamous episode Halsey was misled by a Japanese feint, leaving a group of light carriers and destroyers to defend themselves against a much more heavily armed Japanese formation. Throughout most of the war Japan managed to avoid exposing their capital ships to any significant American force. Even though they lost most of their major carriers earlier in the war, the Japanese refused to play ball with American planners desire to engage toe to toe with heavy guns. While there is little doubt that Adm. Halsey was one of the great leaders of the war, Robinson makes it clear that there might have been some bull in Bull Hallsey's reputation.
Destroyers, very fast, well armed but very lightly armoured, had several roles. They were pickets serving as a kind of early detection line for the defence of the fleet against both the enemy fleet and its aircraft. They suffered the role of fast utility work, rescuing downed aviators, transporting men from one of the greater ships to another, and all the other scut work that admirals can dream up. They were the fleets sole defence against enemy submarines. They lent their significant antiaircraft capabilities to the defence of larger units in the fleet. Finally, they used their heaviest armament,torpedoes, in night actions against all kinds of enemy shipping and fleet units. With a maximum speed of 37 kn (about 42 miles an hour), destroyers were far and away the fastest warships in the American arsenal – capable of nearly the same speed as tiny but greatly overpowered PT boats. But PT boats were designed for littoral work, they needed to be able to flee to safe refuge when high winds or heavy seas were in the offing. Destroyers were expected to cope with the worst a blue water ocean could offer.
A large part of Robinson's book concerns two horrific events: the first was the great typhoon that confronted the American fleet not long after the Battle of Luzon. A number of ships were lost, and many more damaged. Robinson's description of his small ship fighting its way through 70 foot seas presents one of the clearest presentations of the danger nature can present to a fleet that I've ever read. ships broached, that is turned accidentally sideways to the wind and waves, turned turtle and sank. One aircraft carrier at the forward portion of its landing deck lifted from the hall. It survived the storm with nearly a third of its deck standing nearly upright, acting as a sail. Robinson’s descriptions are vivid and heartrending. His concerns and fears are more than evident.
The second horror began at roughly the same time, but was to be a storm that lasted much longer - the advent of the kamikaze: the Japanese Empire's use of piloted aircraft as missiles against ships. As this tactic was slowly embraced by Japan, single suicide attacks evolved into whole squadrons of Japanese aircraft attempting to dive into the decks of major units of the American fleet. While destroyers were only infrequently the target of such attacks, they played an important role in Fleet defence. From this position Robinson was able to report the desperation that overtook officers in American destroyers as they attempted to protect carriers, battleships, cruisers and troop ships from these living bombs. Although individual pilots in the kamikaze squadrons were often poorly trained, all had been schooled in techniques to avoid American radar. Approaching below the radar horizon of American pickets, these planes would suddenly climb, take advantage of any cloud cover that was available and then dive onto their targets, often with terrible results. More than once Robinson's ship was charged with taking survivors off vessels severely damaged by such tactics, on fire and sinking.
The book ends with a fascinating perspective. The USS Cotton, entering Tokyo Bay at war's end, becomes part of the occupation force. Little is heard of this time in popular historical writing. Robinson writes:
"To commemorate the occasion, Adm. Nimitz now ordered all ships of the support force to fly their battle flags from their foremasts in place of the regular ensigns. Battle flags are huge US flags that serve the same purpose as did the Eagles of the Roman legions, to inspire the officers and men with heightened patriotism at critical moments. There was no doubt that this event was such a moment.
At 0830 a lone Japanese destroyer met the battleship Missouri and transferred interpreters and pilots to the flagship. Once this transfer had been completed, the support force continued on its way into Sagami Bay. At 0930 all ships in procession went to general quarters, with all boilers on the line. At 1115 the Cotton passed Oshima, making the seaward extremity of the bay, 2 ½ miles abeam to our port, as we entered the cleared entry lanes through the Japanese minefields. The day was crisp and bright, and the snowcapped peak of Mount Fuji was clearly visible in the distance to the west"
In the end, “200,000 Miles Aboard the Destroyer Cotton” is deeply satisfying. While it is neither an academic military history, nor a piece of popular writing, it partakes enough of those genres to give the pleasure of a straightforward story, but this story is remarkably well informed by the experiences of a serving officer, and yet also by the perspective of that same man many years later exercising great care to ensure the accuracy of his memories and of the accounting he gives.
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200000 Miles aboard the Destroyer Cotten (Audible Audio Edition) C Snelling Robinson James Killavey University Press Audiobooks Books Reviews
This book is unlike most first-person accounts of sea duty during WWII. It includes aspects of seamanship and detail that don't ordinarily make it to the page. It expresses the exuberance and wonder of a young naval officer, despite having been written from the vantage of maturity. Perhaps this is because it was written from the author's contemporaneous ships' logs, but may be intended to relate experiences together with original feelings and attitudes. This has charm. It's self-effacing rather than self-important. One listens more closely, as to a youngster. The book deals with the Allied occupation of Japan; this is unusual, too. Also, the author's preference for Spruance over Halsey, shared by many, but expressed by few. The author served on one ship throughout the war. His theme comes through clearly Many more served than saw action. The greater threat was boredom, not terror. Well written, though its language is a bit stiff; interesting; useful for young officers, as a guide to getting along. Demonstrates "can do" attitude of those who served on destroyers, including reservists.
A highly readable account of the duties and progression of on-board training aboard a new Fletcher class destroyer in WW2. The author details personal affairs with women and likes his liquor which detracts from the value of the book. I served as an armor officer during the Vietnam War, and the only duty station that had any liquor to write home about was Berlin, Germany, but the price of Jack Daniels and Jim Beam was very high for a first lieutenant's pay and, therefore self limiting in the purchases. The author's comments about Admiral Halsey and his tactical blunders are well made. History has also painted Admiral Raymond Spruance as one of the smartest thinkers during WW2. The book is a great history lesson from WW2, and I thought the book was overall an excellent book.
Very good overall but after 75 years the WW2 Army -Navy feud is still as strong as ever. As the author was 21 his comments about the Army are totally those of the Navy Dept of 1943-45. His "dislike" of MacArthur is that of every Navy Department Admiral of the time. Also irrelevant to his subject but it keeps coming up. The Navy Pentagon brass on Dec7 was the same brass that was in charge of Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal, torpedoes , wooden flight decks, Tarawa, Pelilieu ad infinitum. I'm sure he thought the Redmond Bros were Saints too.😇
Thank heaven for King , Spruance and MacArthur. Joel Walton
I've read a few of these sorts of biographies now and 200,000 Miles stands out for a number of reasons.
First, to me, is how honest and personal the recollections are. It's clear the war was fought by real human beings, warts and all. For example, I found Robinson's forthrightly expressed opinions about Halsey and MacArthur, refreshing--and not just because they conform to my own! I also appreciated how straight he was about his own questions, areas of ignorance, and mistakes.
Second, the quality of the writing is very high, and the university press clearly provided great editing.
Third, how Robinson incorporated history, geopolitics, and strategy into his descriptions of fleet-level movements and battles was well balanced with the more individual-level narrative.
Fourth, I really appreciated the author's frankness about sex. The topic comes up so rarely in other works of this type that I've read you'd be tempted to conclude the war was fought by monks. Robinson makes no apologies for being a healthy young man with an active libido. Nor does he pour on the negativity when describing some incidents of homosexual activities aboard the Cotten.
Fifth, and last, I expected the chapters on the early post-war occupation to be pretty dull, but I found them among the most interesting in the book, especially the tales about the visits to geisha houses. For being only 23 I felt Robinson's attitude toward the Japanese was very mature.
Review of 200,000 Miles Aboard the Destroyer Cotton by C. Snelling Robinson
200,000 Miles Aboard the Destroyer Cotton is an odd kind of book. In a sense, it's an expanded logbook of a World War II era destroyer fighting the war in the Pacific. On the other hand, it's also the personal memoir of a 20-year-old Harvard ROTC graduate inducted into the Navy not long after the war began. Finally, it's also a military history told from the narrow perspective of the guns and bridge of the Fletcher class destroyer. Put these all together and it's a well-rounded book that gives a sense of the day-to-day life of a young officer serving in America's Pacific Fleets, the strategy and tactics of those two great fleets under Adm.'s Halsey and Spruance, and finally, a realistic view of the desperate measures and enormous risks are Navy undertook in fighting the forces of Imperial Japan.
There is no question that the author Robinson is a "Harvard Man." Only 20 years old when he began service as an ensign and was given charge of the ship's antiaircraft weaponry, Robinson was clearly quick-witted, ambitious, but also, one senses perhaps a bit lacking in sensitivity to those not so fortunate as himself. While the book goes into great detail as to the actions of the officers of the ship, there's virtually no mention of enlisted men, even the men he trained and personally led. It's clear that as a young man, his focus was on serving those above him, and doing his best in all that he undertook.
One of the more interesting facets of the book is the kind of mutual blindness that seems to have developed in the American Navy during the war between the three facets of the service the carriers, the capital ships (battleships and cruisers) and the destroyer flotillas. Before the war’s start, American and British naval staffs had planned on a strategy for the defence of Singapore and the Southern Pacific. Two great capital ships from the British Atlantic Fleet would be sent to join as many as eight battleships from the American Pacific Fleet. Ostensibly, the purpose of this fleet was the defence of Singapore. More likely, the idea was to engage the Japanese in a decisive battle.
Unfortunately for Allied staff planning, the Japanese sank five of America's eight Pacific fleet battleships at Pearl Harbor and severely damaged the other three. The loss of life was of course enormous. The two capital ships sent by the British, HMS Prince of Wales and the heavy battle cruiser HMS Repulse were sunk a few days later while on patrol near Singapore with a small task force. Like the ships at Pearl Harbor, they were sunk by Japanese aircraft, not the guns of Japanese capital ships. The destruction of most of America's and Great Britain's capital ships in the Pacific made clear that these monstrous constructs were extraordinarily liable to battle damage by small aircraft. Yet throughout the Pacific war they remained the darlings of our admirals. Just how battleships-centric is made clear by Robinson's account of Adm. Halsey's repeated attempts, during the liberation of the Philippines, to bring a battle line formation of capital ships (a tactic that had failed the British at Jutland in World War I, long before the advent of effective aircraft scouting and the invention of radar) into battle with the Japanese. In this infamous episode Halsey was misled by a Japanese feint, leaving a group of light carriers and destroyers to defend themselves against a much more heavily armed Japanese formation. Throughout most of the war Japan managed to avoid exposing their capital ships to any significant American force. Even though they lost most of their major carriers earlier in the war, the Japanese refused to play ball with American planners desire to engage toe to toe with heavy guns. While there is little doubt that Adm. Halsey was one of the great leaders of the war, Robinson makes it clear that there might have been some bull in Bull Hallsey's reputation.
Destroyers, very fast, well armed but very lightly armoured, had several roles. They were pickets serving as a kind of early detection line for the defence of the fleet against both the enemy fleet and its aircraft. They suffered the role of fast utility work, rescuing downed aviators, transporting men from one of the greater ships to another, and all the other scut work that admirals can dream up. They were the fleets sole defence against enemy submarines. They lent their significant antiaircraft capabilities to the defence of larger units in the fleet. Finally, they used their heaviest armament,torpedoes, in night actions against all kinds of enemy shipping and fleet units. With a maximum speed of 37 kn (about 42 miles an hour), destroyers were far and away the fastest warships in the American arsenal – capable of nearly the same speed as tiny but greatly overpowered PT boats. But PT boats were designed for littoral work, they needed to be able to flee to safe refuge when high winds or heavy seas were in the offing. Destroyers were expected to cope with the worst a blue water ocean could offer.
A large part of Robinson's book concerns two horrific events the first was the great typhoon that confronted the American fleet not long after the Battle of Luzon. A number of ships were lost, and many more damaged. Robinson's description of his small ship fighting its way through 70 foot seas presents one of the clearest presentations of the danger nature can present to a fleet that I've ever read. ships broached, that is turned accidentally sideways to the wind and waves, turned turtle and sank. One aircraft carrier at the forward portion of its landing deck lifted from the hall. It survived the storm with nearly a third of its deck standing nearly upright, acting as a sail. Robinson’s descriptions are vivid and heartrending. His concerns and fears are more than evident.
The second horror began at roughly the same time, but was to be a storm that lasted much longer - the advent of the kamikaze the Japanese Empire's use of piloted aircraft as missiles against ships. As this tactic was slowly embraced by Japan, single suicide attacks evolved into whole squadrons of Japanese aircraft attempting to dive into the decks of major units of the American fleet. While destroyers were only infrequently the target of such attacks, they played an important role in Fleet defence. From this position Robinson was able to report the desperation that overtook officers in American destroyers as they attempted to protect carriers, battleships, cruisers and troop ships from these living bombs. Although individual pilots in the kamikaze squadrons were often poorly trained, all had been schooled in techniques to avoid American radar. Approaching below the radar horizon of American pickets, these planes would suddenly climb, take advantage of any cloud cover that was available and then dive onto their targets, often with terrible results. More than once Robinson's ship was charged with taking survivors off vessels severely damaged by such tactics, on fire and sinking.
The book ends with a fascinating perspective. The USS Cotton, entering Tokyo Bay at war's end, becomes part of the occupation force. Little is heard of this time in popular historical writing. Robinson writes
"To commemorate the occasion, Adm. Nimitz now ordered all ships of the support force to fly their battle flags from their foremasts in place of the regular ensigns. Battle flags are huge US flags that serve the same purpose as did the Eagles of the Roman legions, to inspire the officers and men with heightened patriotism at critical moments. There was no doubt that this event was such a moment.
At 0830 a lone Japanese destroyer met the battleship Missouri and transferred interpreters and pilots to the flagship. Once this transfer had been completed, the support force continued on its way into Sagami Bay. At 0930 all ships in procession went to general quarters, with all boilers on the line. At 1115 the Cotton passed Oshima, making the seaward extremity of the bay, 2 ½ miles abeam to our port, as we entered the cleared entry lanes through the Japanese minefields. The day was crisp and bright, and the snowcapped peak of Mount Fuji was clearly visible in the distance to the west"
In the end, “200,000 Miles Aboard the Destroyer Cotton” is deeply satisfying. While it is neither an academic military history, nor a piece of popular writing, it partakes enough of those genres to give the pleasure of a straightforward story, but this story is remarkably well informed by the experiences of a serving officer, and yet also by the perspective of that same man many years later exercising great care to ensure the accuracy of his memories and of the accounting he gives.
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