Intruder Charts History of the A-6

By DAVID W. MUNNS, Assistant Editor

INTRUDER: The Operational History of Grumman’s A-6
by Mark Morgan and Rick Morgan, Atglen, Pa.: Schiffer Military History, 2004. 294 pp. $59.95
ISBN: 0-7643-2100-5

Brothers Mark and Rick Morgan wrote Intruder to cover the operational history of one of the Navy’s most illustrious aircraft, Grumman’s A-6 Intruder. They follow this Vietnam-era aircraft from inception through its more than 30 years of service, a notable period for a plane of its vintage.

This book is the first comprehensive history of what some have deemed the greatest carrier-based aircraft ever constructed. During its three decades of service, the A-6 was considered the “main battery” of the U.S. fleet and was the “primary strike weapon for carrier aviation.”

From its first deployment off the decks of the USS Independence into Southeast Asia in 1965, Navy and Marine Corps pilots and bombadier/navigators flew the A-6 in numerous conflict sites throughout the world.

Perhaps more notable is how the aircraft served its crews during Vietnam. The Morgans provide insight into the “warrior” with a compilation of sea stories, allowing the reader “to better understand what makes a man a good warrior and what ended up spoiling him for the peacetime Navy,” writes retired Rear Adm. Lyle F. Bull in the book’s foreword.

Intruder conveys combat as the crucible that produced a generation of capable naval aviation leaders, and shows how combat bonds young flyers in squadrons more than any other experience.

The book also showcases vibrant pictures and comprehensive appendices that delineate the various A-6 Marine and Navy units, as well as combat and operational losses.

The A-6 gave the Navy its first true all-weather attack capability, a capability that has yet to be fully replaced by its successor, the F/A-18 Hornet. The formidable legacy of this battle-tested aircraft goes beyond its capability.

The authors are effective in surrounding its history with a history of war by relaying hundreds of stories and plentiful analysis about the triumphs and failures of the United States during one of its most controversial conflicts, the Vietnam War.

COMMANDANTS OF THE MARINE CORPS
Edited by Allan R. Millett and Jack Shulimson, Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, July 2004. 608 pp. $55.00
ISBN: 0-87021-012-2

The commandant and his staff are at the heart of shaping and building an effective U.S. Marine Corps. The commandant ensures branches of government understand that the Corps is a distinct service within the Department of the Navy and its troops are accessible for maritime and ashore operations.

To date, 31 men have served as chief of this service, counting Samuel Nicholas, the head of the Continental Marines. The first official officer to assume the title of commandant was William Ward Burrows who took the post in 1800, two years after Congress officially distinguished the Marine Corps from other U.S. sea services.

Effectively, a commandant has served as the “unquestioned head of service and official leader of the Corps” for 200 years. This book captures the bulk of this history by tracing the lives and experiences of 27 of these men who served as commandant between 1775 and 1983.

“Counting the commandants is one exercise, but measuring them is quite another,” Allan R. Millett writes in the book’s prologue. Millett and co-editor Jack Shulimson have devised an effective measuring tool through the compilation of frank essays that comprise Commandants of the Marine Corps.

The essays, one on each commandant, are arranged chronologically and reflect not only the history of the Corps, but also the personality and evolving dynamic of each commandant and his staff. Millett’s introduction provides a wonderfully arranged context of the commandants’ histories, and the well-researched essays from a variety of Marine Corps historians compliment this in-depth look at the performances of the leaders who headed the Corps’ evolution.