In the Highest Degree Tragic: The Sacrifice of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet in the Eas Hardcover – Illustrated, 1 August 2017

It's a terribly sad but important story about how sailors outnumbered, their equipment badly outclassed, persevered for a cause they believed in and thought was right. An amazing story about strength of character that we could sure use more of these days.

Donald Kehn’s “In the Highest Degree Tragic” is the finest account of the last days of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet available today, and I doubt that it will ever be surpassed. Drawing on every conceivable resource – U.S. and Japanese official records, personal memoirs and correspondence, interviews with survivors, and published sources – Kehn has produced a book that could stand as an example of how history should be written.Most Americans have never heard of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet, let alone its demise in the first months of World War II. It is as if nothing happened in the Pacific Theater between the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor and the U.S. bombing of Tokyo (the Doolittle raid). But, in the interval, the Japanese Empire was not standing still. It was expanding, forcefully. The mission of the Asiatic Fleet, in cooperation with Dutch, British, and Australian (ABDA) allies, was to stop the enemy expansion into the Dutch East Indies (today’s Indonesia). It was a strategic mission. Throughout those islands were harbors, airfields, and resources, including labor and oil, considered critical for the expansion and maintenance of the enterprise the Japanese called the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, the Pacific area of their empire.Regardless of the strategic importance, though, the fleet’s mission was doomed before it started. The numbers were against it. The Asiatic Fleet, in fact the entire Allied fleet, was outnumbered in ships and aircraft by an overwhelming margin. The task of opposing the advancing Japanese fleet was well-described by Walter Borneman in his excellent book “The Admirals” as “. . . something akin to stopping a flood with a paper towel.”Yet the men and ships of the Asiatic Fleet did their duty and then some. Those sailors knew the odds. They knew their ships were too old and too few, and that there would be little or no air cover or submarine protection. They were conscious that their ships were no match for the newer, larger, and more numerous Japanese forces. Still, they fought some impressive actions and managed to surprise the enemy with their tenacity and ferocity in battle. Outnumbered and outgunned, many were sacrificed in a futile cause.Besides describing the actions of the forces at sea, Kehn provides a detailed running account of the decisions of the political and military leadership involved. It is not flattering. Although American leaders knew that the Dutch East Indies could not be held with the forces available, the Dutch were bent on trying. The Asiatic Fleet was ordered to follow the Dutch lead. Kehn examines the ensuing problems of command, control, and coordination in detail, not sparing in his criticisms of decisions that probably cost American lives.As important as this books is, it has some shortcomings that make it difficult to follow even for someone familiar with navies and history. First, there are no maps, except a pre-war map that covers part of the area of Asiatic Fleet operations. It is probably fascinating to historians, but too detailed and small to be useful. A book that covers so much geography and this much action should have a series of maps displaying every feature mentioned in the text.Second, in order to make sense of the ships, organizations, and military leaders in theater, it would be helpful to have tables of task organizations with their related commanders.Finally, especially for Japanese terms, but also for technical Allied words and phrases, a glossary would be helpful.Despite these issues, this is a 5-star book. I recommend it to anyone with even a little interest in the war in the Pacific. Kehn does not hide his enthusiasm for the U.S. Asiatic Fleet or his sense of responsibility to bring their story to light. More than many authors, though, he also presents “the other side” through a wide variety of Japanese documents. The result is a satisfying, balanced story, even though the purpose is to illuminate the U.S. experience. This book fills a major gap in the scholarship on the period. And, it is well written – a heck of a good read!

Excellent. A very well researched account of the naval war in and around the Java Sea in the early part of World War II in the Far East.A feature of this book by Donald Kehn is that he mentions a lot of names of personnel who normally would not get a mention in a history book. If you had a relative fighting in the naval battles of the defence of the Malay Barrier, particularly in the Asiatic Fleet, this is the book for you.For me, it was not a fast-paced, entertaining, read. It was very informative, with no obvious errors that I could spot, and I could only agree with Donald Kehn's extremely poor opinion of Admiral Helfrich, (some American authors are charitable, saying that Helfrich was pugnatious, combative, committed to defending what was for him his homeland, but plenty of historians think that he was worse than useless, and that is my assessment also ... Helfrich and pretty well the entire Dutch High Command got it all badly wrong from start to finish), but for me it was not a fast-paced, entertaining, read, and neither did it have many profound pearls of wisdom.For a faster paced, more entertaining, account of the defence of the Malay Barrier, I can recommend Rising Sun, Falling Skies: The Disastrous Java Sea Campaign of World War II, by Jeffrey Cox.For a more profound perspective on the human experience linked to the Defence of the Malay Barrier I can recommend Ship of Ghosts, by James D. Hornfischer.If your Dutch is up to it, the premier historian is Louis "Loe" de Jong. His five book exposition of what happened in the Dutch East Indies during World War II is the best. No doubt about it.Again, if your Dutch is up to it, I can recommend De tegenaanval: Anton Bussemaker (1900-1941), Onderzeebootcommandant by Henk Bussemaker and Janet van Klink.In the Highest Degree Tragic by Donald Kehn is definitely worth buying and reading. It is very informative. Even the notes at the end are a veritable mine of information and worth reading.

Excellent book! It describes in the most detail I have found the losses of the US Asiatic Fleet as well as the British and Dutch fleet losses. The details of the loss of every ship are presented. It provides the most thorough account of the circumstances of the loss of the Britsh cruiser HMS Exeter.The commander of the US Asiatic Fleet, Admiral Hart, was in an impossible position. He was expected to hold the Phillipines and later the Dutch East Indies against the Japanese Navy with a fleet consisting of two cruisers, 12 destroyers, a handful of old submarines, and a few oilers and tenders. Added to these problems (although he didn't know it at the time) was an incompetent egomaniac in the form of Douglas MacArthur in charge of the land and air forces in the Phillipines. It got worse from there, with the Dutch and the British civilian leaders and military commanders basing most of their political and military decisions on a combination of fantasy and wishful thinking.My only criticism of the book is that there are NO maps whatsoever. There is not even a geographical map showing the locations of the islands, straits, and seas mentioned in the text. There are no maps depicting the ship tracks during the sea battles so it is difficult to follow the text describing them: Balikpapan, Lombok Strait, Sunda Strait, Java Sea, and so forth.Some other books that offer good accounts of this and related subjects are as follows:* "Rising Sun, Falling Skies" by Cox (2014). This book includes maps depicting the ship tracks of some of the sea battles;* "The Massacre of ABDACOM" by Ready (2013). This is a somewhat dry, but thorough, account of the same subject as "In the Highest Degree Tragic." It offers no maps and no ship tracks of the sea battles.* "Darwin 1942 --The Japanese Attack on Australia" by Alford (2017). It provide the most comprehensive account I have found on the Darwin attack of February 1942;* "Fortress Rabaul -- The Battle for the Southwest Pacific January 1942 - April 1943" by Gamble (2010);* "Malaya and Singapore 1941 - 42 The Fall of Britain's Empire in the East" by Dennis (2016). There are plenty of books on the collapse of the British in Malaya and Singapore but this one offers a lot of information packed into 90 pages. If doesn't pull any punches on Britsh political and military leadership and command incompetence, either.

i enjoyed the book. the information from participants was very interesting. the number of naval academy graduates among the destroyer crews I found surprising. my only criticism was the relative lack of detail on the submarine activity. I realize they had to deal with obsolete and faulty torpedoes and flawed prewar tactics, I would have been fascinated by more details. I also realize the lack of information may be due to lost information due to the way ABDA and the Asiatic fleet ended. otherwise a fascinating look at an almost lost part of WW II in the pacific.