In many ways this was an interesting book, but a number of the "100 Mistakes" were poorly researched. This leads a reader to doubt the accuracy of entries he or she may not be familiar with. Here are just a few examples of mistakes I found, and despite desperately wanting to provide readers with a complete history lesson, I'll try to keep my examples short.
#55 - In January 1864, Confederate General Patrick Cleburne, a division commander in the Confederate Army of Tennessee, wrote to his commanding officer suggesting the use of black slaves as soldiers for the Confederacy. To say this didn't go over too well is putting it mildly. But the author has Cleburne sending the letter to General George Thomas. Apparently, the author didn't realize Thomas was the commander of the Army of the Ohio, which just happened to be a Union army. I suspect the author got the Confederate Army of Tennessee confused with the Union Army of THE Tennessee. The Confederacy named its armies after states, while the Union named its armies after rivers. Still, Thomas commanded the Union Army of the Ohio, not the Army of the Tennessee. This is comparable to German General Rommel writing to American General Bradley, suggesting the use of Jews as soldiers in the German army. This was such a spectacular blunder I had to chuckle.
#73 - The author lists 500,000 German soldiers being lost at the Battle of Stalingrad during World War II. He also does this in several other places. However, the long acknowledged figure is about 250,000. To make it worse, the author does list 250,000 in one case, indicating he does not even check his own work.
#76 - The author lists the surprise Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor as a failure of the two commanding officers (U.S. Navy and U.S. Army) to believe intelligence warnings issued by Washington. As a result, both officers were almost immediately relieved of their commands and blamed for the Pearl Harbor disaster. Unfortunately, the truth is that neither officer received the same intelligence messages sent to others, such as MacArthur in the Philippines. This was due to 'politics,' in that the admirals concerned with intelligence in Washington were jealous of the lower-ranked officers in Hawaii, who were making the significant progress in breaking Japanese code. And this was well known before the author wrote this book. The complete story is too long to discuss here.
Let me mention that MacArthur also failed to act on the message and the disaster to the American Air Forces in the western Pacific was far worse than that suffered at Hawaii. This actually drastically changed the situation in the Pacific and led to the disaster at Bataan. MacArthur should have been the one relieved of his command, but once again 'politics' intervened. MacArthur's mistake would have made a good entry in "100 Mistakes," if only the author had read World War II history a bit more deeply.
The author also states "five battleships . . . were sunk or so badly damaged that they couldn't be used for the rest of the war." Actually, six battleships were damaged, but only two, the Arizona and the Oklahoma, were totally lost. The other four were repaired and sent into action, two in 1942 and the other two in 1944. This was not a secret, so I'm not sure how the author missed it.
# 79 - The author lists the Allied Battle of the Atlantic against the German submarine threat as a great undertaking. And it is well that he should. However, he has the turning point occurring when the Germans lost 43 submarines in February 1943. While the numbers are right, the date is wrong, as it happened in May 1943. An excellent book, Black May by Michael Cannon, describes this.
# 85 - The author subscribes to the theory that the U.S. and British armies could have taken Berlin in April-May 1945. But when Eisenhower made the decision not to, the Soviet armies, totally more than one million men, were only 20 miles from Berlin, while the Western Allied armies were scattered across central and eastern Europe and were 200 hundred miles from Berlin. At best, maybe an American division or two could have reached Berlin to join in the Soviet attack on that city. Considering the Soviets took what can only be described as HUGE casualties taking the city, most historians credit Eisenhower with making the correct decision.
# 87 - Once again, the author made a mistake concerning the identity of military units in describing what happened after the North Korean Army collapsed and ran after the invasion at Inchon during the Korean War. In one paragraph, he has the U.N. Tenth Corps going up the south coast of Korea and the Eighth Corps landing on the north coast. Actually, it was the Tenth Corps landing on the north coast and the Eighth ARMY traveling up the south coast. Two paragraphs later he identifies the units correctly. This makes you wonder if anyone, including the author, reviewed the book before publishing. You don't have to know your history to realize there was an error there.
# 88 and 92 - You may not have known this before, but the accidental discoveries of Scotchgard and Post-it notes were two of the "100 Mistakes" which changed the history of the world. The author thought these were so important he actually devoted one whole paragraph to each of them. Unfortunately, while he describes how these two 'great' occurrences happened, he doesn't waste any time telling you why they were important to history. Obviously, you already know.
# 94 - While you are still reeling from the momentous effects of Scotchgard and Post-it notes on history, the author reveals how the introduction of New Coke also changed world history. As I'm not a soda drinker, I must have overlooked its importance before. As such, I am grateful to the author for devoting almost four full pages describing what I had so obviously missed.
Since the author demonstrates his difficulty with numbers in this book, I'd like to suggest a reason for the inclusion of the last three 'Mistakes' mentioned above. After he submitted his manuscript to the publishers, a proofreader, who could actually count, discovered there were only 97 'Mistakes' listed. The author hurriedly scrambled to find three more 'Mistakes' and came up with Scotchgard, Post-it notes and New Coke.
This reminds me of one of my pet theories. When Audubon published his great portfolio on 100 American birds, it was received to great reviews and still has the admiration of art and wildlife fans. Unfortunately, one of the paintings is of a now-extinct bird. In fact, the bird may have even been extinct when the portfolio was first published, as no one but Audubon had ever reported seeing it. My "conspiracy theory" is Audubon miscounted and only painted 99 birds. When his publisher asked him where the 100th bird was, Audubon quickly provided one . . . one which never existed. Hey, who knows?
#55 - In January 1864, Confederate General Patrick Cleburne, a division commander in the Confederate Army of Tennessee, wrote to his commanding officer suggesting the use of black slaves as soldiers for the Confederacy. To say this didn't go over too well is putting it mildly. But the author has Cleburne sending the letter to General George Thomas. Apparently, the author didn't realize Thomas was the commander of the Army of the Ohio, which just happened to be a Union army. I suspect the author got the Confederate Army of Tennessee confused with the Union Army of THE Tennessee. The Confederacy named its armies after states, while the Union named its armies after rivers. Still, Thomas commanded the Union Army of the Ohio, not the Army of the Tennessee. This is comparable to German General Rommel writing to American General Bradley, suggesting the use of Jews as soldiers in the German army. This was such a spectacular blunder I had to chuckle.
#73 - The author lists 500,000 German soldiers being lost at the Battle of Stalingrad during World War II. He also does this in several other places. However, the long acknowledged figure is about 250,000. To make it worse, the author does list 250,000 in one case, indicating he does not even check his own work.
#76 - The author lists the surprise Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor as a failure of the two commanding officers (U.S. Navy and U.S. Army) to believe intelligence warnings issued by Washington. As a result, both officers were almost immediately relieved of their commands and blamed for the Pearl Harbor disaster. Unfortunately, the truth is that neither officer received the same intelligence messages sent to others, such as MacArthur in the Philippines. This was due to 'politics,' in that the admirals concerned with intelligence in Washington were jealous of the lower-ranked officers in Hawaii, who were making the significant progress in breaking Japanese code. And this was well known before the author wrote this book. The complete story is too long to discuss here.
Let me mention that MacArthur also failed to act on the message and the disaster to the American Air Forces in the western Pacific was far worse than that suffered at Hawaii. This actually drastically changed the situation in the Pacific and led to the disaster at Bataan. MacArthur should have been the one relieved of his command, but once again 'politics' intervened. MacArthur's mistake would have made a good entry in "100 Mistakes," if only the author had read World War II history a bit more deeply.
The author also states "five battleships . . . were sunk or so badly damaged that they couldn't be used for the rest of the war." Actually, six battleships were damaged, but only two, the Arizona and the Oklahoma, were totally lost. The other four were repaired and sent into action, two in 1942 and the other two in 1944. This was not a secret, so I'm not sure how the author missed it.
# 79 - The author lists the Allied Battle of the Atlantic against the German submarine threat as a great undertaking. And it is well that he should. However, he has the turning point occurring when the Germans lost 43 submarines in February 1943. While the numbers are right, the date is wrong, as it happened in May 1943. An excellent book, Black May by Michael Cannon, describes this.
# 85 - The author subscribes to the theory that the U.S. and British armies could have taken Berlin in April-May 1945. But when Eisenhower made the decision not to, the Soviet armies, totally more than one million men, were only 20 miles from Berlin, while the Western Allied armies were scattered across central and eastern Europe and were 200 hundred miles from Berlin. At best, maybe an American division or two could have reached Berlin to join in the Soviet attack on that city. Considering the Soviets took what can only be described as HUGE casualties taking the city, most historians credit Eisenhower with making the correct decision.
# 87 - Once again, the author made a mistake concerning the identity of military units in describing what happened after the North Korean Army collapsed and ran after the invasion at Inchon during the Korean War. In one paragraph, he has the U.N. Tenth Corps going up the south coast of Korea and the Eighth Corps landing on the north coast. Actually, it was the Tenth Corps landing on the north coast and the Eighth ARMY traveling up the south coast. Two paragraphs later he identifies the units correctly. This makes you wonder if anyone, including the author, reviewed the book before publishing. You don't have to know your history to realize there was an error there.
# 88 and 92 - You may not have known this before, but the accidental discoveries of Scotchgard and Post-it notes were two of the "100 Mistakes" which changed the history of the world. The author thought these were so important he actually devoted one whole paragraph to each of them. Unfortunately, while he describes how these two 'great' occurrences happened, he doesn't waste any time telling you why they were important to history. Obviously, you already know.
# 94 - While you are still reeling from the momentous effects of Scotchgard and Post-it notes on history, the author reveals how the introduction of New Coke also changed world history. As I'm not a soda drinker, I must have overlooked its importance before. As such, I am grateful to the author for devoting almost four full pages describing what I had so obviously missed.
Since the author demonstrates his difficulty with numbers in this book, I'd like to suggest a reason for the inclusion of the last three 'Mistakes' mentioned above. After he submitted his manuscript to the publishers, a proofreader, who could actually count, discovered there were only 97 'Mistakes' listed. The author hurriedly scrambled to find three more 'Mistakes' and came up with Scotchgard, Post-it notes and New Coke.
This reminds me of one of my pet theories. When Audubon published his great portfolio on 100 American birds, it was received to great reviews and still has the admiration of art and wildlife fans. Unfortunately, one of the paintings is of a now-extinct bird. In fact, the bird may have even been extinct when the portfolio was first published, as no one but Audubon had ever reported seeing it. My "conspiracy theory" is Audubon miscounted and only painted 99 birds. When his publisher asked him where the 100th bird was, Audubon quickly provided one . . . one which never existed. Hey, who knows?
