Army & Navy - COMMAND: The Expert Speaks

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Last week the New York Times concluded the best series of reports yet written on the Pacific war. The reporter: 39-year-old Hanson W. Baldwin, who may well turn out to be the outstanding U.S. example of the commentator who serves his country and the armed services by directing intelligent criticism where it will do the most good.

Making of an Expert. Before September 1939, Hanson Baldwin had accumulated a solid reputation for sound reporting of naval affairs. Then he included the Army in his field. He wrote books (United We Stand, Strategy for Victory, The Caissons Roll, Admiral Death, What the Citizen Should Know About the Navy). After Dec. 7, he wrote a column of signed comment. His reputation grew.

Day after day, week after week, he sat in his cramped, cluttered office in New York and wrote about the Navy, the Army and the war. Occasionally he had a week or so at Army posts, or on a warship, living the life he knew when he was at Annapolis and a junior officer in the Navy (1924-27). But he was restless. He wanted to see the war.

Last August he set off on a tour of Hawaii, Palmyra, the Fijis, the New Hebrides, New Caledonia, the Solomons. When he returned, he wrote eight analytical reports. By last week, when the Times published the final installment, Hanson Baldwin's stature as a military reporter and critic had enormously increased.

Disaster at Savo. Reporter Baldwin gave the blackest account yet printed of the naval disaster Aug. 9, in which three U.S. cruisers and one Australian cruiser were sunk (TIME, Oct. 19). "The Astoria, Quincy, Vincennes and Canberra . . . were surprised like sitting ducks; none of them had a chance to get off more than a few ineffectual salvos . . . despite the fact that one of our planes [had reported] the approach of the Japanese cruisers the afternoon prior to the night action. . . . They [the U.S. cruisers] had assumed a defensive position, patrolling over a fixed course in narrow waters and awaiting the enemy instead of going out to attack him. . . . Their dispositions enabled the enemy to approach almost within gun range without detection. . . . Only a small part of their crews were at battle stations. . . . The admiral in command of the northern cruiser screen had left the scene in his flagship. . . . The loss was . .. unnecessary."

Baldwin's account suggested that the blame for these and other losses did not belong exclusively to Vice Admiral Robert L. Ghormley, the area commander whom the Navy relieved last fortnight. Baldwin named no names, but he implied that inept, overtimid, task-force commanders may have been at least partly to blame. His major conclusion: "The Solomons have clearly shown deficiencies—which stem from overcaution and the defensive complex—that must be remedied. If mistakes continue, we can defeat ourselves."