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(More customer reviews)I am grateful for Generous' contribution of the details of the USS Portland and all the officers and men who served onboard her from launching to decommissioning. He is deserves praise for the efforts made to insure that those stories would not be lost to history. If he had just concentrated on this great task, I would have had no problem with his work. But he was not content with this. He seems to have taken this opportunity to project himself as a great naval tactician and analyst. It was bad enough that he proved himself nothing more than an amateur, but he did this at the expense of some great naval figures of the war. I, personally, cannot tolerate those who attempt to promote themselves at the expense of others, especially when facts are not properly researched or left out to accomplish this goal. His treatment of Rear Admiral Daniel J. Callaghan, the Officer in Tactical Command (OTC) of the task force that met the Japanese at the First Naval Battle of Guadalcanal ("Night Cruiser Action") is the most blatant example of this. Generous seems to have had a grudge against this fine officer, who lived and died in the best of United States Navy tradition. He states that Callaghan "never had a major sea command before" taking on this task. It just so happens that he commanded the heavy cruiser USS San Francisco (a more prestigious command than that of the Portland) for a year before being promoted to admiral and being taken by the newly appointed Commander-in-Chief South Pacific Area. Admiral Ghormley had his choice of many who were senior to Callaghan, but chose him because of his competence. I would choose an admiral's evaluation for ability and competence over any academic historian of the following century. If, as Generous maintains, Ghormley was also as much a failure as he was, he would have sought out as his chief of staff one who he felt made up for what he lacked. Generous proved completely ignorant of the tactical situation that enveloped the days before this battle. He praised Rear Admiral Scott (well deserved) for his ability to train the ships in his force prior to his victory at the Battle of Cape Esperance. Generous leaves out the fact that Scott had weeks to accomplish this. He neglects to inform his readers that Callaghan only knew of his task and the ships that would be at his disposal the day of the battle. Escorting the supply ships and providing protection for them left him with no time to train or even meet with the commanders of all of his ships to discuss the strategy that would be employed. This was typical of the situations that confronted our forces at that time. While Generous again comes down on Callaghan for the placement of his ships, real naval analysis has never been able to come to such a conclusive conclusion. Generous, is so intent on destroying Callaghan's reputation that he also leaves out that he was killed in that action as a result of his not staying in the battle-hardened command and control station. He, as many other brave officers felt that they could not maintain proper perspective of the battle within an area that so restricted their observation. He died because he put his supreme duty before his personal safety. Generous exhibits such contempt for Callaghan that he even uses his receiving the Medal of Honor as a means of getting in a final stab. This is hardly what makes a competent writer of military history. Only his treatment of the crew of the Portland keeps it out of my trash can.
At the very introduction of the book I became concerned for what might follow when Generous admits that he had never even heard of the USS Portland until two years before he wrote the introduction. I knew then that the writer would not be of the caliber that normally writes on naval history subjects. Anyone who had not heard of the Portland could not have known much of the war in the Pacific. The rest of the book only supported my fears. I began to feel that I was not reading well researched material but what had been gleaned from interviews from crewmembers. This really comes out when the ship did not get a battle star for its one-ship raid on Tarawa in October 1942. He makes a major point of this at the event and then ends the book with a reminder of this neglect on the part of the Navy. Add this to his repeated effort to convince his readers that the turning point of the war was when the Portland played its most important role (where he blasts Admiral Callaghan) instead of the Battle of Midway. Both of those seem to be supported mainly from the tactical viewpoint of most sailors. There is nothing wrong with a crew seeing things as they do and judging events and their treatment from the perspective of themselves. But when a historian takes the same view, he misleads his readers if they are looking for the facts. He seems to think that a war's turning point is a tactical rather than a strategic event. This extends to the incident at Tarawa where Admiral Tisdale forces a cease fire before the captain wanted to. It is right for a captain to want to continue an engagement. But an admiral has a bigger picture of what the goals of whole operation encompasses. For Generous to imply cowardliness on the part of Admiral Tisdale is, once again, irresponsible.
After reading the first hundred pages, I reverted to just reading sections that talked about the ship and crew. By that time Generous had lost all credibility with me. By doing so, I enjoyed much of the remainder. As I said at the beginning, Generous is to be commended for his treatment of the ship and crew.
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Few ships in American history have had as illustrious a history as the heavy cruiser USS Portland (CA-33), affectionately known by her crew as "Sweet Pea." With the destruction of most of the U.S. battleship fleet at Pearl Harbor, cruisers such as Sweet Pea carried the biggest guns the Navy possessed for nearly a year after the start of World War II. Sweet Pea at War describes in harrowing detail how Portland and her sisters protected the precious carriers and held the line against overwhelming Japanese naval strength.Portland was instrumental in the dramatic American victories at the Battle of the Coral Sea, the Battle of Midway, and the naval battle of Guadalcanal—conflicts that historians regard as turning points in the Pacific war. Portland was the only cruiser ever to fight twice in night battles against enemy battleships, winning both times, and her skilled crew kept her from being hit during innumerable attacks by kamikazes. She rescued nearly three thousand sailors from sunken ships, some of them while she herself was badly damaged. Only a colossal hurricane ended her career, but she sailed home from that, too.Based on extensive research in official documents and interviews with members of the ship's crew, Sweet Pea at War recounts from launching to scrapping the history of USS Portland, demonstrating that she deserves to be remembered as one of the most important ships in U.S. naval history.
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