The World is Flat, by Thomas Friedman

Review by Bill Doughty

“The Curse of Oil” is one of the final subchapters of the CNO-recommended The World is Flat - A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century.

Oil-rich regions of the world have the most fundamentalist, least democratic and most warlike countries. Friedman shows how political and religious leaders in these countries often substitute critical thinking and creativity with supersition and intolerance.

In a world of growing population and diminishing resources, Friedman plants the seeds for new ways of thinking about energy, education, economic competition and, ultimately, the environment...

The World Is Flat, first published in 2005, follows in the footsteps of Friedman's earlier works, especially The Lexus and the Olive Tree, and recalls the works of Alvin Toffler (Future Shock) and John Naisbitt (Global Paradox - the Bigger the World Economy, the More Powerful Its Smallest Players).

A flat world means a level playing field, with opportunities opening to every person on earth who is willing to meet the challenges of competition and innovation.

Friedman’s book is very typically first-person, has lots of examples from his family and, in his trademark style, includes travel vignettes and recent economics history lessons. His book is on the Navy Professional Reading Program's "Division Leaders Collection" of recommended titles.

He walks the reader through three phases of American history. The first he calls "Globalization 1.0," lasted from 1492 to 1800. Globalization 1.0 was characterized by power and muscle of individual countries, according to Friedman.

Globalization 2.0, he says, was an expansion of global integration through increased trade and opening of markets, thanks to steamship, trains, and the wiring of the world through phone lines and computers.

Now, he says, we're living in 3.0, where people - individuals - are empowered and pushed by "not horsepower, and not hardware, but software (and a) global fiber-optic network that has made us all next-door neighbors."

In The World is Flat, Friedman gives examples of the new wired globalization at work. At a McDonald's near Cape Girardeu, Mo., the person taking your order at the drive-through is actually at a call-center 900 miles away in Colorado Springs. If you call JetBlue to make a reservation, you might be speaking with a homemaker in Utah, working part time. Many of us have talked to a customer service representative who identifies himself as "Bob" or "Mike" but whose real name might be Rajendrakumar-prakash.

Friedman puts numbers to what we all suspect: 5,000 of Wal-Mart's 6,000 suppliers are from China. But the wires go both ways. On Oct. 17, it was announced that Wal-Mart had the winning bid ($1 billion) to purchase Trust-Mart, one of the biggest retail chains in China. This makes Wal-Mart one of the biggest retailers in the fastest growing market in the flattened world.

Friedman sees the globalization and leveling of the playing field less as a threat and more as an opportunity. More consumers may mean more investment by developing countries, not just in the world's economy, but also in world peace and dealing with the world's problems. We're all invested in the future, after all.

Friedman is not a blind optimist. He questions how globalization trends will impact cultures, fundamentalist religions, and nationalism.

He challenges Americans to address the erosion of mathematics, science and technology. Nearly one in five scientists and engineers in the United States is an immigrant, and foreign students now earn slightly more than half of U.S. doctorates in engineering.

Friedman tells his daughters - and all Americans - to do their homework, study and read!

He describes an eye-opening moment at one of India's huge outsourcing companies, Infosys, watching hundreds of employees. He stood `'at the gate observing this river of educated young people flowing in and out . . . They all looked as if they had scored 1600 on their SATs. . . . My eye kept . . . telling me . . . `Oh, my God, there are just so many of them, and they all look so serious, so eager for work. And they just keep coming, wave after wave.

How in the world can it possibly be good for my daughters and millions of other young Americans that these Indians can do the same jobs as they can for a fraction of the wages?'"

Everyone will not agree with Friedman's views, style, or premise, but he is right that we cannot ignore or stop the waves of change, the waves of history, or the realities of a world under “the curse of oil.”

The Navy's new professional reading program's list is packed with titles about history and, in the case of The World is Flat, books that put history - and current events - in context.

The Depths of Courage - American Submariners...

Review by Bill Doughty

The U.S. Navy celebrates the 110-year anniversary of its submarine force today.

The first use of a submarine in combat was by the Confederacy in 1864 in the Civil War. The U.S. Navy formally embraced the technology and tactics of undersea warfare at the turn of the century and has been continuously improving the technology ever since.

There were some serious fits and starts - especially during the volatile early 1940s after Imperial Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. Flint Whitlock takes us into the war in the Pacific in The Depths of Courage - American Submariners at War with Japan, 1941-1945.

Written with former enlisted submarine torpedoman Ron Smith, Whitlock explains the challenges of faulty torpedoes and the heroic efforts by leaders like Adm. Charles Lockwood to correct problems and achieve victory.

The authors provide a sensory description of a fleet submarine in WWII, taking the reader aboard and describing the cramped quarters, noise (especially when under attack), and heat - 130F in the engine compartments, and smells: diesel fumes, equipment, cigarette smoke, and odor of eighty sweating unbathed bodies.

The Depths of Courage takes us through the Second World War, aboard submarines, showing their role and contribution in cutting supply lines, defending U.S. surface ships, and attacking the enemy. We go with the subs to every sea battle, island by island, through the Philippines, all the way to Yokohama.

The authors touch on wartime atrocities, especially the poor treatment of prisoners of war, briefly exploring the motivation of the enemy.

“The ill treatment can be attributed to the perversion of the warrior code of Bushido.” There was no mercy - only contempt, hate and cruelty - to those who did not believe in their form of religion.

The parallels to enemies we face today in overseas contingency operations and acts of terrorism are obvious.

In WWII President Roosevelt told the nation that submarines were helping us win. After the war, Adm. Nimitz credited the “spirit and courage” of the submarine force.

A dozen U.S. Navy submarines were in Tokyo Bay when the surrender documents were signed on the battleship USS Missouri on Sept. 2, 1945.

The Depths of Courage reminds us that the price of victory was high: 3,131 enlisted men and 374 officers lost their lives, out of 15,000 who served. We lost 52 submarines, out of 288 that fought - more than one out of five.

This book helps us reflect on the sacrifice of the brave Sailors who served - an serve - on U.S. Navy submarines.

Retired Vice Adm. Albert Konetzni, Submarine Force Commander for U.S. Pacific Fleet, 1998-2001, writes in his foreword to the book:

“Americans must learn from history! The Depths of Courage is a history book that comes to life as it intertwines the individual stories of young Americans with the phenomenal history of our submarines in World War II.”

Trade-Off by Kevin Maney

Review by Bill Doughty

Avatar 3D, iTunes, the NFL and Hulu; Ozzy, Roomba and Yuengling beer – Kevin Maney dissects these and dozens of other cultural icons and oddities to explain a strategy for leadership and management success in the 21st Century.

“Fidelity,” as in “hi-fi” high fidelity (think Apple), is balanced with convenience (think McDonald’s).

Maney argues that companies and individuals succeed best when they specialize and become the best in their field – or become indispensably convenient. Those who try to be both simultaneously may be doomed. And, innovation always trumps complacency.

Crocs, Motorola, Edsel and Segway scooters – all get put on the scale in Trade Off to examine “the ever-present tension between quality and convenience.”

Maney tells us:

“In any market segment, there’s usually at least one high-fidelity player that every other player admires and strives to imitate. That entity does things better than anyone else. People love the product or service. They want to own it, to make it part of their identity. They will tolerate terrible inconveniences – high prices, difficulty in obtaining it – to acquire it. Like some strange law of quantum physics, at the pinnacle of fidelity, convenience can almost disappear. Instead, pure desire takes over. Even lust.”

He gives some examples of the high-fidelity world: Apple, Bose and Cirque du Soleil.

“On a grander scale,” he says, “the U.S. and forces are the highest-fidelity of militaries.”

As the Navy continues as a “Global Force for Good,” it personifies innovation and quality – fidelity. As individuals commit to education and invest in their future, they help tip the scale for success in their favor.

What’s the future of books in a world of Amazon, Kindle and the Web? In Trade-Off Maney gives hopeful insights as to why there will always be a place for reading – and books.

Life in Mr. Lincoln’s Navy by Dennis J. Ringle

Review by Bill Doughty

President Abraham Lincoln barely makes an appearance in Life in Mr. Lincoln’s Navy. The stars of the book are the average individual Sailors who populate the book.

Sailor stories in letters, diaries and reports are used to show life aboard ironclads and wooden steam ships in the 1800s.

The minimum age for Sailors was 12, in the lowest rating: “Boy.” Photos in the Ringle’s book clearly show young uniformed boys serving.

In 1864, monthly wages started at $10 for Boy; $16 for Ordinary Seaman; $20 for Coal Heaver; $25 for Coxswain, Quartermaster or Gunner’s Mate; and $35 for Yeoman, as examples.

Ringle brings us aboard Civil War ships, where Sailors contended with roaches, rats and lice; fog, flies and mosquitoes; and the danger of fire, floods and sickness, not to mention combat itself.

The Navy issued weapons like battleaxes, pikes and cutlasses to its Sailors. The Ames 1843 pistol was smooth-bore, .54 calibre. Cannons and torpedo mines were among the chief armaments.

Combat on the ironclad warships and man-of-wars is described as hell on earth. A crew member aboard USS Hartford, in action against Confederate forts protecting New Orleans, described the deafening noise:

“The noise and roar at the time was terrible and cannot be described, but to help the imagination there was two hundred guns and mortars of the largest caliber in full blast, double this by the explosion of shells then add to this the hissing and crashing through the air, and shipping, confine this in a half mile square, it may give some idea of the noise and uproar that has taken place.”

The surgeon assigned to the steam frigate USS Cumberland described the terrible close-range battle with the Confederate ironclad CSS Virginia:

“The sanded deck is red and slippery with the blood and wounded and the dying; they are dragged amidships. There is no time to take them below. Delirium seizes the crew; they strip to their trousers; tie handkerchiefs around their heads, kick off their shoes; fight and yell like demons; load and fire at will.”

The Navy developed some of the most effective means for dealing with medical challenges, from microbes to trauma injuries, by opening hospitals, training surgeons and starting the first hospital ship, USS Red Rover.

During the Civil War the Navy welcomed Blacks, including escaped slaves, so that by the end of the war African-Americans made up 20 percent of the Navy. (Jim Crow laws and mandated 5 percent caps after the war subsequently rolled back advances in diversity and opportunity.)

Foreign sailors also served during the war. Hispanic-American Adm. David Farragut’s flagship, USS Hartford, was comprised of 35 percent foreign sailors.

Ringle briefly takes us ashore for liberty in Port Royal, off the coast of South Carolina. Port Royal, whose community continues to be a supporter of the U.S. Navy, was one of the best liberty ports during the war.

The author’s account of life in Lincoln’s Navy is comprehensive and fascinating -- exploring what Sailors did on and off duty, how they trained, what they wore, how they slept, what they ate, even how they went to the bathroom.

And what about reading? For those Sailors who could read, Ringle reports:

“Some ships, especially the larger vessels, maintained libraries on board. In 1864, the Navy Department purchased seventy-five Bibles, eighty Webster dictionaries, twenty-five atlases, and twenty copies of George Bancroft’s History of the United States for distribution to the fleet. One warship, USS Dictator, possessed a superb library that contained over two hundred books of various titles.”

Life in Mr. Lincoln’s Navy is on the list of the Navy’s Professional Reading Program.

The war to preserve the Union was fought with heroism, at great loss. Life in Mr. Lincoln’s Navy is another opportunity to reflect on the causes of war and how it impacts service members, who sacrifice so much for their country, particularly poignant when considering the War between the States, not-that-many generations ago.

Writer Tom Hicks appearing on Tom Ashbrook’s On Point radio show last week said, “War is not a good thing. War, to me, feels like a psychosis, mass psychosis. It’s a terrible thing.” Hicks is author of “Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2003-2005″ and “The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008.”

The Navy's Maritime Strategy states, "We believe that preventing wars is as important as winning wars."

Top: Sailors relax aboard USS Monitor; one Sailor leans against the smokestack and reads; Above: a recruiting poster promises a way to avoid the Army, with the promise of prize money.

Honor by Fire

Review by Bill Doughty

Honor, courage and commitment in the face of prejudice, fear and disenfranchisement: This book shows the story of triumph of American democracy over small-mindedness and bigotry as its author introduces us to a special group of service members from World War II.

Lyn Crost, correspondent for AP, Star-Bulletin and Honolulu Advertiser, documented this important slice of history just three years prior to her death in 1997 at the age of 80.

One hundred years ago Imperial Japan considered Okinawa a stepchild. Okinawans were treated as second-class citizens. Many emigrated to a land of opportunity – Hawaii.

Japanese from Okinawa and mainland Japan who came to the Hawaiian islands and the West Coast of the United States embraced their new country, a land of freedom and opportunity.

Their children (nisei, or second generation), became loyal Americans, willing to serve in the U.S. military and risk their lives for the country of their birth.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, however, many non-Japanese Americans questioned the patriotism of Americans of Japanese Ancestry (AJAs).

Racism brought about internment – imprisonment – of Japanese families, mostly those living in California, including some of the families of the AJAs serving in the military.

Ironically, AJA service members – exemplified by the 442nd Regiment, 552nd Field Artillery Battalion (pictured at right with Crost), Military Intelligence Service, and others – fought against racist German Nazis, Italian Fascists, and Japanese imperialists, while their families experienced discrimination back home.

Nisei demonstrated superior intelligence collection, communication skills and bravery under fire. Crost’s history of AJAs in WWII in Honor by Fire is a chronological work of love, a tribute to the achievements and legacy of these proud Americans, both in the Pacific and in Europe.

There are universal timeless lessons in this book.

Crost shows the success of the nisei approach to treating and interrogating prisoners – by building trust and showing empathy.

Each of the Marine divisions at Iwo Jima had a team of nisei linguists who worked with Marines and Seabees in clearing caves (pictured below), trying to persuade Imperial Japanese soldiers to surrender instead of committing suicide, then interviewing them to gather intelligence.

Linguists also translated diaries and documents that revealed vital information about the enemy, information provided immediately to Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz and Army and Marine Corps leaders.

The AJAs used their trust-building techniques to communicate with Japanese civilians and soldiers on Okinawa near the end of the war, persuading hundreds hiding in tunnels or caves to surrender. Unfortunately, many women and children chose to believe Imperial Japanese Army propaganda and jumped from cliffs into the rocks and sea below.

Crost tells compelling stories of AJA heroism, taking readers to New Guinea, Italy, Burma, Anzo, Philippines and German death camps. She introduces us to dozens of individual soldiers along the way.

Tech. Sgt. Herbert Miyasaki, Gen. Frank D. Merrill (of Merrill’s Marauders) and Tech. Sgt. Akiji Yoshimura. Merrill's evaluation of the nisei: "As for the value of the nisei group, I couldn't have gotten along without them. Probably few realized that these boys did everything that an infantryman normally does plus the extra work of translating, interrogating, etc. Also they were in a most unenviable position as to identity, as almost everyone from the Japanese to the Chinese shot first and identified later."

Among the best known of the AJAs of WWII: then-2nd Lt. Daniel K. Inouye, whose platoon engaged in combat against fascists in Italy at Mount Nebbione on Apr. 20, 1945. Crost reports what happened:

Inouye’s platoon encircled and destroyed an enemy patrol and mortar observation post, then advanced to within forty yards of the main enemy force, which was shielded in a hilltop rock formation with three machine guns hidden in a bunker. There was no cover on the hillside leading to it. Inouye crawled up the hill alone to locate the weapon emplacements; as he was taking out a grenade, he was hit in the stomach by machine-gun fire. The blow knocked him down, but he managed to get up, pull the pin from the grenade, run to within five yards of the nearest machine gun, and throw the grenade inside the position. As the gunners struggled to their feet, he raked them with his tommy gun.

His men ran to help him but were pinned down by enemy fire. Inouye, bleeding from the stomach, staggered farther up the hill and threw two more grenades into the second position before he fell again He dragged himself toward the last machine-gun nest, stood up, and pulled the pin from another grenade. He had just drawn back his right arm to throw it when his right elbow as smashed by a rifle grenade, which almost tore off the arm. By reflex action, his right hand was still clenching the grenade and its safety handle. His men ran to help him but Inouye yelled at them: “Go back!” Reaching down with his good left hand, he took the grenade out of the clenched fist of his shattered right arm and threw it at the remaining machine-gun next, destroying it. Then, with his left hand controlling his tommy gun and his right arm flapping against his side, he started finishing off the surviving gunners. Before he was through he was hit again by gunfire, this time in his right leg and he fell down the hill... Inouye refused to be evacuated until his men were deployed in defensive positions against a possible counterattack.

In this attack, twenty-five enemy troops were killed and eight others captured. Inouye’s right arm had to be amputated. His dream of becoming a doctor was ended...

At the war’s end, Inouye, like a lot of AJAs, had to deal with racism back in the United States.

Passing through California on his way back to Hawaii, Capt. Inouye tried to get a haircut at a barbershop near San Francisco. An attendant met him at the door and said, “You’re a Jap and we don’t cut Jap hair.”

Today, Senator Daniel K. Inouye, a recipient of the Medal of Honor, is the second-most senior member of the U.S. Senate, chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations and senior member of the Commerce, Rules and Indian Affairs Committees.

The outright racism Inouye experienced 65 years ago is thankfully less overt today, though one could argue that fear-borne incivility is making a resurgence.

Educated voices, on the other hand, call for collaboration, embracing differences to achieve harmony. Crost's conclusion:

“I have learned that we are dependent on each other, and that the future will be based on the ability of our diverse races, religions and cultures to weave an understanding that will rise above inevitable conflicts. My Japanese-American friends have taught me this lesson.”

While this book is not on the Navy’s Professional Reading Program list, it is recommended by the U.S. Army Center of Military History on its history site about the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. Other titles referenced include Masayo Duus’s Unlikely Liberators: The Men of the 100th and 442nd, Thomas Murphy’s Ambassadors in Arms: The Story of Hawaii’s 100th Battalion, Orville C. Shirey’s Americans: The Story of the 442nd Combat Team, Ronald Takaki’s Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans, Chester Tanaka’s Go for Broke, and Daniel K. Inouye’s Journey to Washington.

Dec. 7 Survivors: Favorite Authors, Books

By Bill Doughty

History tells us that many Sailors who were awake on the morning of Sunday, Dec. 7 – 68 years ago – were eating breakfast, heading to religious services, writing letters or reading.

Pearl Harbor Survivor Ed Johann was 17 years old on Dec. 7, 1941, young enough to have just gotten his tonsils out. On the morning of the Pearl Harbor attack he was working on a motorboat, getting ready to shuttle Sailors from ship to shore.

Before the war he’d read mostly westerns by Zane Grey and stories by Louis L’Amour.
After the war he read military history books. “I have over 100 books about Pearl Harbor – paperback and hard back,” he said. “Everybody should read more.”

The oldest living Medal of Honor Recipient, John W. Finn, who is also a Dec. 7 1941 Survivor, visited his namesake, at the Ford Island Boathouse on Dec. 6, 2009. (The JOHN W. FINN is a biodiesel-fuel boat, one of several at Naval Station Pearl Harbor, that takes thousands of visitors on any given day to the USS Arizona Memorial.)


John Finn told me his favorite author prior to WWII was Ernest Thompson Seton – author, artist and naturalist. “I always loved books about wildlife,” Finn said. Seton was a renowned conservationist, instrumental in preserving wilderness for future generations.

Art Herriford, National President of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association, visited the Arizona Memorial on Dec. 7, 2009. There, he said, “Any time I come to Pearl Harbor it’s with reverence. I remember happy times before the attack. The attack on Pearl Harbor changed everything. It changed the whole world, one way or another.”

Art said, “I read H. Allen Smith. He wrote a series of books. And I read a lot of humanitarian-type books.”



Survivor William K. Anderson said he read mostly magazines in the 1930s and 40s – like Popular Mechanics and various sports magazines.

“I was always interested in sports,” Bill Anderson remembers. “I read a lot of Zane Grey, too. I was a cowboy back in those days.”

Ret. Capt. R. E. Thomas liked Edgar Rice Burroughs as a young man.

Thomas was an ensign on USS Nevada and directed anti-aircraft fire against Imperial Japanese planes on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941.

During the 1940s he mostly read non-fiction, he said, but one of his favorite genres of fiction was historical fiction exemplified by C. S. Forester’s series of Horatio Hornblower novels.

“I was a big fan… I tried to emulate that as a naval officer,” he remembers. “In history, Horatio Hornblower was modeled after Admiral Nelson of the British Navy.”

In 2009...

Two Sailors stand duty together at the Quarterdeck of the headquarters building where I work.

OS2 Mikhael Davis reads fiction and non-fiction. She just finished Kite Runner and Three Cups of Tea. Before reading those two Navy Professional Reading Program selections she finished James Clavell’s Shogun. Now she’s reading Abraham Rabinovich’s Yom Kippur War.

Her shipmate, BM2(SW/AW) Matthew Tutt, is a science fiction fan and avid reader of westerns by writers such as Zane Grey and Louis L’Amour and fantasy by Robert E. Howard and Edgar Rice Burroughs… some of the same authors on the reading lists of Sailors on Dec. 7, 1941.

Here's what CNO Adm. Gary Roughead said recently about the "imperative" of education for Sailors:

"Always be looking to expand your horizons, expand the depth of your knowledge…believe that every day you live, you will learn something new…the drive to learn should never end and it also opens great opportunities."

UPDATE: Halsey’s Typhoon II -- Integrity

By Bill Doughty

For former chief petty officer (retired lieutenant commander) Archie DeRyckere, the leadership lessons of Typhoon Cobra -- “Halsey’s Typhoon” -- are personal and last a lifetime.

We linked DeRyckere’s website, Typhoon Cobra 1944 on our last blog post. He sent the following email to Navy Reads:

Sir,

That is interesting.

The heroism by Captain Plage and his

ship should be interesting to patriots.

I have been earnestly attempting to have Captain Plage awarded the Medal of honor for his performance as he definitely saved the life of myself and 54 others.

President Gerald R. Ford supported my efforts, to no avail. President (then-Lt.j.g.) Ford saved the USS Monterey(CVL 26) in typhoon cobra.The ship was being consumed by a fire on its hangar deck from stem to stern and Captain Ingersoll had been ordered by Admiral Halsey to "abandon ship".

The captain said "to seventy foot waves. I have a better idea; Jerry go down to the hangar deck and put the fires out."

President Ford collected the dead and injured and proceeded to fight fires for five-and-one-half hours, put all fires out and the ship continued to fight to victory in Tokyo Bay.

President Ford was one of our finest athletic Presidents, a legend on ski slopes and one of our most professionally proficient Presidents. He never, to my knowledge, received a medal for saving the USS Monterey.

Respectfully,

LCDR Archie G. DeRyckere, USN (Ret.)

Lt.j.g. Jerry Ford playing basketball
on USS Monterey, June 1944.

Faced with Halsey’s directive to abandon USS Monterey (CVL 29), Captain Ingersoll said, “No. We can fix this.” Authors Drury and Clavin write, “Now, with a nod from his skipper, Ford donned a gas mask and led a fire brigade below. Aircraft gas tanks exploded as hose handlers slid across the burning hangar deck. Into this furnace Ford took his men, his first order of business to carry out the unconscious survivors.

“Hours later, he and his team emerged burned and exhausted, but they had put out the fire,” Drury and Clavin write.

Thirty years later, Vice President Gerald Ford became the 38th president of the United States after President Nixon resigned in the wake of the Watergate scandal, leaving the nation in a storm of turmoil.

The authors of Halsey’s Typhoon report that Ford thought about Typhoon Cobra on the morning of Nixon’s resignation.

USS Monterey in Typhoon Cobra

“I remembered that fire at the height of the typhoon,” Ford wrote, “and I considered it a marvelous metaphor for the ship of state.”

More leadership lessons in the wake of a storm: just contrast how Nixon’s character as a leader is remembered with how Ford’s integrity as a leader was demonstrated when our nation needed healing.

On Saturday, Nov. 14 Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding and the Navy marked the keel-laying of the Navy’s state-of-the-art aircraft carrier: the Gerald R. Ford.

President Ford’s daughter, Susan Ford Bales, the ship's sponsor, attended the event, as did son Michael Ford.

Both said their father learned of the naming before his death nearly three years ago.

Former President Ford, himself, said, when he learned of the honor, "It is a source of indescribable pride and humility to know that an aircraft carrier bearing my name may be permanently associated with the valor and patriotism of the men and women of the United States Navy."

The new carrier, scheduled for delivery to the Navy in 2015, will be the first in the Ford-class series, all designed to bring improved warfighting capability in support of the Navy’s Maritime Strategy.

Susan Ford Bales, said on Nov. 14, “Much has been written about Dad and his integrity. For him the question was always straightforward: What was best for the American people? Period. As the history books have begun to explain, Americans have come to admire his integrity...”

Lt. Jerry Ford, second from right, front row, with USS Monterey team.

To learn more about the shipmates bound together by Typhoon Cobra, visit Archie DeRyckere’s website, http://www.typhooncobra1944.net/

Typhoon Cobra - Nimitz & Leadership '...Lessons of'

If you don’t read the entire review that follows, do yourself a favor and read Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet ADM Nimitz’s confidential letter of Feb. 13, 1945. It’s a thoughtful, reasoned and balanced treatise on accountability in time of war. It shows why Nimitz was such a great leader -- a man whose emotional intelligence matched his analytical abilities.

Fleet Admiral Chester A. Nimitz

Halsey’s Typhoon

Review by Bill Doughty

Their decks, already top-heavy with armaments and equipment, were pushed nearly vertical in mountainous seas. Sixty-five years ago, caught in a giant storm, the Sailors of U.S. Third Fleet fought wind, water and waves trying to escape their own sinking ships and surrounding sharks. Some lost the fight.

Halsey’s Typhoon, the True Story of a Fighting Admiral, an Epic Storm, and an Untold Rescue is the gripping account of Typhoon Cobra and its aftermath.

McCain and Halsey, Dec. 1944.

Characters like Adm. William “Bull” Halsey, Adm. John “Slew” McCain (Sen. McCain’s grandfather), Capt. Henry Lee Plage, Capt. James Marks and Chief Quartermaster Archie DeRyckere (one of the true heroes of the tale, who retired as a Lt. Cmdr.) are revealed, warts and quirks and all.

Why were the ships in the path of the huge storm? How does a typhoon form and why is it so dangerous? What’s it like to be thrown off a ship into 90-foot waves in a storm with 150-mph winds? The authors address these questions through extensive research and interviews.

Although this book is not currently included on the Navy’s Professional Reading Program, it is on the informal must-read list of many Navy leaders. These leaders also value the lessons of history brought forth in books, including all the way back to one of the most well-known books in history, Homer’s Iliad, written around the 8th Century B.C. Here’s a quote from the Iliad, used on one of Halsey's Typhoon’s title pages:

Bursts as a wave from the clouds impends,

And swell'd with tempests on the ships descends;
White are the decks with foam; the winds aloud
Howl o'er the masts, and sing through every shroud:
Pale, trembling, tir'd, the sailors freeze with fear;
And instant death on every wave appears.

 
  Halsey’s Typhoon is not the first book about this famous incident in Navy history. Capt. C. Raymond "Cal" Calhoun, skipper of the USS Dewey (DD 349) at the time, was an eyewitness to history and wrote a gripping account, Typhoon: The Other Enemy, in 1981. Highly recommended.

There have been other books, written by apologists or accusers, including several other first-person accounts -- even one co-authored by Capt. George Kosco, Fleet Aerologist at the time of the storm.



Unidentified destroyer during Typhoon Cobra.



Typhoon Cobra formed and hit as the Third Fleet was moving ever closer to Imperial Japan. The Navy was achieving success using McCain’s “Big Blue Blanket” strategy, modeled after a U.S. Naval Academy football defense, of interweaving radar to defend against kamikaze (divine winds) attacks.

The name kamikaze came from the Shinto belief that the gods intervened twice in the 13th Century, sending separate typhoons against invading Chinese armadas -- drowning thousands of Mongol soldiers and sailors.

The Imperial Japanese warriors believed the gods were on their side and that they were ordained to win the war.

Ultimately science triumphed over superstition.

Halsey’s Typhoon narrates the lessons of history.

(Today, as a direct result of the devastating storm in the Philippine Sea, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center protects the U.S. Pacific Fleet. In the years after the war weather stations were set up in the Caroline Islands, Philippines, Iwo Jima, Okinawa and Guam.)

Communication has improved. Command-and-control incorporates maritime forecasts as a top priority to ensure the safety of Sailors. Nimitz addresses in his letter, "Lessons of," that leaders must take all information into account, but must also rely on their own intelligence.

This book is purposely a vital guide to good leadership. Compare the fearless bravery of destroyer escort USS Tabberer’s CO Capt. Plage -- whose interactions were generous, even-handed and caring -- with Capt. Marks, CO of destroyer USS Hull. Marks is shown as petty and controlling. The reporters suggest he was the basis for the Capt. Queeg character in the 1952 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk.

Plage defied convention and came to the rescue of survivors treading water, fighting sharks and clinging to rafts and debris. Marks became paralyzed and failed to respond.

True wisdom during Typhoon Cobra was revealed in acts by brave leaders who acted correctly -- not blindly -- in the face of unimaginable terrors.

This Veteran’s Day, we think of all the men and women who have served selflessly in uniform in recent and distant wars.

Halsey’s Typhoon reminds us of some of the lessons learned -- and taught -- by the veterans of World War II. And, it introduces us to some of the heroes we continue to honor.

“...Lessons of”:

The book explores the role of Fleet Adm. Chester A. Nimitz -- one of the greatest heroes in our nation’s military history. Nimitz’s confidential letter of Feb. 13, 1945, just two months after Typhoon Cobra, while not included in Halsey’s Typhoon, is available at the Navy’s History and Heritage Command site.

Dr. Betances: "You Can't Lead if You Don't Read"

How important is reading?

Ask Dr. Samuel Betances, diversity advisor to Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead, and three U.S. presidents...Betances, who conducted "Strengthening the Navy Through Diversity" training for nearly 1,000 people at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Oct. 13-15, talks about the power of books...and words...and mentors...and, most importantly, diversity.

The cover of Pulitzer Prize winner David McCullough's book John Adams flashes on the screen early in one of Dr. B's training, along with this quote from Adams:

"Freedom is a wonderful thing, provided you have the courage to defend it."

So there it is, plain and simple. Diversity is freedom...

* Freedom from discrimination, from harassment and from a hostile workplace.

* Freedom for an equal opportunity to achieve.

* Freedom to be respected.

Two books about respect that Dr. Betances recommends: Back off by Martha Langelan and Diversity Toolkit by William Sonnenschein.

In his training, Dr. Betances shares his personal journey from high school dropout to educated scholar with two post-graduate degrees from Harvard University, consultant to two U.S. presidents.

His education started with a caring mentor who had the courage to confront him and say, "It's not intelligence you lack; you don't have enough words."

As Dr. Betances points out, people in poverty use an average of 1,500 words. People in the middle class, especially those who were read to as children, use 3,500 words.

In order to succeed, one must read...

As a very young man, Betances was encouraged to read "the literature of resiliency" - the memoirs of others who faced difficulties: people in death camps, under slavery or in relocation camps.

Two books he says changed him forever: The Narrative of an American Slave by Frederick Douglass ("a book to share with your entire family") and Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl.

These books opened his mind and helped him sharpen his critical thinking.

As a better thinker he is able to recognize cultural shifts, discard faulty assumptions and recognize not only the letter of the law but also the spirit of the law.

By the way, that's the difference between equal opportunity and diversity, according to Dr. B.

EO is the law; diversity is the spirit of the law.

It's not good enough to enforce laws against illegal discrimination; we must actively prevent legal discrimination, where members of a preferred group are included in a so-called "circle of trust," to which outsiders are not welcome.

Are there good and bad Circles of Trust?

As Dr. Betances points out, studies revealed in the works of Malcolm Gladwell (author of Blink, Tipping Point and, especially, Outliers) prove that those who are included in a group - for whatever reason - are
more likely to succeed.

Those who are included and made to feel welcome in an organization will succeed.

Those who get informal coaching in a complex organization like the Navy are better equipped to retain what they learn in a classroom.

And, "If your organization is complex," says Betances, "you need diversity."

As part of his training, Dr. B. plays a CSPAN clip of The Director of National Intelligence, Retired Adm. Dennis Blair, former Commander in Chief of U.S. Pacific Command.

Admiral Blair recognizes the benefits of "being as diverse as possible so that we can better understand people around the world."

Such thinking should be intuitive, and intuition is often undervalued. So says Malcolm Gladwell in Blink.

Gladwell is mandatory reading at the Naval Academy, under the leadership of Vice Adm. Jeff Fowler.

This year the Naval Academy has achieved record-breaking numbers of minority accessions - more than one-third of the class of 2013. The people who have the biggest advantage at the academy, according to Betances, are the children of military families, regardless of gender, economic background or other factors.

Why?

Because those children from military families are part of a greater, wider circle of trust; they are made to feel welcome in the organization. They get the informal coaching and mentoring and one-on-one time with experienced people who care.

"We increase our cultural competencies in informal networks," says Betances. And cultural competencies are keys to success.

Want your child to succeed?

In a sidebar discussion between training sessions, Dr. Betances shared this advice: "Have your son or daughter become a tutor. Have them teach someone. The person they help will leapfrog forward, and the tutor, your son or daughter, will catapult to the front."

Dr. Betances: "You can only keep what you give away."

Back to books...

Is that one of the hidden benefits of reading, that books - often freely available, filled with insights and ready to teach us - can be our mentors?

(I'll have to read more about that...)

Other books discussed or recommended by Dr. B.:

The Nature of Prejudice by Gordon Allport

The Disuniting of America by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

Making the Impossible Possible by Bill Strickland

Shattered Sword by Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully

Women in the Military by Maj. Gen. Jeanne Holm, ret.

Future Think by Edie Weiner and Arnold Brown

Go For Broke by C. Douglas Sterner

Rising Sons by Bill Yenne

Women Pilots of World War II by Jean Hascall Cole

Reel Bad Arabs by Jack G. Shaheen

The Other Face of America by Jorge Ramos

Our Separate Ways by Ella LJ Edmondson Bell and Stella M. Nkomo

Cane Fires by Gary Y. Okihiro

Leading from the Front by Angie Morgan and Courtney Lynch

The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman

Hot, Flat, and Crowded by Thomas L. Friedman

Ten Steps to the Head of the Class by Samuel Betances

How important is reading?

"If you don't read, you can't lead."

The Navy Reading Program recommends titles tailored to various levels of leadership.