Abstract
Annapolis Goes to War is a group biography based upon a trove of personal histories left behind by the Class of 1940, who referred to themselves as ‘The Forties’, during the 1980s as part of their class gift to the academy. With Craig Symonds's deft touch, these histories provide the basis for a volume that is both intimate and sweeping in scope. Symonds has previously written more traditional biographies, including Lincoln and his Admirals (2008) and Nimitz at War (2022), as well as battle and campaign histories, including The Battle of Midway (2011). In those works, he demonstrated his ability to incorporate personal details about key figures within a larger narrative, but this is his first work told exclusively from the perspective of junior officers. It turns out to be a natural fit for Symonds.
Roughly one-third of the book is devoted to the 4 years the Class of 1940 spent at the Naval Academy. Symonds, who taught naval history at the Academy for nearly 30 years, helps bring forth the details of life on ‘The Yard’ that make attending a service academy an experience unlike any other university. This section provides numerous insights into the strengths and weaknesses of how officers were educated; many complained about the rote instruction and the lack of humanities instruction and building critical thinking skills. Readers also learn the myriad ways in which a midshipman could be denied a commission, whether for poor academic performance, lying or as happened to many of The Forties, less than perfect eyesight. Yet the demand for officers during World War II proved so great that many of those who were medically disqualified ultimately found other ways to serve alongside their brethren, whether through joining the Naval Reserves or accepting an Army commission because their vision standards were more lax.
What makes Annapolis Goes to War especially effective is the incredible variety of each of the individual stories of the graduates after the U.S. entry into the war. Given how many books about World War II favour combat narratives, studying the class in its entirety reveals a range of experiences. As Symonds notes in his introduction, 76 members of the class died during the war. Some were taken prisoner, while many others endured harrowing combat experiences in both the Atlantic and Pacific, and others still fought ashore with the Marine Corps. Symonds does well with integrating these individual experiences into very readable histories of battles and campaigns. Yet some spent much of the war far away from the front. Myers Montgomery, whose letters and diaries add richness and humour to the volume, served aboard the battleship Idaho, which was ported on the west coast for most of the first 2 years of the war and thus had a much more comfortable experience, at least initially, than many of his classmates.
Annapolis Goes to War is largely free of photographs, save for those included in the epilogue that delves into the post-war fates of the more prominent Forties featured in the narrative. There are a few minor narrative breakdowns where the immediate fate of one of the officers is left unclear; for instance, the lone Filipino among The Forties, Alberto Campo, disappears from the narrative following his torpedo boat's escape from Bataan in early 1942, even though he survives the war. To be clear, these are minor flaws in an otherwise superbly executed book.
Craig Symonds has amply succeeded at throwing a much-needed spotlight upon a class of officers whose formative professional experience was the most destructive war in human history. Scholars will find value in this longitudinal study and find ways to build upon Symonds's methods, while laypersons will find a rich history that is well told and very readable.
