BOOK REVIEWS

John Bowen and Martin Robson (eds.). built in the age of sail, and also a model Shipwright 2011. The International Annual builder, was well qualified for the role of of Maritime History and Ship Modelling. keeper/curator. Ex-RN, having served London: Anova Books, www.anova aboard surface vessels and Polaris books.com, 2010. 208 pp., illustrations. submarines as a marine engineer artificer CDN $47.95, US $39.95, UK £30.00, cloth; and, eventually Victory, his was a unique ISBN 978-1-84486-123-1. career, experiencing naval technology from the age of sail to the latest nuclear Model Shipwright, which for its first 144 engineering, albeit in reverse order. issues was quarterly, became an annual When Goodwin became keeper and publication in 2010 as The International curator, he found Victory to be essentially a Annual of Maritime History and Ship bare vessel, with little or no interpretive Modelling. This, the 2011 issue, is the information about the ship, how she was second publication under that title fought, or how the crew lived. Deciding his continuing to use the same high quality mission would be to tell her tale, he divided materials, illustrations, and lavish the ship on her centreline with the port side photography. The book opens with an cleared for action, while the starboard side, editorial outlining the contents of the issue, with its gun ports closed, shows crew followed by an interview with Peter accommodation under more peaceable Goodwin, keeper and curator of HMS conditions. Starting by fitting out the Victory, in Portsmouth. Of the 18 articles galley, sick bay, store rooms and cabins on 11deal with scratch building a range of the orlop deck, all as they would have been different vessel types and scales; three fitted out and stocked, he then restored the articles provide tips, while the other four magazines, including the Grand magazine, cover history and similar subjects, creating allowing people to walk into a magazine to an excellent balance of interesting subjects, see it as it would have been. Also under with most well illustrated with photographs, Goodwin’s direction about 35 percent more illustrations, and references. rigging was added, bringing her closer to The interview with Peter Goodwin her full rig. The interview includes six was conducted by John Lee, publisher of detail photos. Conway Maritime, discussing Goodwin’s career and activities as the first keeper and Smaller scale modelling articles curator of HMS Victory. He began as a include a full-hulled model of the cargo civilian guide when the Royal Navy liner Benloyal of 1959 by Bernard Baldwin, changed from using naval ratings as hosts scale 1:600. Another deals with two on the ship to civilian guides who had the separate waterline models, both set into time to develop greater knowledge than the modelled seas: Stella Polaris and Rose ratings during their short-term postings. (both Norwegian motor ships), by Robert A Goodwin, having authored a number of Wilson FRSA, scale 32 feet to the inch. books on technology and specific vessels Representing an earlier period is HMS The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord, XXI No. 3, (July 2011), 407-442 408 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord Roebuck, a fully rigged dockyard model, and Their Apprentices, 1730-1755” by also by Baldwin, scale 1:192. George Stephenson; and “A Historical look More commonly used scales at Polar Opposites: Nansen and Amundsen‘s include “Modelling the Carron Company’s Fram and Scott’s Discovery” by Rorke Steam-Lighter # 10,” a Clyde Puffer by Bryan using models of the ships as Graham Castle at 1:32 scale and “Syracusia discussion points with draughts of both (c240BC), A Possible Reconstruction” by vessels. “Sengokubune: Ships of the Alan Ludbrook, at a scale of 1:72. HMS Japanese Coastal Trade” by Douglas Brooks Bounty, a model of Captain Bligh’s Armed describes the construction of a superb full- Transport by John York, scale1:48, presents sized period vessel using traditional an interesting framing technique by Japanese methods, tools and materials. moulding the frames over a carved hull The book ends with “Book News,” former. Next is “Tautuna: The Island reviews of current publications. It is highly Touring Ship” by John Laing, scale 1:48, recommended; a worthwhile addition to any followed by the motor tug Nangee, a radio- ship-model builder’s — even maritime controlled working kit model built by Tom historian’s — library. Gorman, no scale is indicated. N. Roger Cole At even larger scales there is a truly Scarborough, Ontario magnificent model of a 27-foot naval whaler employing clinker (lapstrake) construction, fully rigged, with sails bent Anthony Brandt. The Man Who Ate His on, by R. Burnham, scale ¾ inch to the foot. Boots. The Tragic History of the Search for There are three fishing boat models in one the Northwest Passage. New York, NY: article depicting development in design by Alfred A. Knopf, www.knopf.knopf William Macintosh, two are at 1:24, and one doubleday.com, 2010. 464 pp., illustrations, is at 3 feet to the inch; followed by a maps, bibliography, index. US $28.95, draught for the Scottish Fisheries Patrol cloth; ISBN 978-0-307-26392-6. Vessel Vigilant (III) by J. Pottinger. Modeller’s draughts, included in all issues In 1985, Captain Tom Pullen, RCN retired, since #77, became downloadable over the former captain of Canada’s only ship ever internet in the 2010 issue but appear to have capable of year-round transit in the High been replaced with excellent plates in the Arctic, HMCS Labrador, complimented the 2011 issue, with the suggestion that they be arctic explorers of old, “Today’s polar ships scaled as required. are vastly better than those of the nineteenth Model-building tips include “Hull century; it remains to be seen whether Planking: A step-by-Step Guide” by John twentieth century polar seamen can match Laing, “Miniature Handrails and Deck the qualities and attitudes of nineteenth Ladders” by Bernard Baldwin, followed by century explorers.” While climate change “The Painting of Ships 1750-1850: has forever altered the arctic environment, Authentic Paint Colours of Naval Vessels” even today only a fool would sail into the by Jonathon Kinghorn. Far North unprepared. Vulnerability to the In a general interest category there northern climate, with its whiteouts, frozen is “HMS Warrior: A Monitor for the fog, unpredictable storms, temperatures Heritage Lottery Fund” by Wyn Davies, more than 50° below zero, and massive discussing the lottery grant application moving ice floes make preparation essential. process and its use in Great Britain; “‘To But one cannot discount the role of luck — Learn His Art’: A History of Shipwrights a factor no explorer counts on, but all pray Book Reviews 409 for, and many who survived thank God for. expeditions to the Arctic in England’s post- Yet, as author Anthony Brandt’s book Napoleonic age. Confident that an ice-free makes clear, men were willing to brave the passage existed and that ice was merely unknown, take on the elements, and search coastal, Barrow sent expedition after for both glory and the Northwest Passage. expedition, even as men died and an ice-free Even the most tragic figure, the devout John passage never materialized. Franklin acknowledged his early luck; that Brandt called the search “tragic his luck ran out is part of what makes his folly,” but also noted that “tragedy can be story so compelling. the scene of heroism as well as arrogance Brandt’s book hooks the reader and folly” (p.6). Franklin’s expeditions and with its very title, The Man Who Ate His the subsequent expeditions to find him Boots: The Tragic History of the Search for surely reflected this folly, arrogance, and the Northwest Passage. Who was the man tragedy, as well as acts of courage and and what drove him to eat his boots? The heroism. Brandt skillfully brings the reader answer is quickly given: the famous arctic right into the dynamics of the time: between explorer Sir John Franklin. A hero more for explorers and royalty, captains and the his character and fate than for his Admiralty, officers and their sailors, discoveries, Franklin “became the central, Englishmen and voyageurs, and Englishmen the emblematic figure in the quest for the and the Inuit. In addition, he illuminated Northwest Passage in the nineteenth the disconnect between the expectations of century” (p.7). Of course, it was the search those sitting comfortably at home and the for Franklin and his men that eventually led realities of the unforgiving Arctic. There to the discovery of the Passage and the was fame (William Parry) and shame (John extensive mapping of the Far North, but the Ross); gentlemen (George Back) and pirates tales of exploration are arguably as thrilling (William Dampier), and finally, the man as the discovery itself. who embodied both success and failure – Explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson John Franklin. While “risk is the essence of noted, “The sailor dream of five centuries: exploration” (p.140), success and failure The Near Way to the Far East is North.” hung in the balance, often by forces beyond This quest for a northern water route to any man’s control. And yet, preparation and Asia’s riches enticed dreamers and sailors, education were (and remain) vital factors in entrepreneurs and monarchs, adventurers tipping the odds in favor of survival. and pirates. The Northwest Passage links As Brandt noted, “To behave nobly the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and, in fact, and heroically in an obviously hopeless consists of five main routes. The earliest cause is a kind of folly, but it can also exploration was in the fifteenth century, and constitute greatness” (p.6). And Franklin tracing the early attempts to find the epitomized this definition of greatness: a Passage sets the stage for the extraordinarily man present at the beginning of the searches busy and dramatic nineteenth century. in 1818, the man who, with 128 of his men, Finding the Passage necessitated funding, later disappeared and died. Franklin’s final and it was John Barrow who was the force and fatal expedition began in 1845, but it behind nineteenth-century English was not until 1854 that his fate was finally exploration and a commanding figure in the confirmed. It was Barrow and his book. Second secretary of the Admiralty successors who kept the British government (later “permanent secretary”), Barrow was involved in the search – which moved from “obsessed with the Northwest Passage” a rescue operation to that of recovering (p.44), and he had the power to send remains, relics, and records, but it was the 410 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord sheer determination of Lady Jane Franklin, T.H. Breen. American Insurgents, who kept the search for her husband alive American Patriots: The Revolution of the and whose influence “was equaled by no People. New York, NY: Hill and Wang, woman of her time and by few men” us.macmill.com/hillandwang, 2010. 337 (p.392). It was in these futile attempts to pp., notes, index. US $27.00, CDN $27.00, find Franklin alive, and then to discover his paper; ISBN 978-0-8090-7588-1. fate and retrieve evidence, that the Northwest Passage was found. But it was During the 1960s, academics began to not until 1903 that the complete water examine the American Revolution seriously transit was made (by the Norwegian Roald from the perspective of “ordinary” people. Amundsen), and it took three years to Scholars investigated why and how those accomplish. The first Canadian to transit other than the famous Founding Fathers the Passage was Captain Henry Larsen in participated in a war for independence, and the RCMP St. Roch in 1940-42, and the first they started to consider the extent to which transit in a single season was again Larsen, the conflict changed the lives of the masses. in 1944. For neo-progressive historians such as Written for the general reader, this Woody Holton, Jesse Lemisch, Gary Nash book’s great assets are its engaging and Alfred Young, “ordinary” people meant narrative, portraits of not just the main poorer, uneducated workers, women, characters, but others, too — from lowly African Americans, and Native Americans. sailors to lifesaving Inuit; from descriptions More traditional historians such as Bernard of not only heroic accomplishments but Bailyn, Jack Greene and Gordon Wood saw desperate acts, such as cannibalism, as well. colonial America as being populated The inclusion of nineteenth- and twentieth- primarily by the middling sort, typified by century maps and a detailed chronology of white, male, yeoman farmers. Both this nineteenth-century arctic expeditions unquenched academic desire to capture the enhance the narrative, moving it beyond the meaning of the American Revolution for the compelling story to a useful book for majority, and this unresolved confusion over academics. The lack of footnotes could the nature of ordinary colonists are manifest potentially frustrate the scholar utilizing the in T.H. Breen’s latest work. book for research, but the excellent American Insurgents, American bibliographic descriptions for each chapter, Patriots is, in part, a critique of top-down the extensive bibliography, and the fine portraits of the American Revolution. In no index more than compensate for the lack of uncertain terms, Breen states “a handful of citations. elite gentlemen arguing about political “It is … this tension … between the theory makes for a debating society, not a nobility and the folly of the enterprise that revolution.” For Breen, as for Holton, makes the story so rich” (p.8), and Brandt Lemisch, Nash and Young, “The patriots tell the story very well. As the Arctic who are generally credited with mounting continues to melt, future generations will the Revolution were in fact the beneficiaries find it difficult to understand conditions so of rebellious insurgents who initially desperate as to lead men to eat their boots, sparked resistance.” Like these other and some to turn to cannibalism. This book scholars, Breen wants to shift our focus will help them to understand. away from the Founding Fathers and toward the “tens of thousands of ordinary people Elizabeth Elliot-Meisel willing to set aside their work, homes and Omaha, Nebraska families to take up arms in expectation of Book Reviews 411 killing and possibly being killed” (p.4). Yet, Newspapers spread the word that people Breen seems to agree with Bailyn, Greene were taking up arms. Mobs began attacking and Wood that in colonial America, Loyalists, those who remained loyal to the “ordinary” people were primarily white, British government. “Thousands of male, middling, landholding agriculturalists. ordinary people — most of them farmers” This tension between a desire to write a became politicized in non-violent and provocative bottom-up history of the violent ways, Breen writes (p.98). Chapter American Revolution and a traditional four explains how the revolutionary conviction that the colonies were primarily movement spread out from Massachusetts peopled by white male landowners runs to other colonies. As in Eric Hobsbawm’s throughout the book. Age of Revolution, print culture plays a Breen’s book focuses on the two decisive role in Breen’s book in the years prior to the American Declaration of extension of “bonds of sympathy, the key to Independence, 1774 and 1775. The effective mobilization” (p.99). While elites introduction lays out his bottom-up read pamphlets, ordinary Americans read approach to the Revolution. Chapter one, newspaper accounts of Bostonians suffering “The Face of Colonial Society,” clearly under the Coercive Acts. These accounts articulates Breen’s vision of “ordinary” generated sympathy among colonists Americans as “the middling sort,” or “white outside Massachusetts and galvanized farm families,” who comprised “70%” of resistance to imperial oppression. Chapter the British North American population five looks at the First Continental Congress (p.25). The author further believes that that met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at the most Americans were young, lived in small end of 1774. This was an elite meeting of villages, practised evangelical Protestant the Founding Fathers, to be sure. But, Christianity, and remained loyal British according to Breen, “Popular politics on the subjects prior to 1760. Chapter two focuses ground forced the delegates to endorse a on the 1774 Coercive Acts. Breen believes policy far more provocative than anything news of the Acts, “Like news of the 9/11 they might have anticipated before setting attack, the destruction of Pearl Harbor, and out for Philadelphia” (p.128). In fact, the bombing of Fort Sumter,” spread like Congress publicly endorsed the Suffolk wildfire and sparked conviction in the Resolves, which stated in part that colonists breasts of “ordinary” Americans, motivating had the right to nullify Parliamentary laws them to violently resist British authority and to violently resist the enforcement of (p.53). For Breen, colonial reaction to the said laws. The Founding Fathers took this 1774 Coercive Acts, rather than the 1775 step, Breen argues, because of rumours that Battles of Lexington and Concord, or the the British had destroyed Boston and 1776 Declaration of Independence, ordinary Americans had already risen up in “represented the effectual start of the response. Congressmen believed they Revolution”(p.53). Chapter three examines needed to get out ahead of the masses, in the colonial reaction to the Coercive Acts in order to control revolutionary energies. the Massachusetts countryside, the Chapter six focuses on the Continental birthplace of the Revolution. Here, Association, which Congress authorized late countryfolk raised liberty poles in protest. in 1774. The association established a There were calls for economic boycotts of national boycott of British goods. Crucially, British manufactured goods. Patriot militia according to Breen, it also created local officers resigned their British military committees to enforce the boycott in towns commissions. Courts were closed. across America. Committees of safety 412 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord effectively decreased the value of British wealthy elites convinced everyone else that imports from £3,000,000 in 1774 to liberty was in peril and in need of armed £220,000 one year later (p.169). Moreover, defense. Anyone interested in a bottom-up these committees represented “laboratories portrait of the Revolution will enjoy this for republican rule” that, for the first time, book. provided Americans with “a revolutionary Readers who purchase a book framework in which a central governing subtitled “The Revolution of the People” body interacted productively with local will be disappointed to find precious little units” (p.170). Chapter seven details the discussion of anyone but white, male, various ways in which these committees farmers. When they are mentioned, women enforced Congress’s Continental are portrayed as loving wives and mothers Association. Local officials determined for who stayed at home and cheered their male themselves how and when to act, which relations’ decisions to fight against British made the process one of give-and-take with authority (p.140). African Americans and elites in Philadelphia, rather than a top- Native Americans are wholly absent from down affair. Chapter eight explores the this book, despite scholarship by Sylvia ways that these committees acted in Frey, Colin Calloway and others. Day moderation, which meant that the American labourers, migrant workers, watermen, Revolution would not end in a French-style sailors, fishermen, and other poorer, Reign of Terror. Chapter nine presents an uneducated, un-propertied citizens are also interesting analysis of the relationship wholly absent from this bottom-up people’s between Protestant Christian ideals and history of the American Revolution. popular politics. While the Founding Perhaps none of these people constituted the Fathers drew their ideological inspiration majority of colonial Americans. But, in the primarily from Enlightenment thinkers, absence of accurate census data for the ordinary Americans were inspired by eighteenth century, historians can only sermons that emphasized generic God-given estimate percentages. Moreover, any rights that needed to be defended against history of “the people” in America should tyranny. In Breen’s eloquent critique of be polyglot and pluralistic. Yet, Breen Bailyn’s scholarship, “the people’s ideas should be congratulated on his efforts to were neither identical to those encountered popularize a bottom-up approach to the in the learned pamphlets nor watered-down Revolution. His unequivocal style will versions of the principles found in those carry his message home, even if his story is formal productions” (p.241). The people not as inclusive as it should be. had their own ideas about why they fought Christopher P. Magra against the British. The concluding chapter Knoxville, Tennessee presents contrasting perspectives on the beginning of the Revolutionary War and the end of the British Empire. This is a very well-written effort to reach out to a wide audience. Breen’s passionate conviction that ordinary Americans made possible the Revolution imbues his writing with a verve that quickly turns pages. He consistently hammers home the point that the Revolution was not a top-down event in which educated, Book Reviews 413 Jaap R. Bruijn. Commanders of the Dutch De Bataafsche Leeuw, and reprinted three East India Ships in the Eighteenth Century. times since then. The contents of the (R.L. Robson-McKillop and Richard E. English and Dutch versions are almost the Unger, trans. of 3rd edition, 2008). same, but, while nothing has been omitted, a Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, helpful chapter on international www.boydellandbrewer.com, 2011. xiii + comparisons has been added. The 336 pp., illustrations, maps, bibliography, translation work seems to be of high quality. index, index of ship names. UK £75.00, US Part One, “Commanders at Home $130.00, hardback; ISBN 978-1-84383-622- Ashore” is an in-depth description of the 3. captains’ social background and origins, their place in society and their lives ashore, The questions raised by the author of this even after retirement from active service at book are: Who were the commanders of the sea. Among Bruijn’s interesting Dutch East India Company’s (Vereenigde conclusions is that most of the commanders Oost-Indische Compagnie or VOC) ships in came from rather humble circumstances and the eighteenth century? What was their began their careers at sea as deckhands or situation at home and at sea? sailors with the VOC. The most gifted and Professor Bruijn is the right man to energetic young men would be promoted answer these questions, for he is the “grand through the ranks on board, and especially old man” of Dutch maritime history in those who became commanders, would general, and of the VOC in particular. For have experienced a strong upward social many years a professor at the University of mobility. Their socio-economic situation at Leiden, Bruijn trained a generation of sea and ashore would have improved maritime historians; under his supervision, considerably by the end of their careers. 49 Dutch and foreign students defended Bruijn has also investigated the their doctoral theses in maritime history. An commanders’ administrative and emeritus professor since 2003, Bruijn commercial activities once they retired from continues to be a very energetic researcher, the sea. Many crew members, however, did publishing two books in 2011— a new not get that far, because so many of them edition of The Dutch Navy of the died aboard the ships, en route to, or more Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries often, in Batavia, the Dutch East Indies, (Research in Maritime History, vol. 45, St. where malaria took a heavy toll. John’s, Newfoundland) and this book on the Professor Bruijn has chosen to VOC commanders. devote a chapter to commanders from each Divided in two parts of roughly of the six towns where chambers of the equal length, the first half of the book deals Company were located, i.e. Enkhuizen, with the commanders’ backgrounds and life Hoorn, Middelburg, Delft, Rotterdam and at home, while the other part describes their Amsterdam. He demonstrates that in the careers on board the East Indiamen. It smaller of these towns, VOC activities concludes with comparisons with other East played a very important role, and hence the India companies, a general conclusion, and local Company commanders enjoyed of course, a comprehensive bibliography considerable status, whereas in the large and indices. metropolitan centre of Amsterdam, a VOC The book under review is an schipper was no one special. Often English translation of Schippers van de commanders were recruited locally from the VOC in de achttiende eeuw aan de wal en six chamber towns, but throughout the op zee, published in Amsterdam in 2008 by century, as more and more foreigners 414 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord manned the Dutch East Indiamen, some bring the ship and cargo safely to its were even appointed commanders. A destination. remarkable difference has been found Compared with the British, French, between naval officers, often of superior Danish and Swedish companies, Dutch background, and VOC commanders. ships, their navigational equipment such as Professor Bruijn – and his students, charts, octants etc., and the education of who have done much of the basic research Dutch navigators has traditionally been into the rich Dutch archives — have criticized by historians for being more or examined many of the more than one less outdated. Professor Bruijn does not thousand eighteenth-century commanders, agree, even though he admits that “the VOC whose lives are depicted in great detail. could not be called a pioneer in innovations While much of this information on local in navigation” (p.292). Innovations in matters will undoubtedly interest Dutch shipbuilding and navigation were, in fact, readers, foreign readers would probably introduced by the VOC, but not until they have benefited from more general remarks. had proven their worth abroad. Another Part Two on “Commanders at Sea,” factor which encumbered Dutch shipping opens with remarkable chapters on how was that VOC commanders were seldom as appointments and examinations were experienced and specialized in navigating a conducted. The Dutch system specifically specific route, such as the one to Canton, as guaranteed that everybody could apply for a their Danish and Swedish competitors, who position with the Company. The directors sailed faster and lost fewer ships and crew of each chamber appointed commanders, members. ship’s officers and petty officers, but it was There are a few criticisms with the necessary to pay — how much is no longer book. Since there is no list of archival known — to obtain a post. It was also references, it is up to the reader to find out mandatory for a candidate to pass an which documents the many footnotes refer examination in theoretical and practical to when they mention, for instance, “VOC navigation, for instance, to prove his skills. 222.” It is important to know if a reference The book offers a useful is to normative resoluties (e.g. Amsterdam, comparison between the normal income of Proceedings, VOC 23-310) or to descriptive commanders (monthly wages, bonuses and scheepsjournalen (e.g. Zeeland, Ship’s logs gratuities, free freightage) and their much etc., VOC 11,407-11,450). more profitable private trade on the voyages Even though Jaap R. Bruijn has out and home. Extensive private trade — accomplished a tremendous task, the reader including smuggling slaves, for example — misses the story of the seventeenth-century also took place in the intra-Asian country commanders dating from the establishment trade, but this has not been investigated. of the VOC in 1602. His analysis would Instead, the author has turned his have benefited from omitting some of the attention to social conditions aboard the many details concerning the eighteenth ships, with special regard to the role of the century and adding, instead, more commander. Throughout the eighteenth information on the commanders of the century, a total of 5,300 Company voyages seventeenth century. were commanded by 1,200 commanders, as Nevertheless, Commanders of a rule without serious problems. While a Dutch East India Ships in the Eighteenth few schippers were brutal and drunken, the Century is a very informative book. An directors did not seem to care much, as their astonishing number of sources have been only concern was to have the commander scrutinized by Professor Bruijn throughout Book Reviews 415 his long and impressive career. Nobody offences. While some of these cases were else could have provided us with such a extremely serious, most entailed lesser well written and significant account of this multiple offences, such as using a ship’s subject, which is so essential to both Dutch boat to desert. and international maritime history. Dr. Byrn has succeeded in his goal of giving the reader a clear sense of the Erik Goebel principles and procedures used by naval Copenhagen, Denmark courts martial. In order to keep the project manageable, he employed a number of John D. Byrn (ed.). Naval Courts Martial, selection criteria: all documents had to have 1793-1815. Naval Records Society, Volume been produced between 1793 and 1815; 155. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, they had to have been clear enough to www.ashgate.com, 2009. xxix + 786 pp., permit copying at the National Archives; glossary, documents and sources, index. US and they had to be no longer than ten $134.95, cloth; ISBN 978-0-7546-6781-0. handwritten pages. Documents that met these criteria were then selected further, so Naval Courts Martial offers an excellent that the cases in the collection represented introduction to the administration of justice all types of offences before courts martial at in the Royal Navy during period of the home and foreign stations, as well as trials French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. that produced guilty and innocent verdicts. John Byrn has organized this impressive While Byrn modernized spelling and collection into four thematic chapters. The punctuation, he was careful to include first includes trial minutes and other complete transcriptions of each selected documents that shed light on the legal case, allowing the reader to follow trials procedure of courts martial, while the other from beginning to end. Reading the court three chapters are divided according to minutes in Naval Courts Martial is similar social crimes, naval crimes, and multiple to reading them in their original archival offences. Byrn defines social crime as form, with the added advantages of having offences that corresponded to the types of the cases grouped thematically and fully infractions dealt with ashore by common indexed. To balance this rich qualitative law courts, such as drunkenness, larceny, evidence, Byrn offers pithy quantitative assault, and murder. Included within this summaries at the beginning of each chapter chapter is a selection of documents relating that place the selected cases in their larger to sexual crimes, specifically “buggery” and statistical contexts. He also includes the full “the unnatural crime of sodomy.” The text of the Articles of War and a glossary of chapter on naval crimes covers technical terms. transgressions against the needs of the Byrn offers a highly useful service, which Bryn defines as introductory essay. He gives a clear encompassing insolence, desertion, loss of a introduction to not only the Articles of War ship, cowardice, neglect of duty, and but also the judicial procedures and legal mutiny. The final chapter includes cases in culture in the Royal Navy. He argues that which the accused was charged with more while some naval courts martial failed to than one offence; as Byrn notes, this was adhere fully to the law, they were the quite common for naval courts martial in exceptions rather than the rule. this period. More than a third of the men Commanders of squadrons on foreign included in Byrn’s sample of 1,149 stations were reluctant to act summarily, defendants were accused of multiple and judge advocates and officers did not 416 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord hesitate to solicit advice from the solicitor state authority. Nonetheless, each of these general when necessary. Byrn explains the groups — pirates, privateers, mercenaries, role of courts of inquiry (preliminary bandits, etc. — developed symbiotic hearings that were more informal than relationships with violence and the state. courts martial and functioned something Most of the authors are specialists in like a grand jury), and he notes the international relations whose primary importance of viva voce testimony in a legal concerns are with understanding culture that strongly favoured oral contemporary issues; only two authors are declarations under oath to written affidavits. professional historians. The overall impression left by Byrn’s The editors, Alejandro Colás and commentary and the collected documents is Bryan Mabee, who both teach at the of a system of justice similar in many University of London, provide a useful respects to civilian courts of law, and I hope introduction that attempts to tie these that the volume encourages non-specialists otherwise disparate chapters together to explore the fascinating legal history of through a discussion of important the Royal Navy. In an era when practically theoretical issues that raised throughout the everything is being converted into an on- book. Most important, these include line database of some sort, it is wonderfully reassessments and challenges to the theories refreshing to read a newly-bound volume of on state-formation, state-society relations, expertly edited primary documents. Naval and the public-private dichotomy as Courts Martial is the type of versatile developed by Max Weber and, more collection that will be useful as both a recently, by Janice Thomson. (In fact, the general reference tool and a guide for future title of this book is derived from Thomson’s historical research. 1994 book, Mercenaries, Pirates, and Sovereigns: State-building and Jerry Bannister Extraterrritorial Violence in Early Modern Halifax, Nova Scotia Europe.) Specifically, many of the authors, and in particular the theoretical chapters by Alejandro Colás and Bryan Mabee (eds.). Patricia Owens and Tarak Barkawi, argue Mercenaries, Pirates, Bandits, and that no matter how much state authorities Empires: Private Violence in Historical have tried to distance themselves from non- Context. New York, NY: Columbia government- sanctioned (private) violence, University Press, www.cup.columbia.edu, the distinctions between soldiers, and 2011. x + 244 pp., notes, index. US $63.50, mercenaries, privateers, and even pirates cloth; ISBN 978-0-231-70208-9. has never been clear-cut or enduring. The authors are especially critical of Thomson’s Despite the provocative title, the book under too simplistic and legalistic approach to review covers a hodgepodge of topics understanding privatized or including mercenaries, pirates, privateers, “extraterritorial” violence. As several smugglers, bandits, warlords, and private authors show, states were often deeply security companies, but offers very little on implicated in “non-state” violence and empires or overall historical context. The therefore, we cannot claim that such acts thread running through the book is its focus were simply illegal. Privateering, often on the uses and abuses of so-called private described as “legalized piracy”, is a good violence. Each of the nine chapters focuses example of the blending of state and non- on groups of people who regularly engaged state, or public and private spheres. In fact, in violence outside, or on the margins of, private violence was a double-edge sword: Book Reviews 417 in some areas and times it could support from one another. For them, piracy was a existing power structures, yet in other areas “predictable political-economic and times it could oppose state authority. consequence of a world where war and For me, and probably for most violence at sea were integral and necessary readers of this journal, the most interesting components of wealth-creation, circulation and useful chapters are those on late- and accumulation”(p.85). They conclude seventeeth-century French privateering in that, in large measure, a decline in piracy the North Sea by Halvard Leira and and privateering occurred after the Benjamin de Carvalho, on British piracy eighteenth century because of the and privateering in the Atlantic during the withdrawal of state and merchant support. long eighteenth century by Alejandro Colás The chapters by Tagliacozzo and and Bryan Mabee, on nineteenth-century Cullen focus on seaborne privatized Southeast Asian smuggling by Eric violence in Southeast Asia. According to Tagliacozzo, and on contemporary private Tagliacozzo, although we often view security companies in the Malacca Straits smuggling as a somewhat innocuous but by Patrick Cullen. While Colás and Mabee illegal activity, in fact, it often involved focus mainly on how private means of violence. In nineteenth-century Southeast violence were put at the disposal of the Asian waters, armed men were everywhere, British state, Leira and Carvalho examine and opportunities for smuggling, piracy, and how the state put private forms of violence trade went hand in hand. This chapter to use in the case of France. Describing highlights the use of private violence in the privateering as the most thoroughly smuggling trade of unfarmed (illegal) institutionalized form of private violence, opium, weapons, and humans. As the Leira and Carvalho carefully examine the author explains, “All were utilized not only linkages between the developing French as a means to make money on the sly, but consular offices and privateering, arguing also as ways to express dissent with the that the most important reason for the growing power of colonial regimes” establishment of consular offices in Norway (p.108). Cullen’s chapter examines was to support privateering. They show that contemporary private security companies non-state violence such as privateering was operating in the Malacca Straits since the not only initiated by the state but also by 1990s. This chapter highlights the private interests. Over time, however, complicated relationships between those privateering came under increasing state companies, private shipping concerns, and control through an expanding professional local governments, and in particular, how consular service. private violence has challenged the Colás and Mabee take what they sovereignty and authority of states in the call a historical-sociological approach to region. examine Atlantic privateering and piracy The issue of private violence is a over the long eighteenth century as critical hot topic in International Relations, and this background for understanding modern book adds greatly to the ongoing theoretical international relations. In their “materialist debates in that field. All chapters are well explanation” they place privatized violence written and well argued. Unfortunately, in the broader context of global economic because so few authors develop their development and mercantilist empires, theories out of deeper historical further arguing that during the eighteenth understandings, the book will not be of century piracy, privateering, naval warfare, much interest to historians. In a book that trade, and diplomacy were indistinguishable purports to understand current issues by 418 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord using the insights of a historical perspective, deals with the builder’s and owner’s models clearly much more needs to be done. of proposed ships. The former helps both designer and builder to visualize the three- Robert Antony dimensional aspect of the design and the Taipa, Macau SAR placement of plating on the bottom and sides; the latter was displayed in the Davies-Garner, Peter. RMS Titanic: A owner’s office or booking office to attract Modelmaker’s Manual. Barnsley, S. customers. The former could be crude in Yorkshire: Seaforth Publishing, form — sometimes only half the width of www.penandsword.uk, 2010. (Originally the ship — whereas the latter could be very published 2008 by Naval Institute Press). x elaborate in detail, but with some artistic + 150 pp., illustrations, plans, appendices. license allowed. Neither might represent US $42.95, UK £25.00, cloth; ISBN 978-1- the ship in its “as built” condition. The 59114-729-9. author addresses the various actual models of sister-ships Olympic and Britannic that I have built many commercially available do exist — there never was one of Titanic. model kits and a few scratch-built models Davies-Garner describes the two during my life, but to see the exactness and methods of constructing the hull: a stacking fastidiousness of a professional model- of planks (“bread and butter”) or plank on builder is a mind-boggling experience — a frame, which he recommends for models quantum leap, a paradigm shift. Peter greater than 1:200. That method involves a Davies-Garner is a professional model- solid keel with many frames set at right- maker but also a “rivet counter,” i.e., the angles, like the cardboard dividers in a box smallest details are not overlooked. for wine or liquor. In his Titanic model, In 2001 Davies-Garner undertook a Davies-Garner filled the spaces between the two-and-half-year project to build a 1:48 frames with 12 mm (1/2 inch) pine planks. scale model of RMS Titanic for a Titanic The extreme bow and stern were solid, exhibition in Orlando, Florida. The model horizontally-laid wood laminates. Then, now resides in Branson, Missouri, at The after much planing, filing, sanding and Titanic Experience, where it is billed as the filling of blemishes, the hull took on the world’s largest model of the Titanic. Ken required shape. On that hull, styrene sheets Marschall, globally acknowledged as the the exact size of the ship’s plating were world’s foremost creator of Titanic artwork, added just as on the stocks at the Harland & states in the foreword that finally someone Wolff shipyard. More than 60,000 rivets had done it right! No one can make a one were each individually added to the hull hundred percent correct model of a ship that alone in the exact arrangement according to sank a century ago and had existed for only the ship’s plans. Another 32,000 rivets a very short time. There will always be appear on the funnels. those small, obscure details for which the After the hull, the author works his model builder cannot find an answer and way up deck by deck, describing how he will have to make assumptions. The author built each new item— decking, cranes, mentions some of these at the appropriate bollards, ventilators, winches, benches, moment. drinking fountains, electrical outlets, lamps, Davies-Garner starts the book with fairleads, capstans, cowls, anchors, signs, a short chapter covering those fateful few gratings, portholes, windows, leaded glass, hours a century ago. We all know the story, coaling outriggers, sounding spars, compass and there is nothing new here. Chapter 2 binnacle, and even the shuffleboard pattern. Book Reviews 419 He used little that was commercially made Andrew S. Erickson, Lyle J. Goldstein, and and bought. Nan Li (eds.). China, the United States and I don’t know who might want to 21st-Century Sea Power: Defining a build a 5.6-metre (18-foot) model of the Maritime Security Partnership. Annapolis, Titanic but, if the book cannot be the only MD: Naval Institute Press, www.nip.org, source, it should definitely be ONE of the 2010. 514 pp. notes, tables, maps, index. sources. It would help a professional model US $47.95, cloth; ISBN 978-1-59114-243- maker with the infinitesimal details of any 0. large-scale ship model. The manual would also enable any amateur building a It is the melancholy fate of a handful of commercial kit of the Titanic to correct the newly published books to be instantly manufacturer’s mistakes; the author marginalized, their careful research and addresses those kits in Appendix 1. The earnest arguments seemingly overtaken by book is required reading for any Titanic events. So it is with China, the United aficionado’s library because it probably is the States and 21st Century Sea Power, a most authentic three-dimensional collection of essays by twenty contributors, representation of the ship. Appendix 2 deals all but five of whom are academics in the with the appropriate colours and Appendix 3 U.S. and China (the others are either private provides a list of recommended readings. sector consultants or flag officers). The gist As much as the author of their argument is that both nations have acknowledges the efforts of six people in willingly placed themselves within a dense proof-reading the manuscript and converting web of international cooperative agreements it into a language which most people can that includes not only the Law of the Sea (to understand, I would be embarrassed to be which the U.S. has agreed but has yet to one of them. There are too many glitches in formally ratify) but also, efforts to combat the text; e.g., where someone has only terrorism and piracy, promote search and partially changed some text without rescue, enforce international fisheries removing the previous text. There are a lot regulations, and the safety of cargo of photographs, but too often, a certain container transportation. Chinese authors aspect is pointed out but it is not visible in emphasize their nation’s commitment to a the photograph as reproduced. The plans peaceful and harmonious international need a magnifying glass to see the detail and order. A spirit of determined optimism the legend identification numbers. pervades the essays. Peter Davies-Garner has to be The book appears at a time when commended for his diligence, intense the pages of The Naval War College Review research, dedication, focus, patience, and and The Naval Institute Proceedings (to say skill required to produce such an nothing of The New York Times and exceptionally fine model. He searched out Washington Post) are filled with somber the photographic record of the Titanic and of essays depicting the rapid rise and unknown the Olympic, knew the subtle differences intentions of the Chinese Peoples’ between the two ships, and obeyed what he Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). In recent saw in those photos. Reading the book months and years, the PLAN has rattled its makes me want to jump into my car and head sabre, alienating and frightening its eight to Missouri to see the model. neighbors around the rims of the Yellow and China Seas and disturbing Washington David H. Gray policy makers. Contrary to previous Ottawa, Ontario assumptions that the PLAN is designed 420 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord mainly to protect China’s coastal ports and recall the rise of the last aggressive Pacific cities, China has announced the incipient naval power, Japan. In that long-ago world deployment of its first aircraft carrier (a of the early twentieth century, there was no 65,000 ton Soviet cast-off). Chinese international system worthy of the name and warships have recently slipped beyond certainly no restraints on a nation’s appetites Asia’s inner island chain stretching from through multilateral agreements. Above all, Japan to the Philippines to deploy in the there was no overarching global economy Western Pacific. At the same time, Beijing with all of its built-in restraints on rash has announced the development of a long- national behaviour. Japan was free to define range “aircraft carrier killer” missile, whose its expansive goals and objectives as it only foreseeable target can be American pleased. Fortunately, contemporary China flat-tops. China has also escalated and the rest of the global community are confrontations and claims over the several enmeshed in an international economic and South China Sea island groups claimed by political system whose benefits, so far at Vietnam and the Philippines respectively. least, far outweigh any attraction of Much of this latter tension is due to varying unilateral military or naval expansion or national interpretations of the Exclusive aggression. Yet there exists another, and Economic Zones (EEZ) established by the more disturbing, scenario from the Law of the Sea. Guifang (Julia) Xue sets emergence of advanced industrial navies a forth China’s position clearly and forcefully. century ago that should give naval planners As a coastal state “bordering three semi- and policy makers pause as they enclosed seas, China found itself contemplate the rise of the PLAN. Kaiser disadvantaged in enjoying full entitlements Wilhelm II and his equally ambitious under the United Nations Convention on the secretary of state of the Imperial German Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and “in contrast Naval Office, Alfred von Tirpitz, wanted a to the worldwide acceptance of the EEZ great fleet to demonstrate their thrusting regime, China hesitated to implement it” new nation’s steadily growing international (p.177). Rather, China implemented its political and economic power, especially own expansive definition of its EEZ against Great Britain, the world’s greatest through a series of domestic laws. maritime nation,. But they could never Is China truly desirous of decide how large the fleet should be, what it harmonious maritime relations with the was intended for, nor how it should be international community? Or do its military deployed, if at all, on the world ocean. The and naval leaders feel themselves hemmed result was an Imperial Navy just large in by the U.S. and immediate maritime enough to excite fear and jealousy among neighbours, and thus feel inclined to break Germany’s neighbours and chief rival out of an unbearable geo-military and without attaining sufficient power to exert -political situation? The authors and editors its will (in roughly 19 years of active life, are concerned not with swaying public major units of the Hochseeflotte made only opinion but rather in presenting arguments one foray into the Atlantic). China’s PLAN that “will help policy makers on both sides is roughly at the point where the Imperial of the Pacific to chart a new course for German Navy was immediately following enhanced U.S.-China maritime cooperation the Second Naval Bill of 1900; large sufficiently compelling to weather enough to excite international concern, yet occasional storms of bilateral discord” (p sufficiently uncertain as to goals and xxvii). Fair enough. Reading the essays, objectives to generate no little suspicion and the naval scholar is inevitably driven to even malice among its neighbours and the Book Reviews 421 United States. It is far too early to discern fiscal-military states, 1500-1600 (London, China’s maritime aims with the kind of 2002) that examined the rise of permanent clarity claimed by the contributors to this navies as part of the political, social, and intriguing, but in the end, unsatisfactory economic transformation of early modern book Europe. Some of his many insights are succinctly summarized in his ten Lisle Rose contributions to the Oxford Encyclopaedia Edmonds, Washington of Maritime History (2007). Swedish Naval Administration, Jan Glete. Swedish Naval Administration, 1521-1721 is the great scholarly work that 1521-1721. Resource Flows and crowns Jan Glete’s series of immensely Organisational Capabilities. Series: The important books and articles on early Northern World, 46. Leiden, The modern European navies. Sadly, he did not Netherlands: Brill, www.brill.nl, 2009. xxiv live to see this volume in final form, as it is + 816 pp., maps, tables, diagrams, notes, in many ways his most important major appendices, bibliography, index. Euro work. This study provides a completely €198.00, US $293.00, cloth; ISBN 978-90- new and convincing reinterpretation of 04-17916-5. Swedish naval history in the context of Swedish and Scandinavian history, During the late twentieth- and early twenty- providing the Swedish perspective and the first-centuries, Professor Jan Glete (1947- international complement to Martin 2009) of the University of Stockholm was Bellamy’s Christian IV and his Navy: A one of the world’s most insightful and Political and Administrative History of the innovative thinkers about early modern Danish Navy, 1596-1648 (2006). At the naval history. Initially trained as an same time, Glete provides a new and historian of twentieth century Swedish stimulating model and case study in industry and banking, Glete’s initial work in understanding the growth, development, comparative naval history first came to the sustainment, and operations of a national scholarly world’s attention with his massive navy that is notably different from the two-volume work, Navies and Nations: model of the rival Atlantic powers and the Warships, Navies and State Building in development of global transoceanic Europe and America, 1500-1860 (1993). empires. Thus, from a number of different Among other things, this key work helped perspectives, it is a work that every serious to solve one of the longstanding naval scholar should read and consider with conundrums in naval studies: how to care as a source of stimulating approaches. quantitatively compare and contrast To obtain them, however, most scholars will warships of different nations during the be dependent on the wisdom of acquisitions sailing navy era. At the same time, Navies librarians in the major research libraries that and Nations laid the basis for two can afford and are willing to purchase this subsequent works: Warfare at Sea, 1500- volume and the subsequent generosity of 1650: Maritime Conflicts and the those same institutions to provide their copy Transformation of Europe (London, 2000), on inter-library loan to the needy. a comparative study that placed navies Noting that his work provides a within a broad context of state formation, different perspective on domestic political economic, and technological change, and interaction, warfare, and the growth of the War and the State in Early Modern Europe: early modern state, Glete opens his study by Spain, the Dutch Republic, and Sweden as focusing on the four key words around 422 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord which his study is organised: violence, resources into effective naval power. protection, organisation, (the capability to In terms of Swedish history, Glete use resources), and institutions (the points out that at the outset of the period, prevailing local rules and context for human sixteenth- century Sweden was unusual interaction). He goes on to point out that among northern European states in that it navies have generally been left out of the was the only one having a permanent army narratives and explanations of European and a navy, both financed through an state formation and then he rectifies those effective internal system of taxation. earlier omissions by showing that navies are Swedish naval power existed, Glete inherently complex organizations and states concludes, because Swedish peasants were that those states that operate navies need to willing to provide a number of things to the possess a degree of stability and dynastic state: they were willing to pay sophistication to maintain them taxation in the form of cutting and successfully. States, he points out, are not transporting wood to the dockyards, only agglomerations of human, financial, providing food to seamen, and sending men and material resources under a centralized to serve in the navy. Swedish merchants control, but also centres of competencies were willing to pay customs duties on trade that transform resources into structures with that provided finance resources, and the new capabilities. States with stronger and aristocrats and nobility altered their focus more efficient organizations could more on local power to participate in the effectively organize and project resources administration and command of the king’s and power over long distances and, in that state-wide organization for maintaining and way, could dominate weaker state operating permanent armed forces. organizations. John B. Hattendorf Glete’s book on Swedish Naval Newport, Rhode Island Administration outlines the development of the Swedish state over a two-century period as it transformed the organizational Stephen High (ed.). Occupied St. John’s. A capabilities of a primarily agrarian and Social History of a City at War. Montreal, peasant society to develop scarce maritime QC: McGill-Queen’s University Press, and mercantile resources into a sustainable www.mqup.ca, 2010. xv + 320 pp., and effective operational force. He shows illustrations, maps, tables, notes, index. that the Swedish dynastic state searched for CDN $45.95, cloth; ISBN 978-0-7735- primarily cheap domestic resources to 3750-7. develop a strong naval power and used The striking title catches one off guard, for organizational, rather than maritime one never really thinks of St. John’s as capabilities to transform resources. In having been “occupied,” except perhaps by studying the Swedish Navy, Glete analyzed the likes of itinerant Vikings and Basque it as a complex of core competencies that fishermen. Intriguing indeed, for in fact handled a flow of external resources during the Second World War, St. John’s did (manpower, social authority, food, timber, undergo an extraordinary “friendly metals, sailcloth, hemp, etc.) and invasion” by Americans and Canadians. transformed them into sea power. Sweden The impact of this invasion—variously compensated for its lack of indigenous described as “breath-taking,” “impressive,” maritime resources, which easily transform “overwhelming” and “transformative,” into naval power, by its organizational altered the city and its environs in competence to raise and to transform other Book Reviews 423 fundamental ways. Precisely how these generations portrayed, and by the rapid changes came about, and how they shaped technological and urban development of the Newfoundland is the subject of this city and harbour itself. The only splash of important book. visual colour is the water colour illustration Edited by the co-director of the entitled “Posted to Newfie” by Canadian Centre for Oral History and Digital war artist Paul Goranson which is Storytelling at Concordia University, this reproduced on the front cover. (It is printed multi-authored volume draws heavily on in black and white within the text itself.) oral history to provide otherwise hidden Judging by the narratives and the photos, textures to an historical account. Indeed, life for the 40,000 inhabitants of St. John’s the book’s approach resonates with the was a bleak, parochial and sectarian ideas of Newfoundland novelist Michael business—until the “Yanks” and the Crummey who observed during an Canadians arrived and set up their own interview on his newest novel Galore counter-culture. What had been, as a U.S. (2009) that Newfoundland has been an oral serviceman wrote home, “like a Chicago culture for about three hundred years. This slum,” became in the course of the war a tradition, he continued, is “like the cultural radically changed society. American DNA” of Newfoundland. It’s where you movies, money and music competed with find what is “true.” The editor has the indigenous British colonial culture; jazz enhanced the enterprise by having each of on the Voice of the United States (VOUS) the contributors read the manuscript of each vied with hymns on the Voice of of the chapters as these developed through Newfoundland (VONF); social and sexual the pre-publication process of story-telling. mores changed; the Allies’ hastily knocked- Clearly, this has been a productive together bases and camps competed with the collaboration drawing on a range of island’s own ramshackle housing. Indeed, as expertise from grantsmanship to archival the world came in—the compelling triad of sleuthing, interviewing and writing. The Canadians, Americans, and foreign crews of result is both balanced and graphic, and international shipping—the world of gives the impression of having been written Newfoundland opened up. Of course, seamlessly by a single author. Newfoundlanders had long since travelled The volume is accentuated by a abroad. They had fought during the First wide selection of judiciously chosen World War at great personal cost on wartime black and white photos. Some of European battlefields and on many oceans these are from public archives and and seas; they had always made music, museums, and others from private danced and enjoyed their own popular collections and family albums. They have culture. What emerges from this study is lost none of their crispness. Though most the wide range of synergies involved in of the photographers remain anonymous, it changing Newfoundland’s self- is good to have identified the frequently- understanding, and the way it came to view cited images by the otherwise little-known and deal with all those from “away.” wartime photographer, Lieutenant Alice The first part of the study, “North Ducile Talman. It’s a pleasure to browse America’s First Line of Defence,” examines through all these photos, pausing to in two chapters the telling impact on examine one or the other, and to ponder the Newfoundland society triggered by the human fates they portray. One is struck by arrival of Allied forces and their the youthfulness of the players on the St. infrastructure. These two narratives John’s stage, by the hardiness of the older —“Building a Wartime Landscape” 424 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord (Christopher A. Sharpe and A.J. Shawyer) appendices, notes, bibliography, index. and “From Defended Harbour to CDN $65.00, US $59.95, cloth; ISBN 978- Transatlantic Base” (Paul Collins) — 0-7735-3815-3. establish the historical background for what follows. The second part, entitled This book deals with the work of Samuel “Remembering Wartime St. John’s,” Johannes Holland (1729-1801) and Joseph consists of four chapters on four major Frederick Wallet Des Barres (1729-1824), themes: childhood experience of the war as surveyors of Eastern Canada and the now remembered by adults (Barbara Northeastern part of America. Holland was Lorenzkowski), the “Friendly Invasion” in born in the city of Deventer in the Dutch retrospect (Steven High), Newfoundland’s Republic, and following a brief career in popular culture of the day (Jeff A. Webb), Dutch artillery, including working as a and the exemplary work of Mona Wilson surveyor of fortifications, he accompanied and the Canadian Red Cross (Gillian Poulter his patron, the Duke of Richmond, to and Douglas O. Baldwin). The final chapter Canada. Des Barres, a protestant, was born (Ken Coates and William R. Morrison) then in Montbéliard, France, near the Swiss sets the whole engaging story in a global border. After studying drafting and context. In summary, “In World War II, St. mathematics at the University of Basle, Des John’s became the epicentre of a tripartite Barres was trained in surveying and militarization: it experienced a declining mapmaking at the Military Academy in British connection, a strengthening tie to the Woolwich, England. He joined the Royal Canadian armed forces, and a dramatic and American Regiment and left for North impressive American military presence” America. There the two men became (p.268). Indeed, “St. John’s was an active prominent surveyors, producing maps and participant in one of the most pivotal events charts that later appeared in The Atlantic of the twentieth century: the emergence of Neptune, a four-volume atlas of the coast of the United States on the world stage.” North America, roughly between Nova Perhaps equally important, as the editor Scotia and New Orleans. It was the explains early on, all of the contributors to outcome of the largest eighteenth-century this volume conclude “that the usual surveying project, and it was completed distinction between “home front” and before the founding of the Hydrographic “battle front” in North America is largely Office of the Royal Navy, in 1795. Its name irrelevant in wartime St. John’s” (p.18). was inspired by Le Neptune François, a sea- This volume goes a long way in atlas of the French coasts that had been demonstrating how public opinion, memory reissued in 1753. The survey was a joint and family stories contributed to this effort of the Board of Trade and the perception. Admiralty. After it was completed, Des Barres moved to London, where he oversaw Michael L. Hadley the engraving and printing of the atlas, Victoria, British Columbia starting in 1777, and published under direction of the Admiralty. The charts and Stephen J. Hornsby. Surveyors of Empire: maps–on Mercator’s projection and based Samuel Holland, J.F.W. Des Barres, and the on Greenwich prime meridian — were Making of The Atlantic Neptune. Carleton immediately brought into use by the British Library Series 221, Montreal, QC: McGill- in the American War of Independence. Queen’s University Press, www.mqup.ca, In the introductory chapter, 2011. 269 pp., illustrations, maps, Hornsby sketches the commercial, political Book Reviews 425 and military situation in North America that mentioned for finding the noon altitude of led to the need for accurate charts and maps. the sun for calculating latitude was no doubt He introduces and discusses the various a “Hadley’s quadrant,” or octant. But the surveyors who included James Cook, in “astronomical quadrant or equal altitude Canada, and the German immigrant De instrument of two feet radius” used by Brahm, who surveyed the southern parts of Holland on St John’s Island (now Prince the North American coast. The second Edward Island) was very probably not an chapter covers in great detail the surveys by octant, as suggested by the author. More Holland and Des Barres, in the area likely, it was a (portable) non-reflecting between Nova Scotia and the city of New quadrant placed on a stand, of the kind used York. The next chapter discusses the actual by astronomers rather than mariners. surveying, and provides the layman with a Further along, the author states that in 1766 clear, easy-to-understand explanation of Holland replaced Hadley’s 18-inch quadrant how that was done. It also includes (octant) made by Heath and Wing, with a paragraphs on the scientific instruments that superior example made by John Bird. More were used, and on the types of ships that likely this was one of Bird’s sextants, of the were employed and where they were built; same type that, at that time, was used by it deals with locally recruited pilots–often Cook in the Pacific. Elsewhere the author Acadians–and topics such as discipline and does acknowledge the presence and use of punishment on the surveying vessels. In sextants (pp.180 and 191). When discussing chapter four, the plans and descriptions the distribution of charts from the Neptune resulting from Holland’s and Des Barres’ in 1780, the list of political recipients efforts are dealt with. The use of these includes both the Duke of Northumberland plans for the settlement of immigrants is and Lord Percy, who were very likely the discussed in chapter five; Holland and Des same people. Unfortunately, neither name Barres were among the new inhabitants, is found in the Register, which is also after acquiring large sections of land. In missing some other names and page chapter six, the printing and publishing numbers. process of The Atlantic Neptune, directed by Despite these shortcomings, Des Barres in London, is discussed. Surveyors of Empire is without doubt a There are some minor points of valuable contribution to the history of the criticism for Surveyors of Empire. Although cartography and hydrography of North this is not a biography of Holland and Des America in the eighteenth century. It Barres, I would like to have learned a little highlights the contributions of Holland, more about their private lives. When Cook, and also less-known contributors to quoted after being invited to become The Atlantic Neptune, which is usually surveyor-general of the province of Quebec, associated with Des Barres only because of Holland mentions bringing along his “whole his role as editor and compiler. Although at family” (p.205). Up until then we did not the time, because of the political and even know that he was married, and it is not economic situation, eastern Canada and brought up thereafter. And it is also not New England were more significant than until almost the end of the book that we, by the coast further south, one would hope for chance, learn that De Barres had a son a similar study of the southern part included (p.211) whose name, James Luttrell, is not in the Neptune. Surveyors of Empire has included in the Register. There is confusion been superbly produced with a large number over the meaning of the words quadrant and of high-quality, full-colour illustrations. octant (pp.110-111). The “quadrant” The maps and charts have been beautifully 426 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord reproduced, and I have rarely seen such a conditions again until the Russian series of excellent explanatory maps. Revolution, and perhaps, more notably for North Americans, the Holocaust. W.F.J. Mörzer Bruyns Huffman’s tale follows a loosely-connected Bussum, The Netherlands account of similar stories of Civil War veterans that culminates in the sinking of Alan Huffman. Sultana: Surviving the Civil the Sultana. Tracing the stories of more War, Prison, and the Worst Maritime than a dozen soldiers, Huffman narrates the Disaster in American History. New York, experience of being a half-drowned soldier NY: Harper Collins, www.harper in the Mississippi before allowing his collins.com, 2009. xix + 300 pp, chosen group of soldiers to they tell their bibliography, index. CDN $18.95, paper; tales of patriotism, capture and woe, which ISBN 978-0-06-147056-1. fill most of the book. He emphasizes the terrible conditions in the prison camps, American freelance journalist Alan drawing the gory details from diary entries, Huffman follows the popular history trail of preserved letters home, disability pension the victims of the explosion of the privately- applications and the occasional published owned steamboat Sultana at 1:45a.m. on 27 memoir. It is apparent that Huffman utilizes April 1865. The Sultana, packed to 600 this tragic literary device to accentuate the percent capacity by allegedly corrupt and final disaster. incompetent soldiers and privately- Once the primary players are employed crewmen, suffered a boiler released from prison and are finally heading explosion despite repairs executed before its to their respective homes, Huffman departure from Camp Fisk en route to introduces a sub-plot of intrigue, Memphis. An estimated 1,300 passengers incompetence and inhumanity that results in (civilians, politicians, children and, more the destruction of the two-year-old topically, paroled Union prisoners of war) steamboat. A lazy (and generally absent) lost their lives that night on the Mississippi captain permits a corrupt former officer to River in a fiery, watery, and generally take on passengers. This man had been ignominious manner. Huffman’s tale begins deemed unfit for duty some time before, but at an airport in Atlanta, Georgia, where his rather than being discharged, had been observation of veterans returning from the placed on duty at Camp Fisk, where most of conflict in the Middle East swirls backward the parolees from Cahaba and Andersonville in time to antebellum America and ends in a boarded the Sultana, enabling him to take modern geriatric facility with a conversation bribes and subsequently over-load the boat. between the author and his late father. Huffman relates the difficulties encountered Huffman begins Sultana with a poignant by the crew of the steamboat en route, from question: What actually is survival? the initial rupturing and patching of the In September 1863, Romulus boilers and pipes at Camp Fisk (and again at Tolbert and John Maddox, mere youths, Memphis). He describes how more than joined an ill-fated Union regiment: soon 700 tired, ill and otherwise infirm parolees after their enlistment, they were captured boarded the boat, and then depicts them and imprisoned in desperate circumstances. panicking frantically in the face of hissing At the prisons of Cahaba and Andersonville, steam and exploding, burning bulkheads. thousands of men were held inside walls The Sultana had been designed for surrounding an area of less than ten acres. no more than 600 passengers, but Westerners would not experience similar realistically could accommodate Book Reviews 427 approximately 400 people. The final rough Sultana story in favour of Lincoln’s tally (Huffman explains that the post- assassination and the hunt for John Wilkes Lincoln government did not consider it Booth. While seemingly aggravated by this necessary to make a full accounting of the lack of attention, Huffman’s duty as a incident) was 1,700 dead in the water, and historian was to trace and explicate the roughly 700 more who made it to shore, processes of government that failed the though more than half died within days. survivors of the Sultana disaster. The Based upon these numbers, Huffman claims historical value of his work would have that the sinking of the Sultana is the most been greatly improved had he pursued and harrowing maritime disaster in American related his research in a more cohesive history. Huffman’s initial question, “What manner, following individuals to a common is survival?” is answered by his locus rather than addressing them in groups. examination of Tolbert and Maddox’s Had he focussed on a few select individuals descent into old age and infirmity upon as a case-study, rather than seeming to toss returning home, an historical crusade of new characters randomly into the mix, sorts that Huffman pursues with greater Huffman would have been that much closer apparent vivacity than any other aspect of to achieving an approximation of a formal the book. His characterization of the historical account. While he does briefly essence of survival involves the physical examine the rationale for his methods, he aspect of surviving. For the elderly and the nevertheless renders his tale in a manner veterans of war, having survived all the that is not at all cohesive. Huffman’s trials and tribulations life could throw at empathy with the victims and the survivors them, they age, and become conscious of leads him overlook many of the original the betrayal of their own bodies and the loss subjects of his research and concentrate on of faculties that nothing else they have his personal favourites, Tolbert and encountered has been able to steal from Maddox, two neighbours who survived the them. prisons, the explosion and the days of The memoirs and details that give waiting in the frigid waters of the the book its substance forge a connection Mississippi together, and who both survived between the reader and the half-dozen or so to ripe old ages. characters Hoffman focuses on throughout From a more critical perspective, the book. Their capture and deaths in Huffman pays lip-service to established prison, or on their penultimate journey historiographical practices, adding only a home, jerk one’s heartstrings. This is a brief bibliography and an index to good thing for a social history, memoir or a supplement the novel-like readability of tragic-romance novel, but perhaps not such Sultana, lending credibility to his work. a strength in a book billed as a maritime The bibliography is divided into sections history. The weaknesses in Huffman’s (which this reviewer found useful): books, approach are evident but are so briefly diaries and periodicals, web sites, and other addressed by the author that it seems to this sources. Government documents and reviewer that Huffman attempted to “glaze- independent libraries are mentioned, but are over” his methodological errors. not discussed or referenced in any great Huffman contends that no state or detail, leaving researchers attempting to use federal government launched a serious Sultana as a guide for comprehensive inquest into the incident (apart from the research material sorely disappointed. Alan possible exception of Indiana). Within Huffman tells his tale in a manner befitting months, he says, newspapers dropped the a work of remarkably well-researched 428 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord historical fiction: the lack of figures, maps the greater the role the Commons acquired and plates reinforces this impression, as it voted taxes and approved public particularly considering the complexities of borrowing. It was the House of Commons the geo-political nature of Civil War-era which led the reform of Parliament, which America. Huffman’s approach to the in time, led to an expanded franchise and writing and presentation of Sultana is electoral democracy, for which an tantamount, unfortunately, to yellow increasingly expensive navy was the remote journalism, rendering a volume of cause. potentially great use for Civil War historians Much can be claimed on behalf of (and to a lesser extent, naval/maritime the navy ... but as an instrument for the historians) into the historian’s equivalent of spread of democracy ... That is a stretch! a CNN or Fox News exposé. Naval successes against Revolutionary and In short, Alan Huffman’s Sultana is Napoleonic France, for instance, did not an excellent light read, a beautiful example advance democracy, but helped secure of humanitarian social history, but as a aristocratic privilege and the French volume of scholarly American Civil War or monarchy. By his own admission, Lavery maritime history, if falls far short of what knows that the officer corps became more one would expect. It is, nevertheless, a class-exclusive in the post-Nelson navy than heart-felt critique of the valuation of society earlier. He seems not to understand that upon the trials and tribulations of veterans British successes at sea thereafter tended to and the elderly. reinforce not democracy, but measures to delay its emergence, even in the so-called Ambjörn L. Adomeit white colonies of settlement. “Liberty” may London, Ontario have been an English watchword long before 1800, but never “Equality,” let alone Brian Lavery. Empire of the Seas. How the “Fraternity.” Navy forged the Modern World. London: Lavery’s account leads eventually Anova Books, www.anovabooks.com, 2009. to Nelson’s victory over the combined 272 pp., illustrations, maps, notes, French and Spanish fleet off Trafalgar in bibliography, index. UK £20.00, cloth; 1805. With peace in 1815, the fleet went ISBN 978-1-84486-109-5. into decline, with 90percent of warships decommissioned. What was left bombarded As this handsomely-illustrated book was Algiers (1817), defeated the Turks (1827) written to accompany the popular BBC with the help of the French and Russian series on the British navy, it is both a light squadrons, invaded the Crimea (1854-56), read and generally supportive of the role the China (1841), Egypt (1882) and helped navy assumed from the clash with Spain in conquer the Boer republic in South Africa the sixteenth century to the inter-war era of (1899-1902). Though it was all pretty the 1920s. The author, an award-winning sordid, Lavery confines his criticism to the and prolific authority, especially on the Opium Wars with China (p.207). sailing navy, acted as the series consultant. These events occurred as the navy The principal thesis underlying gradually transformed itself from sail to Lavery’s account is his belief that, as the steam, from wooden walls to iron and steel, navy was an extremely expensive force to with heavily-armoured warships powered maintain, Parliament was constantly asked by domestic coal and imported oil. Events to vote funds for its upkeep and expansion. culminated during the Great War (1914-18), The more frequently the country was at war, when Imperial Germany sought to challenge Book Reviews 429 the Grand Fleet. The battleship encounter, more to fear of British warships. Here, we which was expected, proved a great should note, she avowedly bases herself on disappointment to Britain, while the the work of Andrew Lambert, who has unexpected role of the submarine came made great play of the enormous political close to severing Britain’s trade routes, advantages that Britain supposedly gained whose protection had long been the Navy’s from nineteenth-century shifts in the principal role. balance from land to naval power, thanks to A book of this sort is bound to developments in steam propulsion and contain a few slips that the editors should ordnance. have corrected. The Protestant Matzke’s argument rests largely on Reformation in England is dated 1630 three case studies, all taken from about (p.17). The Invincible was taken in 1747 1838-1846, dealing first with Anglo- not 1748 (p.111) as stated in the caption. American relations, second, the “Opium James Cook, though multi-talented, did War” between Britain and China, third, in not pilot Admiral Saunders' fleet up the what is effectively a treatment of British St, Lawrence in 1759 (p.120). This naval influence in St Petersburg and Paris, difficult task was performed by Augustin the Syrian crisis of 1839-41. These are well- Raby, a Quebec resident. chosen to offer a variety of type and situation of rival state and of different Julian Gwyn responses to British power. By contrast, the Berwick, Nova Scotia period in question might well seem narrow, but we are assured it represents the whole of Rebecca Berens Matzke. Deterrence the period of the Pax — taken to be about through Strength. British Naval Power and 1815-1880 — since it shared the same kind Foreign Policy under Pax Britannica. of shift in the balance from land to naval Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press, power. www.nebraskapress.uni.edu, 2011. x + To understand the argument fully, 306pp., notes, bibliography, index. US we have to see the particular force given to $45.00, cloth; ISBN 978-0-8032-3514-4. the word “deterrence.” Purists might not see it as applicable to the period in question. In a time when the US Navy can “project” First, to the modern reader there is fleets, including gigantic warships, and necessarily something of a carry-over of spend immense sums doing so, it seems meaning from nuclear deterrence, by false only natural to doubt whether minnows, association enhancing in our minds the mostly concentrated in European waters, potency of the Royal Navy during the Pax. and costing in all £5-10 million a year, Second, it was anyway at best a neologism could ever have exercised a global naval in the 1830s: the OED allows the earlier authority. But Professor Matzke remains word “deterrent” its first recorded use only convinced of the potency and influence of in 1829, inevitably by Jeremy Bentham. the British Royal Navy during the Pax Matzke does not offer us an example of a Britannica and the reality of the Pax itself. contemporary statesman using either word, Most contentiously, she argues the Pax except in a translation from the Chinese. extended to Europe, and that the reluctance Perhaps, though, that is pedantry: a of the great continental powers to go to war definition is offered which one might say with each other in the nineteenth century reasonably describes the principle owed less than one might think to general underlying Whitehall’s actions: Britain political and economic circumstances and could promise “enough destructive force to 430 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord convince its opponents to do what Britain Howard Fuller’s Clad in Iron (Praeger, wanted” (p.32). But that allows some 2008) — not cited by Matzke — suggests dangerous ambiguity. The author tells us great volatility of popular U.S. reaction to there had been a clear change in the basis of the prospect of naval aggression against naval power, the force available having coastal towns, from “spasmodic attacks of become far more rapid and deadly in action. the Shakes” (p.225), when the lone There were now unprecedented means of Alabama was concerned, to pure attack against not simply traditional sailing insouciance about the whole British navies but also shore installations, as ironclad fleet. For a more seasoned evinced by the victorious naval observer, we can refer to Bismarck and his bombardment in 1840 of St Jean d’Acre — famous dismissal of British power during a fortress that famously had withstood the Schleswig-Holstein crisis. Surely, Napoleon! Yet Matzke gives relatively little British influence was not potent only attention to the alleged new methods. beyond the wading-distance of the Prussian Regularly, when describing the threat police; but Bismarck’s example implies that exerted by the Royal Navy, she sees a the great continental European powers combination of means, including trade might simply ignore naval factors. Of interception and blockade, and does not course, one may well respond that much clearly draw out where it was the “new” more might be said on perceptions of what type of threat that influenced hostile policy- the Royal Navy might do. Certainly, les makers. That undermines the identification gens sérieux in Paris, Berlin, St Petersburg of “deterrence.” For though one might and Washington need closer attention. As ascribe more anodyne definitions, there is a so often, the Archives beckon. necessary element of immediacy found C.I. Hamilton strongly in the word; take Bentham’s Johannesburg, South Africa understanding of “deterrent”: “a punishment which... is sure, speedy and severe.” One should draw a distinction David McLean. Surgeons of the Fleet. The between a kind of force that implies “you Royal Navy and its Medics from Trafalgar cannot defeat us, and will ultimately suffer” to Jutland. I.B. Tauris Publishers, and the one threatening “we shall strike www.ibtauris.com, 2010. xiv + 296 pp., back at you immediately.” The first is illustrations, notes, bibliography. UK fundamental to British naval power from the £27.50, cloth; ISBN 978-1-845885-284-6. eighteenth century to the 1930s. It is to be In his book, Surgeons of the Fleet. The found in Matzke’s sample decade: she Royal Navy and its Medics from Trafalgar quotes Lord John Russell arguing: the to Jutland, David McLean begins by paying French “never can beat us on the sea for any homage to J.J. Keevil whose masterful time” (p.181), a less than imminent threat of multi-volume Medicine and the Navy 1200- retribution. The second has to be found 1900 is mandatory reading for anyone underpinning the Pax Britannica if the word interested in health and health care for the ‘deterrence’ is to be validated: that is also men who helped Britannia rule the waves. needed if the argument of the book is to Keevil’s work was published in the late stand; yet it is not brought out. 1950s and early 1960s, and subsequent Apart from a more direct treatment medical historians have re-examined his of the new means, one would also like more findings and built upon his work. McLean attention given to those who were allegedly attempts to add new layers to our deterred. Reference to, for instance, Book Reviews 431 understanding of the challenges of naval practitioners had to function as surgeons, health care during the nineteenth and early physicians and apothecaries, and the state of twentieth centuries in this extremely nursing was far from the profession it would readable new offering. become. As the navy contracted after the McLean states that this “book is Napoleonic wars, later conflicts, like the largely a study of medical practice in the Crimean War, revealed the inadequacies of navy from the accounts and perspectives of naval health care which seemed more about those who administered it, manned its coping than curing. hospitals, tended its sick afloat, repaired its When they came, improvements to wounded...” (p.xiii). He emphasizes the medical knowledge and care were role of those in various facets of naval piecemeal. Names like Lind, Trotter and health care who had to improvise and Blane are familiar to those who are persevere, in war and in peace, often with acquainted with naval medicine during early less than adequate resources or personnel. modern times, but McLean brings to the This, then, is a tale of resourcefulness and fore men like William Burnett (1779-1861) endurance by individuals and, whatever its who was the Director General of Britain’s deficiencies (financial and otherwise), by a Naval Medical Department from 1841 until naval organization which tried to keep its his retirement in 1855. McLean men in fighting form. demonstrates Burnett was an incredibly The fact that the majority of efficient administrator who not only seamen died from diseases and not battle emphasized record-keeping but also wounds was a constant throughout the early encouraged scientific research among naval modern period and into the modern era. surgeons. Nevertheless, convincing talented Even those who are familiar with the medical students that the navy was a viable challenges of the armed forces and health career option remained an uphill battle. care issues may still be struck by how Hospitals were a key aspect of enduring many of these problems were. naval health care at home and abroad, with Scurvy was the great killer of early modern the former providing much better care. seamen and this scourge lasted into the Nurses were typically women of nineteenth century. Even when old foes questionable habits and backgrounds, but were vanquished, new ones emerged to take this changed in the mid-nineteenth century. their place — most notably tuberculosis. The emergence of nursing as an acceptable Venereal disease was more inclined to career for middle class women was an compromise the fighting forces but it was a important trend in health care in general. massive problem, effecting thousands. We tend to associate this shift almost Dysentery and fevers hampered the health exclusively with Florence Nightingale and of seamen for centuries. As the navy her efforts during the Crimean war, but expanded during the era under examination, Mclean claims this development was thousands more men served their country underway previously. Sir John Liddell, and the fate of empires rested on the Burnett’s successor as Director-General of outcome of these protracted global the Medical Department of the Navy, was conflicts. anxious to facilitate this and condemned Despite the setbacks, McLean many of the practices that his predecessors makes a clear case that seamen were had tolerated prior to the mid-nineteenth becoming healthier over time. This century. McLean also claims demographic development seemed unlikely at the dawn changes in Victorian society paved the way: of the modern era, when naval medical a surplus of half a million British women by 432 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord 1860 created conditions where even the the ongoing deficiencies of individuals and “respectable” women would have to find a the naval medical system. This book is a way to earn a living. Nightingale’s valuable addition to our existing knowledge advocacy of a professional nursing corps of medicine and the navy. was a welcome change from the drunken Cheryl Fury matrons of earlier years and provided Grand Bay-Westfield, New Brunswick another career option for single, middle- class women who did not wish to become governesses or teachers. While the R. W. H. Miller. Priest in Deep Water: problems of the navy’s hospitals went Charles Plomer Hopkins and the 1911 considerably deeper, Liddell’s advocacy of Seamen’s Strike. Cambridge, U.K.: a professional nursing corps was forward Lutterworth Press, www.lutterworth.com, thinking and bore fruit over time. 2010. 226 pp., illustrations, notes, McLean’s engaging narrative bibliography, index. UK £25.50, paper; details the considerable efforts to recruit ISBN 978-0-7188-9232-6. talented — or at least able — medical If you are interested in the history of the practitioners and health care workers to tend British seafarer’s labour movement, the the wounded and sick military personnel. 1911 seamen’s strike, the conjunction of Even by the end of the period McLean religion and life afloat, religion’s covers, however, the argument is still being involvement in organizing labour, and made to sceptical listeners on the eve of the seafarers’ unions in colonial India, R. W. H. Great War that all the deficiencies of Miller has written a book for you. The previous decades had been put right. War book, Priest in Deep Water, is the story of exposed once again the shortage of qualified Brother Charles Plomer Hopkins and his medical personnel in the navy during a involvement in the 1911 British (and critical time of conflict. The army still international) seamen’s strike. This book looked preferable as a career for those started life as a Masters thesis and then went graduating from medical schools despite on to form a portion of Father Miller’s efforts to make the navy seem comparable Ph.D. dissertation. Miller tells his audience in terms of advancement, pay and facilities. that he has expanded the research, reworked The army outpaced the navy in its use of the academic language to a more readable female professional nurses as well. Thus, style and restructured the narrative flow. the navy’s medical personnel and facilities Indeed, he has produced a well structured, seemed destined to lag behind what was easily-read book. required. Having said this, by the time of Miller interweaves Hopkins’ life the Great War, health care for naval seamen with the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth was lightyears away from what it had been a century struggle to establish and gain century before during the Napoleonic wars, recognition for seamen’s labour guilds and although the spectre of disease still loomed unions. The author provides the reader with large. the necessary background to the rough life McLean has produced is a of the era’s merchant seafarers by drawing remarkably readable and accessible book on Samuel Plimsoll’s 1873 book, Our which will be appreciated by general Seamen: An Appeal, supplemented by a readers and scholars alike. While crediting brief discussion of the various acts of the reformers within the navy who Parliament governing life afloat. Havelock recognized the problems and sought, in their Wilson’s work on behalf of sailors, as a way, to remedy them, he does not gloss over Book Reviews 433 Member of Parliament and his union Friendly Society of St. Paul to advance his activity is described to give the context for ministry and labour-organizing activities. the seamen’s lot in the early years of the He also began writing about the seamen’s twentieth century. experience, serving as publisher and editor Hopkins’ connection with the sea of several journals, most notably The and those who worked afloat has an air of Messenger. Wilson frequently quotes from being “bred in the bone”, as his father was this later source, revealing Hopkins’ “take- an American river pilot married to a British no-prisoners” approach to exposing abuses woman. The couple took their children to by ship owners. His unionizing involvement Burma where Hopkins’ father found work. so annoyed and angered the Shipping Returning to Burma after being educated in Federation (the ship owners’ association) England, Hopkins served as a church that they levelled false charges of sexual organist in the early 1880s. The loss of the abuse of a 13-year-old against him. He merchant vessel Cassiope with all hands in successfully defended himself from the 1884 was the major event that brought claim and filed suit leading to his total Hopkins down to the docks to advocate for vindication, but the damage to his the seamen. The ship sank as a result of the reputation was done. The church officials captain’s gradual raising of load line (the in India also had had enough of his heavy mark on the hull that, when the water focus on unionizing activity. Hopkins reached it, indicated the ship had reach its returned to England in 1894 under a cloud cargo-carrying capacity) in order to carry of suspicion that, for the church, never more goods. The desire for profit drowned lifted. the crew when high seas drove the Charles Hopkins’ meeting with overloaded ship under. Shortly after this Havelock Wilson, Member of Parliament event, Hopkins was given the post of Port and leader of the National Sailors and Chaplain and began his unique ministry to Firemen’s Union (NSFU) in 1900, takes on seamen that would occupy the rest of his a mythic form. Wilson’s patented oratorical life. challenge, when speaking to a crowd of In 1888, malaria forced him to seamen who might not see his efforts as move to London to recover his health. It is work, was to offer to pay any seaman who here that Hopkins was influenced by would take the podium and speak. Hopkins, Reverend A. Osborne Jay, a Christian dressed as a seaman, stepped forward to Socialist who used the idea of a social club take the challenge. While the two had to provide a place to escape the horrors of previously corresponded, they had not yet poverty experienced in the parish of met, and it seems that Hopkins was having a Shoreditch. Once back in South East Asia, bit of fun, literally at Wilson’s expense. The Hopkins was appointed as Port Chaplain of verbally skilled Hopkins spoke with Calcutta and his involvement in organizing knowledge and passion. The two men seamen became the major focus of his became friends, and Hopkins began his ministry. He organized a guild centered on involvement in the NSFU. This hospitality offered at his own lodgings. He involvement reached it highest point (and became involved in numerous civil the book’s subtitle) when he represented the litigations by seamen against their ships’ British union’s interest at the international owners and captains and in defence of conference of seamen’s unions in 1911 and seamen falsely accused of misbehaviours by worked to organize the British seamen’s their captains. Hopkins began his own strike of 1911. He announced the strike and brotherhood community, the Seamen was involved in many of the local 434 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord negotiations which eventually brought the The author’s own involvement in strike to an end. The Shipping Federation The Missions to Seamen and the fought hard to keep from recognizing the Apostleship of the Sea gives him added unions, but in the end, gave way to that key insight into the nature of ministering to demand. Union activity occupied the rest of seafarers. His academic and practical Hopkins’ life, until his death in 1922. religious grounding clearly informs the The church context in which portions of the book which address the Hopkins found himself embroiled involved “High” and “Low” Anglican debate at the two different elements. One was his turn of the twentieth century and the politics preference for High Church ceremony, thus of church appointments. Both of these placing him in the minority of the “High” juggernauts enveloped Hopkins’ experience versus “Low” Anglican struggle that took of religious ministry and of working with place in the Church of England in the late- the labour issues of seamen. nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. I found the printing of ship’s names The other was that his appointment as a in all capitals, rather than with underlining Chaplain was made in a colony and by or in italics, disruptive to smooth reading. Church rules, he could not engage in a The four tables containing statistics referred ministry in Britain without approval of his to in the text are helpful but lack numbering local Bishop. His union activity and the or titles, and are of the most basic box dark cloud of suspicion that followed him design, detracting from the professional home from India ruled out any chance that quality of the rest of the book. The eight his Bishop, Randall Thomas Davidson, black and white photographs and two prints would ever grant such permission. are properly placed, supporting the If there is one potentially daunting surrounding text. The fact that there are problem with the book, it is the lack of only two photos of Hopkins (both from the archival material available for certain last half of his life) reminds the reader of portions of Hopkins’ life. Miller laments the lack of archival information about him. these gaps at several points (the first comes As stated above, this book is aimed in the Preface, p. 7). Where the evidence is at those interested in the history of the thin, the supposition thickens, drawing on British seafarer’s labour movement, the circumstantial evidence to fill in the blank. 1911 seamen’s strike, the conjunction of An example occurs in Chapter 7 concerning religion and life afloat, religion’s the years before the 1911 strike. Miller involvement in organizing labour, and suggests that the post-1911 NSFU record seafarer’s unions in colonial India. While shows Hopkins was very familiar with the book does touch on all of this, its union protocol and procedure, which Miller greatest strength lies with the three chapters assumes was learnt in the pre-1911 period, that deal with Hopkins’ time in Burma and thus concluding that Hopkins was heavily India. For anyone interested in the colonial involved in NSFU matters prior to the strike experience of seafarer’s labour organizing, (p.139). While slightly disturbing, this this book is a must-read. issue does not detract from the majority of Thomas Malcomson the book which is solidly supported by good Toronto, Ontario evidence. Miller’s use of newspapers is extensive, providing great detail on select events in Hopkins’ life, and providing the contextual background in which Hopkins lived. Book Reviews 435 Robert C. Parsons. Cape Race: Stories from was laid in Newfoundland and in 1904, a the Coast that Sank the Titanic. St. John’s, Marconi wireless station was established in NL: Flanker Press, www.flankerpress.com, the Cape Race lighthouse. It was at that 2011. xiii + 263 pp., illustrations, index of station in 1912 that the Titanic’s first ships. CDN $19.95, paper; ISBN 978-1- distress signals were heard. 926881-06-5. Parsons clearly depicts the dangers experienced by captains, sailors and Robert C. Parsons, acclaimed author of passengers travelling around Cape Race. Atlantic Canada stories, offers 48 accounts Each chapter offers a plainly-written detailing the harrowing and dangerous route vignette about a particular wreck along the along Cape Race, Newfoundland, in the coast as well as efforts to save those on North Atlantic. Relying largely on board and salvage the cargo. Those newspaper records and interviews, this book navigating Cape Race faced great dangers shows how this particular geographic area well into the twentieth century, from natural has presented some of the most threatening calamities to German U-boats. Even as and treacherous waters in the Atlantic. safety technology advanced along with Parsons’ selected sagas, beginning in 1840 better warning signals and boat technology, with the sinking of the brig Florence, and the threat of shipwreck persisted for sailors ending with the 1960 floundering of the even though loss of life diminished. steel vessel Jennie Barno, clearly depict The author presents interesting how the south-eastern tip of the Avalon accounts of what life was like for those Peninsula has claimed the distinction of living on the coast and near the Cape Race both graveyard and “a most dangerous lighthouse. If Parsons admires the sailors coast” (pp.2-3). who faced the wrath of the seas, he portrays The vignettes in Cape Race detail those living in the vicinity of Cape Race as how this important route in the Great Circle, of even hardier stock, willing to risk their where transatlantic shipping lines made own lives to save others. Their efforts their way to and from North America to included offering warm shelter and food to northern Europe, presented dense fog stranded sailors as well as participating in blinding ship navigators, rocky shoals rescue missions that could involve attaching tearing into ships, and icebergs seemingly themselves to ropes to propel themselves waiting to mutilate unsuspecting vessels. over rocky cliffs into roaring waves or Parsons also explains how sailors, shippers, taking boats into boiling seas. Interestingly, and residents of the Cape dealt with their Cape Race also shows how many locals horrific environment. In response to these benefited or saw the benefits of taking dangers, England’s Imperial Government goods from a deserted and wrecked vessel. constructed the first lighthouse in 1856. As Ship wrackers, people who salvaged what ships continued to falter due to fog and ice, they could from the wreckage, appear as the lighthouse was upgraded with a rotating important, though not always legal, light in 1866, with a steam whistle in 1872, members of the community’s economy and with an air-operated whistle in 1907, and history despite the criticisms of ship owners finally, with a diesel-powered foghorn in and legal authorities. For example, in a 1963. Simultaneously, technological 1934 interview, George J. Hewitt, who had inventions to aid communication also been lightkeeper at Cape Race for ten years, helped to answer the numerous calls for asserted that such salvagers were “great,” help emanating from those suffering at sea. echoing the historical importance of these In 1866, the first trans-Atlantic cable line people who bolstered the local economy, 436 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord their own well-being, and prevented usable Geoff Puddefoot. Ready for Anything. The goods from going down with the ships Royal Fleet Auxiliary 1905-1950. Seaforth (p.213). Publishing, www.seaforthpublishing.com, Overall, Cape Race is entertaining 2010. xiii + 224 pp., illustrations, tables, but the reader should note this is not an appendices, bibliography, index. UK academic study but rather, a popular £25.00, cloth; ISBN 978-1-84832-074-1. account of maritime history. Parsons does not posit any thesis other than revealing the Arguably, the Achilles heel of deployed maritime disasters around Cape Race. It naval forces is logistics — or, as in the title does not include traditional citation format of the official history of US Navy (USN) nor does it include a bibliography. The 48 logistics afloat in the Pacific in the Second short chapters that average five pages in World War — Beans, Bullets and Black Oil. length underscore the work as a popular Even in this age of the U.S. Navy’s nuclear- narrative. powered aircraft-carrier battle groups, crews The book contains some minor still need food, ammunition must be discrepancies. The heading of the last supplied/replenished and non-nuclear- chapter dates Parson’s last wreck as powered ships need fuel. In the days of sail occurring in August 1950, but the chapter and the strategy of blockading the coastline states the wreck occurred on August 14, of an enemy, the blockading ships needed 1960. Pernambuco, Brazil, is mentioned in occasional at-sea replenishment of their several chapters, though it is not until food and provisions since they could not chapter 38 that Parsons mentions the enter a hostile port. Thus the concept of the renaming of Pernambuco to Recife, which Fleet Train — an organized system of non- is still a bit misleading, since Recife is a city combatant merchant ships bringing such in the state of Pernambuco, Brazil. As necessary provisions to the deployed fleet well, Perth Amboy is mistakenly placed in — was born. Early in the twentieth century, New York instead of New Jersey (p.197). the British Admiralty recognized the A helpful addition for people not advantages of having its own dedicated familiar with the region would be a map ships to provide the key elements of the describing the location of Cape Race and Fleet Train. Consequently, in 1905, the the other referenced areas. Parsons includes Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) was formally many interesting illustrations and pictures established for that purpose. ranging from contemporary newspaper In this book, the title of which is clippings to pictures of people and vessels one of the unofficial mottos of the RFA (a discussed, but the reader can easily become play on the initials), the author gives an lost in the variety of names of different overview of the first 45 years of the service. capes, towns, and regions. It is a companion to his earlier book which In sum, this book is an entertaining covers the period after the Second World and clear recounting of the sad, amusing, War, thus allowing for a small chronological and frightening history of ship wrecks overlap between the two books. occurring off Cape Race, Newfoundland. The book is effectively divided into Parsons’ storytelling of the perils is two main segments — the first five chapters accessible to any interested readers. deal with the period from 1905 until 1939, while the subsequent five chapters focus on Mary Knarr the Second World War years. A final short Lincoln, Nebraska chapter discusses key organizational and technical changes in the immediate post-war Book Reviews 437 years. In describing the early period, the carriers at speeds as high as 19 knots. author delves into the difficulties the The latter part of the book dealing Admiralty encountered. They were trying with the Second World War changes pace. to operate a naval force as well as Here the emphasis is more on the exploits of establishing a mobile logistics support force individual ships and the operations in which to be integrated with the Royal Navy. This they participated as well as technical details force was a quasi-mercantile fleet and of the modifications made to some ships to brought with it issues pertaining to the rules meet wartime requirements. The author and regulations that affected merchant quotes extensively from first-hand accounts shipping, especially those concerning ship and deals with each theatre of war ownership. As the author points out, many separately. He also examines the impact on of these issues lingered until well after the the Royal Navy of exposure to how the war. By comparison, the U.S. Navy (USN) USN used its fleet train when the British operated its auxiliaries as naval ships with Pacific Fleet joined with the USN in naval crews from the outset and avoided operations against Japan in the closing days many of the pitfalls that befell the of the war. A series of useful and detailed Admiralty. Puddefoot does not full address appendices completes the volume. why the British chose to set up the While this is an interesting story, it organization in the way that they did. is very much a popular history and perhaps Among the key functions expected reflects a certain unevenness as a result. of the RFA was refuelling warships at sea. There is not a lot of analysis, and it would The author gives this a fairly extensive have been useful to learn more about the treatment, describing some of the very early British personnel structure and career trials which were conducted prior to the progression, especially for readers formation of the RFA. Despite some ill- unfamiliar with British merchant shipping advised attempts at coaling while under way practice. It is obvious, and the author tacitly early on, this concept did not become acknowledges it, that there was not a lot of practical until oil-fuelled warships were the “meat” in what the RFA was doing in the norm. Even then, despite some relatively period between the wars. It became successful trials as early as 1906, the Royal essentially a shipping service run by the Navy did not implement the technique on a Admiralty to provide fuel and stores to far- widespread basis until well into the Second flung, as well as local, British naval bases. World War. Apart from the attitude in To provide some context, the author inserts certain quarters of the Admiralty (as late as a geo-political narrative as a background 1938) that only destroyers would need this into which he seeks to weave the impact of capability as the operations of all other world events on the RFA. Sometimes this ships “...will not usually preclude them works, but too often it distracts from the from oiling at a sheltered base...” (pp.81- main theme. Nevertheless, the book makes a 82), there were problems. For example, the useful contribution in that it tells a story of a technology of the hoses and refuelling rigs part of the Royal Navy that is not widely in use at the time were not resolved (and known beyond those directly involved. Britain would not resolve them completely Michael Young until the late 1940s with German equipment Ottawa, Ontario in the captured Kriegsmarine supply ship Nordmark). By that time, the USN was producing fast tankers capable of refuelling ships of all classes from destroyer to aircraft 438 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord Richard Radune. Sound Rising. Branford, industrial society that emerged on its shores. CT: Research in Time Publications, Richard Radune gives a detailed account of www.researchintimepublications.com, 2011. its history, first as an agricultural producer, 308 pp. maps, illustrations, notes, then as a mercantile powerhouse and an bibliography, index. US $20.00, paper: import and export centre. ISBN 978-0-9764341-1-5. During the pre-revolutionary years, Yankee entrepreneurs created thriving Boston, New York and Charleston harbours, business ventures but their frequent as well as the Narragansett, Delaware, and participation in smuggling to avoid British Chesapeake Bays have been the sites of tax levies made many of them quasi- many historical maritime encounters and outlaws. They resisted authority and yet the battles. Sound Rising focuses on the similar population, like many others at the time, history of Long Island Sound. The was divided between rebels, loyalists and “Sound,” essentially a tidal saltwater lake, the uncommitted. New York ultimately stretches from Westerly, Rhode Island, became a British stronghold. Meanwhile, westward (about 110 miles), via Connecticut made vital contributions to the Westchester County and Hell Gate war effort and was called the “Provision (anglicized old Dutch Helegat, meaning State” by General George Washington. The beautiful passage or opening) to the East state contributed men and ships to the River and the western entrance of New York Continental Navy, its Connecticut State City. To the north is the Connecticut navy, and a great many to the privateer fleet. coastline and to the south, the northern The most unique and interesting were the shore of Long Island. At the eastern end of men and vessels of the Whaleboat War, Long Island are Fishers and Plum Islands raiders who rowed whaleboats into small and, for vessels under sail, a perilous harbours to harass enemy shipping and Atlantic passage known as “The Race.” capture loyalists in exchange for rebel Small harbours dot the northern shore of prisoners. Long Island, but most of the centre of The Yankees’ combined maritime commerce and activity is located in the forces confounded British military communities of Connecticut. Although objectives in the area around the sound and many of its rivers empty into the sound, affected their strategic plans. As evidence, only the Thames and the Connecticut Rivers Radune quotes a Connecticut newspaper are navigable to interior Connecticut ports. summarizing part of the 1779 British On the Thames are New London, Groton Annual Register as follows: “[The] small and Norwich; on the Connecticut are cruisers, whaleboats from Connecticut Saybrook, Essex, Middletown/Portland, coasts, which infested the Sound . . . were Wethersfield and Hartford. so watchful and constant in their The Sound was a conduit for depredations, and their situation afforded commerce and support for a growing them such opportunity, that they nearly population and proved important during the destroyed trade to and from New York . .. early years of the American colonies, [They planned to combat] the evil by particularly during the Revolutionary War. cutting off the means of depredation in the At first, it was a major site for the West destruction of their piratical craft and . . . Indian trade. Because of the Sound’s other vessels and their material for proximity to the port of New York, building” (pp.159-60). This was a scheme Connecticut merchants and mariners to lead Washington onto ground of their became crucial to the growth of the preference near New York, where they Book Reviews 439 could better engage and defeat him. This makes for tedious reading, but only in Although British troops landed with the places. Taken as a whole, however, Sound mission of destroying Continental Army Rising is a scholarly historiography about a military supplies, whaleboat warriors cut geographical area where significant them off from their ships and prevented maritime events occurred. Radune’s work both support and a safe retreat. The same would be a welcome addition in any newspaper later stated that it was “no small American maritime historian’s library. difficulty to lead Washington into such an Louis Arthur Norton error” (p.166). West Simsbury, Connecticut The author focuses about half the book on the Sound’s history during and around the Revolutionary War. The best- Nicholas Evan Sarantakes. Allies Against known and most costly raid was the Battle the Rising Sun. The United States, the of Groton Heights under the command of British Nations and the Defeat of Imperial Benedict Arnold where 88 Americans were Japan. Lawrence, KS: University Press of killed. He then closes with the War of 1812 Kansas, www.kansaspress.ku.edu, 2009. and its aftermath. The first of two notable xxi + 458 pp., illustrations, maps, notes, maritime actions in the Sound was the April bibliography, index. US $39.95, cloth; 1814 raid on Essex (then Potopaug), ISBN 978-0-7006-1669-5. Connecticut. There the British burned The publisher’s jacket notes for this book and/or captured a number of vessels, and tell us that “the role of America’s British destroyed houses and marine supplies, and Allies in the Pacific Theatre has been subsequently, attempted a raid on largely ignored” and that the author has Stonington that was unsuccessful. This revisited this period “to depict the delicate notable Connecticut Yankee defensive dance among uneasy partners in their fight action was well publicized and used as an against Japan, offering the most detailed example of resolve in the face of an assessment ever published” of the Alliance. overwhelming force — a smaller-scale Whether this was really the author’s defense on the line of that at Fort McHenry. intention and how successful he has been is Ironically, since war can be profitable, the what this review will examine. mariners of the Sound contributed to both What the author seeks to do in this the British in their war against Napoleon book is to examine the role of the U.K. and and the American Second War of its Commonwealth dominions, Australia, Independence. New Zealand and Canada, in planning the Radune identifies and organizes defeat of Japan. He looks at why Britain, at about two hundred years of fascinating and war with Germany and Italy since 1939, difficult-to-find information related to was prepared to participate in the military activities on or around Long Island Sound defeat of Japan despite an increasing sense making this work a useful reference of war-weariness; at why the Common- resource. A minor flaw is in the editing. wealth nations were also prepared to join The same events are repetitiously described this effort (and how their reasons for doing in almost the same language in some so reflected differing concepts of chapters. Also, the author presents a myriad nationhood and the future world order); and of details in his narrative. At times, it reads at why the U.S., having borne the brunt of like he is describing a painting, brush stroke the struggle against Japan for three years, by brush stroke, with only occasional was prepared to accept help from their allies glances at the entire scene he is creating. 440 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord rather than claim all the glory for itself. the early Cold War period, even if one does This book is not primarily about not believe wholly in the “special battles on land, at sea or in the air, though relationship.” there are three chapters about the land and The author has produced a very sea actions on and around Okinawa, another readable account of how and why decisions on the British Pacific Fleet’s actions under were reached and how the personalities (and Admiral Halsey’s command off Japan itself foibles) of the main players were an and also General Le May’s “rain of fire” important aspect of the decisions. He also with his B-29 Superfortress bombers over reveals the behind-the-scenes manoeuvring Japan. Rather, it is about the battles fought and sheer stubbornness (particularly by between the politicians of the various allied Churchill and Admiral E.J. King, nations and also between the main military commander-in-chief of the U.S. Navy) that commanders and the chiefs of staff in the was frequently part of the decision-making U.S. and U.K. He examines the different process. Other works have tended to gloss standpoints and the reasons for these views. over the full extent of the wrangling that Interestingly, in his final chapter, the author went on between the Allies and also covers what happened to these important between their politicians and the military personalities after the war. The majority of commanders. The short profiles on each of the chapters, however, covers the policy the main and supporting characters add both battles and the various conferences in interest and credibility to the story. London, Quebec and Potsdam and addresses Moreover, the brief accounts in the final the growing anxiety over the casualties chapter of what happened to them after the likely to be suffered in an invasion of the war is an unusual feature. It is a humbling Japanese homeland, one of the main reasons fact that many of them did not live long into for President Truman’s decision to use the retirement. atomic bomb to bring about the surrender The book is extremely well that Japan was plainly unable to researched, especially in the diaries of the contemplate. central participants as well as other works The Okinawa operations are clearly about them. There are nearly 50 pages of an area of particular expertise on the part of notes and references, a 17-page the author, an assistant professor at the bibliography and a 13-page index. There is Naval War College and author of two works a sprinkling of photographs, mainly of the on this topic. Perhaps this has led him to personalities and conferences but some of over-emphasize this campaign. the ships mentioned, though sadly these Nevertheless, what Sarantakes has done (and the maps of the Okinawa campaign) overall is to remind American readers that are not indexed. the story of the war in the Pacific is not just Whether this book is “the most a series of American battles punctuating the detailed assessment ever published,” as the period between the attack on Pearl Harbor publisher would have us believe, is a more in 1941 and the final surrender in Tokyo difficult question. On the British side, this Bay in 1945. Other countries were involved topic has been extensively covered by H. P. in some of these battles and also fought the Willmott in his three-volume study of the Japanese in other theatres as well. strategic policies of the countries involved There is no doubt that the bonds and in various other works. Other authors forged between the U.S., Britain and the have also carried out a considerable amount Commonwealth Nations were a major factor of research on this topic in this period. This in the continuation of allied cooperation in is not to criticise Prof. Sarantakes’ work, Book Reviews 441 however, but rather to set it in context. Navy, and it is at that point that the narrative Overall it is often worth following a focuses on the topic of how the American different approach, particularly when it torpedo was developed and used. produces such a very readable result. Moving chronologically, the authors start with early U.S. Navy efforts to John Francis develop a torpedo, the various competing Greenwich, England designs, and its final successful form in the 1890s. A description of the creation of the Thomas Wildenberg and Norman Polmar. submarine — the seemingly-eternal Ship Killers. A History of the American marriage of the torpedo and its weapons Torpedo. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute system — is included. The establishment of Press, www.nip.org, 2010. xvi+268 pp., the Naval Torpedo Station in Newport, RI, illustrations, appendices, notes, is related along with its importance to the bibliography, index. US $52.95, cloth; American torpedo saga. Development of ISBN 978-1-59114-668-9. the torpedo lagged during the 1920s and 1930s due to financial pressures and Whether launched from a submarine, from isolationism, an oversight that caught up the deck of a torpedo boat or destroyer, or with the U.S. Navy for the first part of the dropped from an aircraft, the torpedo has Pacific War. been an effective anti-ship weapon for Much can be learned from nearly one hundred years. Much has been Wildenberg’s and Polmar’s research. It is written about weapons systems — surprising that the U.S. Navy really only submarines, torpedo boats, surface ships used torpedoes in combat in the Second equipped with torpedo tubes, and torpedo- World War, and that with mixed results. carrying aircraft — but little has been Only once during the Korean War was the written about the actual torpedo itself. With American torpedo used in a combat Ship Killers. A History of the American mission; the U.S. Navy fired no torpedoes Torpedo, accomplished naval authors in the Spanish-American War, the First Thomas Wildenberg and Norman Polmar World War, or the Vietnam War. help to fill the gap in understanding the The American torpedo saw its development of a weapon that played such a greatest use during the Second World War, major part in the Second World War. and what a story it was. For the first two The authors begin with the early years of the Pacific War, American attempts from 1775 to 1865 to develop both torpedoes were usually defective, suffering a submarine and a torpedo to arm the from inadequate firing pins, a magnetic submarine. The stories of the Turtle in the exploder mechanism that failed to function American Revolution, the CSS David and as promised and torpedoes that ran too Hunley and the USS Albemarle, though deeply to sink a ship. The problem was, in well-known to historians, are included for part, one of cost: even a practice torpedo is completeness. The narrative then moves to an expensive, precision instrument. the development of the true torpedo. Performing failure analysis (to use a modern Modern readers may be surprised that the term) on a torpedo means firing a costly idea which formed the basis of the torpedo weapon to its destruction. Fortunately, as we know it came from the Austrian Navy criticism of the American torpedoes led to and was refined by Englishman Robert investigations and ultimately, the defects Whitehead. The eventual success of the were resolved. By late 1943, the U.S. Navy torpedo came to the attention of the U.S. finally had effective torpedoes. 442 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord The uses of the torpedo in the This book can be read on two Second World War — air-dropped, surface- levels — historical and technical. At times launched, and submarine launched — are the narrative is historically-focused, while at discussed. Another surprise awaiting the others, it reads like a USN technical reader: the famed PT (Patrol Torpedo)-boat manual. That mixture of historical and of that war was effective, but not with its technical information is vital to the narrative primary weapon, the torpedo. Most but can throw off the reader. successful PT-boat attacks were Although the torpedo is being accomplished by means of gun armament. replaced by the cruise missile, it is still an The torpedo bomber aircraft are also effective anti-ship weapon. Ship Killers is a discussed. It was fortunate that U.S. Naval comprehensive account of the USN torpedo. Aviation replaced its obsolete Douglas TBD Subject to the comment noted above, this Devastator torpedo bombers with the book is recommended. Grumman TBF Avenger, one of the great Robert L. Shoop combat aircraft of the Second World War Colorado Springs, Colorado and arguably, the best torpedo bomber ever produced. The chapters devoted to post-war USN torpedoes are comprehensive. Space is devoted to post-war planning to combat the Soviet submarine threat — one that was enhanced by the capture of many formerly- German navy U-boats. Atomic torpedoes and submarines are described and the many versions of the torpedo are fully detailed. One oddity is noted: the DASH — a remotely-piloted torpedo-carrying helicopter — was put into service for nine years but was taken out of service due to safety issues. The current USN torpedo, the Mark 48, is given a chapter of its own. This book deserves the appellation, “definitive.” It is fully illustrated and contains copious details about torpedoes — range, size, weights, warheads. Numerous sidebars appear throughout the book, providing such useful bits of information as how many USN submarines were commissioned in the First World War, a comparison of the USN torpedoes with Japanese “Long Lance” torpedoes, and the number of torpedoes fired by USN submarines in the Second World War. The appendices outline torpedo fire control, experimental USN torpedoes, the various types of USN torpedoes, and maintenance problems with torpedoes.