BOOK REVIEWS

Glynn Barratt. Melanesia and the Western tics, cartography and climate. In dealing Polynesian Fringe: Vol. III of Russia and fairly with such a variety of interests Bar• the South Pacific, 1696-1840 (Pacific Mari• ratt has treated them in the best dispas• time Studies Series, Vol. 8). Vancouver: sionate method, of which Montesquieu University of British Columbia Press, was once the literary paradigm and Cook 1989. xii + 257 pp., maps, illustrations, the acting example. The book is complete• bibliography. $45, cloth. ISBN 0-7748- ly free of that "relevant" moralizing ped• 0338-X. antry that turns so much modern attention to the past into mush. The Russians them• This book tries to cover a great deal of selves contributed a good deal to this clear material and the prose occasionally result, as the author recognizes. The voy• labours under the load. It also suffers ages, especially those of Golovnin and from maps that inadequately match its Bellingshausen, while obviously dedicated geographical pretensions, and its illustra• to the purposes of providing staging posts tions are of poorer quality than the rich or hideaways conveniently placed on the source material seems to demand, the dust route from St. Petersburg to Kamchatka, jacket excepted. The illustrations seem to took a low-key, pragmatic approach to have deserved better results from the their wider purpose, and, looking back, Press' reproduction capacities. one is hard put to it to discover whether These caveats aside, this book is a main purposes were political or ethno- credit to Canadian scholarship. Freed by scientific. Cook, who is constantly evoked topic from the inhibiting tendrils of the by the editor and the discoverers them• nationalist miasma, Glynn Barratt has selves as role model, did set the stage. The produced a beautifully crafted view into Cook we see through the eyes of Beagle- the Russian Navy's contribution to hole was a man with precise enough politi• Melanesia in particular, and the South cal-economic instincts and instructions, but Pacific in general. As in all his work the a man who simply could not act as if naval marriage of fact and understanding is power projections were always to be tri• precise and always illuminating. The umphant. He became a scientific-ethno• material is beautifully crafted by the edi• logical cartographer because he could not tor, dealing as it does with a few voyages help himself. So, in turn, it appears to of the Imperial Russian Navy which, none have been with Golovnin and Bellings• the less, was forced to deal with a multi• hausen. plicity of purposes and encounters - mili• Of course, it is true, as the editor tary posts, supply supports, ethnological notes, that close ties between the Russian and ethnographic developments, linguis• and English Navies were likely to produce

The Northern Mariner/Le Marin du nord, I, No. 1 (January 1991), 39-73.

39 40 The Northern Mariner such results in the age of Nelson~but it is Alaska. But the appalling shipwreck was perhaps more to the point to realize that overshadowed by two concurrent tragedies the quality of the Russian effort had in• which took millions of lives, the Great digenous roots as well and that the chief War and the influenza epidemic, and few problem of the Russian sailors was the today remember the loss of the Princess disgraceful way the home bureaucracy sat Sophia. Time has healed most of the tra• on the reports of these very able eight• gic wounds of that period, but the sad eenth century naval officers. The story of the shipwreck is recalled in a new blinkered, insensitive response of the Rus• book by two Canadian historians. sian autocracy and its bureaucracy to the The Princess Sophia, built in Paisley, intelligent work of dedicated sailors needs Scotland in 1911-1912, was a steel single- to be remembered - especially as the Rus• screw steamer of 2320 tons gross, 245 feet sians are now attempting to free them• long, powered by a triple expansion engine selves from a worse bureaucratic tyranny. with a maximum speed of 14.5 knots. She Thus, out of a confused untidy setting was the finest and newest ship operating emerged an humane, clear-eyed approach on the run between Alaska and that paid its dues to both "Science" and Vancouver, well found, well-manned, the civilization of "Christian" Europe as equipped with wireless, and meeting all well as to the purposes of the autocracy. safety requirements. On the fatal voyage Barratt's careful chronicling of this she carried, in addition to seventy-five achievement is done with imagination and crew and "workaways," a maximum list of sympathy, and with understanding of what 278 passengers, although there may also is due to the activities in retrospect. Fur• have been some stowaways. They were thermore he possessed the scholarly capa• miners, businessmen, civil servants, their city to produce such an impressive result. I wives and children, representing a signifi• hope that the book is widely read, in naval cant cross section of the population of the history circles and beyond them. Yukon and Alaska, travelling south in one of the last boats of the season to avoid the Donald M. Schurman northern freeze-up. There was scarcely a Kingston, Ontario family in the northland that was not there• fore affected by the tragedy. In addition Ken Coates and Bill Morrison. The Sink• the ship carried many of the crews of the ing of the Princess Sophia: Taking the Yukon River steamboat fleet. North Down With Her. Toronto: Oxford The liner left Skagway, at the head of University Press, 1990. 216 pp., illustrated, the Lynn Canal, on the early evening of maps. $16.95, paper. ISBN 0-19-5407849. October 25, 1918. She soon ran into a raging storm, for Lynn Canal is notorious The greatest maritime tragedy ever to for the sudden furious gales that whip occur on the Pacific coast was the sinking down its narrow waters from the north. A of the Canadian Pacific steamer Princess blinding snowstorm destroyed visibility, Sophia on October 25, 1918, when all 353 and somehow Capt. L.P. Locke lost his passengers and crew died in the icy waters bearings. At 2 a.m., at a speed of twelve of the Lynn Canal, Alaska. The shock to knots, she ran up on Vanderbilt Reef, a the people of the Pacific Northwest was then poorly-marked rock in the centre of devastating, particularly in the Yukon and the channel. There she settled fair and Book Reviews 41 square on an even keel. The captain Alaska went into mourning. thought she was safe for the time-being, The subsequent marine enquiry but she had actually suffered a mortal absolved the C.P.R. from blame, for there wound to her hull. were no witnesses alive to tell exactly what A distress call was sent out, and sev• happened. Many relatives of the victims eral small vessels arrived on the scene sued the railway company in the American from the nearby port of Juneau the next courts for damages. The litigation went on morning. It was hoped that she would for years, entailing huge legal fees, and did float off at high tide, but it was not to be. not end until October 1932, when the U.S. The storm became more violent with Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favour winds from fifty to one hundred miles per of limited liability for the defendants. As a hour. Captain Locke refused to lower the result, the relatives received nothing. Rela• lifeboats for fear they would be dashed tives of crew members of the ship and of against the reef. Apparently he thought the river steamers were more fortunate. that the storm would soon abate. Instead, The C.P.R. fought in the Canadian courts the storm continued to increase in against payment by the Workmen's Com• strength, forcing the small vessels standing pensation Board of British Columbia, on by to take refuge. For forty hours the reef the grounds that the tragedy occurred in maintained its grip on the ship, while all Alaska waters, and was thus outside Brit• aboard awaited rescue. The grinding of ish Columbia jurisdiction. Canadian courts the ship's plates on the reef added to the concurred, and the litigation went to the apprehension of those aboard. At 4:30 on final court of appeal, the Privy Council in the afternoon of Friday, October 25, a London, which ruled in favour of the fateful message was transmitted from the bereaved relatives. Widows received the Sophia. "Ship foundering on reef. Come at modest sum of $20 a month life pension, once." At 5:20 the static broke with the with a bonus of $5 a month for each horrifying message from wireless operator orphaned child. David Robinson: "For God's sake hurry. The two authors of the book have The water is coming in my room." It was approached the tragic story in scholarly the last human contact with the ship. She fashion. The opening chapters trace the slipped off the reef into the icy seas and lives of many of the victims, emulating the sank like a stone. Every human aboard technique used by Walter Lord in A Night perished, and within hours the adjacent to Remember, about the loss of the Titanic. waters were littered with bodies. Only a Stress is made of the fact that the loss of dog swam safely to shore. the Princess Sophia was part of the inexor• The people of nearby Juneau rose to able decline of the gold rush communities the crisis, as they searched for bodies, of the north, which lost many of their washed the oil-soaked and battered most prominent citizens. Appendices corpses, and prepared them for decent include the names of all known victims of burial. The Canadian Pacific rescue ships the disaster, awards made by the Princess Alice and Tees arrived only in Workmen's Compensation Board, and two time to carry the makeshift coffins south. letters written aboard the ship that were Their arrival in Vancouver coincided with washed ashore with the bodies. The book the joyous celebration of the armistice on clearly demolishes many wild rumours November 11. The Yukon Territory and which flourished at the time, such as the 42 The Northern Mariner canard that Captain Locke refused to The Loss of the Janet Cowan concerns launch the boats in order to save money one of the most tragic shipwrecks on the for the C.P.R. west coast. On December 31, 1895, the The authors are guilty of one geo• British barque Janet Cowan ran aground graphical "howler." They have the Princess near Pachena Point. Three crew drowned Sophia sailing north up Howe Sound en while bringing supplies ashore. Four more, route to Skagway. That would have taken including Captain Magnus Thompson, died her to Squamish. And Johnstone Strait is five to six days later from exposure. Thir• misspelled Johnson Strait. There are excel• teen crew were rescued on January 11, lent photographs and maps, but the book 1896 and the remaining nine had to wait would have profited from an index. two more days on the frozen cliff. The Janet Cowan disaster lead to recommen• Norman Hacking dations for the creation of the shipwrecked North Vancouver, British Columbia mariner's trail and a lighthouse at Pachena Point. Sadly these recommendations were Richard E. Wells. The Loss of the Janet not carried out until after the wreck of the Cowan. Sooke, B.C.: The Author, 1989. 68 Valencia (1906) when 126 died. pp., maps, photos, illustrations and appen• Like many self published books, 77ie dices. Paper; ISBN 0-9693073-4-9. Loss of the Janet Cowan, lacks clear illus• trations and crisp editing. Dick Wells' Richard E. Wells. There's a Landing drawings are normally one of the strengths Today. Victoria, B.C.: Sono Nis Press, of his books, but here they are fussy and 1988. 83 pp., maps, photos and appendices. the photos blurred. The ship wreckage Paper; ISBN 0-155039-006-6. diagram is unreadable. Discovering unknown manuscripts and ferreting out Hundreds of shipwrecks lie near forgotten shipwreck facts are his stock and trade. along the historic West Coast Lifesaving These new facts are analyzed with a per• Trail between Bamfield and Port Renfew sonal touch, ie.: a visit to the wreck site on Vancouver Island. Backpackers now with a survivor's son and the plotting of pass along the rock trail and wind swept the Janet Cowan's last track. However, his sand beaches where exhausted, near fine research and analysis would benefit frozen shipwrecked mariners struggled from a publisher's editorial pen. Often, the years before to reach the nearest light• facts hang heavy adding little to the story, house. The Trail has been in the Pacific ie.: the last line on the wreck and rescue Rim National Park Reserve since 1970 but states on p. 22 that "the Janet Cowan had the shipwrecks remain unmarked. Often cost 26,000 pounds to build and was their dramatic tales are no more than a insured for 30,000 pounds." So. footnote on the park guides. Dick Wells is There's a Landing Today is a narrative trying to change that. Most of his eight of stories and twenty pages of photos con• maritime history books or "booklets" are cerning the pioneer settlers along the targeted at the Pacific Rim backpacker West Coast Lifesaving Trail. The stories and diver. Sized to fit into a jacket pocket, centre on the Logan Family of Clo-oose, brief in pages, and full of photos or Dick's midway on the trail between Bamfield and pen drawings, they are a popular addition Port Renfrew, Vancouver Island. The to modern west coast adventures. Logan family were one of the first settlers Book Reviews 43 of Clo-oose (meaning "safe landing" in ly it has three hundred members in about Nitinat). Logans built the first store, twenty-five countries throughout the world. helped construct the lifesaving trail, One of the primary aims of the ICMM is worked as fallers, crewed on fish boats, to foster knowledge of each other's institu• rescued shipwrecked mariners, trapped tions as well as beneficial working rela• furs, etc. tionships among its members. This it does, Life on the trail was one of isolation. most successfully, through its triennial Landings were difficult on the storm swept conferences held at prestigious maritime straight coast line. Like most "northern" centres. towns a supply ship's infrequent visits were In the early 1980s it was decided to cause for community celebration. Those hold informal gatherings around the days are gone. Helicopters and satellites annual executive meetings. Such an event have replaced the ferries and telegraph was held in Liverpool, England in 1986; Unes. Communication is now instantaneous the proceedings of this conference have but the community may not be as close. been assembled into this book. In his That is There's a Landing Today's mess• introduction, the editor, Mike Stammers age. It is nostalgically told with scattered (Keeper of the Merseyside Maritime stories of every day life in a harsh but Museum), indicates that although the boldly beautiful land. papers were informal they contained "so That rugged beauty draws sailors, much good matter...that it was decided to hikers, scuba divers and west coast mari• publish them." He is perfectly correct. time history buffs in increasing numbers. The thirteen papers included in the For them this book will provide a useful book are divided into three main sections glimpse at pioneers of the region. Indeed, based on three conference sessions: "Liver• both books will leave their readers de• pool and North Wales"; "Ship Preserva- manding more, for many stories still wait tion - the Future?"; and "New Maritime to be told along the West Coast Lifesaving Museum Developments in the United Trail. Kingdom." The first session in fact supplemented Thomas F. Beasley tours of the Merseyside Maritime Museum Vancouver, British Columbia in its new location in the renovated Albert Dock complex as well as one to the Michael Stammers (ed.). International Caernarfon Maritime Museum and the Congress of Maritime Museums Proceedings Welsh Slate Museum. The papers were 1986. Liverpool: National Museums and concerned with the rise of Liverpool as a Galleries on Merseyside, National port, Liverpool's North Wales connections, Museum of Wales, 1986. 88 pp. the archives of the Merseyside Maritime Introduction, Opening Address. £7.50, Museum and Samuel Walters, Liverpool paper. marine artist. Being of necessity short, all papers left the reviewer wanting more. The International Congress of Maritime Aled Eames' talk on the North Wales Museums is an organization whose mem• connection included an extract from the bership is comprised of maritime film Trade Wind, which was made with museums and their staffs, as well as other assistance from the CB C and describes the interested groups and individuals. Current• schooner trade involving slate to the Elbe, 44 The Northern Mariner general goods to the Mediterranean, salt presentations - they obviously add another to Newfoundland, saltfish to South dimension. It is unfortunate too, for the America or the Mediterranean and then reader, that the tremendous work being home. (It is strange that a Canadian done at the Merseyside Maritime Museum reviewer should learn about a CBC pro• was not the subject of a paper. But then duction through a four year-old confer• the delegates of the conference had no ence!) need of this—they were there. Anyone who reads the papers in the To many readers the most interesting third section of the book will want to part of this book will be the middle sec• spend at least a month in the United tion on ship preservation. The speakers Kingdom investigating the new maritime here were Basil Greenhill, presently museum developments there. Among involved with the Great Britain project in these are the subjects of talks: the Bristol; Bard Kolltveit, director of the Aberdeen Maritime Museum, develop• Norwegian Maritime Museum; Michael ments at Bristol, proposals for Tyneside, McCaughan of the Ulster Folk and Trans• the Scottish Maritime Museum at Irvine, port Museum; and Cdr. Robert Wall of the maritime heritage in Portsmouth and the Maritime Trust-all of whom have the Chatham Dockyard Project. In spite of intimate knowledge and strong views per• the enthusiasm of the speakers and of the taining to ship preservation. reviewer (a "museum man"), it is sad, on Statements contained in this section reflection, to think that the reason for run the gamut of the whole ship preserva• such vigorous activity is the fact that the tion question: "We have to be quite sure once great docklands, the shipbuilding that the vessel to be preserved is thor• industries of the Clyde and Tyneside and oughly worth preserving" and "preservation the Royal Navy have declined to the point of ships [is] an activity liable to absorb where, unless museums step in to fill the time, effort and money to a degree that is void, dereliction will result. disproportionate to all other museum act• The planning and work going on in all ivities" (Basil Greenhill); "There are no these places is incredible; the complexity simple expedients that will substitute for of the plans and the involvement of vari• doing the proper job. Every compromise ous levels of government, private enter• threatens the integrity of the vessel being prise, societies and individuals is stagger• restored and seriously diminishes its his• ing. There is however a down side to this torical significance" (quote from Revell museum development - that the museums Carr); "A regular part for ship preserva• are replacing the once bustling dockyards tion has for several years been entered of Bristol and Liverpool, the productive into the annual [Norwegian] State Budget, shipyards of Tyneside and the Clyde and totalling about £100,000 per year" and the the bases of the Royal Navy. Only the "greatest mission [of preserved ships] will Aberdeen Maritime Museum, with its be that of awareness-makers of maritime plans for North Sea Oil exhibits, deals history and culture rather than historic with present day prosperity. This last monuments in themselves" (Bard statement is not a criticism, only reality. Kolltveit); "...you will get a far better But the museums will be great; it is understanding of what life was like in a unfortunate that the reader cannot see the nineteenth century sailing vessel by read• slides which were shown at most of these ing Conrad, Masefield or Marryat than Book Reviews 45 you will by visiting a restored vessel flict was written by an Argentine Air Force crowded with tourists all heading for the Commodore who served with his country's souvenir shop" (Robert Wall). C-130 Hercules squadron during the war. Anyone contemplating preserving a The book itself was originally published in vessel must consider the above and should Spanish as La Guerra Inaudita in 1986. read the amplification of these statements There is one major flaw with the transla• before proceeding. To others this section tion. The translator, Michael Valeur, has, provides a thought provoking, philosophi• with the author's permission, weaved "his• cal look at an important aspect of torical references and vignettes ... into the maritime museum work. narrative" (p. xiv), the better to illuminate This short book has something for the Argentine perspective for American everyone interested in the museum aspect and British readers. This has led to a mul• of maritime history. tiplicity of unfortunate references to Paul Revere and quotations of "the British are Eric Ruff coming" type which do nothing to enhance Yarmouth, Nova Scotia the story. The author's main theme seems one of defending the honour of the Ruben O. Moro. The History of the South Argentine armed forces and the Air Force Atlantic Conflict: The War for the Malvinas. in particular. While this may be necessary New York: Praeger, 1989. xvii + 360 pp., for internal political reasons, surely the bibliography, maps, index. US$49.95, cloth; accomplishments of the Argentine air ISBN 0-275-93081-5. forces (both regular and naval) requires few apologies. This is perhaps even more Virginia Gamba-Stonehouse. Strategy in true when the difficulty of the task which the Southern Oceans: A South American faced them is considered: the distances View. London: Pinter and New York: St. involved, their limited aircraft inventory Martin's Press (Studies in Contemporary (only two tankers, five Exocet missiles, Maritime Policy and Strategy Series), and approximately 50 obsolete Skyhawks), 1990; Canadian distributor, McClelland & and their general unpreparedness for a Stewart, Ltd., Toronto, xiii + 155 pp., hastily mounted campaign. notes, bibliography, maps, index. $67.95 The main operational interest is in the cloth; ISBN 0-312-03733. author's descriptions of Argentine air attacks. When compared with the better These two volumes deal with what was, British accounts (David Brown, The Royal until 1982, a forgotten maritime world for Navy and the Falkland's War, and Rodney the English-speaking world, namely the A. Burton et al, Falklands: The Air War) waters around southern "cone" of South the biggest discrepancies are in the sinking America. The History of the South Atlantic of the Sheffield and in the Exocet attacks. Conflict focuses entirely on the Falklands/ Moro presents an interesting argument Malvinas War while Strategy in the South- that the Sheffield was not hit by an Exocet em Oceans is made up of two case studies on 4 May but rather had been bombed on on maritime geopolitics-Bolivia's quest for 1 May. Thus the General Belgrano was an outlet to the sea and Argentine and sunk on 2 May as an act of revenge after Brazilian views of the sea. the Sheffield was given up for lost. How• The History of the South Atlantic Con• ever, one of the Exocets fired on 4 May 46 The Northern Mariner hit the aircraft carrier Hermes. The Exocet views of their "ocean." The outcome of this attack on 30 May is presented as a com• war helped change two erstwhile rivals plete success with the Invincible being hit into collaborators, if only to keep interlo• not only by the missile but also by three pers such as the British isolated. The five hundred pound bombs dropped by the author also discusses such wonderful logi• accompanying Skyhawks. These claims fly cal constructions as Chile's claim that the in the face of the more sober British Pacific Ocean extends in an arc from the accounts noted above. It can scarcely be Beagle Channel eastward to fifty-three believed that Her Majesty's armed forces degrees West and then swings back to could have retaken the islands if both of Antarctica (thus most of the water south the Royal Navy's aircraft carriers had been of the Falkland Islands and South Georgia severely damaged. For public consump• are part of the Pacific Ocean). In tion, at least, it appears the Argentine Argentine eyes this Chilean definition has armed forces must still exaggerate their the effect of destroying Argentina's right• performance in defence of the Malvinas. ful title to her share of Antarctica. Why Strategy in the Southern Oceans is a should Canadian policy makers read this work of political science and has a much examination of this "forgotten" southern less emotional tone than The History of the sea? The answer lies in the prospect of an South Atlantic Conflict. The author's first independent Quebec and the maritime case study is of an episode now almost jurisdictional problems that would follow. How does one draw a two hundred mile forgotten outside Latin America, Bolivia's limit around the Iles de la Madeleine? quest for a sea coast after her disastrous Strategy in the Southern Oceans should involvement in the War of the Pacific, have a Canadian audience because what 1879-1883. That Bolivia still pursues its appears half a world away today could claims to this irredenta, given the serious have a bearing on issues much closer to social, economic, and political problems home very soon. that continue to dog it, is extraordinary. The author places these claims in then- South American geopolitical framework so M. Stephen Salmon that we have Argentina, Brazil, and Peru Ottawa, Ontario vying for influence in Bolivia in hope of isolating or supporting Chile as the case Paolo E. Coletta. Patrick N.L. Bellinger may be. Bismarck would feel at home in and U.S. Naval Aviation. Lanham, MD, this contest. For non-participants the real New York and London: University Press significance of this issue lies in the import• of America, 1987. x + 467 pp., illustra• ance that even poor land locked states give tions. US $30.25, library binding; ISBN 0- to the sea. 8191-6534-4. Gamba-Stonehouse's second maritime geopolitical study is of more relevance to This is a straightforward life of a straight• Canadians. She outlines the political, stra• forward sailor-aviator who, in wartime at tegic and economic developments in the least, did the necessary rather than the western South Atlantic since the mid-1960s glamorous jobs. Rear Admiral Bellinger, and shows how the outcome of the the author frankly declares in the preface, Falklands/Malvinas War dramatically was "Not a Halsey, King, Moffett, or Mits- changed official Argentine and Brazilian cher..." (p. in). Commitment and solid Book Reviews 47 competence rather than brilliance Air Force Atlantic from early 1943 until accounted for Bellinger's progress through shortly before his retirement. In this last a career that began during the pioneering appointment he was responsible for train• days of naval aviation before the First ing and otherwise preparing for operations World War-Bellinger was the fourth U.S. the air groups of the escort carriers that sailor to receive an air pilot's certificate - inflicted severe losses on the German U- and ended only in 1946. boat fleet during the final two years of the For all his qualities as a loyal team war. Still, the fact he never obtained a sea• player, Bellinger possessed the reckless going command was a disappointment. individualism needed during the early days Although he was exonerated of any blame of flight. He requested a transfer to avi• for the Pearl Harbour fiasco, the author ation only three years after graduating speculates that he may have been too from the Naval Academy partly because vigorous in his defence of Admiral Hus• he could not abide the "militaristic" disci• band E. Kimmel, Commander-in-Chief pline aboard warships. He was not a nat• Pacific and U.S. Fleet at the time of the urally gifted flyer, but an avid one who disaster. fearlessly carried out test and endurance Professor Coletta has drawn on Bell• flights. He was also lucky, surviving three inger's unpublished memoirs, but pro• crashes, all the result of equipment failure. duced an entirely new book, fully docu• After commanding Naval Air Station mented and reflecting the latest scholar• Norfolk, Virginia in 1917-19, he partici• ship. It is pleasant to be able to report pated as a staff officer during the 1920s in that he has used Jim Boutilier's RCN in the bureaucratic and congressional Retrospect and Marc Milner's North Atlan• wrangles that firmly established naval tic Run. The research and admirable aca• aviation. Successful command appoint• demic apparatus does not, however, ments in the 1930s, including a tour as obscure the portrait of this square-jawed, captain of the aircraft carrier USS Ranger, tenacious, and unpretentious southerner. earned him flag rank and command of Other well-drawn personalities also shore-based aviation in the Pacific in No• brighten the text, particularly—perhaps vember 1940. His headquarters was at inevitably-Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King, Pearl Harbour where, with his army coun• under whom Bellinger served during two terpart, he produced the famous Martin- appointments. King usually did well by Bellinger report of March 1941 that pre• Bellinger, but with such a singular lack of dicted the Japanese attack in uncanny common-place manners that Bellinger detail. Desperately short of resources and detested him; this account makes clear confounded by the Alice in Wonderland that the Fleet Admiral's lack of flair for command arrangements at Hawaii, Bellin• human relations was truly dazzling. ger was unable to mount the long-range I have a quibble with the balance of reconnaissance patrols that might have the book. Understandably, nearly a third located the Japanese task force. He of the text is devoted to Bellinger's Pacific assisted in the reinforcement of Midway command in 1940-42, when he was closest Island that contributed to the American to great events. There is some helpful new victory over the Japanese combined fleet detail, but most of the story is readily in June 1942 and then, after a tour of staff available in the vast literature on Pearl duty in Washington, became Commander, Harbour and Midway. By contrast there is 48 The Northern Mariner

much less about Bellinger's important role argument, that his interpretations still hold in anti-submarine aviation, especially tac• virtually unchallenged. Some reviewers of tics and training, during both World Wars, the first edition, of course, had picked and this is frustrating given the dearth of away at one perspective or another; it's a published works in the area. trick of the trade. One had insisted that Nevertheless, Professor Coletta has despite Herwig's achievement the Imperial amply demonstrated the value of full- German Navy still needed its Arthur J. length studies of officers who gained nei• Marder. That meant devoting five volumes ther fame nor infamy. A view from inside to the subject~a challenge that Herwig the service, rather than from the top or categorically declines. A re-reading now the battle front, can only add depth to our after ten years confirms the wisdom of his understanding. Bellinger's career provides stance. 'Luxury' Fleet is all the Marder the a close-up view of the enormous technical subject requires. Only one bibliographic and organizational hurdles that had to be point escaped him in the revision: Britain overcome in projecting air power over the has long-since returned the U-boat logs to sea. Germany, where they may be consulted in the Federal and Military Archives in Frei• Roger Sarty burg. Ottawa, Ontario Offering impeccable credentials as a naval historian, Herwig has produced Holger H. Herwig 'Luxury' Fleet: The standard works upon which researchers in Imperial German Navy, 1888-1918. [Lon• the field continue to rely. They are models don: Unwin & Allen, 1980] London and of urbanity and erudition. Herwig has Atlantic Highlands, NJ: The Ashfield always set high standards. Thus, when Press, 1987. 316 pp., photographs, tables, lauding Keith W. Bird's German Naval bibliography, index. US $17.50, paper; History: A Guide to the Literature (New ISBN 0-948660-03-1. York, 1985) in the light of the great out• pouring of Battle of Atlantic publications, Charles Thomas. The German Navy in the Herwig characterized the difference Nazi Era. [London: Unwin Hyman Ltd., between histories written by "the old 1990] Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute sweats" and those written by younger aca• Press, 1990. xvii + 284 pp., photographs, demics. The distinction lay not between bibliography, index. US $34.95, cloth; age and youth, wartime experience and ISBN 0-87021-791-7. Canadian distributor, booklearning, but between those who had Vanwell Publishing Ltd., St. Catharines, done spadework in archives, and those Ontario who had not. Many hobby historians still fail to grasp this point, and fail to under• Herwig's long out-of-print classic has at stand the importance of fully documenting last appeared in a most welcome paper• their sources—not only to acknowledge back. Requiring only minor updating and a their debts, but in order to facilitate fur• bibliography expanded by some thirty- ther study. These neglects frequently ren• three new titles, it has stood the test of der their publications virtually useless for serious scrutiny since going to press in further research. 1978. So solid was Herwig's research on Against this background Charles S. this particular book, and so convincing his Thomas' The German Navy in the Nazi Book Reviews 49

Era offers a corrective to what has been Menschenführung) as the seduction of written on both sides of the Atlantic: he men (Menschenverführung). However, cuts through the apologias and hagiogra• having marshalled such massive original phies on the German side in order to sources in German archives he leaves us arrive at historical truth, and counterbal• just a little disappointed when capping his ances the half-truths about the German judgement of Dônitz by relying on the less navy peddled by popular writers and me• than dispassionate journalist Peter Pad- moirists from other countries (including field (Dônitz: the last Fiihrer, New York, Canada and the USA). His political his• 1984). And his index—which seems not to tory of the German officer corps provides have been compiled by Thomas himself - a balanced assessment of the Kriegs- contains not a single reference to "submar• marine's relationship with National Social• ines" or "U-boats" despite their treatment ism. in the text. These quibbles aside, this is a Thomas' impressive scholarship, lucid very fine book. style, and persuasive argument is in the finest tradition of historical writing. With Michael L. Hadley meticulous attention both to detail and Victoria, British Columbia breadth of context, his thoroughly researched work is a pleasure to read. Stephen Fisher (ed.). Lisbon as a Port Richly footnoted, it invites the serious Town, the British Seaman and Other Mari• reader to further enquiry, and gives him time Themes. Exeter: University of Exeter, the tools to get on with it. Thomas had 1988. 143 pp., notes, illustrations. £4.50, first essayed the topic in his 1983 disserta• paper. ISBN 0-85-989-313-8. tion "Bluejackets and Brown Shirts: The German Naval Officer Corps in the Era of Lisbon as a Port Town, the British Seaman National Socialism 1926-1939"~written, it and Other Maritime Themes is the second comes as no surprise, under his mentor in the Exeter Maritime Studies series and Herwig. Now spruced up with a snappier consists of six papers given at the 1986 title, and market-oriented cover bearing and 1987 Dartington maritime history swastika flag and picture of "the old lion" conferences, sponsored by the Department Admiral Dônitz, Thomas has expanded his of Economic History of Exeter University. focus significantly. It includes not only the The result is a variable smorgasbord of legacies of the Wilhelmine and Weimar essays, though with rather more flavour eras, but a close examination of the Tir- than substance, and this fact is at once its pitz legacy. Having elucidated the navy's strength and its greatest weakness. uncomfortable accommodation to the Nazi The strength of this collection rests in party, Thomas passes chronologically the broad appeal of the variety of topics beyond the dissertation, and examines the presented. The papers range in time from war years and their immediate aftermath. the seventeenth to the twentieth century The final chapters "Dying Gallantly" and and encompass social, economic, political "For Fiihrer and Fatherland" clarify one of and even geographical approaches. Thus, Thomas's major points: the achievement the casual reader may be enticed by and of Admirals Raeder and Dônitz at the enjoy the pleasures of constantly changing interface between navy and Nazi Party was fare. On the other hand, this variety is not so much leadership of men (German: obtained at the cost of substance, coher- 50 The Northern Mariner ence and a complementary context. In this Arctic Whaling vessels in the 18th Cen• instance (alas) the sum is no greater than tury: The Evidence of the Shields Muster the whole of the parts and reading one Rolls" uses extant muster rolls to draw a paper does little to enlighten our under• profile of the crews engaged in a trade standing of the others, despite some obvi• which was then considered a nursery of ous intersections. seamen. While some of the observations In the title article, "Lisbon as a Port he makes are rather interesting, the author Town," editor Stephen Fisher presents unfortunately does little to convince the eighteenth century Lisbon as a city of reader of the broader importance of this foreigner merchants and tradesmen, with work. an economy driven by foreign capital. This is not the case in "Henry May- While his observations are not without hew and the British Seamen," by David interest, the analysis amounts to a sort of Williams. In this paper the author intro• economic-historian's travelogue, the im• duces an important, albeit limited, new portance and objective of which is unclear source for studies in the social history of and must, evidently, be found in a further the merchant marine: Henry Mayhew's six reading of Mr. Fisher's other works. letters on the living and working condi• On the other hand, J.L. Anderson's tions of the nineteenth century British "Prince William's Descent Upon Devon, seamen. As an introduction and guide to 1688: The Environmental Constraints" is this unique contemporary material, Mr. among the most interesting and satisfying Williams' essay is as complete and concise submissions in this volume. Here one is as one could hope and, moreover, consti• shown how environmental factors (all too tutes the most valuable contribution of this often left unexamined or taken as simple collection. constants in historical hypotheses) can The volume concludes with Peter have a determining influence on historical Hildich's analysis of "The Decline of Brit• events. The argument, though of limited ish Shipbuilding since the Second World scope, is complete and invites a reapprai• War." Mr. Hildich's thesis is very clear and sal of other similar events and is both quite convincing: the crucial failure of the refreshing and enlightening. British shipbuilding industry in the 1950s Lewis Fischer's "Seamen in a Space was one of management strategy regarding Economy..." is another instalment in the investment and product specialization. comparative economics of the nineteenth However, in light of the general decline in century shipping which has become his western shipbuilding in the last forty years trademark. In this instance the focus is on (and the topic invites such projection), it is wage patterns and by now it can be said difficult to avoid the conclusion that these that Prof. Fischer has made serial history failures merely hastened what was other• into an art form, with each piece offering wise inevitable. some valuable suggestions as to cause and Thus, these essays are quite distinct effect, and concluding with the familiar entities, of varying quality and value, which refrain of "stay tuned." This piece is no appear to have been published together exception and so long as the work con• simply to conform to a publications pro• tinues to entice, his following should gramme. Some of the papers, particularly remain loyal. J.L. Anderson's and David Williams', are Tony Barrow's essay The Crewing of certainly worthy of wider attention which, Book Reviews 51 one hopes, they will receive through word- boating. It is about wind in the of-mouth recommendations. However, hair, polished mahogany, groaning notwithstanding the attractive variety of lock gates, gleaming brass, billow• topics considered, the discrepant and gen• ing sails, and Rideau waters. Sev• erally cursory nature of the submissions eral contributors from different precludes a full and hearty recommenda• backgrounds comment on histori• tion of this volume. cal traditions in boating and boat• building. The rise of the Manotick Garth Wilson Classic Boat Club to sustain and Ottawa, Ontario revive out boating heritage is assessed and there is an illustra• Alec Douglas and Larry Turner (eds.). On tive panorama of old craft and a a Sunday Afternoon. Erin, Ont.: Boston walk through a living museum of Mills Press, 1989. 88 pp., illustrations, surviving antique and classic photographs, appendix, directory. $30.00, boats. cloth. ISBN 1-55046-026-9. Editors Douglas and Turner are old hands The Boston Mills Press of Erin, Ontario, at historical writing, although this is then- is a small and very special publisher of first collaboration. Keith Dewar writes books on the Canadian scene: volumes on from the perspective of the St. Lawrence beaches, bridges, ducks and decoys, glass Islands Parks Authority. To James Potter, and furniture, theatres, aircraft~and the native to the Rideau, preservation and definitive history of Crokinole. restoration of the fine old watercraft have This collection of five essays tells of become a way of life. Mary Helwig and summertime as it was (and is) on the Frank Phelan tell by work and camera of Rideau Canal, the languid waterway which the Manotick Club and their satisfaction had its (military) origins long before Con• with purposes accomplished. federation. The jacket notes nicely sum• On a Sunday Afternoon is an easy and marize: nostalgic read.

A century ago new attitudes were George H. Cuthbertson transforming patterns of recre• Keswick, Ontario ation. On a sleeping and nearly dormant military and commercial Jonathan G. Coad. The Royal Dockyards canal, pleasure boating took root 1690-1850. Architecture and Engineering and spread from Kingston to Works of the Sailing Navy. Aldershot, Eng. Ottawa. On river and lake, at lock & Brookfield, VT.: Scolar Press, 1989. xxvi and channel, a celebration of + 399 pp., illustrations, photographs, maps wooden boats breathes life into and figures, appendix, bibliography, index. the Rideau Waterway. This book US $89.95, cloth. ISBN 0-85967-803-2. is a celebration of those heritage boats, the wonderful waterway on This lavishly illustrated account, the first in which they were used, and the a projected series of Studies in Naval His• survival of many specimens from tory, elaborates on material which has the early days of recreational appeared earlier in the author's articles in 52 The Northern Mariner

Mariner's Mirror and his book Historic together with the facilities for mast-mak• Architecture of the Royal Navy: An Intro• ing, sailmaking, and everything else duction (1982). It covers the period up to needed to outfit a ship of war. Two activ• the introduction of metal hulls and steam ities demanded a lot of space without propulsion. The remarkable selection of putting too much strain on the flooring, photographs demonstrates how little some namely the Mould Loft, where the frames things in the yards changed over centuries were laid out, and the Sailmaker's Shop. and how some activities (such as ropemak- Accordingly, both were found on the ing) have continued up to the present time upper storeys of buildings. The danger of without interruption. The maps, specially fire was particularly feared in the drawn for this publication by Jenny Heath, Smithery, the Pitch House, the Hoop deserve special recognition. House, where iron hoops were shrunk The first Royal Dry Dock was built in onto spars, and the Paint House, where 1495. Edward Dummer, who built the linseed oil was handled. Disastrous fires dock at Plymouth in 1692, introduced the did occur in the rope-walks, and in 1777, use of stone in a stepped formation, and an arsonist was hanged at the dockyard inclined planes for sliding heavy timbers gate as an example to other potential down from above. Initially the dock was malefactors. High boundary walls were filled at high tide and then drained by erected around the Yards to discourage gravity, but as they were increased in size, pilfering. Earlier they had "lain naked to horse-drawn chain pumps and, from 1797, the ill-designs of every desperate villain, steam-pumps were needed to keep them and the bolder attempts of a giddy rabble dry. Swinging lock gates or floating cais• and unruly mob...or it may be the secret sons were used to secure the entrance. and sudden attempts of desperadoes hired Wet docks were established to allow by a foreign enemy." There were buildings keeping the ships in the same relation to for specialists: the Treenail House where the quay, independent of the state of the the treenails were shaped to the desired tide. Although ships could be built in a dry diameter or "moot;" the Block Mill; the dock, it was cheaper if they were erected Rigging House; the Boat and Oarmaker's on slips, upon which they might rest for Shop. The Ropery was distinguished by its over twelve years. Following the practice length, and hence ideally was sited to one in Venice, Karlskrona, and other Euro• side of the yard so it did not interfere with pean yards, covered slips came into use in other activities. It comprised Spinning, the 1800s. The metal roof erected in Laying, and Hatchelling Houses, with Portsmouth in 1845 over such a slip ante• separate storerooms for White Yarn and dated similar architectural innovations in Black (tarred) Yarn. railway stations. Quite apart from their strategic sig• The timbers forming the ships were nificance, the Dockyards had enormous shaped in sawpits and kilns. Steam was significance in the industrial history of used for bending planks from 1830, "sup• England, employing over seventeen thou• pling boilers" being placed adjacent to the sand men in the Dockyards and supporting building site. The dock itself was only a a fleet of more than nine hundred ships at small item in the general scheme of things. the end of the Napoleonic Wars. The Besides the docks were found the store• Portsmouth Block Mill represents a par• houses, sawpits, roperies, smitheries, ticularly early attempt at mass-production. Book Reviews 53

Marc Brunei designed block-making The method now used to lift up machines which allowed ten unskilled men the powder barrels into the maga• to duplicate the output of a hundred zine is by running a rope through skilled blockmakers. Brunei was paid on a pulley, one end of which is the basis of the money he had saved, col• fastened to a powder barrel and a lecting over £17,000 for his efforts. Some man taking hold of the other of the original machines are preserved in jumps out of a window, and his the Science Museum. weight draws the barrel into the Despite the emphasis on the techno• magazine, which is a dangerous logical and architectural aspects of the and uncertain method, for if he is topic, we also learn a great deal about the too light, the powder barrel will underlying naval administration. The not ascend, and if he is too heavy, Board of Admiralty was concerned with he is sure to bruise himself the strategy and tactics of the fleet. In against the pavement, whereby it support were the Navy Board, who built is very difficult to get men who the ships and under whose direction were will run such a risk upon a la• the Royal Dockyards. Equally necessary bourer's pay. for the support of the Fleet were the jun• ior Boards with their respective Commis• The Naval Hospitals at Haslar and Stone- sioners: the Board of Ordnance, the house were originally erected by the Com• Victualling Board,and the Sick and Hurt missioners for the Sick and Hurt. Deaths Board. The student of naval history is from disease far outstripped the number often left with the impression that battles of men killed in action. The Naval Hospi• were won despite the inefficiency and tal at Haslar was the largest hospital in corruption of these Boards. In fact, as Britain when it was completed in 1761. Jonathan Coad shows, not only were the The Board of Victualling was done away dockyards the most significant industrial with in 1832. It supervised and ran the organizations in the country, their bureau• granaries, bakeries, breweries, salt houses cracy was no worse than in the country at and cooperages needed to supply the fleet. large, a point also made by Nicholas Rod• Meat had originally been preserved in salt ger in The Wooden World: An Anatomy of but this was not the only method used. the Georgian Navy (1986). As the author From 1812, meat was available in cans; it puts it, the Boards manifested the "inabil• was also available as slabs of meat concen• ity, not unknown today, of officials to trate, "Mrs. Dubois' Portable Soup." estimate correctly the cost of any project," Sauerkraut and, later, lemons or limes, concluding that the Royal Navy was served were supplied as antiscorbutics. by its Administration at least as well as Coad devotes most of his attention to navies of foreign nations were by theirs. the three major Home Bases (Portsmouth, Until 1855 the Board of Ordnance Chatham, and Plymouth) but there is were concerned with the supply of substantial mention of those at Sheerness weapons, everything from cutlasses to and Pembroke. He even discusses the cannon. Special care was demanded in Foreign Bases, though no attempt has caring for gunpowder, but surviving docu• been made to cover them all. For a cen• ments indicate that this was not always tury, Gibraltar and Minorca were the observed: important Mediterranean strongpoints. 54 The Northern Mariner

The first lacked a good anchorage and the unfair, for the reader to list important second needed a strong garrison and fell topics in Liverpool's maritime history twice to the French. In 1800, Malta was which are not addressed-but what it does captured and some of the buildings, orig• attempt is competently carried off. inally erected by the Knights of Malta, Liverpool's principal claim to fame is, were in use until the Navy abandoned the of course, as a great international seaport, base. and in his "Bulk Trades and the Develop• This splendidly produced and illus• ment of the Port of Liverpool in the First trated book is not cheap, and the fact that Half of the Nineteenth Century," David it was published at all is in part due to the Williams of Leicester University continues support of the Royal Commission on the his exploration of the inward cotton and Historical Monuments of England. It is timber trades from North America. He bound to remain the definitive account of concludes that, although they generated an its subject for the foreseeable future. enormous volume of activity for the port, they were less significant in creating em• John Harland ployment for Liverpool-based ships Kelowna, British Columbia (because of the substantial U.S. and Cana• dian participation) or in stimulating manu• Valerie Burton (ed.). Liverpool Shipping, facturing activity, including shipbuilding, Trade and Industry: Essays on the Maritime within Liverpool itself. Here his essay History of Merseyside, 1780-1860. touches on, but does not really come to Liverpool: National Museums and Gal• grips with, the many interesting questions leries on Merseyside, 1989. 112 pp., bibli• about port-hinterland, or city-region, deve• ography, photographs. £3.95, paper. ISBN lopment, and how to explain Liverpool's 0-990367-34-4. curiously lop-sided or "over-extended" reliance on shipping and port services This small volume comprises five essays which would cause it such enormous on various aspects of the shipping and problems when the demand for such ser• trade of the U.K.'s second largest port vices dried up in the 1960s to 1980s. It is a during its rise to pre-eminence, and at a pity, too, that Williams tends to exclude time of significant structural change in the the international grain trade from his British economy. It emerges from a period analysis (on the grounds that its growth when Valerie Burton held a joint post at largely comes after 1850). His essay, in Liverpool University and the Merseyside short, identifies some, but only some, of Maritime Museum, and appropriately the influences at work in the rise of contains contributions from both aca• Liverpool as a port-city. demics and museum staff. Each in its own More pioneering is Valerie Burton's way deepens and extends our knowledge own essay on "Liverpool's Mid-Nineteenth of Liverpool's maritime history in this Century Coasting Trade," which reports on period - although there is little which can quantitative research into data contained be said to be truly path-breaking - and the in the Liverpool Customs Bills of Entry volume therefore deserves recognition and for the months of March, July and Octo• a place on the bookshelf. The collection ber 1853. From this she is able to present does not pretend to be comprehensive in a fairly detailed snap-shot of shipping its coverage-it would be easy, but perhaps activities between Liverpool and other Book Reviews 55 ports in the British Isles - principally with one of the broader themes raised by David those bordering the Irish Sea, in Ireland, Williams. Merseyside's failure to keep Wales and the West of Scotland - and to pace with the Clyde and the Tyne and comment on the flows of vessels and com• Wear in shipbuilding development is once modities between different regional again highlighted, and the question is centres of specialisation of production. posed as to whether shipbuilding was sim• While there are perhaps few major sur• ply "crowded out" by the much more suc• prises in the patterns which emerge, this cessful shipping and port services indus• work has great potential value as a bench• tries. mark from which change can be This is a relatively modest publication, measured—either by going back in time (as for which the editor does not make too Burton herself has done with subsequent many unfulfilled claims. However, one is work on the year 1827) to trace the steps compelled to record a degree of disap• in the emergence of these trading relation• pointment with the somewhat inward-look• ships, or by going forward in time with an ing nature of the enterprise. Comparisons eye, among other things, to establishing with other major estuarial ports, in Britain how railway development affected Liver• or elsewhere in Europe, are avoided, and pool's coasting trades. Looking further readers are left to themselves to provide afield, it should be possible to combine an appropriate national and international such analyses with international trade context within which to understand and flows to create a picture of the market evaluate Liverpool's maritime history. segments and hierarchies served by the port of Liverpool. J. Forbes Munro The remaining essays have a narrower Stirling, Scotland focus. Aled Eames provides an account of the shipowners of the small ports of North Sam McKinney. Bligh—A True Account of Wales, who were principally engaged in Mutiny Aboard His Majesty's Ship Bounty. transporting copper and slate to Liverpool, Camden, Maine: International Marine while Nancy Ritchie-Noakes and Mike Publishing Company, 1989. 210 pp., appen• Clarke compare the lives and work of dices, notes, select bibliography, index. Thomas Steers and Jesse Hartley, two of US$22.95, cloth. ISBN 0-87742-981-2. the five engineers who oversaw the con• struction of the Liverpool Docks. Finally, McKinney's Bligh is a well-written account in what begins as an essay on a single of a mutiny which, within the confines of vessel, the Jhelum, in the conservation of English literature, has become perhaps the which the Merseyside Maritime Museum most famous of mutinies. Indeed, it is a has been assisting the Government of the mutiny better known for the myths sur• Falkland Islands, Michael Stammers, the rounding it than for the realities of the Museum's Keeper, goes on to try to res• event. As a collective form of insubordina• cue from obscurity the Liverpool ship• tion, mutiny has always been subject to builders of the mid-century and to defend very harsh punishment; it is not usually them from charges of conservatism and accompanied by violence and assumption poor workmanship. Although the case for of authority in a ship-though such was the the defence is not convincing, the effort case in Bounty. In most mutinies, the un• does at least begin to make contact with derlying causes he in intolerable condi- 56 The Northern Mariner tions, the cumulation of grievances and the violently—in April 1789, just one hundred incompetence of those in command. Mc- years after England's second revolution Kinney clearly shows the mutiny in Bounty and in the very year of the French revol• to be no exception to this rule. ution. Thus, the ship's company was sub• It may perhaps usually be impossible ject to all its discomforts and hardships for to justify mutiny; it nevertheless is not too four long months, quite long enough to difficult to explain it most of the time. The hatch mutinous sentiments. However, as in author analyses with skill and care the ex• all naval mutinies in all countries, the plosive and difficult character of Bounty's unpleasant tale of oppression, discomfort, captain and the consequent severe strain incompetence and mutiny was kept from on his twenty-two year-old second-in-com• the public as much as possible until Cap• mand, Fletcher Christian. Bligh appears to tain Bligh's self-serving log became avail• have had little education though he is able in 1921 and the better-educated Mor• depicted as an excellent cartographer and rison's journal of events became available he appears full of compulsion to prove in 1935. The reluctance of navies every• himself. Indeed, much of the asperity of where to have their mutinies known is his character seems due to his awareness quite natural: mutiny bespeaks incompe• of his own shortcomings—a situation so tence somewhere and that somewhere is often productive of harshness and arro• usually in the persons of those in author• gance. McKinney also shows Christian's ity. sensitivity and profound distress at the Having dealt with the mutiny itself, conflict between him and his captain. McKinney then gives a superb account of With considerable skill and insight, Bligh's splendid leadership and of his re• the author sets out the prolonged discom• markable accomplishments in navigating a forts to which the ship's company was mere twenty-three foot boat with its nine• constantly subjected: bad and insufficient teen survivors for a month and a half over food, refusal to tolerate complaints, des• 3600 miles without the usual instruments perately uncomfortable living conditions, for such navigation. The book also follows cold, wet, monotony, scorpions, centipedes, the sad and even tragic subsequent lives of cockroaches and, in due course, patent the mutineers who sailed from Tahiti to dissension between Bligh and Christian. Pitcairn Island; this account shows the In general, it seldom appears to those effects of undue preference to Englishmen in authority that the circumstances giving over natives with its fatal consequences rise to mutiny exist in their commands. and the murder of Christian himself. The Such an attitude may be the result of self brutality and death among them is remi• satisfaction, insufficient education to deter• niscent of the biblical injunction concern• mine what causes mutiny or even possibly ing death by the sword for those who take an unwillingness to admit that anything so up the sword. damaging could happen to them. The The entire story is well told; both book reveals threads of all three forms of Bligh and Christian appear as human intellectual blindness in the case of beings. The author does not attempt to Bounty. take the facile course of praising one side The ship's voyage began in December and condemning the other; he sees the 1788, and the hitherto unplanned mutiny inevitable mixture of good and bad in took place suddenly~and by exception every man; he is singularly able in weaving Book Reviews 57 a story which allows the reader to form his every hour, and the vessel is too slow. own conclusions. The book is essential William wrestles with the tedium. What reading for the historian interested in colour are the eyes of cockroaches? Why mutiny. should two ships, meeting in the same place, find three degrees of difference in L.C. Audette their longitude? Why should a brig, carry• Ottawa, Ontario ing less sail in proportion to its tonnage than our barque, run by us so quickly? Alan D. McNairn (ed.). Life Aboard: The The sea was a place for such musings. Journals of William N. and George F. It is sad that we hear little about Smith. Saint John: NBM Publications, Liverpool and why William became "heart• 1988. 112 pp. $9.95, paper. ISBN 0-919326- ily sick of the place," but George tells us 33-1. more about the merchant-shipowner's business ashore. Profits were good, but the Here is a handsome little book that should discount on bills and drafts was huge, and be of interest to all Northern Mariner return cargoes were slow to appear. "Fair readers. The New Brunswick Museum remuneration" depended on luck and intends to publish a series of documents weather, as well as on the occasionally from its holdings, and this volume is a reluctant labour of an ill-fed crew. George welcome beginning to that series. is also a keen observer of people and The journals of William and George curiosities ashore, as he takes us from the Smith are among the many treasures in consul's residence, to the customs house, the archive of the New Brunswick to the theatre, and even to a sugar planta• Museum. The Smith brothers worked in tion. their father's shipchandling and ship- Alan McNairn's introduction and owning business in Saint John. William's notes are brief but helpful, and the result journal was written in 1850, during a voy• is a small but valuable addition to our age from Saint John to Liverpool in the collection of documents from the age of barque Susan. George put his thoughts on sail. paper in 1859 and 1860, during a voyage to Barbados in the brigantine Brisk. Eric W. Sager The result is a trove of minutiae about Victoria, British Columbia seafaring in the mid-nineteenth century, and the details are of interest precisely Herbert K. Beals (ed.). Juan Perez on the because they reflect ordinary experience. Northwest Coast: Six Documents of His There is no Bluenose bravado here, but Expedition in 1774. Foreword by Donald the cool reflections of a merchant's sons C. Cutter. Portland: Oregon Historical attending to their business as agents of the Society Press, 1990. 267 pp., illustrations, family firm. bibliography, index. US $24.95. cloth; As we might expect, the journals con• ISBN 0-87595-189-9. tain regular notes on weather and the disposition of sails. But there is much Vizcaino's 1603 discoveries on the Califor• more: the crew complain about the bread, nia coast left the whole northern shore the fresh water is used up too quickly, the above Cape Mendocino unexplored to vessel leaks and the crew must pump Europeans, and it was not until 1774 that 58 The Northern Mariner

Spain's next expedition sought to deter• 3 November. Beals has provided up-to- mine the details of the coastline stretching date notations and commentary that place north and west as far as the sixtieth paral• these documents in context and add ap• lel for evidence of newly reported Russian preciably to our understanding of the settlements and trading activity. It fell to circumstances facing Pérez. He also had Juan Pérez, a mariner from Majorca and provided excellent maps to show the track an officer in the Spanish Royal Navy, to of the Santiago by date. Students of Cana• undertake a reconnaissance in the frigate dian history will find particularly valuable Santiago of 225 tons. Pérez was a sea• the reference to the course of the Santiago soned navigator and empire builder, for he on 20 to 28 July off the Queen Charlotte had crossed the Pacific and had played a Islands and 7 to 8 August off the Hesquiat key role in the establishment of presidios Peninsula near Nootka Sound. and Franciscan missions in San Diego and Pérez did report an encounter with Monterey in 1770. His advice on northern the Haida but rather typical of the man he objectives was earnestly solicited by his reported the details with incredible sparse- political superior, the Viceroy, and Pérez ness. Indeed, the voyage resulted in little initially responded that he was in favour of fruit. The voyage consumed only two and undertaking a voyage to latitude 45° or a half months at sea. The captain claimed 50° North. However, as is often the case a water shortage as the main reason for in human affairs, the state of international turning back, and he reported on the rav• relations impinged on national plans, in ages of scurvy. Mourelle, a contemporary, this case those of Spain. In the end Pérez was highly critical of these reasons. And was instructed to go as high as the sixtieth why, he asked, had not the commander parallel. Possibly this was beyond his per• sought out the numerous havens and inlets sonal desires or the capabilities of his that would have fulfilled all the purposes ships and supplies, and we will never know of the instructions; and where they found this for want of evidence. In the circum• shore had they made inadequate observa• stances, however, he made an extensive tions? Few documents had been left for so voyage along the coast in a remarkably long a coast, complained Mourelle, "after short time. He sailed from Monterey. He a voyage that cost the Royal Treasury returned to port with little to show in the plenty." He added, "...except for finding way of concrete discoveries and with no out that the coast continues to the north• claim to his credit of having planted the west, we remained almost in the same flag of Spain or of having made any claim ignorance after the voyage" (p. 117). These to the territory he discovered. are harsh, perhaps ungenerous words, and The voyage was well recorded: there historian H.H. Bancroft thought they were four distinct diaries kept. Herbert showed no appreciation of the difficulties Beals' fine book brings into print six facing mariners in these circumstances. I items: two letters from Perez to Viceroy am inclined to support Bancroft. Beals and Bucareli, Perez's "Diario," 11 June to 28 Donald Cutter, who provides a lucid fore• August 1774, an extract from Esteban José word, are correct in praising Perez's Martinez's "Diario," 20-21 July, Francisco achievements despite the apparent paucity Mourelle's narrative of the Pérez voyage, of results. Certain it is that Pérez had 25 January to 5 November, and, also by coasted the shoreline and indicated for Mourelle, the "Tabla diaria," 24 January to future mariners the rough coastal outline. Book Reviews 59

Moreover, he had made the first encoun• during the Second World War. In both the ter with the Haida. These are significant First and Second World Wars, Canadians contributions in and of themselves, and flocked to the colours; most people in the precursors of successive developments. country saw it as their duty. Those who This book joins the shelf of the important actually joined did so for many reasons- documentary editions of Northwest Coast adventure, everyone else doing it, three history and is a credit to editor and pub• square meals and a bunk-but we should lisher alike. never forget that all from our country who fought, volunteered to do so. Those of that Barry Gough generation deserve honour for having done Waterloo, Ontario what had to be done to preserve what we have today. Hal Lawrence. Victory at Sea: Tales of the In the time of Victory at Sea, most Coastal Forces 1939-1945. Toronto: Mc• Canadian naval men, while feeling fiercely Clelland and Stewart, 1989. xxiii + 322 Canadian, still emphatically associated pp., appendices, bibliography, index, pho• themselves with the British Empire. A tographs, maps. $28.95, cloth. ISBN 0- British victory was a victory for "us." Cana• 7710-4727-4. dians had been fighting in many wars for many years, not as allies but as an integral Like all Hal Lawrence's books, this is an part of the Royal Navy. Indeed, the entertaining read about colourful people. Coastal Forces commanded by Canadians He spins good yarns from the flax of the in the Mediterranean had mostly British past to weave his canvas. crews although, late in the war, the ships' Admiral of the Fleet Lord Lewin's companies of those in the Channel were foreword outlines his warm and friendly Canadian, serving under British opera• associations with Canadians. I can attest to tional control. this: one of my great pleasures was to The appendix on Honours and serve under him when he was NATO Awards and that on Canadian Flotillas and Commander in Chief Channel, and I was their Captains seem inconsistent. CA. Commander of the Standing Naval Force Law, for example, is listed in the former Atlantic. The close association of naval as DSC, but not in the latter; others are officers and what are now, God help us, listed in the latter as DSC, but are not called "non-commissioned members" of the mentioned in the former. What the Hon• great democracies is immeasurably valu• ours and Awards section is listing is a able, for both big and small navies. During puzzle. It is certainly not confined to hon• my career, the early close Commonwealth ours won by Canadians serving in coastal association was replaced by that stemming forces, neither is it a list of all awards won from NATO. I hope that in the world re• by Canadians in naval actions. structuring just starting, we remember who The style of the book is unusual and our friends are and whose values we interesting. It consists of anecdotes told share, and that the professional value of against broad backdrops of some of the our international naval associations is not major naval campaigns of the war. The forgotten. author brings it off to a considerable This book concerns comrades in arms: extent, although the anecdotes range far Canadians in the British Coastal Forces beyond the conventional interpretation of 60 The Northern Mariner

"Coastal Forces:" from motor gunboats and inefficient. Overland travel was dan• (MGB's), motor torpedo boats (MT's) and gerous, demanding and took months, and motor launches (ML's) and their USN had its own special perils. It is not surpris• equivalents to the activities of everything ing that a route across Panama was seen from battleships and aircraft carriers to as a great advantage. Steam ships could minesweepers. Destroyer and convoy operate on each coast and connect with a escort men may be surprised to find them• short overland route that together could selves included under "coastal forces." save months of travel and great expense. Some of the backdrops are painted with a The California Gold Rush of 1849 only very broad brush indeed, and probably made the need for this service more make naval historians shudder! urgent. Where the book is best is in telling The Panama Route is the story of the the stories of the small group of Cana• development of this transportation route dians who so bravely served in this en• between 1848 and 1869 when the first thralling branch of naval warfare, the transcontinental railway was completed Coastal Forces themselves. It is, I repeat, across the United States and the Panama a most entertaining read. route was overshadowed until the comple• tion of the Panama Canal. The completion Dan Mainguy of the Panama Railroad in 1855 provided Ottawa, Ontario an efficient link across Panama by replac• ing a makeshift system of river boat and John Haskell Kemble. The Panama Route, overland trails. The dominant steamship 1848-1869. Columbia: University of South companies serving the route during this Carolina Press, 1990. xvi + 320 pp., bibli• period were the Pacific Mail Steamship ography. US $24.95, cloth; ISBN 0-87249- Company (operating the Pacific end of the 697-X. service) and the United States Mail Steamship Company (running the Atlantic The Panama Route is a detailed account coast route). These two companies held of the development and importance of this the mail contracts and dominated the major shipping link between the east and route until 1859. Then the United States west coasts of North America. John Has• Mail Steamship Company went out of kell Kemble's classic, originally published business with much of the operation be• in 1943, has been reprinted with minor coming part of the empire of Cornelius amendments and will be welcomed by Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt had been involved maritime historians. The author, who in steamship operations in competition for recently died, was Emeritus Professor at the traffic on the route through the 1850s. Pomona College and his work on the The corporate dealings over the route are Panama Route was based largely on his complex, highly competitive and fascinat• doctoral dissertation which itself was the ing. Eventually Pacific Mail and Vander• result of a long-standing interest in the bilt reached an accommodation which operation of the Pacific Mail Steamship lasted until 1865 when the Pacific Mail Company. arranged to take over the entire service. Before the 1850s, communications Substantial and fully-referenced, this between the Eastern Seaboard and the volume provides a thorough description Pacific Coast of North America were long and evaluation of the route before the Book Reviews 61

completion of the Central Pacific and number of the chapters have appeared in Union Pacific railroads in 1869. It also other publications. The final chapter on provides other interesting insights into Soviet Russia was written especially for steam navigation and the reliability of this book. steam vessels during the mid-1800s. This Nations have always become dominant was the transition period when sidewheel sea powers through favourable geographic steamers were slowing giving way to conditions. Maritime nations must have screw-driven vessels. Marine steam good bays and inlets large enough to ac• engines were still not very reliable and commodate naval and merchant fleets. most of the vessels carried sail for emerg• These nations seek to enforce a state of encies. There is also valuable material on domination and international order on the travel during the period and what condi• high seas. The growth and maturing of a tions were like on board the vessels in the navy requires many years which involve trade. developments in naval architecture, pro• An extensive list of the vessels includ• pulsion, weapon systems, communications ing specifications, many details of their and the means for the control of ships and accommodations and history is appended. fleets. A strong navy has functions which Steamships often wandered far from their are aimed at achieving command of the original routes and many of the vessels sea. These include the deterrence of ag• included in this history are of interest gression, defence against invasion, the because of their later services. A number protection of maritime commerce, block• of these vessels eventually operated in ade of an enemy coast, engagement in Canadian waters: Dakota, Goliath, Oregon, combined operations and the provision of Orizaba, and Pacific are a few west coast strategic bombardment. examples. Additional appendices include The author introduces the term statistics on passenger volumes, treasure "thalassocracy" at an early stage in the shipments, and shipbuilders. This book is book, and it is generally defined as having both a valuable, thorough reference and "maritime supremacy." He indicates that good reading. thalassocracies have existed only six times in history: the Minoans, ancient Athens, Robert D. Turner Venice and Florence, the Netherlands, Victoria, British Columbia Britain and the United States. He con• trasts the thalassocratic state with the Clark G. Reynolds. History and the Sea: continental power; the former were cata• Essays on Maritime Strategies. Columbia: lysts of change and stimulated a high level University of South Carolina Press, 1989. of technology and industry. They were 192 pp., US $24.95, text ed.; ISBN 0- centres of higher learning and cultural 87249-614-7. activity. The chapter on thalassocracy is a thorough study by itself, having 173 foot• The introduction to this book contains a notes. In the next chapter Captain Alfred brief summary of the contents of its ten Thayer Mahan is described as a thalasso• chapters. It also indicates that the book is cratic determinist because of his many the result of the author's thinking over a works as a proponent of sea power. quarter century about the sea and grand Mahan is also described as the first major strategy throughout recorded history. A synthesizer of naval history; others 62 The Northern Mariner describe him as a leading naval analyst haviour. Of such scope is this final chapter and historical strategist. that it is by itself a very worthwhile reason The thalassocratic concept is carried for including this book in one's reading on in a chapter on America as a inventory. Thalassocracy. Since 1945 American sea power emerged as the leading naval force Donald A. Grant on the world scene. It has taken many of Nepean, Ontario its characteristics from those of the Royal Navy, and the U.S. Navy has been a vital Donald McRae and Gordon Munro (eds.). ingredient in American economic expan• Canadian Oceans Policy: National Strat• sion and in its becoming the leading econ• egies and the New Law of the Sea. omic power in the Western Hemisphere. Vancouver: University of British Columbia The U.S. Navy has been a major catalyst Press, 1989. xiv + 268 pp. $45, cloth. ISBN in science and technology since the days of 0-7748-0339-8. sail but particularly since the time of iron ships and steam propulsion. In more This second volume in the series from the recent times came the development of UBC Press on "Canada and International nuclear propulsion and satellite navigation. Relations" is a review by political scien• The author makes the observation that the tists, economists, lawyers, scientists and nation's sailors tend to stay out of the diplomats of what Canada has done, is political arena. doing, and proposes to do to obtain for American strategic history and doc• Canadians the benefits available to coastal trines are outlined in a separate chapter states under the 1982 Law of the Sea Con• where discussions about the influence of vention. the British Navy are prominent. Much of Seven years after the Second Law of the last half of the book is devoted to the the Sea Conference in 1960 failed to reach Pacific theatre where the origin and devel• an agreement on the breadth of the terri• opment of the Imperial Japanese Navy are torial sea, Malta's ambassador to the traced, the role of Admiral Ernest J. King United Nations, Arvid Pardo, proposed to as a global maritime strategist and naval the General Assembly that the deep sea- leader is described, and a chapter on beds of the world's oceans should be aspects of maritime strategy as viewed by declared "the common heritage of man• General Douglas MacArthur is provided. kind." This concept was instantly accepted The final chapter covers eight cen• by the large group of non-industrialized turies of continental strategy in Imperial states that had little hope of ever being and Soviet Russia. It is emphasized, how• able to exploit for themselves the mineral ever, that the Soviet Union has taken to resources of the seabeds. To protect their the oceans as a naval power only since the own interests, the USA and the USSR, in 1960s. Four major factors are discussed in an unusual collaboration, countered with historical perspective: geopolitical, econ• their own agenda: the territorial sea omic, cultural and military. A question breadth issue, free navigation through which contemporary Western alliances international straits, and freedom to con• must ponder is whether the present day duct marine scientific research. Many Soviet Union has emerged from its past other states including Canada then pro• history and patterns of past strategic be• posed and succeeded in having the Gen- Book Reviews 63 era! Assembly initiate an international shelf (at least on the Atlantic) has conference that would consider all interna• obtained enormous potential benefits tional law of the sea issues together and under the terms of the Convention, par• produce a single, comprehensive Law of ticularly from the continental shelf and the Sea Convention. No reservations fisheries issues in which Canada's objective would be allowed, precluding the practice has always been to protect the living and of approving some provisions and rejecting non-living resources of the oceans adjacent others. The Convention was to be "all or to Canada's coasts to the fullest possible nothing." extent and to reserve their benefits as far The UN Seabed Committee, struck by as possible to Canadians. The Minister of the General Assembly in 1969, negotiated Fisheries and Oceans announced at Hali• an agenda and, as a preparatory confer• fax on 29 September 1987 an oceans strat• ence, drafted articles for a comprehensive egy to provide coordination and planning convention. The Third United Nations for enhancing ocean industries, promoting Conference on the Law of the Sea, ocean science, managing ocean resources, UNCLOS III, then was convened in De• and protecting Canada's rights over those cember 1973 to start the work on produc• resources within its jurisdiction and con• ing a comprehensive constitution of the trol. A workshop on Canadian Oceans oceans. Some 159 nations laboured until Policy was held 18-19 March 1988 at the April 1982 to produce a draft convention University of British Columbia to examine, of more than 320 articles, negotiating with a multidisciplinary perspective, how every detail by consensus. They voted on the rules of the new Law of the Sea the final draft in April 1982. Finally, repre• regime are actually being applied by sentatives of 119 states met at Montego states, Canada in particular. The papers in Bay in Jamaica, chosen as the site for the this volume are revisions of those original• International Seabed Authority, on 10 De• ly presented at the 1988 UBC workshop. cember 1982 to sign the Law of the Sea The volume's five parts correspond with Convention. It then remained open for Canada's priorities in the UN Seabed signature for another two years. The nego• Committee (the preparatory conference tiation of the Convention is aptly for UNCLOS III) and at UNCLOS III: described in the book as "a three-way fisheries management, seabed mineral struggle between those states which resources, the marine environment, and desired to extend national jurisdiction sovereignty, including the Arctic and mari• seaward beyond the narrow band of ocean time boundary delimitations with the USA, around their coasts, states which feared France and Denmark. The fifth part looks that expanded jurisdiction would interfere at the future of international oceans man• with navigational freedoms, and states agement as well as the international and which believed that a large area of ocean domestic dimensions of Canada's oceans should be reserved as the 'common heri• policy. tage of mankind' in which no one state The Convention will come into force could exercise jurisdiction. The 1982 Law and be legally binding one year after the of the Sea Convention is the attempt to sixtieth ratification has been deposited. By balance these conflicting interests" (p. 45). January 1987 it had received only thirty- Canada, as a western, industrialized five ratifications. The USA, Britain and coastal state with a very broad continental the Federal Republic of Germany have 64 The Northern Manner refused to sign the Convention on the to fulfil its international responsibilities; ground that its provisions for the interna• but much remains to be done. The tional seabed regime will discriminate rational management of Canada's and the against private enterprise and give too world's oceanic spaces must be kept to the much discretionary power to the Interna• forefront of political agendas" (p. iii). tional Seabed Authority. However, these The book, in my opinion, provides all states object only to Part XI of the Con• that its editors have promised and more. vention; they have each stated that, apart Inevitably there has been some repetition from Part XI on deep seabed mining, the between writers, but that merely shows Convention reflects existing international that law of the sea issues are interrelated. law. The result of the 1988 workshop is a thor• No industrialized state from East or ough coverage of a complex subject. The West has so far accepted the deep seabed volume is well worth reading for the clari• mining provisions as set out in the Con• fication it provides on these complex vention by ratifying the treaty. Of the issues. Western states, only one~Iceland-has rat• ified. Amendments will be required to Allen D. Taylor make the mining provisions acceptable to Cantley, Québec those states with the technology and finan• cial resources to mine metallic minerals on Brian Lavery. Anatomy of the Ship: The the seabeds. These states-Canada among Colonial Merchantman "Susan Constant" them~are awaiting the outcome to the 1605. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute negotiations in the Preparatory Commis• Press, 1988. 120 pp., construction draw• sion (where Canada is a very active par• ings, illustrations. US $32.95, cloth; ISBN ticipant) to see whether the final provi• 0-87021-583-3. Canadian distributor, Van- sions are acceptable and the extent of the well Publishing Ltd., St. Catharines, financial obligations for states that Ontario. subsequently ratify the Convention. The editors' summary of their volume S. Bellabarba and G. Osculati. Anatomy of reads: "For over ten years participants at the Ship: The Royal Yacht "Caroline" 1749. UNCLOS sought to fashion a comprehen• Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, sive regime for the oceans within which 1989. 120 pp., photographs, construction states could make decisions about the allo• drawings, illustrations, tables. US $32.95, cation, use and preservation of ocean cloth; ISBN 0-87021-600-7. Canadian dis• resources. In this respect, the 1982 Law of tributor, Vanwell Publishing Ltd., St. Cath• the Sea Convention is a remarkable arines, Ontario. achievement. But now the focus has shifted, from multilateral action to action The first of these recent additions to the by states individually, bilaterally, or within excellent Anatomy of the Ship series regional frameworks. In Canada's case this describes an English merchantman, the offers an enormous challenge. The papers largest of three that carried colonists to in this volume reveal that this challenge is Virginia in 1607. Since Jamestown became being met with mixed success. Canada has the first successful English settlement on acted to ensure that it can obtain some of the continent, this otherwise-unremarkable the benefits of the new oceans regime and little vessel was, in a sense, the "flagship" Book Reviews 65 of the Great Migration. The second book work as a design study for a full-scale examines a very different ship: the yacht replica and his text is an explanation of Royal Caroline that both George II and the reasoning employed there (essentially George III used for their frequent jour• the "footnotes" for the replica). The publi• neys between England and Hanover. cation of such details is to be applauded Besides her Royal connections, she was though, being expressed concisely, they notable as perhaps the most elaborately will not be easily readable without some decorated ship ever and as an "experimen• prior familiarity with the subject. Sadly, tal" vessel that had a key place in the the plans derived from this exercise con• English development of fast frigates. tain many highly questionable features and The Anatomy series began with some simple errors: sternposts must detailed studies of twentieth century war• extend to the wing transom, for example, ships, for which copious contemporary and not end at the tuck; rudders must be information is available. The books served able both to turn and to be lifted off their to distil this mass into a form digestible by gudgeons (neither being possible with the ship modellers and anyone fascinated by one presented); double capstans are very what lay behind the often-photographed improbable in a ship of this age; contem• steel plates of such vessels. Each volume porary bilge pumps were of the lift rather provided a brief text, some photographs than suction variety, the knightheads, and and extensive, annotated drawings of every with them the bowsprit, are shown too far extent. When the series was extended to aft, and so on. Some of these features may sailing vessels, its character had to change. be of little concern to ship modellers Each volume became, in effect, a summary (though they are to replica builders) but of the conclusions from extensive research, they serve to define the reliability of the conveniently expressed in the form of a plans. Indeed, what Lavery has really description of a single ship. This gave the shown is that, despite the various tantaliz• books considerable research value, if only ing pieces of contemporary information as codified received wisdom to be chal• available, we still know far too little about lenged in future debate or as a test of small seventeenth century English ships. where our present knowledge is inad• The volume on the Caroline is also a equate. At the same time, however, this departure for the Anatomy series in that it change in emphasis posed a trap for the is an (excellent) translation of an earlier non-specialist: the detailed drawings of the Italian work. The text is much more wide- Susan Constant or the Royal Caroline may ranging and easier for the non-specialist instil more confidence than the available than is Laveras but it leaves many fea• information can support. tures of the ship undescribed. Indeed, the For Susan Constant, Lavery has taken whole work follows Bellabarba's ship these developments still further by tackling modelling interests by concentrating on a ship of which he knows nothing for external features, particularly the deck certain except its name, size and date of fittings and rigging (which follow the well- building. All else is based on the limited documented norms of the contemporary contemporary information on ships of her navy) and the incomparable carvings. The type and date, with the lines plan being latter are shown in exquisite (and appar• developed from Harriot's contemporary ently accurate) detail in Osculati's draw• manuscript rules. The author began the ings, which also cover the spars, rigging 66 The Northern Mariner

and other features of interest to modellers. intercept convoys or cause the Allies, The Caroline's internal "anatomy" is pre• primarily Britain, additional problems. But sented much more briefly, speculatively it was the U-Boats that are all pervasive in and unconvincingly: the suggested arrange• the story. Their Admiral Karl Dônitz, ments leave little space for ballast or grew to be the Navy's driving force, event• water casks while the only access to the ually its leader, and even Germany's "Last captain's servant's berths passes through Führer." the Royal sleeping apartments, for Van der Vat, a Dutch-born and Eng• example. Thus, we are denied believable lish-educated journalist, recently with the details of how a miniature warship was Manchester Guardian, leads into this At• fitted to carry the king and his family. lantic Campaign with three chapters on Both books are highly recommended World War I and the inter-war years to within their limitations, but they should set the scene. He discusses Germany's not be used incautiously. preparations and well-absorbed experi• ences, including those of Dônitz, the so- Trevor J. Kenchington called "peace and disarmament confer• Musquodoboit Harbour, Nova Scotia ences" in Washington and London, and the belated realization by Britain that the U- Dan van der Vat. The Atlantic Campaign: Boats once again might be a major threat World War IPs Great Struggle At Sea. New to their vital import requirements if it was York: Harper & Row, and London: Hod- to survive, let alone counter, the resurgent der & Stoughton Ltd., 1988. Second edi• Germany. Almost seventy percent of the tion, 1989. xix + 424 pp., bibliography, book covers the period between Septem• illustrated. $16.95, paper; ISBN 0-06- ber 1939 and May 1943, when the battle in 091631-1. the Atlantic suddenly changed from a desperate struggle of tactics, technologies, While Germany at sea in World War II and mounting losses on both sides, to mustered a considerable force of heavy eventual victory for the Allies. By then the ships, disguised ocean raiders, and a multi• merchant raiders had been cleared from tude of small craft in the Channel, it is even the most distant oceans; the Kriegs- significant that the war opened with KL marine's capital ships were largely Fritz-Julius Lemp's torpedoing of SS immobilised (except for the continuing Athenia from the U-Boat U-30 and ended nagging presence of Tirpitz in northern on May 7, 1945 with a Coastal Command Norway). The mid-ocean air gap was Catalina aircraft kill of U-320 off the coast almost closed as well, both by a few grud• of Norway, and the sinking by U-1025 of gingly allowed VLR (Very Long Range) the Norwegian minesweeper NYMS 382 Coastal Command aircraft and by the new off the English south coast that same MAC ships (merchantmen converted with evening. Thus it is not surprising that van a one-level flight deck and carrying a der Vat's book has the U-Boat war as its handful of anti-submarine Swordfish air• main theme. He does bring in the esca• craft) and US-built Escort Carriers. The pades of the raiders when they were latter were slow to be widely used; the involved in the Atlantic area, and those of Royal Navy thought them unstable, dan• the Bismarck, Gneisenau, Schamhorst and gerously poor in watertight integrity (their attendant cruisers when they too tried to first was lost to a single torpedo), and Book Reviews 67 having a very dangerous aircraft fuel sup• played by British successes at Bletchley ply system (they lost one in dock when Park in decrypting the Kriegsmarine's being refitted). This aggravated their "Enigma" machine traffic. He discusses the American builders who cared little for part played there by Alan Turing with his such niceties in a ship built in only a few first generation computers searching for months! The last two years of the war is the key to unlock the over-vocal German given only forty-three pages. During this U-Boat radio instructions, Captain God• period, the battle developed into one of frey Winn and his amazingly accurate STR technology rather than tactics. It was a (Submarine Tracking Room) which was battle which the Germans were about to able to divert convoys with much success, win with true submersibles using schnor• and Professor P.M.S. Blackett's rather kels and the new high underwater speed ignored forecasts that big convoys were Type XXI and XXIII boats. Success better and involved fewer escorts. His eluded them by probably six months, the story flows cleanly despite so many major author estimates. The two or three cruises players on stage, especially in the early by these new generation submarines were days, and he keeps all his threads well in disturbingly successful, although fortunate• hand. He gives examples of many of the ly some were sunk before they could actions of ships and U-Boats in detail, report back. none lasting more than a page or so, and Though this is a very carefully and periodically pauses to give a summary of fully researched book, its author (unlike losses and gains, especially in the violent many academic historians) reveals his swings of the U-Boat war, citing ship and biases in pungent criticisms of such per• U-Boat losses, building rates, and the sons as Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur tonnage war Dônitz was waging from Day "Bomber" Harris and the anglophobic US One. In the final analysis the whole prob• Fleet Admiral Ernie King. Harris gave his lem was one of tonnage, replacement, support for area bombing, which never building, and sinking. The fate of the significantly hindered the U-Boat oper• Allies depended on the solutions. It might ations from Lorient (what van der Vat be noted that the author makes almost no calls "entrenched obduracy at the Air Min• particular mention of the astounding ac• istry," p. 68). King refused to accept that a complishment of the merchant ship cap• weak convoy was better than none, thus tains in adhering to highly unusual convoy costing the Allies hundreds of merchant discipline, even when under attack and at vessels, particularly essential tankers, along night, and handling their ships, often old his coast in 1942. Van der Vat is more and with foreign-speaking crews different gentle and understanding, although still from the officers, with only an engineroom critical, of the Admiralty's part as a direct telegraph and often magnetic compasses. operations centre (the only one of the The pre-convoy Conferences seemed to three Services to so operate) in trying to work, and "rompers" (those ships pulling second guess and direct the Senior Officer ahead of their mates in convoy) and on the spot in such debacles as the "Chan• "stragglers" (those who dropped astern) nel Dash" of the three German capital suffered far greater losses in both pure ships in February 1942 and the infamous numbers and proportionately than did PQ 17 Russian convoy massacre. To offset those who travelled under naval protec• this, van der Vat emphasises the vital role tion, however scanty and ill-equipped that 68 The Northern Mariner might be and however young the C.O.s now with St. Laurent, escorted SC 107, might be (two of the RCNVR, Messrs again with minimal radar; St. Laurent and Pickford and Quinn, are known to have a rescue ship had only H/F D/F to locate been twenty-two years old!). But the tally the seventeen U-Boats sent against them of statistics is not intrusive and helps us to by Dônitz after a good xB-dienst decrypt. see the war from the headquarters in No wonder the RCN fared poorly. He Lorient, London, Washington, and even does make the point, unnoted by this Ottawa. reviewer, that the Government deliberately One of the most interesting aspects of resolved to concentrate on the technically this history is the clear view van der Vat intensive Services of the RCN and RCAF has of the RCN's position throughout the rather than the Army as in the First War, war. He is, in fact, a strong supporter of in order to gain a permanent development our efforts, unlike many other British advantage. Even so, many technical devel• writers. He appreciates that we grew too opments, certainly for the Navy, lagged fast, volunteered too much, and were behind those of our Allies, and we often unable to refuse demands on our apparent could not, or would not, follow their leads. forces by the Admiralty who, in turn, left Canadian radar in RXC and SW1C was Canada at the back of the queue for almost always of poor operating quality, equipment, leadership, training and sup• and years behind their RN counterparts. port. When we caught up in mid-1943 and This is a first-class history, with only a were lead, sometimes, by long experienced very few unimportant errors (Col. Sir RN destroyer Senior Officers, we were as Maurice Hankey was Royal Marine Artil• good as the best. He quotes Admiral Sir lery, not Army for instance), and some Percy Noble, the original Commander, possibly questionable assessments by the Western Approaches, that "The Canadian author which tend to disappear as the Navy solved the problem of the Atlantic story progresses. The book is well worth convoys" (p. 318). Van der Vat points out having in any library, and a very good that when the British Groups had the read. same problems as the RCN, they too fared poorly. For example, in February 1943 B2 Fraser M. McKee RN Group lost thirteen vessels, including Markdale, Ontario a troopship, to twenty attacking U-Boats from three Wolf Packs, despite having John D. Byrn, Jr. Crime and Punishment been augmented to twelve warships with in the Royal Navy: Discipline in the Lee• some USN ships, for a cost of three U- ward Islands Station 1784-1812. Brookfield, Boats sunk. He adds that due to poor VT.: Scolar Press, 1989. 251 pp., figures, performance and under-equipped ships, appendix, bibliography, index. $54.95, the RCN was too frequently and quite cloth; ISBN 0-85967-808-3. questionably assigned to the slower ONS and SC convoys which, in turn, attracted In this thoroughly researched, well-written, more German attention and were easier to and generally fascinating study, the histor• find and attack than the faster ON and ian John Byrn explores the theory and HX convoys. In September 1942, ONS 127 practice of criminal justice in the British had five RCN corvettes, not one with a navy in the late eighteenth and early nine• working radar. Later the same group (C4), teenth century prior to the subsequent Book Reviews 69

reform of the so-called "Bloody Code." common law, and the Articles of War Here is an exhaustive analysis originally were implemented "moderately—even hu• based on a doctoral thesis of the introduc• manely" (p. 63). In a third likewise illumi• tion, nature, and application of thirty-six nating chapter, Byrn analyzes naval pun• naval ordinances known as the Articles of ishment more specifically. He has dis• War of 1749. Through them Byrn shows covered that, though corporal penalties how contemporary principles of common were deliberately brutal and humiliating, law were carried into military life at sea. this result was by no means unique nor The author has limited this study to exclusive to the navy and, again, mirrored the experiences of the Leeward Islands' the forms of punishment deeply rooted in command between 1784-1812 for a num• the civilian code of the day. ber of reasons: it was militarily and stra• The latter three chapters deal first tegically vital to the British government in with the "nautical gentry," or the officers the aftermath of the American and French responsible for enforcing the law, their Revolutions and during the Napoleonic social context on board ship, and then- conflict, it was distant enough from the possible motivation in dispensing the law mother country to escape interference by in the manner that they did. The popular the Admiralty and thus gives one a good image of Captain Bligh to the contrary, look at unimpeded naval discipline, and it this class of officer-gentleman often had a reputation for lawlessness. More• evinced "the leavening principles of gentil• over, documentary evidence from this ity, paternalism and detached justice" (p. command is abundant. Byrn has made 108). Byrne goes on to provide a convinc• careful use of extant and, more important• ing portrait of the naval ship as "a floating ly, complete captain's and master's logs of society" in which moral, social and legal a sample of seventy-three ships stationed offences, principally drunkenness, theft, at these islands--a substantial evidentiary assault, and occasionally buggery and base. homicide had to be contended with, and The book consists of six chapters and he has discovered that while there were four appendices. Beginning with an over• similarities, justice at sea as compared view of the Articles of War, the author with on land relied more heavily on sum• examines the basic types of crime-contra• mary conviction and corporal punishment. ventions against religion and morality, In his final chapter, he discusses service- crimes against king and government, in• related infractions such as desertion, dis• fringements of the rights of individuals, obedience, and neglect of duty together and naval infractions - and their enforce• with the legal decisions which surrounded ment. He then looks at the nature and them. These decisions too were founded contours of naval jurisprudence as com• on the common law tradition. pared to the common law and makes the In concluding, the author argues that argument that the practice of naval law, to an extent British naval law strengthened especially pertaining to court martial, and legitimized the authority of the nauti• though ideological in its content and in its cal gentry, yet that this law served less to disciplinary function, was anything but perpetuate the self-interest of the elite arbitrary, excessive, or extraordinary in its overseers against the rank and file than to execution. Rather, naval law reflected the maintain the stability and discipline neces• prevailing characteristics and discourse of sary to secure the efficient and proper 70 The Northern Mariner

operation of the navy and individual The answer rests with several com• vessels. An extensive bibliography or pri• plaints, beginning with the reason why the mary and secondary sources rounds out book was published in the first place. the book. Also appended are the Articles Usually, a book is published because it has of War of 1749, a reference list of ships something new to say, either by way of surveyed and punishments meted out, a challenging established interpretations or list of captains and their respective roles, because it offers the fruits of new and a series of graphs showing representa• research. A book might also be published tive punishment patterns. because it synthesizes, in one convenient Detailed, rigorous, yet quite readable monograph, the research of many histor• for the scholar and lay reader alike, Byrn's ians who, collectively, have forced us to re• significant study effectively dispels com• think how an event as momentous as the mon myths about crime and punishment in American Revolution can be explained. the navy and offers the reader hard evi• 77ie Royal Navy in American Waters does dence to support his main thesis that naval none of these things. In its interpretation, and common law were rooted in similar in the research on which it is based, and cultural traditions and attitudes. Moreover, in its conclusions, the book is severely his use of naval trial transcripts gives life dated. A quick glance at the bibliography to a compelling qualitative and quantitat• reveals that only one of its secondary ive analysis. In sum, this book is highly sources was published after 1980—and that recommended for any serious student of being an article written by Syrett himself. naval history or criminal justice history. Recent works on the logistical or diplo• matic side of the American Revolutionary Rainer Baehre War are conspicuous by their absence. Corner Brook, Newfoundland The most recent volume of the continuing series of Naval Documents of the Ameri• David Syrett. 77ie Royal Navy in American can Revolution (Washington, 1964-) to be Waters, 1775-1783. Aldershot, UK & used by Syrett is Volume IV, published in Brookfield, VT: Scolar Press, 1989. ix + 1969! Yet there have been five more vol• 250 pp., maps, figures, bibliography, index. umes published to date. The conclusion is US $56.95, cloth; ISBN 0-85967-806-7. inescapable: though published in 1989, this book is based on a manuscript which is David Syrett is well-known for his research more than a decade old, and hardly on the Royal Navy during the era of the revised since then. American Revolution. His study Shipping Quite apart from saying little that is and the American War, 1775-83 (London, new, Syrett fails to provide sufficient back• 1970) and numerous contributions to jour• ground material to place his description nals like Mariner's Mirror have helped to and analysis of the Royal Navy's activities establish him as a leading authority on the in a firm historical context. On page 1, we naval side of the War of the American are immediately plunged into the navy's Revolution. He is therefore a logical can• situation in America in 1775; nothing is didate to write a definitive treatment of said on the state of the navy, its disposi• the Royal Navy's role in the North Ameri• tion, administration, personnel, manning, can theatre of that war. So why is this etc. What experience did its officers carry particular book such a disappointment? with them into the war? When and where, Book Reviews 71 for instance, did Vice-Admiral Samuel proofreading for this volume is very poor; Graves develop his ability to keep his the worst example occurs when the first ships on patrol off the Massachusetts coast two lines on p. 175 are reprinted again at during the winter of 1775-76? We do not the top of p. 176. know, because we are not told. Elsewhere, In conclusion, I suspect that scholars we are left equally in the dark about de• who wish a convenient one-volume treat• velopments beyond the American theatre ment of the Royal Navy in North America which had profound consequences on the during the 1775-83 war will undoubtedly navy's performance in American waters. find it difficult to resist this book, simply For instance, it is generally accepted that on the strength of its author's reputation. the Keppel-Palhser affair (1778-79) seri• If so, I fear they too will find it a disap• ously damaged the navy's ability to pros• pointment. Its treatment of the topic is far ecute the war, yet Syrett never once men• from thorough, and even as an introduc• tions it. When Syrett suggests that Lords tory study its weaknesses make it less than George Germain and Sandwich "viewed adequate. A definitive modern treatment the British position in America with vary• of the Royal Navy in North America dur• ing degrees of complacency" (p. 181) after ing the American Revolution has yet to be 1781, he obscures the seriousness of the written. situation in the North Sea or the Western Approaches which influenced then- Olaf Janzen response to American events. What is Corner Brook, Newfoundland missing, in short, is a larger context within which the navy's activities in North Ernest K. Hartling and Jo Kranz. Bluenose America could make sense. Master: The Memoirs of Captain Ernest K. The publisher surely shares some of Hartling. Willowdale, Ontario: Hounslow the blame for the way in which this book Press, 1989. v + 177 pp., map, photo• disappoints. The index is a travesty, it graphs and ink drawings. $32.95, cloth; shows all the signs of having been ISBN 0-88882-118-2. $14.95 paper; ISBN assembled mechanically with word-pro• 0-88882-114-X. cessing software and no sense of judge• ment. This, combined with Syrett's fond• This interesting little book is the latest in ness for historical analogy, results in the what is beginning to look like a series of appearance in the index of the Boer Re• personal histories of Nova Scotian master publics; Generals Rommel, Eisenhower, mariners. In common with its prede• and Stonewall Jackson; Bataan; and other cessors, the book describes the career of a equally irrelevant references, yet nowhere ship's captain, born of seafaring stock in a will one find privateering, logistics, block• small coastal community, and follows the ade, and other concepts more germane to highs and lows of his career from sail to the book's subject. A series of sketch steam, during which he commanded a maps helps the reader with some cam• variety of vessels, ranging from his family's paigns, yet none exists for the Philadelphia cargo schooner Estonia to the elegant S.S. campaign of 1777, though we are told that Surf and, finally, Bluenose II. "The decision to move on Philadelphia by The easy narrative style of Jo Kranz sea ... was the greatest single mistake presents Captain Hartling's story in auto• made by [General] Howe..." (p. 74) The biographic form from his boyhood in iso- 72 The Northern Mariner lated Spanish Ship Bay on Nova Scotia's map showing the location of Mulgrave and Eastern Shore to his controversial captain• Guysborough would have been unnecess• cy of Bluenose II in 1975. Among the ary had the cartographer not forgotten the many highlights, are his eyewitness Strait of Canso in the area map preceding account of the Halifax Explosion, his de• page one. scription of the Norwegian whaling station Apart from these relatively minor con• at Rose au Rue and his wartime experi• cerns, the memoirs of Captain Hartling ences as a pilot in Halifax Harbour. He are a delight to students of Maritime pro• comes across as a man with a great love vinces' shipping in the twentieth century. of ships and the sea, a social man who They provide a wealth of information on enjoyed company, a good laugh and a many areas of interest, from people and glass of rum, but who had little interest in ships to general economic conditions and his family or life ashore. government patronage. Much of the con• The book is not without problems tent dovetails neatly into the growing which, for the most part, arise from Jo resource base on the subject, tying up a Kranz's rather odd use of nautical vocabu• number of loose ends and providing yet lary and her apparent lack of interest in another perspective on a fascinating sub• researching Hartling's notes to ensure ject. accuracy and fill in any blanks. This, given Bluenose Master is a book which the fact that the subject was eighty-three should be enjoyed by anyone, even those years of age, should have been mandatory. with only a recreational interest in sea To note a few examples, Estonia, the stories. They may be a little surprised, as aforementioned schooner, is mentioned a was the reviewer, by the almost defensive number of times in the text as Esthonia, tone of the last two chapters, but Captain Sambro becomes "Samboro" and there are Hartling's actions while in command of a number of vessels which remain unident• Bluenose II were controversial and what ified. Similarly, Sherbrooke, the main com• better place to tell his side of the story mercial centre of the upper part of the than in his own memoirs. Eastern Shore, with a healthy population of seven hundred in 1910, is described as Robin H. Wyllie "the small village near Spanish Ship Bay." East LaHave, Nova Scotia Of the twelve chapter title pages, illus• trated with ink drawings by book designer George F. Bass (ed.). Ships and Ship• Gerard Williams, only six are appropriate, wrecks of the Americas. A History Based on and two of these are duplicated with pho• Underwater Archaeology. London: Thames tographs. Of those deemed inappropriate, and Hudson, 1988. 272 pp., illustrations, two are, of all places, Peggy's Cove, and photographs (b & w, colour) bibliography, two are of steel-hulled excursion schoo• index, guide to research institutes and ners in tropical settings. They do little to museums. $40.00, hardcover; ISBN 0-500- enhance the otherwise adequate design of 05049-X. Canadian distributor, Douglas & the book. The photographs, on the other Mclntyre, Vancouver. hand, apart from a completely unrelated view of the Maid of England under full Ships and Shipwrecks of the Americas is a sail, are interesting, although some have fascinating book highlighting the contribu• been published before, while a little sketch tion of the excavation of shipwrecks to our Book Reviews 73 understanding of the history of the the entrapment and sinking of the French Americas. Each chapter is written by the fleet there in 1758. The scuttling of the ranking expert in the field. Machault in the Restigouche River in 1760 is also described. The text describes nautical history from the primitive craft of indigenous peoples The chapter on the Great Lakes includes a to the end of the era of sail. Several of the lengthy section on the Hamilton and chapters contain Canadian content but Scourge, the two gunboats located at great only chapter one deals with the Americas depths off Hamilton, which have been pre• as a geographic whole. The remainder served in pristine condition by the low have strong regional emphases, with the oxygen content of the frigid water. Later United States predominating. chapters deal with steamboats, ironclads and some of the last vessels of the sailing- Chapter one includes a discussion of the ship era. The epilogue documents the Norse site in Newfoundland and even advances in deepwater technology demon• speculates on the possibility of Japanese strated by the work on the Andrea Doria contact with coastal Ecuador about 3000 and the Titanic, plus Dr. Joe Maclnnis' BC. The early chapters deal with pioneering work on the Breadalbane in the Columbian and other exploration between Canadian Arctic. 1492 and 1554, with the emphasis upon the dearth of finds to date. From a Cana• In summary, the book's strength lies in its dian viewpoint the absence of any treat• compendium of data from disparate ment of Arctic exploration is disappoint• sources under one title. It clearly demon• ing. However, this feeling vanishes rapidly, strates the advances since Bass' earlier since chapter four is devoted entirely to book in 1972, while at the same time the excavation of the Basque whaler and drawing attention to how few of the auxiliary vessels at Red Bay, Labrador. known sites have actually been excavated The chapter details the methods and find• for their archaeological data. From a ings of the extensive work done by Parks strictly Canadian perspective, however, the Canada personnel under the direction of weakness of the text lies in its omissions. Robert Grenier. The chapter on treasure In particular, there is a need for a chapter fleets is worth mentioning, as it does a on whaling and Arctic exploration. Despite remarkable job of cataloguing the impres• these oversights, the book is an essential sive wealth of finds while at the same time addition to any serious student's library of decrying the incredible loss of knowledge nautical texts. about ship construction and design. The chapter on French and Indian naval battles Andy Lockery provides a unique insight into the charac• Winnipeg, Manitoba ter of warfare in North America and the vessels used. The discovery of several bateaux in the lower town of Québec pro• vides the rationale for the discussion of a vessel extensively used for military trans• port. Also in this chapter is reference to the battles at Louisbourg which resulted in