Air University Review, March-April 1978

Field Marshal, Sir William Slim
Australian Army Journal, November 1957

General Lucius D. Clay, USAF
Commander in Chief, North American Air Defense Command, July 1975

The most remarkable feature of these two quotations is their similarity, not the obvious difference in time and experience of the authors. The concern that leadership and management should be seen in their correct places has been a recurring but muted theme for the past twenty years, as it has appeared that more and more of our professional military institutions emphasize management to the exclusion of leadership. The proliferation of management techniques in the business world and the increasing demands made on the military profession for management expertise are responsible for the confusion in the minds of many young officers about to embark on their chosen careers.

The art of leadership cannot be taught, but the realities of leadership become increasingly clear after studying some of the Great Captains of recent times. The quantity of recently published military biography suggests that leadership still has a fascination both for the general public as well as for the military profession.

Field Marshal Sir Michael Carver, recently Chief of Defense Staff in Britain (the equivalent of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the U.S.), has edited an impressive collection of biographical sketches of military commanders of the twentieth century in his book The War Lords† Twentieth century commanders have been continually placed on the horns of a dilemma--the generally conservative nature of the military profession, especially in time of peace. faced with the necessity to adapt to the most rapid technological developments in warfare of any century. Although mistakes were clearly made, it may be easy to underestimate their actual achievements. In his introduction, Sir Michael is at pains to suggest that the commanders of the Second World War achieved much more than their predecessors, particularly in economy of effort.

† Field Marshal Sir Michael Carver, editor, The War Lords: Military Commanders of the Twentieth Century (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1976, $17.95), 624 pages.

The author's selection criteria were that the man should have commanded a considerable force (land. sea, or air) in an important campaign and that as many different campaigns of the two world wars were covered. Excluded, therefore, are such U.S. commanders as Marshall, King, and Arnold as well as Alanbrooke and Portal of Britain. The criteria have also excluded any coverage of unconventional or guerrilla warfare, either in the two world wars or, more important, since. The contributions to both military leadership and warfare of the twentieth century of Lawrence, Tito, Mao Tse-tung, and Giap must surely have been worthy of inclusion in such a collection, and their exclusion could be considered a weakness.

There will be some disappointment that only five airmen are included: four British-Trenchard, Dowding, Harris, and Tedder; and one American-Spaatz. "Tooey" Spaatz was a most private person who shunned personal publicity to such an extent that he is still largely unknown not only to the American public but also to the heirs of the tradition he did so much to shape. Present-day cadets at the USAF Academy can talk endlessly of Mitchell, Doolittle, and Chennault but know relatively little of Spaatz. Unlike Harris at RAF Bomber Command, Spaatz had the common touch of being able to identify easily with his combat crews, and he was a pragmatist in his belief in air power. Consequently, he achieved much more. He did not prevail in the transportation vs. oil debate prior to Overlord, yet he still retained the confidence and respect of Eisenhower, Tedder, and Portal. This portrait shows the debt owed to Spaatz and places him alongside the other great American commanders in this volume-MacArthur, Eisenhower, and Nimitz.

The Royal Air Force's most private and sensitive commander never became Chief of Air. Staff, but as Commander-in-Chief of Fighter Command he won the Battle of Britain in 1940. Hugh Dowding's real achievement, as Gavin Lyall shows clearly, was more in the building of the system of command and control from the radar stations to the operational airfields than in dynamic leadership once the battle had begun. Yet that was a supreme achievement against the lack of time, resources, and a sense of urgency from above that characterized British military policy in the 1930s. At the time of Munich, there were only five radar stations and three squadrons of Hurricanes. Once the Battle of Britain was seen to have been decisive, the controversy began, and has continued, over the shabby treatment of Dowding by Churchill; relieved of command, Dowding was never given another operational duty, nor was he accorded the highest rank of the RAF. Dowding himself remained outside the arguments. Like Spaatz, he never wrote an autobiography and left it to others to make a fuss,

Robert Wright, personal assistant to Dowding for a short time during the Battle of Britain, made the most fuss in his book, The Man Who Won the Battle of Britain.† It was published just a year after the film Battle of Britain had fanned the flames of argument with Laurence Olivier's impressive portrayal of Dowding's strength of character. Based on private papers. this hook is a personal story and defense by Wright of his former commander; it is the best portrayal of the man himself. Much has been written elsewhere, and again here, of the controversy that arose between Dowding's two senior commanders, Park and Leigh-Mallory, over the correct employment of fighter squadrons during the battle. Park, often heavily outnumbered in the most vulnerable southeast of England, put his squadrons into the air to disrupt the Luftwaffe as best they could and so prevent targets from being bombed. Leigh-Mallory. with more time, in the group to the north of Park, preferred to build up a strong force which could deliver a decisive blow--as Bader's "Duxford Wing" did-but often after the Luftwaffe had bombed. While the merits of the respective cases will continue to be debated, what is surely not in doubt is that Dowding failed to appreciate what was happening until late in the battle and even then failed to act decisively. Dowding thought Park was right that loyalty to a senior commander was to be taken for granted, but his sensitivity in this case nearly had grave consequences.

†Robert Wright, The Man Who Won the Battle of Britain (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1969, $6.95), 291 pages.

Few wartime reputations have been enhanced by subsequent investigation of the records; many have been tarnished. Of those whose reputations remain intact, and, if anything, have grown, is Field Marshal Sir William Slim. Both the portrait in The War Lords by General Geoffrey Evans (a divisional commander under Slim) and Ronald Lewin's official long biography, Slim: The Standard Bearer,† show why. Put simply, in Lewin's words, it is because "his military distinction was founded on his humanity." No British general had the knack of being so adored by his troops-not in the Montgomery image of cap badges and pep talks, but for the simple feeling of trust he inspired because he understood how basic to his profession was "the smell of soldiers' feet."

†Ronald Lewin, Slim: The Standard Bearer (Hamden, Connecticut: The Shoe String Press, 1976, $15.00), 350 pages.

Slim restored the morale of the battered British forces in Burma by proving that the jungle was neutral and that the Japanese soldier could be defeated. He was quick to grasp that air supply could nullify the Japanese tactics of infiltration and penetration behind lines of communication, but above all he realized that no jungle battle could be won without physical and mental robustness and improvisation on the part of the commander, and confidence and high morale from the soldier. Evans, with firsthand experience of what this meant, shows this side of Slim most clearly. Slim showed a rare moment of pure anger at the treatment given his forces by the staff in India after their 1000-mile retreat. He could accept shortages of food and medical supplies but not the lack of consideration. Such moments re-emphasized to him that simple maxim that the staff are the servants, not the masters, of fighting troops. It was Slim who remained implacable towards the Japanese when the treatment of prisoners of war became known and he who ignored Mac-Arthur's ruling that the surrender of swords was an archaic practice by ordering all Japanese officers in his area of command to surrender their swords to British officers. He was determined that no legend of an unconquered army should flourish in Japan as it had in Germany after the First World War. Like Bradley, Slim's integrity and sense of justice made him the man everyone--soldiers to commander in chief-trusted. "Uncle Bill" was every inch the "soldiers' general." A collection of biographical sketches may sometimes be the lazy man's approach to an understanding of military history. Given quality of authorship and care in selection, such collections may be useful in showing a broad sweep in the development of the art of leadership over a period of time. Oliver Warner's Command at Sea† fits that description. From the great Lord Hawke, who established English sea power in the eighteenth century, through Nelson's Coiling-wood, to Farragut "damning the torpedoes," and on to Nimitz, Warner traverses the age of sail and steam. What emerges is that distinguishing mark of all naval commanders, not shared by their equals in land or air operations, that they stand the same chance of death or capture as the most junior and inexperienced seaman under their command. The "quality of command," as the author describes it, is unique in both sail and steam. The dominant commander is 'very clearly Nimitz--"the greatest commander of them all"-whose Pacific Fleet was the most powerful naval force ever assembled for combat. Nimitz could be bold and imaginative in the seafaring tradition of Nelson when he directly assaulted the central island of the Marshalls while all his staff were urging caution. He was also modest and compassionate in blaming no one when he took command of the Pacific Fleet just 24 days after Pearl Harbor. He could be tough and determined in getting the best out of his two contrasting subordinates, Halsey and Spruance, in a style similar to that used by Eisenhower to bring the best out of Patton and Bradley. In retirement, he was determined that there should be no repeat of the acrimony between leaders that had marked the aftermath of previous wars, and this seemingly modest achievement may eventually be seen as comparable to his defeats of the Japanese fleets at Midway and Leyte Gulf.

†Oliver Warner, Command at Sea (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1976' $8.95), 196 pages.

Two generals conclusions seem clear from looking at these military leaders of the twentieth century. First, the diversity of the men is so obvious, not just in nationality or whether they commanded land, sea, or air forces, but across the entire spectrum of background, intellect, training, and experience, which can be documented, as well as integrity, loyalty, honesty, and vision, which cannot Clearly there is no set pattern for successful leadership in twentieth century warfare, no model which will guarantee success. No greater contrast can be seen than between the two most successful Allied generals of the Second World War in the arena of coalition warfare: Eisenhower, the diffident Midwest farm boy who went to West Point to get a free education; and Alexander, heir of an aristocratic feudal tradition, whose impeccable manners complemented his diplomatic skill. Second, all these men commanded large forces demanding control of complex logistics, planning staffs, and personnel management on a scale unknown to a civilian organization. Management to them was absolutely necessary as a prerequisite for combat leadership, but it was only a prerequisite. They had an instinct for command that has no rules. They practiced an art that is essential and which our profession can ignore only at its peril.

Squadron Leader John D. Brett, Royal Force, (M. A., Cambridge University) is on the staff of the Director of Ground Training Ministry of Defence, London. Until June 1977, he was the RAF Exchange Officer and an Assistant Professor in the Department of History, USAF Academy. His RAF service has been in the Education Branch with instructor and staff appointments in officer and airmen training schools. He has also been seconded to the Royal Malaysian Air Force for three years as an instructor at the Royal Military College at Kuala Lumpur.

Disclaimer

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.

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