"Generally, in an expeditionary force, a 3-to-1 ratio of superiority over the defending enemy is considered indispensable; and often in this war, as at Munda and Tarawa, that proved to be not enough. Here, the ratio at the start was about 1 to 4. Why then did the venture succeed? Simply because the United States and Australia dominated that stretch of the ocean and the air over it. The enemy had so few boats and barges that he was able to apply to his 4 to 1 superiority against the Cavalry-cum-Seabee spearhead. The Navy not only provided the Army with seagoing artillery but brought up troopers, beans and bullets in greater numbers; while the Japanese were as completely sealed off from help as MacArthur's forces had been on Bataan early in 1942."
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Pulitzer Prize winnersNon-fiction authors from the United StatesUnited States Navy peopleHarvard University alumniHarvard University faculty
Original Language: English
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https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Samuel_Eliot_Morison
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Samuel Eliot Morison
Samuel Eliot Morison (July 9, 1887 – May 15, 1976) was an American historian noted for his works of maritime history and American history that were both authoritative and popular. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1912, and taught history at the university for 40 years. He won Pulitzer Prizes for Admiral of the Ocean Sea (1942), a biography of Christopher Columbus, and John Paul Jones: A Sailor's Biography (1959). In 1942, he was commissioned to write a history of United States na
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