David E. Johnson, Fast Tanks and Heavy Bombers: Innovation in the U.S. Army, 1917-1945 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998)
Throughout Fast Tanks and Heavy Bombers, David E. Johnson scrutinizes the U.S. Army from its entry into World War I until the culmination of World War II to answer why the organization failed to adopt appropriate technology to wage modern warfare. Johnson, a retired U.S. Army colonel and senior researcher for the RAND Corporation, began this research as a dissertation at Duke University. Nurtured by his father, a veteran of the Second World War, Johnson’s interest grew into an exceptional study on the policies, attitudes, and culture of the U.S. Army during the interwar period.
Johnson argues that the Army of the United States failed to adequately prepare for modern combat because of internal barriers to change and an unwillingness to compromise. He challeneges the notion that unpreparedness was due to budgetary and manning concerns. The author supports his argument by examining U.S. Army development of tanks and heavy bombers. After a thorough analysis of the development of those two weapon systems, Johnson concludes that the U.S. Army’s unpreparedness was mostly self-inflicted. Parochialism, a weak War Department, and a conservative culture conspired to create an army that was over-reliant on manpower rather than embracing advanced technology and requisite doctrine to properly employ it.
Central to his argument is the National Defense Act of 1920, which elevated the Air Service into a combatant arm, but relegated tanks to supporting the infantry and cavalry. Furthermore, this legislation gave the infantry, cavalry, and artillery branch chiefs full responsibility for “developing their own technology, doctrine, and organizations; running service schools; assigning personnel.” (p. 29) Giving each branch this much responsibility had the effect of segregating both thought and doctrine.
As Johnson points out, U.S. Army leaders preferred men over machines, a belief that stemmed from their conception of the central lesson from World War I–that mass armies win wars. While partially true, advancements in technology and doctrine during the interwar period left the Army of the United States outdated. The emphasis on manpower resulted in weak but fast tanks that could support infantry maneuver and cavalry reconnaissance, but which were inadequate for tank versus tank engagements. In contrast, Army Air Forces leaders continued to edge their branch toward independence by arguing the utility of strategic bombers to win wars independent of ground forces. As a result of these two decisions, the Army of the United States went to war with fast but weak tanks, an over-reliance on heavy bombers, and lacking a coherent combined arms maneuver doctrine. Because of prewar shortcomings, many leaders found themselves forced to create new tactics, techniques, and procedures as they fought. While the Army of the United States managed to develop ad hoc combined arms doctrine, it did so at the expense of high casualty rates and large losses of equipment.
Johnson relies on the many primary sources available at the National Archives, the Library of Congress, and military archives. He also uses the personal papers of key leaders juxtaposed with period doctrine and regulations to weave a complete and compelling narrative on army attitudes, culture, and techonological development during the interwar period. The book is organized chronologically into four sections – the First World War, the 1920s, the 1930s, and World War II–each similarly organized. Each section provides an opening chapter that outlines a macro level situational overview, followed by one chapter each on tank and bomber development, culminating in a chapter on War Department reactions and doctrinal developments.
Many scholars view the interwar period as one in which the absence of national security threats combined with dwindling budgets to hamstring the innovation required to meet the demands of modern war. Johnson successfully argues that while these aspects are part of the story, even with a hefty budget, the U.S. Army would have been hard-pressed to develop the necessary technology and doctrine in time for the Second World War.
Relevant to further research are his evaluations of interwar U.S. Army culture. The author describes a service saturated by an apathetic mindset that largely eschewed wholesale changes, preferring to maintain doctrine and equipment based on what leaders were already comfortable with, rather than develop new innovations to match the advances of potential adversaries. Only the shock of total war spurred some innovation, but too late to save the lives of many soldiers who went to war with inadequate equipment. The book serves as an excellent resource for anyone wishing to explore interwar Army culture and innovation, and how those foundations determined success or failure of new technology and doctrine at the outset of the Second World War.