Talk:Clay Blair

Lockwood or Christy?
"e.g., his recounting of Admiral Charles A. Lockwood's ongoing refusal to accept that the Mark VI magnetic torpedo exploder he helped develop was a total failure"

I think this was Christy, not Lockwood. Christy was deeply involved in developing the Mark VI and Lockwood was deeply involved in finding its flaws.

128.165.87.144 20:20, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

This article lacks credibility
"...like his other works it has a somewhat revisionist aspect."

Uh, am I the only one that thinks this statement needs some sort of proof, or even a citation/reference?

"Blair criticizes many of the submarine captains and admirals who fought during the war."

Uh, again, what exactly is meant by criticism? The failure of many of the peacetime submarine skippers, on transition to war, is well-documented in other sources, as well as in US Navy personnel records. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.59.12.138 (talk) 04:25, 10 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree. Nor is revisionism a bad thing — which this article strongly implies. Many famous professors and academics have made their names on reassessments.


 * If the point is that Blair has been criticized for sensationalism or poor scholarship, then that should be explicit (and have references). Just reading off the back of Hitler's U-Boat War, reviewers from The New York Times and The Washington Post are using phrases such as "unmatched panorama", "no overall description ... is better than the one in this book", "far and away the most authoritative". But the tone of this article makes Blair sound like a bad Tom Clancy knock-off.


 * 67.169.126.47 (talk) 01:10, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Neutrality questioned
After consideration, I decided the neutrality of this article as a whole should be questioned. This is a systematic attempt to slur without evidence. Phrases such as " Although he had no training in military or naval science or historiography, he vented his personal opinions freely" are disingenuous. Plenty of military professionals write without formal training in historiography. "Vented his personal opinions freely" is subjective fluff. Suggesting that someone who served on a WWII submarine had no training in "naval science"? "Wrote for a popular audience" ... apparently means "not for a knowledgeable, educated audience"? More vague innuendo. Does the editor really imagine that books many hundred pages long are for casual readers??? Saying in the same sentence that Joan Blair co-wrote his books and that she'd been married to him for years suggests...something...he didn't write his own books?...his wife ghost wrote them? ... Calling his writing a "diatribe" is agenda-based, inflammatory language.

Apparently the editor(s?) are familiar with one book which they disagree. There's scant mention of the other 23 he wrote, or the hundreds of articles.

As for being a "revisionist"...what does that mean, really? Is this a "code word" in military speak for someone who doesn't go along with the status quo? Or is it just a way for an editor to say "I disagree with everything this guy writes"? That is, in the one book the editor(s) read.

67.169.126.47 (talk) 02:14, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I know that academic military historians criticized his general history of U-boats, but I'd have to dig up the cites. Revisionist in this context means that he pushed a point of view not accepted by existing scholarly consensus. It's tempting to stub it all down and start from scratch. Mackensen (talk) 01:22, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I have taken the liberty of trying to parse down the diatribe against the diatribe. I think the paragraph now maintains both the general feeling that the book is highly regarded, but is subject to some criticism in academic quarters. 165.97.69.26 (talk) 22:09, 15 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Your liberties are well-received. The article now reads with some balance. Blair isn't a small time publicist, he's a scholar who founded his opinions on years of work that is explicitly cited. I've read dozens of submarines books. A good part of what's out there in the popular press over the last 50 years. Blair is unusual in that he backs up his opinions with hundreds of cited facts. That's the Wiki way. It wasn't his intent to conform to Wiki policy, but that is what a good scholar does, anyhow. 76.126.217.195 (talk) 08:41, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Commentary worthy of Wikipedia
This is the second highest Bing search result on "Clay Blair". It seems in line with Wikipedia writing standards, but also is only available at this moment in Bing's cache, so it seems worthwhile to repeat here:

"'Clay Blair, Jr.' (1925- Dec. 16th 1998) was an American historian, best known for his books on military history. He served on the fleet submarine Guardfish in World War II and later wrote for Time and Life magazines before becoming editor-in-chief of The Saturday Evening Post. He was a collaborator (ghost writer) for General Omar Bradley, A General's Life (1983). Blair wrote two dozen history books that reached a popular audience. Although he had no training in military or naval science or historiography, he vented his personal opinions freely, often denouncing officers he thought made mistakes. His last book was Hitler's U-Boat War: The Hunted, 1942-1945 (1998), which followed Hitler's U-Boat War: The Hunters, 1939-1942 (1996). Blair's history of the Korean war The Forgotten War: America in Korea, 1950-1953 (1987) was notable for his attacks on nearly all the top American leaders. It opens with a diatribe against President Truman, contending that Truman's dislike of and disdain for the regular army and contempt for West Pointers led him to disregard the U.S. Army's proposals to maintain a respectable post-1945 fighting force and brought disastrous results for the men sent to fight in Korea. He attacks Truman for placing budgetary savings ahead of military readiness. Blair argues that Truman's grasp of military matters was sketchy at best and caused his poor military decisions in the years before 1950. Blair denounces almost all senior Army officials, from the senior staff to the high command in the Far East. He condemns MacArthur. Blair ridicules almost all high-ranking officers in Korea as being too old, too inexperienced, and, as a group, too incompetent to hold commands in a wartime theater. Blair suggests that officers who fought under Bradley in Europe received preferential treatment in the post-1945 army and that few generals with experience in the Far Eastern or Italian theaters were sent to Korea, which he considers a major blunder. He thinks some of George Patton's men in Korea should have been court-martialed for their failures. His revisionist history takes a top-down perspective, with little interest in common soldiers, and little use of Communist sources. [1] Blair wrote extensively on the submarine war of World War II, most notably in Silent Victory: The U.S. Submarine War Against Japan (1975). Although the book is considered by many to be the definitive work on the Pacific submarine war, like his other works it has a somewhat revisionist aspect. Blair criticizes many of the submarine captains and admirals who fought that war, sometimes with justice (e.g., his recounting of Admiral Charles A. Lockwood's ongoing refusal to accept that the Mark VI magnetic torpedo exploder he helped develop was a total failure) and sometimes undeservedly (his criticisms of Captain Dudley W. Morton, better known as "Mush" Morton). Although he made submarine war patrols in that war himself, it must be noted that his service was as an enlisted quartermaster near the end of that war. Never having served as an officer or having known firsthand the responsibilities of a captain, one must wonder to what degree this colors his perceptions and opinions. Was for many years married to Joan Blair, who co-wrote some of his, mostly later, books." (http://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?q=clay+blair&d=5035535772943656&mkt=en-US&setlang=en-US&w=85653e47,f43699b0) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.130.145.115 (talk) 13:10, 15 December 2010 (UTC)