Clay Blair
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Clay Blair, Jr. (1922-1998) was an American historian, best known for his books on military history. He served on the fleet submarine Guardfish in World War II and later wrote for Time and Life magazines before becoming editor-in-chief of The Saturday Evening Post. He was a collaborator (ghost writer) for General Omar Bradley, A General's Life (1983). Blair wrote two dozen history books that reached a popular audience. Although he had no training in miltary or naval science or historiography, he vented his personal opinions freely, often denouncing officers he thought made mistakes. His last book was Hitler's U-Boat War: The Hunters, 1939-1942 (2000).
Blair's history of the Korean war The Forgotten War: America in Korea, 1950-1953 (1987) was notable for his attacks on nearly all the top American leaders. It opens with a diatribe against President Truman, contending that Truman's dislike of and disdain for the regular army and contempt for West Pointers led him to disregard the U.S. Army's proposals to maintain a respectable post-1945 fighting force and brought disastrous results for the men sent to fight in Korea. He attacks Truman for placing budgetary savings ahead of military readiness. Blair argues that Truman's grasp of military matters was sketchy at best and caused his poor military decisions in the years before 1950. Blair denounces almost all senior Army officials, from the senior staff to the high command in the Far East. He condemns MacArthur. Blair ridicules almost all high-ranking officers in Korea as being too old, too inexperienced, and, as a group, too incompetent to hold commands in a wartime theater. Blair suggests that officers who fought under Bradley in Europe received preferential treatment in the post-1945 army and that few generals with experience in the Far Eastern or Italian theaters were sent to Korea, which he considers a major blunder. He thinks some of George Patton's men in Korea should have been court-martialed for their failures. His revisionist history takes a top-down perspective, with little interest in common soldiers, and little use of Communist sources. [1]
Blair wrote extensively on the submarine war of World War II, most notably in Silent Victory: The U.S. Submarine War Against Japan (1975). Although the book is considered by many to be the definitive work on the Pacific submarine war, like his other works it has a somewhat revisonist aspect. Blair criticizes many of the submarine captains and admirals who fought that war, sometimes with justice (e.g., his recounting of Admiral Charles A. Lockwood's ongoing refusal to accept that the Mark VI magnetic torpedo exploder he helped develop was a total failure) and sometimes undeservedly (his criticisms of Captain Dudley W. Morton, better known as "Mush" Morton). Although he made submarine war patrols in that war himself, it must be noted that his service was as an enlisted quartermaster near the end of that war. Never having served as an officer or having known firsthand the responsibilities of a captain, one must wonder to what degree this colors his perceptions and opinions.
[edit] References
- Jack J. Gifford. "The U.S. Army in the Korean War," in Lester H. Brune, ed. Korean War: Handbook of the Literature and Research Greenwood Press. 1996. pp 223-49.
