BOOK REVIEWS

Morten Hahn-Pedersen (ed.). Sjæklen 1993: were given to the churches as an appreciation, or Årbog for Fiskeri- og Søfartsmuseet, Saltvands• to remember comrades lost at sea. Thalund akvariet i Esbjerg. Esbjerg, Denmark: Fiskeri- describes twenty-three votive ships hanging in og Søfartsmuseet, Saltvandsakvariet, 1994. 141 churches on Fanø, each with its own story. The pp., photographs, illustrations, figures, tables, article is an introduction to what will be a much maps. DKr 198, hardbound; ISBN 87-87453-74- larger work which promises to be an exciting 6. new field of interest, on the crossroad between maritime and church history. By law, Danish museums are considered to be In his article, Morten Hahn-Pedersen fol• research institutions, and though in practice lows the career of the three-masted barque some are not, most maritime museums have a Killeena, which was bought by a limited com• strong commitment to research and publish their pany on Fanø from British owners. Hahn-Peder• own yearbook with papers of scholarly nature. sen provides details from the ship's life, includ• One of the best is Sjæklen, published by the ing its financial results. He uses a method Fisheries and Maritime Museum in Esbjerg. seldom used by economic historians — the Sjæklen 1993 is the sixth such yearbook and method of calculating opportunity costs — and has seven articles in addition to the museum's concludes that the share-holders would have annual report. Five articles deal with Danish been better off putting the money into the bank fisheries and/or their vessels. Carsten Krog and instead of investing in Killeena. One hopes that Svend Tougaard examine the basic biological others in maritime history will follow Hahn- aspects of fishing, while Henrik Bredmose Pedersen's example. Simonsen has gone through seven newspapers to The museum in Esbjerg has as its mandate assess opinions on the 1993 fishing conflict. He not only the history of the fisheries but of many concludes that the conflict convinced everybody other maritime activities. This wide perspective that the Danish fishery is in a deep crisis due is reflected in Sjæklen 1993, for the yearbook largely to an over capacity in the industry. covers many themes. The Sjæklen series also Through particular attention to the west coast strives to reach an international readership, to fisheries in Denmark between 1975 and 1992, judge by the fact that every chapter includes a Poul Holm discusses the problem further. He short and precise summary in English. Yet too claims that over-fishing is the explanation why wide a perspective works sometimes to the the industry has moved from one crisis to yearbook's detriment, for the aim of the book is another during the last twenty years. In addition then unclear and its regional focus raises the there is an article on the fishing vessel Sikar and danger of appealing more to the local com• a short piece on a large archive handed over to munity than to maritime historians outside the museum by the Sea-Fishing Association in Denmark. If the museum wants to capture a Denmark. larger, more scholarly, audience, greater atten• The two remaining articles are of more tion should perhaps be paid to providing each interest to maritime historians. Henning Thalund issue with a particular theme, or with themes of gives an interesting glimpse into what is still a related interest. living Scandinavian tradition, namely the so- called votive ships, i.e. models of ships hanging Anders Martin Fon in churches. Most were made by seamen and Bergen, Norway

55 56 The Northern Mariner

Alain Corbin; Jocelyn Phelps (trans.). The Lure study of life in the coastal zone, other than in of the Sea: The Discovery of the Seaside in the certain major ports. Corbin does not deny that Western World 1750-1840. English translation © the seashore retained many tragic elements, such Polity Press; Oxford: Polity Press and Berkeley as the shipwrecks which obsessed the Roman• and Los Angeles: University of California Press, tics, but even these came to be viewed in new 1994. x + 380 pp., b&w plates, notes, index. US ways. $35, cloth; ISBN 0-520-06638-3. Only in the last section of his magisterial survey, entitled "Inventing the Beach," does John F. Travis. The Rise of the Devon Seaside Corbin delineate the development of seaside Resorts 1750-1900. Exeter: University of Exeter resorts in Britain and Continental Europe. Press, 1993. ix + 246 pp., maps, illustrations, England led the way, and in the Prince Regent's tables, notes, bibliography, index. £30, cloth; transformation of Brighton from a therapeutic ISBN 0-85989-392-8. resort to a hedonistic one many of the develop• ments of the seaside resort during the nineteenth The recently published translation of Alain century were foreshadowed. Corbin stresses the Corbin's Le Territoire du vide (1988) makes a importance of the example set by royalty and major work of cultural history available to the the aristocracy in visiting the seashore and the anglophone reader. Professor Corbin shows how significance of improvements in transport, the centuries-old fear of the sea and repugnance especially the railway, in opening the seaside towards its shores was replaced between 1750 resorts to a much wider leisure class. and 1840 by the awakening of a collective If Professor Corbin paints on a wide can• desire for the seashore in western Europe. vas, John Travis shows how many of the Both the Classical and the Christian tradi• elements noted by Corbin worked themselves tions had largely viewed the sea in negative out in the seaside resorts of one area, the Eng• terms as the abode of chaos and a place of lish county of Devon. The search for health led danger. Where the sea met the land was a zone to the first sea-bathing in Devon around 1750. of particular hazard, of storm, shipwreck, and The great boost to the Devon resorts, especially seaborne invader. However, a new view of the on the south coast, came during the French sea and seashore began to emerge in the seven• Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. Members of teenth century. The prophets of natural philos• fashionable society could no longer holiday on ophy began to view nature as a witness to the the Continent and looked for places at home power of God, and this favourable view of which had a pleasing climate. Dr. Jebb, phys• natural wonders extended to both sea and shore. ician to George III, announced that he would Although this positive intellectual view was "aver the pureness and salubrity of the air at one reason for the increasing popularity of the Exmouth equal to the south of France," and the seashore in the eighteenth century, a more Devon resorts found a new popularity. Turnpike practical reason was the growing medical con• roads and improved coach services did some• sensus on the health-giving benefits of the sea, thing to ease holiday travel to Devon. The with sea-bathing leading to the development of fastest-growing resort was Torquay, which had the first coastal resorts. Then, under the influ• such a mild climate that it was the first English ence of the Romantic movement, writers and seaside resort to have a winter as well as a artists began to stress the beauties of coastal summer season. scenery and the sea, providing solace for the After 1815 the growth of the south Devon soul as well as the body. Even scientific prog• resorts slowed, except for Torquay, as much of ress brought people to the seashore, to study the fashionable society returned to the Continent for geological strata of the cliffs and the biological holidays. On the north Devon coast the coming contents of the tidal pools. of coastal steamships did much to assist the Corbin stresses the vigour and diversity of growth of resorts such as Ilfracombe since land the coastal communities that the first tourists communications with the area remained poor. found. He points out that by concentrating on When the railway reached the south Devon seafaring, maritime historians have neglected a resorts in the 1840s it gave a considerable boost Book Reviews 57

to their prosperity. By 1900 railways had flashbacks to what is known today of their reached the main north Devon resorts, but origins and developments. Thus, "The Great coastal steamer services remained important in Highway" summarizes global shipping, epitom• that area. At the beginning of the twentieth ized by one of today's stupendous (174,000 century mass tourism was already a fact at many tons) oil-tankers. "The Riches of the East" English seaside resorts. Devon resorts still captures the origins of cargo-shipping and leads fought against this tide, preferring to attract to a lively description of all that takes place on relatively small numbers of wealthier holiday- a modern container-ship. In a similar manner, makers. subsequent chapters examine cruise-ships, Dr. Travis touches on the question of how navies, oil-platforms and ocean-research. far the new resorts provided employment for I have no trouble at all — and nobody people displaced by the decline of traditional should — with his eloquent presentations, for maritime activities in Devon, such as the New• Cuyvers is a proven master of display. His foundland trade, but the matter is not considered chapters on the tanker, cargo-ships and navies in any detail. Altogether Travis has produced a may be warmly applauded for their insights and valuable study relevant to both the history of maritime values. This is not to say that every leisure and maritime history in its widest sense. chapter is perfectly in tune with what are com• monly considered "matters nautical." Cuyvers Alan C. Jamieson himself is uneasy in his observations about London, England cruise ships, (p.89) a form of shipping that, in essence, is far from the seaman's heart. Why, Luc Cuyvers. Sea Power: A Global Journey. then, include it? Similarly, while his chapter on Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1993. xv oil-exploration as practised "aboard" the Norwe• + 249 pp., photographs (colour, b+w), illustra• gian Oseberg Platform is interesting and new to tions, suggested readings. Cdn $31.50, US most of us, one is left wondering whether oil- $22.95, paper; ISBN 1-55750-146-7. Canadian drilling is not more a matter of the land, albeit distributor, Vanwell Publishing, St. Catharines, land beneath the ocean, than the sea? Again, the ON. logic of including it here is not clear. Finally, while the chapter on ocean-research aboard the Luc Cuyvers reminds me vividly of a gentleman Japanese high-tech vessel Yokosuka deserves to teaching history in whose audience I once had be part of the book, we seem to miss something the privilege of being; both reach far beyond the here. Cuyvers admits to being in the dark to a great extent about the minute proceedings stature of lecturers, for they are in fact enter• because he lacked knowledge of the Japanese tainers, the complete communicators. Such men language (p. 216) and the untranslated briefings possess the rare and unique ability to take a of the scientists sailing in the ship. Still, the phenomenon, any phenomenon, and lead one chapter is concerned with research of the seas back to its early beginnings; from there, they and more particularly with the movement of proceed to develop it within one's mind with bottom-plates in relation to earthquakes (plate great clarity, never to be forgotten. In Sea tectonics). Power, Cuyvers follows this approach with great skill. His dialogue is easy-flowing, his material In conclusion, this is an meritorious book. factual and his views convincing. At times his Although its contents may already be familiar to stories have the elegance of a moderate ocean most marine experts, even so it has merit as a swell, at other times the rigours of a fierce refresher. It will find its mark and, presumably, storm. They make for compelling reading and, its market mostly among television viewers. I no doubt, compelling viewing, for the book is a found it an outstanding coffee-table book. The companion to a television series of the same price, given its large format, good photographs name. and quality of print, is quite reasonable- Cuyvers organizes his observations around six expressions of the sea's power, orders them Hendrik (Hank) J. Barendregt into chapters and intersperses them with constant Langley, British Columbia 58 The Northern Mariner

Wim Johnson (ed.). "Shaky Ships": The formal between Belgium and China resulted in the richness of Chinese shipbuilding. Antwerp: collection remaining in Belgium. Initially the Nationaal Scheepvaartmuseum, 1993. 119 pp., collection was housed in the reserves of the illustrations, photographs, bibliography. BFr 700 Royal Museums of Art and History in Brussels. (+ bank costs, Bfr 300), paper; ISBN 2-87193- In 1925 Emile Beuckeleers-Donche, an Antwerp 182-8. shipbuilder, found them in a sorry state of repair. In 1927 the collection was handed over On May 8, 1993, Belgium's National Maritime to the Municipal Maritime and Trade Museum Museum in Antwerp opened an eight-month in Antwerp. Files indicate the collection con• exhibition of its collection of models of Chinese sisted of "several trucks full of fragments." In junks. Shaky Ships was the exhibition catalogue. 1947 the collection was transferred to The Following a foreword by the Mayor of Antwerp, National Maritime Museum, arriving in a total the first thirty-eight pages contain an overview shambles. At this time restoration began, which of Chinese navigation, including the discovery required extensive study and research, aided in of the magnetic compass, and voyages of explo• no small part with reference to the works of ration such as those by Zheng He; a discussion D.W. Waters, G.R.C. Worcester and others. on Chinese shipbuilding technology, with simi• Restoration was hampered by missing parts and larities in Western Europe; and a history of the unidentified pieces. Eighty-five of the models collection. The remainder of the catalogue were restored at that time. Regrettably some contains a collection profile, followed by a models were beyond identification or restoration. captioned, photographic record of the collection, While preparing for this exhibition, several a useful bibliography and a brief glossary. boxes of parts and notes surfaced allowing the The 125 models in the collection represent restoration of further models. merchant junks and warships from most of the Since Antwerp and Shanghai now have a Chinese provinces, representing Chinese ship• treaty of friendship involving two yearly cultural building technology around 1900. While the exchanges, the collection will be transferred to bulk of the collection originated in China as part China where it will undoubtedly strengthen trade of the exhibit for the World's Fair in St. Louis ties between the two countries, at a time when in 1904, models from four other collections are the Chinese markets are opening to the west. included. Scale and craftsmanship vary, ranging Thus the original purpose for the collection has through all skill levels from simple folk art to now gone full circle, back to China thankfully, some very accurate models built by skilled fully restored. craftsmen, following detailed measurement and study. N.R. Cole The catalogue is very well presented and Scarborough, Ontario provides an interesting look at shipbuilding totally different to that found in the western Donald Shomette. The Hunt for HMS De Braak: world. There's an occasional unusual term, Legend and Legacy. Durham, NC: Carolina probably due to translation. The collection Academic Press, 1993. xiii + 444 pp., photo• profile and model collection sections will un• graphs, figures, appendices, notes, bibliography, doubtedly be of most interest to model builders. index. US $29.95, cloth; ISBN 0-89089-528-7. The profile contains colour plates of a number of models, plus an excellent overview as to why This is a wonderfully crafted book in which the junks were, and are, built the way they are. The author tells the story of a small, unremarkable black and white photographs in the collection British man-of-war that foundered off the coast section each contain the catalogue file informa• of Delaware in 1798. During the 1980s, the De tion, type, size, crew, and notes on identification Braak became world famous because of the sources, plus an additional paragraph relevant to brutal assault on its resting place by a salvage the specific model. company in a vain search for legendary treasure. Following the World's Fair in Liege, As a noted maritime historian and marine arch• Belgium in 1905, it appears that negotiations aeologist who participated in the analysis of the Book Reviews 59

artifacts from the vessel, Donald Shomette has wealth was finally extinguished but at the cost the knowledge and understanding to present all of destroying a valuable and important archae• aspects of this fascinating story. ological site. Shomette approaches the book with an This is also the story of a group of dedi• historian's keen eye for important details and cated professionals, including the author, who, pertinent facts. This could not have been an easy under a great deal of adverse peer pressure, task considering the myriad of characters who undertook to care for and study the thousands of move in and out of the story and the events that artifacts stripped f@rom the wreck as well as to surround them. This is a complicated story of document the remaining hull structure. Through greed, law suits, political intrigue and complic• their efforts, they managed to extract a remark• ity, and intense media attention which Shomette able wealth of information relating to life on weaves skilfully into a successful whole. Though board the vessel, armaments and ship archi• it often reads like fiction, the scrupulous docu• tecture from material devoid of its original mentation found in chapter notes, the complete archaeological context. They have brought to bibliography and the extensive index give light the real treasure from the De Braak. The evidence that it is indeed history. It will come as important results of their work are presented at no surprise to readers to learn that it was the end of the book. One wonders how much awarded NASOH's 1993 Lyman Award for the more information could have been gleaned if the best book in US maritime history. site had been excavated in an archaeologically Shomette opens the book with a factual sound manner. history of the De Braak, including that of the The book also highlights the struggle ship's last captain, James Drew, and an account between preservationists and treasure hunters of the vessel's final crossing of the Atlantic and over control and access to shipwrecks in US its sinking off Delaware. This is competently waters. Preservationists sought to put an end to done and is placed in the context of wider the legally sanctioned destruction of a valuable European and American history. There follows but finite source of maritime history. The battle a discussion of the various salvage attempts was waged in Washington through well organ• made on the vessel, starting with an attempt by ized and financed lobbying efforts on both sides. the Royal Navy shortly after the sinking, fol• One of the few positive results to come from the lowed by a number of private attempts through• archaeological disaster of the De Braak is that it out the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This played a pivotal role in the passing of the US goes hand in hand with a discussion of the Abandoned Shipwreck Act which should insure growth of the myth of a treasure aboard the De that a similar episode does not occur again. Braak. The myth was reinforced and enlarged This book is extremely well written and a with every unsuccessful attempt and took on the pleasure to read. It is also well illustrated with aura of fact. black and white photographs as well as by line The story moves to the present with the drawings of the more significant finds. Typo• discovery of the De Braak in 1984 by a treas• graphical errors are practically non-existent. One ure-hunting group whereupon the pillaging of glaring exception occurred on page 224, on the site began in earnest. Over the next two which were printed the contents of page 234; the years the hoped-for treasure did not materialize. contents of page 224 were never located. This could easily have been determined before• Maritime historians and archaeologists will hand, had the salvors bothered to invest in a find this a fascinating but sobering book, as will little historical research. In a final futile and anyone who has more than a passing interest in desperate attempt to recover the fabled treasure, nautical history. It should absolutely be required the remaining hull section was savagely ripped reading for anyone involved in the legislation, from its resting place with cables and a crane, administration or protection of submerged seriously damaging the hull and dumping a great cultural resources. many artifacts back into the water. A large clam-bucket was then used to "excavate" the R. James Ringer remainder of the site. The myth of fabulous Ottawa, Ontario 60 The Northern Mariner

David E. Stephens. W.D. Lawrence: The Man rooms in the college building at various times and the Ship. Hantsport, NS: Lancelot Press, from 1833 until 1851. Lawrence was not 1994. 107 pp., photographs, illustrations, map, defeated in politics in the summer of 1868, nor bibliography. $7.95, paper; ISBN 0-88999-481- was he a widower at the time. His political 1. career ended when he was defeated in the prov• incial election of 16 May, 1871, while his wife William D. Lawrence was one of the many hun• Mary outlived him by twelve years. The dreds of shipbuilders active in the Maritime Pegasus was sold in August 1874, seven years provinces during the last half of the nineteenth after she was built, not four. The double stair• century who not only designed and built vessels way on the front porch of the Lawrence house but owned and operated them themselves. Ship- does not resemble a ship's bridge: sailing ships owning, at the very best of times, could be a did not have bridges. Rather, this type of stair• very risky business and while many fortunes way was a common architectural feature of the were made, many others were lost. In Law• mid- to late 1860s and there are many examples rence's case, he was prepared to put all his in Nova Scotia. It is ridiculous to suggest that money into one extremely large vessel rather Lawrence was one of the few shipbuilders to than several smaller ones. This ship, which he master the art of ship design. Many hundreds of named after himself, was the largest vessel ever Maritime shipbuilders designed their own ves• built in the Maritime Provinces. In this slim sels, vessels which, while not quite as large as book, David Stephens sets out to tell us the the William D. Lawrence, were certainly as well story of this ship and its builder. designed, well built and made fast passages and However, apart from a section on the money for their owners. The Masonic, whose voyages of the Kommander Sven Foyn, the passengers and crew were taken off by the book, first published in 1975, does little more Pegasus, was not a British frigate but a small than take some information which is readily brigantine of Saint John, New Brunswick on a found in the books of Frederick William Wal• voyage from Dorchester, New Brunswick to lace and add it to what amounts to a re-write of New York. While the William D. Lawrence was the article "The Great Ship" by Archibald indeed the largest vessel built in the Maritime MacMechan (a copy of which is available at the provinces, it was only slightly larger than the Lawrence House). Stephens seems to have done White Star and the Morning Light, two ships little research work of his own: he does not built by William and Richard Wright in Saint appear to have consulted the Windsor shipping John, New Brunswick twenty years before. The registers for information about vessels built by two largest vessels built in Canada were the Lawrence before 1874; he has not used the plans Columbus and the Baron of Renfrew, both built of the Lawrence vessels held at the Public in Quebec fifty years before. Lawrence's ship Archives of Nova Scotia; nor has he used the was neither the largest vessel afloat in 1874 nor Lawrence papers at the Lawrence House. He the largest vessel to enter the Mersey. I could go does not seem to be aware of the pamphlet on. published by William D. Lawrence in 1880 in The author does not seem to understand that which he discusses his voyage in the ship in shipbuilders, even well into the twentieth cen• great detail. A little additional research would tury, made the half model first when designing have revealed a great deal about Lawrence and their vessels. The lines were then taken off and his family which has not hitherto been pub• the familiar half breadth, sheer and profiles were lished. produced on paper. The half model of Law• Stephens writes in a melodramatic style, rence's ship has survived and can be seen at the fraught with ridiculous superlatives, sweeping Lawrence House; it is nearly six feet long. Are generalizations, and glaring factual errors. For we really expected to believe that Lawrence instance, apart from family tradition, these is no carved this model with his jackknife? I also find evidence to support the statement that Lawrence it hard to believe that Ellis was astonished at the attended Dalhousie University although he may size of the ship under construction when he have attended the Mechanics Institute that used returned to Maitland in the spring of 1873. Book Reviews 61

Lawrence's papers reveal that he wrote several The courage of Ida Lewis (Rhode Island 1879- letters to Ellis, three years before, telling him of 1903) made her the best-known keeper of her his plans, discussing the model of the ship in time. She is credited with using her skill with a detail and giving the ship's dimensions. While row boat to save eighteen lives. The dedicated the ship was commonly referred to as the W.D. Catherine Murdock (New York 1857-1907) Lawrence, its official name and the one that stayed at her post and kept the light going after appears on all official documents and on the a dam burst and flood waters carried away paintings is the William D. Lawrence. houses and barns. Mary Ryan (Indiana 1873- This is a terribly disappointing book, filled 1880) reported the effects of cold weather and with inaccuracies and false statements. In no isolation in her keepers log "Nothing but gloom way does it do justice, either to William D. without and WITHIN." (p.75) Lawrence, or to the great ship which he built. Each chapter gives enough details about the One can only wonder why it was ever published. lighthouse itself to give the reader a feel for it. They range from leaky and dilapidated to solid Charles A. Armour and comfortable. Some are on rocky Halifax, Nova Scotia outcroppings which are hardly larger than the lighthouses themselves while others are in close Mary Louise Clifford and J. Candace Clifford. proximity to towns and surrounded by neigh• Women Who Kept the Light: An Illustrated bouring farms. The keepers were often History of Female Lighthouse Keepers. Wil• appointed after the death of their husbands or liamsburg, VA: Cypress Communications, 1993 fathers by the Lighthouse Service because there [P.O. Box 791, Williamsburg, VA 23187, USA], was no pension system to care for them. The vi + 183 pp., maps, illustrations, photographs, book also describes the keeper's family and appendix, endnotes, bibliography, index. US whether or not they lived with her. Riveting $19.95 [+ $3 s+h outside the USA], paper; accounts of shipwrecks, fires and earthquakes ISBN 0-9636412-0-4. are given in their own words. Each chapter concludes with a description of the circum• Women Who Kept the Light brings the experi• stances such as retirement, dismissal or death by ence of twenty-eight female lighthouse keepers which her sojourn ended. vividly to life. It spans the years 1776 to present Sidebars are used as an ingenious method and covers lighthouses from the Great Lakes and of providing ancillary information about the Pacific, Atlantic and Gulf Coasts of the United Lighthouse Board policies, women keepers about States. Readers are presented the character of whom little is known, new developments in each keeper, and the conditions under which she equipment and instructions for keeping the daily kept the light burning, with great clarity. log. The sidebars succeed in enhancing the The book is liberally illustrated with black material without distracting the reader. and white photographs and drawings. Most are The book concludes with a chapter des• reproduced with astonishing clarity considering cribing the effect of changes to the Lighthouse their vintage. Photographs of pages from the Service on women keepers and the ultimate daily log books and letters in the keeper's replacement of resident keepers by automation. handwriting provide historical realism, but some An epilogue explains the present uses of the are not legible. As well, a nautical chart of each lighthouse buildings which range from bed and relevant district is included; however they are breakfasts to marine laboratories. An appendix, difficult to read due to photo-reduction and organized by state, provides a list of keepers handwritten captions. names and dates of service. There are fascinating descriptions of the The sepia-toned cover photograph of an character of these women and the circumstances austere lighthouse and the text book gauge of which shaped them. Emily Fish (keeper in the paper used by the printer promise a dolorous California 1893-1914) changed the tenor of her academic treatise. The casual reader should not surroundings by bringing in servants, antiques be discouraged by this formidable exterior. In and thoroughbred horses to pull her carriage. fact, the book is very lively and readable. Some 62 The Northern Mariner readers may choose to read selected chapters as, relationships he witnessed and, as Burg naturally, they contain many common elements. observes, these pairings were most often struc• The historian will find this to be a well tured around age and status, reflecting the documented assimilation of information from existing hierarchies of power on board ship. government records, newspapers, keepers logs, Relationships consisted of an older and younger personal interviews and publications. Casual partner. Again capturing the richness of sailors' readers will discover a pleasant way to become sexual language, the junior partner was known steeped in the fabric of the daily lives of an as "chicken" and this way of organizing inti• unusual group who endeavoured to keep the mate, sexual relationships was referred to by light. sailors as "chickenship." While many men and boys actively engaged Suzanne Spohn in the "boom cover trade," Van Buskirk himself Lions Bay, British Columbia pursued a more romantic, often paternal relation• ship with the boys to whom he was attracted. B.R. Burg. An American Seafarer in the Age of Though not immune to the sexual, Van Buskirk Sail: The Erotic Diaries of Philip C. Van Bus- was filled with guilt and self-loathing when it kirk 1851-1870. New Haven: Yale University came to the physical, something he believed he Press, 1994. xx + 218 pp., endnotes, bibliogra• internalized from his constant reading of anti- phy, index. US $26.50, cloth; ISBN 0-300- masturbation tracts. Often commenting on the 05637-0. ease with which the other sailors went after sex, Van Buskirk's journals can be read for the When it comes to seafarers and sexuality, his• differing ways working-class and middle-class torians invariably point to the dearth of sources men responded to the dominant sexual idealogies relating to the topic. For this reason, the publica• of the time. tion of B.R. Burg's An American Seafarer in the I do have some problems with Burg's Age of Sail is a welcome event. handling of the issue of sexual identity. On Raised middle-class in the mid-nineteenth homosexual identity, Burg is quite good. Taking century, Philip C. Van Buskirk made for a his cue from much of the work done in gay rather uncommon common seaman. But com• social history, Burg refrains from ascribing a mon to many men of the middle-class, Van fully formed homosexual identity to sailors who Buskirk kept a diary of his activities, thoughts had sexual relations with each other. As Burg and feelings. He included in his journal a explains in the introduction, he does this in part detailed account of his sexual life, including a by referring to sailors' sexual relations with running tally of his nocturnal emissions and other men as "homoerotic" rather than as "ho• solitary and not-so-solitary vices. Not a straight mosexual." At the same time, however, Burg transcript of the diaries, Burg has woven Van does refer to something he calls "heterosexual Buskirk's journal entries into a narrative of his orientation." (p. 169) He claims that "in the mid- own, one organized thematically and chronologi• nineteenth century, Americans recognized only cally. an exclusive heterosexual model of behavior. Van Buskirk's diaries contain a wealth of There were no parallel or complementary con• information on homosexual relations among ceptual alternatives." (p. 88) Burg is only half seafarers during the nineteenth century. The right. There may not have been any conceptual diaries provide us with access to the subaltern models for homosexuality in the mid-nineteenth sexual idiom used by sailors. In contrast to the century, but neither were there for heterosexual- emerging scientific terminology, sailors had an ity. As gay historian Jonathan Ned Katz and elaborate sexual vocabulary of their own. others have demonstrated, heterosexuality — like "Going chaw for chaw," for instance, was an homosexuality — was an historical accomplish• expression used to describe mutual masturbation. ment. In fact, the term "heterosexuality" only The diaries also reveal the way such sexual came into existence after the invention of "ho• encounters became the basis for more elaborate mosexuality" during the late-nineteenth century. relationships. Van Buskirk detailed many of the I suspect An American Seafarer in the Age Book Reviews 63

of Sail will be widely cited by those who wish sides of the story: the social riverman as well as to acknowledge the existence of same-gender his mythical, "half-horse half-alligator" counter• sex at sea. We should remember, however, that part. After the tales were told, and embellished this is only one diary written by one man. and retold, how did these men actually live from Hopefully the existence of Van Buskirk's rich day to day? Allen's research uncovered a num• diary will encourage others to undertake more ber of firsthand accounts written by literate (and comprehensive historical investigations of sailors therefore, he admits, "atypical") boatmen that and their sexualities. give an overview of a way of life never before fully documented. Journals, autobiographies, Steven Maynard newspapers and government documents flesh out Kingston, Ontario the story. Allen focuses primarily on the keelboats Michael Allen. Western Rivermen, 1763-186J: and flafboats working on the Ohio and Ohio and Mississippi Boatmen and the Myth of Mississippi rivers. The book follows a chrono• the Alligator Horse. Baton Rouge: Louisiana logical history divided into two parts: The pre- State University Press, 1994. xv + 261 pp., steamboat era (1763-1823) and the Steamboat maps, illustrations, appendix, glossary, biblio• Age (1823-1861). He explains how the advent graphical essay, index. US $12.95, paper; ISBN of steam power accelerated the westward 0-8071-1907-5. advance of civilization. This in turn greatly altered the life of the boatmen. The death of Most American children growing up in the Mike Fink in 1823 symbolically represents the 1950s and 1960s spent their Sunday evenings in end of the rough and tumble riverboat era. As front of the television watching the "Wonderful settlers and entrepreneurs slowly moved west World of Disney." At least once a month Uncle and south towards New Orleans, river landings Walt would treat us to historically significant grew from villages, to towns, to cities. Civilized events such as the Civil War, the War with society became less and less tolerant of the Mexico, or tales of the men who tamed the shenanigans of riverboat crews. wilderness frontier. Young boys were glued to Despite the allure of the easy-going life the sets as stories of action, adventure, heroism depicted by George Caleb Bingham in The Jolly and glory unfolded before them. Andrew Jack• Flatboatmen or Twain's Huckleberry Finn, son, Daniel Boone, Jim Bowie, Davy Crockett Allen stresses that a riverman's existence was and Mike Fink were the heroes. These were our plagued by hardship. Poling, rowing, bush• history lessons, and I will admit, shamefully, whacking ("moving a keelboat upstream by that I followed them as far as the last commer• pulling on nearby bushes and branches") and cial. cordelling (sending the crew ashore with a line Disney gave us the facts skilfully inter• to pull the boat upstream) was backbreaking woven with myth and folklore. Michael Allen work. Weeks of dodging river hazards, robbers, explains that although movies like Davy Croc• foul weather and Indian attacks culminated with kett and the River Pirates reintroduced Ameri• an even more arduous return trip upstream or a cans to Mike Fink and the western boatmen, the long walk home. Yet the riverman was essential true nature of these men was completely lost in to the frontier, for an amazing 90 per cent of all the Myth of the Alligator Horse. Allen argues non-steam river commerce during this period that previous works on the subject relied almost was carried by flatboats. Flatboating reached its exclusively on the wealth of literary and zenith around 1847-1848 and, although it never folkloric sources dating from the Jacksonian era. completely recovered after the Civil War, the He believes that these accounts are an important last boats plied the Mississippi until the 1890s. part of nineteenth century American social Michael Allen has written an intricately history. However, he does not believe that the researched volume that examines the reality and early folk heroes led those wild, swashbuckling the myth surrounding the lives of the eighteenth lives. and nineteenth century western rivermen. In Thus, the author endeavours to present both some sections the reader may be left with a 64 The Northern Mariner

desire for more information. Fortunately, his Dining facilities were in particular demand for detailed notes and the thorough bibliographical the ever-popular shore suppers. essay direct readers to numerous additional The busy summer excursion runs should source materials. The appendix and glossary have been highly profitable, with steamers like complete an enjoyable and highly recommend- the 261-ton Pilgrim carrying up to 1,100 pass• able addition to the social history section of engers per trip on the busy Portland to Peak's your library. Island shuttle. However, Frappier's main theme, the rise and fall of the Casco Bay Steamboat W. Wilson West, Jr. Company and the Casco Bay and Harpswell Washington, DC Lines, tells instead a story of unregulated cut• throat competition, the purchase of vessels of William J. Frappier. Steamboat Yesterdays on ever-increasing capacity and a drastic lowering Casco Bay: The Steamboat Era in Maine's of fares to beat out the opposition. This inevi• Calendar Island Region. 196 pp., illustrations, tably resulted in the companies involved being photographs, appendices, bibliography, index, unable to meet their overheads and, finally, insert map. Cdn $50, US $40, cloth; ISBN 1- falling victim to lien and sheriffs sale. 55046-086-2. Steamboat Yesterdays contains the histories of forty-five companies and over seventy steam Maine's island-filled Casco Bay is about eight• passenger vessels. The latter range in size from een miles wide and twelve miles deep. It lies the 425-ton Machigonne to the little 13-ton between Cape Elizabeth, on which the city of Admiral and even smaller steamers. The inclu• Portland is situated, and Cape Small. Many of sion of these tiny vessels, some of which appear its 'Calendar Islands,' as they are known locally, to have fared quite well while serving the contain arable land and their settlement dates smaller island communities and cottage colonies, back to the early inroads of colonists from adds a special dimension to Frappier's work. So, Massachusetts. Dotted with small communities, also, does the quality of the over one hundred the long, sheltered channels between the large and eighty-five illustrations. There are photo• islands provided ideal conditions for some early graphs of ships' crews, the grand hotels, island experiments in steam navigation. By the 1870s, wharves, advertising ephemera and no fewer the busy summer excursion traffic out of Port• than fifty-five of the vessels which once oper• land had attracted the attention of a number of ated on Casco Bay. Regretfully, the illustrations steamboat entrepreneurs. In Steamboat Yes• are neither indexed nor cross-indexed; nor were terdays Captain Frappier traces the history of brief notes provided on those services still in most of the companies and vessels involved, operation. In addition, someone has neglected to dating from Captain Seaward Porter and his list the sixty-two vessels covered in Appendix Kennebec in 1822. A, the "Steamboat Data/Log," in alphabetical Steamboating on Casco Bay appears to have order. Appendix C, which traces the past and reached its peak during the last two decades of future histories of twenty Casco Bay boats up the nineteenth century. At this time, it was the and down the coast from New York Harbor to practice of the very rich to spend the summer Passamaquoddy Bay, is another random listing. season rusticating in company with their peers Notwithstanding these few concerns and the and a number of the smaller islands had been occasional peculiar turn of phrase, the author has developed as exclusive cottage communities. On compiled a wonderful history of a lost era. In others, fancy resort hotels vied for the custom of addition to its obvious local interest, Steamboat upper class patrons. Portland's masses also Yesterdays on Casco Bay should be a welcome sought escape from the heat of the city, turning addition to the reference libraries of everyone to the steamers and the fresh island breezes for with an interest in steam navigation and the relief. In response to this summer influx, skating history of the coastal trade east of Boston. rinks, casinos and other establishments catering to both day and evening cruise patrons became Robin H. Wyllie major attractions at favourite ports of call. East LaHave, Nova Scotia Book Reviews 65

Bruce W. Taylor. The Age of Steam on Lake 1903. In fact, there were two tugs by that name. Temiskaming. Cobalt, ON: Highway Book Shop, The first, number 85,356, was indeed broken up 1993. xi + 155 pp., maps, illustrations, photo• in 1903; the second, a propeller tug with official graphs, alphabetical listing of steamboats, index. number 116865, was built in early 1904, only to $24.95, cloth; ISBN 0-88954-381-X. burn in October of that same year. Still, on balance, this is a book well worth This book tells the story of steam navigation on having for anyone interested in the marine Lake Temiskaming and on its tributary waters in history of the Temiskaming area. It is attract• Northern Ontario and Quebec. That story really ively produced with a suitable dust jacket, there begins with the start of commercial logging in are lots of pictures which capture the spirit of the 1880s. Steamboating for passengers and the largely 1880 to 1930 period. Perhaps one of package freight developed once the Canadian the Canadian marine historical journals could Pacific Railway opened to Mattawa in 1881 and publish a modified version of its listing of a branch line was subsequently built from there steamboats. to Temiskaming, Quebec. Yet passenger service declined following the construction of another Gordon C. Shaw railway — what is now the Ontario Northland Thornhill, Ontario Railway — from North Bay, Ontario to New Liskeard and Haileybury in the early 1900s, Gelina Harlaftis. Greek Shipowners and Greece together with the end of the gold mining boom 1945-1975: From Separate Development to just before 1914. A few steamers survived in Mutual Interdependence. London and Atlantic summer excursion trades, but fire and obsol• Highlands, NJ: Athlone Press, 1993. xv + 243 escence forced their eventual demise in the pp., map, figures, tables, appendices, notes, 1920s. Steam tugs continued to move rafts of bibliography, index. £45, US $90, cloth; ISBN logs until the 1970s, when they, too, became 0-485-11428-3. obsolete with the advent of large trucks and the decline of forests near the lake. For several reasons, the recent history of Greek Bruce Taylor's study of The Age of Steam shipping is of considerable interest. Not only is on Lake Temiskaming is well written. The book the merchant marine sailing under the Greek is organized into seven chapters: the first pro• flag one of the largest in the world but Greek vides some historical background; the second shipowners also command substantial tonnages and third describe the principal steamboat in various "convenience" registers. Moreover, operations; the subsequent chapters focus on the these fleets have enjoyed growth rates far above more minor operations; the last describes docks the average: measured in gross tons, they in• and dredges. Much appreciated were the several creased seventeen-fold between 1950 and 1975. schedules which showed the vessels' sailing time So far, very few books of high scholarly and general deployment. Not so appreciated was standards have been available on the history of the map of Lake Temiskaming, buried between Greek shipping in languages other than Greek. pages 8-9 instead of being conveniently placed Dr. Gelina Harlaftis' book — based on her DPhil inside the front cover. thesis at Oxford — is therefore more than wel• One feature of the book was the "alpha• come. As the title of her book indicates, her betical list of steamboats." I only wish that main objective is to study the linkages between Taylor had consulted some of the standard the Greek economy and this impressive shipping Canadian marine historical sources in order to industry. This is an extremely relevant and avoid some inaccuracies and to acquire fuller important question: the international character of data. Thus, the list gives both Antoine and St. the industry means that it hardly can be under• Antoine (p. 138) though the picture on page 107 stood as an integral part of the economy but clearly shows St. Antoine. We also read in the rather as an autonomous element with fairly list that the side-wheel tug Argo, official number slender ties with the mother country. 85,356, burned in October 1904, yet we are told The opening section of the book, "The on p. 26 that Argo was broken up in September Shipping Firms," contains an interesting, concise 66 The Northern Mariner and well-balanced description of the shipping involvement, above all the investments, of industry itself. The author stresses some special shipowners in other sections of the Greek econ• characteristics of Greek shipping firms, above omy. This must have been the most difficult part all the importance of family and island ties. of the study, simply because reliable and all- Such groups formed, according to Harlaftis, "an inclusive data on ownership are not normally exclusively 'Greek' international maritime easy to find. Harlaftis, however, seems to have network" even when they were residing in succeeded well in tracing the various "landward" London, New York, Egypt or some other distant interests of shipowners and considerable credit places, providing its members "the same advan• must be given to her good overall knowledge of tages that membership of an elitist private club the Greek financial and economic environment, would provide," that is, above all, access to though it could not have been a great surprise to confidential private information, (p.9, 19) learn that shipping tycoons had particular inter• Harlaftis also stresses the internationality est in oil refineries and shipbuilding, and the and cosmopolitanism of the biggest firms and presentation might have been more enjoyable, their owners. In the 1950s, they conducted their for foreign readers at least, had it been written business increasingly from London and New in a more concise and general manner. York (in 1958, less than twenty percent of total The last section of the book, "Shipowners tonnage was managed in Greece) and ships were and the Political Establishment," is probably the mainly registered in Panama and Liberia. Later, most interesting for the general reader. It shows however, even when a wave of "repatriation" clearly that big shipowners are not just anony• brought much tonnage under the Greek flag, the mous "market forces" but powerful individuals decision centres of many shipping firms as well as a powerful group which wants and remained abroad. tries to advance its interests by political as well This cosmopolitan nature of shipowners as purely economic means. Harlaftis shows that makes a non-Greek reader wonder what really is the ties between Greek shipowners and political "Greek" shipping. While it is easy to believe establishments were quite tenuous in the 1940s Harlaftis when she lets us understand that Greek and '50s, yet government did shipping a great shipping tycoons retained an identity with both service by guaranteeing the purchase of a hun• their family group and mother country, many of dred Liberty ships and lowering the taxes of them were still absent and even may have had shipowners. During the dictatorship of 1967-74, the nationality of some other country than the dictators tried to collaborate with shipown• Greece. It is difficult to believe that "Greekness" ers, not simply to benefit the Greek economy would be as self-evident as might be concluded but, says Harlaftis, to legitimize themselves from the fact that she never discusses this item. nationally and internationally. Another discussion which a non-Greek This section also analyses the shipowners' reader would have appreciated concerns the own associations and the bifurcation of their relevance of making the distinction between influence between London, New York and "traditional" and "non-traditional" shipowners. Piraeus. It is here that Harlaftis finally presents By the former Harlaftis denotes people who, in an intelligent and well-founded critique of Greek the 1940s, were (at least) second-generation shipping policy. First, she shows that it was the shipowners, who had inherited their wealth and "anti-convenience" climate (in particular, the position while the other were newcomers. Since actions of the International Transport Federation new firms are established all the time in ship• in the late 1950s) rather than the politics of ping, the importance of being established before epanaptrismos (repatriation, including a very a certain date should be explained. The distinc• generous tax-policy) which caused Greek ship• tion seems to have a connection with the Greek owners to "return" to the Greek register. She discussion on shipping politics in the 1950s, but also shows that the "repatriation" did not bring it is not clear how useful a tool for the analysis direct benefit, such as an increased flow of it is in other respects. shipping foreign exchange, to the Greek econ• The second section of the book, "Shipown• omy. Indirectly, however, it made Piraeus a ers and Economic Development," explores the great maritime centre and kept the proportion of Book Reviews 67

Greek sailors on Greek-owned ships very high. in my view stand the test of time. Internationally, the most important result of the The strength of this volume is two-fold. shipping policy was that Greek ships enjoyed First, its compactness will recommend it to low day costs similar to those in the Liberian generalists interested in a cursory rather than a register, and much below the Scandinavian or detailed examination of the fate of the US British levels. Although the book, by definition, merchant marine. Second, de la Pedraja is does not devote much space to shipping markets, unburdened by many of the myths that suffuse it is useful to remember that the Greek-owned the study of most national fleets, including the merchant navy depends mainly on international American. This means, for example, that he is gross trading. It may even be questioned able to handle topics like subsidies — both whether the "interdependence" mentioned in the domestic and foreign — with more detachment subtitle is really "mutual." than most American scholars have displayed. Generally speaking, the book is well writ• Indeed, he is one of the few modern American ten, though a few minor blemishes, which can scholars to reject subsidies as a primary cause of be attributed mainly to copy-editing, are still to the decline of the US-flag fleet, persuasively be found. In a few cases, there are errors in arguing instead that misguided subsidy policies legends for figures (in Graph 9.4, for example, were functions of other factors. Similarly, his crew and other costs have been changed) and treatment of some of the dominant characters in Table 1.2 is not fully compatible with Graph twentieth-century American maritime history, 1.2. Freight indices, such as the one in graph such as J.P. Morgan, is more even-handed than 7.2, would be more informative if presented as most historians. real value series; because the value of the dollar Yet somewhat paradoxically the book's sank after the oil shock, the whole truth is not strengths are also its weaknesses. Its abbreviated revealed by nominal freight. Overall, however, nature means that it is both selective and desul• these are minor matters and do not weigh heav• tory in many of its judgements. This also makes ily compared with the great merits of the book. it even more idiosyncratic than most volumes in It certainly deserves to be read by anyone the field. And if his fresh perspective is an interested in the modern history of shipping. advantage, this does not mean that the author lacks an agenda. He is more prone than most, Yrjô Kaukiainen for instance, to accept the validity of national Helsinki, Finland fleets as projections of power and prestige, despite an abundance of evidence that such René de la Pedraja. The Rise & Decline of U.S. behaviour can be counterproductive. And this Merchant Shipping in the Twentieth Century. bias is reflected in some especially shoddy New York: Twayne Publishers, and Toronto: thinking about the future of American merchant Maxwell Macmillan, 1992. xix + 345 pp., notes carriers. In his concluding chapter he calls for a and references, selected bibliography, index. US resurrection of the US merchant marine. His $26.95, paper; ISBN 0-8057-9827-7. grounds for this recommendation sound remark• ably like the "security of supply" arguments advanced for domestic petroleum production René de la Pedraja, who teaches at Canisius during the OPEC oil shocks of the 1970s: as the College in Buffalo, New York, was motivated to world fragments into competing trade blocks, he write on maritime affairs by an interest in the argues, unless it is willing to invest in its own development of steamship companies in Latin merchant navy "the trading position of the America. Indeed, it is possible that he may United States must necessarily continue to eventually write the definitive work on the deteriorate." This is soul food for true believers subject; I, for one, would love to read it. But in and determinists but it is not sustained by any the interim he has produced a much less satisfy• evidence beyond wishful thinking. Indeed, the ing tome. Despite some strengths, the first decline of the US merchant marine after World single-volume synthetic business history to War II, chronicled so carefully in this book, chronicle the rise and decline of the twentieth- paralleled the very period in which the Ameri- century United States merchant marine will not 68 The Northern Mariner can economy reached historic heights. This berg's book is therefore a useful departure from would seem, at the very least, to raise questions this trend as well as a valuable exploration of about his judgement. But the tendency to assert the response to a particular need. what needs to be proved is all too characteristic Goldberg begins with the genesis of the of much of the analysis. "Hog Island" building program, where national It is a shame that the book is marred by this and private capital came together to undertake a kind of special pleading and slipshod analysis, massive enterprise which, in some respects, for we desperately need a fresh synthesis. Un• foreshadowed the "can-do" approach that we fortunately, unless he is willing to shed some of associated with the construction of the 2,700 his preconceptions, René de la Pedraja seems EC2 "Liberty" ships during the next war. In unlikely to provide it. This, much more than the 1916 the US Shipping Board, through its ship decline of the US merchant marine, is the real building arm, the Emergency Fleet Corporation," tragedy of the book. was responsible for acquiring over 2,000 vessels from a variety of sources. These included four Lewis R. Fischer building yards of its own, of which the largest St. John's, Newfoundland was established at Hog Island, Pennsylvania. The mandate of this yard was to construct two Mark H. Goldberg. The "Hog Islanders": The types of vessels: the "Type A," a 7,500-ton dry Story of 122 American Ships. Kings Point, NY: cargo ship, and the "Type B," a troopship. 122 American Merchant Marine Museum, 1991. viii of both types were completed. Goldberg gives + 264 pp., figures, illustrations, photographs, details about the careers of individual ships; appendices, bibliography. US $19.95 (+ $2.50 most attained very long, if not necessarily postage & handling), paper; ISBN 1-879180-01- eventful, lives. By far the largest section of the 5. Distributed world-wide by North American book deals with the Type A ships, of which Maritime Books, 828 Park Avenue, Baltimore, there were 110. A chapter each is devoted to the Maryland 21201. "Scanships" and the "Delta combiliners," both unique cargo-passenger liners. Goldberg clearly Until recently, it might seem that the bread-and- has real affection for the "Hogs" and a love for butter cargo carriers that did so much to shape the "Scanships," whose design and amenities he America's growth were largely ignored, except presents in great detail. The final chapter on the parenthetically in general histories of the world life and times of the Type B "Hog Island" wars. It is to be hoped that this neglect will be troopships completes his account. addressed in part by a new multi-volume history Goldberg has done a laudable job of assem• of American flagged commercial vessels, com• bling the facts about a vessel type that became missioned by the American Merchant Marine the mainstay of the American merchant marine Museum at Kings Point, New York and written during the interwar years. The bibliography by Mark Goldberg. The series is supposed to suggests that he has accessed most of the avail• examine all vessels from World War I to the able records. Goldberg indicates that there is a post-1945 period dearth of photographs of the "Hog Island" ships, The "Hog Islanders" is the first in that a fact that has likely governed the selection of series, and focuses on the ships that constituted photographs which supports the text of the book. a significant part of the first American war-time The two plans depicting construction of the emergency ship building program. To this point, "Hog Islanders" are of limited value: one is too the only noteworthy discussion of the Allied simple, the other is too small, and there are no effort during World War I to respond to short• plans of the Type B vessels. There is also a site ages in shipping has been by British authors, plan of the building facility at Hog Island. The particularly L.A. Sawyer and W.H. Mitchell. As extensive appendices provide the original and Frank Braynard observes in his Foreword to The subsequent names of the ships, their launch "Hog Islanders, " interest in American maritime dates, and their commercial operators. This history appears to have concentrated on the information is certainly valuable because the famous clipper ships of the mid-1800s. Gold• book has no index (a master index for the whole Book Reviews 69

series will be provided in the final volume); to American ports as long as their owners are find any details not covered by the appendices, prepared to build, essentially, a new American readers will have to skim the book. There are passenger fleet. History does have a habit of only a few errors in The "Hog Islanders, " of repeating itself. which the most glaring is Goldberg's inadvertent While "C3P type" may not register with attempt to convert the USCGS Paulding into a most liner enthusiasts, lines such as Delta, submarine, (p.191) American President, Moore McCormack, Overall, I enjoyed The "HogIslanders"and American Export and United States will strike a I look forward to more volumes in this ambi• responsive chord. In Caviar and Cargo, Gold• tious series. It will definitely fill a void in berg ably demonstrates his indefatigability to American and maritime historical literature, and research, his photographic memory and his is sure to find a welcome place on the shelves pleasure in unearthing the most minute of details of nautical enthusiasts. on each of these twenty-four ships. This is a scholarly history which fills a void that has been James Ottley unfilled for far too long. It is not, however, a Creston, British Columbia "light read" for the more casual of readers. If anything, the depth and breadth of Goldberg's Mark H. Goldberg. "Caviar and Cargo": The C3 writings may prove to be a tad too rich for Passenger Ships. Kings Point, NY: American many. However, if you're the kind of person Merchant Marine Museum, 1992. v + 395 pp., who wants to know everything there is to know figures, illustrations, photographs, appendices, about C3 passenger ships but were afraid to ask, bibliography. US $24.95 (+ $2.50 postage & then this is the book for you. handling), paper; ISBN 1-879180-01-7. Distrib• There is a proliferation of illustrations, both uted world-wide by North American Maritime external and internal, on the ships profiled in Books, 828 Park Avenue, Baltimore, Maryland Caviar and Cargo. Deck plans are also exten• 21201. sively used, as well as in-depth appendices recounting every measurable statistic you could Caviar and Cargo is just the second volume of ask for. The absence of an index in this volume Mark Goldberg's ambitious historical series on is not an oversight, for the final volume of this the American merchant marine. It follows fast series will provide a master index. However, be on the heels of his first volume devoted to the prepared for a long wait, as it is expected to be "Hog Islanders." As a result it is not totally free• a fifteen-volume series. standing in that it contains a short addenda/corri• genda to the first volume, whimsically entitled John Davies "Ooops!!" Vancouver, British Columbia In Caviar and Cargo, Goldberg sets out to tell the story of the twenty-four passenger- Mark H. Goldberg. "GoingBananas": 100 Years carrying ships built from standard C3 hulls of American Fruit Ships in the Caribbean. Kings during the Maritime Commission era. Known as Point, NY : American Merchant Marine Museum, the "C3P type," they were to have been the 1993. x + 606 pp., figures, illustrations, photo• nucleus of a renewed American passenger fleet, graphs, appendices, bibliography. US $24.95 (+ and represented a positive result of the restrict• $2.50 postage & handling), paper; ISBN 1- ive Jones Act of 1920, which closed off trade 879180-01-8. Distributed world-wide by North between American ports to foreign flags. Unfor• American Maritime Books, 828 Park Avenue, tunately, airline competition and a number of Baltimore, Maryland 21201. other mitigating factors conspired against the prolongation of this goal past the 1940s. Today, "Going Bananas" is the third in an ongoing the Jones Act has been such a hindrance to the series of volumes devoted to the American development of the tourism market in some Merchant Marine History; five are now in print ports that a new bill called the Unsoeld bill has or close to publication and the author indicates been designed to lure foreign-flag vessels to that the complete series will have at least four- 70 The Northern Mariner teen volumes! This one is an encyclopedia of fascinating reading. US-owned or chartered ships engaged in the The book has one serious failing — no banana trade with the West Indies and Central index! The publisher explains that the final America, from the converted tug E.B. Ward in volume of the series will be an overall index, 1878 until the demise of the United Fruit Com• but that is no help now in sorting out the hun• pany in the 1980s. Most attention goes to dreds of names borne by more than a hundred cargo/passenger ships carrying twenty-eight or ships described here. Otherwise, it is easy to more passengers; less detail is given to non- read, and spiced with dry humour. It will be of passenger freighters. Due to sheer numbers, great value to any student of the US banana vessels of lines trading only to northern West trade or the individual ships concerned. Indian ports such as Havana, San Juan and Nassau have been omitted, as have those of D.L. Hanington important companies for which bananas were Victoria, British Columbia not the chief cargo. All will be covered in subsequent volumes. John Lingwood and Kevin O'Donoghue. The Some account is given of the companies Trades Increase. A Centenary History of Norex which owned or operated the ships, but the PLC. Founded in 1893 as the 'Hindustan' Steam accent is on the vessels themselves. These have Shipping Company Limited. Managed by Com• been described and illustrated in admirable mon Brothers. Kendal, UK: The World Ship fashion with main specifications, plans of deck Society, 1993 [28 Natland Road, Kendal LA9 and accommodation spaces and excellent black 7LT, England]. 200 pp., photographs, figures, and white photographs, many unique. Each index of ships' names. £15, paper; ISBN 0- major company has a short introductory section, 905617-74-6. followed by a detailed listing for each of its ships. These listings were obviously a labour of In its continuing efforts to record and publish love, for each shows the date of construction the histories of British shipping companies and and final disposition, change of ownership and their ships, the World Ship Society has pres• change of name throughout the ship's career. ented yet another superb work of research Thus we learn that six World War I destroyers covering what John Common, Chairman of the were refitted in 1931 as banana boats. Four of Board of Common Brothers refers to as the them were subsequently outfitted for blockade- "historical facts of the Company's existence — running to Corregidor just before it fell to the the first 80 years of which record the efforts of Japanese in World War II and one survived until a close-knit family enterprise." (p.5) The histori• 1955. Almost unbelievably, two even more cal text is followed by a comprehensive and ancient torpedo-boat-destroyers, commissioned well-illustrated fleet list. in 1901 and converted in 1922, served through• From the launch of Hindustan (1), their out World War II. One, exhausted by working first ship, on 7 September, 1892 until the writ• for the Piggly-Wiggly Supermarkets during the ing of this book in 1993, nearly two hundred war, had to be scrapped in 1947. The other ships have been owned or managed by this ever- lasted until 1956 under Nicaraguan registry. changing group of companies. I say changing Then there were the two ex-banana boats Pan because that has been a major factor in the Crescent and Pan York. Commissioned in 1901, operations of this group of companies practically they were 4,600-ton ships capable of fifteen since its formation. Again citing John Common, knots. They faithfully hauled bananas until 1945, "The only constant thing in our dynamic envi• then quietly rusted at their moorings until ronment is change." (p.6) bought by agents of the secret immigration arm Thus, when war broke out in 1914, Com• of Haganah, the precursor of the Israeli gov• mon Brothers were managing five vessels. The ernment. In Europe, each was modified to carry sinking of Kurdistan (2) on 27 August, 1917 left 7,000 illegal immigrants to Palestine. Their the company without a ship. The return of peace problems with international pressures, secret brought an initial glut of tonnage, but by 1919 agents, sabotage, and interceptions at sea make a shortage of carrying capacity developed which Book Reviews 71 stimulated a shipbuilding boom. This in turn name and the first British owned cargo vessel to produced a situation which saw 2,000,000 gross be completely fitted with alternating current. tons of British ships idle by the end of 1921. Included in the new ventures of the 1960s was Common Brothers were adversely affected by the financially unsuccessful entry into the RoRo this as a result of ambitious ordering of new trade between New York and the Caribbean. It ships combined with the escalation in building is interesting to note the bewilderment with costs experienced during this period. The com• which ship masters who were accustomed to the pany responded in part during the inter-war conventional cargo ships faced the new gener• years with attempts to improve the performance ation of RoRo ships with their very unconven• of the ships by improving the efficiency of the tional design. steam reciprocating engine. One method claimed The financial problems brought on by the to produce turbine efficiency with reciprocating failure of the John Shaheen oil refinery at Come engine flexibility, though we are left wondering By Chance, Newfoundland brings an interesting if those claims were justified. One of the com• Canadian connection to this book. Common pany ships with the improved type engine was Brothers never recovered from this setback as a the Rajahstan, put in service in 1929 with steam result of the loss of guaranteed employment for propulsion. This ship also had the distinction of their ships which the proposed refinery had being the largest single-deck steamer in service. promised. Then, in March 1979, Common's suf• Yet the retention of steam propulsion was later fered their first serious marine casualty since regarded as one of the biggest mistakes the 1942 when Kurdistan (6) broke in two off the managers ever made. Such conservatism was not Canadian East Coast. An informative account of normally characteristic of Common Brothers. the events leading up to the casualty and the Indeed, in constructing a new ship in 1931 with results of the formal investigation make this an an enclosed bridge, the company was severely especially interesting chapter for Canadian chastised by a peer who considered that "an readers. The only jarring note is when reference open bridge with canvas dodger was much to be is made to the speed of the Kurdistan in "knots preferred." (p.56) Old traditions die hard! an hour" (p. 105) just before the disaster! The most difficult years of the inter-war The 1980s brought both failures and suc• period was the early 1930s, when Common cesses, and it is in this period that the amazing Brothers' ships were severely affected by low complexities of shipowning, financing, operation freight rates and lay-ups. Economic recovery and management are brought to the fore. Such began slowly by 1934, peaked in 1937, then widely ranging activities as the cruise trade, slumped again until the outbreak of the war in livestock carriage and drillship operations have 1939. The willingness of Common Brothers to by now become the norm — a far cry from the change then came to the fore with the construc• days of coal and grain as the bread and butter of tion in 1940 of Hindustan (6) and Newbrough tramp ship operations. (2); both incorporated the "Maierform" hull form and diesel engines. H.G. Hall Despite such innovations, the war proved Yarmouth, Nova Scotia hard for Common Brothers. When the war began in 1939, the company was managing ten John H. Proud. 150 Years of the Maltese Cross: dry cargo vessels, two oil tankers and one The Story of Tyne, Blyth and Wear Tug Com• coaster. When the war ended, only two of these panies. Tyne and Wear, UK: Tyne & Wear ships remained. New ventures after the war Tugs, Ltd., 1993. 263 pp., figures, photographs, included participation in an Australia-China illustrations, appendices, indices. £31.50 [£25.30 service, expansion of their interests in tanker to World Ship Society or LEKKO members], trades, the establishment of their own licensed cloth; ISBN 0-9522721-0-5. travel agency and becoming involved in the im• porting of iron ore. Another example of the The subtitle gives an accurate, but modest des• trend to change came with the Hindustan of cription of this book. It is an intensely detailed 1957 — the seventh company ship to bear that and thorough account of twenty companies, 72 The Northern Mariner

some dating back to the 1840s, which became and made it thoroughly readable and informa• distilled into the present Tyne & Wear Tugs tive, for which he deserves great credit. Ltd. It is also the story of well over two hun• There are a few minor points of complaint. dred tugs that worked the rivers in the process. With very little additional effort the author's An introductory chapter describes the hand drawn maps, charts and graphs could have region's industrial history and its importance to been reproduced by computer in a more readable the British economy. The three rivers of the title and interesting form. For example, to shade the were the heartland of British coal. With the water or land on a map so that one is distin• development of railroads they became major guishable from the other is useful when the export ports and centres of industry and ship• subject is not well known to the reader already. building, and needed many tugs. The author's The vertical format of nine and one half by analysis of coal shipments and shipbuilding in twelve and one half inches is awkward. Photos the region explains the decline of the ports. On can be reproduced to show great detail, but I average there were over one hundred ships built would have preferred to sacrifice some detail for and fifteen to twenty million tons of coal better shelvability and handling. One or two shipped per year on the Tyne alone from the definitions of local terminology would have 1860s to the 1920s. That both have declined to been helpful. Foy boat men are apparently virtually zero now is strikingly presented, and independent waterborne line handlers, and water readily explains why the present company is clerks were apparently tug company mobile able to service the region with only six tugs, dispatchers cum sales agents, who went from when scores were needed as recently as thirty pier to pier arranging tugs for the ships in the years ago. days before telephones and radios. Each remaining chapter describes one tug Aside from small points such as these, the company, its activities, evolution, owners and book is a fine work, it gives excellent balance tugs. The text is interspersed with the authors between steam, paddle and diesel tugs, and graphs, charts and maps and hundreds of covers the territory and period completely. It is splendid photographs. There are also reproduc• a well done work. tions of company letterheads, tariff and rate lists, promotional literature, photos of the company's Mac Mackay office premises and some (intentionally?) hilari• Halifax, Nova Scotia ous photos of company officials and employees. In short, the book is very compelling visually. Michael Stammers. Mersey Flats and Flatmen. The author follows each chapter with that Lavenham, Suffolk: Terence Dalton Ltd and company's illustrated fleet list. Despite resulting Liverpool: National Museums & Galleries on duplication, each chapter stands alone and Merseyside, 1993. x + 216 pp., maps, photo• permits easy reference without unnecessary page graphs, figures, appendices, glossary, bibliogra• turning. Excellent indices cross reference all phy, index. £19.95, cloth; ISBN 0-86138-099-1. former and subsequent names for each tug. There are colour pages of flag and funnel In the study of major ports there is an inevitable markings and illustrated fleet lists. The photos tendency to focus on the shipping engaged in the are captioned with meaningful text, there are most visible and most spectacular feature of a ample cross references, indices and lists and port's business, namely, the conveying of even such interesting minutiae as each compa• cargoes to or from places far afield. It is easy to ny's whistle signal (e.g. Blyth tugs was one view such trade in isolation and to lose sight of short, four long). the fact that international shipping is merely part This is the author's second book on tugs of a transport chain. In that chain, the assembly (the first, Seahorse's of the Tees, was to an and distribution of goods at and from ports is as equally high standard), and he understands tugs vital as the long haul voyage. Local shipping and their operations. Although he credits which provides these important services has its employees past and present, he researched and own patterns of business; over time, these often assembled the book himself without an editor, give rise to a particular type of vessel specially Book Reviews 73 tailored to meet the demands of its area of indeed any commodity of a bulky nature was operation. This volume examines the service carried. Each commodity had its own special craft of Liverpool, a body of vessels which had features and each route its own intricacies of the generic name of "flats" derived from the tide, current and water levels. As one of Stam• characteristic of a flat bottom. mers' interviewees observed, "there were 101 Mersey flats were a distinctive type of practical wrinkles to navigate the Mersey." barge which developed in and around the river In his survey of builders, owners and Mersey and operated from the 1740s through to flatmen, Stammers examines such issues as the 1950s. Their role was to deliver and collect costs, prices, profitability and wages and reveals cargo to and from the port of Liverpool and an extensive knowledge of individuals and their working area was that of Liverpool's companies. In the field of ownership, an inter• inland hinterland and the coast of the Irish Sea. esting feature to emerge is that while in the This varied environment of canals, rivers, eighteenth century flats were chiefly owned by estuary and coastal seas, together with their small partnerships of merchants, in the nine• length of service and the progress of technology, teenth century, canal proprietors, manufacturers led to the development of a host of variations in and mine owners were the biggest flatowners. design, dimensions and motive power, though all Earlier, in explaining the function of the flat, evolved from a common flat hull design. Stammers compares the flat with that modem Mike Stammers has written what must vehicle of distribution, the road transport lorry prove to be the definitive history of these versa• or "juggernaut." It would appear that the com• tile vessels. It is hard to be critical of his study parison is valid not merely in function but in at any point other than perhaps the lack of a full ownership as well for the operation of fleets of index of numbers and tonnage and here, no flats by many of the large heavy industrial doubt, lacunae in the statistics explain the concerns of south Lancashire presaged the omission. The research undertaken is impressive, experience of the post World War I era when with sources ranging from the earliest historical many companies established their own road references to interviews with surviving flatmen. transport divisions. Such action, along with other While comprising of eleven chapters Stammers' factors, was to hasten the demise of the flat, and book has three main areas of study: flats them• the last flats finished trading in the 1960s. A selves; the trades and markets served by flats; final chapter considers the few flats that have and the personnel of the flat business, builders, survived and measures taken and plans for their owners and flatmen. On flats themselves Stam• preservation. mers discusses the obvious aspects of design and This book can be wholeheartedly recom• construction but goes beyond this and examines mended. Scholarly in its research and analysis, such aspects of flat operation as rigging and it is nevertheless immensely readable and will be sailing and the techniques of towing. Stammers' enjoyed by all with an interest in maritime and mastery of such practical considerations demon• economic history. The book is generously strates the depth of his expertise, for few aca• illustrated with plans, sketches and most excel• demics possess a real understanding of the lent archive photographs. In its use of such practicalities of operation. material this volume might well serve as a One reason why the operation of flats was model, for illustrations are always relevant and a complex activity requiring much skill and invariably supplement rather than distract from local knowledge was that flats worked in a the written word. Stammers is to be congratu• variety of environments and trades. Flat traffic lated on a study which reveals an aspect of was of three types: lighterage in the immediate shipping generally neglected and contributes to docks area, up river and canal work and, of our better understanding of the working of one lesser importance, coastal work. Of prime of the great ports of the world. importance in cargoes were coal and salt — the vital commodities in Liverpool's early growth — David M. Williams but grain, general cargo, building materials, fats Leicester, United Kingdom and oils for the soap industry, manure and 74 The Northern Mariner

J.P.C. Watt. Stewart Island's Kaipipi Shipyard Many whaling expeditions brought their and the Ross Sea Whalers. Havelock North, catchers north for refitting, at the end of the Hawke's Bay, New Zealand: The author, 1989 Antarctic summer, but others preferred to over• [order from J.P.C. Watt, 41 Chambers Street, winter and refit their catchers in the South. Havelock North, Hawke's Bay, New Zealand]. Some companies used facilities at Cape Town, 273 pp., maps, photographs, figures, tables, and Salvesen and Tønsbergs Hvalfangeri main• appendices, further reading, indices. Cdn $52 tained comprehensive repair facilities in South [Canadian personal cheque with order; price Georgia until the early sixties. It was for this include economy air postage and packing], cloth; purpose that a/s Rosshavet established the ISBN 0-9597719-1-3. Paterson Inlet base on Stewart Island, which lies just south of South Island. This a New Zealand view of the activities of the Star VIII may have been the first catcher Ross Sea Whaling Company (aktie-selskabet fitted with a gangway between hunting bridge Rosshavet, Sandefj ord) from 1924-33, particu lar- and gun-platform, and first with oil-firing, as far ly as it relates to their repair base in Paterson as the Rosshavet catchers accompanying the Inlet, on Stewart Island. Jim Watt, for whom C.A. Larsen in 1926-7 went, (p. 126) but there this was clearly a labour of love, compiled this are other claimants for these honours: first remarkable account of a long forgotten Norwe• catcher fitted with a gangway — Salvesen's Silva gian industrial venture by delving indefatigably in 1925; first catcher built to burn oil — South• through newspaper and government archives, ern Floe (1923). Subsequently, of course, oil and by tracking down and interviewing Ross- fuel became universal, and many boats built havet veterans in New Zealand and Norway. before 1923 had their furnaces modified for oil The author describes the yard's establishment, firing. what traces of it remain today, and retells the For their 1923 expedition, Rosshavet hired stories of folk associated with it, particularly a number of Australians in Hobart, including a those 'Norskies' who remained in New Zealand young journalist named Alan Villiers. From when it finally closed down. A classic study in these experiences he was to write Whaling in the industrial archaeology, it includes a thorough Frozen South (1925), the first of many books description of the shipyard at its zenith and what from the pen of this prolific maritime author. remains of it today. Besides commenting on the This attractively laid out book will appeal whaling activities of some of Rosshavet's com• immensely to everyone interested in "modern" petitors, it covers in detail the 1923-1933 expe• whaling history. ditions of the factory ships Sir James Clark Ross, Sir James Clark Ross (2), and the C.A. John H. Harland Larsen. This particular vessel was unique Kelowna British Columbia because the whales were got on board using a ramp in the bow. All other factory-ships incor• Mario Mimeault. John Le Boutillier 1797-1872: porated the slipway in the stern. La grande époque de la Gaspésie. l'Anse-au- Until the early twenties catchers invariably Griffon, PQ: Corporation du Manoir Le Boutil• returned their catch to a shore-station for pro• lier, 1993. iii + 115 pp., maps, figures, photo• cessing. Tønsbergs Hvalfangen had made a graphs, illustrations, tables, notes, bibliography, limited trial with open sea processing a bit paper; ISBN 2-9803526-0-8. earlier, but the first serious attempts at true pelagic whaling were only made in 1923. Nils Cet ouvrage est la biographie de John Le Bou• Torvald Nielsen-Alonso experimented with a tillier, personnage qui a marqué l'histoire de la floating factory, Bas II, off the African coast, Gaspésie durant la première moitié du dix- and a/s Rosshavet sent five catchers and their neuvième siècle. Tout d'abord, dans ce livre, il factory-ship Sir James Clark Ross to the Ross s'agissait d'attirer l'attention sur le site du Sea. The New Zealand connection arose because Manoir Le Boutillier de l'Anse-au-Griffon. Plus at that time the Ross Dependency was adminis• précisément, l'auteur, Mario Mimeault, estime tered by that country. que ce livre servira à interpréter l'influence Book Reviews 75 socio-économique de John Le Boutillier. navale et ses contacts sur les marchés interna• On connaît déjà l'auteur pour ses recherches tionaux. De l'expérience de Le Boutillier comme sur la pêche gaspésienne aux dix-septième et homme d'affaires, retenons qu'il s'est rendu dix-huitième siècles. Son ouvrage comprend compte assez rapidement que saisir les biens trois chapitres traitant des activités de Le Boutil• d'un pêcheur endetté n'était pas nécessairement lier, à savoir sa vie familiale, sa carrière poli• la meilleure solution pour les deux partis. On tique et son commerce de la morue. Pour tracer préférait, par exemple, que le débiteur travaille le portrait de ce personnage intéressant, comme matelot jusqu'à ce que sa dette soit Mimeault a eu recours, entre autres, aux remboursée. archives familiales des Le Boutillier pour mont• Si l'étude de Mimeault est un peu courte et rer surtout la nature des relations entre John Le quelque peu rapide sur certains points, l'auteur Boutillier et ses enfants. C'est là où l'on con• a cependant atteint le but qu'il s'était assigné. state que ses fils n'étaient pas aussi travailleurs De plus, l'ouvrage nous fournit des interpréta• que leur père l'aurait voulu. À part cela, sou• tions utiles à l'historiographie des pêches canadi• lignons cependant la richesse de la bibliographie, ennes. qui, j'en suis sûr, encouragera d'autres cherch• eurs à poursuivre ce projet. C'est ainsi qu'on Nicolas Landry remarquera des références glanées des archives Shippagan, New Brunswick nationales du Canada et de celles du Québec, privées ou gouvernementales. Ces données sur Svein Jentoft. Dangling Lines. The Fisheries les activités de l'entreprise de pêche de Le Crisis and the Future of Coastal Communities: Boutillier sont de grande valeur, puisqu'elles The Norwegian Experience. St. John's: Institute permettent de comparer ses rendements avec of Social and Economic Research, 1993. xv + ceux d'autres firmes anglo-normandes comme 161 pp., maps, figures, tables, photographs, celles des Robin et des Fruing. De plus, ce appendix, notes, bibliography, index. $24.95, genre d'information est parfois difficile à obtenir paper; ISBN 0-919666-85-X. pour les amateurs d'histoire maritime. C'est en traitant du portrait de Le Boutillier This is a useful introduction to the political qu'on s'aperçoit qu'il fut un grand Gaspésien. problems facing decision-makers within and De fait, sa carrière couvre presque quarante outside the Norwegian fishing industry around années d'activités variées, sociales, politiques et 1989-90 when cod stocks in the Barents Sea économiques. L'auteur en arrive à la conclusion were at a historical low. The Board of the que quel que soit le domaine auquel s'intéressait University of Tromsø commented on the crisis: Le Boutillier, il a toujours maintenu une grande "Not only the value of the ocean resources but discipline de travail et a montré une détermina• also the values of our culture are in danger." tion à toute épreuve. Sur le plan politique, il a The Norwegian government financed a number vécu les troubles de 1837-38, l'Union des deux of crisis studies, and parts of the present work Canadas et enfin la Confédération canadienne. were written directly for the Coastal Expertise Certes, il y a des chercheurs qui diront que Le Committee in 1990. With additional material Boutillier était opportuniste puisqu'il profitait written for readers of this English version (the sans doute de son statut politique pour faire book was originally published in Norwegian), fructifier ses affaires. Toutefois, il a grandement the book reads as a well-balanced and insightful contribué au développement économique de la discussion of the options open to political région en donnant du travail à des centaines de initiative, both in the short and the long term. Bas-Laurentiens et de Gaspésiens. In the end the fisheries crisis did not last as En ce qui concerne l'histoire maritime, le long as many had feared, and quotas were more troisième chapitre est sans doute le plus impor• than doubled in 1993 as compared to the cata• tant. On y trouve non seulement le réseau strophic year of 1990. Nevertheless, Jentoft's régional des activités de pêche de Le Boutillier book — apart from some alarmist prophesies mais aussi le genre de relations qu'il entretenait which should have been pruned from the book avec ses pêcheurs, ses activités de construction — still is well worth reading. The strategic 76 The Northern Mariner

problems facing fishermen, the processing has already received numerous accolades — industry, biologists, and the government — and including this Society's 1993 Keith Matthews basically the future of human settlement in the Award for Best Book — and rightly so, for this far north of Norway — make up most of the is a fine piece of scholarship. Tangled Webs of book, and Jentoft treats them lucidly. History is one of those rare pieces of historical Jentoft's main contribution is an analysis of writing — well-researched, accessible, and fisheries management and the role of the fisher• extremely relevant. The Pacific Coast fishery, men themselves. In a chapter with the suggestive while not yet in the desperate shape of the title "Should the fox guard the chicken?" he Newfoundland industry, has become a major argues that fisheries politics has usually been focus for public debate and increasing racial more concerned with content legitimacy than tensions. The prospect of settling aboriginal land with procedural legitimacy. The system devel• claims and ensuring Native people greater oped over the past twenty years is top-heavy and control over the coastal fishery has been met the results have been dictated by tactical com• with growing hostility among segments of the promises, not by strategic consensus. The fisher• non-Native population. As is so often the case men have been alienated, and the bureaucrats when passions run high, truth and understanding have used Garret Hardin's well-known theory of are the first casualties. "the tragedy of the commons" to argue that the Newell begins her study with a useful individual pursuit of the fishermen blinds them examination of the aboriginal fishery in which to the strategic interest of safeguarding the she argues that, although "there is no reason to biological resource. Jentoft does not accept this believe that Indians on the Pacific Coast were widely held view and argues that "Democracy perfect conservationists," (p. 45) indigenous has its problems, but it is preferable to dictator• systems of resource management proved more ship. In the present situation, the fishermen must effective than state-regulation. The book then be made responsible, not lose authority. Giving places Indian participation within the context of them greater responsibility...may lead to their the evolution of the west coast fishery. Newell becoming more responsible in a moral sense." describes how Indian fishers were first drawn (p. 116) Without presenting an ideal regulatory into the commercial fishery and then, as corpor• system, Jentoft does us all a service in opening ate and government involvement increased, a discussion on the democratic problem in a gradually pushed out of a lucrative and cultural• reasoning, rather than passionate way. The book ly significant enterprise. The final chapters is highly recommended to everyone who wants document contemporary legal, political and a fresh look at a wide array of contemporary administrative initiatives relating to the Natives' problems in the fishing industry, and should be future role in the industry. of particular interest to Canadians who are The book has many strengths. It contains a experiencing their own fisheries crisis at the wealth of statistical information on the changing moment on their Atlantic coast. nature of the west coast fishery and aboriginal participation in the industry. The definitive Poul Holm maps, figures and tables stand as a major contri• Esbjerg, Denmark bution and will no doubt be cited for years to come. The analysis of the various legal and Dianne Newell. Tangled Webs of History: administrative restrictions introduced by the Indians and the Law in Canada's Pacific Coast federal government in an attempt to regulate the Fisheries. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, fishery is excellent, and provides a particularly 1993. xiii + 306 pp., maps, figures, tables, useful discussion of how these rules often photographs, notes, bibliography, index. $40, worked against aboriginal interests. One wishes £32, cloth; ISBN 0-8020-0547-0. $18.95, that Newell had occasionally allowed more £12.50, paper; ISBN 0-8020-7746-3. "colour" into her account, but any weakness in this area is offset by the author's useful descrip• Dianne Newell's marvellous examination of the tions of the changing technology of harvesting role of Native people in the west coast fishery and industry business practices. Book Reviews 77

Newell's study advances several key sea trawl and scallop fisheries to speak for themes: that aboriginal people have retained a themselves in giving an account of the hardships long-standing relationship with salmon harvest• and hazards which are inescapably associated ing, that the expansion of commercial fishing with their work. The book emanates from a initially brought new opportunities that many concern for safety at sea, and the research work Native people acted upon, that federal regula• has had help from both government and private tions have typically served corporate and non- sources; even so, official recognition of the Native rather than aboriginal interests, that problem has been tardy, and has actually been aboriginal leaders and organizations have placed promoted mainly as a by-product of the devel• greater Native control over the fishery as a top opment of off-shore oil. The work consists priority for many decades, and that government essentially of a series of selected and edited efforts to regulate the industry have not been interviews with the personnel in different posi• particularly successful. As if to prove her points, tions: inevitably the great part of the interviews within months of the publication of Tangled are with fishermen, but with the significant and Webs, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans pertinent addition of one with the former owner announced that its estimates for several salmon of a fishing company and one with a fisher• runs had proven far off the mark and that major man's wife. In working on the book the author changes in allowable harvests were required. Not went on fishing boats operating offshore, and also hired a team of interviewers to broaden the surprisingly, given Newell's analysis, several information base. As well as illustrating in direct observers alleged that Native fishers were over• terms the character of much of the work fishing, thus further inflaming the ongoing involved in fishing, it is set in a social context, debate over the future of the Native fishery. and the particular problems for fishing families Tangled Webs of History is an extremely also figure prominently. valuable addition to British Columbia's historiography, and an antidote to the strong The book falls into twelve chapters: one is positions that have been taken of late in the devoted to an introduction, one to a brief des• debate over the future of the coastal fishery. The cription of the offshore fisheries, and eight given book also provides compelling evidence for the to interviews with individuals; one chapter value of history as an element in public policy includes three shorter interviews, and a last discussions, and is a superb example of chapter summarizes the consequences for family "engaged" scholarship, which seeks to contribute life. With information gathered in a spontaneous to contemporary debates without surrendering interview format, there are inevitable problems the principles of scholarship. All participants in of editing the material for publication. Each of the current wrangle over the future of British the interview chapters becomes a continuous Columbia's fishing industry would be well- story (or "tale") in its own right, although with advised to read Tangled Webs. Dr. Newell is to considerable jumping from one thing to another: be congratulated for producing a very fine study. while this is up to a point arbitrary or artificial, it can be justified as the best means of present• Ken Coates ing the work to the reader, and care has been Prince George, British Columbia taken to interfere as little as possible with the words and train of thought of the interviewees. Marian Binkley. Voices From Off Shore: Nar• Also, with the material from two hundred inter• views to select from, it has been possible to ratives of Risk and Danger in the Nova Scotian demonstrate the reactions of a comprehensive Deep-Sea Fishery. St. John's: Institute of Social cross-section of people, despite the variations in and Economic Research, 1994. viii + 235 pp., ability to communicate and reflect encountered map, photographs, figures, notes, select bibli• with the personnel in the sample. Their age ography, index. $24.95, paper; ISBN 0-919666- range allows the experience of three generations 76-0. to be garnered. Furthermore, the worries caused ashore as well as afloat are featured. Thus, in This book, as is stated in the introduction, aims addition to the interview with the fisherman's to allow those involved in Nova Scotian deep 78 The Northern Mariner

wife, the casualty was also interviewed. Complex World, consisting of sixteen essays on There is a commendable awareness of the as many aspects of how we Canadians use our issue of safety at sea on the part of several three contiguous oceans and treat (or mistreat) people in responsible positions interviewed: this our marine environment. The essays are the is especially the case with the mariner who had product of the OCEANS '21 project of the become owner of a small fishing company, and Oceans Institute of Canada. Although written in of the captain. Yet at the same time the experi• 1989 or earlier, several essays include in their ence of various others like the deckhand and the concluding paragraphs up-dates to March or casualty do contain indications of the strong April 1993. They deal with a broad range of pressures there are to keep catching fish, and to issues, many of them usually thought of as being the way that safety can be compromised peripheral to the main stream of ocean-related through, for example, fishing in difficult policies. Since fifteen of the nineteen contri• weather, continuing fishing for excessive num• butors have some association with Dalhousie bers of hours, and inadequate attention to fishing University's School for Resource and Environ• gear and equipment. Of course there are ines• mental Studies, and since the editor, Cynthia capable problems here with the very character of Lamson, is an assistant professor of environ• fishing. The pressures come from companies, mental studies at Dalhousie, there is naturally an skippers and also from the crews themselves: emphasis on Atlantic Ocean issues. Moreover, and the fact that the system of dividing up the the only essay dealing exclusively with the proceeds means that the returns for all depend Pacific, that in Part Two concerning the Haida very much on the size of the catch fosters an Nation and environmentalists versus loggers and acceptance of risk and danger as well as giving governments on South Moresby Island, has an incentive. nothing to do with ocean issues. Nevertheless, In all, this is a valuable addition to the there is sure to be something for every reader of literature on fishing and the communities for this journal. which it is a livelihood; more particularly it The essays are divided into four parts, each focuses on the hazards associated with it. The with an introduction by the editor and three or main contribution is achieved by multiplying more case studies. The essays in Part One, cases of the particular rather than the general: "Competing Interests," illustrate the political systematic analysis is perforce largely confined dimensions of Canadian oceans policy-making. to the introductory material. Nevertheless the Part Two, "Conflicting Values," describes four accounts in this volume will strike a chord localized resource-use conflicts. The three case wherever fishing is pursued as a livelihood: studies in Part Three, "Calculating the Risks," there are important common denominators in the are examples of complex resource problems distinctive occupation that is fishing. such as harbour and estuary pollution and shellfish poisoning that have no proven solutions James R. Coull but which call for immediate cooperative action Aberdeen, Scotland by the stakeholders to mitigate the problems. In Part Four, "Challenging the Status Quo," the Cynthia Lamson (ed.). The Sea Has Many contributors invite readers to think critically Voices: Oceans Policy for a Complex World. about how and how much of Canada's financial Montréal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's Univer• and human resources should be committed to the sity Press, 1994. x + 327 pp., tables, figures, protection, administration, research and develop• references. $44.95, cloth; ISBN 0-7735-1112-1. ment of our ocean resources. Whereas Canadian Oceans Policy was Complementing Canadian Oceans Policy: written mainly by academics, lawyers and National Strategies and the New Law of the Sea, political scientists who discussed what one might edited by Donald McRae and Gordon Munro call the output side, Cynthia Lamson states that (UBC Press, 1989; reviewed here by me in the contributors to The Sea Has Many Voices, volume I, No. 1, January 1991), we now have who are mostly marine scientists and environ• 77je Sea Has Many Voices: Oceans Policy for a mentalists, were asked to focus on oceans Book Reviews 79

policy-making from the input side. She claims, two figures in the essay on the funding of therefore, that this is "the first Canadian book to marine scientific research. Apart from these examine ocean policy in the making." (p.8) lapses, Dalhousie University's School for Lamson also points out in her general introduc• Resource and Environmental Studies and the tion that for more than twenty years the Govern• McGill-Queen's University Press have delivered ment of Canada has been "edging towards the a fine and interesting volume, one which I formation of an umbrella oceans policy," yet in commend to readers of this journal. that time has published only two major oceans policy papers, in 1973 and 1987. This despite Allen D. Taylor the fact that, according to the Department of Cantley, Québec Fisheries and Oceans, there were some fourteen different federal departments and agencies in Enrique Pupo-Walker (ed.); Frances M. Lôpez- 1987 overseeing seventy-five oceans-related Morillas (trans.). Castaways: The Narrative of programs involving more than 13,000 person- Alvar Nunez Cabezade Vaca. Berkeley: Univer• years and annual expenditures of $1.3 billion. sity of California Press, 1993. xxx + 158 pp., (p.315) (I recall that when I was the Secretary maps, illustrations, appendices, notes, select of the Interdepartmental Committee on the Law bibliography, index. US $12, paper; ISBN 0- of the Sea - ICLOS - from 1971 to 1975, 520-07063-1. eleven departments and agencies were regularly represented on the committee and at least two The astonishing story of the lost conquistador, others maintained an interest but without active• Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca (c.l491-c.l559), ly participating.) who in 1527 set off as treasurer of a Spanish Ms Lamson suggests — correctly, in my expedition out to claim vast regions of today's opinion — that we Canadians generally are Florida, Texas, and Louisiana for Spain, and apathetic about ocean issues; but we do react — ended up marginalized by his own people in his briefly — to crisis events and other problems of own country, is a classic of Spanish exploratory an immediate nature. We also expect our gov• literature. In the words of this edition's editor, ernments) to take all appropriate action. the conquistador's chronicle of his New World The editor indicates that ocean policies (like experiences is "seminal to the Hispanoamerican any governmental policies) are political narrative tradition." Besides numerous editions responses to perceived problems; but oceans in Spanish, Cabeza de Vaca's account has been policy-making in Canada has been highly poli• translated into Italian, French, and German, and ticized, sometimes reactive and ad hoc, suscep• several times into English. This latest, carefully tible to pressure from special interests, inconsist• annotated version, based on Pupo-Walker's ent and lacking continuity. This book empha• acclaimed critical Spanish edition, may well sizes the roles and activities of the various become authoritative in English. stakeholders and pressure groups or special Cabeza de Vaca's story is of a botched interests in the dynamics of oceans policy• initiative that resulted in the deaths of several making in Canada, and it raises critical questions hundred men — the only survivors were Cabeza about the process, the structure and even the de Vaca himself and three companions. On one function of Canada's oceans policy, while it level it tells of hardships and suffering; on recognizes that, after some twenty years, the another it is the odyssey of a man who slowly problem, the policy, and the political streams are awakens to the complexity of this world's coming close to reaching a confluence. realities, who comes to realize the hollowness of There are a few oversights. In one of the the imperial myth of bringing enlightenment to essays in Part One and in another in Part Two barbarians sunk in darkness. Tossed willy-nilly there are references to "Maps 1 and 2" and among peoples whose customs he never fully "Maps 1, 2 and 3" respectively, yet in fact, the understands, completely cut off from his own book includes no maps. Similarly, in one study familiar world, Cabeza de Vaca manages to in Part Two, there is a reference to a "Figure 1" cope with his circumstances, even at their most which has not been included, though there are difficult. As he loses his initial arrogance, 80 The Northern Mariner confrontations turn to helpfulness, and the read it. would-be conquistador and his companions find The translation as well as the annotation of themselves operating as traders and even as this edition respects the integrity of what was, in healers. Humour is allowed to colour his remi• one sense, a spiritual journey. In particular, niscences: Amerindians, he observes, are in a Pupo-Walker's introduction and annotations are constant state of war, so that they are "as skilful useful, both in tracing out Cabeza de Vaca's in protecting themselves against their enemies as biographical details, and in establishing the if they had been reared in Italy." According to geography of the conquistador's odyssey, as well Pupo-Walker's footnote, that remark reflects the as the identities of the peoples among whom he fact that Cabeza de Vaca had seen military found himself. service in Italy. The conquistador gives us our first description of the Amerindian use of fire, Olive Patricia Dickason both to control vegetation as well as the move• Edmonton, Alberta ments of game; and his is the first European report of buffalo, whose meat he finds better David Delison Hebb. Piracy and the English than that of Spanish cattle. He and his com• Government 1616-1642. Studies in Naval His• panions wander for eight years from tribal tory; Aldershot and Brookfield, VT: Scolar nation to tribal nation before finally encounter• Press, 1994. xv + 303 pp., illustrations, tables, ing Spaniards, only to be distressed at their maps, bibliography, index. £45, US $76.95, cavalier cruelty to Amerindians. He does not see cloth; ISBN 0-85967-949-7. that such behaviour will bring the New World peoples around to accepting Christianity and The English merchant marine more than doubled becoming loyal Spanish subjects. in size during the half century from 1580 to Cabeza de Vaca's rejection of the values 1630. The increasing numbers of ships and the and practices of imperial Spain, and his pain• establishment and development of trade routes in fully acquired appreciation of other forms of the Mediterranean and Atlantic exposed a human society, do not stand him in good stead material portion of the country's seaborne upon his return to his own world. In the end he commerce to North African piracy. Scholars is stripped of his important titles and offices, have written little of the damage to England's and is barred from the New World. He died shipping throughout this period and have gen• "very poor," contrary to widespread reports that erally ignored the national effort to eradicate or he was honoured at the end of his life. On the at least counter the marauders. Piracy and the other hand he has been honoured by the fact that English Government^ an attempt to fill in these his chronicle has inspired a host of scholarly neglected areas of maritime history by analyzing studies as well as literary works, including a the economic, diplomatic, political, and social novel published as recently as two years ago. consequences of Barbary depredations from Cabeza de Vaca wrote and rewrote his 1616 to 1642. An additional purpose of the book chronicle between 1527 and 1554, never com• is to examine the policy-making processes of the pletely finalizing it. When it was published in early Stuarts and evaluate the effects of local, 1555, there were no other such accounts of the national, and international interests on the con• New World against which it could be assessed; duct of their domestic and foreign affairs. information was flooding in, but was only Hebb's study deals with far more than ad• beginning to be systematized. Indications are ministrative and institutional matters. It also that the conquistador's chronicle was read by offers revisionist interpretations of works of New World historians Gonzalo Fernandez de sundry historians. His account of Sir Robert Oviedo y Valdés (1478-1557) and Francisco Mansell's operations against Algiers in the Lôpez de Gômara (1510-60?), both of whom 1620s diverges dramatically from that provided produced major works that are valuable sources almost a century ago by Julian Corbett. Accord• for scholars today. Pupo-Walker thinks it very ing to Hebb, Corbett's primary error was to al• likely that the great defender of the Indians, low his own concern with the pressing strategic Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas (1484-1566), also problems created by Wilhelm IPs programme of Book Reviews 81

naval expansion to direct his interpretation of afflicts almost all accounts of naval operations earlier events. Without being fully conscious of off the northern coast of Africa. It provides only what he did, explains Hebb, Corbett refashioned the European half of the history. Perhaps in the past in a manner that enabled it to serve the some future age, Arabic sources from the period present. Samuel Rawson Gardiner's work also will be unearthed and made available to com• comes under scrutiny, particularly his evaluation plete the picture. Until then, Hebb's work will of royal schemes to increase revenues. Gardin• probably remain the standard version of Eng• er's presentation is factually accurate, but Hebb land's efforts to suppress Mediterranean pirates argues that his tendency to ignore various in the early seventeenth century. aspects of Caroline political machinations led him into numerous errors. B.R. Burg Perhaps the most insightful segment of Phoenix, Arizona Piracy and the English Government is the chronological context it provides for examining Ashin Das Gupta. Merchants of Maritime India, the evolution of naval administration. The 1500-1800. Aldershot, UK & Brookfield, VT: medieval systems of management and logistics Variorum (Ashgate Publishing), 1994. x + 314 used by the Tudors were, in the seventeenth pp., maps, index. US $89.95, cloth; ISBN 0- century, systemically inadequate for underwrit• 86078-432-0. ing construction of large fleets or sustaining blockades of far-away ports. Mansell's failures It is good to have these sixteen essays by Ashin at Algiers made it clear that substantive changes Das Gupta grouped together and so readily were necessary, and in due course they were available, for some of them were published in instituted. Later English successes at sea — quite obscure journals and collections. I had read William Rainsborough's suppression of the all of them before, but it was excellent to be Sallee raiders and the brilliant performances of able to read them as a whole and see his main the Commonwealth navy — were not the results themes elaborated and developed. of mere chance, increased command effective• Ashin Das Gupta was the pioneer of the ness, or simply examples of tactical genius. modern study of the Indian Ocean, but his They flowed from the establishment and matura• interest was not really the Indian Ocean as a tion of more sophisticated and efficient methods whole, but rather India and the Indian Ocean. In of directing the navy during the reigns of James other words, he implicitly saw India as the I and Charles I. fulcrum around which the trade of the ocean The book provides abundant evidence of the was oriented. This is not to say that he ever author's analytic and narrative talents. His tried to theorise his perceptions, for he remained estimate of the amount of shipping taken by the a scholar who was reluctant to try and draw Barbary corsairs is convincing, as is the figure wider comparative or theoretical conclusions of 8,000 he suggests as the approximate number from his data. We will find in his work no of Christian men, women, and children captured discussion of, for example, the wider concerns and sold into slavery. The accounts of the of Niels Steensgaard, K.N. Chaudhuri, Philip prisoners' sojourns through Algerian dungeons, Curtin or Immanuel Wallerstein. Nor did he their experiences as items of trade at various presume to discuss the general characteristics of slave markets, and their lives in bondage read the coastal society about which he wrote, to more like reports of fictional adventures than investigate whether people on the littoral of the true stories of captivity. Indian Ocean have any social, economic, or cultural traits in common which may set them Piracy and the English Government is a off as a whole from inland people. meticulously researched investigation of a facet of naval history about which little is known. The The themes in these essays are several. A author has painstakingly examined the relevant prominent one is the uncertain world of the manuscript materials, and is especially well- Indian maritime merchant between 1500 and grounded in the published sources. Unfortunate• 1800, subject to wildly fluctuating markets and ly, the study suffers from the difficulty that other uncertainties, but not usually, at least in 82 The Northern Mariner

India, to political pressure. As he so gracefully the waywardness of immortals." (XI, p. 125) put it, "Historians normally invoke the Mughal While occasionally the style becomes irritatingly to account for the brittleness of mercantile mannered, overall these essays are a joy to read. property. I believe we should do better to study The interested reader will also want to read his the Indian Ocean market which was more two books {Malabar in Asian Trade, 1740-1800, ruthless than any oriental despot." (XIV, p.34) A Cambridge, 1967; Merchants and the Decline of second recurring motif is the world of Surat and Surat, c. 1700-1750, Wiesbaden, 1973), and its merchants, where their trade goods came indeed some of these essays read as preliminary from, where they went, how they were bought, versions of material later incorporated in these transported and sold. More generally, what he books. But there is also much that is new, has given us, better than anyone else, is a sense provocative, interesting, even annoying, in this of the profound changes which occurred during valuable collection. his period, changes which were plain to be seen in the world of the merchant, but which spread M.N. Pearson over into all aspects of Indian life. He constantly Sydney, Australia stressed that the arrival of the Europeans in the sixteenth century made little difference to Indian Kenneth Morgan. Bristol & the Atlantic Trade in sea trade for some centuries. As he put it, "the the Eighteenth Century. Cambridge & New world of the Indian merchant was not changed York: Cambridge University Press, 1993. xxii + in any significant manner by the trading of the 281 pp., maps, tables, appendix, bibliography, Europeans till empires were established." (XIV, index. £35, cloth; ISBN 0-521-33017-3. p.33) The fourth major theme is related to this, Kenneth Morgan has undertaken global research for he saw a connection between the fate of the in preparing this focused monograph on Bristol's Islamic empires in Mughal India and Safavid role in major transatlantic trades during the Iran and the success of his merchants. He was in eighteenth century. English, American, West fact arguing two things here. On the one hand, Indian, Australian, Welsh, and Portuguese archi• he rejected categorically older notions of des• val sources all support this re-examination, as potic oriental rulers interfering with and plun• does the extensive bibliography of secondary dering merchants. On the other hand he claimed, sources. Statistically supported descriptions of though not always consistently, that stable Bristol's slave, tobacco, and sugar trades are the Muslim empires in a general way fostered trade, essence of this work, but its purpose is to ex• at least indirectly. As the "Islamic Peace" ended plain the relative decline of Bristol in these around 1700 merchants suffered, with the coup trades in comparison with Liverpool and de grâce delivered some time later by resurgent Glasgow. Europeans. This of course raises larger issues to Readers of The Northern Mariner will be do with the effectiveness of early modern particularly drawn to the chapters on shipping empires and the degree to which their stated and its patterns, including thirty-three of the intentions, whether benevolent or malevolent, book's forty-nine tables. The strengths and were actually put into operation in real life. limitations of the port itself are examined, Any reader interested in early modern trade, emphasizing unfulfilled potential for port im• in the role of the state in this, and in the transi• provement late in the century. Morgan uses tion to European dominance, could find no Bristol's shipping to Jamaica and Virginia to better place to start than in these collected comment on scholarly debates about the sources essays. Das Gupta's peers have often envied him of productivity change. Bristol shipping his graceful style, as for example in this descrip• benefitted from the growing dominance of tion of Dutch attitudes to Indian shipping: "But shuttle voyages and the commitment of ships to the vexations of sailing with the Gujaratis were regular routes. Efficiencies derived from shorter intolerable. The Gujaratis had little sense of passages were offset by increasing turn-around sailing in formation. Each nakhuda (commander) times. Shuttle voyages were predominant in was a little god on his own ship and displayed Bristol's Barbados, Jamaica, and Virginiatraffic, Book Reviews 83 while voyages to Newfoundland, Boston, Phila• complete study of Bristol's seaborne trade in the delphia, Charleston, and St. Kitts were usually eighteenth century. However, Morgan has con• multilateral. Here, as elsewhere, the extensive firmed much and corrected a little of our under• statistics tend to confirm rather than revise what standing of Bristol's major colonial trades and, is already known. in the process, has provided statistics for which Bristol could not compete with London or specialists will be particularly grateful. Liverpool in price or delivery of a wide variety of exports. This was true even before the south Ian K. Steele Lancashire cotton mills began producing cheap, London, Ontario washable, and cool clothing for the tropics. By concentrating on the last half of the century, James F. Searing. West African Slavery and Morgan sees the Irish provisions trade as more Atlantic Commerce: The Senegal River Valley, peripheral to the West Indies traffic than it was 1700-1860. African Studies Series, 77; Cam• earlier. bridge & New York: Cambridge University Slavers using the Bristol Channel were Press, 1993. xiii + 252 pp., maps, tables, notes, more vulnerable in war than were vessels going index. US $49.95, cloth; ISBN 0-521-44083-1. "north about" Ireland to Liverpool. Morgan argues that by switching to successful privateer• Histories of pre-colonial African regions that lay ing, rather than maintaining their place in the within trading range of the Atlantic continue to trades with letter-of-marque ships, Bristol be dominated by the transatlantic slave trade. In weakened itself. Uncompetitiveness in exports, this, as in other respects, vestiges of the colonial increased competition in West Africa, demo• era continue to be in evidence today. The trend graphic failure of the leading African trading in the 1970s represented by Philip Curtin and families, and growing anti-slavery convictions Werner Peukert and more recently by John among Bristol's Quaker merchants, all contrib• Thornton to pay more attention to the domestic uted to the decline of Bristol's slave trade. economy and society of Africans separate from Bristol's tobacco trade gradually concen• the Atlantic is a minor strain in the historio• trated in fewer hands, and emphasized the rather graphy to which James Searing's book on extensive regional market rather than re-export. Senegal clearly does not belong. Searing does Morgan proves that some Bristol tobacco houses actually devote a large part of his book to the switched from consignment to direct purchases domestic trade in grain (hitherto largely ignored of tobacco, establishing stores in Virginia's York by historians), to the internal affairs of Wolof River district. and Sereer states, and above all to the trade With England's per capita sugar consump• along the Senegal River. But the key develop• tion rising from one to twenty-five pounds per ments in these areas — except for major droughts year during the century after 1670, sugar in the 1750s — are triggered and shaped for remained Bristol's most lucrative transatlantic Searing by Atlantic commerce. The latter was trade. This industry became concentrated and first dominated by slaves and then, from the specialized comparatively early, and served an later eighteenth century, by commodities pro• extensive home market which included Ireland. duced (or collected) by slaves — first gum, used More might be done with Morgan's observation in textiles, and then peanuts. The main effect of that the sugar trade changed completely to the Atlantic commerce was to commercialize tradi• consignment system by 1750, as the tobacco tional agriculture in the Senegal River valley. trade was moving away from it. Surplus grain fed the slaves travelling through Morgan's statistical comparison of Bristol this area destined for the Americas. When severe with Liverpool and Glasgow is interesting, drought struck after 1750, slave volumes fell though the assumption that Bristol could have dramatically. Thereafter the region reoriented been Liverpool by 1800 is not self-evident. This itself to gum and peanuts. is not the sequel to David H. Sacks' magisterial The book is based on extensive and original The Widening Gate: Bristol and the Atlantic sources from both French and English archives. Economy, 1450-1700 (Berkeley, 1991), nor a It is clearly written, and the argument has 84 The Northern Mariner

considerable internal consistency. Thus, for Arthur Power Dudden. The American Pacific: Searing, in sharp contrast to John Thornton in From the Old China Trade to the Present. New his Africa and Africans, Europeans were con• York: Oxford University Press, 1992. xx + 314 siderably wealthier and more technologically pp., maps, bibliographical notes, index. Cdn advanced by the late seventeenth century when $39.50, cloth; ISBN 0-19-505821-6. the English and French became dominant in Senegambia's Atlantic commerce. If Europeans Arthur Power Dudden certainly has distilled an could not yet occupy and colonize, they could enormous volume of printed sources in his indirectly restructure economies and societies. research to produce The American Pacific: From The best part of the book is on the societies of the Old China Trade to the Present. In the St. Louis and Goree, where Searing depicts a course of this narrative he provides an overview "middle ground" between European and indigen• of America's involvement with the entire Pacific ous peoples that has intriguing parallels with Ocean and its rim powers since the inception of recent work on eighteenth century mid-western the United States. The scope is as vast as the North America. In both locations the middle largest ocean on earth and spans time from the ground was overwhelmed by European conquest pre-historic migrations of 35,000 years ago in the nineteenth century. This section concludes through the struggles of the twentieth century. with an analysis of the ending of slavery in St. The book is intended to be a survey capable of Louis and Goree, a subject not previously dealt instructing the student or providing a helpful with. review for the historian. Sometimes volumes Yet the overall argument has a major with such a wide goal achieve nothing, but this problem. The level of exports relative to the is not the case with this work which is enriched population just could not have been very great. and saved by Dudden's scholarship, by his sense While the book keeps reasonable track of physi• of fair play in dealing with rival powers, and by cal volumes of trade, the author makes no effort his sense of humour. Numerous chapters dealing to put a value on exports and relate these to with familiar topics suddenly provide a new estimates of the population of region. If this had perspective, or a new anecdote which serves to been done, it would be immediately apparent clarify or enlighten a historical point. that a slave trade of 3,000 to 6,000 a year (one The opening chapter, "Unfurling the Flag," quarter the levels reached in other African lays the groundwork and reiterates the fact that regions), and the gum exports that followed (of while general trade and furs were important in lesser value than slaves before 1800) could not opening the Pacific to Americans, whaling have the impact that Searing sees. Per capita provided the greatest stimulation to the develop• exports cannot have been more than a few ment of American geographical knowledge of pennies a year. Even allowing for a large multi• the Pacific. Dudden notes Alexander Starbuck's plier effect, that economist's concept most listing of forty-six whaling voyages between beloved by historians, the seventeenth-century 1791 and 1800. At first confined largely to the Senegalese would have had to have been in the southern reaches of the Pacific and the East Stone Age for any possible values from this Coast of South America, these commercial level of trade to have had the effect posited adventures would reach the Hawaiian Islands in here. This belies the sophisticated indigenous 1820 and British Columbia and Alaska by 1835. trade, social structures, and cultures known to The Yankee whalers were often the first Ameri• have existed in the region before 1700. cans on the scene and, in spite of their canny Nevertheless the book occupies a major secretiveness, ultimately carried the knowledge niche in African and Atlantic history, as well as of new lands back to their home ports. the more specialised field of Senegambian Many historical figures are mentioned and history, and will have a long scholarly life. Dudden pulls no punches in evaluating them. Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, commander of the David Eltis Great United States Exploring Expedition (1838- Kingston, Ontario 1842), is given credit for being the arrogant, egotistical misanthrope that he was. However, Book Reviews 85

Dudden's observation, that "Wilkes would failure of American foreign policy strategists to become renowned mainly for his blunder in understand the mindset of other cultures fre• forcibly removing two rebel emissaries en route quently led to unforeseen crises. The failure of to England aboard RMS Trent and almost Americans to understand the Japanese system of singlehandedly bringing Great Britain into the doing business and the failure of the Japanese to war against the Union as the ally of the Confed• comprehend the depths of American bitterness eracy...," (p.17) could leave the impression that over their trade practices remains one of the Britain entered the Civil War on the side of the dominant factors of the present day. Dudden Confederacy, when in fact saner heads in Lon• points this out and leaves one wanting more. don and Washington narrowly avoided such a In a final assessment, periodically it is disaster. helpful for historians to set back, digest and The material on the Hawaiian Islands i9 survey the research on an area or period. Arthur particularly well organized and presented. The Power Dudden's The American Pacific: From role of Americans in developing ties with the the Old China Trade to the Present is such a islands is shown with balanced credit to heroes work which commands our respect because of and villains, and incompetents on all sides. the breadth of its vision and the perceptiveness During the 1890s Dudden superbly shows that if of the author. Dudden's work should be part of Queen Liluokalani left something to be desired everyone's library purchase list. where moderation and diplomacy were con• cerned, her American opponents were no candi• William Henry Flayhart III dates for sainthood in seeking to destroy Dover, Delaware Hawaiian independence as a necessary step toward American annexation (1898). Jimmy M. Skaggs. The Great Guano Rush: In many ways Dudden's handling of Entrepreneurs and American Overseas Expan• "Destiny in the Philippines" is his finest piece of sion. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994. xv + work. The Spanish-American War accomplished 334 pp., map, appendices, notes, bibliography, little in terms of American control of the index. US $45, cloth; ISBN 0-312-10316-6. Philippine Islands. After the "victory" came the "conquest" of the islands in a long and bloody Jimmy M. Skaggs, a Professor of Economics at war against native insurgents, led by Emilio Wichita State University in Kansas, has told a Aguinaldo, who considered their hard won little known story of US government aid to independence stripped from them by the Ameri• private enterprises that led to the earliest cans. Three years of bloody warfare produced a examples of American overseas expansion. From death toll that may have exceeded 200,000 a variety of historical, economic, geographical, amongst the insurgents and innocent civilians, diplomatic and journalistic sources he has while more American soldiers died in the fight• fashioned an intriguing and sometimes amusing ing than in the whole of the Spanish-American account. It began prior to the Civil War when War both in the Caribbean and the Pacific. The declining agricultural productivity in the United story of the Philippines concludes on July 4, States led to a demand for fertilizers to enrich 1946, with the independence of the islands. the soil. Guano, or bird droppings from islands Some greater detail in the treatment of the off the coast of Peru, proved to be a highly period since 1946 would have been appreciated effective fertilizer, but the costs put it beyond even if there are other later references. the reach of many farmers. These disgruntled Dudden provides a survey of World War II farmers put pressure on their elected officials to in the Pacific with credit and condemnation find a cheaper source of supply. This eventually alike. The critical failure of American leadership led to the passage of the Guano Islands Act of to understand different concepts of international 1856. Under this law Americans who discovered relations is shown to have worked against the uninhabited islands, rocks or keys, and who filed United States with regard to Japan in 1941, the appropriate papers with the State Depart• China in the late 1940s, Korea in 1950, and ment, received exclusive rights to occupy such Vietnam in the entire post-1945 period. The sites for the purpose of mining guano which was 86 The Northern Mariner

to be sold in the United States. Such claims Joseph Arthur de Gobineau; Michael Wilkshire were not regarded as permanent acquisitions, but (ed. & trans.). A Gentleman in the Outports: were said "to appertain" to the US during the Gobineau and Newfoundland. Ottawa: Carleton time that guano was being extracted. Between University Press, 1993. xlix + 250 pp., maps, 1856 and 1903 Americans laid claim to ninety- photographs. S17.95, paper; ISBN 0-88629-215- four islands, rocks and keys mainly in the 8. Pacific and the Caribbean. Sixty-six of these places were temporarily recognized by the State Joseph Arthur de Gobineau was a French diplo• Department, but fewer than two dozen of these mat posted to North America in 1859 as part of were ever mined. At the present time the US an Anglo-French commission whose task it was still owns nine guano islands. to investigate problems arising out of French Meanwhile domestic rock phosphate pro• fishing rights in Newfoundland. He sailed from duction grew after 1868 as the imports of guano Brest to the French island of St. Pierre adjacent declined. Beginning in 1869 Secretary of State to Newfoundland, then to Sydney and Halifax Hamilton Fish annulled to some extent the force before spending several weeks on Newfound• of the Guano Act by failing to vouch for the land's west coast. He subsequently visited St. legality of the mortgages and assignments and John's before retracing some of his earlier steps simply filing the papers submitted to his depart• on his way back to France. Voyage à Terre- ment. The State Department abandoned as many Neuve records his impressions and experiences. islands as possible. But the Treasury Department It was written in hopes of making some money printed lists of various appurtenances until 1902 out of his travels. The work has been reprinted because they were exempt from import taxes. since, but always in French; this is the first Eng• Long after the economic value of many of the lish translation. Michael Wilkshire, the editor, appurtenances had passed, they were retained for also includes some of the diplomatic correspon• strategic reasons. In 1933 State Department dence associated with Gobineau's mission as lawyers said that the US had no valid claim well as a short work of fiction set largely in under the Guano Act to Kingman Reef, but the western Newfoundland — mediocre by literary following year President Franklin D. Roosevelt standards but revealing because it was based on signed an Executive Order placing it and John• Gobineau's experiences. These writings all pro• son Atoll and Wake Island under the jurisdiction vide impressionistic glimpses of the fishing of the US Navy. In 1935 the State Department societies and economies of St. Pierre and New• announced that the US had reclaimed Baker, foundland. The cashless nature of an economy Howland and Jarvis Islands. based on truck, the methods employed in the Maritime historians will be most interested banks and shore fisheries of that era, the import• in the guano trade, including how the ships were ance of the French and English naval patrols in loaded and the effect of the cargo on the hulls providing isolated inhabitants with medical, and the environment of the ships. There is much legal, and spiritual assistance, all are described. useful information on the domestic guano mar• Gobineau's observations do little to change our ket, on the firms involved, on the terrible labour perceptions of nineteenth-century Newfoundland; conditions under which the guano was extracted, most simply reinforce the impressions of better- on the use of a few of the appurtenances during known witnesses like Edward Wix and Joseph the Cold War, and their present status. The Jukes. Gobineau's value rests largely in the appendices provide the text of the original French perspective which he brings to nine• Guano Act and later revisions, as well as a teenth-century Newfoundland and in the particu• listing of all places claimed or acquired under lar attention he gave to western Newfoundland, the statute and their ultimate dispositions. All in where the so-called "French Shore" extended all, this is the definitive book on an obscure but from Cape Ray north to Cape St. John. important subject. What is surprising is Gobineau's poor knowledge of the French experience in North Harold D. Langley America generally and of French fishing rights Washington, DC in the North Atlantic in particular. Time and Book Reviews 87

again, he gets things wrong: how and when arctic? One of Beeby's reasons for writing In a France established itself on Cape Breton Island, Crystal Land is his belief in the importance of the conquest of Canada, the details and sequence Antarctic scientific research to Canadian under• of changes in the treaties defining France's standing of the Arctic. Although he does not fishing rights in Newfoundland. At the very bang the drum loudly on this issue, one gathers least, we are forced to consider Anglo-French that he is in favour of full Canadian membership negotiations in a new light. in the Antarctic Treaty. Canadians should know, Wilkshire uses many official British and therefore, that history has given us a stake in French records, but he is not an historian (by Antarctica. profession, he is a professor of French). Thus, in Beeby also believes that the Canadian placing Gobineau into an historical context, he experience in the Antarctic has something to tell makes no use of research by Orville Murphy or us about the national character and that the the more recent analyses by Jean-François Brière adventures of these men at the bottom of the and J.K. Hiller into the diplomacy of French world have as important a place in Canadian fishing rights in Newfoundland. Wilkshire's light history as the stories of Arctic explorers and fur hand in annotating Gobineau's text can also be traders. Even readers with so catholic an interest frustrating — there is no commentary about the in Antarctic history that they already knew about several warships Gobineau encounters or about all the men whose tales are told here will be the practices and customs Gobineau records. interested by the focus on them as Canadians. Notwithstanding these irritations, Wilkshire has And if there are readers who knew about all given us another window into Newfoundland's these men, I take my hat off to them. Many will nineteenth-century past. not, and so, with no apologies, I offer Canada's Antarctic roll of honour. Olaf Uwe Janzen The first name on the list is that of Hugh Corner Brook, Newfoundland Evans, assistant zoologist on Carsten Borch- grevink's Southern Cross expedition, 1899-1900. Dean Beeby. In A Crystal Land: Canadian Then come three Canadians associated with the Explorers in Antarctica. Toronto: University of greatest British names in Antarctic exploration: Toronto Press, 1994. xii + 262 pp., end-maps, William Mitchell, surgeon on Shackleton's photographs, notes, index. Cdn $29.95 (N. Nimrod, 1908-1909; Charles Wright, scientist on America), £19 (UK), US $36 (Europe), cloth; Scott's Terra Nova expedition, 1910-1912; ISBN 0-8020-0362-1. George Douglas, geologist on Shackleton's Quest expedition, 1921-1922. Al Cheesman Dean Beeby is a journalist with the Atlantic served as pilot on Wilkins' 1929 Graham Land Bureau of Canadian Press and also the co• expedition. Seven Canadians played roles, in author, with William Kaplan, of Moscow Dis• some cases crucial ones, in American expedi• patches: Inside Cold War Russia. In a Crystal tions. Frank Davies was a geophysicist on Land arises, however, not from professional pre• Byrd's 1928-1930 expedition, while Jack Bursey occupations but from what Beeby calls his and Alan Innes-Taylor were dog-drivers. Bursey "Antarctic obsession." (p.xii) was back in Antarctica in 1939-1941 and 1955- To a subject close to his heart Beeby brings 1957. Herbert Hollick-Kenyon and J.H. "Red" his skills as a professional journalist. The book Lymburner were pilots and Pat Howard an has been well researched in primary and pub• aircraft mechanic on Ellsworth's 1935-1936 lished sources and the prose is clear and work• expedition. Lymburner and J.B. Trerice were manlike. Beeby hopes that some of his readers also pilots on Ellsworth's 1938 expedition. will be coming to the story of Antarctic explora• Winnipeg's own Andrew Taylor, today perhaps tion for the first time and he is particularly good the best known of all Canadians in the Antarctic at providing the necessary background informa• as one of the fathers of the British Antarctic tion — historical, biographical and technical — Survey, joined "Operation Tabarin" as a sur• for the Antarctic neophyte. veyor and ended up as its commander, 1943- Why a book about Canadians in the Ant• 1946. (Sadly, Dr Taylor died a few months 88 The Northern Mariner before In a Crystal Land was published.) The criptions of the alleged treason on Drake's harbour master of St. John's, Captain Robert GoldenHind in 1578, Hudson's mutiny-inspired Sheppard, also took part in "Operation Tabarin" death in 1611, the saga of Bligh and the Bounty, as master of SS Eagle, a steam-powered wooden the uprising in the Royal Navy in 1797 and the sealer. Last, but decidedly not the least, was bloody mutiny on HMS Hermione that same Fred Roots, geologist on the Norwegian- year, including the delivery of the ship to the Swedish-British Maudheim expedition, 1949- Spanish, its subsequent recapture by Captain Sir 1951, while his brother Walter was tramping Hyde Parker of HMS Surprise, and the Royal across South Georgia on a survey expedition. Navy's relentless pursuit of the mutineers, the The final chapter brings Canada's story in Plattsburgh mutiny and murders in 1814, the the Antarctic up to date with references to mutiny on the slaver Creole in 1841, and the Gareth Woods, a member of the 1985 "In the infamous insurrection and hangings on USS Footsteps of Scott" expedition, to the work of Somers in 1844. The tragic outbreaks of insub• Canadian scientists in the Antarctic and to the ordination on board HMS Wagner, the Globe, use of Canadian technology (aircraft, tracked the Batavia, the Buckman, the Jefferson Borden, vehicles, prefabricated buildings). the Lennie, and the Pedro Varello are all Beeby suggests that there are special rea• included. Haine also considers the celebrated sons why Canadians should have acquitted revolutionary insurrection on the Russian battle• themselves well in Antarctica's heroic age. It ship Potemkin in 1905 and the mutinies within was not just a question of special skills — as the Imperial German Navy during 1917 and scientists, bush pilots, dog-drivers — or of 1918 that speeded the fall of the Second Reich. familiarity with severe cold and long stretches of The Invergordon Mutiny of 1931 and the Java• time without the sight of a blade of grass. It was nese revolt and seizure of the Dutch battleship also their ability to get on with others even De Zeven Provinden in 1933 are two of the under the most trying circumstances, their best-known naval rebellions of modern times, avoidance of unnecessary risks, their quiet and their histories are also briefly retold here. competence. In other words, these men In addition to the accounts of individual embodied a cultural stereotype which Canadians mutinies, the book has an introduction that value and like to think of as characteristic — the sketches the nature of mutiny, its causes, its "can do" type who gets on with the job and does mechanics, and its penalties. The two appendices not call attention to his achievements. In a outline the history of punishments for mutiny in nation which values modesty, heroes can be hard the British land and sea services, which provided to find. Thanks to Dean Beeby, we can now a model for the regulations adopted by other raise a quiet cheer for the Canadians whose nations, and reproduce philosophical comments names now dot the map of Antarctica. and anecdotes about mutiny by two (unidenti• fied) "old salts of the sea." Anne Morton Haine's narration is lively and often colour• Winnipeg, Manitoba ful. Apart from a few jarring errors (such as "Shurness" for Sheerness, the misdating of the Edgar A. Haine. Mutiny on the High Seas. Batavia mutiny and murders by two centuries, Cranbury, NJ: Cornwall Books, 1993. 135 pp., and the rather partial and heavy-handed charac• illustrations, photographs, appendices, bibli• terization of the officers of the Imperial German ography, index. US $29.50, cloth; ISBN 0-8453- Navy as sea-going Junkers), the book is a "good 4785-3. read." At the same time, I was disappointed that Haine did not make more effort to link the This book is about mutiny, murder and plunder various mutinies more explicitly and in greater on the high seas. It recounts in summary fashion detail to the analytical material that appears in — sometimes very summary fashion — sixty-six the Introduction. Also disappointing was the stories about shipboard insurrections, of which number of instances that Haine must confess that twenty relate to incidents on naval vessels and he was unable to determine whether or not legal the rest on merchant vessels. Included are des• Book Reviews 89

action was taken or the final disposition of cases information when they can not get it for them• involving mutineers. Still, the maps and illustra• selves. "Check Glete" will become a byword tions are generally well reproduced, and the among naval historians. Yet, it remains an open bibliography will be useful for any readers question whether comparative studies of materiel wishing to pursue this fascinating topic further. is the best way to assess relative naval strengths. Glete presents his material in three very G. Edward Reed unequal parts. Part 1, which takes the reader on Ottawa, Ontario a rapid, 100-page tour through naval technology and social theory concerning administrative Jan Glete. Navies and Nations: Warships, Navies development and state formation, serves as an and State Building in Europe and America, extended introduction to the main body of the 1500-1860,2 vols. Stockholm Studies in History text. It may not be to every reader's taste, but 48, 1&2; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell study of its contents, especially the sections International, 1993 [order from: Coronet Books, concerning the social construction of technology 311 Bainbridge Street, Philadelphia PA 19147, and naval administration, will repay the effort to USA], ix + 752 pp. in two volumes, tables, master its expository tone. The book centres figures, appendices, bibliography. 460 SKr, US about Part 2 which comprises a 375-page study $97.50 the set, softbound; ISBN 91-22-01565-5. of the dynamics of naval armament arranged in four chronological chapters. Part 3, entitled How many conceive of navies as "permanent, "Navies and State Building," is a mere thirteen centrally managed, and bureaucraticized [sic] pages in length and serves as a too slim con• organizations for violence and protection"? clusion to the complete study. Interspersed Although the language of sea sociology may be throughout are 140 tables and twelve diagrams. jarring, it would be a serious mistake to turn Five appendices containing the author's analysis away from this important book on that account. of the quantitative data on the world's navies Jan Glete appears to have succeeded brilliantly during three and a half centuries follow: a 58- in achieving his extremely challenging three-fold page bibliography completes the work. aim, to explain the role of navies in the efficient This is not a comprehensive survey of the monopolization of violence by states, their rise of sea power. Glete's chief concern is with position as growing organisations within states, the technical, material side of naval develop• and the interplay of dynamics and inertia within ments. He believes that a detailed comparative established institutions over the long term. His study of the quantifiable aspects of warships and work will become the standard reference for navies will raise new questions about the rela• comparative studies of naval power during the tions between navies and nations. He also strives age of sail for many years to come. to show connections between organizing the use Glete is primarily concerned with the of navies and the interest groups behind them growth of state-owned navies, the development and between naval doctrine and technology. Ac• and production of warships, and the balance of cording to Glete four great developments power at sea. His method is quantitative and affected the relations between states and navies comparative. He has subjected a multitude of during the period 1500-1860. First was the figures on naval strengths and warship con• emergence of early modern navies marked by struction that are commonly cited in historical the combination of two late medieval innova• literature to intense critical study, and has tions, the heavy cast gun and the three-masted considered all European and American navies sailing ship that evolved during the next century during the three and a half centuries after 1500. and a half. The second development, a qualitat• The result is sometimes surprising and frequent• ive change followed by a quantitative one, ly controversial. It is certainly the most import• occurred from about the middle of the seven• ant study of the interplay between technology, teenth century. Navies suddenly grew in size and naval power, and state formation yet written. administrative sophistication and became perma• Above all it is the work to which others will nent fixtures of states. After 1720, navies turn to check their own data and to obtain reached the apogee of their influence in the 90 The Northern Mariner

European struggle for world hegemony but para• John Seller, Snr.; A.B. Caruana (intro.). The Sea doxically maritime and continental conflicts Gunner. Facsimile reprint of 1691 edition; gradually became separated from one another Rotherfield, UK: Jean Boudriot Publications, for more than sixty years, only fusing together 1994. xiv, 202 + 38 pp., figures, tables, appen• once more during the wars of the French Revol• dix. £40, cloth; ISBN 0-948864-26-5. ution and Empire. Finally, during the middle years of the nineteenth century, new technol• As Adrian Caruana, the noted authority on ogies of iron plate, steam power, and steel guns smoothbore ordnance, explains in his excellent utterly transformed navies as instruments that and honest introduction, The Sea Gunner was efficiently monopolized state violence. the first English-language book written solely However, it is Glete's painstaking computa• for the naval gunner. This should be enough to tions of naval strengths that are particularly interest students of naval ordnance. Unfortunate• valuable. Any who have tried to do this for ly, this early manual displays all the problems of themselves or encountered the frequent misuse the gunnery texts of its period, for it is not and abuse of data concerning early modern really an original work but a compilation from navies in history books will appreciate the a variety of sources of all the knowledge that author's efforts and ingenuity. Glete also rejects Seller (who, it turns out, had only a very rudi• simple explanations. He appears especially mentary background in ordnance matters) anxious to avoid technological determinism in thought the would-be gunner should know. Even his study, rejecting both "demand pull" and worse, it appears that Seller was an instrument- "technological push" because they underestimate maker trying to promote the sale of his "Sea the importance of culture, mentality, history and Gunner's Rule," a maritime version of the stan• institutions in the formation of demand and sup• dard land gunner's rule or measuring device ply. Though he challenges the conclusions of which, of course, receives prominent mention in many respected historians he tends to view dev• the text. elopments in terms more sensitive to technology Thus, the book is largely a "Compendium and tactics than to society and politics; questions of Vulgar Arithmetick" containing theorems that of human resources, manpower, and skill scarce• may or may not be useful, descriptions and ly enter his calculations of the relative strengths drawings of ordnance that may or may not be of navies and nations. Still, readers should enjoy accurate, and formulae for powder charges that working through the many arguments. may or may not be safe. For the ordnance Some criticisms are unavoidable. The researcher the best thing about this book is heavily didactic tone of Part 1 is annoying Caruana's introductory essay which not only because the subject matter deserves more places Seller in the context of his times but also extended treatment. The main narrative is so provides an interesting and complete discussion inclusive that its foundations may be considered of the science (or rather art) of gunnery in the too slim and the result too compressed. Some latter decades of the seventeenth century. students of this or that navy may find fault with Caruana's conclusion on p. xiii of his the comparative nature of the study. In view of introduction sums up the problem of The Sea the author's central concern with warships and Gunner, he maintains that its "principal interest navies, it is unavoidable that his discussion of lies in the clues it seems to contain to the state formation is not as strong as the technical, general state of knowledge of gunnery" as "it material side of naval formation. Most readers seems clear that many of Britain's proud mer• will probably not be too concerned. It is to be chant fleet went to sea with a woefully inad• hoped that they will focus their attention where equate hotch-potch of armament, entrusted in the the author intended, on the rich comparative and charge of some very imperfectly trained and quantitative data about warships and navies and informed 'gunners'." Having perused this early the question of their relation to nations. manual I can only say "Amen." For this reason The Sea Gunner, with its James Pritchard stiff cover price will be of interest only to a few Kingston, Ontario specialists. Nonetheless, Jean Boudriot Publica- Book Reviews 91

tions are on the right track in reprinting such listing in four main sections. The first presents manuals, particularly if they are as well intro• all ships in service in 1688, distinguishing those duced as was this one. I would, however, like to built for the navy from those captured or pur• see more important and reliable texts brought chased. The second deals with ships ordered for out such as Sir Howard Douglas' Treatise in the navy, subdivided into classes, generally Naval Gunnery or R.W. Adye's Pocket Gunner corresponding to the tenure of the Surveyor of and Bombardier. Their re-issue would not only the Navy who was responsible for the designs. render a great service to the students of ord• This provides a very clear explanation of how nance but also result in publications with a and why designs were altered or discarded. The broader market appeal. third section describes captured or purchased I can only recommend this title to the most ships, divided into eight periods of wars, and the highly committed devotee of ordnance history. post 1815 peace. Even seasoned researchers will be impressed by the sheer number of captures Donald E. Graves described, and the analysis of the influence some Ottawa, Ontario had on subsequent British designs. The final section covers auxiliary vessels, such as those on David Lyon. The Sailing Navy List: All the the Canadian Lakes, customs vessels and hulks. Ships of the Royal Navy — Built, Purchased and Lyon is the first to admit that complete Captured, 1688-1855. London: Conway Mari• accuracy is impossible. The often incomplete time Press, 1993. xv + 367 pp., illustrations, and contradictory records will not permit it. index. £60, cloth; ISBN 0-85177-864-X. Changes in a ship's armament could be frequent and unrecorded, changes in function (from Students of eighteenth-century navies have been frigate to troopship, to receiving ship to hulk) fortunate of late to enjoy the scholarly works of are often hard to date, as are not infrequent Boudriot, Lavery and Coad. Lyon's book, which name changes. In his Introduction Lyon explains will be the standard reference for the Royal that he decided a list of 95 per cent accuracy Navy's age of sail, joins the "must read" list. now was more important than one of 98.5 per The venerable lists of Colledge will remain a cent accuracy many years later. This is surely useful alphabetical listing, covering more cen• correct, and fortunately it is doubtful if we are turies and including Commonwealth ships, but deprived of any significant information which for the Royal Navy from 1688-1855 Lyon's would alter radically our interpretations of the volume offers much more value. Royal Navy in this period. Lyon cheerfully The scope of this list is large: each of the invites correspondence with anyone who has hundreds of ships has entries on the designer, more accurate data. precise dates of ordering, laying the keel and Criticisms, even pro forma, are hard to launching, dockyard, dimensions of all decks, come by. One may be mentioned if only to dis• tonnage, complement, gun allocations and sizes pose of it, and that is the non-alphabetical by deck, eventual fate, and the existence of organization. In the Colledge lists one just seeks plans extant at the National Maritime Museum the ship name, and all vessels which ever in Greenwich, where most of the research was enjoyed it are listed in sequence. In Lyon, ships conducted. Reproductions of original plans are appear strictly in their chronological and class on virtually every page, from the mightiest designations. An index sorts it all out, thus three-decker right down to humble gunboats. In adding a step or two, but in this reviewer's what obviously took many years' labour the opinion the extra effort is well rewarded. The voluminous Progress Books at the NMM were price tag will discourage many a wistful buyer, researched cover to cover, as well as the Dimen• but those who make the plunge will possess a sion Books and the unparalleled collection of monumental reference work of very high quality ship plans at the Museum. of which Conway Maritime Press can be proud. Following a General Introduction which offers a list of definitions and an overview of Paul Webb developments in design, Lyon has organized the London, Ontario 92 The Northern Mariner

David J. Hepper. British Warship Losses in the of the French guerre de course in its heyday. Age of Sail 1650-1859. Rotherfield, E. Sussex: At one level this book is a fascinating read; Jean Boudriot Publications, 1994. vii + 213 pp., it is the sort of reference book which it is indices, appendix. £24 (UK), £28/US $45 (out• pleasant to dip into, and easy to be distracted side UK), hardcover; ISBN 0-948864-30-3. by. It is also very useful as a ready source of information, and in the few weeks it has been This is a work of reference giving the date and on your reviewer's desk it has already allowed circumstances of every British warship loss over him to provide instant answers to several a period of more than three hundred years. It obscure questions. By comparison with W.P. derives its information chiefly from primary Gossett's The Lost Ships of the Royal Navy, sources, in particular the records of the courts 1793-1900 (1986), this is in every way superior; martial which were usually held on the surviving more comprehensive, more accurate, and much officers to establish the cause of loss. In addi• better produced. A single comparison may serve tion, the compiler, David Hepper, has used to make the point: Gossett lists under May 1795 Admiralty correspondence, ships' logs, musters the Musquito gunboat, Lieutenant W. McCart• and pay books, together with a range of printed ney, "wrecked near Jersey (On the French coast works. ?)." Hepper provides the date (20th June), The result consists of a chronological list, corrects the detail (she was a floating battery; he starting with the Increase sixth rate, wrecked was Lieutenant William McCarthy), and gives a near Cardiff in March 1650, and ending with the much more accurate account of her loss: "Sta• three gunboats lost in Admiral Hope's disastrous tioned at the Isle St. Marcou, Channel Islands, attempt to storm the Pei-Ho forts on 28 June, she was blown out of the anchorage and 1859. For each ship it gives date, name, type, wrecked on the northern coast of France. Five tonnage, number of guns, date and place built men drowned." Hepper has a few slips: the (purchased, taken, and so on), and the com• Conflagration fireship, lost in the evacuation of manding officer's name, together with a brief Toulon in December 1793, appears in his indices summary of the circumstances of the loss. This but has unaccountably sunk from the text. Over• is followed by alphabetical lists of the ships and all, however, this is a valuable work of refer• commanding officers, the latter of which allows ence, full of information useful if not essential one to identify those unlucky or incompetent to any naval historian, and to all those interested officers who managed to lose two or more ships. in shipwrecks in particular. (The record seems to be held by Captain Andrew Ball, who lost four ships between 1652 N.A.M. Rodger and 1670, though the first three of these were London, England fireships expended in action.) Finally, Hepper has analysed the losses in each war from the Frank Uhlig, Jr. How Navies Fight: The U.S. First Dutch War to the Napoleonic War, break• Navy and Its Allies. Annapolis, MD: Naval ing down the numbers by rate and cause of loss. Institute Press, 1994. xv + 455 pp., maps, This is an instructive exercise; one might have figures, bibliographical essay, index. Cdn expected to find that a less proportion (27.4 per $47.95, US $34.95, cloth; ISBN 1-55750-853-4. cent) were lost to enemy action in the French Canadian distributor, Vanwell Publishing, St. Revolutionary War than in any other, but the Catharines, ON. contrast between the First Dutch War (77.3 per cent lost to enemy action) and the much less Uhlig begins this impressive and detailed study successful Third Dutch War (28.3 per cent, of the United States Navy and its allies at war admittedly of a larger number) is striking. So is with several questions: What is the role of the the discovery that more than half of all the navy? How can it achieve its purpose? How has losses in the War of the Spanish Succession technology changed the role of navies and the were taken by the enemy; since these were way they fight? Are there constants in naval almost all cruisers and convoy escorts, the fact warfare? Uhlig then sets out to answer these provides a good illustration of the effectiveness questions by examining a dozen major conflicts, Book Reviews 93

from the American Revolution to the Gulf War, lost mastery of the sea and risked losing the in which the US Navy and the fleets of allied war. In the Pacific war against Japan it was powers were involved. carrier-borne aircraft that gave real meaning to Over the course of the more than 200 years sea power. The same applied to the Falklands this entails, Uhlig explores the range of possibil• War, except that Exocet missiles made surface ities of naval war, showing how changing ships even more vulnerable. Clearly, the surface technology has affected the conduct of war at fleet has lost its ability to master the local sea. sea and influenced the development of the multi• In the most recent conflicts of this century, from functional modern fleet. Despite the lengthy Vietnam onwards — the exception being the time frame and the variety of warfare, Uhlig unusual circumstances of the Falklands — the sees a constancy in how navies conduct their surface fleet was superfluous. Even Uhlig business. He defines five ways of naval warfare: acknowledges this fact but, a Mahanian at heart, the strategic movement of troops; the acquisition he minimizes its significance. of advances bases; amphibious landings; block• Those interested in the history of the US ade; and, the struggle for mastery of the local Navy or the role of seapower over the past 200 sea. The purposes of naval warfare consist of years will find this well-written work a valuable two absolutes and one conditional: that friendly study and the product of much careful and shipping can flow and hostile shipping cannot; thoughtful analysis. that once the former has been achieved, the navy can be used to land and support an army David Facey-Crowther landed on a hostile shore. St. John's, Newfoundland Each chapter provides a detailed account of how naval power was employed during a par• Peter Jennings Wrike. The Governor's Island: ticular conflict — for good reasons not all con• Gwynn's Island, Virginia, During the Revol• flicts were included. Every chapter also ends ution. Gwynn, VA: Brandylane Publishers for with a helpful summary of the main observa• the Gwynn's Island Museum, 1993 [P.O. Box tions which he then consolidates in a concluding 43, Lively, VA 22507, USA], x + 166 pp., chapter. Footnotes are used sparingly; to docu• maps, illustrations, appendices, notes, bibli• ment his analysis Uhlig prefers short biblio• ography, index. US $19.95 ($3 s+h), cloth; graphic essays. Some might find this annoying ISBN 1-883911-01-X; US $14.50 ($3 s+h), but there is no question about his knowledge of paper; ISBN 1-883911-00-1. the literature. The maps are helpful although not always detailed enough. One on the Normandy John Murray, Lord Dunmore, Governor of offensive would have been useful. At the end of Virginia, attempted to restore his authority in the the text Uhlig provides a helpful diagrammatic colony in the summer of 1776 after being forced layout entitled "How Navies Fight, 1775-1991," to flee the capital at Williamsburg. First estab• in which he examines forty-three different lishing and then abandoning his "floating town" operational characteristics of naval warfare over off Norfolk when militia resistance and disease the two centuries that he examines. Errors are proved too much for his soldiers, adherents to few, though Newfoundlanders will be surprised the Crown and the crews of his 100-plus Royal to learn that "Saint John's [sic] was provided by Navy and Loyalist fleet, he sailed north thirty Canada to help in the war to which that country miles to Gwynn's Island off Chesapeake Bay. had given itself." From this tiny island he planned to reassert Uhlig makes a good case for his conclu• his authority over the colony with the help of sions and affirms that sea power has played an British regular and Loyalist forces including the important role in the more than one dozen con• black Royal Ethiopian Regiment, made up of flicts in which the US Navy and allied fleets ex-slaves freed by Dunmore. His aggressive have been involved since 1775. Yet his study is campaign to do so came to naught; under patriot not without some contradiction. Navies can also militia attack, he fled from his would-be insular mean submarine fleets, as in the case of Ger• fortress and sailed away to New York, effective• many in two world wars, when the Allies nearly ly abandoning royal claims to authority in 94 The Northern Mariner

Virginia. With him went Governor Robert Eden American independence in the southern colonies. of Maryland, also in exile and, like Dunmore, This volume should be added to every nautical unable to reestablish royal authority in his and military history collection. colony. Peter Wrike has now brought together all James M. Morris the pieces of this interesting story and has Newport News, Virginia woven them into a well-paced narrative of martial events that in many ways encapsulate the Diana and Colin Brown. The Whaler and the Revolutionary War, especially in highlighting Privateer: The Story of Two Ships 1795-J807. the importance of sea power on the outcome of Nantucket, MA: Letter of Marque Press, 1992 that conflict with the Crown. The result is a [order from the authors, RR #2, Box 179A, valuable book of interest to persons far beyond Leesburg, VA 22075]. xxii + 275 pp., maps, Tidewater Virginia and the Chesapeake. With illustrations, appendices, glossary, bibliography, more judicious editing it might even have index. US $23.50, paper; ISBN 0-9638208-0-X. become an exemplary naval and military history volume. Ship histories are wonderful windows on the Wrike has researched diligently among maritime world of the past, and it is all the more primary and secondary sources and clearly engaging when a double history appears, in this knows his subject inside out. His descriptions of case that of a whaler and a privateer. The Dunmore's difficulties before burning and Nantucket whaler was the Hero, sailing under abandoning Norfolk; his history of Gwynn's the flag of France. The privateer was the Eng• Island before the war; his clear explication of lish letter of marque Swallow. The seizure, Dunmore's difficulties in assembling and main• effected 9 December 1803, occurred off the taining his fleet; his details of the strengths and Brazilian island Santa Catarina. As with such weaknesses of the British defences on the island; cases, consular files bulged remarkably, and the his folding the events on and about Gwynn's alleged cavalier, illegal seizure was protested by Island into the larger picture of the war and French, Spanish and Portuguese authorities. British attempts to subdue the colonists in their Even London's High Court of Admiralty stated quest for home rule, then independence; his des• its displeasure at the Swallow's unauthorized cription of Dunmore's retreat first up the rivers doings. The authors have used the journal of the off the Bay and then through the Virginia first mate of the Hero and that of the carpenter Capes; and his epilogue detailing the subsequent of the Swallow. The former was in their family careers of Dunmore and the other major players holdings; the latter was located among the in this Virginia mini-drama are all noteworthy. treasures of the American Antiquarian Society. The book, however, is marred by irritating The authors weave a fascinating tale of subter• errors that should have been corrected by careful fuge, impressment, forgery, and mutiny. Not to proofreading. A lack of smooth chronological be overlooked are accounts of slaving, false flow (especially in the first two chapters), errors flags, and the capture itself. The eyewitness in capitalization, persistent split infinitives, accounts, one on either ship, add immediacy to incorrect use of parentheses instead of brackets, the larger events. As Thierry du Pasquier, the and failure to identify initially and clearly major French authority on whaling, remarks in a characters in the story serve only to distract the commentary which accompanies The Whaler reader and detract from an otherwise well- and the Privateer, "This book provides insight presented account of one colonial governor's into life on board an American whaleship under attempt to preserve this colony's place within French colors early in the nineteenth century.... the Empire in the face of determined Patriot The book helps us to understand the human resistance. aspects of life at sea in a dangerous occupation, Still and all, Wrike has performed a notable in addition to the constant threat of capture by service to military, naval and colonial history by hostile vessels." The interrelationships of officers his exacting research into a story interesting in and men, and the unexpected entertainment of itself and a significant chapter in the struggle for the captives by their captors, add vivid descrip- Book Reviews 95 tion. Reference is made to some ninety vessels, thematic viewpoint, there is simply too little on American, British and French. The work is Britain's use of gunboat diplomacy. The context illustrated and indexed, and is a credit to the is mostly provided from a limited range of authors as a project well worth doing. secondary sources, in which seminal authors like M.S. Anderson and C.J. Bartlett are curiously Barry Gough absent. Waterloo, Ontario It is now generally accepted that the Royal Navy was keenly interested in the development Basil Greenhill and Ann Giffard. Steam, Politics of steam power and its application to its fleet. & Patronage: The Transformation of the Royal Greenhill and Giffard enthusiastically underwrite Navy 1815-54. London: Conway Maritime Press, this new orthodoxy with a wealth of material on 1994. 256 pp., illustrations, b+w plates, maps, experiments, voyages, naval officers, and bibliography, index. £25, cloth; ISBN 0-85177- steamers in action, culminating in the Crimean 612-4. War. The role of several of the new enthusiasts, like Captain George Evans, is properly high• This book, the latest fruit of the prolific lighted, and the prosaic but absolutely vital Greenhill-Giffard couple, is the product of the importance of lubrication recognized, (p. 136) interplay of many diverse forces, including their On the other hand, the expertise of the first own recent book on the Baltic aspects of the Comptroller of Steam Machinery, Captain Sir Crimean War, Andrew Lambert's revisionist Edward Parry, (strangely missing from the studies on the Royal Navy, a fascination with index) is not acknowledged; as Ann Grant in her both the survival of sail and the development of biography of Samuel Cunard has shown, Parry early steamship and marine engineering technol• had learned much about steam shipping during ogy, Giffard's descent from a family with his long stay in Canada. (This does not mean extensive naval service, and in particular the that he did not benefit from patronage, but it career and dramatic death in Russian captivity in should also be stressed that Parry, in turn, was 1854 of Captain Henry Wells Giffard, com• remarkably useful to Cunard!) There are also mander of the paddle steamer HMS Tiger. The some idiosyncrasies (especially the insistence on structure and contents of the book reflect these "sail assist") and selectivity. After a few passing influences as well as some strongly held beliefs references in the second chapter, there is virtual• on the part of the authors. ly nothing about the development of steam shipping in overseas as opposed to coastal trade The bulk of the book is divided almost routes. Freda Harcourt's and other studies on the equally between the career of Captain H. W. mail subsidy system should have been consi• Giffard and the exploits of his ships and crew, dered. on the one hand, and the development of steam shipping in the Royal Navy, on the other. With The book falls between the various stools of its lengthy quotations it demonstrates that the the many themes it aims to discuss. There are 'Life and Letters' tradition of naval biography is many valuable passages, e.g. on the experiments far from dead. A panoply of characters and with screw propulsion, the cooperation between ships appear who tend to clog the story which, the Royal Navy and private engine builders, and otherwise, is presented in a most readable style. the vital role of the early steamers in colonial Occasionally, there are diversions into peripheral warfare. Although the general thrust of the or irrelevant issues. Because of the twin purpose argument is not original, certainly much of the of the book it is, inevitably, difficult to have evidence is. But this very wealth of material sufficient space available for a comprehensive does sometimes become excessive and anec• discussion of the transformation of the RN and dotal. There are also considerable superficialities the details and full context of Giffard's career. in the account, e.g. in the sections on the devel• Much is made, for example, of the genesis of opments of the engines themselves and their the Crimean War and its various stages but the vital parts, such as condensers and boilers, explanation of its political setting and dynamics Britain's international politics and strategy, and is fragmentary and unsatisfactory. From a the connections between the navy and the 96 The Northern Mariner

growth of merchant steam shipping. There is no Robinson then looks at the high seas cruises of mention of the Napier brothers. Silver, not gold, those vessels which were actually employed financed the tea trade (p. 112) and Corbinda under letters of marque in 1861 and 1862. should be Cabinda. (pp. 173-4) It is debatable Some, like the Jefferson Davis, were quite whether such overwhelming importance should successful, though that privateer was lost while be attached to the animosity of Tories and attempting to enter over the bar at St. Whigs. The emphasis on "sail assist" in analys• Augustine, Florida. But most privateering ven• ing the development of steamships is debatable tures were disappointing to the owners, in large (after all, it existed until well into the 1880s), as measure because the vessels were unsuited for is also the authors' insistence that the Crimean that service. As for the effect of Confederate War should be renamed the "War with Russia." privateering on the shipping industry of the And although France rather than Russia was northern states, it was more psychologically Britain's main naval opponent, it would be rash disturbing than fiscally harmful. As Robinson to suggest that France was Britain's "real" rival, points out, the prizes taken on the high seas (p. 216) were — with one single exception — all sailing Steam, Politics & Patronage contains an vessels. As such, they were virtually useless as interesting naval biography set during the steam either naval vessels or as blockade runners. By revolution in the Royal Navy and some percep• mid-1862, those privateers which were trim and tive insights but, ultimately, it falls between a fast enough had switched over to become block• number of stools. It is simply trying to pursue ade runners, a role which proved to be far more too many themes and stories. Its ambitious title lucrative than privateering. and subtitle which, ironically, do not even refer Next, Robinson covers a diversity of topics. to Captain H.W. Giffard, promise more than can Perhaps the most interesting is his description of be delivered. Even so, many readers will find its the trial of the crew of the Savannah, a one-time contents stimulating. pilot boat turned Confederate privateer. She left Charleston in late May, 1861 and after taking a Frank Broeze merchantman loaded with sugar was herself Nedlands, Western Australia captured by the USS Perry. The Federal govern• ment initially intended trying the Savannah's William Morrison Robinson, Jr. The Confederate crew as pirates, but the charges were later Privateers. New Haven, CT, 1928; "Classics in dropped for fear of retaliation against northern Maritime History" reprint, Columbia: University prisoners of war in Confederate hands. of South Carolina Press, 1990. xvi + 372 pp., One chapter is devoted to the story of the illustrations, appendix, index. US $15.95, paper; last of the Confederate high seas privateers, the ISBN 1-57003-005-7. Distributed in Canada by Retribution, formerly a tugboat on Lake Erie but Scholarly Book Services, Toronto, ON. re-rigged by the Confederacy as a schooner. Retribution's 1862 cruise became a series of As part of its "Classics in Maritime History" misadventures, such as when a prize crew from series, the University of South Carolina Press Retribution mutinied. The mutineers took over has wisely decided to republish William M. the prize, and with the prize master in irons, Robinson's The Confederate Privateers. When delivered both him and the vessel to Federal this work first appeared in 1928, it was heralded naval authorities at St. Thomas in the Virgin as a valuable and unique contribution to the Islands. Meanwhile, the Retribution had become history of the American Civil War. It still is. dangerously unseaworthy. She was taken to Robinson's work remains the only comprehen• Nassau and sold. Her captain, a British citizen sive treatment of privateering (of both the named Vernon G. Locke, now was without a official and the unofficial variety) by citizens of command and no longer in possession of a letter the Confederate States of America during the of marque (his authority as a privateer master Civil War. had rested with Retribution and not with him). The book opens with a discussion of how He therefore decided to turn pirate. Locke was privateering got its start in the Confederacy. only one of the many odd characters about Book Reviews 97 whom Robinson writes who became involved in flying the flag of the Confederacy and which various wild schemes under the mantle of showed an aggressive intent. privateering between 1862 and 1865. Only a few Despite occasional faults, The Confederate of these schemes matured into any constructive Privateers is a must acquisition for those with reality, but they do make entertaining reading an interest in the American Civil War at sea. and they provide an illustration of a type of off- the-wall entrepreneurship which existed during Charles Dana Gibson the short life of the Confederacy. Camden, Maine Robinson's work would have been much improved had he included a table or two re• Royce Shingleton. High Seas Confederate: The viewing the voyages of the letters of marque, Life and Times of John Newland Maffitt. Col• including their captures or, if not tables, then a umbia: University of South Carolina Press, summarization would have been welcome. His 1994. xii + 160 pp., maps, illustrations, photo• research was weak on his coverage of privateer• graphs, table, notes, bibliographic note, index. like activity on the western rivers where, but to US $27.95, cloth; ISBN 0-87249-986-3. Dis• give an instance, he misidentifies two Army- tributed in Canada by Scholarly Book Services, owned vessels, claiming them as commissioned Toronto, ON. naval vessels, i.e., the Ellet ram Monarch and the Ellet tug Dick Fulton. A handsome, dashing man, John Newland I found the argument in the chapter entitled Maffitt was almost as famous for his wit, charm "United States Dabbles in Privateering" to be and winsome personality as for his seamanship particularly flawed. There he argues that the and courage. In short, he was a highly cultivated United States government itself skirted legalities gentleman of courtly manners as well as an in allowing the employment of merchant vessels accomplished ship's captain and navigator. He as combatants. This misconception undoubtedly was also intelligent and endowed with a lively arose from Robinson's reliance primarily on curiosity that constantly launched him into the naval records without any research in other search for and the acquisition of knowledge. sources. For instance, he wrongly contends that Trained in the US Navy, as were most Confed• the Vanderbilt (actually the C. Vanderbilt) was erate naval officers, Maffitt was among those under private operation during an 1862 stint as who, like Raphael Semmes, chose to go South a guard ram in Hampton Roads to counter the rather than to risk firing on family and friends. CSS Virginia. The facts, as The Official Records He took with him not only his personal qualities of the Union and Confederate Armies and other but the invaluable scientific knowledge gained official sources could have revealed to him, are while engaged in the coastal survey of the that C. Vanderbilt was under charter to the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts of the Union War Department during that period. The United States; he also took with him the superb charter gave the vessel, to borrow from an seamanship and intimate knowledge of the Gulf admiralty term, very much a "sovereign's ship" of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea acquired in status, so that it clearly was a legal combatant. command of the USS Macedonian while partici• Nor seemingly was Robinson aware that a pating in the suppression of the slave trade standing Federal statute, first inaugurated in which, at that time and in that area, was primar• 1819 and still in effect in the 1860s, allowed US ily Cuban. merchant vessels to take armed action against In this thoroughly documented, abundantly vessels which intend armed interference with annotated study, Royce Shingleton has brilliantly peaceful passage. This statute also allowed a US resuscitated the life and times of his hero and merchant vessel to assist in taking back another both are interesting, indeed captivating. Maffitt merchant vessel that had previously been a vic• as a man was a subject worthy of a carefully tim of an illegal capture. Since the Confederacy documented study such as this, if only as an was in rebellion against the United States, the example of one of the many and diverse compo• 1819 act was the authority by which any US nents of mid-nineteenth century American flag vessel had the right to act against any vessel society. But he was also a Confederate naval 98 The Northern Mariner officer during the epic conflict between North Robley D. Evans; Benjamin Franklin Cooling and South, and that is the aspect of his life and (intro.). A Sailor's Log: Recollections of Forty times that we shall comment on here. Years of Naval Life. New York, 1901; "Classics Maffitt's career under the Stars and Bars of Naval Literature" repr., Annapolis, MD: illustrates the desperate struggle of a belligerent Naval Institute Press, 1994. xxviii + 481 pp., whose survival depends upon access to world photographs, illustrations. Cdn $44.95, US markets but who possesses virtually none of the $32.95, cloth; ISBN 0-87021-587-6. Canadian necessary elements that together constitute sea distributor, Vanwell Publishing, St. Catharines, power. The South had some very competent ON. naval officers but few seamen. It had timber but no heavy industry, no metallurgy, no ship yards Robley Dunglison Evans (1846-1912) lived in equipped to build men of war. The Confederacy "interesting times." His career in the US Navy therefore looked abroad, especially to Great began when he journeyed west in a covered Britain, for ships and naval artillery to equip a wagon as a teenager and ended when he served budding navy whose mission on the high seas as the commander of the Great White Fleet. In was destined to be commerce raiding and, closer 1901, D. Appleton and Company published A to home, blockade running. The CSS Florida Sailor's Log, the first of what turned out to be was one of the British-built raiders, and Maffitt two autobiographies. It is well-written, insight• was to demonstrate his extraordinary courage ful, and certainly informative, for Evans and seamanship as its commanding officer described his life at the US Naval Academy, the during its first and most successful cruise. last months of the Civil War, the growth of the Shingleton has added to previously known new steel navy, Uncle Sam's efforts to assert sources the detailed study of the Maffitt papers himself overseas, and Evans' participation in the now available to scholars in the Southern His• Spanish-American War. Given these events and torical Collection of the University of North their significance, the Naval Institute Press was Carolina at Chapel Hill. The result is a highly certainly justified in reprinting the work. significant study not only of Maffitt's career, but Born in antebellum Virginia, Evans of the acquisition of warships in Great Britain, obtained an appointment to the Naval Academy how they were manned and supplied, their through the connections of his family to a Utah operations and the results they obtained, the congressman, William H. Hooper. However, this numerous international diplomatic and legal meant that Evans had to trek from Washington, difficulties they encountered. DC across the country in order to establish his This book will be useful to practically all residency in the western territory. In the course specialists of the period, including historians of of this adventure, Evans' party clashed with the naval and maritime medicine. Maffitt's own Blackfeet Indians, and the young traveller suf• bout with yellow fever at the time he ran the fered the first of many wounds and injuries. Union blockade to reach Mobile with his still Evans met his residency obligation. He unarmed Florida is a case in point. remained loyal to the Union after the outbreak The aftermath of the war for Maffitt is no of the Civil War, and graduated in time to lead less interesting than his service afloat — which a section of Marines and sailors in the second was not limited to the Florida. The South and attack on Fort Fisher, near Wilmington, North Southerners as a whole paid a terrible price for Carolina. Wounded four times in the battle, he their secession and Maffitt was no exception. endured severe pain and poor medical attention, Shingleton tells the story as it was, or must have but through great determination, managed to been, and leaves a lasting impression of great save both his legs and his career. After recovery, tragedy, of no less great heroism, mingled with sea duty assignments took him around the world, admiration for the people caught in the throes of first with the USS Piscataqua in the Pacific, history in the making. later in USS Shenandoah of the Mediterranean fleet. In between, he instructed midshipmen at Ulane Bonnel Annapolis and enlisted recruits on the training Paris, France ship USS Saratoga. While captain of the cruiser Book Reviews 99

USS Yorktown, Evans was dispatched to Val• Instead, we must rely on the table of contents to paraiso, Chile after the murder and mauling locate specific details or events in the book. there of sailors belonging to USS Baltimore. Such irritations notwithstanding, this book Evans defined his role as that of incensed but should have very broad appeal with armchair restrained warrior in Chilean waters, and sailors and scholars alike. described the sensitive task of coordinating efforts with American and foreign officials. Benjamin H. Trask Back home, the populace praised his efforts and Newport News, Virginia the press dubbed him "Fighting Bob." From South America, Evans directed a B. McL. Ranft. The Beatty Papers; Selections makeshift squadron of vessels in regulating the from the Private and Official Correspondence seal skin traffic off the coast of Alaska. At and Papers of Admiral of the Fleet Earl Beatty. various times he interacted with Britishers, Volume II: 1916-1927. Aldershot, Hants, and Canadians, and Russians. Evans eventually also Brookfield, VT: Scolar Press for the Navy acted as something of a diplomat when he took Records Society, 1993. xxiii + 496 pp., frontis• USS New York to the North Sea to participate in piece, figures, list of documents and sources, the opening ceremonies for the Kiel Canal. index. US $79.95, cloth; ISBN 0-85967-964-0. Evans closed his autobiography by describing his captaincy of USS Iowa and that battleship's Admiral Sir David Beatty, the dashing though role in the sinking of the Spanish fleet off questionably effective commander of the British Santiago, Cuba. battle cruiser squadron at Jutland in May 1916, This edition of A Sailor's Log is enhanced became the First Sea Lord in November 1919 by Benjamin Franklin Cooling's expert intro• and remained in office until July 1927. It was a duction. By providing an objective view of Ev• critical era for the Royal Navy. Long-held ans' life and times, Cooling places the book in traditions of command of the sea were chal• a historical context and increases its value as a lenged as never before; the future of battleships research source. For the most part, the footnotes was debated; imperial resolve waned in the face provide complete biographical sketch of the of pacifism, political indifference, and swinging participants, dimensions of warships, and geo• economies; naval arms races were forestalled at graphical locations of colonies, islands, and the the cost of the forfeiture of numerical and like. Nonetheless, this edition does have its qualitative supremacy; bitter and inconclusive weaknesses. The absence of maps of the Asian battles were waged between the RN and the ports, the coast of Chile, and Baltic, Caribbean, Royal Air Force over the future of naval air- and Mediterranean Seas is sorely felt. On the power; and the governments of the day vacil• other hand, obvious details on well-known lated fatally over the importance of the imperial places like Hong Kong and Cincinnati, the cornerstone in the Far East — Singapore. promotion dates of those officers mentioned, or Bryan Ranft is to be commended for his lengthy discussion of the life of Thomas Jeffer• crisp, clear and reasoned production of Sir son and Henry Clay are unnecessary. Readers David's correspondence as First Sea Lord. would be better served by a broader discussion Indeed the Navy Records Society's publication in the footnotes of issues like the problems of this second volume of the Beatty papers is posed by coal as a fuel, the prevalence of timely to say the least, coming as it does at a superstitious sailors, racism at the Academy, time when naval administrations around the corruption in the federal government in the late world are wrestling with the realities of postwar nineteenth century, and the role of warships in cutbacks. There is, accordingly, a strong sense diplomatic settings. of déjà vu about this volume. Beatty saw his Researchers would benefit from having the primary responsibilities as Sea Lord as educating footnotes include sources of information. Also, and persuading governments regarding the the inclusion of a completely new index, or at correctness of strategic principles and the need least the index that appeared in the original to provide funds to realize them. But it was a printing, would have been equally useful. thankless task. The politicians of the day were, 100 The Northern Mariner

for the most part, thunderingly ignorant of or in wishful thinking. Churchill was determined as indifferent to those principles. The same, it Chancellor of the Exchequer to turn his back on seems, has been the case in the post-Cold War the lessons of naval history and to cut and slash era when that ignorance is compounded by a the budget in whatever way he could. While he propensity for ahistoricism. and Churchill remained good friends, Beatty Beatty's overwhelming concern was with could not refrain from writing to his wife Ethel maintaining Britain's world-wide naval superi• in 1925 that "that extraordinary fellow Winston ority. Was Britain, he queried, to contemplate has gone mad, economically mad and no sacri• forfeiting that supremacy after three hundred fice is too great [for him] to achieve." (p.278) years? To do so, to accept what in 1919 he Under the circumstances, the Singapore project, termed "manifest inferiority," (p.52) would, he which was to have papered over the cracks in argued, have a disastrous effect not only on the imperial defence and deceived no one, least of empire but on the world. And yet, there seemed all the Japanese, languished in the face of nothing for it. Britain's postwar indebtedness to cheeseparing and procrastination. the United States, a country dedicated to build• Another critical aspect of the Singapore ing a navy second to none, left Beatty and his affair (and the Beatty papers are an excellent colleagues in a position of acute weakness were source on this matter) was the endless wrangling the Royal Navy to contemplate matching the US over the relative merits of airpower: would Navy ship for ship. A naval race with the aircraft do a better job than big guns? This Americans, Beatty concluded, would be the debate in turn was part of the larger struggle utmost folly — Churchill characterized such a between the RN and the RAF over the owner• development as "fit for a madhouse." (p.36) The ship of naval aviation. While fully persuaded of only solution, painful and embarrassing as it was the primacy of battleships (and the papers (to use Churchill's words again), was to contain some intriguing assessments of the embrace naval arms limitation and to hope to alleged invulnerability of battleships to mines, disguise the transition to a One Power Standard submarines and aircraft), Beatty was not (in which the RN would be the equal of any unaware of the value of maritime airpower as other major navy) "under the guise of a replace• the "Eyes of the Fleet." "Now is the time," he ment policy." (p.92) Yet that, too, had its dan• wrote in April 1919, "when the Royal Airforce gers. British naval yards were falling silent and is melting away to take the matter [of naval Beatty began to express genuine alarm that only airpower] in our own hands." (p.21) It was not, two years after the war it was becoming harder of course, to be the case. Despite his prescience and harder to find specialized yards and skilled and his great powers of persuasion, Beatty did labour. And a new menace was lurking at sea in not succeed in winning control of the Fleet Air the Pacific. The naval arms limitations talks in Arm for the RN. Hankey wrote to Prime Minis• Washington in late 1921 had been at the expense ter Lloyd George in August 1922 that the two of the Anglo-Japanese alliance, which dated services were "hopelessly divided" on the matter back to 1902. "While we are wrangling," wrote of naval airpower. Eighteen months later there Beatty to the First Lord late in 1920, "the was still a "complete deadlock" (p.266) on the Japanese are acting." (p.107) This meant that the air problem and Trenchard, the head of the fabric of empire in the Far East was under threat RAF, remained granitically opposed to any at a time when the financial situation was "bad, challenge to the unity of airpower. very bad." (p.208) While the Beatty papers are an enormously In June 1921 the government agreed to rich source of information on the issues and create a great defensive position at Singapore, personalities of the day, they are also valuable the crossroads of empire in southeast Asia. The for the light they shed on Beatty, the man. His acceptance of the One Power Standard (and, marriage appears to have been an extraordinarily indeed, far less in practice) had made Singapore unhappy one and for most, if not all, of the increasingly necessary as Ranft points out. period he was in office his wife was away in (p.389) Imperial defence policy consisted, in various spas and resorts in France suffering from many instances, of the most amazing exercises perennial ill-health. It is hard to know with Book Reviews 101

whom to sympathize. Somewhat like Captain B.J.C. McKercher (ed.). Arms Limitation and Cook's wife, Beatty's wife remained virtually Disarmament: Restraints on War, 1899-1939. invisible; a helpless and hapless neurasthenic Westport, CT: Praeger, 1992. xvi + 250 pp., victim of her husband's ego and the exigencies bibliography, index. US $55, cloth; ISBN 0-275- of the service. For his part, Beatty found the 94059-4. double burden of his official responsibilities and Ethel's illness almost unbearable. Early in 1922, Despite a large time-frame, this book does what he wrote to her urging her to "throw off all the so many academic joint ventures fail to do, viz. imaginary bogies which upset you and which are illuminate a general problem through close like [sic] to ruin our lives and destroy the work attention to particulars. The reasons for this rests of my life." (p.198) While he wrote to her con• not only on the quality of the contributors but stantly, he found solace in similar correspon• also on the good editing by Brian McKercher dence with his mistress, Eugenie, to whom he who, it should be added, also makes the key confided in 1925 that he suffered from "frightful assertion underlying the importance of the whole waves of depression." (p.289). corpus when he states in his own article that By 1926 the strain was beginning to tell. "maritime powers had fundamentally different Writing to his close friend Keyes, Beatty strategic and weapons requirements than did observed that he was getting "fed up with the terrene states." constant struggling, intriguing and underhand This is worth highlighting because Sidoro- methods which are employed against me." wicz, on the Peace Conference of 1907, writes (p.336) He retired as First Sea Lord eleven as if the British Empire were somehow con• months later, marking the occasion with a letter tracted into a nation with needs and policies to Eugenie in which he noted that "The great much like the others who were engaged there. days of the past were and are unforgettable. The After all, the fact that the British were different latter days since 1919 at times appear like a was what forced the Liberals in England to nightmare. However the everlasting struggle is develop two wings of approach to the problem: over and my task is done." (p.352) one Liberal and the other Liberal Imperialist. To Beatty goes much of the credit for pro• Keith Neilson understands this difference; tecting the Royal Navy from pacifists, penny he uses the erudite appreciations of Lord Sel- pinchers and politicians ignorant of the realities borne, whose illuminating correspondence has of empire. He was, however, haunted throughout recently been made public, to show how this the balance of his career by the incompleteness was at the core of Admiralty thinking. That of the "great passive victory" (p.7) of Jutland. thinking was based on more than mere compari• Though he could not change history, he tried son elicited from the work of the number- nonetheless, and the concluding portions of this crunching experts. Neilson's writing has power splendidly readable, human, and informative because he by no means succumbs to the argu• work are dedicated to a largely self-contained ment that a deadly Anglo-German naval rivalry essay on the writing of the official account of dominated all strategic thought in England. Rus• the battle. For all his dedication to the navy, sia and, until 1905, France were on the planning Beatty does not emerge from this episode with table in England as well. That the Admiralty an enhanced reputation. The debate over Jutland dealt with the naval rivalry from such a wide was bitter, prolonged and divisive, (p. 147) And point of view showed an appreciation that Brit• all the evidence suggests that Beatty exploited ish naval and maritime policy was not a subject his position as First Sea Lord to suppress or dis• that could be dealt with by simple numerical tort the historical record in order to have himself comparisons. This came to be appreciated by portrayed — as he would always have wished to British statesmen. Politics, naval policy, and naval theory were, as Neilson shows, one. be — as the victor of the day, defender of the navy and upholder of the empire. Lorna Jaffe's careful documentation of the peace negotiations in 1919 shows the clash James A. Boutilier between idealism and naval requirement. The Victoria, British Columbia British and the Americans had different agendas 102 The Northern Mariner and different responsibilities which provided the René Sabatier de Lachadenede. La Marine background to the first Washington Conference. française et la guerre civile d'Espagne 1936- Faced with uncomprehending allies, the British 1939. Vincennes: Service historique de la Mar• opted for quality control, and so they shunned ine, 1993. xvii + 539 pp., maps, tables, appen• their old Japanese allies. Like the French, the dices, bibliography, indices. FFr 130, paper. British got no collective security guarantees for their needs, as Malcolm Murfett shows. The author of this detailed monograph had Richard Fanning's paper is a plea for closer attained the rank of Vice-Admiral prior to his examination of the Geneva Conference in the death, at the age of eighty-three, in 1992. Six light of the evidence of the documents, as decades earlier he had begun his career on board opposed to the propaganda of the time. He sug• a French destroyer patrolling the Spanish coast. gests that Japanese concerns were more legiti• His squadron's assignment, simply put, was to mate than they have since been depicted. He do what it could to protect French commercial suggests that future research may widen this shipping in those troubled waters, while observ• changing viewpoint. ing a strict neutrality between the two belliger• The 1930 London Naval Conference was ents in the civil war. agreed at the time to be a great if partial suc• The latter requirement was easier to satisfy cess. Greg Kennedy is one of the few historians than the former. The French government had writing today with insight from both British and opted for a policy of non-intervention as of July American sources. This wide vision allows him 1936. It would not support the Spanish rebels to see that Britain was a special case because of under the command of Francisco Franco, but her maritime needs. He shows that there are neither would it provide material assistance to different kinds of maritime defence and how the besieged government in Madrid. Ostensibly, navies, Empire, and Imperial structures interpen• the rationale was to avoid any escalation of the etrated; even the Americans glimpsed this at the conflict, particularly of the sort that could carry time. Although a shortage of destroyers would the war beyond the Iberian peninsula to the rest make life difficult for British maritime security of the continent. The French navy did as it was in 1939, nevertheless Britain moved through the told, and with some enthusiasm. thirties as the most powerful maritime nation Although de Lachadenede has little to say and Empire — a fact that Meredith Berg seems on the subject, the fact is that the French officer to understand in the last chapter, on the last corps had no affection for the Spanish govern• naval conference in 1935. His particular refer• ment, whose political configuration looked ence is to the impact of world events on the clearly left-wing from the deck of a cruiser. Yet Japanese. This amounts, really, to a demonstra• that government had nothing to gain by attack• tion of the harm done by the abrogation of the ing French ships in its coastal waters — ships Anglo-Japanese Naval Treaty in 1921, which which could be carrying goods to Republican- constrained the British and isolated the Japanese. held ports. Moreover, it had ended up with only McKercher shows in his article that political the rump of the Spanish navy. Most of the latter control must be front and centre to realistic arms had gone over to the rebels, who were now talks and results. What is extraordinary about intent on choking off sea-borne supplies to the these protracted negotiations between 1926 and Madrid regime. Thus, it was Franco's forces — 1934 is that, Japan, France, and Italy aside, the with whom the politically conservative French contending powers subdued the mere compari• navy had some affinity — which presented the son addicts, so that more level-headed navalists, greatest threat to France's merchant marine and in the political sense of the word, could actually navy. Franco's forces, and their Italian ally. negotiate. On the whole, these are a revealing Therein lay an even greater dilemma for the clutch of papers quite removed from profession• French naval command. 1935-1936 had seen a al nit-picking. substantial Franco-Italian rapprochement, upon which many hopes had been set of constraining, Donald M. Schurman amicably or otherwise, the ambitions of Hitler's Victoria, British Columbia Germany. But suddenly, the Spanish imbroglio Book Reviews 103

threatened a rash of confrontations between patrols, will be of great assistance to other French and Italian naval forces. scholars. Such, very cryptically, is part of the context Finally, if professional scholars detect some in which this book is set, a book which wishes methodological roughspots, they will also be to highlight the political, diplomatic and stra• impressed by the distance which this eye-witness tegic aspects of the French navy's experience has managed to achieve in his perspective. He is during the Spanish Civil War. We can welcome a man of his generation, an officer and patriot, its publication, for what it offers is greater than but his work has none of the polemic's edge. If the misgivings it raises. With respect to the he makes little of the naval corps' ideological latter, it should be said that this is not the work affinities, he does the same for its antipathies. of a professional historian, whatever the author's While he concludes that non-intervention and its commitment and energy. Despite the breadth of attendant naval policy were failures — in that the stated objectives, the focus is very finite, as they did not prevent the escalation of inter• is the range of ideas. After over 350 pages of national tension — he does not stoop to a diatribe intervening text, the book ends with a very few against the Popular Front governments in France pages on the "lessons" of Spain, and a single and Spain. In that sense, the most important of page Conclusion. There is a lot of repetition in them all, this is a work in which the navy's the volume, as is often the case when chrono• historical section can take legitimate pride. logical method is combined with the thematic. The historiographical element is weak, as sec• Robert J. Young ondary sources — even those published in French Winnipeg, Manitoba — are all but displaced by the archival materials. The latter, in turn, sometimes appear in rather Ken Macpherson and John Burgess. The Ships of undigested form, an appearance strengthened by Canada's Naval Forces 1910-1993: A Complete a plethora of information on tonnage, cargo, Pictorial History of Canadian Warships. St. crew complements, ports of destination, and Catharines, ON: Vanwell Publishing, 1994. 240 ships' names. Finally, the sometimes inventory• pp., photographs, appendices, index. $35, paper; like character of the text is only underscored by ISBN 0-920277-91-8. the over-use of very short paragraphs. Alto• gether, therefore, one has the impression of a When Macpherson and Burgess' magnum opus text which needed compression and refinement, first appeared in 1981, it filled a gaping void in and in which ideas needed to be rescued from Canadian naval historiography. Finally, reliably the tyranny of data. collected in one sturdy volume was a treasure of For all that, scholars will remain indebted primary material: a concise 150-250 word to the late Vice-Admiral. For as is often the biography, with an accompanying photo, of case, the strengths of his work are inverted virtually every one of the nearly 500 ships that versions of its limitations. If, for example, the have served in the Dominion's naval forces secondary literature is less prominent than it since inception early in the century. Raising the should be, the book does draw very heavily magnificent compendium beyond mere coffee upon the naval archives at Vincennes. Indeed, table status were a series of supporting appen• no other work has culled these particular files as dices giving ships' specifications, listing com• diligently as they have been here. Something manding officers, describing the working of the similar could be said of the voluminous data convoy system, and providing World War II which is provided. If one can wish that more of Operational Status charts. Divided logically into it had come in a more readily digestible form, three chronological sections (1910-1939, 1939- one is grateful that at least now it is available in 1945, 1945 to the present), with a brief but a single volume. The 150 supplementary pages well-crafted narrative introduction to each, it of annexes on subjects like the composition of faithfully charted the rising and falling tides of the French naval command, or the Nyon the Canadian Navy, Royal and otherwise. Here accords, or maritime incidents involving French was the perfect companion to the imminent ships, or the financial costs of the French naval outpouring of secondary material from Douglas, 104 The Northern Mariner

Milner, Sarty, Hadley, et al through the next this ground-breaking work. There are a wealth decade. Nothing has appeared in the intervening of possibilities suitable to this format. Sugges• years to eclipse its status. tions include depicting the ship's crest, official That includes this present volume. This where available, unofficial where not. Graphical reviewer — admittedly taken in by the spiffy presentations, such as a bar-chart of the in- picture of the new Canadian Patrol Frigate commission years of major vessels, could drive (CPF) HMCS Halifax on the cover - was home the impression gained through the book of disappointed to crack it open and discover the increasing value (an "alliance dividend"?) the nothing substantially new inside. The accom• Navy has wrung from its hulls in recent years. panying publisher's promotion release, pur• Finally, wait for the turn of the millennium, by porting an original publication, and the absence which time the fleet will have been completely of those magic words, "second edition," should replaced, then add a new Part Four on the post- have served as warning: this is neither. Rather, 1995 period. it is barely more than a jazzed-up reprint. All that aside, this second coming is indeed A few ship biography entries have been a blessing. The original run, even at the then- "cut-and-paste" re-arranged to make way for exorbitant price of $60, quickly disappeared snippets on the CPF and TRUMP (TRibal from bookstores and has only been available to Update and Modernization Programme). Like• new researchers from the library shelf. Now, at wise, the appendices have been shuffled, largely a competitively priced $35, the reprint is avail• to make space to bring the list of ships' com• able to a whole new generation of researchers, manding officers up to date. The moves do to sustain the renaissance in Canadian naval nothing to capture the latest resurgence in the historiography. fortunes of the Canadian Navy. In fact, in some minor ways, the reorganization of material has Richard H. Gimblett interrupted the smooth flow of the original Blackburn Hamlet, Ontario volume. Bras d'Or's loss of status from being listed amongst the major surface combatants is US Naval Intelligence (comp.); A.D. Baker III bound to annoy those devoted adherents to its (intro.). German Naval Vessels of World War II. eclipsed potential. And the chopping of the Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1993.176 important key to builders in Appendix 7 ("Ships pp., photographs, illustrations. US $32.95, cloth; by Classes: Principal Dates and Particulars") ISBN 1-55750-304-4. Canadian distributor, from the eminently sensible beginning of the Vanwell Publishing, St. Catharines, ON. section to a position on the bottom of page 238 — after a whole other appendix and the bibli• Among the more unpleasant occurrences in ography — makes no sense, and is advertised naval warfare is combat with one's own or only by an easily-missed footnote. allied vessels. The valiant attempt by the Fleet There is a useful addition (p. 159) tabulating Air Arm, fortunately unsuccessful, to sink HMS the service of RCN ships in Korean waters. But Sheffield instead of the Bismarck is but one given its presentation, this would have been example of the potential disaster caused by better suited as an appendix. More puzzling, insufficient or inaccurate warship recognition. missing from Appendix 7 are the particulars of Upon its entry into World War II, the US the TRUMP modernization and the new-con• Navy prepared and issued an excellent series of struction CPF programmes. recognition books for use in their fleet, of which Lest this seem a review of the book the German Naval Vessels of World War II is an authors did not write, let there be no doubt of outstanding example. Here are recognition my admiration for — and frequent reference to — photographs and illustrations of virtually all of The Ships of Canada's Naval Forces. The the Kriegsmarine units afloat in December 1941. factual content of the original has stood the test The list of such units is exhaustive to the point of time remarkably well, with minor errors too of including ships captured (or possibly cap• few to mention. But the maritime historical tured) from European navies. Also included is a community still awaits a true second edition of page on the never-completed German carrier Book Reviews 105

Graf Zeppelin. Thomas G. Lynch (éd.). Fading Memories: In detail, the major units are shown by Canadian Sailors and the Battle of the Atlantic. photograph, illustrations including excellent Halifax: The Atlantic Chief and Petty Officers airbrush renderings and model photographs Association, 1993 [send orders to: Atlantic Chief showing eight "aerial angles" seen at 15° and and Petty Officers Association, "The Book," 45° elevation. For "target angles" this book P.O. Box 3533, D.E.P.S., Dartmouth, N.S. B2W provides twenty-seven views ranging from 0° to 5G4]. 224 pp., photographs. $18, paper; ISBN 355°. All of this should be a boon to ship 0-9697-838-0-9. modellers. Yet there is so much more. The book also provides information on German camou• Old sailors' memories fade, too. In this book flage, tables for estimating range from the edited by Thomas G. Lynch — himself since amount of the ship showing above the horizon, removed to his greater reward — we are told that adjusted for the viewer's height above sea level, the conference of which this represents the and illustrations of possible mistaken identity. printed proceedings was unique, because the Captain Roskill, in describing the mislead• stories are "not told be (sic? — not the only ing enemy reports from HMS Rawalpindi in the typographical error, unfortunately) officers as in winter of 1939, points out the difficulties the past, but by ratings and non-commissioned inherent in ship recognition towards dusk in far officers of the day, giving the whole function a northern waters. To add to the difficulties, the more earthy atmosphere." It is, we are told, Chief Constructor of the German Navy had stories from the '"lower deck' perspective." (p.5) deliberately adhered to certain design character• Fortunately this is not entirely true. Part of the istics for his newer ships. Consequently, it was endearing nature of this book, certainly to this not easy to distinguish between Tirpitz-class ex-Naval officer reviewer, is the fact that battleships, Scharnhorst-class battle cruisers and indeed, some of the stories are from serving Hipper-class heavy cruisers. Even the pocket officers of the time. Officers and others were battleships could be mistaken under also used to open the various sections. unfavourable conditions. Consequently,mariners There are four sections in all: the Coastal were forced back to doggerel for assistance in War; the Mid-Ocean War; They Also Served; matters of memory. Unfortunately, no credit is and Shore Support. Naturally, the memories are given to the author (and illustrator) of Jerry not all of the same calibre, and it is not just the Jingles, an addition to this book which takes seafaring ones that have bite and relevance ship recognition to another literary plane. In the (though none of them emanate from Naval first place, the poet informs us that the single Headquarters, so we cannot confirm whether or stack and the tower mast are important charac• not the "lower deck" harboured the same antipa• teristics of German ships. Here, for example, is thy about service in the nation's capital as did your aide-mémoire for the Hipper-c\ass cruisers: their officers!). Just as shore activities were critical to the war effort, so too were some of 1st dot nicht ein battleship? those who served ashore worth hearing from. Nein, dot ain't no battleship. The sections not only cover the full range of Stack near foremast, easy seen, activities in which RCN seamen served but also Dots der HIPPER or EUGEN. include reminiscences from merchant seamen and the WRCNS. Most types of ships are Well, great poetry it's not, but I am prepared to covered, although surprisingly there is no think that any sailor who had memorized Jerry account of serving in the trawler-type which is Jingles would never mistake Hipper for the an integral part of the cover design. Also sur• Tirpitz. prisingly, the Halifax Riots are mentioned in only one of the quotations, by one of the Wrens. David Fry The book follows on from Lynch's three- Pointe au Baril, Ontario volume Salty Dips, published by the Ottawa Branch of the Naval Officers Association of Canada and preserved similar memories. These 106 The Northern Mariner

are not necessarily any less "earthy" than Fading author. As might be expected, the interviews Memories, and also contained a few lower-deck embrace all the horrors of the war at sea — the memories. Thus, the four books taken together ship sinkings, the ordeal of trying to survive on are complementary. There is a very definite urge a raft or in a lifeboat in a North Atlantic winter to compare the content of the two sets, if only and, for some, days on end spent as a prisoner to determine which is the more relevant; this of war. These are all graphically described and exercise I have resolutely shunned. All, includ• should not fail to move even the most cynical ing Fading Memories, have much to tell us. reader. Parker's own contributions provide the They are to a large degree "insiders' books," but necessary back-drop and the statistics are useful, that should not dissuade anyone from picking illustrating as they do the vital role played by them up for an evening's enjoyment, particularly the Merchant Navy in the war and the high price in view of some of the distressing works being that was paid. It should be noted, however, that produced on the darker side of World War II. the statistics reflect totals for all British ship• These are, indeed, fading memories, and to ping, not just the Canadian effort. The selection his credit Lynch claims nothing more nor noth• of sixty photographs, many from private collec• ing less for them. He has done nothing to tions and therefore not published before, is confirm or correct the stories he has captured — excellent and compliment the text. except for one, the tragic sinking of HMCS As the subtitle suggests, Parker's purpose is Esquimalt, (pp.43-5) where a personal version is to develop an oral history of the Canadian mer• also included. As such, and without pretences, it chant seaman experience during the war. This is a welcome, even necessary, addition to our goal poses difficulties, for history — always a sources for the understanding of Canadian slippery concept — becomes even more so when maritime history. qualified by the word "oral," for it is then more dependent than ever on memories. And memo• Kenneth S. Mackenzie ries, as we all know, are rarely complete, often Salt Spring Island, British Columbia inaccurate, and certainly prone to exaggeration. If history is supposed to reflect what really hap• Mike Parker. Running the Gauntlet: An Oral pened, then treat this book with caution. Well- History of Canadian Merchant Seamen in World intentioned as its contributors may be, one must War II. Halifax: Nimbus, 1994. xii + 344 pp., be charitable and say that their memories have map, photographs, notes, select bibliography. played tricks on them. Allowance can be made $24.95, paper; ISBN 1-55109-068-6. for the inaccuracies that come from youthful inexperience. Few seamen held positions which Among the allied nations involved in World allowed them to know what was taking place at War II Canada stands tall in its post-war treat• the command level. Unfortunately, most of those ment of its armed forces. On the other hand, that did know, have since died. successive Canadian governments dealt shabbily As a result, there are an inordinate number with its Merchant Navy veterans. This disgrace• of errors which weaken the book's value as a ful omission has only been addressed recently, history. The CPR liner sunk off the west coast chiefly through the efforts of The Canadian of Africa in March 1943 was not the Empress of Merchant Navy Association. Adding insult to Halifax (p. 172) but the Empress of Canada. Far injury, an official spokesman for the Royal too many ships' names are incorrectly spelled to Canadian Navy recently described wartime mer• be overlooked: Bic Island becomes Bick Island chant seamen as "mercenaries." The ensuing (p. 106), Batory becomes Petori (p. 167), Volen- publicity gave journalist Mike Parker the perfect dam becomes Volendarn (p.314). Geography, occasion to collect the personal stories of men too, is victimized by inaccuracy; on a passage who served in our war-time merchant marine. from Java to New York via Cape Horn, one is The book consists of forty-nine interviews hardly likely to pass Capetown (p. 193). And with merchant seamen and one with a ship's what does one make of the position "eighty- agent, all augmented by an introduction, four three miles east southwest from Lockeport"? short bridging chapters and an epilogue by the (p. 130) The well-known Cunard White Star Line Book Reviews 107 is transformed into the "Cunard West Star Line," Toronto, a veteran whose hobby is collecting (p.200) the venerable Lunenburg company and maintaining mailing lists of World War II Zwicker and Company becomes "Swicker and ships' companies; with his help he began send• Company," (p.125) and the notorious British ing out personalized letters to corvette veterans. tramping firm Ropner Shipping Co. is identified Three and a half years, and nearly 2,000 letters as "Ropeners." (p. 185) People and place names later, he was ready to fulfil his aim of recording also fall victim to this indifference to accuracy; fairly for posterity the nature and essential Thorold, Ontario as "Thoreau" (p. 198) is one elements of the corvette experience. This book glaring example. is testimony to his success, for here he preserves While one can try to overlook spelling mis• the seagoing recollections, good and not so takes, inaccurate historical facts are another good, of over 250 men who served in one or matter; Parker would have been well advised to more of fifty corvettes. Both the lower deck and have had his manuscript read by a proof-reader the wardroom are represented. Many excellent with a nautical background, especially as it photographs, most of which are from private appears that the interviews were transcribed collections, enhance the narrative. verbatim from tape recordings. This noted, the The book opens with a map of the North book still provides interesting reading for a Atlantic and western Mediterranean, setting the generation largely ignorant of the tremendous scene for a short but succinct summary of contribution made by the Canadian Merchant Canada's naval effort during the six year battle. Navy in World War II. As one who served on Then follow personal accounts of the very first British merchant ships for the entire period of Canadian-built corvettes and their passages to the war, I am pleased that Parker attempted to the United Kingdom. This establishes the gen• tell the Canadian story before it became too late. eral pattern of the book, a sequence of relevant observations on maritime developments of every Gregory P. Pritchard sort as the battle progressed, illustrated, so to Blue Rocks, Nova Scotia speak, with relevant personal accounts. The historical notes, the description of technical and Mac Johnston. Corvettes Canada: Convoy tactical developments, indeed all the matters Veterans of WWII Tell Their True Stories. associated with the Battle of the Atlantic, are Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1994. ix + 310 described with accuracy and clarity. Actions pp., map, photographs, bibliography, index. with submarines and aircraft are recorded in a gripping manner, interspersed with the com• $29.95, cloth; ISBN 0-07-551381-1. paper; ments of the participants. There are two points ISBN 0-07-551804-X. of view, gently expressed, which perhaps are debatable even though they are held by many The frontispiece of the old Royal Navy Fighting naval veterans. The first has to do with Cana• Instructions was a photograph of a ship's dian ships having to suffer with inferior equip• lookout in dripping oilskins, wet, cold and tired. ment while the RN got new equipment. Anyone The caption was: "The Most Important Single who had served with the RN and then came Factor." Our corvette sailors, our most important back to the RCN knew that many RN ships single factor, stood up to every challenge. waited just as long as ours for new gear. The Corvettes Canada gathers together the recollec• second point concerns our Chief of the Naval tions of such men in their own words on every Staff, Admiral Nelles, and his failure to push aspect of life aboard these small warships during hard enough to close the equipment gap. When the Battle of the Atlantic from 1939 to 1945. one considers the magnitude of the fifty-fold The experiences and feelings described with increase in men and ships over which he pre• modesty and humour will provide invaluable sided, we could have suffered worse leadership. reference material for future maritime studies. Mac Johnston is the editor and general So many old shipmates and friends appear manager of The Legion magazine. Believing that in this book, so many ships that one sailed with; the experiences of men of the lower deck have it is hard to believe that only one of these ships been overlooked, he contacted Jack Muir of is still afloat, HMCS Sackville. When she was 108 The Northern Mariner

paid off and then restored to her 1944 self as a merchant ship losses. This last list is provided in Naval Memorial, it was in the nature of a both alphabetical and chronological order. Final• miracle. Like Vimy Ridge in World War I, the ly, all participating warships and merchant ships Battle of the Atlantic brought together tens of are then indicated alphabetically, along with the thousands of young Canadians from every part various convoys with which they had associ• of our wonderful country and through hardship ation. The fifty well-chosen photographs and a and toil united them as one, old shipmates and six page extract from a report compiled by the friends unto death. Senior British Naval Officer, North Russia in This is a splendid book. June 1944, add welcome context. The brief introductory remarks and general overview, as L.B. Jenson well as a short description of the peregrinations Queensland, Nova Scotia of the SS Hopewell along the north coast of Russia and Siberia in the summer of 1942 round Bob Ruegg and Arnold Hague. Convoys to out this short book. Russia 1941-1945. Rev. ed.; Kendal, UK: The The authors have been at some pains to World Ship Society, 1992 [28 Natland Road, include all details of the ships and battles of this Kendal LA9 7LT, England]. 104 pp., photo• campaign in their brief account, and their lists graphs, diagrams, maps, ship indices. £13.50 appear accurate in most respects. The Ninth (£15 for air despatch; sterling money orders Escort Group is not listed as sailing with the last only), paper; ISBN 0-905617-66-5. convoy to Russia, JW 67, which sailed from the UK 12 May 1945. These ships were detached en Richard Woodman. The Arctic Convoys 1941- route but nevertheless did sail as part of the 1945. London: John Murray, 1994. xx + 532 convoy. There may be other errors but if so, this pp., maps, photographs, notes, bibliography, reviewer did not see them. The other oversight index. £25, cloth; ISBN 0-7195-5079-3. involves the maps included in this volume. Given their attention to detail in other areas, the The Allied convoys to Russia during World War failure to include several place names is surpris• II are the basis for these two new books. The ing. The key for the map accompanying the main focus of both books is the Allied perspec• story of the Hopewell suggests that Hansen tive, but a significant effort is also made to Island and Yugorski Shar suggests that these capture the German effort against the convoys. places are found at numbers '5' and '10' respec• While these books share the same subject, they tively. Unfortunately, these numbers are missing differ markedly in approach. on the map. It is a curious oversight. Aside from Ruegg and Hague intend solely to catalog these minor points this book provides an excel• and illustrate these convoys, providing a mini• lent short reference book. mum of narrative to supplement the plethora of Woodman's is a far more substantial work. facts and selected photographs that they offer While virtually all of the information contained up. The best example is their brief and work• in Ruegg and Hague's book also appears in manlike description of the most controversial of Woodman's, the facts are not simply laid out in all convoys, PQ 17, which takes up less than a tables but are woven into a compelling narrative. page. Clearly, their book should be seen more as Woodman is a novelist, and his experience in a reference than a description. prose shows to good effect here. He also pos• Viewed in this light, Convoys to Russia is sesses sea experience, which gives his descrip• a worthwhile volume, making a wide variety of tions of particular situations the ring of truth. It facts and figures easily accessible. Thus, all surely informs his empathetic accounts of the convoys are listed chronologically, and a brief challenges sailors encountered — in terms of description of each convoy is provided along natural hazards, naval dangers and cultural with the composition of the convoy indicating complications — while forcing these convoys each merchantman's assigned position. Allied through. His portrait of the merchant marine and German losses during the convoy battles are sailors and their situation is one of the best this then listed, followed by a complete listing of reviewer has read. This does not imply parti- Book Reviews 109

sanship. Woodman provides very balanced and and the invasions of North Africa, Sicily, Italy, insightful descriptions of the naval elements of and Northwest Europe. There are also sections these convoys. He further adds to his masterful on the wartime construction of merchant ships narrative by providing a judicious description of and on the men who manned them. Between the problems and challenges faced by those in May 1940 and May 1944 the British lost 2,284 shore headquarters away from the scene of the merchant ships to all causes, while throughout convoy battles. Thus, in discussing the fatal the war 31,908 British merchant seamen were order to PQ 17 to scatter, he manages to portray killed. This book is therefore also a story of the the Admiralty perspective so convincingly that heroism, fortitude, and sacrifices of the officers the reason for the error is understood, and even and men of the British merchant service who, in arouses sympathy, though it is clear that Wood• large part, made Allied victory possible. man considers the decision a mistake. The book is clearly more a labour of love The book draws on many first-hand than an exercise in academic history, for it is accounts and some archival work, while being focused totally on heroic deeds. The author, heavily supported by secondary sources. The John Slader, served as a British merchant marine author deliberately avoids footnotes and provides officer during the war and is now a retired only a few general notes on each chapter. Six businessman. He seems incapable of leaving out maps and thirty-eight photographs provide good any detail, so that The Fourth Service is some• visual references for the book, although Wood• times more a list or compilation of British man does not include track charts to portray the merchant ships which were attacked, damaged or more important convoy actions and surface en• sunk than a narrative or interpretive history. gagements he describes. There are few errors, Thus, and in contrast to studies such as C.B.A. although Woodman claims that schnorkel-fitted Behrens, Merchant Shipping and the Demands U-boats were operating against arctic convoys as of War, readers will find that Slader gives little early as February 1944, when in fact such attention to such important questions as the allo• equipment did not arrive in northern waters until cation by Allied authorities of merchant ship quite late in that year. tonnage to particular tasks or theatres. The Overall Woodman's book can be recom• Fourth Service is that also marred by errors of mended to anyone with even a passing interest historical judgement and mistakes of fact. Roger in the subject. Not only is it good history, but it Winn was not the "director" of the Government is a superb tale of the sea, with finely sketched Code and Cipher School (p. 13 8) but rather the portraits of the men and conditions of the head of the Submarine Tracking Room in the period. Ruegg and Hague's book will suit a Admiralty's Operational Intelligence Centre; the more limited audience, but serves well as a Pedestal operation is certainly not "probably the reference for those interested in these convoys. best known of any action at sea." (p.215) Fur• thermore, without footnotes, it is difficult to D.M. McLean judge from where or how the author obtained Victoria, British Columbia his information. While the author consulted some materials in the Public Record Office and John Slader. The Fourth Service: Merchantmen the National Maritime Museum, The Fourth at War 1939-45. London: Robert Hale, 1994. Service appears to be based for the most part on 347 pp., photographs, appendices, bibliography, printed secondary sources. indices. £27.99, cloth; ISBN 0-7090-4848-3. Nevertheless, while it is not an academic history and in some respects it is a flawed work, This book is a history of the British merchant The Fourth Service is full of interesting details marine during World War II. It covers in great about the British merchant marine in World War detail every theatre of the war and every aspect II and is good reading for the non-specialist who of the war-time operations of British merchant is interested in the war at sea. ships — the evacuation of Europe in 1940, the Battle of the Atlantic, the Arctic and Mediterra• David Syrett nean convoys, the operations in the Far East, New York, New York 110 The Northern Mariner

John de S. Winser. The D-Day Ships. Neptune: It might also have been more useful had the flo• The Greatest Amphibious Operation in History. tillas and escort groups been consistently indi• Kendal, UK: The World Ship Society, 1994 [28 cated, in order to check, for instance, which Natland Road, Kendal LA9 7LT, England]. 172 River class destroyers were assigned to the 11th pp., maps, photographs, index of vessels, paper; and which to the 12th EGs, and to connect our ISBN 0-905617-75-4 Tribals with the 10th and V's with the 23rd DFs. This book lists 5,015 allied naval and civilian The merits far outweigh such flaws. As ships and craft which took part in Operation with every good reference book, one continually Neptune in June 1944. Seven pages of script, stumbles upon fascinating tit-bits while seeking some sketch maps and a chronology outline the something else; thus we learn that there were 66 concept and its execution and then, as befits a A/S trawlers, 307 minesweepers, twenty differ• work of reference, it gets straight to business. ent landing craft adaptations for purposes as Listing is done in three parts: ships which diverse as fighter direction and field kitchens, carried troops and their gear; main naval escort; and seven vessels that laid cross-channel phone and support forces and "other vessels." Each part cable. The many photographs give life to the is sub-divided by category (e.g. landing ships text and, unusually these days, are positioned infantry, bombardment battleships and cruisers, near relevant narrative. Among the most inter• the anti-submarine screen, block ships, salvage esting are those of coasters stranded for unload• vessels and tugs). Vessel data varies from sec• ing at low tide, an aerial view of some one tion to section. Thus, troopships have tonnage, hundred ships off a beachhead, and small pass• year of building, nationality, owner, and troops enger ferries (with six or eight LCAs at davit and landing craft carried, while bombarding heads) looking like bantam weight-lifters. heavies specify main armament. Generally, all This is a compact but remarkably com• entries include significant movements and ac• prehensive reference which many will find tions. The entries concerning Canadian ships are useful and most enjoy. consistent with Canadian sources. Jack Pick- ford's corvette Rimouski, for example, "left Richard L. Donaldson Forth 23 May with Corncobs." (p.l 12) Corncobs Victoria, British Columbia were convoys of block ships to be sunk as breakwaters for al fresco harbours on the land• Jack Williams. They Led The Way: The Fleet ing beaches. Minesweepers at Normandy, June 1944. Black• Obviously the utility of a reference depends pool, Lanes.: J.F. Williams, 1994 [order from: on the quest. This reviewer, perhaps obsessed J.F. Williams (Oropesa), 395 Lytham Rd., with form, would prefer had proper titles for Blackpool FY4 1EB, Lanes., England], v + 172 each ship's name (e.g. HMCS, RFA, SS, USS, pp., illustrations, charts, figures, photographs, USNS, etc.) not been omitted. It is not always appendices, index. £11.99 plus £1.50 p&p in the clear whether a ship was naval or civilian: our UK and £3.50 p&p for overseas orders (sterling Prince David is shown as a Canadian passenger cheques ONLY), paper; ISBN 0-9523141-0-X. vessel used as a landing ship in the same section as Llangibby Castle, a British passenger liner This is a first class job for a privately published used as a landing ship, and Samuel Chase, a US book, the profits from which go to the Welfare APA. Ships' nationalities are nearly always Section of the Algerines Association, of which stated, exceptions being the RCN Bangors Jack Williams was a founder member and news• attached to the (RN) 16th Minesweeping Flotilla letter editor for many years. The quality of the and the RN danlayers with the (RCN) 31st writing, editing, proofreading and publishing is M/S.F. CNRS members should have little diffi• well above the usual standard for this type of culty with these but numbered craft may present association history. a challenge, with the thirty RCN LCI(L)s simply No one volunteers to serve in minesweep• included in numerical sequence among some ers. It is usually dangerous, complicated, often 184 of the RN, and our MTBs treated similarly. uncomfortable, and for long periods, intensely Book Reviews 111 boring. One rarely sees "the enemy." Perhaps as Williams takes the story from a week or so a result, minesweeping has received little atten• before D-Day to the end of September and the tion from historians. Yet, as Williams' title says, 'sweepers' job off Normandy. The appendices they led the way (at Normandy), ahead of all the describe the various classes of ships involved, landing craft, destroyers and bombardment ships, mine sweeping methods, number of mines swept and, in the motto of the US Navy minesweeping (a surprisingly inaccurate record, he complains!), service, "Where you go, we've been." In addi• and honours and awards (justifiably) given for tion to the Royal Navy's ten minesweeping their part in Operation Neptune — 155 in all, of flotillas of various classes of ships (two aug• which 108 were "Mentions in Despatches." It is mented by eight RCN Bangor Class minesweep• a book of great worth as a handy and evidently ers), there was one completely Canadian Flotilla, accurate reference. Although Williams includes CDR Tony Storr's 31st MSF, and one US Navy no specific source references, a bibliography is Squadron, their 7th, off Normandy on 5-6 June, provided. He also notes, incidentally, that the 1944. Their success is affirmed by the fact that 'sweepers' log books were discarded after the the only ships lost to the large fields of mines in war — an appalling loss! the days of the landings were those that strayed Perhaps just as importantly, he tells the outside the marked lanes and areas. Not only story of the minesweepers in an interesting, even does this emphasize that the lanes were indeed entertaining, fashion. There is a large and useful clear, but also that the little dan-layers that selection of photos as well as sixteen evocative accompanied the 'sweepers were successful in pen-and-ink drawings byN.G.Tacey, describing marking the cleared paths and areas; these small events as they happened in those few intense vessels, usually ex-fishing trawlers, are almost weeks. For a change in such publications, I never mentioned in histories. Here they get hon• found no spelling errors or mistaken references, ourable mention. even on the Canadian side. All this makes it a Williams' approach is straight-forward, tell• book that is well worth shelf space. ing the story of the preparations, the compo• sition of the various flotillas — the Hunt-Class F.M. McKee (built in 1918-19) or "Smokey Joes," for Markdale, Ontario instance, which were "pillars of fire by night, columns of smoke by day," (p.3) the lead-up Marine Nationale. La participation de la Marine sweeping along the English coast; out to the française aux débarquements de Normandie de "Picadilly Circus" departure point in mid-Chan• Corse et de Provence. Vincennes: Service nel, and the assault sweeps to within 1,000 yards historique de la Marine, 1969. 276 pp., tables, of the beaches. The problem of the one day's appendices. FF 110, paper. delay, requiring the 'sweepers to reverse course, sweeps and all, for twelve hours and then carry French naval forces played a significant role in on was an interesting exercise in consummate the liberation of their homeland from German seamanship, as was the later task of sweeping occupation. French warships and naval infantry the bombardment areas under the guns of the units participated in the Neptune landings, the British, French and American battleships, moni• invasion and liberation of Corsica and Operation tors and cruisers, as the latter steamed back and Anvil-Dragoon. Under the direction of the well- forth firing to the Army's requirements. Inter• known naval historian, M. Masson, the historical spersed with this factual narrative are many section of the French Naval Staff has produced direct quotations from the participants them• an excellent study of French naval participation selves: CO.s and watchkeepers, sweep deck in the Normandy, Corsican, and Southern France seamen, visual signalmen and Flotilla Senior campaigns. An older work, published in 1969, Officers. This lends an immediacy to the story the volume is still useful today and deserves — it was not just ships, mines, wet wires and more attention than it has hitherto received. otter boards, it was also living, worrying, The authors provide a wealth of detail on involved crews, as well as those at home who each operation. Equally useful they describe the knew where they would be working their trade. post landing activities of French naval forces. 112 772e Northern Mariner

After the Normandy landings, for example, Headquarters at Northwood, Middlesex. The French warships continued to escort convoys in map was left still showing wartime operations of the English Channel, helped keep German naval aircraft designated for maritime duties in pro• units in check and performed numerous shore tecting convoys,hunting U-boats, and attacking bombardment missions in support of allied enemy coastal targets. The great splash of ocean ground forces in the beachhead. After the allied blue between continents emphasized the magni• breakout French ships participated in operations tude of the task. designed to capture ports along the channel coast Crucible Of War provides a similarly broad and in Brittany. French naval infantry took part perspective to the crucial role of the Royal in attacks to clear the Germans from positions Canadian Air Force during World War II. This near the mouth of the Scheldt and thus free the is an epic volume — 1,096 pages — suitably so, port of Antwerp for allied use. Much of the considering the vastness of its subject. The information on the activities of individual ships Royal Canadian Air Force grew phenomenally and squadrons is highly detailed and is therefore during the war, from a mere 4,061 in September of greater interest to the specialist. Yet the vol• 1939 to a strength of 263,000 men and women uminous details do add up to an excellent in 1945, of whom 93,844 served abroad. During overall picture of the role played by the French those terrible, gallant years, the RCAF became navy in several important campaigns. such a large element of Britain's air offensive In presenting the achievements of the against Nazi Germany, that RCAF personnel French navy the authors avoid a parochial eventually composed over twenty-five percent of approach; instead, they present the activities of RAF Bomber Command, and formed our own the French navy within the broader strategic and Number Six Group. (At hideous cost; 9,919 operational context of allied efforts. The descrip• Canadians died in the skies over Occupied tions of the planning and preparations for Oper• Europe.) As well, there were seven Canadian ation Neptune are a model of clarity and are squadrons in Coastal Command. One unit was easily as good as many later studies. sent to the Far East, where its alertness contrib• The book could well have used a number of uted to the destruction of a Japanese naval fleet. maps, charts and illustrations to enhance what is Our airmen served in every corner of the world, a first-rate piece of work. The Naval Historical a national field of honour that Crucible Of War Section's study is house history in the best sense covers more comprehensively than you would of the term and clearly demonstrates how useful think from all the strident debate when it was such a genre can be. published. Being an official history, it is a joint writ• Steven T. Ross ing effort, one could almost say a committee. Newport, Rhode Island The four-man team of DND historians has compiled and presented an impressive amount of Brereton Greenhous, Stephen J. Harris, William information, so it is unfortunate that so much C. Johnston, and William G.P. Rawling. The media attention was focused at a mere two Crucible of War, 1939-1945. The Official His• pages; the echo of a sensationalized television tory of the Royal Canadian Air Force, Volume programme aired last year. That scurrilous show, III. Toronto: University of Toronto Press in which vilified RCAF bomber crews as "terror• cooperation with the Department of National ists", was succinctly dismissed as "crap" by J.L. Defence and the Canadian Government Publish• Granatstein, one of our most respected military ing Centre, 1994. xxiv + 1096 pp., maps, fig• historians. The issue is explored briefly in ures, photographs, appendices, notes, index. $50 Crucible, if maybe with more presentism than (N. America), £32.50 (UK), US $60 (Europe), one might expect from professionals. However, cloth; ISBN 0-8020-0574-8. any claim that this official history "supports and vindicates" the television producers' revisionism Long after the end of World War II, a huge is proven to be self-seeking nonsense when one 1945 map of the Atlantic dominated the Control actually reads it. It is an unfortunate interlude, Room of Royal Air Force Coastal Command which quite detracts from the book's genuine Book Reviews 113 achievements. Instead, useful media attention ground service crews. But considering the sheer could have been paid to more significant revel• volume of information to be covered, Crucible ations of the struggle for eventual "Canadiani- Of War provides a thorough record of the zation" of RCAF squadrons for virtual autonomy RCAF's achievements — including those who within the Royal Air Force. served literally "over seas." The wartime RCAF's story is presented here in five massive parts: Air Policy; Fighter Sidney Allinson War; Maritime Air War; Bomber War (rightly Victoria, British Columbia forming the bulk); and Air Transport. The Maritime section offers 175 pages, atopic which Gary E. Weir. Forged in War: The Naval- could easily form a separate book. Having spent Industrial Complex and American Submarine many a weary hour crouched in the turrets of Construction, 1940-1961. Washington, DC: Catalinaand Sunderland flying-boats myself just Naval Historical Center, 1993 [order from after war's end, this reviewer can appreciate Superintendent of Documents, P.O. Box 371954, what a demanding job it must have been for Pittsburgh, PA 15250-7954, USA], xvii + 314 aircrew of Coastal Command to protect Atlantic pp., photographs, abbreviations, bibliography, convoys during the war. index. US S14, cloth; ISBN 0-045274-15-7. That wall-map displayed a large black- outlined area dominating the centre of the North Blood, once the price of Admiralty, according to Atlantic, usually called simply "the Gap." It Kipling, is no longer the true price of naval marked the dread region beyond the range of power. From Pax Britannica to Pax Americana Allied aircraft from either side of the ocean for the true measures in the age of industrial war much of the war's duration. There, U-boats are iron and a long purse. Weir's Forged in War could roam and kill virtually at will, safe from makes clear this new truism in a model account aerial observation or attack. Finally though, the of the relationship between industry, science and availability of longer-range escort aircraft closed the American navy during more than twenty the Gap and reduced the heavy toll of merchant years of submarine construction. marine casualties. Weir provides a straight-forward account of Maritime air-war had its purely aggressive submarine design, development, construction side, too, involving continual efforts to destroy management, and the changing operational para• enemy vessels at sea and in harbour. The Bay of meters that concerned American submarine dev• Biscay proved a happy hunting-ground for elopment from 1940 to 1961. The relationship Coastal Command 'planes, particularly after between considerations of cost, technology and being equipped with Leigh searchlights whose strategy are particularly well examined. Weir, a glare could illuminate U-boats on the surface historian with the US Navy's Contemporary His• during darkest night. There's also an unflinching tory Branch, takes us from mobilization of the look here at the early failures of RCAF squad• navy and industry during World War II through rons in their efforts to attack coastal installa• demobilization, the initial Cold War rearmament tions. Obsolescent or unsuitable aircraft, and effort and finally the development of nuclear- lack of crew experience in dealing with vile powered and missile-firing submarines. There is weather, made for ineffective raids and caused much new and fascinating information on the many casualties. Better aircraft and improved origins and problems of these programmes. We combat skills gradually turned the tide, and learn of the influence of German naval efforts to Canadian squadrons became the scourge of launch V-2 rockets from submersible cargo con• German naval forces, particularly along the tainers towed behind U-boats, and how a scien• coasts of Holland and Norway. tific panel meeting to discuss defence against The text is well supported by excellent submarines instead developed the proposal to colour maps, and evocative black and white build offensive missile-firing boats. The legacy photographs. True, there are some obvious of Hyman Rickover also comes in for reassess• omissions; for instance, scant mention is made ment. Weir does not question his brilliance but of the Womens' Air Force or the contribution of shows that Rickover's over-riding concern with 114 The Northern Mariner

safety and immediate requirements may have Vanguard to Trident as a chief reference for changed the trajectory of scientific and engineer• technical and related policy decisions through ing enquiry away from more revolutionary this era. It is likely to remain the definitive achievements in undersea technology. account of post-World War II American sub• Weir's account is doubly commendable, marine developments for many years to come. because leavening the story is a critical analyti• cal device revealing the workings of what he Michael A. Hennessy terms the "naval-industrial complex." Anyone Kingston, Ontario familiar with Weir's earlier monographs, Build• ing American Submarines 1914-1940 (Naval Harry Holmes. The Last Patrol. Shrewsbury, Historical Center, 1991), and Building the UK: Airlife Publishing, 1994. 212 pp., photo• Kaiser s Navy: The Imperial Naval Office and graphs, appendices, bibliography, index. £19.95, German Industry in the Tirpitz Era, 1890-1919 cloth; ISBN 1-85310-414-0. Canadian distribu• (Naval Institute Press, 1992), will be familiar tor, Vanwell Publishing, St. Catharines, ON. with the complex series of relationships between science, industry and naval professionals that he There are few military occupations that elicit a attempts to trace. This elevates the account into more visceral response than that of submariner. a first-class contribution to an evolving interna• It is doubtful that many people could remain tional literature on the history of technology. dispassionate about the prospect of fighting a Weir takes the trouble to explain the genealogy war from within a small, overcrowded, dank, of the ideas borrowed from W.H. McNeill, I.B. and claustrophobic vessel beneath the sea, Holley, and other contributors to the history of constantly facing the danger of being despatched military technology. The "naval-industrial com• to a watery and unmarked grave. Yet thousands plex" he explores is not the stuff of grand con• of sailors did serve on submarines in both world spiracies between industrialists and admirals. wars and many of them did not survive. Harry Rather, he addresses the extraordinary and Holmes' monograph gives an account of those everyday relationships between scientists, de• American subs that failed to return from their signers, engineers, corporations, politicians, last patrol in World War II. captains and admirals, which in some form have The American submarine campaign against been essential since the early age of sail, but Japan from 1941 until 1945 was the most suc• which have taken on greater complexity, as has cessful in history. Ranging throughout the life, in the twentieth century. Pacific, and sometimes right into Japanese It is unfortunate that there is so little Cana• harbours, US Navy submarines inflicted serious dian work addressing similar developments for losses upon the Imperial Japanese Navy and the Royal Canadian Navy and its successor, crippled their enemy's vital but poorly protected MARCOM. The unexamined anti-militarism of merchant fleet. Those achievements, however, Canadian academia has sewn the field with salt. were not without cost. Fifty-two subs were lost, To our loss, this field is likely to remain fallow and Holmes, allotting on average three to four because those who walk it carry the mark of pages per craft, outlines the service record of Cain. them all, focusing on their successes and their All naval historians of this period, amateur last patrols. Reflecting the solitary nature of the and professional, will find Weir's account even- war they fought, the exact manner in which handed and very well documented. As an offi• many of these vessels and their crews met their cial historian he has access to a wide range of end remains a mystery. With skilful use of materials that will remain denied to others for photographs of the subs, often their captains, years to come. As with any book aimed at the and even sometimes their victims, Holmes lay audience, many complex technical items are manages to put across in a most readable fashion simplified. Readers of a technical bent may find the often tragic consequences faced by those his descriptions infuriatingly simple but, given who fought and died beneath the waves. his audience, I did not. This book belongs next The book is not an academic work. The to Hackmann's Seek and Strike and Grove's bibliography includes some primary sources but Book Reviews 115

is not extensive and tends to focus rather nar• is rooted in meticulous research, notably oral rowly on submarines rather than on the wider interviews and diaries, carrying the story from naval picture. There are no footnotes, which is the American landings at Guadalcanal on 7 a shame, as Holmes apparently used (cited in his August through the naval Battle of Guadalcanal bibliography) the personal records of many USN in mid-November 1942. The outcome of these veterans. It would be useful to know who these pivotal struggles was an Allied victory, for men are, not only for interest's sake, but Japan thereafter shifted to the strategic defens• because those papers could be used by others ive. interested in the topic. A number of useful ap• The focus is on the pilots of five Navy pendices are attached, including the technical fighter squadrons, at sea and eventually ashore specifications of the various classes of submar• to the "Canal's" Henderson Field after their ines used by the USN, a chronological listing of carriers were sunk or had to retire to repair vessels lost, as well as a registry of "kills." battle damage — Saratoga, Enterprise, Wasp, Emphasizing that his purpose is to honour the and Hornet. Jimmy Flatley's Fighting 10 (the memories of the dead and the living, Holmes Grim Reapers) has been justly heralded in other also identifies the major American memorials books, but Lundstrom gives Roy Simpler's dedicated to submariners and their ships. Fighting 5 its long overdue recognition as the Well laid out and attractively designed, The workhorse squadron for the critical first nine Last Patrol is a reference guide which could be weeks of the campaign. Averaging about fifty employed usefully in tandem with more substan• Grumman F4F Wildcat fighters at any given tive histories, popular and academic, dealing time, these Navy flyers evenly matched their with the undersea campaign in the Pacific during Japanese counterparts in the more maneuverable World War II. For those interested in looking at Mitsubishi Zero with superior tactics and early how it felt to be at the other end of an American warnings by radar and Allied coastwatchers. The submarine's torpedo, one need only consult mutual pilot attrition suffered in these dogfights Mark P. Parillo's excellent The Japanese Merch• and anti-aircraft fire favoured the Americans, however, because of their replacement policy of ant Marine in World War II (published in 1993 rotating home veteran pilots before pilot fatigue and reviewed in The Northern Mariner, April compromised their skills, in contrast to the 1994). A Japanese merchant seaman's lot, given Japanese who spent their "top guns" in deference the increasing deadliness of the US Navy's and to the code of Bushido, fighting and dying for the Imperial JapaneseNavy's ignorance concern• the Emperor. ing submarine warfare, was not a happy one. The First Team is tactical history at its Galen Perras finest. The exciting descriptions of aerial combat Gloucester, Ontario follow a day-by-day format and give almost equal attention to bombing and torpedo planes John B. Lundstrom. The First Team and the as well, especially in the carrier battles of the Guadalcanal Campaign: Naval Fighter Combat Eastern Solomons and the Santa Cruz Islands. from August to November 1942. Annapolis, MD: The major role of the several Marine Corps Naval Institute Press, 1994. xxi + 626 pp., fighter squadrons is given its due, as other photographs, maps, figures, tables, appendices, works have, including the newest, Marion Carl's notes, sources, index. Cdn $61.50, US $44.95, autobiographical Pushing the Envelope (Naval cloth; ISBN 1-55750-526-8. Institute Press, 1994). Lundstrom documents in astounding detail each individual airplane flown, In this second and final volume of his masterful down to its Bureau of Aeronautics catalogue account of the US Navy's fighter planes in com• number; each pilot; and each mission, Japanese bat for the first twelve months of the Pacific as well as American. A typical example is J.J. war, John Lundstrom has written the proverbial Southerland's dogfight on 7 August with the last word on the subject. Like The First Team: celebrated Saburo Sakai, until the former ran out Pacific Naval Air Combat from Pearl Harbor to of ammunition and had to bail out. (pp.53-55) Midway (Naval Institute Press, 1984), this work Lundstrom is to be especially congratulated 116 The Northern Mariner

for his sagacious handling of statistics, namely by choosing to turn a "blind eye" to the surren• the realistic number of kills against the greatly der order. inflated claims by pilots — 102 instead of the The book was developed almost entirely 193 reported by the five fighter squadrons. Still, from the translation of Admiral Ugaki's diary, throughout 1942, "the U.S. Navy's fighter pilots published in part in 1952 and subsequently faced the best aviators the Imperial Navy would translated, annotated with American records, and ever wield," (p.529) meaning that the much published in 1991 under the title Fading Victory higher Allied scores of 1943-45 were over pilots (reviewed in TNM/LMN). It is the only known who were downright inferior, even deficient. diary to be kept by a senior officer. The story Much of this success was due to adapting to the starts prior to Japan's entry into World War II, shortcomings of the Zero, knowledge enhanced including the events both military and political by the capture of a Zero in the Aleutians during which culminated in the Pearl Harbor attack of the Midway operations, the results to which the December 1941. The reader is afforded an author devotes an entire appendix. insight into the form of government which then Understandably, Lundstrom identifies him• ruled Japan, together with the dominating influ• self with the men on the scene and consequently ence of the Japanese Army, and to a slightly defends the US carrier admirals relieved of their lesser extent that of the Imperial Japanese Navy. commands and criticized by historians, including The author describes the ease with which this reviewer, ever since — Frank Jack Fletcher, Japan conquered all before it, certainly in the Leigh Noyes, and Thomas C. Kincaid. His views initial phase of its assault. The Japanese military are supported by Stephen D. Regan's biography leaders were so confident that their strategy of Fletcher, In Bitter Tempest (Iowa State would deliver southeast Asia, that they dis• University Press, 1994) and Gerald E. Wheeler's counted the ability of the west to recover and to Kincaid of the Seventh Fleet (Naval Historical fight back. As nearly all of the then senior Center, 1994). These arguments are soundly officers had grown up within the then-prevailing researched, but solid documentation for the religious/cultural environment, they had no idea reasoning behind these personnel decisions by of the potential war-making capability of the the high command remains elusive. west. They soon discovered that their absence of The First Team is also notable for its natural resources left them open to being lit• excellent photographs, charts, and diagrams of erally starved and bombed out. They planned on Japanese air attack formations. Author and a very short, violent, war to gain control of oil publisher alike deserve the highest praise for fields, minerals and the like. The results of this having produced, in both volumes, the definitive adventure is now history. work on the subject. The diary provides a detailed chronological sequence of the war as seen and recorded by Clark G. Reynolds Admiral Ugaki. His comments on the two Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina philosophical camps within the Japanese navy are interesting, as are his comments on the Edwin P. Hoyt. The Last Kamikaze: The Story rather surprising lack of co-ordination at middle of Admiral Matome Ugaki. Westport, CT: and senior rank Army and Navy operations Praeger, 1993. xvi + 235 pp., photographs, commands. There are no maps in this book to notes, selected bibliography, index. US $22.95, assist the reader in following the routes of fleets cloth; ISBN 0-275-94067-5. and task forces and to provide a sense of the vast distances involved. Admiral Ugaki was killed while leading the final The Last Kamikaze is an engaging and kamikaze attack of the Pacific War. In fact, he readable extract/summary of Admiral Matome left on his last raid after Japan had surrendered. Ugaki's diary. Readers are spared being over• He was so imbued with the will to die and to whelmed by statistics (there aren't any) or join the thousands of Japanese navy fliers, technical description of equipment and ships. whom he had sent before him, that he removed The focus is on a dedicated, professional his badges of rank and disobeyed his Emperor Imperial Japanese Navy Officer whose devotion Book Reviews 117 to his Emperor and to his country was his views and narratives from those who served on driving force. He regarded his own self-inflicted Taney. The full span of attitudes in the USCG is demise as the inevitable culmination of his presented, from the strict prewar division career. Nevertheless, The Last Kamikaze is between officers and men in the USCG to the somewhat superficial, so that the serious student discipline of the postwar years to drug problems of the life of Admiral Ugaki would probably do in the post-Vietnam era, and then the "tight better to read Fading Victory. ship" of the '80s. The narratives add colour and provide insights to US Coast Guard life. Douglas Meredith Good detail appears within: there is a short Westbank, British Columbia section about "Soogie," the ship's dog from 1937-1948; an explanation of the role of the US Brian J. Whetstine. The Roger B.: The History Public Health Service vis-a-vis the US Coast of the USCGC TANEY (WHEC-37). Dallas, TX: Guard; and a list and photos of all Taney's Taylor Publishing, 1993. 104 pp., photographs, skippers from 1936-1986 (one of whom event• maps, illustrations. $29.95, cloth; no ISBN. ually became Commandant of the Coast Guard). The importance of Taney to the USCG is made The Roger B. Taney is perhaps the US Coast clear; at times, Taney was an élite assignment, at Guard's best-known cutter, and certainly one of other times, much less so. its longest-lived. It was commissioned in Octo• The book is well-illustrated with many ber 1936 and decommissioned fifty years later, photographs; Taney underwent numerous in December 1986. She was at Pearl Harbor changes in detail and armament in her long-life, when the Japanese struck in 1941 and was the and these are shown. The photographs are of last survivor of that attack on active duty with value to the modeller and the marine artist. any fleet. (For symbolic reasons, the battleship Symbolically, Taney was decommissioned USS Arizona, sunk in the attack, remains on the on the forty-fifth anniversary of the Pearl Har• US Navy roster.) Brian Whetstine, a Coast bor attack. Fortunately, she was not scrapped, Guard officer, has written an engaging history of but was preserved and is now part of the Mari• the Roger B. Taney. The book is reminiscent in time Museum in Baltimore, Maryland, where style of Allan Snowie's The Bonnie or Betty she can be toured by the public. America's Warrilow's "Nabob." taxpayers got their money's worth from USCGC Whetstine starts with Taney's commission• Roger B. Taney. So too will purchasers of ing and includes a good account of her prewar Whetstine's book. The book is a well-written, service. He deals with Taney during the Pearl worthy tribute to a ship that served America and Harbor attack, and has a thorough narrative of the USCG well. her World War II activities. He then covers Taney's postwar career: on weather stations Robert L. Shoop during the Korean War, interdiction duty during Colorado Springs, Colorado the Vietnam conflict, and ending her career fully involved in drug interdiction in the Caribbean. Jonathan M. Weisgall. Operations Crossroads: In 1985, near the end of her career, Taney The Atomic Tests at Bikini Atoll. Annapolis, conducted a drug bust which seized over 160 MD: Naval Institute Press, 1994. xix + 415 pp., tons of marijuana — at that time, a record for maps, figures, photographs, appendix, notes, drug intercepts. Few ships of any military force bibliography, index. Cdn $44.95, US $31.95, have had so long and successful a career. It is cloth; ISBN 1-55750-919-0. Canadian distribu• not too much to say that Taney is to the US tor, Vanwell Publishing, St. Catharines, ON. Coast Guard what HMCS Haida or HMCS Sackville are to the Royal Canadian Navy. Jonathan Weisgall's book on the Able and Baker This is more than simply a recitation of atomic bomb tests of 1946 is based on a com• Taney's service career; much is written on life mendable amount of research that certainly aboard her. Whetstine draws material from inter• precludes the work from being dismissed as "non-academic," even though it is not written by 118 The Northern Mariner a professional historian. The archival sources, author displays over relatively minor events also the interviews and the secondary literature found tends to detract from the story, as well as from in the bibliography leave little doubt that the the credibility of the work. One example of this adjunct professor of law at Georgetown Univer• was the description of the logistics and support sity Law Centre has done his homework. necessary for the operation, (pp.117-118) Weis• Weisgall uses a moralizing, preaching, gall seems amazed that the US Navy could backward-looking approach in his telling of the muster the wherewithal to move and sustain tale that I found disturbing. Much of the book's 42,000 people for a few months under peaceful material was used in Weisgall's capacity as law• conditions, never realizing that this was a navy yer for the Bikini islanders in their various legal that had moved and supplied, in wartime, mil• actions against the US government. And Weis• lions of men overseas in a number of theatres. gall is still trying to make his case, only now As an addition to the knowledge of mari• with a bigger audience. time issues, and in particular as a study of the There is far too much of the "should have battle between the Navy and the Air Force to known this" or "could have done that" tone to control atomic weapons in the post-war period, the book. The description of the technology this book has little value. As an exploration of available for measuring radiation, for accurately America's guilt over the use of atomic weapons, counting doses, or the level of understanding of or as a general chronological survey of the day- the fallout effects of a nuclear blast turns the to-day events seen through the eyes of the time arrow into a rearward looking position. people who were at those tests, this is a good, Certainly there were risks in these tests, certain• easy read. Perhaps most importantly, the book is ly at various levels of government and within a fine guide to a large number of better sources the scientific community there was a question of on the topic of early nuclear weapons develop• usefulness, but are the decisions to go ahead ment, at both the primary and secondary levels. with these tests criminal actions? The tone of the book is that Weisgall wants the reader to say Greg Kennedy yes. But is that fair? It appears to be more an Kingston, Ontario attempt to project present day values and judg• ments on nuclear war, pollution through nuclear Curtis A. Utz. Cordon of Steel: The U.S. Navy testing, and the rights of the Bikini islanders into and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Washington, DC: a time where the context and perspective were Naval Historical Center, 1993 [order from entirely at odds with such judgments. Superintendent of Documents, P.O. Box 371954, This book would have been well served by Pittsburgh, PA 15250-7954, USA]. 48 pp., some judicious editing. It is unfair to use that photographs (b+w, colour), maps, suggested old clichéd review line that "In this book is a readings. US $5.50, paper; ISBN 0-945274-23-8. great article just waiting to come out," but it is a near-run thing. Far too much of the early part Cordon of Steel is the first offering in a new of the book is caught up in unnecessary, and series of publications looking at US naval incomplete, discussions of pre-war naval build• operations since 1945 that is intended for the ing programmes, war-time naval strategy and general reader rather than the specialist. Pres• early cold war politics, material that is covered ented much in the style of Proceedings, it is more fully in other works. Weisgall should have easy to read and very well illustrated. Its mes• footnoted these areas and moved on to the meat sage is also very clear: navies are still valuable of his book, which is the actual events surround• instruments of foreign policy. ing the two detonations, the personalities In explaining the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis involved in running the Bikini operations, and the author makes the assumption that his readers the case of the islanders being moved to accom• have little or no knowledge of those complex modate the blast. In these areas as well better events. This is wise, particularly as most other editing would have eliminated a number of accounts of the crisis are academic and intended repetitious images. to draw out specific lessons. With the entire The almost "golly-gee" attitude that the resources of the US Naval Historical Center at Book Reviews 119 his disposal it would have been easy to fall into at the height of the crisis, those submarines left the trap of writing the definitive history of naval their home bases some two to three weeks operations during October and November 1962. earlier, thereby reinforcing the view that moving Instead, Curtis Utz takes the reader carefully by the missiles and other military equipment and the hand through the political background first people to Cuba was a carefully orchestrated from the Soviet point of view and then the military operation and not just the whim of Kennedy administration's handling of Khrush• Nikita Khrushchev. chev's calculated gamble before getting into the As the author concludes, situations such as naval role in the crisis. the Cuban Missile Crisis demonstrate the import• As one would expect, the story is told from ance of naval forces in "the modern international the American perspective and does not reflect security environment." Some people may want some of the revisionist theories that attempt to to see Cordon of Steel as just a sales pitch for justify the Russian rationale for trying to turn American seapower. They are wrong. Although Cuba into a strategic bridgehead. Yet the narra• not written in classic historical form, the book is tive is not insular, and it is reassuring to find good modern history. It tells the story of a very several references, including a photograph, to important incident in a clear and concise way. the Canadian role at sea in the anti-submarine When one understands the extent of the Ameri• operations that were part of the overall response. can response to the Soviet attempt to move The involvement of several Latin American strategic weapons into Cuba the lack of attention warships at the end of the crisis is also men• in Canada to the role played by the Royal tioned. A few select anecdotes prevent the Canadian Navy and Royal Canadian Air Force account from becoming dry. Nevertheless, the is worrying. One cannot help but wonder if author makes it quite clear that his book is, first Canadians really understand just how close to and foremost, the story of US naval operations the brink we actually stood in October 1962. For during the Cuban crisis. Despite the references all these reasons, Cordon of Steel is important in to Canadian and Latin American forces, one helping Canadians understand recent history. cannot avoid being left with the view that the crisis was an event directed and largely per• Peter T. Haydon formed by Americans. And when seen in its Bedford, Nova Scotia entirety, that is the reality. On the other hand, perhaps Canadians tend to overestimate the Charles Mazel. Heave Ho! My Little Green Book value of their contribution to international of Seasickness. Camden, ME: International Mar• ventures. With a military heritage not widely ine, 1992. xi + 116 pp., illustrations. US S7.95, understood or even respected, especially in our paper; ISBN 0-87742-324-4. Distributed in own country, we tend to place more store in our Canada by McGraw-Hill Ryerson, Whitby, ON. successes than sometimes warranted as a means of counteracting the lack of public recognition. In the history of human malady, seasickness In explaining how naval forces were used to occupies a unique position. It has inspired enforce the quarantine and prosecute the many apprehension and fear, even terror, in the mil• Soviet submarines that entered Canadian and lions; it has provided the best approximation to American waters during the crisis, the author near-death experience to hundreds of thousands; makes wide use of maps, photographs, and and yet, mercifully, it has rarely been fatal. The dialogue boxes to amplify his narrative. The majority of sufferers, having seen across the result is that his wide and necessary use of void, have returned chastened, yet often military terms is not overbearing and Cordon of heartened by the experience: they become, Steel becomes a fascinating insight into the especially if they can retain their sense of workings of a naval force of the early Cold War humour, as Charles Mazel indelibly demon• era. My only criticism is that more could have strates, better (and usually slimmer) people. been said about the Soviet submarines, particu• This book is a curious combination. It is a larly about why they were deployed into North serious book in that it treats a serious subject. American waters. To be on patrol off our shores But it is also, and perhaps primarily, a humorous 120 The Northern Mariner

book. There is nothing amiss in this. The author who, going about his illicit business, found to takes the position that seasickness is a natural his surprise that, unusually, he did not get human condition and that laughter is one of the seasick; ammonia with opium, taken internally, essential ingredients in coping with it. The or taken externally in the form of an opium question is whether he convinces the reader that plaster on the pit of the stomach; the "cocaine he has the right mix of gravity — in his aetiolo- solution" as a solution! How popular some of gical analysis — and levity — in the reactive these nostrums could be with our counterculture. giggles which inform commonplace commentary Equally delightful are the remedies based on this sickness. on food and drink. Ginger and egg whites were The book's ten brief chapters are liberally thought to be good specifics. Pliny recom• interspersed with quotations, diagrams, cartoons mended absinthe; later pundits favoured brandy. and tables. The first four chapters (and the last Others solemnly decreed that no alcohol but chapter) are the most satisfying, for they address champagne could be effective: this was the various fundamental issues: the nature of sea• school of thought that supposed that liberated sickness; the kinds of people affected and the gases from the champagne (or from pickled conditions in which the malady flourishes; onions!) would squeeze and thus stabilise the remedies and alleviation; the role of psychology. intestines and gastric organs, providing a These and associated questions are deftly and defence against an upset stomach! This led, in intelligently discussed, with numerous quotations turn, to attempts to develop mechanical devices to illustrate the evolution of ideas about seasick• to prevent sickness: padded belts with steel ness. We learn, for example, that the ever green plates to hold the stomach together; spinal ice- Hippocrates, over 2300 years ago, recognised bags; masks for oxygen, atropine and carbon that "sailing on the seas proves that motion dioxide. And beyond these individual parapher• disorders the body." nalia, there were elaborately designed purpose- But just why this should be was not def• built furniture, cabins, and even ships, none of initively elaborated until recently — and we still which provided a complete remedy. But the do not know the exact physiology of the prob• aims embraced by these items have passed via lem. Mazel leads us through a maze of explana• the gyroscope, moveable ballast, and stabilisers tions, moving from the sixteenth century "ayre into the more comfortable shipping of today. and vapours of the sea" to nineteenth and early All of the above account is accomplished twentieth century "blood and guts" theories: with economy and grace. The historical and cerebral anaemia; muscular tension; the visceral scientific narrative is clearly drawn, and spiced vacuum; the bouncing brain; vestibular over• with an impressive array of literary quotation; in stimulation. All these theories, in the nature of addition to those already cited, Mazel makes things, were incomplete: many were frankly frequent recourse to Plato, Sophocles, Byron, wrong; others were accurate in some aspects but Johnson, Disraeli, Twain, Homer, Masefield, confused cause and effect. Only gradually did Horace, Seneca, Caesar, Bacon, Dickens, Bierce, the accumulation of observation and experience Jerome and a host of less well known, but coalesce in the late twentieth century in the authoritative medical, scientific and nautical more satisfactory theory of sensory conflict sources. It is learning lightly worn and faithfully which incorporates considerations of unstable expressed. It incorporates both humour and wis• motion and the crucial functioning of the inner dom and is a creditable addition to the literature. ear. Unfortunately, from this point on, the book Even more engaging, and graphic, are takes a dive in both substance and tone. Chapter accounts of the various remedies postulated for 5, entitled "Sex and the Seasick Sailor — the seasickness, the most impressive of which are shortest story ever told" consisting of two the attempted physical cures: creosote pills entirely blank pages, is not so much objection• which worked well, but which smelled so awful able as it is simply weak. It does not even make they made the taker sick, though not necessarily it as undergraduate humour and is best forgot• seasick; the "bagge of saffron" hidden next to ten. Chapters 6 through 9 purport to deal more the stomach by a seventeenth-century smuggler practically with matters of seasickness on board, Book Reviews 121

particular attention being paid to menus, food relatively simple. Yet he also shows that the preparation, eating, and the subsequent loss of computer can serve as an additional crew mem• food. Sadly, this section is played principally for ber when linked to the appropriate peripherals. cheap laughs: while there is a place for all The computer can relieve you of the drudgery of genres of humour, any type used to excess palls steering on long passages; when connected to and loses its force. This is just what happens in radar, Loran or GPS receivers, the autohelm and the latter half of Mazel's work — four chapters with appropriate chart software, the yacht will of proto-scatological lee-rail humour, built stay on course even if you fall overboard. around barfing, puking, upchucking, retching There is a good section on the peripherals and spewing, all amusing enough in small com• for sending and receiving information from your pass, but here carried to tedious excess. Happily, boat. Not only can you now navigate with more in the final chapter, Mazel returns to a lucid accuracy and have better weather information, response to what he terms "Serious answers to you can also stay in constant touch with onshore your seasickness questions" and redeems himself locations. In fact your yacht can become your with five pages which are worth publishing, and office where you can write, send and receive well worth reading. reports, manage your investment portfolio, do almost anything that does not require face-to- Michael Staveley face communication. This is a real advantage for St. John's, Newfoundland those wishing to live and work on their yacht but can be a problem if you see boating as a Randall Brink. The Seagoing Computer. Cam• way to relieve the stress of the workplace. den, ME: International Marine, 1994. viii +183 This little volume is a good source of pp., photographs, appendices, glossary, index. practical information for those just starting out Cdn $25.95, paper; ISBN 0-87742-364-4. Dis• on the information superseaway. Over twenty of tributed in Canada by McGraw-Hill Ryerson, its pages are devoted to navigation tasks. Several Whitby, ON. navigation and charting software products are described. Each includes what the program can This is a relative short book packed with enough do and the hardware necessary to run each. The information to get the computer neophyte sailing programs span the range from courses on celes• down the information superseaway. Randall tial navigation at about $44 to surveying/scienti• Brink takes us through the complete process of fic systems costing over $2500. Programs for outfitting a pleasure/office boat, beginning with both IBM type and Macintosh computers are the selection of a computer. Brink discusses shown. An additional twenty-four pages are several alternatives, from large desk-top models devoted to manufactures and suppliers of the through notebooks to those especially adapted to materials mentioned in the book. The categories harsh environments. The focus is on the operat• include Inmarsat-C equipment, hand-held navi• ing characteristics of the software and the gation calculators, electronic charting equipment connections required for additional hardware and GPS computer interface equipment, to mentioned later in the book. In the installation mention just a few. Also included is information section the main concerns are the space available on nine on-line services useful for the full time for the computer and safety, both for the sailor mariner complete with phone numbers, modem and the machine. Brink identifies some of the settings and current cost of each. problems associated with an on-board computer, If you plan to computerize your yacht, pick particularly the provision of adequate reliable up this book. It is packed with a lot of practical power and the challenge of trouble shooting information about almost everything you need to when service personnel are not readily available. know, whether it is for short stays on board or Once a computer is selected and installed, if you want to live and work at sea for the Brink turns to the role it is to play. He describes foreseeable future. many shipboard tasks. Some, like keeping the log, recording the stores, and keeping track of Roy Hostetter maintenance jobs, both done and to be done, are Corner Brook, Newfoundland