Engineers of Victory: The Problem Solvers Who Turned the Tide in the Second World War

I thought this was a very good book on how the Allies (principally Britain and the US) attained their victories over Germany and Japan in WW II. By that, I mean the decisions that were made, who made them, and the organizational structures that allowed those decisions to be implemented in an effective manner. This generally is not a book on battles and military campaigns although it does mention them, but only in the sense of grand strategy – the means by which victory was achieved.The book focuses in detail on how the Allies succeeded in five major areas or themes:• The convoy battles in the north Atlantic between the German U-boats and the British and American shipping, escorts, aircraft, and intelligence decrypts. The chapter describes in detail the evolution of anti-submarine weaponry, the development of tactics, and the deployment of long-range aircraft. Somewhat surprisingly, I felt, there is only a little discussion on the American mass production of the 42 million tons of shipping. It’s almost as if this was just a given.• The British / American strategic bombing campaign against Germany in 1942 – 1945 and the development of the long-range P-51 “Mustang” fighter plane.• The development of the tri-service (land, naval, air) concept of amphibious warfare and its application in the Mediterranean, the Normandy invasion, and in the Pacific.• The development of tactics by the British, American, and Soviet armies to resist the German army “blitzkrieg” mechanized air-land warfare method.• The overall development of US naval power to overcome the vast distances in the Pacific. By 1944 the US was conducting naval war against the Japanese in the Central Pacific and the Southwest Pacific, as well as simultaneously supporting a secondary war in Burma and supplying China.The book frequently names the people who were responsible for making the decisions and then (if necessary) fighting the various bureaucracies to implement them. Sometimes no individuals can really be named – it was the overall organizational structures that allowed critical decisions to be made and implemented.Based on the book’s title, I had thought that it would describe the military – industrial efforts of the US and Britain and perhaps the USSR during the war. In fact, very little is said on this subject.Occasionally, there is some mention of German and Japanese war-fighting efforts at the strategic level. Most of it is negative. The overall thrust of the book is that the German and Japanese leaderships just didn’t make good decisions throughout the war. I have been reading about WW II for decades now and I have become fascinated by this latter issue: why did the German and Japanese leaderships consistently make so many poor decisions? What was it about their political and military systems that allowed this? Some writers have asserted that democracy is just essentially superior to totalitarian dictatorships but if that were true then the Soviet Union would have lost the war. Yet the Soviet leadership learned from its mistakes and by late 1942 / early 1943 was making reasonably good decisions. Kennedy suggests a few reasons: a “culture of encouragement” that existed in the US and Britain and which was lacking in Germany and Japan; a centuries - old British tradition of managing a world - wide empire that resulted in a British government system that was inherently better at making grand decisions; and “a support system, efficient feedback loops, a capacity to learn from setbacks, an ability to get things done.” The implication is that Germany and Japan lacked these efficient feedback loops and capacity to learn from setbacks. Maybe their governing systems and military leaderships were just too rigid to enable them to fight a long war in which situations changed, requiring new decisions and methods. Yet another explanation (perhaps simplistic) is that the German and Japanese leaderships were just plain incompetent (see below).If you are interested in reading other books that discuss why Germany lost the war and offer non-trivial explanations, then I recommend the following:“War and Economy in the Third Reich” by Overy (1994). This is a truly fascinating book on the German military – industrial economy before and during World War II. It explores just about every aspect of the German economy that you might imagine and how these issues affected the ability of Germany to wage war. I thought the best chapters were:• Chapter 6 “Hitler’s War Plans and the German Economy, 1933 – 1939;”• Chapter 8 “Hitler’s War and the German Economy: A Reinterpretation.” This chapter investigates a central question of the poor overall performance of the German economy during the war: why was there such a gap between what Hitler wanted and what was actually produced? It’s a complex issue with many reasons. Overy first explores the frequently alleged argument over the post-war decades that Hitler and the German leadership had envisioned a series of short wars so that the German economy did not need to be fully mobilized at the expense of the German civilian consumers. This is wrong. Hitler had envisioned a massive expansion of the Wehrmacht and an associated equally massive economic military – industrial expansion. For a variety of reasons that came together and were never resolved and which are discussed here, the German economy was under – mobilized throughout the war.• Chapter 11 “Rationalization and the ‘Production Miracle’ in Germany during the Second World War.”The German war industrial economy administration at the national level was in chaos throughout the war. This issue is discussed in detail in the book “Design for Total War” by Carroll (1968). Fritz Todt and Albert Speer attempted to bring some coherence and organization to the industrial war effort, but were only partially successful. In 1942 there were five "Supreme Reich Authorities" having various control or administration powers over the war effort, along with assorted armed forces ordnance offices, Plenipotentiaries, other government ministries, Commissioners, Committees, and Industrial Associations. On top of that were the Nazi Party Gauleiters in their capacities as Reich Defense Kommissars for their regions, the SS under Heinrich Himmler, and interventions from the Party Chancellery under Martin Bormann. Chapter X "How Warlike a War Economy" and Chapter XIII " Total War: The Prophecy Fulfilled" were the most interesting. Chapter XI "Mobilization, 1939: A War of Each Against All" describing the dysfunctional military and civilian organizations for war industry and economy and their collective inability to establish priorities is also fascinating if not astounding.A must-read book on the German war economy is “The Wages of Destruction” by Adam Tooze. This is the ultimate book on the German economy and military industry of WW II in my opinion. It discusses financial, industrial, technological (especially regarding the Luftwaffe), mass bombing, and Nazi ideological issues. The analysis is superb. Numerous Figures and Tables describe economic and military industrial production. Several Appendices provide data on subjects such as German steel production and armaments production.The book “The Soviet Defense Complex from Stalin to Khrushchev” by Barber and Harrison (2000), Chapter 5 “Wartime Mobilization: A German Comparison,” provides a fascinating comparison of the slow mobilization of the German wartime economy compared to the mobilization of the economies of the US, Britain, and the USSR.Another book “Defeating Hitler” by Winter (2012) is also useful. It was written in 1945 and is based on British intelligence assessments during the war and interviews with key German military and industrial leaders after the war. Section II “German Weaknesses” offers some interesting insights or analyses as to why Germany eventually lost the war. An entire chapter is devoted to “Hitler’s Personality.” His characteristics of obstinacy, refusal to listen to facts or advice which ran contrary to his preconceived notions, and inability to formulate and execute long-term plans are all addressed in relation to his record of consistently poor decisions especially in the period 1942 – 1945. Section II Chapter II and Appendix IV “Machinery of Joint Command” describe the weaknesses of the German military command system comprising the OKW and OKH. Section II Chapter IV “Organization of German War Production” offers a fascinating assessment of the German armaments industry during the war. In conjunction with Appendix III “Nazi Machinery of Government” and Appendix VI “German War Production” discusses the reasons for the overall inefficiency and disorganization of war production. Albert Speer may have greatly improved output but there were institutional and internal political factors inhibiting production that even he could not overcome. Page 191 contains an interesting statement: In postwar discussions with various industrial leaders regarding alternatives that they failed to adopt, they frequently gave the response “That, in our country, was politically impossible.”Finally, “The Secret Horsepower Race” by Douglas (2020, page 429) contains a British assessment of the competency of the leadership of the Luftwaffe air ministry (RLM) and general, staff OKL) based on post-war interrogations: “…[N]one of the men occupying high military posts in Germany understood the true nature of science and technical development or appreciated their primary importance in the conduct of a modern war. It is curious that the Luftwaffe, the most technical of the services … was commanded by men who only imperfectly grasped the essentially technical and scientific character of their force. The responsible heads in the OKW and the OKL never had more than a layman’s conception of the strategic and tactical potentialities, and operational possibilities, of an air force. …[T]he root cause for their failure was incompetence, an innate incapacity to fill the requirements of their office.” Pretty strong stuff!

The title of the book was sure to catch my eye as an engineer with a deep interest in the history of World War II. I came to find the author employing a new approach to presenting the historiography of the war as he focuses on problem solving and related "problem solvers."The reader will see how the "proper application" of resources led to endeavors that gave the Allies' frontline forces the instruments for winning in each theater of the war thereby tilting the overall balance toward the fulfillment of the grand strategy evolved by the Allies' government and military leaders at the January 1943, Casablanca Conference. The strategy involved the defeat Nazi Germany and fascist Italy in the Western European theater and Japan in the Far East.The book is not about the Allied leaders but about many others who were left to work out the logistics on the ground, in the air and at sea via tactical plans, tools, and methodologies. Not necessarily engineers, they were the unsung heroes--the implementers who turned their leader's strategy into a workable reality, thereby engineering the winning of the war.Mr. Kennedy makes an important contribution to the historical writing of World War II--concentrating on the middle years of the conflict, the end of 1942 to the midsummer of 1944 by which time the Allies were safely ashore in Normandy. This is the period during which the tide of the war changed. He structures the book around what he considers the five greatest (sometimes interconnected) problems that needed to be solved after the Casablanca Conference, dedicating a chapter to each of the problems. The chapters are titled as follows: How to get convoys safely across the Atlantic; How to win command of the air; How to stop a blitzkrieg; How to seize an enemy-held shore; and How to defeat the "tyranny of distance."Among Mr. Kennedy's heroes are men like John Randall and Harry Boot, postdocs at Birmingham University who invented the cavity magnetron oscillator capable of delivering high-power microwave pulses that enabled the development of a much smaller-sized radar system that could be placed in aircraft as well as on smaller ships--dramatically enhancing U-boat detection and destruction.Another hero is the American engineer and naval officer Admiral Ben Moreell who created the Construction Battalions (CBs or "SeaBees") that proved to be an invaluable asset in overcoming the Pacific ocean's tyranny of distance.By August of 1943, the battle of the Atlantic was won---thus solving the first of the five Casablanca problems. Many other Allied problems were resolved, at least in part, by the Allied capacity to bring devastation to the Axis homelands, though at horrific cost to the bomber crews. These crews were flying much larger four-engine bombers capable of carrying the same bomb load as nine of the German twin-engine bombers that, earlier in the war, terrorized London prompting Churchill's warning to the Axis powers that their turn will come.Kennedy believes allied initiatives, innovation, and ingenuity were consequences of better information feedback loops throughout its political-military systems, all of which encouraged problem solvers to tackle large, apparently intractable problems. He rightfully highlights the impact of the many middle managers and administrators who were able to reduce red tape and overcome the bureaucratic obstacles to ensure ultimate victory. This was clearly an advantage when most weapon systems suffered from a disturbing "natural law," to wit: the more sophisticated the instrument being built, the greater the number of "teething" troubles. The Boeing B-29 Superfortress provides but one example. The law is again on full display with the Boeing 787 commercial airliner.The young scientists that built the war-ending nuclear weapon at Los Alamos, New Mexico are also given their just due. In the light of the 3,000 Americans killed and wounded clearing a similar number of fight-to-the-death Japanese off the tiny island of Tarawa in November 1943, one must ask what the cost would have been in American lives if the Japanese home islands would have had to be invaded against similarly fanatical resistance. The U.S. might have had to deal with losses of up to a half-million men--making the scientists working in New Mexico truly heroic in their efforts.It was somewhat surprising to see Kennedy note the usually overlooked Polish contribution to the war effot. Notably, two Polish squadrons flew in the battle of Briton with one having the best record of any RAF squadron in this 1940 struggle; and, two Polish squadrons were given the honor of providing air cover for the June 6, 1944 Allied D-Day landings in Normandy. However, not mentioned is the fact that the Polish contribution was ignored in the post-war victory celebrations; see the book A Question of Honor: The Kosciuszko Squadron, Forgotten Heroes of World War II, (Vantage Books, 2003).I found the book to be well written with several descriptive maps and ample references that allow the interested reader to dig deeper. It was a joy to read this book as it kindled vivid memories of my youth--tuning eleven just a month before December 7, 1941--as I followed the war while growing up in one of Chicago's many Polish neighborhoods.

The author is a historian and the history parts are very good indeed (except one wonders at the need to go back to ancient Greece when discussing seaborne invasions - padding?)But then when you get to the bits about "the problem solvers who turned the tide" it all gets a little vague. A couple of engineers are named (book title!) but I formed the impression that the technical aspects of their work were a little beyond the comprehension of the author. For instance, I know what a cavity magnetron is and what it does but reading this book it never gets beyong the realm of clever gizmo.Read the historical backgrounds - they are excellent- but don't expect to get any understanding of the more technical stuff or knowledge of the problem solvers.

Well, it was quite interesting, but also disappointing. I expected to learn about the "Engineers of Victory" but there was almost nothing at all about the individuals involved. It might have been more accurately titled "How the various technical developments enabled victory". There are some interesting insights, but they are almost irritatingly re-stated several times and there are some alarming basic technical mistakes and misunderstandings that made me question the depth of research.

I thought I might glean a bit more information to engineers and there work during WW2, but nothing new in this book. It gave me the impression that this book was made up of lecture notes bundled together,a lot of repetition and general history of WW2 during a certain time frame.I was surprised that it took the author four years to write,a very shallow look at problem solvers during wartime.

Useless, gives superficial comments without any reference or detail, also repetitive. I gave up on it. It refers to engineers but the is no engineering

I'm having trouble with this book. It is very verbous and full of padding. I am struggling to enjoy it and have put it aside. Disappointment as I ordered it six months previous.