Air University Review, September-October 1982

The Forest Has Trees

The Battle of Britain was the first major attempt by one nation to subdue another by air power. It failed because Great Britain would not yield air superiority on any sustained basis. The courage of the tactical fighter pilots of the Royal Air Force in refusing to yield to the Luftwaffe is documented beyond dispute. Sir Winston Churchill’s famous tribute remains untarnished.

There is, however, another side to the history of this momentous battle. It does not detract from the courage of "the few to whom so many owed so much," but it does explain why that courage was effective in defeating an opponent with vastly superior aerial horsepower.

Underwriting that incredible bravery and fortitude was a centralized control center working with a level of detail that might almost be considered painful. Under Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, a small number of personnel became absolute masters of the situation. Of necessity, every gallon of aviation fuel and every hour of flying time was rationed and allocated to effect an optimum defense against a determined enemy.

When the German onslaught was finally turned, there was not much left to fight with. Momentarily, Britain stood at the edge of her grave. But the legacy of courage intelligently directed was not to be denied. The historian F. W. Winterbotham has gone so far as to argue that the real credit for victory belongs to Dowding, though the effort nearly broke him.¹

This admittedly extreme example provides an answer to one of the major issues confronting senior practitioners of the profession of arms. The issue asks how much attention should be paid to detail. Many senior officers have fallen short of expectations by becoming immersed in detail. Others have failed for the opposite reason—inattention to detail. One possible resolution of this issue suggests that a senior officer should concentrate on essential detail. Unfortunately, determining what is essential normally requires an immersion in a wider body of information as evidenced by the strain endured by Air Chief Marshal Dowding.

How much detail a senior officer should immerse himself in is a function of circumstance and purpose. The immersion is not an escape from more appropriate but risk-laden decisions. The purpose is to gain sufficient understanding in order to make difficult decisions with a maximum chance of making those decisions succeed of objectives in practice. The reason is simple though easily overlooked. Major or strategic decisions are carried out by thousands of subordinates—all of whom must deal with many problems and obstacles standing between themselves and the accomplishment of their slices of the mission, however thick or thin those slices may be. Altogether too many decisions made at high levels are based on delectable theories that are chewed up by the facts at lower levels.

General Matthew B. Ridgway understood this. He wrote of his experience in the Korean War:

Perhaps the chief advantage I derived from the isolation of my new command post was the opportunity provided for quiet hours of intense map study and uninterrupted concentration on tactical plans for the Eighth Army. It has long been my conviction that a conscientious commander must understand precisely what the circumstances are under which his command must operate, and particularly what obstacles or advantages the terrain offers. To that end I spent many hours before my relief map, supplemented by low-level flights over the disputed area, until I felt that I could find my way around the territory in the night. Every road, every cart track, every hill, every stream, every ridge in that area where we were fighting or which we hoped to control— they all became as familiar to me as the features of my own backyard. Thus, when I considered sending a unit out into a certain sector I knew if it involved infantrymen crawling up 2000-foot ridges with their weapons, ammunition, and food on their backs or whether they could move heavy equipment in, could ford the streams, or could find roads where wheeled vehicles could advance.²

This same mastery of detail applied equally to concern for his troops. General Ridgway also wrote:

I had taken note myself that many of the troops were without gloves, their hands red and chapped, in the raw December wind, and I knew from personal experience how easy it is to leave a glove behind or to drop it to fire a weapon and then not see it again. In Europe it had been my practice to travel with an extra supply of gloves in my jeep to give to the men I came across who needed them. I now made an immediate effort to have gloves enough supplied to warm the fighting hands.³

Unfortunately, it is easy to carry this concern for detail too far. The senior commander can quickly become involved in the decision-making prerogatives of subordinates. This failing was not uncommon in Vietnam. Notwithstanding the occasional well-known major offensives, small unit operations were the order of the day. In the absence of massed divisional or brigade warfare, many high-ranking officers became involved in company-level actions.

To carry this argument further, Colonel Harry Summers, Jr., has amply proved how all levels of U.S. command fell into the micro-management trap in Vietnam, hence failed to understand the strategic perspective under which military operations might have been successful in fulfillment of national purpose.⁴ The point is not to review his thesis here. It is to reiterate that the issue of attention to detail (and for what purpose) is indeed a serious one.

Perhaps the finest example of the way a senior commander should approach the problem of detail can be found in the accomplishments of Admiral Raymond Spruance. An almost unknown figure beyond the pages of naval history, he nevertheless directed or otherwise influenced the employment of more armed force than any other four-star in military history. Of particular interest is his conduct of the Battle of Midway (1942).

The Japanese had intended to decimate United States naval forces. To this end they applied the full weight of their Imperial Navy. Then, due to the sudden illness of Admiral William F. Halsey, U.S. command was thrust on Spruance. Admiral Spruance kept our forces dispersed and where the Japanese least expected them. He then allowed his opponent a good "first lick" at Midway Island. This move forced the Japanese to commit themselves, expose and fix their position, and then wait for the returning planes. At exactly the right moment, with the Japanese air armada helplessly anchored to decks rearming and refueling, Spruance struck the Japanese "center of gravity" and in the process turned the tide of war to United States initiative.⁵

This shift also afforded Spruance a tactical opportunity to inflict even more damage in pursuit of the retreating Japanese forces. He declined to do so. The same mastery of detail that enabled him to strike the Japanese at the decisive time and place with a superior force relative to the circumstances now told him that all advantages accrued to his opponent. He would not risk U.S. forces past the line of diminishing returns, a decision he would repeat after winning the battle of the Philippine Sea.

That is, Admiral Spruance’s mastery of the situation, balancing audacity with a commanding knowledge of the facts, extended to the hierarchical perspective of war. On the ocean battlefield, he inflicted maximum damage on his opponent with minimum losses to his own forces. In terms of the war effort, however, he realized that victory would come only with severe attrition of Japanese forces. The methodical strategist, he never attempted to win the war with one heroic battle or campaign.

Another admiral would later express the lesson to be learned in more explicit terms:

The man in charge must concern himself with details. If he does not consider them important, neither will his subordinates. Most managers would rather focus on lofty policy issue matters. But when details are ignored, the project fails. To maintain proper control one must have simple and direct means to find out what is going on. There are many ways of doing this; all involve drudgery.⁶

This argument may be restated in more philosophical terms. Returning to the example of the Battle of Britain, we must note that much of the information made available to the operations center resulted from the breaking of the Ultra code. This secret was maintained long after the war. But at least one operative and executive of British Military Intelligence presaged the release of that secret in a novel. Ian Fleming, planting the thought in a homily delivered by agent James Bond’s archrival Spectre, wrote:

Fast and accurate communication lay, in a contracting world, at the very heart of power. Knowledge of the truth before the next man, in peace or war, lay behind every correct decision in history and was the source of all great reputations.

Not surprisingly, once the Ultra secret was made public, historians began a reassessment of World War II leadership accomplishments, precisely on the grounds of that insight. We must therefore again focus on the main argument. Senior commanders master detail in order to ensure that major decisions are capable of implementation at lower levels.

This is by no means an isolated viewpoint. Commentators and historians have often remarked that the best leaders also have been avid readers. They consumed knowledge as the staple of their psychical diet. Moreover, research performed by the Franklin Institute found that successful military commanders shared only one trait in common. That trait was the ability to survey massive amounts of information, analyze it, sort it in terms of both relationships and priorities, and then reform it into what we call intelligence for the purpose of disseminating it, or decisions based on it, to those who must act.⁷

We only need ask then, should this trait be confined to senior levels of command, or is it appropriate at all levels? On this question, the thinking is not perfectly consistent. General Bruce C. Clarke, U.S. Army retired, once addressed a class at the Army Command and General Staff College:

A division commander is not basically a leader. He is a commander and I’m going to point out to you that you should adjust your thinking to a different point of view. I will talk to you briefly about what I call commandership and generalship which are quite different from being a leader. . . . You came here to learn commandership or generalship and that involves the proper organization and utilization of subordinate commanders and staffs to accomplish what you want done. . . . The technique is much different than the technique of getting in front of a platoon and saying, "Follow me," which is leadership.⁸

In contrast, we might consider the biography of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. His military prowess on the deserts of North Africa meant repeated tactical defeat for more than a few Allied forces’ commanders. Rommel always seemed to know more about our dispositions than we knew about his. (This despite the considerable advantages that Ultra gave us in predicting his logistic state and his dispositions.) He pressed this more complete knowledge to maximum advantage. He met his own defeat only at the hands of greatly superior numbers and persistent attrition warfare.⁹ At any rate Rommel was never faced with the same acute embarrassment experienced by a vigilante committee out West long ago, which singularly failed of reconnaissance. They had hung the wrong man. On discovery of this error the following morning, they were obligated to go before the widow and apologize: "Sorry, ma’am, the joke’s on us."

Rommel’s emphasis on obtaining detailed information was also in evidence twenty-five years earlier. In his memoir of World War I, Infantry Attacks (1937), two-thirds of his text focuses on reconnaissance. Although he was almost always with his men, he nevertheless refrained from trying to do their jobs. Instead, he concentrated on optimum employment of his relatively few resources against a superior opponent, one he had studied in detail. The result? Lieutenant Rommel kept entire battalions at bay.

We may conclude, therefore, that the most able senior commanders strive to put the lesson here into practice early in their careers commensurate with their level of responsibility.

Summing up, the forest has trees. The more senior an officer rises in rank, the more important becomes his mastery of an accelerating increase in relevant information. The purpose is to enable that officer to make sound decisions, both for action and for organization for action, capable of implemention at all levels. But he must forever set aside the action-officer orientation, rightfully the prerogative of his staff subordinates. That is, a commanding perspective of the forest requires a detailed knowledge of the trees without yielding to the tempting labor of the woodsman.

1. F. W. Winterbotham, The Ultra Secret (New York, 1974), pp. 45-52, 61-62.

2. Matthew B. Ridgway, The Korean War (New York, 1967), p. 100.

3. Ibid., p. 87.

4. Harry G. Summers, Jr., On Strategy: The Vietnam War in Context (Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania: Institute of Strategic Studies, U.S. Army War College, 1981).

5. E. P. Forrestel, Admiral Raymond A. Spruance, USN (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1966), pp. 40-57. Unforeseen circumstances caused the initial attacks on the Japanese carriers by land-based aircraft and carrier torpedo bombers to fail, but dogged persistence and fine-tuning of tactics, based on attention to detail, ensured success on the second attempt by carrier dive bombers. Admiral Spruance’s accomplishments received the unique recognition of his remaining on active duty for life in the permanent grade of four-star admiral, with full pay and allowances. General Pershing received a similar recognition for the Army, one later upgraded to the rank of "General of the Armies." This honor was legislated for all five-star flag officers, but never, with the exception noted, to any three- or four-star flag officer.

6. Hyman G. Rickover, "Getting the Job Done Right," New York Times, November 25, 1981, based on a speech given at Columbia University.

7. Technical Report 1-191, Art and Requirements of Command, April 1967, prepared for the Office of the Director of Special Studies, Office of the Chief of Staff, Department of the Army.

8. Bruce C. Clarke, "Leadership-Commandership-Generalship-Followership," Armor, September-October 1963, p. 17. Emphasis in the original.

9. B. H. Liddell Hart, History of the Second World War (New York, 1971), pp. 170-98 ff. Liddell Hart pointed out that German strength figures were repeatedly overestimated, a problem which tended to paralyze British initiative at times.

Colonel George M. Hall, USA (USMA; M.A., Ed.D., American University), is Chief of the Colonels, Aviators, and Warrant Officers Division, Reserve Officer Personnel Directorate, U.S. Army Reserve Components Center, St. Louis, Missouri. He has served with the 82d Airborne Division, Special Forces, the 1st Missile Command, the Army Engineer Center and School, Hq Fifth Army, and as Chief of the General Officer Management Office at the Reserve Component Center. Colonel Hall has written for Military Review, Soldiers, and the Review. He is a graduate of the Army War College and Air War College.

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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