Reference Guide to United States Military History: 1945 to the Present by Charles Reginald Shrader, general editor. Facts on File, Inc., 460 Park Avenue South, New York 10016, 1995, 328 pages.
Reference Guide, the fifth and final volume in Facts on File's series on the US military, represents the work of several contributors. The book is divided into three major parts: "The Organization of American Armed Forces and Their History," "Biographies," and "Battles and Events." Part 1 makes up half the volume, containing seven chapters. In addition to describing the different services, this part breaks up the period from 1945 to the present according to major events and world changes.
Although the scope of the Reference Guide is quite broad, most readers will use it to find specifics about individual military services, people, or events. Even though the Reference Guide contains much good information, I was disappointed in it for several reasons. For example, despite its publication date of 1995, the book covers none of the reorganization measures implemented since the early 1990s. Tactical Air Command and Military Airlift Command are still listed as major commands, while neither Air Combat Command nor Air Mobility Command is addressed or even mentioned as near-term possibilities.
Further, Air Force missions as described do not correspond fully to any of the accounts presented in the last three editions of Air Force Manual (AFM) 1-1, Basic Aerospace Doctrine of the United States Air Force. For example, the Reference Guide refers to the mission of strategic attack as strategic bombardment, a term used only in its historical sense in volume 2 of the 1992 edition of AFM 1-1. Other listed "missions" such as area air defense, ground attack, and air superiority are not missions at all. Perhaps they are closely related to actual USAF roles and missions, but such descriptors are inappropriate and confusing when used as part of a brief overview of the Air Force.
The Reference Guide also seems biased in its coverage of the Air Force and its leaders. The Army and maritime services each have twice as much text devoted to them as does the Air Force. The Gulf War's five-week air campaign is covered in only one-and-a-half pages; one-third of that total is devoted to efforts to stop Scud missiles. And most of that discussion is about the alleged success of the Patriot antimissile missile. Tellingly, the following account of the four-day ground phase of operations is much more in-depth, filling seven pages.
Further, the section of biographies is heavily weighted towards Army personnel and includes a fair number of Navy and Marine Corps bios. Of the 132 bios, only 22 are about Air Force personnel, and only five of the 17 Air Force general officers included in that number made their principal contributions after World War II. The most recent general officer in terms of service is George S. Brown, who retired in 1978. None of the Air Force leaders responsible for pushing stealth technology are included nor are those who formulated the air strategy for the Gulf War. Also conspicuous by his absence is Gen Merrill A. McPeak, architect of the Air Force of the 1990s. Yet, the book includes 20-30 bios of individuals from sister services whose accomplishments, though significant, do not have the far-reaching impact of such Air Force leaders as David Jones, Larry Welch, and John Warden, who were omitted.
Ultimately, the acid test of any reference work is its accuracy. Here, the Reference Guide falls short in some areas. In addition to the inaccuracies about the Air Force, noted above, the accounts of the Gulf War seem to be based on the first round of publications from 1991 and 1992-witness the praise heaped on the Patriot air defense missile. By 1993, reports were questioning the Patriot's overall success rate as well as the effectiveness of coalition air strikes. Perhaps the Reference Guide's publishing deadline did not permit inclusion of these findings. I am more troubled, however, by the book's account of the Gulf of Tonkin incident: that North Vietnamese gunboats interfered with the destroyer USS Maddox on 2 and 4 August 1965 and that the last night's action served as the impetus for the dramatic increase in US involvement in Southeast Asia. Yet, the action on 4 August has been surrounded by controversy since the late 1970s, when new information revealed that there may have been no North Vietnamese activity at all that evening, despite the Maddox's report. The Reference Guide doesn't even mention this revised data, most recently confirmed in former secretary of defense Robert McNamara's In Retrospect.
I cannot recommend the Reference Guide because it provides what can only be described as a parochial, Army view of the Air Force and its leadership and contributions since 1945. Ultimately, this bias calls into question the book's overall objectivity and credibility. In an era of jointness, the Reference Guide serves as a roadblock to increased interservice cooperation rather than as a road map of where the services have been. The contributors should immediately undertake a revision of this guide to fix these problems.
Lt Col David Howard, USAF
Maxwell AFB, Alabama
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