BOOK REVIEWS

Victor Suthren (ed.). Canadian Stories of the episodes are located on waters contiguous Sea. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1993. with Canadian soil, but all are directly related ix + 278 pp. $17.95, paper; 0-19-540849-7. to the national life. A good example is Joshua Slocum's lone trip around the world. The Indelibly etched in my memory is my first segment the reader is treated to finds the reading assignment in History 101. It was a Nova Scotian sailor in the South Atlantic, book on the major rivers of Europe. Such while John Voss, another intrepid Canadian knowledge, the professor claimed, was essen• small boat voyager, is to be found battling tial to the study of European History. This mountainous seas in the South Pacific. book edited by Victor Suthren might not, The trilogy of World War II accounts at perhaps, be essential, but it would certainly be sea by such distinguished chroniclers as Hal beneficial for students of Canada. Unlike Lawrence, James B. Lamb and Joseph Schull much assigned reading, this collection is a provide poignant portraits of the pain and sheer delight to read, capturing, as it does, not agony of a generation of young Canadians in• only a lot of Canadian history but much of its decently rushed into becoming seasoned sea• culture as well. In all of this Canada's rivers, farers and in the course writing an important lakes and ocean waters play a major role. chapter in the nation's history. Stories about Suthren has gathered together thirty-two the Bluenose and the Marco Polo, with the stories in eight distinctive groupings: The tyrannical "Bully Forbes," will be familiar to First Peoples; The Newcomers; Blood On The many. Others will be an eye-opener, such as Waters; Making A Living On The Sea; Spe• the stranding of the Sophia. This compelling cial Ships; Going It Alone; Dark Shadows: account deserves to be widely read as an Modern War At Sea; and The Modem Sea: example of the continuous battle seafarers Harsh Workplace, Beckoning Playground. As wage against Canada's unforgiving climate. these chapter titles make evident, the time Equally captivating, but in another vein, is the span and the topics are broad in scope. Not descriptive account of the lot of the lighthouse content to start the collection with the arrival keepers before helicopter supply and automa• of the first European settlers, the editor tion. The editor's choice to illustrate "The reaches back to oral history and legends of the Harsh Workplace" is a discerning one, for we First Nations. The reader is then treated to are provided with a perceptive and informa• classic glimpses of episodes that form import• tive picture of the questionable treatment ant parts of the Canadian mosaic. We are re• afforded not only native Canadians but also to minded that Jacques Cartier not only com• settlers of Japanese ancestry at the outbreak of mented on the abundance of fish he found on World War II. Included in this chapter is an his exploration along Canada's east coast, but excellent overview of the problems in the also on the bird life. "All the ships of France fishing industry resulting from advancing might hold a cargo of them without once per• technology and gear conflicts. ceiving that any had been removed." (p.30) All this is only a sample of the skilful Of note too is that not all the chosen selection of sea-related stories. I use the word

47 48 The Northern Mariner

"selection," not "collection," deliberately and Labrador.) because it is quite obvious that the editor has Generally, these authors were recognized gone to great pains to arrive at this choice. masters of sea literature in their day; most Within this one volume, readers can sample sold to a variety of magazines in the United many of Canada's finest writings from the States, Canada and the United Kingdom, such thought-provoking prose of Thomas H. Rad- as Adventure, Sea Stories, McClure's, Cen• dall to the whimsical words of Farley Mowat. tury, Canadian Magazine, and Blackwood's. An added plus is the fact-packed, bridging All but McKay also published at least one sea narratives provided by the editor. I have novel or story collection. Today, with the nothing but the highest praise for this book exception of Day and Raddall and, to some and can only hope that Victor Suthren will extent, Wallace and MacMechan, these writers seriously consider putting together more such are largely forgotten. Only one is represented volumes. Selections could include stories in Victor Suthren's new anthology of Cana• dealing with the J.D. Lawrence, SS Caribou, dian sea stories. Most of their work has long Hector and Le Griffon, just to mention a few been out of print, much of it buried in diffi- accounts worthy of recollection. cult-to-obtain and unindexed pulp magazines. I unreservedly commend this book for The most neglected of all has undoubted• Canadian history students, new citizens, ly been Colin McKay. One of the earliest armchair sailors, as well as serious nautical practitioners of the Maritime sea story and a researchers. proud descendant of a renowned Nova Scotian shipbuilding family, McKay was described in Gregory P. Pritchard Henry J. Morgan's Canadian Men and Blue Rocks, Nova Scotia Women of the Time (1912) as "famous as the writer in McClure's, Ainslee's, etc." Despite Colin McKay; Lewis Jackson and Ian McKay such recognition, McKay disappeared from (eds.). Windjammers and Bluenose Sailors. Canadian literary history after his death in Lockeport, NS: Roseway Publishing, 1993. 1939. Now, thanks to the new collection 192 pp., introductory essays, illustrations, Windjammers and Bluenose Sailors, McKay's glossary. $14, paper; ISBN 0-9694180-9-4. contribution to Maritime (and maritime) literature may finally receive its due. Co- In the Maritimes, the Golden Age of Sail was edited by Lewis Jackson and Ian McKay (no followed by what might be termed the Golden relation), the book rescues from obscurity Age of the Sea Story. From 1900 to 1930, a fifteen of Colin McKay's sea stories and two number of writers turned to the celebration poems. Published mostly between 1899 and and exploration of the region's experience in 1913, these gripping tales of daring feats and the shipping and fishing industries. Most of quiet heroism reveal a deep knowledge of the these authors were natives or residents of the sea and an obvious sympathy for the common Maritimes, and several had spent some time at sailor that McKay acquired during his many sea. The leading figures in this movement years of seafaring. To some degree, the stories were Colin McKay, Albert Hickman, Fred• also reflect his commitment to the socialist erick William Wallace, Archibald MacMech- cause. Though slightly uneven, all are worth an, Arthur Hunt Chute, and — towards the end reading. Most demonstrate the strong powers of the period — Frank Parker Day and Thomas of description and the narrative skill that H. Raddall. (At the same time that these prompted the American editor and publisher writers were publishing Maritime sea stories, S.S. McClure to praise McKay's "tremendous Norman Duncan, Wilfred Grenfell, Theodore ability in writing of the sea." A few, such as Goodridge Roberts, and Erie Spencer were "The Wreck of the Cod Seeker," "Coming on writing similar stories about Newfoundland the Coast," "Out of Herring Cove," and "At Book Reviews 49 the Reefing of the Topsails," rank among the little more than a common antipathy toward best Maritime sea stories. and dependency upon Ottawa, the sea does Two introductory essays by the editors provide a bond of experience. After all, most precede McKay's stories and poems. The first, people live within sight of the sea; few are by both Jackson and McKay, provides some beyond an hour's drive of it; and, until recent• useful information about McKay's life and ly, many derived their livelihood there on. It literary output. The second is by Ian McKay, simply must be influential. Yet Sackville who is presently at work on a separate collec• writer J. Alexander Burnett, when preparing tion of Colin McKay's writings on political the Afterword for this collection, says he was economy. The essay is a rather lame piece of struck by how few oceanic allusions he could revisionism that attempts to portray Colin recall from his own exposure to the arts and McKay as some sort of politically correct artists of Atlantic Canada. Is the sea in fact adventure writer, a New Man bent on expos• influential? Does it in fact unify? ing "the dark side of the Age of Sail." It should not be expected that such pro• Readers would have been better served by found questions of cultural history will be another Colin McKay story or by a longer answered in five exploratory papers. There version of the first essay — one with more are, nevertheless, a few interesting issues details about Colin McKay's life and more raised. Maria Tippett's essay, for example, information about his writing, including those "Organizing the Culture of a Region: Institu• sea stories not included in this collection. tions and the Arts in Atlantic Canada, 1867- Nevertheless, Windjammers and Bluenose -1957," argues that the web of associations, Sailors is recommended. Jackson and McKay societies, and councils that provided the have reclaimed a significant voice in Maritime moral, technical, and financial support for so literature, compiling the collection that Colin many Atlantic writers, artists, and musicians McKay himself had hoped to produce but bound them more closely to international never managed to see into print. The resulting professional norms than to regional sensibil• volume is an important addition to the grow• ities. If true, external standards would help ing body of writing about the Maritimes and determine the influence, if any, of the sea. the Age of Sail, golden or otherwise. In the event, it is extraordinary the extent to which images, especially seaward images, John Bell of Atlantic Canada are the product not of Ottawa, Ontario home-grown and resident artists and writers but of expatriates or visitors. One thinks Larry McCann (ed.), with Carrie MacMillan. immediately of J.F.B. Livesay's populariz• The Sea and Culture of Atlantic Canada: A ation of Peggy's Cove, so brilliantly analyzed Multidisciplinary Sampler. Sackville, NB: by Ian McKay in an article in the Journal of Centre for Canadian Studies, Mount Allison Canadian Studies in 1988. Here Peter Neary's University, 1993. 156 pp., illustrations, fig• essay, "American Argonauts: Frederic Edwin ures, photographs. $15.95, paper; ISBN 0- Church and Louis Noble Legrand in New• 88828-098-X. foundland and Labrador, 1859," describes two visitors in search of icebergs to paint (one This slim collection of five essays is the resultant image graces the cover). More product of two symposia held at Mount comparative in approach is Kathryn Hamer's Allison University over the winter of 1989-90. "Marginal Land/Sea/Scapes in French and The organizers' operating assumption is that French-Canadian Literature," which is too there is an identifiable "Atlantic culture" and cursory to be useful. For the moment, one is that the sea plays an important role in its uncertain whether literary and pictorial images definition. In a region otherwise united by of the sea are truly indigenous, let alone 50 The Northern Mariner

central to a regional culture. Century). Part of a new series intended for In the search for the influence of the sea, non-specialists entitled "The Making of however, this volume does not restrict itself to Europe," Europe and the Sea consists of two the products of writers and painters. In "The parts: a survey of European maritime history House that Poor-Jack Built: Architectural from the Greeks to the present (though Stages in the Newfoundland Fishery," Gerald focused heavily on the Middle Ages) followed L. PoCius finds in an ubiquitous outport by a series of reflections on the social and structure evidence of a profound association cultural characteristics of Europe's maritime with the sea. So, too, does T.K. Pratt in communities and how those might be instru• language. His "Sea, Land, and Language: mental in aiding the construction of a com• Shaping the Linguistic Character of Atlantic mon European mentality. Braudelian in scope, Canada" suggests how deep and pervasive — and often in style, and informed by Mollat du and how unconscious — the sea is in the Jourdin's great erudition, the volume contains structure of basic communication. Together many evocative passages and much to ponder these two articles indicate that the real at the level of sweeping abstractions. Europe measure of the sea's influence is to be found and the Sea does not, however, manage to at a more basic level. synthesize its disparate observations and is Burnett's wise Afterword provides a further weakened by uneven organization; fitting tale by way of closing. An old New• perhaps the nature of the topic makes gen• foundlander once told him of two woodsmen erally applicable conclusions difficult. working in the island's interior who, never Maritime specialists will find little new having been to the coast, one day set out to here, which is to be expected given the audi• have a look at the sea. Upon arrival the first ence for whom the book was written. The says, "Well b'y, there she is." To which the lack of footnotes is, nevertheless, a problem; second responds, "Yes my son, and what ye there is no evidence offered for many points sees there, that's just the top of 'er." that will surely arouse the doubts of non- specialists as well, for example, for the claim M. Brook Taylor that "on the black slavers of the eighteenth Bridgewater, Nova Scotia century more whites than blacks died." (p. 164) The translation is choppy but the maps Michel Mollat du Jourdin; Teresa Lavender are plentiful and well-drawn. Fagan (trans.). Europe and the Sea. Oxford, Mollat du Jourdin's strength lies in his UK and Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell, ability, based on his use of a wide variety of 1993. xiii + 269 pp., illustrations maps, sources including those literary and icona- glossary, bibliography, index. £19.99, US graphical, to capture a general trend or facet $24.95, cloth; ISBN 0-631-17227-0. in a single example. To give a small indica• tion of the potpourri of topics so covered: Europe and the Sea is a meditation on the Adam of Bremen describing the mists of the role of the sea in European history and its Baltic in the eleventh century (p.39); the carta influence on the European psyche by one of Pisana and the portolans c. 1300 (p.37); the the deans of maritime history, Michel Mollat international composition of Magellan's crew du Jourdin (Professor of History at the Sor- (p. 104); caloric intake for sailors in the four• bonne and probably best-known to readers of teenth century (p. 158); marine votive offer• this journal for his stewardship of the Interna• ings (pp. 165-6, 213); twinning by ports of tional Commission for Maritime History differing nationalities such as the sixteenth- colloquia in the 1950s and '60s and his 1990 century Contratacion between Nantes and Everyday Life among the Sailors of the Atlan• Bilbao (p. 173); Anglo-French cooperation on tic from the Middle Ages to the Sixteenth the Channel lighthouses even in times of war. Book Reviews 51

(pp. 182-3) The author recites with verve the main gives rise to certain cultural forms among points of medieval maritime activity, especial• those who reside by it, why did the Chinese ly the convergence, as he sees it, in the late develop so differently after 1480? After all, thirteenth-early fourteenth centuries of north• all continents have coastlines, even if it were ern and southern seafaring cultures. (pp.57ff) true, as Mollat du Jourdin claims in his open• He is especially good at relating commercial, ing pages, that there is more coastline per naval and technological features to one inhabitant in Europe than elsewhere. Import• another, as in his discussions of early harbour ant recent works (none of them in Europe and types (pp.73-76) and ship design (pp.89-95). Sea's bibliography) by P. Curtin on cross- Also felicitous is his emphasis on the import• cultural trade, K.N. Chaudhuri on indigenous ance of the fisheries and coastal salt-works commerce in the Indian Ocean and J. Abu- (pp.63-4, 104, 107, 140ff). The post- Lughod on medieval trade systems document Columbus era, on the other hand, receives the fact that non-European societies also only cursory attention, truncating his survey interacted vigorously with the sea while and isolating his concluding remarks on developing distinctive cultures of their own. present-day Antwerp and Rotterdam. Europe and the Sea raises many interest• The most intriguing, and also most frus• ing speculations and includes a wealth of trating, parts of the book are the author's detail, much of it drawn from sources not reflections on the interplay between man and routinely used by maritime specialists. These sea in European history. The overarching details are not, however, marshalled into a theme of the book, in keeping with the "Eras- convincing whole; Mollat du Jourdin's effort mian" thrust of Blackwell's new series, is to is stimulating but ultimately unsatisfying. show how crucial the sea has been to the creation of a uniquely European culture. Daniel A. Rabuzzi Hence, there are references to "the maritime Baltimore, Maryland predispositions of Europe," (p.6) "the role of the sea in the construction of Europe, and Hans Vandersmissen (ed.). Proceedings, subsequently in the awakening of a European Common European Maritime Heritage Con• personality" (p. 109) and "[from the sea gress. Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum Nederlands European individuality is born." (p. 115) Scheepvaart, 1993. 128 pp., photographs, Mollat du Jourdin is indeed almost lyrical in tables, figures, paper. describing the psychological roots of Europe's drive to dominate the waves, duly noting war In 1992 representatives from European coun• and profit but also assigning a pre-existing tries met in conference in Amsterdam to dis• and complementary function to what he dubs cuss the state of traditional craft preservation. "a field of dreams" (p.40) and "the search for The evolving European unity is generating op• distant islands." (p. 105) Citing Celtic, Scan• portunities and challenges for standardized dinavian and Medieval Christian myths and regulations and approaches to vessel govern• teachings, he sees European expansion onto ance and management. These proceedings, the sea propelled by the wonder and desire for divided into thirteen chapters, one for each of an idealized state beyond the horizon, e.g., the the participating nations, encapsulate the Antilles and Hy Breasil, a desire he asserts is details of support programmes, private and "the universal myth of the island." (p.41) public initiatives, trends and activity in each nation. Such generalizations lead the reader to Each chapter provides a detailed insight wonder, however, just exactly what is unique• into conditions and advances which might ly European in Europe's relationship with the have application in other settings. The editor sea. If such drives are universal and the sea has also created a small reference guide to 52 The Northern Mariner some traditional European craft. Illustrations may have only casual interest to aficionados accompany the text, while captions provide of general maritime heritage. brief identifications and data on the function and development of the design. An overview John M. MacFarlane of the Dutch ICOMOS Survey provides a Victoria, British Columbia summary of laws and legislation, change and demolition of protected objects, financial aid, Uwe Schnall and Ursula Feldkamp (eds.). role of government agencies and private Deutsches Schiffahrtsarchiv XV (1992). associations, in nine of the participating Bremerhaven: Deutsches Schiffahrtsmuseum, nations. Another summary of an AGB Into- 1992. 424 pp., photographs, figures, maps, mart Qualitatief Survey describes the histori• notes, paper; ISBN 3-8225-0221-9. cal ships and boats of Europe. The responses, which concentrate on existing government programmes, legislation governing historic Since 1975 the Deutsches Schiffahrtsmuseum vessels, fiscal subventions, organizational (German Maritime Museum) has published cooperation and obstacles to progress, were collections of scholarly papers; since 1980, summarized for the congress participants. they have appeared annually as the museum These results highlight the need for yearbook. This 1992 volume contains, in documenting methodology and coordinating addition to an annual report from the efforts between countries. Three-quarters of museum, no less than nineteen different the 4,823 historic ships are located in the essays on various aspects of maritime history. Netherlands. Many of the responding organiz• The topics present an extremely wide chrono• ations maintain a single vessel, but have logical span, from the Old Testament time of interest in the activities of the other organiz• Noah to the present. The essays are grouped ations, but most countries have an umbrella into seven thematic sections: Reisen und organization of some sort which often has a Entdeckung (voyages and discoveries), very low public profile. Lack of standards for Schiffsarchaologie (maritime archaeology), preservation and fiscal constraints were ident• Seeschiffahrt (shipping), Schiffbau (shipbuild• ified as major barriers to progress. ing), Fischerei und Walfang (fishing and The congress participants concluded that whaling), Navigation, and Volkskunde (eth• the future of preservation lays with private nology). There is too little space here to do efforts assisted by government subventions. justice to all the essays, and so what follows, The need for better documentation, registra• are just a few interesting examples selected at tion, and coordination was clearly identified random from the rich contents of the book. by most of the participant nations. A perma• Since 1992 marked the quincentennial of nent focus of coordination was established at the first Columbus voyage, it is appropriate the Nederlands Scheepvaart Museum to act as that the yearbook opens with Wolfgang Kbbe- a secretariat promoting future cooperation. rer's article dealing with the familiar question No information was provided about of Columbus' landfall in the "new world." availability and ordering of copies of the The author presents a meticulous survey of proceedings. This publication would make a existing evidence and cautiously concludes very useful addition to the library of a heri• that, although some supports the traditional tage policy-maker/analyst, although their interpretation (that the present Watling Island findings were not all that surprising. Because is the elusive Guanahani), this is by no means I am professionally interested in preservation certain. This section also includes essays on of historic vessels, I found it fascinating to the Biblical and Babylonian traditions of the read about the maritime activities in these great deluge (by Ekhart Beikenhagen) and of thirteen countries. However, these proceedings a journey to Ceylon in the 1330s and 1340s (by Ananda Abeydeera, Paris). Book Reviews 53

In the section on maritime archaeology problems and difficulties that arose when the Per Hoffman presents the remains of medieval mate shot an intruder in Brazil. In two other craft in the Bremerhaven museum, including articles, an Alands master tells of Pommern's the famous Bremer Hanse-Kogge, and their last voyage in the Australian grain trade in current state of conservation. There is also an 1938, while a retired Danish master, G. interesting article by Christer Westerdahl of Sundberg, tells how, at the age of 17, he Copenhagen, describing the Viking navigation decided to become a "real seaman" by getting techniques on the Russian river-systems. his discharge from a Danish steamer in Lon• In the section on shipping, Heintz Bur- don and signing on the barque Winterhude for mester, himself a Cape Homer, records the a voyage to Australia in 1938. Sundberg fates of German sailing vessels during World describes how the Winterhude was held up in War I. In another interesting article, Frank the fall of 1939 by a German U-boat while on Broeze describes how the well-known German the way to Stavanger. I thoroughly enjoyed HAPAG developed between 1886 and 1914 Sundberg's story. Another versatile Alander from an Atlantic liner company into a ship• was C.S. Johansson, who left the sea after ping firm with world-wide activities. being wrecked on New Caledonia and became Other articles of more general interest a prominent builder in Australia. The cathe• include a description by Albrecht Sauer of dral at Darwin was one of his creations. late medieval navigation techniques, and an During the Crimean War, the British fleet overview by Heinrich Stettner of sailors' carried out a series of raids on Finnish ports. clothing from 1250 to 1800. However, there Herman Avellan, Chief Pilot for the Brahe- are many more good and useful pieces of stad-Leaborg district, was an Alander who maritime history than can be described here, was present at the destruction of the shipping, and the German Maritime Museum is to be stores and buildings at Brahestad by crews congratulated for an excellent yearbook. from the British paddle frigates Leopold, Vulture, and Odin. The town had no defence Yrj6 Kaukiainen and no Russian military personnel were pres• Helsinki, Finland ent. Ironically, most of the destroyed timber belonged to British importers. Avellan wrote Alands Nautical Club. Sjdhistorisk Arsskrift a detailed account of that event, which is now for Aland 1992-93. Mariehamn: Alands SjS- published for the first time. It is an excellent fartsmuseum, 1993 [Hamngatan 2, PB 98, SF- record of a wanton event. 22101 Mariehamn, Finland]. 182 pp., photo• Many Alands skippers maintained that the graphs, maps, illustrations. 80 FIM, paper; Swedish Island of Gotland was a hindrance to ISSN 0788-799X. Aland shipping which traded with the conti• nent. Their proof was that during sixty-two Alands Nautical Club and the Alands Mari• years, fifteen Alands ships were wrecked on time Museum are responsible for this fine Gotland. As a result of his researches, Mr. G. yearbook and third volume of maritime his• Sundberg, director of Alands Maritime tory, consisting of ten articles about seafaring Museum, suggests instead that the island was Ålanders and episodes in the island's history. a life-raft for Alands seamen and not the Through one article we get to know cause of their disasters. Anders Törnqvist, who was placed in com• The yearbook includes discussion of the mand of the 889 nrt barque Slamat in July, worst disaster to befall Alands. In 1916, the 1899. Extracts from his diary begin with a SS Skiftet, employed in the Alands-Abo trade, voyage from Cardiff to South America with struck a mine laid by a German submarine. coal. It includes Törnqvist's accounts of the Skiftet sank in two minutes, taking eighty-six loss of the steering gear in a storm, manning passengers and crew with her. Most of the 54 The Northern Mariner passengers lost were Russian soldiers, includ• west coast of Jutland - a port which quickly ing the garrison commander. A happier tale of became the centre for the export of Danish shipwreck concerns the Danish SS Vaering, agricultural products to England and, in loaded with lumber for Denmark, which was addition, the home port for a large fleet of wrecked in December 1941 on passage fishing vessels. In the same year, the Fisheries through the islands. Many Ålanders helped and Maritime Museum celebrated its own themselves to the lumber washed ashore; the 25th anniversary, and this enlarged Yearbook insurance company took no action against the is in itself a symbol of the growth of the port, salvagers. The yearbook includes an article the town and the museum. Eight of the ten which describes the story of the vessel's articles in the Yearbook are concerned with salvage and refit in 1947. the history and life of the port. The first four Captain J. Hagberg's article covers the articles, which fill about half the publication, Alands shipping losses in World War I. The are structured around a chronological situation became much more complicated in sequence, and the main angle of approach is 1918, when Finland used the opportunity of economic history. the Russian Revolution to seek its indepen• Curator Poul Holm leads off with a dence, only to slip into a civil war itself. useful and well-documented account of the When both Sweden and Germany became development of ports in south-west Jutland in involved, America, France and Portugal all the years 1200-1867. This period was domi• decided to hold sailing ships owned by Gustaf nated by the old town of Ribe, which in the Erikson of Alands for nine months until the Middle Ages was the second largest port in political situation in Finland became clear. Denmark and a leading distributor of trade Another contribution to the yearbook concerns between north-west Europe and western Jut• the sewing of eighteen new sails for the land. From Ribe, horses, cattle and fish went Pommern and a full suit for Albanus that south by land and sea. By the late sixteenth required 907,680 stitches by seventy-seven century, several factors caused Ribe to lose its volunteers! The volume also includes the importance: ships became larger; local natural annual reports of Alands Nautical Club and harbours silted up; war and the plague in the the Alands Maritime Museum. seventeenth century reduced the population of Each chapter is followed by a summary the town; and the sea trading routes avoided in English. This fine yearbook has something the west coast of Jutland. These conditions for everyone interested in maritime history. did not alter until the beginning of the nine• teenth century. Steamships required port Dan G. Harris facilities, and the increasing interest in export• Nepean, Ontario ing agricultural products to England led to a number of plans for a state-owned port situ• Morten Hahn-Pedersen (ed.). Sjoeklen 1992: ated on the west coast of Jutland. However, Årbog for Fiskeri- og Sefartsmuseet, Salt- the location of this port was not decided until vandsakvariet i Esbjerg [Yearbook of the Denmark was forced in 1864 to cede Schles• Fisheries and Maritime Museum, Esbjerg]. wig-Holstein to Germany. Esbjerg was Esbjerg, Denmark: Fiskeri- og Sofartsmuseet, founded as a bulwark against German domi• Saltvandsakvariet, 1993.224 pp., photographs, nance in southern Jutland and to strengthen illustrations, figures, tables, maps. DKr 198, trade with England. hardbound; ISBN 87-87453-66-5. In the next article, Morten Hahn-Peder• sen, Chief Curator of the museum, describes 1993 saw the 125th anniversary of the deci• Esbjerg as it was in the years of establishment sion by the Danish government to build the and development, 1868-1914. The port was a Port of Esbjerg on the southern stretch of the dock harbour and therefore free of ice, but it Book Reviews 55 was especially the re-organisation of Danish Unfortunately, the authors have not made use agriculture in the 1880s and '90s which led to of this opportunity to present a picture of life an increase in the amount of goods handled. at the port as a whole. Two further articles Instead of corn and cattle, secondary animal relate to the two anniversaries. Lindy Tanvig products such as bacon and butter were now looks at the way the "oil adventure" has being exported. In addition, fishing quickly affected the port and the town, while V.V. became an important element in the life of the Leisner, the head of port administration, port, although this had not been envisaged presents his view of what the immediate when the port was established. Hahn-Pedersen future has to offer. In the final two contribu• stresses the need for a more thorough analysis tions, Thyge Jensen of the museum's educa• of the role played by financier C.F. Tietgen in tional service presents a picture of the island establishing the port. He was the leading Dan• of Mando from the point of view of human ish businessman of the time, and took the ini• ecology, while Sven Tougaard, a biologist, tiative to start the DFDS shipping company offers a half-way status report on a research which, from 1875/76, secured almost a mon• project concerning the seal population in the opoly of both domestic shipping and the fixed Waddensea. The Yearbook ends with a full routes between Esbjerg and Great Britain. account of the museum's activities in 1992. From the 1920s until the 1950s, Esbjerg Sjoeklen 1992 offers much of interest to did not undergo much change, though an other than Danish readers, particularly in the essay by Henrik Bredmose Simonsen shows first four contributions. The first article espe• how, despite the shifting fortunes of fishing cially is a good example of how the adoption and agricultural exports, both port and town, of a long time perspective can improve the became the regional centre for fishing and understanding of the history of a region. This trade, and also to an increasing degree for article, together with the three that follow, industry and capital. The period after 1950 is offer the reader, sometimes only by implica• briefly described by Poul Holm and Morten tion, the opportunity to understand how the Hahn-Pedersen in cooperation. The decades interaction of such factors as market forces, after World War II saw the growth of com• new technology, centralised planning and mercial fishing and the use of progressively changes in national boundaries can affect the larger vessels. However, the last decades have development of a port. been a difficult time for the industry, with a considerable reduction in the numbers of Hans Jeppesen traditional Danish wooden cutters and of Helsingor, Denmark medium-sized steel trawlers (ca. 150 BRT). A more concentrated approach has also affected Keith Julier. The Period Ship Handbook. shipping, and from the end of the 1960s, Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1993. agricultural exports to England were turned 205 pp., line drawings, photographs, index. over to container transport. Since then, Esb• Cdn $40.95, US $29.95, paper; ISBN 1- jerg has also been the base port for Danish 55750-678-7. Canadian distributor, Vanwell efforts to find and utilise North Sea oil. Publishing, St. Catharines, Ont. These historical surveys are followed by two articles presenting the results of inter• While his stated aim is to encourage would-be views of port employees from 1992 onwards. kit modellers and the hesitant beginning ship To a certain extent they provided excellent model builder to take on more ambitious pro• insight into the way life at the port has jects, Keith Julier warns that the complete changed during the last forty years, and in beginner should not be too ambitious in sel• giving an impression of how those who work ecting a project. Despite the ambiguity, one at the port have experienced this period. would expect an instructional-type book to 56 The Northern Mariner

help develop a solid groundwork of basic ductory subject, especially since it is one o;' skills before proceeding to more advanced the few that the author indicates is within the projects. This, however, is not the case. scope of the beginner. Had more than the six Following a brief introduction and sec• pages devoted to the review of this kit been tions on tool and kit selection the book is, in allotted to provide an in-depth, step-by-step fact, a series of extended reviews of eleven approach to the techniques needed to build European-designed and manufactured kits by and finish the model, followed by a much companies such as Amati, Artesania Latina, more extensive review of a slightly more Billings, Corel, Euro Model Como, and difficult kit, the book would have served a Panart. All eleven kits were previously fea• better and undoubtedly more satisfying intro• tured in articles written by the author and duction to model building, possibly achieving published in the British magazine Model its stated intention. Boats. Few of the kits are suitable choices for If one accepts the book for what it is, a a beginner. They include a Thames barge, two series of kit reviews, followed by a summary whaleboats, a Faroes yawl, the whaleship of techniques, it does, when studied, provide Charles W. Morgan, USS Constellation and an insight to the deficiencies in many of the the First Rate Royal William of 1719. The kits kits, including poor, non-existent or foreign are followed by a twenty-two page summary documentation, poorly fitting materials and of building techniques and an index. components, etc. All of these problems have Julier selected Euro Model Como's kit of long been recognized in European kits. With the First Rate Royal William — the most regard to the book, and the kits it so enthusi• complex of the eleven — as a means of dis• astically promotes — caveat emptor. cussing his building techniques. He chose it because it incorporates most of the techniques N.R. Cole necessary to build the other models in the Scarborough, Ontario book. However, the seventy pages of text describing his approach is heavily laced with Wolfgang Rudolph. DesSeemanns Bilderwelt: terminology that would be totally alien to the Volkskunst der Fahrensleute an der Ostsee- novice. A detailed glossary would have gone kiiste von 1750 bis 1900. Hamburg: Ernst a long way to alleviate this situation. The Kabel Verlag for the Deutsches Schiffahrts• builder must establish the approach and build museum, 1993. 195 pp., photographs (colour, sequence and would have to depend on his b+w), notes, sources. DM 78, cloth; ISBN 3- own skill and experience to build the model. 8225-0132-8. Woe betide the novice who tries this kit. Julier also indicates that it includes seventeen This is an intriguing study of maritime culture sheets of plans, in Italian; the use of English as manifested in images and artifacts in the is limited to sheets pertaining to the model, to Baltic area over a period of about 150 years. the original vessel, a few pages of historical Rudolph argues that, as a social class, seago• notes, and two pages of instructions. ing shipmasters have been well researched but The other reviews in the book are at best that the social behaviour of the men before brief, frequently covering the same basic the mast is less well known. For this reason material and offering little in the way of he chose this as his focus. He also includes instructional support. Valuable space is wasted the skippers of minor coastal vessels. because the same illustrations appear over and A seemingly endless parade of artifacts is over, some as many as five times, in different shown in black-and-white photographs as well reviews. Considering the kits reviewed, the as sixteen pages in colour. There are decor• Billings kit of the Thames barge Will Everard ated jugs and mugs (including Sunderland would have been a better choice as an intro• lustre ware), Staffordshire figures (from Jack Book Reviews 57

Tar to Garibaldi), snuffboxes (with calendars no story at all to tell us. In short, Des See- and King "Fritz" of Prussia), a Currier & Ives mam Bilderwelt is not a study in the seaman's lithograph (showing the Yankee clipper aesthetic values but in the historico-social Comet, although he does not tell us this), and merits of the artifacts which adorned the sea• a tattooer's pattern sample of snakes and man's life. ships. It is an interesting observation that the seaman's social status was connected not only Thorsten Nordenfelt with nautical symbols and emblems but also Stockholm, Sweden with other images and objects. Thus, a coffee• pot with non-marine decorations in classical Morten Hahn-Pedersen (ed.). / storm og stille style could be an attractive acquisition for a - den sikre havn: Bidrag til samands-konens seaman and his family. Curiously, Rudolph historic Esbjerg: Fiskeri- og Søfartsmuseet, says very little about the typical ship portraits Saltvandsakvariet, 1992. 160 pp., figures, — watercolours or oil paintings. They, too, tables, illustrations, photographs, English once adorned the homes of small coaster skip• summary, notes, bibliography, appendices. pers and are certainly conspicuous objects. DKK 298, cloth; ISBN 87-87453-62-2. The reason for this omission may be that the subject has been covered and illustrated In 1985 three Danish museums began a pro• already in some of his earlier works. On the ject intended to focus on women and family other hand, the subject of pottery is dealt with life in seafaring families, a neglected field of in considerable detail both in previous books research. Documentation was collected from as well as in this one. seafaring regions where the museums were In search of these artifacts, Rudolph care• located: the island of Fano on the west coast fully investigated a vast number of local mari• of Jylland, facing the Atlantic; the Svendborg time museums and private collections on the area of Fyn in the Baltic; and the Aabenraa Baltic coast. His emphasis is on the German area of the west coast. This book is a first area, but he has also studied collections as far presentation of results from the project. It is north as Brahestad (Raahe) in Finland and a well-illustrated collection of articles, not all Trondheim in Norway, as well as Denmark of which focus strictly on married women. and southern Sweden. An introduction surveys recent Scandina• The text is a pleasure to read, but the vian research on maritime women, mostly in organization is sometimes confusing. By and Denmark and Norway, while the editor, large, Rudolph adopts a chronological ap• Morton Hahn-Pedersen, describes the develop• proach, yet occasionally a specific subject, ment of ships in general, and more particular• such as tattooing, is covered under two separ• ly, of the seafaring trades and fleets in the ate headings. The book is also well produced, region from 1700 to 1990. Those fleets were and most of its illustrations are interesting and substantial during the nineteenth century. The charming, even if some are old acquaintances ships at Aabenraa, and increasingly also of which have appeared in previous works by the Fano, concentrated on long-distance trading same author. If you happen to find one or two and could therefore be away from home ports pictures showing a rather hideous majolica pot for years. In contrast, the Svendborg ships, or a disgusting pewter goblet, then you should engaged in the North Sea and Baltic trades, remember that Rudolph does not find these were normally laid up for the winter. These objects and images interesting in their own facts had different effects on the lives of the right; rather, he regards them as testimonies seamen's families. Today, only the Svendborg of the social and cultural environment to area has preserved a fleet of importance. which they were once connected. Without a Aspects of women's life in the nineteenth reasonably positive provenance, an artifact has century are covered in three articles. Tommy 58 The Northern Mariner

P. Christensen uses census data to compare presented for our century, and we learn more how maritime trades affected the populations about the women of Fano and Aabenraa than in terms of occupation structure and the about the women of Svendborg. Comparisons number of married women and widows until with other research in Denmark or elsewhere 1901. The communities of Fano and in the is also missing. Let us hope that more will be Svendborg area were more specialized mari• published from this project. time communities, and the households were more socially equal than at Aabenraa. Sea• Ingeborg Floystad faring families of this last district had a Bergen, Norway middle class way of life. Letters and diaries of wives of wealthy captains from the Aaben• Will. C. van den Hoonard. Reluctant Pion• raa area are the main sources of Birgitte eers: Constraints and Opportunities in an Kragh, who presents the seaman's wife in the Icelandic Fishing Community. New York & nineteenth century. Though her material is not Bern: Peter Lang, 1992. xiv + 173 pp., tables, representative, it gives interesting insight into figures, notes, appendices, bibliography, the lives of women when the men were away, index. US $36.95, library binding; ISBN 0- as well as the experience of some who trav• 8204-1801-3. elled all over the world as captain's wives. Brenno Blassild writes about maritime women For those societies whose most obvious natu• depicted in art, souvenirs, and so on, mainly ral resource is fish, Iceland represents some• in the last century. I found paintings showing thing of a mecca. One indicator of such a scenes from Fano especially interesting. status is the not insignificant contribution to The longest and most essential article for Icelandic foreign exchange earnings contrib• our century is an informative presentation by uted by delegations of fishers, bureaucrats and Kristina G. Due about women in seafaring politicians eager to distil her secrets and carry families in the three regions, based on many them back home. Unfortunately, social scien• interviews with women bom between 1892 tists and historians have not participated in and the 1960s. Extracts of interviews, together these pilgrimages (although they generally with Due's comments, give valuable insight share the sense of awe) to the same extent. into women's responsibilities and way of life, The result is that not nearly as much research and of changes over time between the gener• has been directed to this society, particularly ations. Another paper on a Danish organiz• by outsiders (though this is changing). Pro• ation of seamen's wives, founded in 1976, is fessor van den Hoonard's study of the emerg• presented by two of its leaders, Jette Hau- ent shrimp fishery in the northwestern town gaard and Kirsten Hansen. The organization of Kaupeyri is thus doubly welcomed for its originated in Svendborg but the article is not specific analysis of a particular fishery sector about the investigated regions. One may as well as its larger contribution to under• therefore question its inclusion in the book. standing Iceland society and culture. Finally, there is a good summary by the editor Given the centrality of fishing to Ice• in both Danish and English. land's economy it is not surprising that estab• The book is of interest both to the gen• lished fishing occupations receive considerable eral public and to the researcher, for it con• prestige and higher than average earnings. Ice• tributes towards a more comprehensive history land's shrimp fishery, however, is quite new, of maritime women and families in Scandina• dating only since the 1960s. It is this fishery via. Many will appreciate the extracts of and the occupation of "shrimper" that van den diaries, interviews and the illustrations. Yet Hoonard seeks to explicate. As new kids on one misses more comparisons over time and the fishing block, shrimpers have had to con• between areas, since census data are not front a number of obstacles to gain the pres- Book Reviews 59

tige accorded other types of fishers. These which that knowledge might be used as a include 1) a sense of less demanding and dar• complement or even a substitute for bureau• ing (even heroic) work, since fishing is done cratic science. close to shore from smaller boats that return All of this makes for a useful addition to daily to port in contrast to the most presti• our knowledge of shrimp fishers and the gious offshore trawler fishing; 2) minimal for• Icelandic fishery more generally. Having said malized training for both skippering boats and this, however, the book does suffer from a fishing shrimp trawls which undermines number of insufficiencies which detract sub• claims to high skill and knowledge; 3) a stantially from its overall contribution. One public belief that anyone can become a suc• obvious concern is the potential datedness of cessful shrimper; and 4) an organizational the analysis. Although published in 1992, the structure cocoon-like in its closure to out• research was undertaken nearly twenty years siders — even from the community. Drawing previously with a little updating of statistical from the literature on the sociology of occu• materials in the early to mid-1980s. Indeed, pations, van den Hoonard presents the strat• no table is more recent than 1980 and most egies shrimpers utilize to build a public focus upon the 1968-1974 period of expan• persona emphasizing skill, risk and success. sion. In an activity as dynamic as fishing, To the extent they are successful, greater pro• twenty years is simply far too long between fessional status, increased control over the research and publication. This is a particularly fishery and monetary success may follow. salient point because the monograph is not The utilization of social science insights written as if it were an historical piece about from the study of occupations as a lever for the emergence of a particular fishery at some understanding this attempt to build a high earlier point in time but rather as a relatively status occupation in the face of public and contemporary contribution to fishing and government scepticism is a useful and inter• Icelandic society. From my own limited work esting one. While space does not permit on Iceland, it is certainly clear that profound reciting most of the findings, one element of changes have occurred since the late 1970s. the struggle is worth mentioning since it is A second, and more substantive concern, one that is presently being replayed in several flows from the overview and utilization of the different maritime locations. This element has sociology of occupations literature to shed to do with the attempt to challenge, partially light on the emergence of a new fishing discredit and in so doing establish one's own occupation. There are at least two concerns legitimacy vis-a-vis biologists staffed within which are germane. First, there is precious state bureaucracies. Shrimp fishers directly little discussion of the relevance of power and confronted state biologists with regard to their its use in making a claim for public and unchallenged knowledge claims concerning bureaucratic acceptance — this in spite of the the behaviour and abundance of the resource. central relevance of this concept in my read• Chapter 8, "Turning the Table on Empiri• ing of the contemporary literature on occupa• cism," recounts this squabble and the import• tions. The second part of this use of the ant benefits which accrued to shrimpers that sociology of occupations relates to the mini• resulted. These consequences included greater mal use of interview materials to illustrate influence in management regimes as well as relevant points to shrimpers. Aside from the enhanced status in the public. In reading the above mentioned chapter 8, one could read chapter I was reminded of much contempor• most of the book without concern for the ary work on what is termed Traditional Eco• detailed points presented in chapter 1. The logical Knowledge (TEK) and the ongoing interviews with shrimpers do not, by and research which attempts to systematize fish• large, provide any rich elaboration of the ers' marine knowledge and explore ways in theoretical points which chapter 1 suggests 60 The Northern Mariner

provide the best way to understand the rise of standing the birth of the Icelandic fishery the. Icelandic fishery and the place of the though its relevance to contemporary Iceland• shrimper in his community. To give one ic society is probably much more problematic. example, Chapter 5 is entitled "Occupational Culture as a Community of Skills," yet we Lawrence F. Felt find little interview information which St. John's, Newfoundland delimits the dimensions and content of this occupational culture nor any convincing L.S. Parsons. Management of Marine Fish• evidence that an occupational community eries in Canada. Ottawa: National Research exists at all. Part of the problem may lie with Council of Canada, 1993. xix + 763 pp., fig• the way in which the author has decided to ures, tables, photographs, maps, sources, present the book. Professor van den Hoonard acronyms and abbreviations, appendix, index. argues that Reluctant Pioneers is offered as $70 (US $70 outside Canada), cloth; ISBN 0- part contribution to the study of occupations, 660-15002-6. part contribution to fishing societies and part an effort to extend social science understand• This is a major piece of work in which L.S. ing of Icelandic society and culture. The Parsons documents the evolution and scope of result, given the brevity of the book, is that it Canadian marine fisheries management policy. suffers a bit from being neither fish nor fowl! In view of the current crises in several key Claims about a shrimper culture are made sectors of the Canadian fishery, this is a most without any clear substantiation from inter• timely publication, bringing a wealth of acces• view notes, though this is the most obvious sible information to the present debate on and effective source for such substantiation. fishery management issues. The book is Had there been greater ethnographic emphasis extensive and broad in scope and examines this might have been adequately addressed. As resource management issues arising before is, the result is greater disjuncture between and after the extension of Canada's unilateral theory and data than one would like. fisheries jurisdiction to two hundred miles in A further concern encountered with the 1977. In addition to reviewing jurisdictional book is quite unrelated to the author. The matters the author has outlined the biological publishing company should take considerably basis underscoring management policy and the greater time and effort in editing and role of fisheries scientists in the overall pro• proofreading before proceeding with publica• cess. Aspects of fisheries management policy tion. Typographical errors, format mistakes, operating in other countries are included for incomplete sentences and spelling errors are comparative purposes, and extensive details frequent enough to be annoying. It is quite from a number of Canada's important fish• unacceptable for a major publishing company eries are included to illustrate the application to allow such mistakes to pass through. While of resource management policy in a regional one always hopes that such slights to one's context. A series of chapters examines the sensitivities do not colour the overall intellec• policies of dealing with common resource tual evaluation, their frequency can be management; through allocation of access, described as something greater than a mere limited entry licensing and the setting of occasional nuisance. individual quotas. Social issues are detailed, In conclusion, and despite its limitations, and the scope of the book is extended to Reluctant Pioneers is a useful contribution to examine the complex international dimensions our ongoing social science inventory of fish• of resource management. ing societies generally and Icelandic society Since the classical research of Russell and more specifically. It will continue to grace my his colleagues, conducted in the UK during bookshelves and provide reference for under• the 1930s, it has been recognised that the size Book Reviews 61 of exploitable, single species, fish stocks is lems of balancing harvesting and processing determined by four factors: recruitment rate, capacity with sustainability of the resource. In growth rate, natural mortality rate and fishing bringing together in one volume detailed mortality rate. Models of maximum sustain• descriptions of the myriad of factors which able yield, and later optimum yield, were influence this delicate balance, the author has derived from these early observations and made a significant contribution to the on• applied variously to the world's fisheries. going debate on fisheries management policy. Parsons provides many examples to illustrate The book is very well-structured, ade• the ensuing challenges which still face res• quately illustrated and indexed, its information ource managers both in understanding the rel• presented in a readily accessible and readable ationships between these factors for any parti• style. Parsons' professional credentials, as cular fishery, and in effecting a balance such both fisheries scientist and fisheries manager, that recruitment and growth of the exploited are reflected, both in the balance of the infor• fish populations compensate for the combined mation presented, and in the detailed analyses natural and fishing mortalities. We also see of specific issues. While much of the informa• how the complexities of these models rad• tion comes necessarily from government pub• ically increase when the ensuing social, politi• lications, an extensive bibliography provides cal and economic issues are factored into the access to the broader field of fisheries man• equations. Parsons details the extensive human agement. Parsons has written an objective and physical resources dedicated by govern• review of Canadian fisheries management pol• ment to fisheries science and management. icy which should rapidly become an essential This has supported an immense body of work resource document to all who participate in or towards understanding the processes which have an interest in the nation's fishery. The influence the relative abundance of fish. Yet book will also provide a new, in-depth refer• our understanding is far from complete, and ence source for all college and university Parsons identifies a need for more fundamen• students of fisheries resource management. tal research on the dynamics of marine fish populations, their interactions within the food Stephen Goddard web and with the marine environment. Outer Cove, Newfoundland Since much of our debate tends naturally to focus on the periodic downturns in sectors A.G.E. Jones. Ships Employed in the South of the Canadian fishery it is refreshing to read Seas Trade, Volume II: 1775-1859 (Part I); accounts of some of the success stories. Admiralty Protections From Impressment Parsons presents a picture of an extremely 1777-1811 (Part II); Aspects of the South diverse fishery which has yielded significant Seas Trade (Part III). Roebuck Society Publi• economic returns to many regions. The shell- cation No. 46; East Bentleigh, Victoria, fisheries are identified in this category and Australia: Australian Association for Maritime emerging aquaculture is rightly identified as a History, 1992. xxiv + 720 pp., indices, refer• key area for future development on the Atlan• ences, appendices, figures. AUS $66 (+ post• tic and Pacific coasts. An objective view is age, $19 to N. America/Europe, $18 to Asia given of a dynamic fishery undergoing signifi• & New Zealand), cloth; ISBN 0-646-09183-2. cant changes — necessary down-sizing in some areas and development in others. Develop• A.G.E. Jones' books are a testament to his ments in fishery science and resource manage• tenacity and the scope of his lifelong interest ment policies, detailed throughout the book, in reconstructing the British maritime past. have established Canada as a leading nation in Alone he has made himself expert in a field these areas of endeavour. Recurrent crises in where there are few experts: the British whal• our fisheries reflect the familiar global prob• ing and sealing industry of the south seas. 62 The Northern Mariner

That trade flourished briefly and with a pas• of the records. Certainly his human-ness sion and a secrecy that kept many of its most assures us that there are a few errors in his important records forever from the public eye. transcriptions as well, but it is highly to his This latest book is a companion to Ships credit that he has allowed original publication Employed in the South Seas Trade 1775-1861 errors to stand, even when he knew better. To (Parts I and II)... (Roebuck Books, 1986), correct errors in the original would have been reviewed in the April 1991 issue of TNM/ much like a paintings-restorator infilling some LMN. In that volume he published extracts of missing part of the original artist's truth. south seas voyages from the Lloyd's List. This Since these lists have been "edited" to the new volume includes similar data culled from extent of Jones' decision to include or omit the Lloyd's Register and the competing Regis• any voyage, it is laudable that he has reserved ter of the Society of Merchants (1800-1832). his own interpretation of the data for the Lloyd's List and Lloyd's Register are not essays that comprise Part III. the same. Lloyd's List was published, prob• No one who has not ploughed the records ably from 1734, with general commercial in• of merchant shipping — many of them uncata- formation and shipping movements for the logued and unindexed - can appreciate what benefit of merchants. It included data of Jones has accomplished. I know he would voyages as they progressed, including acci• agree that doubting readers are free to find dents, losses, and reports of cargoes returned. out for themselves. With that in mind, Jones Lloyd's Register included the survey record of will appreciate some small acknowledgement vessels which underwriters used to insure for his work: a letter, a published credit-line, specific voyages and cargoes. This publica• a request to reprint his data — these are mat• tions survives from 1775, with the exception ters of importance to him. And if issues of of a few years for which no copy is extant. copyright and ownership are subject to ques• Jones' Part I is organized by year. It tion (he has been working in "public" records, includes the name and rig of every vessel he after all), such matters are surely of less believes was engaged in the south seas trade, import than properly crediting him for the its tonnage and draft, date and place of con• years he has devoted to his single-minded struction, names of masters and owners, task. His books are a life-work in the true voyage destination, and the Lloyd's insurance sense, and we are the ones who gain from classification. These lists are indexed by name having his stewardship bound within covers of vessel, master, and owner, though one must on our shelves. be aware that any name may be applied to more than one vessel. Part II contains Admi• Robert Lloyd Webb ralty protections from impressment for the Phippsburg, Maine south seas and Greenland and Davis Straits whale fisheries, generally for the period 1777- Hubert Cornish Whitlock; Alex Sakula (ed.). 1811. These are found in the Admiralty 7 The Whitlock Journal: Being an aboard ship papers at the Public Record Office in Kew account of a voyage of the "King Lear" from and are indexed by vessel, master, harpooner, India to England in 1862. Hove, East Sussex: boatsteer, line coiler and others. There are Alex Sakula, 1993 [order from the author, 7 twenty-seven essays in all, some of which Grand Avenue, Hove, Sussex BN3 2LF Eng• help to explain data found in Part I. land]. 102 pp., photographs, illustrations, Jones is the first to say that his compila• notes, bibliography. US $ 15 (+ $5 postage & tions cannot be complete. As he so aptly says, handling), paper; ISBN 0-9521475-1-3. he extracted only what was in the records; he could not extract what was not there. There Sea voyages are the subject of myriads of are errors and omissions due to the shortfall passengers' diaries and journals. Every year, Book Reviews 63

more such personal accounts are discovered ted and the overall impression is sympathetic and/or published. The journal printed here is and meticulous. The only error I could detect that of Lieutenant Hubert Cornish Whitlock was the mis-spelling of the ship Cospatrick (1837-1890) who in 1862 sailed with his 83rd (given as Coxpatrick). Just because of the Regiment of Foot from Vingorla on India's monotony of his voyage, Whitlock's account west coast to Gravesend. The ship King Lear, may well be more representative for the sea 1936 tons, belonged to the well-known Lon• passage from India than the much better don shipowner Frederick Somes whose large known accounts of shipwreck and calamity. fleet was extensively involved in the bulk passenger trades of the British Empire. It had Frank Broeze been built in 1854 in the United States and Nedlands, Western Australia purchased the same year by Somes. As Whitlock himself admits more than Richard F. Welch. An Island's Trade: Nine• once, his sea passage was characterised large• teenth-Century Shipbuilding on Long Island. ly by monotony and futile attempts to break Mystic, CT: Mystic Seaport Museum, 1993. the tedium of being cooped up with a mass of xiii + 145 pp., photographs, illustrations, humanity within the confines of his ship. To figures, tables, appendices, bibliography, boredom was added the annoyance of numer• index. US $20, cloth; ISBN 0-913372-67-6. ous, sometimes unruly, children. As an officer, Whitlock kept regular watches. These The North Shore of Long Island, New York, also passed without any spectacular occur• with its deep, glaciated harbours and long rences. The major reason why he wrote his sheltered bays, was ideally suited to shipbuild• journal was evidently that, once he had started ing. The ready availability of capital, manu• it, he felt compelled to fill all 124 pages of factured marine hardware and other essential his notebook — the last quarter or so indeed supplies in nearby New York City was partly with events after his arrival in England. responsible for a boom in local shipbuilding Whitlock's journal mirrors the monotony before the American Civil War. By its end, of the voyage. He was a rather shallow obser• there was a glut of shipping on the market ver and no great writer. Several times the and new technology, in the form of British- King Lear encountered bad weather but this built iron-hulled vessels, had taken over did not inspire him to dramatic descriptions or transatlantic trade. Wooden shipbuilding fell reflections. Nor was Whitlock aware of the into decline all along the lower eastern sea• morbid irony of a burial at sea being followed board. Its demise was inevitable, but in some by a hunt for sharks. He was not particularly areas, such as the North Shore townships of interested in the officers and crew of his ship. Long Island, it remained viable through the Some interesting passages relate to visits to payment of low wages and other economies other ships en route. The captain of the Brit• almost until the turn of the century. Beginning ish ship Avalanche, bound for Melbourne, was with coastal vessels and fishing boats, the "a very dirty looking man, who looked as if industry expanded into the construction of he hadn't washed for a month, minus his coat, large ocean-going cargo carriers, ending with and totally regardless of stockings." (p.56) By the building and repair of oyster steamers and contrast, the French Canton, from Havre private yachts in the early 1900s. bound for Valparaiso, was the epitome of a In An Island's Trade: Nineteenth Century well-run and well-stocked ship. Shipbuilding on Long Island, Richard Welch Sakula provides a brief biography of H.C. presents a history of this industry, divided, in Whitlock. Bom from a solidly military family the manner of his original dissertation, into a he made an average career and died as an series of six individual papers, each discussing Honorary Major. The journal is well annota• a different aspect of the business. The position 64 The Northern Mariner of nineteenth-century shipbuilding on the into a jig-saw puzzle. In his brief seventh North Shore is deduced, from the figures chapter, "Aftermath," the fate of the individ• available for the major shipbuilding centres of uals and shipyards mentioned in the previous Northport, Setauket-Port Jefferson and Green- chapters is recorded, in an apparent attempt to port. It is suggested that the industry was the give some cohesion to an otherwise fragment• mainstay of the towns' economies, but Welch ed and, as a result, confusing history. fails to take into account that all three com• An Island's Trade is a difficult book to munities were established ports, and that read, but at least it is indexed and the list of shipbuilding was dependent on their popula• primary and secondary sources in the biblio• tions and facilities for its very existence. graphy will prove useful to anyone interested Welch's tendency toward excessive use of in preparing individual histories of Long figures that he, himself, suggests might be Island's North Shore shipyards. flawed, is compounded by errors in his use of them. Thus, when discussing a decrease in Robin H. Wyllie shipbuilding in New York State, he notes that East LaHave, Nova Scotia "A general state total of ship and boat build• ers was furnished, and this showed a drop Keith V. Holland, Lee B. Manley, James W. from 229 in 1865 to 165 in 1875 - a 69 Towart (eds.). The Maple Leaf: An Extraordi• percent decrease." In fact, the decrease works nary American Civil War Shipwreck. Jackson• out at 27.95 per cent. Other comments suggest ville, FL: St. Johns Archaeological Expedi• a serious lack in his knowledge of marine tions, 1993. ix + 205 pp., photographs, fig• transportation history. When discussing the ures, maps, appendices, bibliography, index. state of the coastal trade, he suggests that it US $32.50 [US dollar money orders only], was under pressure from the railways in the cloth; ISBN 0-9632286-0-9. US $19.95, 1890s and would soon be facing competition paper; ISBN 0-9632286-1-7. from motor vessels. In fact, until well after World War I, most North American coastal This book is divided into two parts. The first vessels were still being constructed of wood deals with the history of the Maple Leaf, a and their means of propulsion seems quite side wheel paddle steamer built in Kingston, irrelevant. A lack of general shipbuilding Ontario in 1851 which subsequently saw knowledge is also evident in the terminology service during the American Civil War in the used in his chapter on ship construction. employ of the Union government. Part Two is Physically, this is a nice book. It is well an account of the project to locate her wreck laid out, the maps are well reproduced and it and to recover and conserve the artifacts from contains some marvellous photographs, poss• within it. It also covers the legal process by ibly its best feature. The shipbuilding engrav• which St. Johns Archaeological Expeditions ings from Harper's New Monthly Magazine Inc. obtained permission to work on the do not, however, seem relevant and the origin wreck. According to the foreword, this is "a of the ink drawings, or prints, used on the complete report on the current status of all facing pages of each chapter, is not noted. As aspects of the Maple Leaf Project." (p.2) far as the text is concerned, the random Part One opens with a history of the inclusion of figures and tables, often in mid- vessel's military service from 1862, when she sentence, should have been avoided. was first chartered by the Union army, until This could have been a fascinating, 1864 when she was sunk in the St. Johns readable book, but, while its subject matter is River near Jacksonville, Florida by a Confed• interesting, the author's lack of background erate mine. Included is an account of various knowledge and the presentation of his subject military actions on the river during the war matter as a series of individual papers, turn it with some details of other vessels lost there. Book Reviews 65

There are also interesting insights into the project. Nowhere is there an analysis of the procedures involved in chartering civilian social interactions or collective behaviour of craft and it would seem that the time-hon• the group involved so that this could in no oured practice of civilian contractors taking way be interpreted as sociology whatever the the military for every penny they could was author's claims. alive and flourishing during this period. Yet Chapter Seven is a very interesting narra• little is said about the Maple Leafs role as a tive of the search for and finding of the military transport which might reveal her wreck. Here is a first-hand account of how a significance to the Union war effort in well conceived approach backed by solid Florida. There is a listing of those regiments research and the combining of archival docu• whose baggage was aboard the Maple Leaf mentation with modem day remote sensing when she was lost along with a brief history data led to success. The reviewer finds him• of the various actions in which those regi• self in profound disagreement, however, with ments took part. Yet, apart from a reference the philosophical position taken by the author to the sinking, it is not clear how this infor• regarding an excavator's responsibilities to the mation relates to the vessel's history or the site. The author asserts that, as a group, subsequent work on the wreck. SAJEI did not have to conform to "the pro• A highly speculative analysis follows of fessional archaeologist's ethical professional the possible sources of "civilian artifacts such standards." (p. 132) Given that excavation is a as china plates, cups, glassware, and eating destructive process and given the claimed utensils...found in the baggage of the officers historical importance of this ship the position of the 112th Regiment of New York Volun• taken by the author is indeed sad. teers." (p.45) Next comes a reprint of the The next chapter looks at the excavation 1864 Army Board of Survey inquiry into the and conservation of cultural materials from loss of the Maple Leaf which is devoid of any the wreck. There are no excavation maps or subsequent comment or analysis. It would drawings and site maps. Such drawings that have been better off as an appendix to the are provided are few and lacking in useful book rather than a chapter in its own right. detail. We do not learn until Chapter Twelve Chapter Six is a well researched account that the main deck plan in Chapter Eight (fig. of the vessel's early days in the Great Lakes 3, p. 155) is, in fact, a CAD generated extrap• trade. It not only traces her movements olation from very limited survey data. While around the Lakes but also delves into the it is not made explicit, figures 1 and 2 are vessel's importance to the communities that it probably of similar origin. served. The author gives the reader an insight Chapter Nine deals with the artifacts into mid-nineteenth century economic condi• recovered. Only the most cursory description tions, business practices and the resulting of the material culture is offered and there are movement of merchant capital within the no detailed photographs. On the other hand business community on both sides of the the author gives an intriguing insight into the border. This is one of the most satisfying world of the collector of Civil War artifacts. chapters in the book. This is followed by a review of the legal The introduction to Part Two, entitled proceeding surrounding the work on the "The Sociology of a Shipwreck Project," pur• wreck followed by a section dealing with the ports to "look at the Maple Leaf as a contem• environmental review which was required porary event in a modem sociological con• prior to excavation. The final chapter suppos• text." (p.121) It is in fact a descriptive outline edly deals with the naval architecture and of the events surrounding the finding of the documentation of the wreck. Apart from a wreck, the attending legal actions, and the general discussion of the use of a CAD sys• subsequent establishment of the Maple Leaf tem to manipulate data there is little dis- 66 The Northern Mariner

cussion of the field documentation process or Russell Bourne. Floating West: The Erie & the naval architecture of the vessel. The Other American Canals. New York: W.W. absence of a scale for the drawing of the Norton & Company, 1992. 232 pp., photo• vessel's bow rail cap in this chapter detracts graphs, figures, bibliography, index. Cdn from its usefulness. $32.99, US $24.95, cloth; ISBN 0-393-03044- The hold of the vessel was first entered in X. Canadian distributor, Penguin Canada, 1988. It would not be unfair to conclude that, Toronto, Ontario. assuming the information exists, there has been adequate time to produce suitable draw• Last spring my daughter and I spent some ings for this book. There are references time aboard a beautifully-appointed canal boat throughout the book to parts of the ship's cruising some of England's scenic canals. For structure, such as the paddle wheel shaft and a brief period I found it pleasant simply to the rudder post, being visible to the divers. retreat from the world, shutting my eyes and Yet there is no site map included here. Sys• romanticizing about the days when such tematic site mapping was not, in fact, under• waterways were integral parts of the world's taken until 1991 so it would appear that inland transport system. To mar this otherwise excavation was undertaken without an ade• idyllic experience, I awoke with one of the quate pre-disturbance survey. Accurate site worst sunburns I have had in years. This ex• and excavation mapping in low visibility perience is an appropriate introduction to a conditions has been successfully accomplished review of Russell Bourne's Floating West. on a number of submerged sites to date so With an emphasis on characters and an unerr• this is not an unfair criticism. ing eye for a good tale rather than any serious Finally, the book also lacks any discus• analysis, Bourne has produced the intellectual sion of the material culture of the wreck. equivalent of a cruise. Yet just as prolonged There are no technical drawings or photo• exposure to the sun can be painful, so too are graphs of the artifacts recovered. There are a the consequences of mistaking his book for a number of excellent colour photographs of thoughtful study of the construction of canals various artifacts but these are "trophy" shots. or their impact on American life. They are beautifully composed but they tell Bourne's choice of approaches is particu• the reader little or nothing about the artifacts. larly unfortunate because we need a modem Overall this work is uneven in the quality treatment of the building and impact of Amer• of its contents. The various chapters were ican canals to replace Carter Goodrich's written by volunteers who donated their time thirty-year-old study. Moreover, in many to the project and each chapter was an inde• ways Russ Bourne would have been the ideal pendent piece. Nevertheless this book would author. A superb writer with a compendious have benefitted from some editorial guidance. knowledge of American canals, he could have The same information is repeated in several of written an important and enlightening book; the chapters, so in a number of cases we are instead, he opted for an idiosyncratic volume presented with a rehash of material already marred by some simple-minded dichotomies presented. If you have a casual interest in this and indefensible value judgements. For period of American history this volume may instance, those who promoted canal-building interest you. The serious researcher should be are "heroes," while those who were less than warned, however, that few of the chapters are true believers were "villains." This leads to of any utility. the lionization of De Witt Clinton, one of the chief promoters of the Erie Canal and govern• Peter Engelbert or of New York at the time of its completion, Ottawa, Ontario despite the fact that the consensus among political historians is that Clinton was an Book Reviews 61

exceptionally poor governor. On the other from Chicago to La Salle." Redd does this by hand, he chastizes Martin Van Buren, an early "Merging narration with exhibition-quality opponent of the Canal and later President of photographs, weaving history, geology, and the United States, despite an historiography even a touch of romance around good graphic that has tended in recent years to reassess him evidence of what the canal has become favourably. This approach also culminates in today." While it is indeed something of a some bothersome ethnocentrism, characterized guide, it is really a collection of thirteen well- by a perpetual search for things "American." written essays, each with its own illustrations, Indeed, his chapter on "The Americanization and a gallery of forty-five superb black-and- of Canal-Building" stands as a pinnacle within white photographs, all pertaining to the canal. this dubious genre. For readers who think this Most of us on the Great Lakes tend to judgement harsh, I challenge you to read his think that the only link with saltwater suitable chapter and tell me what made the Erie Canal for large vessels is the St. Lawrence Seaway; "American." I can also guarantee that you will we usually think of the Erie Canal and, years be left with the ocular equivalent of sunburn. ago, the canals linking Lake Erie with the Given the enormity of the book's problems, it Ohio River as barge canals. Often overlooked might seem churlish to dwell upon the fact is the route from Chicago to the Illinois and that it lacks documentation or any kind of Mississippi Rivers via the Illinois and Michi• serious historical perspective. gan Canal and its twentieth-century succes• Floating West will thus appeal mainly to sors, the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal and acolytes who accept without question that the Cal-Sag Channel. Here is a system that canals were the sine que non of American still gives sizable vessels (with superstructures development and that those doltish enough to lowered and hulls pumped out) direct access question the orthodoxy deserve to suffer to the Gulf of Mexico. eternal exposure to the sun. But as a non- The waters flowing into Lake Michigan determinist who remains uncertain that canals via the Chicago River are divided from those were the only way that America could have flowing into the Mississippi via the Des developed, and whose only close encounter Plaines River by a low ridge running a few with the New York State Barge Canal (as the miles from Lake Michigan. As early as 1673 Erie is known today) resulted in a mass of Jacques Marquette wrote: "If a channel were festering mosquito bites, I will continue to cut through this ridge, one could sail from await a modem study that requires thought Lake Illinois to the Sea of Florida." But the rather than conviction. cut was not started until 1836 and not com• pleted until 1848, just six years before a Lewis R. Fischer competing railroad was laid beside it. The St. John's, Newfoundland constructing engineer was William Gooding, who learned his trade on the Welland Canal Jim Redd. The Illinois and Michigan Canal: and the Ohio canals. When completed, the A Contemporary Perspective in Essays and Illinois and Michigan Canal was almost a Photographs. Carbondale: Southern Illinois hundred miles long. It utilized one lock to lift University Press, 1993. xx + 113 pp., maps, boats eight feet from the Chicago River and photographs. US$29.95, cloth; ISBN 0-8093- then fifteen locks to lower them one hundred 1660-9. and fifty feet to the level of the Illinois River at La Salle. The craftsmanship reflected in the According to the dustjacket of this interesting stone locks and aqueducts provide the subject work, "Jim Redd takes us on a personal jour• for many of the fine photographs in the book. ney down the Illinois and Michigan Canal as The Illinois and Michigan Canal helped it follows the Des Plaines and Illinois rivers open up the West and made Chicago a major 68 The Northern Mariner city at the same time. In its peak year it Sandra Orr. Huron: Grand Bend to Southamp• carried over five million tons of freight. But ton. Erin, Ont.: Boston Mills, 1993. 144 pp., competition gradually caught up with it; it photographs, maps, illustrations. $35, cloth; was finally abandoned in 1933 when the ISBN 1-55046-0595. present Illinois waterway system opened. Although some parts of the old canal were In this book, Sandra Orr has provided a broad obliterated, a number of the structures sur• survey of the history of the east shore of Lake vived years of neglect, until it became the Huron between the resort community of focus in 1984 of the first National Heritage Grand Bend in the south and Southampton in Corridor under the administration of the the north, at the mouth of the Saugeen River, National Park Service. a distance of about ninety miles. This coast Strictly speaking, Redd's book is not a has a rich maritime heritage. Shipping, ship• history of the Canal. Yet it is certainly about wrecks, commercial fishing, harbour develop• history — all the important dates and facts are ment, lighthouses, and the men and women there. It is also a book about the geology of whose lives were bound up with the lake, all the region, handled in a pleasing, non-techni• are touched upon in more or less detail. cal manner. Then too, it is a book about Pioneer settlement, the rise of agriculture and people, about engineering, somewhat about industry, military events, recreation and the ecology, but most importantly about how to growth of tourism round out the sketch of look at things with one's eyes and mind and human activity in the lakeside towns and translate this to the viewfinder of a camera. townships. The book was very enjoyable to read, so The emphasis in Orr's book is on the that one looks forward to returning to it from visual, including a few maps and sketches, but time to time for sheer enjoyment. Still, two dominated for the most part by black and changes in its organization would have white archival photographs woven together increased the pleasure. There are an additional with just enough text to give the work direc• thirteen interesting photographs included with tion and sense. There is a simple charm in the the essays and many of the illustrations in the images and many evoke a feeling of time and section of photographs are also referred to in place. The dry dock photo of the steamer the essays. Moving our attention back and Wexford, lost with all hands in the Great forth was distracting, both to the text and to Storm of 1913, is especially striking. The the photographs. Also, for those unfamiliar photographic reproduction is of a quality long with the region through which the canal associated with Boston Mills Press and is a passed, the general map of the canal should major reason for their success in the publica• have been supplemented with more detailed tion of local and regional history. maps of the specific areas mentioned in the There is, however, a superficial character text and illustrated by the pictures. I kept a to Huron: Grand Bend to Southampton which map of the National Heritage Corridor, sup• is not redeemed by the illustrations. Perhaps plied by the US National Park Service, at this is in the nature of a book in which the hand while reading the book, and sometimes narrative is of secondary importance. Much of I still became lost! the writing is sloppy and reflects a lack of All in all, this is one of those books that rigour in the final editing. Although the are a pleasure to own and to pick up from bibliography is extensive - it is divided into time to time. newspapers, manuscripts, pamphlets, and books - it is inconsistent in its construction. David T. Glick Some entries include the publisher, others do Matlacha, Florida not; some give publication date, others do not. Place of publication is not always indicated. Book Reviews 69

Even a basic alphabetical sequence is not Mark L. Thompson. Steamboats & Sailors of provided. Carelessness is evident: the date of the Great Lakes. Detroit: Wayne State Uni• W.H. Smith's Canada: Past, Present, and versity Press, 1991. 231 pp., photographs, Future should be 1851 and not 1895. illustrations, figures, appendix, bibliography, Orr's book is further marred by errors of index. US $29.95, cloth; ISBN 0-8143-2359- fact, some of which could have been caught 6. by reference to the sources listed in the bibli• ography. The statement that 70,700 men were This book is more than just a pictorial essay fishing the Canadian waters of Lake Huron in with one photograph or illustration per page 1894 is certainly wrong. At about this time and a caption describing it, despite the fact there were only some 3,000 commercial that there are ninety-six illustrations. The text, fishermen in all of Ontario. The census of presented in a double column per page, is 1891 recorded a mere sixty at Goderich. extensive. Indeed, the book is really an essay Similarly, the dressed stone for the Point about the evolution of Great Lakes steamboats Clark lighthouse did not come from Kingston and their crews, from the middle of the nine• on Lake Ontario but, according to the chief teenth century until today. engineer of the Public Works Department in Some limitations to his subject have been 1857, was quarried at Owen Sound. And the applied by the author, Mark Thompson. For mercury vapour light of the Goderich light• instance, he concentrates on the cargo vessels, house was an innovation of the 1950s, not the carriers of iron ore, coal, grain and other 1847 when this, the first beacon on Lake bulky commodities. There are very few refer• Huron's eastern shore, was constructed. ences to passenger vessels, the paddle wheel• In describing the loss in 1854 of the ers and the vessels with screw propellers that steamer Bruce Mines, the author has unfortu• were so important in the development of the nately used the fictionalized version (pub• American Middle West. There are almost no lished 1966) by the late C.E. Stein, who wrote references to the early tankers and chemical under the pseudonym Noah C.E.S. Oates carriers. Above all, there are only very brief ("Knows His Oats"). Alas, his serialized references to Canadian shipping activities, its Legends of the Lakes, which offered a spuri• vessels, shipyards, sailors and administration. ous retelling of actual events such as the The foreign vessels (other than American and sinking of the Bruce Mines, is now being Canadian vessels) that started to trade regular• taken as legitimate source material. As for ly in the 1930s using the St. Lawrence Sea• Orr's claim that settlers went hungry because way are barely mentioned. The correct title ships and cargoes were lost, this can be linked might therefore be American Steamboats and to only a single incident, the wreck of the Sailors of the Great Lakes. small schooner Saucy Jack in 1851. The The core of the book deals with the December loss did leave the hamlet of South• evolution of the American cargo steamboat ampton short of winter provisions, or so says starting with the steamer R.J. Hackett, a contemporary newspaper account. There is launched in 1869, the prototype of the Great no evidence that this was a hazard commonly Lakes bulk freighters, which the author faced by pioneers in the lakefront townships. describes in Chapter 2. From there Thompson This is typical of the exaggeration and roman• proceeds through a chapter on the era of the ticism which severely limit the usefulness of six- and seven hundred foot freighters, ending Huron: Grand Bend to Southampton. with a chapter on the thousand-foot freighters that navigate between Duluth and the Lake Patrick Folkes Erie ports. These three chapters are Thomp• Willowdale, Ontario son's most valuable contribution. Only one chapter deals with sailors; the others, and 70 The Northern Mariner rightly so, cover the ports, cargoes and sup• as a coal passer to tense moments in the port services, such as the bum boats, the wheelhouse as he threaded the crowded, fog• mailboats and the icebreakers. Again, the bound channels near the Soo Canal. emphasis is on the American activities in the The appeal of this book stems from the Lakes. I would have liked a reference to the author's ability to capture the atmosphere of SS Lemoyne of Canada Steamship Lines, the the unique way of life of the Great Lakes largest bulk freighter in the 1930s, but there sailor in the days before modem navigation is not even a picture of it. The chapter about equipment, and from his ability to express it shipwrecks contains useful statistical data and in a language that is Spartan yet, at times, is four stories of the most recent shipwrecks. very nearly poetic. His description of a sun• Needless to say, all are stories about Ameri• rise on Lake Superior seen from the heights can vessels. The last narrates the disappear• above Duluth is inspiring. His fascination ance of the Edmund Fitzgerald, a 729-foot with every detail of the ships he sailed and, in bulk carrier, in November 1975. particular, with the intricacies of wheeling There are some excellent pages about them under all conditions, results in a text winter navigation in the lower and upper that is both informative and captivating. Mr. lakes. Even an extended season of navigation Dutton takes less than four pages to describe would not bring back the traffic of the 1970s, his experiences aboard a vessel sinking in a referred to as the "Golden Age" by the author. vicious storm on Lake Huron — and his last The current slump is very serious; many paragraph on that subject is a lesson in practi• changes have occurred in the steel industry, in cal philosophy. the movements of cereals from the prairies Dutton's approach is neither scholarly nor through Pacific ports or the Mississippi, in the pedestrian. Though the author went on to construction of pipelines, and in handling become a corporate lawyer, restricting his equipment. Competition is fierce, and the activity as a wheelsman to relief duty during future looks gloomy. No one has an answer to summer vacations, he knew the terror of ship• the sub-utilization of the Great Lakes shipping wreck, the camaraderie of the crew ashore on organization and infrastructure. leave, and was able to express it all. Readers will find the intrusions in the Pierre Camu text by the editor disconcerting but happily Ottawa, Ontario infrequent. The photographs, however, are sometimes irrelevant or poorly selected. There Fred W. Dutton; William Donohue Ellis (ed.). are three pictures of whalebacks and three Life on the Great Lakes: A Wheelsman's more of steam passenger ships, although Story. © Great Lakes Historical Society, 1981, neither type of vessel figures in the text. 1982, 1983, 1984; reprinted with permission, Dutton describes a log boom being towed Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1991. across Lake Superior by a tug, but the editor 173 pp., photographs. US $29.95, cloth; ISBN provides a photograph of a freighter with a 0-8143-2260-3. US $14.95, paper; ISBN 0- deck load of pulp wood. Some photographs 8143-2261-1. have no captions; many reveal an agenda imposed by the editor. All this, however, Fred Dutton has left for posterity a clear detracts little from an account that is compel• account of life aboard Great Lakes freighters ling, instructive, entertaining, and all too as seen through the eyes of a deckhand and a brief. Let there be more Fred Duttons! wheelsman. Going to sea in 1916 at age sixteen, Dutton served aboard eighteen vessels Frank Prothero over a span of several decades; his recollec• Port Stanley, Ontario tions run the gamut from "shooting the ashes" Book Reviews 71

Baruch Hirson and Lorraine Vivian. Strike unused ships at ridiculously low prices. This Across the Empire: The Seamen's Strike of flooded the international shipping market and 1925: in Britain, South Africa and sent cargo rates crashing to pre-war levels. Australasia. London: Clio Press, 1992 [13 The international post-war demobilization Talbot Avenue, London N2 OLS]. vi + 117 caused international trade to dwindle and pp., references, bibliography, index. £5.50 shipping jobs to vanish overnight. [sterling money orders only], paper; ISBN 1- In 1921 US seamen struck when Ameri• 897640-00-5. can shipowners called for a twenty-five per• cent reduction in base pay and the elimination On 2 August, 1925, members of the National of overtime pay. The American strike, which Sailors and Firemen's Union of Great Britain was more violent than its 1925 British coun• and Ireland called an unauthorized strike terpart, lasted sixty-four days and destroyed against British flagged merchant vessels. The maritime unionism on the East and Gulf day before, British shipowners, with the Coast. Membership in the International Sea• urging of the president of the sailors union, J. men's Union shrunk from 115,000 to 5,000 Havelock Wilson, cut seamen's wages by ten members. American wages plummeted from percent. The strike spread to three continents $85 a month to $30. The work week and lasted over one hundred days, yet it led to expanded from forty-eight to seventy-two a decisive defeat of the British maritime hours and seamen no longer received overtime labour movement. pay. For the next fifteen years American This strike apparently is the victim of a flagged shipping interest refused to sign a conspiracy of silence. For whatever reason no labour contract with their employees. documents on this strike exist in the British When taken in an international context J. Public Records Office and no professional Havelock Wilson's call for a ten per cent pay historians, until now, have written extensively cut may have been a rather clever ploy. In on this topic. And no publishing house, either 1924 British seamen received a ten per cent public or private, would print this manuscript. pay raise. The next year Wilson gave it back. Even with these limitations Baruch Hir• The net result for British seamen was an extra son and Lorraine Vivian have done an inter• month's salary in their pocket. When organ• esting job of combing through newspapers ized British labour called for a general strike and other documents and unravelling this in 1926 Wilson refused to join the fray. When important story. This international strike cost this tragic strike ended British seamen fared British shipping interests millions of pounds no worse than before. However, their fellow sterling in delayed cargo deliveries and lost workers felt the wrath of the Empire's manu• contracts to foreign competitors. The strike facturing leaders. Wages dropped and organ• crushed the British maritime labour movement ized labour lay mortally wounded. British and crippled its effectiveness to the Empire seafarers survived. Their industrial counter• until the eve of World War II. The seamen's parts did not. strike, in the authors' opinion, also fore• Strike Across the Empire is an interesting shadowed labour and management's tragic book. The story is compelling, but the writing confrontation in the General Strike of 1926. style at times needs improvement. And the Most of the authors' assertions about the book contains too many spelling errors. Stu• strike's importance are convincing. Yet their dents of British labour will enjoy this book labelling of J. Havelock Wilson as the arch- but the general reader may find this book villain may not withstand close scrutiny. The difficult to follow. post-World War I shipping industry was vicious and cut-throat. After the war the US Donald Willett government foolishly sold millions of tons of Galveston, Texas 72 The Northern Mariner

Paul K. Chapman. Trouble on Board: The account of the indignities heaped upon mod• Plight of International Seafarers. Ithaca, NY: em seafarers. The book runs to seven chapters ILR Press, 1992. xxxi + 176 pp., notes, which deal in turn with all aspects of modem references, index. US $32, cloth; ISBN 0- seafaring. Nothing is omitted: the practices of 87546-180-8; US $14.95, paper; ISBN 0- manning agencies; the lack of regulation of 87546-181-6. employment in the now-dominant shipping industry regime of flags of convenience: the It is hard to imagine a more timely book on attempts by trade unions and welfare agencies the current plight of seafarers than this one. to remedy the structural problems and seek As I write, national television headline news justice in the cases of crews and individual in the UK has featured the loss with all hands seafarers. The issues are all laid out and of the Christinaki, a Greek-owned, Maltese- graphically portrayed from the extraordinary flagged, 26,000 ton bulker. Lost in a strong and almost incredible abuses documented in gale, 250 miles SW of Lands End after the the case files of the New York-based, Center sea broached the No.l hatch covers, the for Seafarers' Rights, of which Chapman was twenty-one-year old ship sank quickly with director from 1981 to 1990. her cargo of scrap metal, loaded only days The book is an essay, not a study, an previously in Liverpool for Mexico. illustration of a problem, not a documentation. The price of seafarers' lives and labour, But let no one draw any comfort from this. and the worth placed on their humanity in the Instances of abuse are certainly presented now globalized seafarers labour market, is the sparely and dramatically to highlight the subject of Paul Chapman's book. One thread employment conditions of too many modem of this theme is chillingly exemplified in seafarers. Yet readers so-minded should not today's (5 February, 1994) Lloyd's List front• reach for the easy thought that Chapman's page headline story of the Christinaki: "The book is thinly substantiated polemic. Of Newcastle P&I club will be responsible for course it is a polemic but the evidence sus• compensating the families of the five Greek taining it is as deceptive as an iceberg. The officers, 20 Filipino and one Sudanese rating documentation of abused human rights in the who lost their lives. The tragedy is unlikely to files of the New York Center is extensive. It be significant in financial terms with compen• is also slender compared with that lying in the sation to the next of kin running to around London offices of the Justice Department of SI.5m (my emphasis)." Evidently the average the Church of England's Missions to Seamen, price of a seafarer's life is US $57,692.31. No and the maritime section of the International doubt the families of the Greek officers will Transport Workers Federation. receive additional compensation from the Paradoxically, it is on the question of ship's owners. This is unlikely to apply to the trade unionism that Chapman is weakest. If he families of the crewmen, who were probably is justifiably critical of the appalling practices engaged for the ship through a Philippines- of some seamen's trade unions, he shows little based manning agency; it is a safe bet that the understanding of the political juggling act families' compensation will be channelled played out within the ITF as it struggles to through it. It would be interesting to know - overcome the inevitable fissiparous tendencies but we never will — how much of that com• of a trade union international. The ultimate pensation finally finds its way through. It was effectiveness of the ITF is better judged by its questions of this sort that prompted Chapman own wide-ranging welfare activities and by to write this often angry book. the vitriolic attacks often made upon it by Filipinos account for about a third of the those at the more dubious end of shipowning. world's seagoing labour force and feature Fortunately for the reader, Chapman's weak• prominently in Chapman's pungently eloquent ness in respect of the ITF is made good in the Book Reviews 73 excellent Introduction by Clifford Donn, on tory." To make this encyclopaedic work more the institutions and trends in the modern ship• readable each volume consists of independent ping industry. "Excellent" must also be the chapters by recognised authorities. final verdict on the book as a whole which, The approach to writing is based on the incidently, has been handsomely designed and view that "Ships were built to carry out produced. Here is a happy amalgamation of particular tasks and their design was as much powerful text and quality artifact. influenced by the experience of that employ• ment — the lessons of war, or the conditions Tony Lane of trade, for example — as purely technical Liverpool, England innovation." (p.6) It is for this reason that the what and the when join the why, so often Alastair Couper (consultant ed.). Conway's absent from reference works. History of the Ship: The Shipping Revolution. Preface and Introduction set the scene The Modern Merchant Ship. London: Conway which is acted out in thirteen chapters: Mod• Maritime Press, 1992. 208 pp., photographs, ern Tramp Ships, Bulk Carriers and Combina• tables, figures, bibliography, glossary, appen• tion Carriers; Conventional Cargo Liners and dix, index. £28, cloth; ISBN 0-85177-569-1. Refrigerated Ships; Container Shipping; Oil Tankers, Chemical Carriers and Gas Carriers; The first great shipping technology revolution Passenger Ships; Short Sea and Coastal Ship• saw steam displace sail. The Shipping Revol• ping; Specialized Cargo Ships; Service, Sup• ution: The Modern Merchant Ship recounts port and Industry Vessels; Fishing Vessels; and explains the second great revolution Modern Merchant Ship Navigation; Modern which occurred primarily since the 1950s and Merchant Ship Propulsion; The Modern Ship• gave us today's fleets with tremendously building Industry; and Ship Registers and the increased size, "a wide range of specialized Use of Flags. Some prior knowledge is cargo carriers, new types of ferries and dedi• expected of the reader, but an excellent gloss• cated holiday cruise vessels and the spread of ary (pp.201-4) will help readers who need to the revolutionary technology of container and know that a reefer is not a marijuana ciga• roro systems." (p.6) It is a masterful work, a rette. The annotated bibliography is an excel• model of good modern technological maritime lent guide to further reading. history which, instead of "just one damn fact The reviewer could not resist reading after another," is a fascinating blend of the everything but reference works should also what and when with the why. provide selected information quickly. The Edited by master mariner and scholar, Shipping Revolution passed the tests very Alastair Couper, The Shipping Revolution is handily thanks to clearly defined chapter the third of Conway's projected twelve-vol• headings and a carefully compiled index. The ume "History of the Ship," an encyclopaedia reviewer has an interest in log carriers, par• with a difference. The word "encyclopaedia" ticularly those in Canada. There were index often conjures images of the term once used entries for Canada, a cross reference from log to describe the Harvard Business Review: bran carriers to wood, also entries for owner Mac- muffin reading, good for you but not necess• Millan Bloedel Industries, Ltd. and carriers by arily enjoyable. The Shipping Revolution is name. Index entries in bold guide readers to very palatable. If others in the series are as the many useful diagrams and tables. good then series editor Robert Gardiner, Deciding on level of technical detail is consultant editors and carefully selected always an arduous task in books aimed at a contributors will have succeeded in providing broad but knowledgeable audience. The Ship• "the first detailed and comprehensive account ping Revolution provides lucid detail without of a technology that has shaped human his• overkill. The chapter on Oil Tankers, Chemi- 74 The Northern Mariner

cal Carriers and Gas Carriers, provides an ifies the main characteristics of Greek ship• admirable example of the right mix in areas ping business strategies; the sixth comments such as the square/cube rule which helps on the future prospects for Greek shipping. explain the merits of large tankers (pp.65-6) Greek and Norwegian shipowners have or the relationship between speed and fuel been the closest of competitors in the post- consumption, (p.72) World War II era, since they both worked in Carefully written books often run aground the tramp shipping market. I was therefore on poor illustrations. The Shipping Revolution extremely interested to see what the Norwe• does not. The photo for example of the semi- gians have to say about Greek shipping, only submersible heavy-lift vessel Dan Lifter (p. to find out, unfortunately, that this study is a 121) lets the reader see just how unusual review of what the Greeks have to say about some specialized cargo ships have become. It themselves. The first two chapters and half of is the tractor-trailer of the seas. Illustrations the third chapter (which together constitute are clear, well chosen and varied; captions are almost half of the book) are almost entirely well written and informative. As an author based on one work (Harlaftis 1993). Since the who pays great attention to illustrations, I group also undertook a number of interviews know just how much work this involves. in London and Piraeus, I would have expected Picture researcher Roger Jordan is to be them to use more of this valuable material. congratulated as is everyone associated with The last two chapters are extremely small this fine book. (five pages each) and the attempts to analyse No self-respecting library should be with• Greek shipping strategies are rather unfortu• out The Shipping Revolution. I am happy to nate. The main problem of this study is that it report I just cannot find anything bad to say. remains descriptive and rather short for all the information that it wants to provide. Norman R. Ball The text also suffers from several "practi• Waterloo, Ontario cal" drawbacks. The footnotes are amazingly poor. There are only six in a study entirely Olav Bruåsdal et al. Strategy for Improved based on a number of secondary sources and Shipping Analysis: Greek Shipping. Bergen: interviews. In many places statistics are used Centre for Research in Economics and Busi• without any reference as to their origin. ness Adminstration (SNF), 1993 [order from: Moreover the text should have been checked SNF Bergen, Breiviken 2, 5035 Bergen-Sand- for English shipping terminology. There are viken, Norway], ix + 110 pp., tables, figures. various awkward expressions like "wet trade" NOK 220, bound typescript; SNF-report 6/93. or "liquid market" (when what is meant is liquid cargo trade or market), "speciality This study was written as a collective disserta• shipping," and so on. tion by the SIS (Satsing i Shipping) group, However, as the authors emphasize in consisting of eight individuals as part of a their preface, "the aim of this report is to two-year postgraduate programme. There are improve the general knowledge in Norway of six chapters: the first briefly investigates Greek shipping through a description of the Greek shipping history from the early nine• Greek maritime environment..." In this the teenth century to the present day; the second authors have rather succeeded. This brief examines Greek shipping companies in the study is informative and a useful introduction international scene after World War II; the to those who want to get acquainted with the third looks at various aspects of Greek ship• main issues of Greek shipping. ping in relation to the Greek state; the fourth examines Greek involvement in various seg• Gelina Harlaftis ments of the shipping market; the fifth ident• Athens, Greece Book Reviews 75

Rob Morris. Coasters: The Uchuck III, Lady For one thing, Horsdal & Schubart appear to Rose, Frances Barkley and Tyee Princess. have had a hard time deciding whether they Victoria: Horsdal & Schubart, 1993. x + 54 were putting together a book or a magazine. pp., maps, photographs, figures, notes, biblio• Not only is the book's size unconventional, graphy, index. $10.95, paper; ISBN 0-920663- but the small print text is poorly laid out. 19-2. Coasters is divided into titled sections, each of which is subdivided into chapters. The Before World War II, Canadian Pacific and same small type for section and chapter head• the Union Steamship Company's coastwise ings fails to organize the book at all; one ves• fleets provided British Columbia's remote sel's story runs right into the next. A more logging camps and fish canneries with vital conventional organization would have been links to urban centres. When postwar prosper• better. A much more disconcerting short• ity brought roads, more floatplanes, and an coming is probably the book's dismally poor increasing number of tugs and barges, these photographic reproduction. Only one of the large companies slowly abandoned their un• four photographs on the covers is of any profitable runs. Today, only a few indepen• quality, while the photos within the book are dently owned vessels carry general freight and even worse. The two on page 16 are especial• passengers to tidewater logging camps, sport ly disappointing. In the first it is impossible to fishing lodges, and the isolated village floats make out the hull of the Uchuck III against and docks. Coasters looks at four small the water around it. The photo of the wheel- vessels that are still active in this service. house is just as bad; the beautiful brass and Rob Morris has a good grasp of how this wood of this former US Navy minesweeper is fleet operates; as writer and editor for the barely discernible. monthly magazine Westcoast Mariner, he has Nevertheless, and despite its poor layout put in a lot of time at the harbour chasing and substandard photographs, this book is still down stories. Morris not only describes how a worthwhile purchase. It provides both the these small freighter's owners have adapted to historical background on four of the west changing circumstances — like the decline in coast's sturdy coasters and an excellent explo• BC logging - but also provides a detailed ration of the practical business of running a study of each vessel's history. These very small marine transportation outfit while facing different coasters vary from the contemporary the challenges of British Columbia's rapidly looking ex-Norwegian ferry Frances Barkley changing hinterland. It is too bad that the to the traditional Clyde-built fifty-six-year-old publisher misread the potential market for an Lady Rose, a survivor from the Union Steam• in-depth look at working maritime heritage. ship Company fleet. The book is a fascinating read; personal Rick James accounts from those who own, run, and crew Courtenay, British Columbia these ships bring the story to life. A particu• larly enjoyable excerpt was that from a pri• Jim Lyon, with Barbara Duggan. The Port of vate log kept on the 1937 voyage of the Lady Vancouver: Canada's Global Gateway. Van• Sylvia when she crossed two oceans to reach couver & Toronto: Vancouver Port Corpor• British Columbia. At that time, the Lady ation, in cooperation with Douglas & Mcln- Sylvia (later renamed the Lady Rose), only tyre, 1993. viii + 135 pp., illustrations, photo• 105 feet overall, was the smallest single- graphs, figures, suggestions for further read• propeller vessel to cross the Atlantic. ing. $35, cloth; ISBN 1-55054-063-7. While the author has put forth a com• mendable effort with this project, the pub• Picture Perfect Port — that could have been lisher has let both him and the reader down. the title for this glossy book on Canada's 76 The Northern Mariner most beautiful, and biggest, port. It is a well- and centre to all who are interested. Whether balanced book. Its seven chapters cover the from the expensive houses in West typical gamut for port histories: its discovery Vancouver, which are able to monitor the by Europeans, the cargoes handled, both in traffic in and out of English Bay, or from the and out, animate as well as inanimate, the less-expensive homes in North Vancouver, ships, and the "People and Partnerships" by which are privy to the multi-hued piles of whom the port is run (sometimes; as of this exports stored along the wharves, or the writing, it is strike-bound!). And yes, it pays downtown crowd rubber-necking at ferry and tribute to those who came before commercial• passenger docks, it is virtually impossible to ism, the native Canadians. Do not look for the miss Vancouver's maritime atmosphere. This whys and wherefors, though, for assessment is the book imparts beautifully — in all the not this book's intent. On the other hand, meanings of that overworked word. those wishing to learn the basic facts concern• There is evidence in these pages for all ing what, shorn of all its hype, is Canada's but the most specialized historian plying his busiest port, then this is the book to read. or her trade. For instance, compare the photo• One of the virtues accruing from the new graph of about two hundred women workers awareness of native history is that it allows at a local shipyard, with the mostly stem for a greater, longer history for Canada, visages, on page 103, with that four pages putting us at least if not on a par with Europe, later of the forty-six men attending a Shipyard then very nearly so. As paintings and clips General Workers Federation meeting in the and old photographs reproduced in this book same year (1945). There must be at least three show, "our" natives were true ocean seafarers theses there! The authors can be forgiven for to as great a degree as the fabled voyagers of their breathless report of the "little known fact the South Pacific, or even of historic Mediter- that the containerization of ocean-going ranea. This is well illustrated, albeit subtly, in freight....was developed in Vancouver (p.65): this book. not everyone has read back issues of ARGO• Indeed, to this reviewer, the images in NAUT A\ this book show why, alone of Canada's other It is to be hoped that, in these parlous sea ports, it can claim to be the repository of times, the Port Corporation provided more whatever remains of the country's "sea con• than its courtesy note, however gracious, for sciousness." Looking beyond the industrial the help it acknowledges from heritage institu• might displayed therein, the reader can see the tions such as the Vancouver Maritime use to which local citizens put their harbour Museum. One cannot help but note with con• and port. Whilst examples of current recre• cern that it recently let go the port's part-time ational use are not overly-evident, the histori• archivist. On a more positive note, of the cal evidence is — and one only needs to go twenty books listed under "Further Reading," down to the port and its extended environs all are by historians, and not a few of them and view it from the many vantage points, are members of our Society. walkways and parks to realize the vast usage But I could go on and on - one reason of this enclosed waterway. From both the why this review is so much adrift. For I do seaward aspects (boaters, yachters, ferry-boat not have to extol the virtues of the port too passengers and so on) and the land (the cyc• much: when you come out in May for the lists along the sea wall, the brown-baggers at Annual Meeting, you can all see for your• Canada Place, the denizens of Lonsdale Quay) selves! it is obvious just to what extent Vancouverites cherish their waterfront. Kenneth S. Mackenzie Far more than any other of Canada's Ganges, British Columbia harbours the activities in Vancouver are front Book Reviews 11

Jürgen Elvert, Jürgen Jensen and Michael almost accidentally — to a breakdown of Salewski. Kiel, die Deutschen und die See military and political structures in Kiel and (Historische Mitteilungen, Beiheft 3). Stutt• later in Germany. H.-G. Glaesser and D. gart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1992. 253 pp., Adelung describe the scientific institutions for photographs, index. DM 88, fabric softback; sea traffic and world economy and for ocean• ISBN 3-515-06266-1. ography while U. Jenisch deals with maritime orientated industries and research. C.-A. In 1992 Kiel, the capital of the most northerly Gemzell contributes a balanced study on the state in Germany and gateway to Scandinavia, complicated trade relations of Scandinavia celebrated its 750th anniversary. While a with Great Britain on the one side and Ger• voluminous and admirably well-written and many on the other. H. Walle's fascinating produced town history traces the development account of the artistically modern marine of Kiel from the beginning in 1242 to the architecture leads to the final paper by J. present, this collection of essays deals with Jensen, who advocated the creation of an one special aspect of the town's history. industrial museum in Kiel to preserve relics of When in the aftermath of the Danish-German the industrial past. Such a museum would war the Prussian government in 1865 moved close the gap between the existing town and naval headquarters from Danzig to Kiel, the maritime museums. The prospects, however, basis for what could be called a "second for realizing such an ambitious project are foundation" was laid. Under the influence of bleak at the moment because the politicians the navy the sleepy provincial capital of the claim to have no money. Duchies of Schleswig-Holstein was trans• Kiel, die Deutschen und die See is an formed into a busy industrial town with naval excellent example of a successful integration predominance in all sectors. of national and local approaches to the history In May 1992 fourteen international of an individual town. It could serve as a scholars met in the town hall to discuss the model for similar histories of other navy interdependency of town development, the bases, like Wilhelmshaven on the North Sea, expansion of the navy and German naval which will celebrate its 125th anniversary in history. The first six papers — M. Salewski on 1994. "Germany as a sea power," M. Epkenhans on "Mahan's influence on sea strategy in the Lars U. Scholl nineteenth and twentieth centuries," J. Dülffer Bremerhaven, Germany on "Kaiser Wilhelm's and Hitler's naval conceptions," J. Duppler on "Maritime con• Ken McCarron and Adrian Jarvis. Give a ceptions in the Third Reich," W. Rahn on Dock a Good Name? Liverpool: National "Strategic interaction between naval war in Museums & Galleries on Merseyside, 1992. ix the North and Baltic Seas" and H.J. Meyer- + 119 pp., map, photographs, further readings. Hoper on the "Bundesmarine in the Baltic" — £4.50, paper; ISBN 0-9516129-4-8. set the general background to the navy-domi• nated town history. The remaining eight con• Give a Dock a Good Name? is one in a series tributions look at various technical, political, of occasional booklets about the history of scientific, economic, trade and architectural Merseyside's docklands, produced under the implications of 150 years' close connection general auspices of the National Museums and between urban and naval cohabitation. K. Galleries on Merseyside, and the particular Herold recapitulates the construction and fate guidance of the series editor, Adrian Jarvis. of Wilhelm Bauer's U-boat in 1851. W. Deist From Albert Dock to Woodside Basin, this summarizes the political and military antagon• handy little paperback sets out in alphabetical ism in Kiel during World War I which lead — order cameos of forty-seven Mersey docks. 78 The Northern Mariner

The book was written to answer Mersey- the name than that it is a borrowing of an old side . Maritime Museum visitors' questions London district name. about how the docks in Liverpool and Birken• On the other hand, what Ken McCarron head acquired their names. On the whole, the and Adrian Jarvis must be commended for stated objective is achieved most satisfactor• doing extremely well is packing a consider• ily. The book is copiously illustrated — nearly able amount of factual information into a very every page has an archive or modem black- small space. The variety of information pro• and-white photograph. The old photographs vided and the highly readable style in which are not only informative but also atmospheric; it is presented ensure a lively text. This is not a number of the new ones (presumably Colin a scholarly work, though that is not to say Pitcher's, although not specifically attributed that it lacks scholarship, but it is an interest• to him) are exceptionally good compositions. ing, useful and fun book to read. There is much to look at in every picture and the brief and sometimes whimsical captions Nancy Ritchie-Noakes add further interest. Liverpool, England The text comprises a brief resume of the history of each dock together with a short Adrian Osier and Anthony Barrow. Tall Ships, biography of the person, or information about Two Rivers: Six Centuries of Sail on the the place, battle or trade after whom or which Rivers Tyne and Wear. Newcastle upon Tyne: the dock was named. This makes the book Keepdate Publishing Ltd, 1993 [21 Portland useful for the tourist or visitor who wants a Terrace, Newcastle upon Tyne NE2 1QQ]. short guide to the (mainly) historic docklands 120 pp., illustrations, photographs, maps, and interesting for everyone who enjoys dip• sources, index. £18, cloth; ISBN 0-9520494- ping at random into reference books. At the 2-2. very end of the book is a wonderful section entitled "Other Docks on the Mersey". Here This is an attractive book which confidently one reads about Widnes Dock, the first pur• surveys six centuries of sailing vessels from pose-built railway dock in the world and the Tyne and Wear region. Although coverage "undoubtedly the tattiest effort on the Mersey does not extend down to Whitby, nevertheless to be dignified with the name of "Dock." it captures much of the contribution of the Since Give a Dock a Good Name? is such north-east of England and provides a good an enjoyable little volume, it seems invidious picture of the evolution of the sailing vessel, to cavil at any aspects of it which disappoint. especially in the coasting trades. Coal pro• Nevertheless it must be said that the brevity vided the mainstay for shipping for virtually which makes it such a good pocket guide will all of the period, workaday ships predomi• frustrate the reader who wants the whole nating in comparison with some of the more story. Although the origins of names are glamorous types from southern rivers. explained, often the reasons for the choices of The book is partly aimed at a popular names are not. Egerton Dock (Birkenhead) market stemming from interest in sailing ships was named after Sir Philip de Malpas-Grey that was stimulated when Newcastle hosted Egerton; in choosing that name, the Dock the 1993 Tall Ships Race. Nevertheless, it Trustees' intention was to secure in their offers much of interest to the maritime histor• favour the exercise of Sir Philip's Parliamen• ian who is unfamiliar with the subject or tary influence. This is interesting, and of region. Succinct accounts of the major threads relevance to the general history of the tradi• are by colourful detail, by contemporary tional rivalry between Liverpool and Birken• quotations and by representative statistics. A head. Contrast the information about Wapping diversity of topics include the coal trade, Dock where the reader is given no more about arctic whaling, shipwrights guilds, navigation, Book Reviews 79 press gangs, composite ships and parliamen• business on sites of redundant facilities on the tary inquiries. Personalities such as seaman/ river banks); this has had the effect of produc• shipowner Walter Runciman and shipwright/ ing a reasonably priced hardback with some• shipbuilder Robert Thompson illustrate how thing for everybody. some of the key marine businesses evolved. A selection of local worthies includes Admiral Ian Buxton Collingwood and James Hall, whose contribu• Newcastle upon Tyne, England tion to the introduction of load lines has been rather overshadowed by Samuel Plimsoll. Peter Dillon. The Tyne Oarsmen: Harry The evolution of shipbuilding techniques Clasper, Robert Chambers, James Renforth. is well summarised with useful diagrams, Newcastle upon Tyne: Keepdate Publishing while the sometimes unfamiliar terminology is Ltd, 1993 [21 Portland Terrace, Newcastle explained. The two rivers evolved at different upon Tyne NE2 1QQ]. 44 pp., illustrations, rates in the nineteenth century, the Tyne mov• photographs. £4, paper; ISBN 0-9520494-3-0. ing into iron shipbuilding and steam propul• sion well in advance of the Wear, which built Alison Gale. Wrecks & Rescues: Shelter from appreciable numbers of sailing vessels at the Storm. Newcastle upon Tyne: Keepdate Sunderland until the very end of the era. Publishing Ltd, 1993. 40 pp., illustrations, A good variety of well-reproduced illus• photographs, map, further reading. £4, paper; trations is included, relatively few being the ISBN 0-9520494-4-9. ship portraits beloved of most popular books on sailing vessels. Two sections of plates are In maritime terms the northeast coast of inserted, including colour reproductions of England is better noted for the harsh econ• paintings by local artists like J.W. Carmich- omic realities of coal and steam than for the ael. Some colour plates are also reproduced in apparent romances of river-racing and sea monochrome, a somewhat unnecessary dupli• rescue. These two booklets, however, examine cation. The layout of text and illustrations on nineteenth-century activities in which the the square pages is occasionally rather heavy region showed just as much of a pioneering handed, with excessive use of blue as well as spirit as it did, say, in the development of the black ink, heavy titles, white areas and slices steam collier. of illustrations squeezed into margins. Peter Dillon's work shows how — through The book can be read with ease, either rowing over the heavily industrialised waters from cover to cover, or dipped into for topics of the "coaly Tyne" — its professional oars• of interest, since these are readily identifiable. men and boatbuilders precociously took on Although conventional referencing is es• the established might of the Thames watermen chewed — often a distraction for the general and then, in turn, the (colonial) world. These reader — a four-page bibliography will almost Tynesiders succeeded for a couple of glorious certainly offer some fresh sources to every decades through a mix of sheer physical reader. The authors have drawn on local mat• application, technical advances, infusions of erial and their previous experience developed capital (principally from "tradesmen") and the over many years (including sailing the coast), unrivalled support of an expanding urban Adrian Osier being Keeper of Maritime His• community — Harry Clasper's funeral in 1870 tory at Tyne and Wear Museums and Tony brought Newcastle to a standstill with over Barrow being Head of Humanities at New• 100,000 mourners! In fact, the parallels castle College. The local publisher has between Tyneside's success at river-racing enlisted the support of Tyne and Wear Devel• and its industrial success are many: as, for opment Corporation (which gets an obligatory example, expressed unself-consciously by a puff at the end for its efforts to rejuvenate local balladeer extolling James Renforth, 80 The Northern Mariner

"Tyneside's long been fam'd for producin' Leslie Harrison. A Titanic Myth: The greet men, Luck (Look) at Airmstrang (Lord Californian Incident. London: William Kim- Armstrong) an' Stivvinson (George Stephen• ber, 1986; 2nd ed., rev.; Hanley Swan, Wor• son)..." In mitigation of such regional pride it cestershire: Self Publishing Association in should be said that James Renforth's crew had conjunction with Leslie Harrison, 1992. 287 just won the 1870 world title from Canada's pp., photographs, figures, sources, index. crack team. Tragically, Renforth died in £14.95, cloth; ISBN 1-85421-184-6. Distrib• pursuit of the double in 1871 — hence the uted by Images (Booksellers & Distributors) eponymous Canadian town of Renforth. Limited, Hanley Swan, Worcestershire. This same era saw the region's burgeon• ing seaborne trade exact a much greater and Deputy Chief Inspector of Marine Accidents. less publicised toll of life through wreck and RMS "Titanic", Reappraisal of Evidence stranding. Alison Gale outlines the serious Relating to SS "Californian". Southampton, commercial and human aspects of this prob• England: Marine Accident Investigation lem and shows how it was alleviated through Branch (MAIB) or Her Majesty's Stationery the introduction or adoption of a number of Office, 1992. vi + 19 pp. + viii, charts, ap• measures: improvements in coastal lights; the pendices. £7.50, paper; ISBN 0-11-551111-3. introduction of lifeboats, life-saving apparatus and voluntary institutions to service them; and R.J. Brigham and Y.A. Lafreniere. Titanic the deepening and protection of the coast's Specimens/Echantillons. Technical Report 92- notoriously dangerous harbour entrances. In 32(TR); Ottawa: Energy, Mines and Res• many such matters the region is shown once ources Canada, 1992 [Metals Technology again as a pioneer, from the introduction of Laboratories, CANMET, Energy, Mines and the world's first purpose-built lifeboats in the Resources Canada, 568 Booth Street, Ottawa, late eighteenth century, through playing a Ontario K1A 0G1], 14 pp., illustrations, formative part in the creation of the Royal photographs, tables. Free, paper. National Lifeboat Institution to producing harbourworks at the limits of civil engineering A Titanic Myth is essentially an unrevised technology — as witnessed by the fifty-year reprint of the 1986 edition. One can argue as struggle to build the Tyne Piers. to what constitutes a legitimate "second Whether either booklet really matches up edition" but in my opinion, this book fails the to the magnitude of its subjects is, perhaps, test. Ten pages have been added that do little open to question; that may be too much to ask more than quote the second of the three within a pocket-book format. Certainly both publications reviewed here, with another four authors have tried hard: Peter Dillon by pages of non-analytical comment on the turning his readable, journalistic style onto the MAIB report. This hardly makes it a "second lives and times of three charismatic aquatic edition." Nor does changing the author's sportsmen; and Alison Gale by adopting a photo, changing two words on the dust jacket, more formalised historical appreciation of and using a thinner, whiter grade of paper. improvements in lifesaving and coastal safety. Those who already own the first edition need Though intended primarily for a local audi• not purchase this version to obtain the added ence, both books contain elements of interest pages; they are all reprinted in The Titanic to a wider readership, so their very limited Commentator, XVI, No. 3, pp.27-33. bibliographies may disappoint those who are Ironically, there is a wealth of new in• enthused by their contents. formation which, had it been incorporated by Harrison, would have justified the term "sec• Adrian Osier ond edition": Titanic's exact positions (of Newcastle upon Tyne, England both halves) were by then known; the analysis Book Reviews 81 of the MAIB was public; the brief analysis of debate will rage on. Harrison defends Lord Robert Ballard of the issues had been pub• quite forcibly. Yet the author does not know lished; so had the earlier analysis of William when to stop, for he reiterates, reworks and Ryan of the Jack Grimm search team from reviews his arguments, using only the pre- Columbia University. 1986 information. In the hands of a tough The new data is generally favourable to editor and the new data, this book could have Captain Stanley Lord, whose ship, SS Calif• provided a much more succinct defence of ornian, drifted all night in an ice-field with its Captain Lord in only half the pages. radio and its engines turned off that fateful Titanic buffs seem to assemble in camps; night when Titanic sank. The issue at the to salvage or to not salvage, pro-Ballard or 1912 American and British enquiries was anti-Ballard, "Lordites" or "anti-Lordite." whether or not Lord could have rescued What Harrison's book indicates perhaps better Titanic's passengers. Until the wreck of than anything is that once a particular position Titanic was located by the Franco-American is taken, it is not easily moved by new evi• expedition in 1985, followed by the official dence. Harrison is unabashedly a Lordite, as release of the position in Ballard's book in he was throughout his nineteen years as 1987, the issue could still be debated. But General Secretary of the Mercantile Marine Titanic's wreck position was much further Service Association (1956-1975), the body east and a bit south of the official CQD or that represents the interests of British "Mayday" position of 14-15 April, 1912, shipmasters. It was during this time that suggesting that no, Lord could not have Captain Lord, who had remained silent for rescued Titanic's passengers. Even if Califor- over forty years, responded to the mid-195 8 nian had its radio on (which it was not release of the film, A Night to Remember, required to do) or had read the apparent based on the book by Walter Lord (no rela• rockets low on the horizon correctly, had tion). Lord asked the MMSA to represent his gone to full steam in a very dangerous ice• interests and to clear his name. When he died field, and had managed to steam without an in 1962, his son signed the MMSA's 1965 ice incident itself, it could not have reached petition to the British Board of Trade. This Titanic before the doomed liner sank and at petition failed as did another in 1968. best it could have begun to pick up lifeboats Despite the rejection, the issues of Lord's slightly before the Carpathia arrived. innocence and the conclusions of the official Had Lord steamed at full speed to Titan• inquiries of 1912 refused to go away. In 1990, ic's radioed "Mayday" position he would have Secretary of State for Transport Cecil Parkin• ended up 13.2 nautical miles WNW from the son announced that the Marine Accident In• lifeboats and on the wrong side of the long vestigation Branch would reappraise the role ice-field; in fact, when the Californian did of the Californian in the Titanic disaster. turn on its radio the next morning and re• Captain Tom W. Barnett, a newly-retired ceived the news and the position, that is Principal Nautical Surveyor and an experi• exactly what Lord did. Yet, despite daylight enced Master Mariner, was placed in charge. visibility, he picked his way at less than full However, when Captain P.B. Marriott, Chief speed for reasons of safety. He then had to re- Inspector of Accidents for MAIB, received penetrate the ice-field to head ESE to reach Barnett's report he did not "fully agree with the area of the Carpathia shortly before it left all the Inspector's findings." Marriott then for New York with the survivors on board. appointed Captain J. de Coverly, Deputy Today it is generally agreed that Lord Chief Inspector of Accidents for MAIB, to could have made no difference to the more review the matter; it is his report, incorporat• than 1,500 people who lost their lives. But did ing "his conclusions and those of the he act properly in the circumstances? Here the appointed inspector [Capt. Barnett]," which 82 The Northern Mariner

Marriott sent to the Secretary of State for but was also fined $65,000 for using up the Transport and which was subsequently pub• court's time. Marex had to call off its British lished by the MAIB. mothership, which was poised over the site in In that report, Barnett and de Coverly late 1992 with the remotely operated vehicle agree that Californian did see Titanic's dis• Magellan ready to begin salvage. Meanwhile tress signals and did not take proper action. the French, with American money, returned to Barnett "considers that Titanic was seen by the Titanic with Nadir/Nautil in mid-1993 and Californian" whereas de Coverly resorts to recovered eight hundred more artifacts which abnormal refraction to achieve this. Barnett they brought into Norfolk, Virginia; again, would place Californian only five to seven they thumbed their noses at the Americans. miles away from the Titanic; de Coverly The artifacts are to be restored in Europe for places them seventeen to twenty miles apart. a major touring exhibition. Lord is neither cleared nor condemned. Though the wreck is salvaged within Indeed, de Coverly concedes that "Neither Canada's "juridical limit" as defined by the party will be entirely pleased with this report 1982 Law of the Sea Treaty, Canadian diplo• ....It is for others if they wish to go further matic notes of protest have been ignored. into speculation; it is to be hoped that they Canada's only official visit to the wreck was will do so rationally and with some regard to in June 1991 on the Russian vessel Akademik the simple fact that there are no villains in Keldysh. Submersibles were equipped by the this story, just human beings with human IMAX Corporation with special lights and characteristics." (p. 19) cameras to make the Titanica film. A small The third publication reviewed here — Canadian scientific team headed by Steve really, a booklet — may mark the beginning of Blasco of the Atlantic Geoscience Centre in a new Titanic controversy, so that we may yet Dartmouth, Nova Scotia was integrated into end up with the "pro-shatter" and "anti-shat• the IMAX cruise, and an agreement with the ter" schools. When Titanic was found in 1985 Canadian Museum of Civilization permitted by the Franco-American effort, the Americans recovery of metal material from the wreck for adroitly managed to accrue all the glory. They scientific analysis (but not human "artifacts"). also released photos and video films, contrary This semantic restriction was partially to what the French believed had been the ignored. Metal samples were lifted from the agreement. The French came close to suing wreck's bow section and, while no passenger Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and artifacts were recovered, one submersible did the Americans. Thereafter they went their play with a suitcase (as seen in the film). own way, ignoring the Ballard and Titanic The CANMET Technical report gives the Historic Society dictum, "Thou shalt not metallurgical analysis of the samples. Com• salvage." Instead, through their national pletely technical in nature, the report con• oceanographic institute, IFREMER, the cludes that the hull plate was not made by the French went ahead with the Nadir/Nautil Bessemer process but rather was probably salvage of 1,800 seafloor artifacts in mid- "made...by the basic open-hearth process." 1987, funded by American investors in a Tests on the one-inch thick piece of Titanic limited partnership called Titanic Ventures hull plate show it to have significantly less that neatly circumvented the 1986 American strength than would have been expected. In law prohibiting Americans from salvaging the 1912 the concept of brittle steel was not Titanic. Various American factions fought known and if material had 20 per cent ductil• over Titanic in American courts in 1992 and ity it was considered acceptable and strong 1993. One group, Marex Titanic Inc., was enough for vessel use. These results have lead thwarted in its plans to claim the wreck and to the suggestion that the rock hard edge of was not only prohibited from touching the site the iceberg shattered a long series of the cold Book Reviews 83

(0° C) hull plates of the Titanic as they col• we have his friend and able editor, E.P. de lided at twenty knots, thus accounting for the Groot, to thank for this enlarged and updated large volume of water that poured into the version of the original tome. ship. Already, at least in newspapers, the Playwright and author, Reade was also a "anti-shatterers" have countered. Clearly, the London-trained barrister, and it is primarily controversies surrounding the Titanic will the lawyer's voice that resonates in this vol• continue for some time. ume. A meticulously prepared brief, the book The full Atlantic Geoscience Centre/ draws on eyewitness accounts, American and Russian scientific report is being translated British inquiries (including that of 1990- and should appear this year. It will build on 1992), newspaper reports, private information the CANMET results and add metal microbial and various ships' logs. Going further, reports, biological reports (eg. on the absence meterological, optical and acoustic theories of amphipods), a geological analysis on the are called into play in an effort to establish significant strength of the seafloor sediments where the Californian lay in relation to the in the area and a report on the apparent speed stricken liner. Moreover, while the tone is of impact of the wreck segments. The CAN- sharply critical of the Leyland skipper, Stan• MET report is but a precursor to what prom• ley Lord, this is no mere polemic. Indeed, ised to be a valuable Canadian scientific Reade acknowledges difficulties when they contribution to the lore of the Titanic. arise and frequently biases technical estimates against his own case, the better to test its Alan Ruffman plausibility. Direct and circumstantial evi• Fergusons Cove, Nova Scotia dence, however, lead him to conclude that the Californian was only about ten miles away Leslie Reade; Edward P. de Groot (ed.). The when the Titanic foundered. Central to Ship That Stood Still: The Californian and her Reade's argument is the striking agreement mysterious role in the Titanic disaster. New about the sequence of events as described by York: W.W. Norton, 1993. 384 pp., photo• numerous independent observers on both graphs, figures, appendices, index, bibliogra• ships. Along the way, familiar pleas of mis• phy. US $30, Cdn $35, cloth; ISBN 0-393- taken identity are struck down. Thus, the 03537-9. Canadian distributor, Penguin "third ship" theory, which would place the Canada, Toronto, Ontario. Norwegian vessel Samson on the scene as a factor confusing Lord's officers, is dismissed. Misinterpreting or ignoring signals of distress, Port records in Iceland show that she could the Leyland ship Californian stood still while, not possibly have been in the area. The more within sight, the ill-starred Titanic carried elaborate "four ship" theory is described as an 1,500 of her passengers to a watery grave. exercise in totally undocumented wishful Such is the powerful indictment delivered by thinking by latter-day "Lordites." Leslie Reade in this vigorous new interpreta• Satisfying himself on the issue of loca• tion of the controversial events of 1912. tion, Reade then takes Stanley Lord and his Probing deeply, perhaps exhaustively, into a senior officers severely to task. Having first veritable sea of evidence, Reade displays the denied seeing them at all, Lord later admitted tenacity, agility and flexibility of mind which that the numerous rockets reported that night marked him as one of the most formidable might well have been signals of distress. A Titanic lorists of his day. Sadly, the book is series of invaluable appendices help Reade published posthumously. Ready for the press establish the all but unmistakable significance in 1975, its appearance was delayed, first by of the rockets as well as the instinctive grav• disputes over the right to cite key sources and ity of the reactions which they inspired in later by the author's failing health. In the end, Lord's junior officers. Yet nobody was stirred 84 The Northern Mariner

to decisive action and the wireless lay silent H.T. Wallinga. Ships & Sea-Power before the until dawn marked a passage through the ice. Great Persian War: The Ancestry of the Extending some mitigation to Lord, Reade Ancient Trireme. Leiden and Kinderhook, NY: shifts a share of the blame to Officer of the E.J. Brill, 1993. xv + 231 pp., figures, illus• Watch Herbert Stone. Overawed by an imper• trations, appendices, bibliography, indices. ious father figure, Stone hesitated to prod his Gld 140, US $80, cloth; ISBN 90-04-09650-7. captain when all his instincts warned him that serious trouble was in the offing. With this H.T. Wallinga makes it emphatically clear in slight twist, Reade essentially confirms the his Preface and Introduction that his subject findings of the 1912 and 1992 inquiries which and its context is economic, political and found Lord's conduct highly questionable. military; the trireme is a species of warship Whether finally able to effect a rescue or not, only in an abstract sense. The trireme's evol• once informed that distress rockets might have ution was brought about, not because of been sighted, he was morally obliged to take technical improvement and structural develop• action. Yet Lord stood still. ment, but because of its growing importance Generally persuasive, Reade's case is not as an instrument of power. This is very much without specific weaknesses. Too much, for the viewpoint of the classical historian, not instance, hangs on vague assertions about the maritime archaeologist. However, the Stone's ill-documented past and its influence nautical and distinguishing detail and structure on his relationship with Lord. Moreover, the of the ancient warships and their technical author seems to forsake his normally rigorous improvement are not the focus of this book. approach to evidence on at least one occasion. Wallinga believes that the role of the Dismissing contradictory statements by Lord's sailing vessel in the merchant trade was a third officer C.V. Graves, Reade describes minor one and that its development occurred them as the result of "a common and passing later than the oared vessel. He cites only two mental aberration, in which the speaker says primary substantive references, both of which something almost the exact opposite of what are outdated by more recent archaeological he means...and he corrects himself only if and finds and more realistic conclusions. It is when he hears what he is saying." (p.39) regrettable that an historian of the maritime Beyond this, there is a seeming contradiction classic world should be so unrealistic in in Reade's argument that the British hearings interpreting the relative capabilities of oared of 1912 were not influenced by concerns over and sailing vessels, particularly in view of the national prestige when earlier he notes that difficulty oared vessels have in coping with the Titanic was allotted special stores of fuel sea conditions typical of the Mediterranean during a coal strike as a matter of national and particularly the Aegean. pride. Finally, a fuller explanation of why the The poor capabilities of sailing vessels, two ships could not see each other's morse pointedly stated in the third chapter, where signals might be in order. the justification is based on interpretation of Still, until new evidence or a more cogent iconographic evidence in the geometric defence is penned, Reade's charges against period. Such interpretations typically become Lord and Stone will probably hold the field. a matter of only seeing what one believes, and Indeed, it seems likely that this briskly writ• the chapter quickly becomes argumentative. ten, and carefully documented work, will long Resorting to long detailed source discussions endure as a standard source on this perennial• in footnotes, the author's substantiation of his ly compelling subject. opinions dissolve with the various differing interpretations of both ancient iconography James G. Greenlee and referenced source disagreement. Comer Brook, Newfoundland Particularly unconvincing is his determi- Book Reviews 85 nation of whether an iconographic image in notes exceed the text. Unfortunately, too question is a galley or a sailing vessel as well many of the footnotes contain references that as the statement of the square-sailed sailing are not immediately at hand or available in vessel's inability to go to windward. This any but the most complete libraries which latter point reveals Wallinga's unwillingness adds to the scholarly obscurity. As for Wall• to consider contemporary archaeological inga's rather insistent remarks concerning the literature, such as the fourth century BC limitations of sailing vessels and their minor underwater recovery of the Kyrenia Ship. This role in merchant trade, this reviewer finds no particularly well-preserved ship is so complete reason why the author regards the matter as that, after reassembly, a very accurate repli• relevant to the book's purpose. How are cation called Kyrenia II was built and sailed. merchant sailing vessels' origins or develop• The performance of this vessel was subse• ment related to early sea power or to the quently recorded by Dr. Michael Katsev triremes as the instruments of sea power? during a return voyage from Piraeus to None of this is meant to criticize the Cyprus, and settled the argument of the wind• book's worth. Overall, this is a most scholarly ward ability of a single square-sail vessel. treatment of a very complex and generally The value of Wallinga's study rests most obscure but critical area of maritime history, with the way in which it supplements and and one is left with a strong sense of the book supports knowledge derived from nautical as a very important work. It is not a book to archaeology and underwater recoveries. Thus, be read casually. Rather, it is a valuable archaeology alone could not suggest, as Wall- reference study. It is also a comprehensive inga does, that Corinth, not Athens or Piraeus, study of factors contributing to the confronta• was the source of the first trireme, well before tion of sea power between two powerful and the end of the fifth century BC. He also opposing cultures. Nautical historians of the makes it clear that other Greek city commun• classical period and the students of the earliest ities reinforced the Athenian fleets substan• clashes between Eastern and Western centres tially for the subsequent defense of Greece. of power will need this book on their shelves. His discussions in chapter 6 of the relative One closing remark is in order. Since tri• economics of trireme construction and the remes were lightly built and proportionately associated political controversies are also most long and narrow for speed, we have never enlightening. But not all will agree with the found ancient wreckage of such oared ships factors relevant to the Corinthian contributions on the bottom of the sea. Unlike sailing and, in general, the scholarly verdict on such vessels, they had no ballast, and so they did fundamental questions as the seating arrange• not sink — their flotsam simply washed ashore ment of triremes has still not been settled. and oxidized as other wood. Thus, where the The penultimate chapter gives a unique great oared ships of Greece's golden age are discussion and quantification of triremes concerned, we do not have primary archae• leading up to the final and historic encounter ological evidence with which to work. In• in the Saronic gulf. Wallinga places the stead, we must rely on classic literature and number of Xerxes' fleet at 1200 triremes, on iconography with argumentative interpreta• making it the largest battle fleet ever tions that are most fallible. Professor Wallinga assembled in antiquity. I can think of no has produced a masterly discussion which larger in any age. establishes a new dimension in which to Readers should be warned that, unless examine the ancient warships called triremes. they are reasonably capable in Greek, German and French, this book will be difficult to read. Thomas C. Gillmer There is also the distraction of many and Annapolis, Maryland lengthy footnotes. In some chapters the foot• 86 The Northern Mariner

Timothy Shaw (ed.). The Trireme Project: various research hypotheses. Suggestions for Operational Experience 1987-90 — Lessons apparently small but highly significant design Learnt. Oxbow Monograph 31; Oxford: changes are made, if it should be possible to Oxbow Books, 1993. xiv + 120 pp., figures, build a second experimental trireme. photographs, maps, annexes, glossary, index. Although all the material is extremely US $33.66, paper; ISBN 0-946897-58-1. In useful, and much of it has not been previously Canada and the United States, order from the published, perhaps the most interesting aspect David Brown Book Company, PO Box 5605, of this monograph is the attention given to the Bloomington, IN 47407, USA. human side of this complex machine, the trireme. An ergometer was used to measure This book consists of twenty-two short chap• the power output of individual crew members, ters briefly covering all aspects of the devel• and to compare this with the actual effective opment, construction and sea trials of the tri• power generated for moving the ship. These reme Olympias. It is both a sequel to earlier trials showed that with the present ship design publications on the Trireme project (reviewed and oars, the lowest of the three tiers of in the July 1992 issue of TNM/LMN), and a rowers, the thalamians, produced much less comprehensive review of the results obtained effective power than the top tier, the thranites. up to the end of the 1990 season. Many of the The power transfer coefficient, the useful chapters are based on reports presented at a propelling power over the potential output of meeting of the Trireme Trust at the University the rowers, is 0.39 with the present position• of Oxford in 1991. Most of the chapters are ing of the rowers and oar design. With some the work of the three prime movers in the slight changes in the spacing and location of project, John Coates, John Morrison and the thalamites in relation to the ship's struc• Timothy Shaw, but they have also used the ture, and using the new oar design tested in expertise of other scholars and technical small numbers in 1990, it is estimated that the experts where necessary. transfer coefficient could be increased to 0.60. For those interested in this particular This would enable Olympias to attain the project or in ancient oared fighting ships in speeds and performance reported by the general, this book can be unreservedly recom• ancient Greek authors. The principal problem mended. Despite the technical nature of some for the thalamians in Olympias is a slightly of the material, it is extremely readable, and cramped fore and aft spacing and interference the analysis and discussion of the results can with the middle tier of rowers, the zygians. be quite easily comprehended by a layperson. The design was based on an Attic cubit of The first five chapters present a brief back• 0.444 m. Further study now suggests that the ground on the various hypothetical trireme Attic cubit was 0.49 m, and using this would reconstructions advanced in the past, and the give a spacing of 0.98 m for the rowers. This development of the present design by the revised measurement would allow a small Trireme Project team. Most of the reports dis• increase in the vertical clearance between cuss the results of the sea and speed trials to crew members and between oars. Combining 1990, various problems encountered both with these two changes with an increase of about the vessel itself and in training a crew of 170 10 per cent in oar length should not only men to row in concert and to carry out more allow the whole crew to perform at peak complicated manoeuvres. The last three chap• efficiency but would also greatly diminish the ters summarize problems encountered and the problem of oar interference and clashing in proposed solutions to these problems, discuss rough sea conditions. Careful attention has the validity of the design, and outline an also been given to the problems afflicting the ongoing programme to make the fullest poss• human body when rowing for long periods in ible use of the present vessel in testing the the Aegean summer, blisters on hands and Book Reviews 87 buttocks, dehydration and the need to provide moved extraordinary distances and with sur• rest periods while underway. When available, prising frequency, from Oporto to Bahia to the reports covering the period 1991-1993 Rio de Janeiro, from Brazil to Angola, from should prove most interesting. Goa to Macao, to Timor, Nagasaki and With the difficulties involved in design• Manila. Their activities were truly global. ing and building a hypothetical reconstruction Much of the Portuguese seaborne trade was of an ancient ship of this size and complexity, country trade, in which goods moved from and the problems of collecting and training a one part of the empire to another without ever crew for only a few weeks each summer, the passing through Lisbon: horses from Hormuz first few seasons were inevitably spent on to Goa; slaves to Goa from East Africa; sorting out obvious weaknesses. The project pearls, porcelain, musk, and silk to Malacca has now reached a stage where the multitude from Macao — everywhere goods on the of detailed problems can be investigated and move. And no single nation can rival the rectified. The authors are to be congratulated Portuguese in altering, and improving, the diet on their research, their prompt publication of of so many people through the transplantation results and above all on their effort, industry of food crops: manioc, peanuts, pineapple, and persistence in conceiving Olympias and maize, sweet potatoes, squashes, and a host of getting her built, and in sustaining the ongo• medicinal plants from the New World to the ing trials over the years. Without the support Atlantic Islands, Africa and Asia. of the Hellenic Navy, the Greek government, The history of the Portuguese seaborne and over nine hundred volunteer rowers, their empire is richly documented and has a broad task would have been impossible. secondary literature. Russell-Wood has reviewed this literature with an eye to assess• R.J.O. Millar ing the degree to which Portugal mobilized, Vancouver, British Columbia on a global scale, people, commodities, flora and fauna, styles, mores and ideas. Setting the A.J.R. Russell-Wood. A World on the Move: world in motion depended, of course, upon The Portuguese in Africa, Asia, and America the existence of a network of communications 1415-1808. New York: St. Martin's Press, and movers — the caravels, carracks, caravans, 1993. xvi + 290 pp., maps, illustrations, canoes, oceanic currents and winds, schedules chronology, notes, bibliography, index. US of departures and arrivals, routes, time and $39.95, cloth; ISBN 0-312-09427-2. distances described in chapter two. This is very much a story of a world The Portuguese empire was the first and most empire of the south and tropics. The Portu• enduring of the European seaborne empires. It guese presence in northern waters and lands is is all the more remarkable that it was sus• hardly alluded to and never described. Perhaps tained by a small and, in many respects, the tropical orientation also emanated from backward nation, whose population in 1415 Portugal's relative poverty and the attraction was no more than a million and never, at any for such a country of the populous, luxuriant time through four centuries of global imper- southern climes? This is also a story with ium, exceeded three million. Possibly the very many and long lists, somewhat in the tradition backwardness of the Lusitanian metropole of epic poetry. Page after page describes the accounts for its unusual and unique success. physical movement around the empire of mis• The Portuguese, more than the French, Eng• sionaries, administrators, and merchants, each lish and Dutch, entered into close, fruitful and frequently having only a line or two written long-enduring relationships with the indigen• about them. It is the same with sailing sched• ous peoples of the empire. Servants to the ules and commodity flows. This non-statisti• crown, Christ, commerce, and production cal, non-tabular presentation leaves a strong 88 The Northern Mariner

impression of very deep mobility. It does not deliciously hair-raising ways. Yet modern facilitate ready comparisons. If all these scholarship has demonstrated that, if Pinto movements, taking place over the course of rather overdid the "only I escaped" theme, several centuries, were reduced to a table, it nevertheless his depiction of the places he would add up to a few score individuals, at visited, in lands then mostly little known to the most, and make the reader more likely to Europeans, was substantially correct. He ask whether the global mobility of Portuguese travelled in the East between 1537 and 1558, soldiers and administrators was significantly one of his more dubious claims being his different from that of the Spanish, Dutch, membership of the first party of Europeans to English, or French. reach Japan. What he did in Asia is difficult The author makes a valuable contribution to state briefly: he was a trader-cum-pirate- to our understanding of the development of cum-spy-cum-diplomat-cum-mercenary sol• global markets and global interdependency dier, as well as a sailor and, rather briefly, a through an important period of maritime dev• Jesuit. His account contains a good deal of elopment. He reshuffles well-known historical religious expression, surfacing, however, material, putting it in a context of global mainly in desperate situations. It is hardly networks of communication and interdepend• surprising that commentators have not quite ency. The lack of tables and statistics notwith• known what to make of Pinto. Rebecca Catz standing, he has put Portugal's experience in has suggested that his account of confronta• a very clear and comprehensive framework of tions with Asian religions contains a satirical global history. element, expressing the doubts and puzzle• ments about Christianity current in the perse• David McGinnis cuted religious underground of contemporary Calgary, Alberta Portugal, where "New Christians" agonized over the claims of their ancestral Judaism. Be Michael Lowery (ed. & trans.). The Peregri• that as it may, one explanation of a certain nations of Fernao Mendes Pinto. Manchester: double-imaging in event and character Carcanet Press, in association with The Cal- throughout the account may well be that this ouste Gulbenkian Foundation and The Dis• was undeliberate and related to the account coveries Commission, 1992. xxxix + 280 pp., being written years after the author's return to illustrations, plates. Cdn $39.95, cloth; ISBN Portugal (and probably being "ghosted" before 0-85635-9698-6. North American distributor, publication). Scholarly Book Services, Toronto, Ontario. The Portuguese empire in the East was a "thalassocracy," a sea-borne empire, an empire For anyone unacquainted with FernSo Mendes of islands, ports, coastal forts and wandering Pinto (c.l510-1583) two facts can serve to traders. Its influence on the land states of the introduce him. Number one, his adventures region, particularly the giants of Mogul India, were recently serialized in a Lisbon strip- China and Japan, was limited, whereas its cartoon. Number two, after the account of his realm of would-be conquest, at times success• adventures in eastern Asia was posthumously ful conquest, was on the sea. Very many of published, he was dismissed in his homeland Pinto's adventures were conducted in or from — by a play in Portuguese on his name — as ships, so that the historian of Asian seas the "lying depictor." Nowadays "The Peregri• cannot ignore this disgracefully brutal but nations" would be termed "The Incredible providentially chatty Portuguese. One sample Adventures;" and that indeed they are. Never illustrative phrase will suffice: "The daimyo's did one man turn out to be the sole survivor cousin had come in a 'funce,' a boat with oars of so many disasters, when shipmates were the size of a large galliot..." (p.233) drowned or else slaughtered in a variety of While it would be difficult to prepare a Book Reviews 89

translation of Fernao Mendes Pinto that was walls, with the capstan as a mill, and foun• not readable, this one, by Michael Lowery, is tains of foul bilge water to be pumped. The well above average. However, only about one trees stank of pitch and tallow, the streets half of the original text appears in this edi• were paved with excrement, and the hunt tion, with the selection of material tending to pursued rats and roaches. The pilot ruled this concentrate on the daring-do episodes. For hellish town, and the men obeyed a litany of more on the lands visited, and even on the catalogued orders, singing chanties that nautical evidence provided, the interested sounded "like belled mules fighting." reader lacking Portuguese will need to turn to Passengers slept in hammocks that often the full translations, in English by Rebecca revolved to trap their occupants like veg• Catz (1989) or in French by Robert Viale etables in a string bag. The meagreness and (1991), both of which have detailed scholarly manners of mealtime were predictably ridi• apparatus. Lowery's edition does have an ex• culed. "Next to some, one belches, another cellent introduction by Dr. Luis Rebelo, per• vomits, another breaks wind, another unloads ceptive, comprehensive and fair, which not his bowels, and you eat lunch." (p.47) No only sketches the context of the work but also wonder Salazar broke into an extended reverie points out the many issues of substance it comparing travel at sea with that on land. raises. The illustrations provided, many repre• This readily supported his concluding reflec• senting ships, are splendid. It is to be regret• tion that the land was for humans, and the sea ted, however, that the edition lacks an index. was for fish. Perhaps the most surprising feature of P.E.H. Hair this satirical look at life at sea was the evi• West Kirby, England dence of regular religious observance on a merchantman without any clergy aboard. Eugenio de Salazar; John Frye (trans. & Readers familiar with Sebastian Cabot's intro.), Seafaring in the Sixteenth Century: famous instructions to the Muscovy fleet of The Letter of Eugenio de Salazar, 1573. San 1555 may become less dismissive of its pious Francisco: Mellen Research University Press, exhortations. Aboard the Nuestra Senora de 1991. 69 pp. US $14.95, paper; ISBN 0-7734- los Remedios the daily lighting of the binnacle 9880-X was announced by a page shouting a set of standard prayers, and there was a short prayer Appointed judge at Santo Domingo, poet and yelled at the turning of each hour-glass. On man-of-letters Eugenio de Salazar and his Sunday there could be no Mass without a family sailed from Tenerife aboard the Nues- priest, but all hands attended an hour of tra Señora de los Remedios (Our Lady of prayers that included the Salve Regina, Credo, Help) in the summer of 1573. The voyage and a litany sung no better than the chanties, itself was relatively uneventful, making Sala• so that Salazar questioned its efficacy. It also zar's letter to a friend a unique and witty is noteworthy that this satirical look at life at description of life and language aboard a sea commented on the rudeness and dirtiness sixteenth-century Spanish merchantman. The of the company, but makes no reference to only excitement came when three sail were theft, blasphemy, gambling, fighting, or any sighted. Fear of pirates provoked speculation insult offered to his beloved wife. that they might include the dreaded Bucintoro The presentation of this intriguing docu• of Venice, the Cacafogo of Portugal, or John ment seems rather minimalist, unsupported by Hawkins' Minona. The ships proved instead notes that would interest maritime, literary, or to be scattered members of their own convoy. linguistic scholars. The prologue by Jose- Salazar's rich and revealing metaphors Maria Martinez-Hidalgo sketches Salazar's portrayed the ship as a busy city enclosed by career and shares his interest in the rich and 90 The Northern Mariner

distinct vocabulary of early-modern sailors. Discovery or that the intellectual, financial, John Frye's short introduction is unhelpfully cartographic, and shipbuilding advances that self-indulgent. Yet English readers who have allowed the great voyages of discovery to encountered translated quotations from this occur have usually been examined within the entertaining and literate description of an Iberian paradigm. Atlantic crossing will be grateful for Frye's The present volume compiled under the complete translation, which can be checked direction of Philippe Masson and Michel against the facsimile reproduction of the Vergé-Franceschi seeks to redress the relative Spanish text as printed in 1866, provided on lacunae of scholarly work on the non-Iberian facing pages. component of these crucial developments by presenting some twenty-two articles on the Ian K. Steele state of French maritime abilities and am• London, Ontario bitions during the Age of Discovery. The impressive list of contributors includes some Philippe Masson and Michel Verg6-Franceschi of the most respected French scholars in this (eds.). La France et la Mer au siècle des and related fields: Etienne Taillemite, Michel grandes découvertes. Paris: Librairie Jules Mollat du Jourdin, and Jean Meyer, to name Tallandier, 1993. 391 pp., maps, tables, illus• but a few. As with any volume of this type, trations, chronology, indices. 150 FF, paper; the primary problem confronting the editors ISBN 2-235-02112-3. was to focus the wide array of research in• terests of these scholars around a central As Adam Smith pointed out in his Wealth of theme or themes. Masson and Verg6-Fran- Nations, the discovery of the New World and ceschi endeavour to accomplish this daunting the sea route to India were "the two greatest task by dividing the volume into four thematic and most important events recorded in the sections: Sources for Maritime History, Ports history of mankind." Among other things, the and Regions, Men, and Documents. voyages of Columbus and Da Gama helped to In the first section, Taillemite, Eric Rieth, establish fundamental tenets in the developing Michel Polak and Christine Villain-Gandossi world market economy of the early modern offer insights on the evolution of naval con• period. As every schoolchild ought to know, struction in Europe during the sixteenth Columbus sailed on behalf of Ferdinand and century, the vast array of books on nautical Isabella, the Catholic monarchs of Castile and topics written in or translated into French Aragon. Da Gama's epic voyage in search of during that period, the evolution of French "Christians and Spices" was made for the naval ordinances beginning with Francis I, glory and profit of the king of Portugal, and the rich maritime vocabularies of the Manoel I. From 1492 until at least the early Levant and Ponant as they emerged in the fif• seventeenth century, the ensuing colonial teenth and sixteenth centuries. empires in the New World and the Indian Section 2 contains articles by Mollat du Ocean basin were dominated largely by these Jourdin, Meyer, Josette Pontet, Jean-Michel Iberian Crowns. Silver from Peru and pepper Deveau, Alain Boulaire, and Patrick Villiers from the Malabar coast helped to ensure that which, in one fashion or another, seek to Seville and Lisbon became crucial links in demonstrate that Normandy, Nantes, Bayonne, this world market economy to the virtual La Rochelle, Brittany, and Boulogne all exclusion of their European competitors. It is enjoyed a rich maritime tradition during this hardly surprising, therefore, that those century. The main point of this section seems explorers either from Iberia or serving those to be that while this tradition may not have Crowns have traditionally received most of equalled (as Mollat du Jourdin points out for the scholarly attention in studies of the Age of the Norman ports) that of "Lisbon or Seville," Book Reviews 91

it nonetheless produced significant discover• ies, especially in the New World. by the Iberians in the late fifteenth century. The third section focuses the role of the Beginning with Francis i, France would try to individual with articles by Verge-Franceschi, break the power of Lisbon and Madrid, "thus Christian Buchet, Frank Lestringant, Philippe placing the kingdom on the road to the first Haudrère and Catherine Vincent. The figures French colonial empire of which Richelieu profiled run the socio-economic gamut from would be the founder." It is, however, inter• the aristocratic admirals of France, through esting that Richelieu's empire and that of adventurer-explorers like Paulmier de Gonne- Colbert as well would both be undermined ville, Cartier, La Villegagnon, La Bardelière largely by the French Crown's continuing and Verrazano - who all sailed for the inter• preference for dynastic glory on the continent est of the French Crown - to royal cosmographers to economic gain in the outre-mer. Unfortu• like Thevet and Nicolay. Perhaps the nately the reasons for this fatal flaw in pursu• most interesting contribution is that by Haud• ing French colonial ambitions in the New rere on early French incursions in the rich World and Asia receive very scant attention in Indian Ocean trade. He reiterates the often this volume. Perhaps the Commission française forgotten fact that French merchants were d'histoire maritime would consider it as anxious not only to secure a place in the trade the focus for a future volume. and wealth of the New World but in the Asian trade as well. Glenn Ames Section 4 contains articles by Philippe Toledo, Ohio Rigaud, Jacques Ferrier, Marc Fardet, Fran- poise Beriac, Philippe Manneville, and Mar- Jean-Pierre Proulx. Basque Whaling in tine Acerra. These focus on original docu• Labrador in the 16th century. Ottawa: Nation• ments which help illuminate the maritime al Historic Sites, Parks Service, 1993. 108 history of the period. Among the topics pp., maps, illustrations, bibliography. $8.95, addressed is a hitherto ignored cache of paper; ISBN 0-660-14819-6. documents from the archives communales d'Arles relating to Provence, the opening of With a few noteworthy exceptions, an anglo- the Levant to the French, an enquete of 1551 centric orientation of Newfoundland history on the construction of a port at Royan, and has prevailed since the late eighteenth century. the foundation and subsequent development of This has now begun to change, in part the port of Havre. because of the innovative work by scholars Masson's introduction and Verge-Fran• investigating the French North Atlantic fish• ceschi's conclusion seek to place this plethora ery, which has enhanced our appreciation of of topics into the broader context of France's the international diversity and complexity of naval and maritime tradition. They argue that Newfoundland fisheries and the trade which the successes and failures of mercantile pol• that industry supported. The other factor was icies in the outre-mer were primarily linked to Selma Huxley Barkham, whose labours during internal problems or advances on the part of and since the 1970s in the rich manuscript the French crown in the kingdom and in holdings of Basque archives in northern Spain Europe, a fairly traditional thesis. What then revealed the scale and importance of the was the ultimate significance of this complex Basque whaling and fishing industries in the conjuncture of maritime abilities and ambi• waters of Newfoundland and Labrador during tions in the siècle des grandes découvertes? the sixteenth century. Her work led to archae• According to Verge-Franceschi, the Valois ological investigations, both on land and would ultimately use such skills to contest the underwater, which forced us to re-write division of the spoils of the world achieved completely the pages of early Canadian his• tory. A flurry of publications, primarily by 92 The Northern Mariner

Barkham and archaeologists James Tuck and experienced such explosive growth? Proulx Robert Grenier, have made this revision concludes his discussion by asserting that the accessible to the general public. To this point, single most important factor in the decline of however, no synthesis of what is now known the industry was Basque inability to compete about Basque activity in North America has with Dutch whaling. Whatever the merits of been published. This book by the Canadian this argument, it is one for which Proulx Parks Service therefore fills an important provides no documentation whatsoever. need, and the book will undoubtedly reach a Those who await a thorough, scholarly wide readership. treatment of the sixteenth-century Basque Proulx covers all the basics — financing, whaling industry in North American waters outfitting, operations, marketing. Yet it is will have to wait longer, perhaps much frustrating that the book was written by one longer. Sadly, there is no evidence that the whose familiarity with the story is based not people who have done the greatest amount of on direct archival research in Europe (despite research into Basque whaling, shipbuilding, the footnotes which imply otherwise) but on fishing, and so on are planning to publish a secondary knowledge of research done by their work. Until that changes, we shall have others. While Jean-Pierre Proulx is to be to be content with this handy introduction. commended for presenting that research work in a readable fashion, there is no denying that Olaf Uwe Janzen the authority and credibility of the work Corner Brook, Newfoundland would have been stronger had it issued from one of the principals involved in "discovering" P.E.H. Hair and J.D. Alsop. English Seamen the Basque chapter in Canadian history. and Traders in Guinea 1553-1565: The New A few examples will suffice to illustrate Evidence of Their Wills. Studies in British the problems that ensue when a book is based History Vol. 31; Lewiston & Queenston: on only a secondary familiarity with the Edwin Mellen Press, 1993. xii + 394 pp., research. Proulx overstates the nature of the map, illustrations, appendices, indices. US Basque "decline" in Labrador. Yes, whaling $89.95, cloth; ISBN 0-7734-9572-X. did decline, but it is misleading to conclude that "By 1620 the southern Basques ceased Between 1553 and 1565 English traders made going to Labrador altogether." (p.77) Barkham nine known voyages solely to Guinea. The has determined that the Basques remained documentation for them is fragmentary, active in Newfoundland and Labrador waters consisting of such scattered material as the by shifting to a diversified exploitation pattern sixteenth-century editors Richard Eden and based on cod-fishing and sealing. Though Richard Hakluyt were able to collect from their ships still made their way to the southern participants, supplemented by the researches Labrador coast, their "gateway" to the Gulf of of twentieth-century scholars, notably J.A. St. Lawrence now became the Cabot Strait, Williamson and John Blake, in Portuguese not the Straits of Belle Isle. This enabled and English archives. In this volume Paul them to work their way up the western coast Hair and John Alsop add a substantial body of of Newfoundland, following the ice as it new evidence to the collection, by the publi• receded in the spring. Similarly, how convinc• cation of eighty-nine wills of seamen who ing can it be to attribute any decline in died during the Guinea voyages, preserved in Basque activity in the late sixteenth century to the English Public Record Office. Three of the fact that this "was indeed a very dismal the wills were written prior to departure, four period for the European economy in general" immediately after return, and the remaining (p.78) since it was precisely at this time that eighty-two at sea, on the testator's death-bed. the English cod fishery at Newfoundland The editors readily admit that the content Book Reviews 93 of the wills only marginally modifies the mates during long periods at sea, provide a established narrative of the course of the useful counterbalance to references to internal discrete Guinea voyages. Nevertheless they disputes and violence found in High Court of are able to glean from them new information Admiralty cases. This volume then, in addi• on the actual ships sent to the coast, on their tion to new material on the history of the approximate dates of departure and return, on specific Guinea voyages, has much to offer the overall size and specific composition of the more general reader interested in ship• their crews, and their mortality rates. board life in the sixteenth century. The surviving wills also reveal a great deal, of more general interest, about seamen Joyce Lorimer during this period. Hair and Alsop suggest Kitchener, Ontario that the creation of shipboard wills only became a significant practice in the sixteenth Vasilii A. Divin; Raymond H. Fisher (trans. century, with the development of long-dis• & annotations). The Great Russian Navigator, tance trading. The determination of ordinary, A.I. Chirikov. Fairbanks: University of Alaska even illiterate, sailors to make a formal dispo• Press, 1993. xiii + 319 pp., maps, appendices, sition of their affairs stands in sharp contrast bibliography, supplemental bibliography, to the practice on land, where only one quar• index. US $20, paper; ISBN 0-912006-63-3. ter to one third of the adult male population would do so. Since those who died at sea In the first half of the eighteenth century entrusted their wills to other crew members, Vitus Bering, a Dane in the service of the either as executors or custodians, it was Imperial Russian Navy, led two major expedi• common for chains of wills to develop on the tions from St. Petersburg to Kamchatka, fol• unhealthy Guinea voyages, as mortality rose. lowed by two important voyages which estab• As amateur, death-bed affairs, the testaments lished a Russian presence in the North Pacific. often contained numerous procedural irregu• While Bering's name is commemorated in the larities, which the Prerogative Courts seem to strait that now bears his name, that of Aleksei have been prepared to overlook. Chirikov, the ablest of his subordinates in The surviving wills appear to constitute both these expeditions, is little known. It was the largest body of biographical evidence for not until 1953, when Russian historian Vasilii any of the voyages of exploration or trade A. Divin published a full length study of during the Tudor period. The ships' comple• Chirikov, that his major contribution to these ments were composed largely of young, expeditions became clear. Divin's study has geographically mobile, single males with no now been translated into English by Raymond fixed domestic establishments. A number of Fisher, the leading American authority on them, however, were literate, and many Bering's voyages. Fisher has retained Divin's owned a limited range of useful possessions. text and notes in their entirety, while adding Although the monthly wages for the Guinea further notes of his own. voyages rose substantially after the early Both the First and Second Kamchatka ventures, they were only payable on return to Expeditions, as they are now known, were the port of departure. Receiving only a small major logistical undertakings involving the monetary advance to meet previous debts, transportation of personnel and material across crewmen sustained themselves during the Russia and Siberia. The first expedition voyage, by creating their own complex inter• (1725-30) took two years to reach Okhotsk, nal economy based on the sale and purchase during which considerable use was made of of goods and services for credit. The wills, river transport, enabling Chirikov to make reflective of the interdependence and sense of many valuable observations. Another year was community which developed between ship• needed to transport the expedition across the 94 The Northern Mariner

Sea of Okhotsk to Nizhnekamchatsk, on the until 1746 in an attempt to complete the east coast of Kamchatka, where the St. objects of the expedition, even though it was Gabriel was built and launched in June 1728. officially wound up in 1743. From here Bering set sail the following month As Fisher is at pains to point out, Divin's and in August rounded the eastern extremity monogram contains serious flaws. In particu• of the Chukotsk Peninsula, thus confirming lar his introduction is representative of history Semen Dezhnev's long forgotten exploit of as written in the Soviet Union shortly after 1648. On Bering's return to Okhotsk the World War II, when scholars and publicists following year and to St. Petersburg in March were claiming "firsts" and major achievements 1730, the first expedition was brought to a for Russians in various fields of science and successful conclusion. geographical studies. Thus Divin's work, with Chirikov played an important part in quotations from Marx, Engels, Stalin and planning the Second Kamchatka Expedition Pravda, takes on the character of patriotic (1733-43), which was a much more ambitious history tinged with chauvinism, making it a undertaking than the first, as part of the case history of how Soviet historians wrote, expedition's task was to survey the whole of or felt compelled to write, at that time in a the north coast of Russia from Archangel to mixture of real and pseudo-scholarship. As a the Bering Strait. Bering set off from St. result there is excessive adulation of Chirikov, Petersburg in May 1733 with 500 men. As the while almost every non-Russian is mentioned expedition slowly crossed Siberia, Chirikov in derogatory terms. A number of original and directed the exploration of many of the rivers, important maps relating to the two expedi• while parties were detached and sent down the tions, which are reproduced in this book, adds Ob, Yenisey and Lena rivers to survey the to its interest, but the absence of a modern north coasts. In the summer of 1740, the St. map makes it difficult to follow the course of Peter and St. Paul were built in Okhotsk and the two expeditions across Siberia. Neverthe• later that year the two ships reached Petropav- less, Raymond Fisher's skilful annotations lovsk, on the east coast of Kamchatka, where make this book a very useful addition to the the expedition spent the winter. From here bibliography of the North Pacific. Bering set off in June 1741 in the St. Peter accompanied by the St. Paul, commanded by Andrew C.F. David Chirikov. Not long into the voyage the two Taunton, England vessels became separated and proceeded inde• pendently. Chirikov was the first to sight the Vasilii Fedorovich Lovtsov; Lydia T. Black Alaskan coast near Cape Addington, on Prince (trans. & intro.); Richard A. Pierce (ed.). The of Wales Island, a day-and-a-half before Lovtsov Atlas of the North Pacific Ocean, Bering sighted Mount St. Elias, some 400 Compiled at Bol 'sheretsk, Kamchatka in 1782, miles farther to the north-west. While Chiri• from discoveries made by Russian mariners kov succeeded in returning to Petropavlovsk and Captain James Cook and his officers. later that year, the St. Peter was wrecked on Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press and what is now known as Bering Island, where Kingston, Ont.: Limestone Press, 1991. viii + Bering and many of his companions died. The 62 pp., figures, charts, references. US $12.50, survivors eventually reached Petropavlovsk paper; ISBN 0-919642-38-1. the following year in a boat constructed from the timbers of the wrecked St. Peter. In 1742 During the middle half of the eighteenth Chirikov set off once again but only got as far century, Russia tried to keep most of its acti• as Attu, the westernmost of the Aleutian vities and explorations in the North Pacific Islands, where illness and fog forced him to secret. The impenetrability of the Slavonic return to Okhotsk. He remained in Siberia languages to most speakers of western Euro- Book Reviews 95

pean languages helped them, and language in the charts. Another curious omission is that remains a major obstacle to many who would there are no place names, neither Okhotsk, like to know more of the history of the Rus• which he took as the zero longitude for the sian presence in that region. It is accordingly charts, not Bol'sheretsk where he drew it, and most useful to have a translation and translit• not Petropavlovsk, the principal port of depar• eration of any document on this subject. ture for the Aleutian outposts. What little is known of Lovtsov's career Although official secrecy had restricted is in the introduction to this work. Lydia access to information on early Russian explo• Black, who translated the atlas as well as rations in the middle part of the century, a introducing it, tells us that Vasilii Lovtsov number of maps showing the area covered by arrived for service in Okhotsk about 1761 as Lovtsov had been published in Russian and an apprentice navigator, where he served until French before he prepared his atlas. Some probably 1795. He spent the winter of 1782 at appeared as early as 1754, initially with some Bol'sheretsk (Black's transliteration), on the omissions for strategic reasons. None of the west coast of Kamchatka. Bol'sheretsk was published material appears to have been used then the headquarters of the Governor of by Lovtsov, although by 1780, the omissions Kamchatka. A Webber drawing of the place, had been rectified and the published record made in 1779, shows it as a collection of log was fairly complete. Apart from its consider• huts and conical summer houses on stilts, with able artistic merit, the most striking feature of stabling for animals among the stilts. In this his atlas is that it shows how little Lovtsov unimpressive environment, Lovtsov prepared knew of the Aleutian Islands, where Russian his atlas. It consists of twenty charts, which vessels had been trading since 1763 and extend in a continuous series from Japan where the Unalaska outpost had been estab• around the North Pacific to Cook's landfall in lished in 1774. He shows Kodiak Island in California. The original Atlas is in the Provin• two different latitudes, one over five degrees cial Archives in Victoria, British Columbia, too far south. This suggests that Lovtsov may and I can report that as an artistic work it is never have been to the Aleutians. In waters of the highest quality, with elaborate closer to Russian bases Lovtsov's charts are in cartouches and compass north points, coloured rough agreement with modem ones, though in red, yellow, and blue. The charts are on the details differ. Still, there are significant mis• Mercator projection, on a uniform longitude takes, such as a five degree error in the lati• scale of one degree of longitude equalling tude of Hokkaido on the chart of the Kuril 34.1 mm. To fit them onto a letterhead size Islands, and differing locations for geographi• page, they have had to be reduced to 36% of cal features shown on more than one chart. the original size; much of the detail of the It would have been useful to have com• originals is lost in consequence. I am sure the ments on such points in Black's book. The author and editor would have liked to have a Lovtsov Atlas is undeniably an important much larger budget for the work, so this contribution to our knowledge of the subject. comment is sympathetic rather than critical. Moreover, it is always difficult to get good Every word that appears on the charts has reproductions of large maps into a book. Still, been transliterated, and the title and some the quality of the chart reproduction is not of important notes have been translated. Thus we the highest. The reader is also warned that the know the sources used by Lovtsov. One was key map on the inside back cover, which a selection of charts from Cook's third voy• shows the areas covered by each chart, is age, which Cook's successor, Charles Clerke, seriously out of register. gave to the Governor during a visit to Cook's ships at Petropavlovsk. There is no indication John Kendrick that Lovtsov included any surveys of his own Vancouver, British Columbia 96 The Northern Mariner

Rhys Richards. Captain Simon Metcalfe, that September. In a few short weeks, Met• Pioneer Fur Trader in the Pacific Northwest, calfe traded for several hundred furs, each Hawaii and China, 1787-1794. Fairbanks: worth $30 to $40 in China. University of Alaska Press and Kingston, Buoyed by confidence and wealth from Ont.: Limestone Press, 1991. x + 234 pp., that voyage, Metcalfe returned to the coast in illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. US 1789, 1790, 1791 and 1794. Over the course $18, paper; ISBN 0-919642-37-3. of these six years, he had many adventures, made considerable money and suffered much In 1925, Judge F.W. Howay wrote that "no tragedy. In December 1788, the Eleanora was attention appears to have been given to this attacked by pirates near Macao, setting off an interesting man and his vessel" ("Captain explosion which damaged the ship. That was Simon Metcalfe and the Brig Eleanora," 1925 only a prelude to more tragic events. Shortly Annual Report of the Hawaiian Historical after the pirate attack, Metcalfe purchased a Society 34 [1925], p.33). Howay acknowl• 26-ton schooner which he renamed the Fair edged the paucity of records on Simon Met• American. Under the command of his son, calfe and offered his article "as a contribution, Thomas, the Fair American was outfitted as a in the hope that some of the gaps indicated tender for the northwest coast. In June 1789, may be filled in by others." (p.39) Though both ships left Macao for the coast. Soon Rhys Richards takes up that challenge, the separated in Pacific storms, they met at Noot- Metcalfe drama remains a mystery. Richards ka in October where the small and tattered uncovered only a few new records. Archival Fair American was captured by Martinez, the gaps are completed by conjecture. Assump• Spanish Commander. The Eleanora avoided tions are interwoven with known records into capture but Simon Metcalfe was never to see a disjointed story. In parts the book borders his son again. After release from the Spanish, on historical fiction — a danger for any histor• Thomas Metcalfe and the Fair American ian. Nevertheless, this is an interesting study returned to Hawaii in March 1790. A few of a little-known maritime fur trade pioneer's days later, the schooner was attacked at six years on the northwest coast of America. Karakeku Bay. Only Isaac Davis, the mate, The book is part of the superb Alaska History survived. Perhaps this was a reprisal for Series which has provided many significant Simon Metcalfe's unprovoked massacre of reprints, translations, and historical texts on over a hundred natives at Maui a month fur trade history for over twenty years. before. As for Simon Metcalfe himself, he Unlike many maritime fur traders, Met• continued to be plagued by tragedy. In Febru• calfe owned his ship, which was named after ary 1793, the Eleanora was lost in a storm his late wife, Eleanora. All his life savings midway between Amsterdam Island and were invested in the ship. In February 1787, Mauritius. In August 1794, Metcalfe and all Metcalfe and his teenage sons, Thomas and crew aboard his new ship Ino were killed by Robert, left New York to trade for spice and Haida in the Queen Charlotte Islands. tea in India and China and for sea otter furs These dramatic events are told through on the northwest coast of America. Their contemporary quotations which are neither voyage was one of discovery, for few had woven together nor interpreted with ease. The been to the coast at that time. Indeed, Simon chapters do not flow evenly. The prologues do Metcalfe may have been the first American not provide the necessary transition between fur trader on the coast. They traded well but sections. Events and time are blurred. Fur discovered only tragedy. Metcalfe and his 190 trade terms, such as "Solid Men of Boston," ton brig Eleanora probably traded on the are used without explanation. The effect is coast in the summer of 1788, beating out the like driving fast on a washboard road. Every• Columbia and the Washington which arrived thing is shaken up, nothing is clear and only Book Reviews 97 the end of the road is remembered. Turning Unfortunately Menzies' journal has never for help to the index does not assist the been published in its entirety, and we are reader, for it is incomplete and inaccurate. indebted to Wallace Olson, Professor of The maritime fur trade was an exciting Anthropology at the University of Alaska, for era of conflict, challenge and change. How• this beautifully edited extract of the Alaskan ever, a series of quotations spliced together part of the manuscript. Beautiful that is, with with conjecture does not tell the story. This is one exception. His maps are virtually useless. unfortunate, for to paraphrase Howay, there is How many readers of this book will be able a good drama and mystery to be told. to locate more than a handful of the many places named in the text? Yet not one is Tom F. Beasley identified on Olson's maps. Alaska to most of Vancouver, British Columbia us is terra incognita et ultima thule, and Menzies and Vancouver were there, after all, Wallace M. Olson (intro. & annotation). The on a surveying expedition. Unless therefore Alaska Travel Journal of Archibald Menzies, the reader has access to the charts in the 1793-1794. Fairbanks: University of Alaska Israel/Da Capo 1967 reprint of the first 1798 Press, 1993. xv + 247 pp., illustrations, maps, edition of Vancouver's journal, the mechanics appendix by John F. Thilenius of botanical of the survey, as described by Menzies, will collections, bibliography, index. US $17.50, have little meaning. Menzies participated in paper; ISBN 0-912006-70-6. most of the boat expeditions, and where he did not do so he quotes extensively from Archibald Menzies was the botanist on Cap• those who did. With this proviso, the book tain George Vancouver's voyage of discovery makes delightful reading. Instead of having to to the Pacific Northwest. Vancouver began his wade through the full course dinner of Van• survey in the south. He did not reach Alaskan couver's work, we can savour the epicurean waters until late in the summer of 1793, when delights of Menzies' entree. Olson has done a he spent a few weeks at the lower end of the first class job with the footnoting, relying on Alaska Panhandle. As early as possible he was the many local specialists of his home state. It back again the following year, this time would be invidious to pick out individuals, surveying from the north. Working round but Lydia Black's expertise on the Russian from Cook Sound, he completed a thorough history of Alaska, enables us to identify survey of Prince William Sound before mov• precisely the Russians and the Russian settle• ing down the coast to finish up where his ments encountered by the expedition. previous year's work had left off, at the Botanists will be disappointed, for Men• southern tip of Baranof Island, a base he zies makes only occasional reference to his appropriately named Port Conclusion. botanical finds, but Olson enlisted the help of After Bank's treatment of Cook, there John Thilenius, a plant ecologist with the was little love lost between Menzies and United States Forest Service in Alaska, to Vancouver, though the irascible little captain provide a useful appendix identifying those was sufficiently impressed by his appointee's that are mentioned. abilities as a surgeon to appoint him to that Not unnaturally, Olson relies heavily on position after the previous incumbent had to Kaye Lamb's 1984 Hakluyt edition of Van• be invalided home. When the expedition couver's work — how could one do otherwise? returned to England, there was some talk of But it is also good to see frequent reference to combining Vancouver's and Menzies' journals papers read at the 1992 Vancouver Confer• for the official report of the voyage, but the ence on Exploration and Discovery. Admiralty were not about to repeat the mis• Olson's book is undoubtedly a valuable take they had made with Cook and Banks. contribution to the history of the Pacific 98 The Northern Mariner

Northwest. I found it a most pleasurable the year in which the First Anglo-Dutch War voyage of exploration into this remote corner began, and 1713, the year in which the Treaty of our continent. of Utrecht put an end to the War of the Span• ish Succession, as watershed years. These div• John Crosse ide the book into three main parts. Each part Vancouver, British Columbia is then further divided into four sections: the first deals with key naval and maritime devel• Jaap R. Bruijn. The Dutch Navy of the Seven• opments during the period discussed, the sec• teenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Studies in ond with the system of naval administration, Maritime History Series). Columbia: Univer• the third with the officer corps, and the final sity of South Carolina Press, 1993. xv + 258 one with the men who made up the crews. pp., illustrations, maps, tables, notes, bibli• The second part has two additional sections, ography, index. US $34.95, cloth; ISBN one on major changes that took place in the 0-87249-875-1. areas of shipbuilding and discipline around 1650, the other on the central role of Grand This is the first comprehensive survey in Pensionary John de Witt. English of the Dutch navy during the Golden The history of the Dutch Republic and its Age of the Netherlands. Those of us who navy is an astonishing one. A small country were already familiar with Jaap Bruijn's squeezed between the North Sea and the two articles on the Dutch navy of the seventeenth great territorial powers of France and the and eighteenth centuries in Acta Historiae Holy Roman Empire, and with a population Neerlandicae, the Notes and Records of the of fewer than two million people, it nonethe• Royal Society of London, and elsewhere, and less played the role of a major political and who have long awaited his producing a book- military power during the seventeenth century. length treatment of this often-overlooked The navy was particularly impressive, a force aspect of early modern history, will find their respected by its contemporaries and by pres• expectations more than fulfilled by this mono• ent-day historians as well. The rise of the graph. Yet the book can also be read with Republic as a naval power at the end of the both pleasure and profit by nautical sixteenth century had been rapid, and through researchers whose interests lie elsewhere. the first half of the seventeenth century, naval The book covers the two centuries operations supported the Republic's struggle between the 1590s, when the young Dutch for its freedom and Dutch maritime expansion Republic became a European power of some into European waters and beyond. The navy's importance, and 1795, when the armies of functions changed, however, during the sec• Revolutionary France conquered the Nether• ond half of that century. The navy was then lands and overthrew the Republic. Reflecting primarily a tool in the hands of John de Witt the "new naval history," the book addresses and of the Stadholder-King William III for both the operational and non-operational maintaining or restoring peace in Europe. This aspects of the subject. This makes possible a foreign policy forced the Republic to live well balanced view of the Dutch navy. The Intro• above its means, with predictable results. The duction presents background on naval devel• navy, like the Republic, found itself with opments during the seventy-five or so years financial problems that were largely insoluble. before 1590 and on the "logic and illogic" of During the eighteenth century, the oper• the federal structure of the Republic and its ations of the Dutch navy were more closely in decentralized system of naval administration accord with the resources of the country. The — the latter the result of rivalries between the Republic soon revealed itself to be only a various provinces and between the cities of minor European power, and the navy was left the province of Holland. Bruijn regards 1652, with no tasks other than protecting the mer- Book Reviews cantile marine on a restricted number of Robert Gardiner. The First Frigates: Nine- routes and keeping the Barbary corsairs under Pounder and Twelve-Pounder Frigates, 1748- some kind of control. At times, it was barely 1815. London: Conway Maritime Press, 1992. equal even to these limited duties. True, 127 pp., photographs, figures, tables, notes, Dutch merchants and skippers were only sources, index. £25, cloth; ISBN 0-85177- slightly hampered by British seizures of their 601-9. ships during the Seven Years' War. However, their enterprises suffered greatly during the Robert Gardiner is well known as a naval Fourth Anglo-Dutch War of 1780-1784 - a historian and researcher, and perhaps even war whose roots lay in the American Revol• better known as editor (until recently) of the ution but which was waged as part of a global Conway Maritime Press Warship annual. This conflict. Before, during, and after that con• book seems the fruition of a study he began flict, a naval armaments race was run in some years ago and which resulted in the Europe. The Dutch Republic, unwilling to publication of three articles in Warship before remain a bystander, developed an impressive it became an annual and two articles in The naval shipbuilding programme — one that Mariner's Mirror. seemed likely to restore the Dutch navy once The book examines the origins of a parti• again as a significant factor in the balance of cular type of warship over a period of sixty- naval power between Britain on the one side seven years. It is divided into two parts, the and France, together with Spain, on the other. first being a design history that progressively Yet the building programme had little endur• covers various gun-rated and ship-rated types. ing effect because, in 1795, Revolutionary Many examples are presented, illustrated France succeeded in taking over the Dutch largely from the plans collection of the navy. Never again would the Netherlands play National Maritime Museum, supplemented by a significant role in European naval politics. any photos of hull models that add a great The history of the Dutch navy during the amount of detail not found in the draughts. seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is full of There are also extensive tables of particulars. logic and illogic, success and defeat, innova• For me, the most interesting part of this tion and stagnation. As such, it is a fascinat• section was the description and discussion of ing and surprising story — a story the author many examples of French, Dutch, Spanish and relates in a vivid and compelling manner. His American frigates that became Royal Navy achievement is all the more noteworthy in prizes. They are examined statistically and view of a major obstacle that he faced — a their internal arrangements fully described. disastrous fire in the Department of the Navy The influence of foreign frigates on British during 1844 which destroyed the archives of designers, long a bone of contention, is dis• the former admiralties of the Republic. cussed in depth by the author. In short, this book covers a subject about The second section deals with the general which little is known to nautical researchers, aspects of masting and rigging, armament and particularly those who have no Dutch; for this other features including performance under reason alone, it would be welcome. The book, sail and liveability. Some of these particulars however, stands solidly on its scholarly may seem superfluous, but as Gardiner points merits, presenting within its pages an analysis out, they show that the requirements of the and a treasure trove of information that great• Admiralty did not necessarily coincide with ly enhance our understanding of European foreign usage or the purpose for which naval history during this period. foreign ships were designed. Those conversant with naval history of G. Edward Reed this period know that on many occasions the Ottawa, Ontario lack, or perhaps absence, of frigates created 100 The Northern Mariner

problems that proved very detrimental to the Walpole and Pitt (Oxford, 1989), throws outcome of certain naval operations. There• considerable light on the mercantile lobbying fore in this respect, this part of the survey and popular politics that Gough discusses. does much to convey to the reader an active Rogers' monograph is a major study and, in interest in weighing the alternatives of what addition, there is an important thesis by the British designer thought was important. Kathleen Wilson on the same subject. This is an authoritative and comprehen• Poor proofreading is a major problem sive study of the frigate's evolution during a with Gough's book. The index correctly period in which there were many changes, identifies as Plassey what appears on page 35 both technical and cultural. It will be an as the "Battle of Blissey." In general, the invaluable source for naval historians, as will typographical errors are a minor irritant, but subsequent volumes in this series. at times it is unclear what Gough is actually saying. The pages are also small and gener• William P. Avery ously printed, the text concludes on page 122 Bethel Island, California and it cannot be said that Gough has dis• cussed the subject at length. Barry M. Gough. British Mercantile Interests His general conclusion is sound, if unori• in the Making of the Peace of Paris, 1763: ginal. Mercantile interests influenced the Trade, War, and Empire. Lewiston, NY & Peace of Paris. In part the terms appeared Queenston, Ont.: Edwin Mellen Press, 1992. disappointing because success in the war had ix + 156 pp., maps, appendices, bibliography, led to greater expectations of gains. Pitt's fall index. US $49.95, cloth; ISBN 0-7734-9548- in 1761 weakened governmental links with 7. expansionist mercantile interests. Rather than endorsing the views of the latter, Bedford and Aside from a new title and various stylistic Bute sought a quick peace that included such changes, this is the publication of a thesis compromises as the continued recognition of completed in 1966. Professor Gough defends French fishing rights off Newfoundland. his decision not to make changes by stating Gough also points out, correctly, that the that his study rests on a corpus of primary peace was in general beneficial to mercantile materials that has not changed, and that he is interests, although, of course, postwar not aware of any more recent contribution to demobilisation and depression created major the literature that would modify the main problems. The British state and its ancillary argument of his work. Gough thus fails to East India and Hudson's Bay companies take on board a number of recent studies that gained massive amounts of territory. During would be of value. He repeats the conven• the war, Britain had demonstrated unprece• tional strictures against Bute without noting dented "global reach capability," to use a term that Karl Schweizer, formerly of Bishop's taken from the social sciences. In 1762 her University, has edited Lord Bute. Essays in forces had taken Manila and Havana, as well Re-interpretation (Leicester, 1988), a collec• as checking the Bourbons in Germany and tion that substantially reinterprets the minister. Portugal. If the peace terms did not corre• This positive re-evaluation has been taken spond — both Havana and Manila for example further both by Schweizer in Frederick the were returned to Spain - all major wars in Great, William Pitt, and Lord Bute (London, that period ended with compromise terms. 1991) and in a 1988 University of Wales The larger British empire provided a greater doctoral dissertation by J.D. Nicholas, "The field for commercial opportunities. Ministry of Lord Bute, 1762-3." The work of Gough's brief discussion of the New• another Canadian scholar, Nicholas Rogers, foundland fisheries will be of greatest interest Whigs and Cities. Politics in the Age of to readers of this journal, but he has little new Book Reviews 101 to say. There is no real analysis of the fishing handled manpower, and often had a hand in industry and its capacity for lobbying, and the strategy) are succinct and illuminating. Rod• discussion of postwar diplomatic controversy ger provides a plain explanation of how pat• over the issue is inadequate. It is also necess• ronage operated and how it could affect naval ary to integrate France's riposte in Newfound• operations, how the evaluation of one's politi• land in 1762. Gough has written much of cal "interest" (or influence) regulated every• value, but this is a disappointing book. thing from what offices one could expect, to how much clout one had in cabinet, how "fac• Jeremy Black tions" rose and fell, and how naval officers Durham, England frequently wore second hats as politicians, which could lead to conflicts of interest and N.A.M. Rodger. The Insatiable Earl: A Life squabbling with brother officers of differing of John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich. affiliations. London: HarperCollins, 1993. xviii + 425 pp., Sandwich is portrayed throughout as an illustrations, notes, sources, bibliography, individual of superior abilities but, thanks to index. £20, cloth; ISBN 0-00-215784-5. dotty or self-centred forebears, one who faced a constant problem of lack of money. He had Readers of this journal may recall the great enough to live quietly as a country gentleman, critical acclaim accorded Rodger's The but nowhere near enough to vie for real Wooden World in 1986. That book, essential political influence. Political success cost reading on the eighteenth-century navy, over• enormous sums that only the filthy rich could turned many hoary myths about "rum, sod• afford, and even they frequently ran up huge omy, and the lash." This biography of Sand• debts. Bright but relatively poor players, such wich has similar characteristics, and will as Pitt and Fox, had to find rich but dim certainly be the standard source on its subject. patrons to bankroll a career. Wealth was Sandwich is best known as the First Lord translated into control of Commons seats, and of the Admiralty during the War of American poor Sandwich was hard pressed to control Independence. Together with Lord North and three or four Huntingdonshire seats, largely Lord George Germain, Sandwich is supposed through astute and tireless "constituency to have formed one of the troika who lost the work." The fact that he managed this through war through a combination of incompetence, charm and personality (since he usually had lethargy, and corruption. This view, formed no significant patronage to dispense) made by moralising Victorians, has enjoyed a long him an almost unique politician. Still, his few shelf life. Rodger successfully challenges this seats were not enough to make him a major interpretation by examining the Earl's exten• player. Several times he was passed over for sive career in the context of his times, based office for lesser, but more influential, claim• on very thorough investigations of the primary ants. Even at that level he had to assume ever and secondary literature, to arrive at a series greater debts. It comes as a shock to learn that of refreshing conclusions. It seems the Earl is after funeral expenses his entire personal owed a large apology. estate was £624. Those interested primarily in the naval Sandwich's contributions to the navy years will not be disappointed. There are no were many, though often forgotten or ascribed stirring renditions of battles or tactics, but to others. He attempted to reform the tradi• Rodger describes, clearly and concisely, how tion-bound administration of the dockyards, the navy actually worked: explanations of where inefficiency and conservatism were how the Navy Board (which built the ships, greater problems than corruption. Here the managed the dockyards, and contracted with permanent Navy Board and Yard Officers suppliers) related to the Admiralty (which could stonewall the plans of transient First 102 The Northern Mariner

Lords until the latter left office or were murdered by a rejected suitor. We are left distracted by war. Sandwich did make one feeling that Sandwich was a lonely man who outstanding move, however, by appointing Sir buried himself in his work. A very passionate Charles Middleton (later Lord Barham, the interest of his has repercussions to our own First Lord during the Trafalgar campaign) as day, however. His abiding interest in music Comptroller, the head of the Navy Board. led to a revival of Handel who seems to have Rodger endorses Middleton's high reputation been little performed in the 1770s. Sand• as a naval administrator but also draws atten• wich's involvement as an amateur musician tion to his tendency to suffocating control, his and organizer of professional events revived intellectual arrogance, and his not-infrequent Handel performances, even to the level of two-faced political dealings with superiors, trendy extravaganzas in Westminster Abbey. Sandwich included. The vaunted innovation of Without the Earl's interest, Handel could very coppering ships, usually ascribed solely to well be little more than a musical curiosity Middleton, contained a major blunder (his today. refusal to use copper fastenings), and is a This is a masterful book by an accom• typical case where Middleton escapes blame plished historian. It demonstrates exhaustive for an error, and Sandwich is denied credit for knowledge of documents and secondary litera• an improvement. The often unsung work of ture, and it is written with exceptional clarity. Sandwich includes his long-term plan for What it tells us of the higher realms of eight• dockyard expansion, since the fleet had out• eenth-century naval administration is most grown its bases. Without this expansion the illuminating, and what it tells us of numerous navy's performance in the 1793-1815 wars other aspects of life, politics, patronage, might have suffered considerably. strategy decisions in the American war, and The performance of the Navy in the much else besides, makes it very much more American War is now considered laudable. By than just a biography in the usual sense. By 1782 the French were swept from the seas and placing naval issues and individuals solidly the Empire aside from the Thirteen Colonies within the context of the times Rodger forcib• was secure. The major problem had been the ly reminds us that most naval events often slow start. Here, Sandwich constantly urged were pre-determined on shore long before the early mobilization to meet the threat of ships set sail. Very highly recommended. French intervention. Lord North, the first minister, declined on political and financial Paul Webb grounds, and the frustrated Sandwich did not London, Ontario have enough clout (read: control of Commons seats) to sway the Cabinet. His repeated Allan Everett Marble. Surgeons, Smallpox and memoranda on the issue made no impression, the Poor: A History of Medicine and Social and when France did enter the war, followed Conditions in Nova Scotia, 1749-1799. Mont• eventually by Spain, the Navy had to real & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University scramble for several years to make up lost Press, 1993. xvi + 354 pp., illustrations, maps, time. The French agreed to peace not because figures, tables, appendices, notes, bibliogra• they felt they had won, but because they phy, index. $39.95, cloth; ISBN 0-7735-0988- feared they were about to lose. 7. Sandwich the private man is harder to pin down. A promising marriage (from the point This extensively researched and pioneering of view of love, not finances) soured because study by a surgeon who has been drawn to the of his wife's mental illness. A long-term history of medicine illuminates the social and relationship with an actress brought some medical world of the eighteenth century port happiness, but tragedy struck when she was and naval fortress of Halifax. Of interest to Book Reviews maritime historians, this study chronicles the Alan Schom. Trafalgar: Countdown to Battle, lives and practices of naval surgeons aboard 1803-1805. London: Michael Joseph; New military vessels and emigrant ships. We learn York: Atheneum; Toronto: Maxwell Macmil- personal information, such as names, birth• lan, 1990. Paperback edition, London: Pen• place and birth date, training, religion, about guin, 1992 and New York: Oxford University individual surgeons from the many primary Press, 1992. ix + 421 pp., maps, illustrations, sources Marble has gleaned. Readers are also plates, bibliographical references, index. $35, told of ship names, social conditions on cloth; ISBN 0-71813-199-1; £8.99, US board, early quarantine regulations, and devas• $13.95, paper; ISBN 0-14-011164-6 (Penguin) tating epidemics, such as smallpox. Marble or 0-19-507518-8 (OUP). explores the opening of the Hospital for Sick and Hurt Seamen, constructed in 1750 and It has been more than a century since Mahan supported by the Lords of the Admiralty, wrote The Influence of Sea Power on the which was soon filled to overflowing. During French Revolution and Empire, and nearly a the height of the Seven Years' War, when century since he wrote his Life of Nelson; it is Halifax was a beehive of activity, this naval more than eighty years since Sir Julian Corb- hospital housed over 1,200 patients at some ett wrote The Campaign of Trafalgar. In times. The author also mentions the British approaching the subject, Alan Schom uses armada of 1758 which sailed to lay seige to these great works to advantage and, to a large Louisbourg, with its force of 13,463 personnel extent, relies on the same bodies of evidence. and 157 ships. In the days of the American He takes issue with Corbett for the "extraordi• Revolution, Halifax again served as a vital nary claim" that the Trafalgar campaign only port, with a similarly high level of activity. began in January 1805, but that in my view is Such chronicling and quantitative information, to misunderstand Corbett's central argument. though not always systematically arranged, It is remarkable how little has been writ• provides much of the book's interest. ten about Trafalgar that really challenges the While, unfortunately, the author offers judgement of the nineteenth-century histor• little information on ship conditions while at ians. Schom feels that Admiral Sir William sea, he does describe the state of ships' pass• Cornwallis was never given his due for his engers upon their arrival in Halifax, especially part in Nelson's victory and he pays more the nature of their contagious diseases, the attention, perhaps, to the personalities of the efforts made to deal with the sick, and the sailors and politicians — especially the latter — substantial impact that sickness and disease of but he tells us little that we had not already sailors, soldiers and immigrants had on local heard from Mahan and Corbett. Indeed, he poor relief practices and government spend• sometimes fails to tell us about some of their ing. For those wanting to know about naval arguments and what lay behind them. For surgeons, there is a glossary of medical treat• that, we must still turn to Robert Seager's ments, as well as graphs and tables on con• biography Alfred Thayer Mahan (Naval Insti• temporary medical treatment and the leading tute Press, 1977), Donald Schurman's The causes of death. While this material will offer Education of a Navy (Cassell, 1966) and his a fine, additional resource for maritime histor• study of Julian S. Corbett 1854-1922 (Royal ians, I suspect this book will be, on the Historical Society, 1981). whole, of greatest value to those interested Mahan argued that Napoleon was more in Canadian military, social and medical defeated at Trafalgar, not Waterloo, and that history. Nelson was the "embodiment of seapower." Corbett's particular interest was in the tactics Rainer Baehre of Trafalgar, and he owed much to the great Corner Brook, Newfoundland French historian Edouard Desbriere, who also 104 The Northern Mariner considered the campaign to have begun in and for those same volumes to have been in 1805. Corbett and Desbriere, Schurman tells print continuously up to the present day must us, enlightened each other. What Corbett per• constitute something of a record. Such is the ceived was that Trafalgar was more important renown of Basil Lubbock, who compiled a to the security of British convoys bound for series of accounts of the olden years of the the Mediterranean than to the prevention of a clipper ships, each volume notable for its cross-Channel invasion which Napoleon had detail and accuracy. It came as a surprise already given up. Schom does not disagree, recently to learn, forty-nine years after his but he does not acknowledge that particular death, that a new Lubbock had been issued. insight by Corbett. Cruisers, Corsairs and Slavers has been That being said, Schom has written a prepared for publication from a manuscript lively and original new history of the Trafal• found amongst his papers. gar campaign, based on a wide selection of Drawing on sources in the Admiralty and primary as well as secondary sources. He at the Public Record Office, the narrative takes the reader into both camps by turn, opens in the early 1800s with accounts of rather in the manner of a novelist, and engagements between the Navy and West although in the process he tends to demonise Indian privateersmen or picaroons who preyed Bonaparte, he brings the actors to life with an on rich merchantmen. It continues with details interesting narrative style. By taking the of encounters with Caribbean and Cuban origins of the campaign back to the renewal pirates before finally concentrating on the of the Napoleonic Wars in 1803, he places the efforts to put an end to the West African campaign on a very large canvas, resulting slave trade. The book concludes with the perhaps in a combination of what is best in hunting of Arab slave dhows along the east each of the Mahan and Corbett interpretations. coast of Africa as late as 1888. He has used the sources well, and it is inter• In addition to contemporary accounts of esting to note that among the few recent numerous engagements Lubbock discusses the secondary works referred to is John Harbron's development of fast sailing craft designed Trafalgar and the Spanish Navy. specifically to overhaul nimble slaving vessels Schom has since written a study of this which had previously so often out-sailed con• nature on Waterloo, entitled One Hundred ventional ships of war. The text is supported Days: Napoleon's Road to Waterloo (Athene- by a selection of fine black-and-white illustra• um and Maxwell Macmillan, 1992). It is a tions featuring leading personalities as well as useful approach to the topic, and I recom• reproducing paintings of vessels in action, mend it to anyone interested in the period. several of which are the work of W.J. Hug- gins, official marine artist to William IV. W.A.B. Douglas The laminated pictorial board binding Ottawa, Ontario does away with the need for a dust jacket; consequently the customary background Basil Lubbock. Cruisers, Corsairs and information about the book is not provided Slavers: An Account of the Suppression of the and the publisher has missed the opportunity Picaroon, Pirate and Slaver by the Royal to include a tribute to Lubbock or to explain Navy during the 19th Century. Glasgow: the background to this work. Comments by Brown, Son and Ferguson, 1993. viii + 479 the author in his Preface suggest that it was pp., illustrations, appendices, bibliography. compiled in the late 1920s or early '30s. Born £35, laminated boards; ISBN 0-85174-593-8. in 1876 and having twice served in the Royal Navy, his commentaries reflect Victorian To have written twelve books that were pub• pride in the service. Although the jingoistic lished originally some sixty or more years ago asides may be at odds with today's attitudes Book Reviews 105 there can be no doubting the author's enthusi• the Confederacy's ocean and interior waters. asm for the subject and the wealth of informa• Second, that Union victory could have been tion he has amassed. Readers in search of a achieved with greater dispatch and less loss of spirited account of the Royal Navy in its life had it not been for the unwillingness of heyday will be delighted with it. Nautical the Army commanders in the eastern theatre researchers however will no doubt feel to make better use of the naval forces on aggrieved that having purchased an expensive hand. This is especially true, he argues and book — albeit it is value for money — they illustrates, in the case of George McClellan find the publishers have failed to provide an during the Peninsula campaign in 1861. index, even a simple one covering officers Browning begins his book with a descrip• and ships. It is a deficiency that must be tion of the condition of the Union navy at the remedied in a future edition. beginning of the war and then proceeds chro• Cruisers, Corsairs and Slavers comple• nologically to document the campaigns and ments works by Lloyd, Ward, Pope-Hennessy skirmishes of the blockading squadron during and others because it goes into the sort of the course of the war from the capture of the detail that is out of place in more general Hatteras forts in 1861 through the subsequent studies. So far as your reviewer is aware there sporadic fighting on the inland waters of is no similar compilation dealing in such a Virginia and North Carolina. He then devotes comprehensive manner with this period when five chapters to the problems (chiefly logis• the Royal Navy acted as a policeman to the tical) of maintaining the blockading squadron world's oceans, in the course of which it and another on the fall of Wilmington, the became involved in numerous vicious and last remaining Southern port, in February bloody single-ship duels. 1865 before concluding his story. Browning's thesis of faulty command Norman Hurst decision making by Army and Navy com• Coulsdon, Surrey manders on both sides is strengthened by his fact-laden descriptions and by his substantiat• Robert M. Browning, Jr. From Cape Charles ing his judgments with careful analysis as to to Cape Fear: The North Atlantic Blockading why some of their decisions were flawed. He Squadron during the Civil War. Tuscaloosa: contends that the Navy could clearly have University of Alabama Press, 1993. xiii + 453 made a greater contribution to Union victory, pp., maps, tables, figures, photographs, illus• but for the limited mind set of the land com• trations, notes, bibliography, index. US manders with whom Louis Goldsborough, $44.95, cloth; ISBN 0-8173-0679-X. Samuel Phillips Lee and David Porter, the blockade commanders, had to work. Convinced that too little attention has been Throughout, the book (a re-write of paid to one critical aspect of the American Browning's 1988 doctoral dissertation) is a Civil War at sea, Robert Browning, chief model of diligent research presented in clear historian of the US Coast Guard, has pro• if not always sparkling prose. Browning has duced a first-rate study of the naval conflicts outlined each significant engagement over a that took place on the Virginia and North four-year period on the mid-Atlantic coast Carolina coasts and on the sands and inland while going beyond this limited area of the waters of the Tarheel State. war to place it in the overall context of the Browning's theses are two. First, that the larger conflict. This is especially true as he Union navy in general and the North Atlantic chronicles how the North Carolina war on the Blockading Squadron in particular played an waters was often relegated to secondary status important role in the eventual Union victory because of political decisions occasioned by over the Confederates by securing control of the need for men and supplies elsewhere. The 106 The Northern Mariner

main events of the western and eastern the• Chinese and Siamese neighbours. atres dictated how much attention was given The two articles most relevant to Canada to the Naval war off the Atlantic coast. and recent history concern California over an This is naval history well researched eighty-year-period starting in 1769, and the (with ninety-five pages of endnotes and still-born project to build an aircraft carrier in twenty-five pages of bibliography) and well France in the years immediately after World told. Browning argues that similar studies of War II. The article on California examines other regional subsets of the naval war should great power rivalry in the North Pacific and be subjected to similar detailed historical analyses why it was a new nation, the United inquiry. Few would disagree with him on the States, which eventually gained control. It basis of the findings he has produced in this marshals the various strands of the story — well executed study, although his claim that commercial motives, an increasing focus on had the Confederates developed a successful the Indian Ocean by Britain and on Central naval building program, the war may have Asia by Russia, the weakening reach of Spain, ended in a stalemate, is open to serious ques• and France's preoccupation with other inter• tion. This speculation beyond available proof ests — with great clarity. The reader is notwithstanding, Browning's monograph reminded that French Canadian guides and belongs in every collegiate library and in hunters played a key role in the success of the every naval or military collection. famous Lewis and Clark expedition which crossed the continent and reached the Pacific James M. Morris in 1805, thirteen years after Alexander Mack• Newport News, Virginia enzie's feat further north. The story of France's postwar carrier Hervé Coutau-Bégarie (ed.). Marins et Oceans project coincides with the period when the III. Etudes d'histoire maritime 12; Paris: Royal Canadian Navy was creating and con• Commission française d'histoire maritime, solidating its own naval air branch. During 1992. vi + 224 pp., illustrations, maps, tables. the war French naval staff decided that acqui• 150 FF, paper; ISBN 2-7178-2391-3. sition of capable aircraft carriers was to be given the highest priority. France's pre-war Unfortunately, this third issue marked the end carrier was too slow for fleet operations and of publication — at least for now — of this one of the earliest schemes involved trying to journal of maritime history. In his foreword get the United States to complete the the editor announced that, much to his regret, unfinished battleship Jean-Bart as an aircraft the "Conseil d'administration" of the French carrier in 1943. The French naval technical society equivalent to the CNRS which took staff then grappled with various proposals. office in December 1991 had decided to focus Completing the battleship as a carrier in on other projects. In its eighteen-month life France after the war was eventually rejected the journal produced three volumes with a as not cost-effective. A sister ship of Warrior total of seven hundred pages of articles. and Magnificant, the 24 knot L 'Arromanches Volume III contains eleven academic (ex-HMS Colossus), was obtained on loan in articles. The authors and topics are eclectic, 1946 and it was decided to build faster car• and include a Vietnamese author writing riers in France. The first, to be named Clem- about the navy of Vietnam before the French enceau, was to be a 20,000 ton ship without colonial era. This article is a reminder of how an armoured flight deck but with two lifts and far back historical traditions and folk mem• two catapults. She was to be capable of 32 ories extend in Asia — the reader is told about knots and of carrying forty-four to forty-nine a 1200-year struggle by the Vietnamese to aircraft (some were to be slung under the assert their independence from both their hangar's deckhead). Book Reviews 107

The project was started and long-lead services, and may further involve services items were purchased. However, the parlia• from at least two different countries. Beau• mentary committee on finances failed to reach mont provides a number of definitions, point• a clear consensus and the government began ing out as well some of the differences in the backtracking. The story has familiar overtones evolution of the term in different countries. — the government justified its change of mind He also supplies the official United States by using an old favourite: a strong currency is Department of Defense definition in an appen• a prerequisite for strong defence. There was dix. As the text makes clear, these definitions an unlikely coalition of right-wing advocates are good starting points, but little more. of land-based air power above all else and The book calls itself a short history, and left-wing parliamentarians who favoured a the emphasis on short is appropriate. Beau• large conscript army. mont begins with prebiblical amphibious ope• Meanwhile, the negotiations which rations but loses little time discussing the resulted in NATO were well underway and it period before 1860, reaching the US Civil became obvious that France would be able to War by page twenty. The pace of the book receive two 32 knot carriers from the United usually slows as Beaumont discusses Ameri• States. The French government shifted its can events; his focus is primarily, but not naval building priority to anti-submarine exclusively, the US perspective. Beaumont destroyers and escorts. The project to build makes a reasonable effort to discuss the Brit• modern carriers was cancelled and then ish experience, although he is more at home revived in the fifties. This, then, is a story of and more expert in American history. how a pragmatic approach enabled France to The bulk of the book is devoted to the create a modern carrier force even though the twentieth century, where warfare has become plans to build a new ship had to be abandoned more complex and, in terms of jointness, for several years. more diverse. Beaumont skilfully uses Like its predecessors, this volume of examples from the first short section of the Marins et Oceans contains rewarding articles book to demonstrate that problems experi• on a variety of naval historical topics. One of enced in this century reflect considerable the contributors expresses the hope that this continuity with earlier efforts in joint oper• journal is only in temporary abeyance and one ations. He draws a clear line from Rochefort can only echo the thought. to Vietnam, noting that service commanders often become more obsessed with issues of Jan Drent precedence and authority than what might Victoria, British Columbia seem to be the more important matter of improving the overall effectiveness of actual Roger A. Beaumont. Joint Military Oper• operations. This tendency is most pronounced ations: A Short History. Contributions in in periods of scarce resources (peacetime) and Military Studies, No. 139; Westport, CT: is often only overcome in wartime after Greenwood Press, 1993. xvii + 245 pp., maps, serious disasters have exposed problems appendices, bibliography, index. US $55, which in hindsight often seem remarkably cloth; ISBN 0-313-26744-8. obvious. Gallipoli and, of course, Dieppe are offered as examples. This is a short book on a very complex topic. Beaumont examines a wide variety of As discussed in the introduction, there is no incidents where joint operations have single satisfactory definition of what "joint" occurred, seeking common threads which lead is, let alone agreement on how to achieve it. to success or contribute to failure. This is a Generally, "joint" refers to common military complex task, and the author ultimately con• operations carried out by at least two different cludes that "since much is left to chance, to 108 The Northern Mariner

tradition, and to inertia, attainment of func• Barry Hunt and Ronald Haycock (eds.). tional jointness is likely to remain elusive and Canada's Defence: Perspectives on Policy in situational." (p 194) In short, there is no holy the Twentieth Century. Toronto: Copp Clark grail, and personalities have as often proved Pitman, 1993. ix + 274 pp., further readings. the key as proper organization. Whether this $19.95, paper; ISBN 0-7730-5258-5. will continue to hold true for the future is unclear, but history certainly justifies Beau• Canada's Defence is a collection of original mont's caution. and previously published articles intended to The book is well documented, providing introduce readers to the main features of a good to excellent source of references for Canada's defence stances and to some expla• those interested in pursuing further research in nations of their evolution. The articles offer a various areas of joint warfare. Beaumont broad overview of developments mostly since devotes an appropriate amount of his effort to 1904 - from the Laurier government's initiat• amphibious warfare, the earliest form of joint ives, by which the militia effectively came of operations. In his research of this type of age and Canada assumed responsibility from operations he has done a credible job of Britain for its own security, through the locating most of the important references and World and Cold Wars to the present. collating them in a convenient and accessible Carman Miller explains how defence way. For those interested in this aspect of minister Sir Frederick Borden initiated warfare the book would probably prove defence reforms through the vehicle of the worthwhile. The footnotes and bibliography 1904 Militia Act. During his fifteen-year also provide good references to tactical avi• administration Borden implemented a three ation, naval gunfire support, numerous speci• point programme: to create a self-contained fic incidents (virtually all major western joint citizen army, to win a greater degree of Cana• operations in the modern period are at least dian military autonomy, and to establish a co• mentioned) as well as sources dealing with operative (rather than an integrated) policy of military and organizational theory. imperial defence. Barry Gough outlines The eleven maps included are clearly another facet of this cooperative policy, the drawn and contribute to a clear understanding controversial decision to create a Canadian of the events related in the book. The book is Navy. He describes the strategic quandary both professionally written and edited, with Britain faced in meeting Germany's naval careful attention paid to production values. challenge, and its decision to withdraw the Therefore while expensive, it is good quality. Royal Navy from North American waters. By The book may prove most interesting to 1909 Canada, left without a standing naval those with a current interest in military presence, had to cope with demands for affairs, specifically in determining ways of contributions to offset Germany's naval enhancing the overall effectiveness of force. construction programme. Prime Minister The book certainly does not provide a recipe Laurier's decision in 1910 to establish a for success, but it provides a good framework separate Canadian Naval Service satisfied for analysis of the problems involved in joint neither strategic nor political needs and led to warfare, and a good source of examples for his government's defeat the following year. those in search of analogies to improve their In "Junior but Sovereign Allies," Des• understanding. Overall this is a useful volume mond Morton traces the Canadian Expedition• that examines an area of warfare that is more ary Force's transformation in 1914-18 from a often discussed than understood. hastily improvised contingent, reliant upon British equipment, training and leadership, D.M. McLean into a fighting force whose distinguished Victoria, British Columbia combat record bolstered Canada's status as an Book Reviews 109 independent nation. No longer could one dub dence, particularly when they allied defensive• Canadians as colonials or "Imperials"; they ly, economically and politically as Canada and were allies. Unfortunately, wartime growth in the US did following World War II. Similarly industrial and administrative efficiency fal• Harriet Critchley points out that most factors tered when developing supply sources, especi• responsible for the increasing strategic signifi• ally for rifles and munitions. Ronald Haycock cance of Canada's Arctic region lay beyond explains how a "munitions dilemma" that had Canada's control. She suggests that Canada's plagued Canada since Confederation persisted response to Arctic sovereignty-security ques• throughout the war and postwar years. tions should be fashioned in consultation or Stephen Harris describes the mutual concert with Canada's continental and Euro• distrust and fundamental disagreement over pean allies. One might add that a circumpolar military preparedness between the general approach to such consultation might serve staff and the Department of External Affairs Canada's interests best. following World War I. He notes that genuine Other contributors to this volume include close cooperation between them only com• Joel Sokolsky, Joseph Jockel, Rod Byers, menced with post-hostilities planning in 1943- Douglas Bland, and Dan Middlemiss. Granat• 1944, and reached its apex in the 1950s, when stein emphasizes that defence has always been they agreed that Canada's NATO and North the Cinderella of Canadian government policy American air defence commitments required except in wartime when Ottawa hurriedly record-sized peacetime forces. Norman Hill- converted all the pumpkins into golden car• mer explains the nature of the Anglo-Cana• riages (or tanks). Underfunded, and ordinarily dian military "alliance" in the 1930s and the target of budget-cutting finance ministers, observes that Canada's reluctance to contrib• defence has largely been neglected by govern• ute to empire defence likely added to Lon• ment. Canadian history seems about to repeat don's tendency to remain aloof from continen• itself with the cancellation of the $4.8 billion tal commitments and appease aggressors. Yet, EH-101 helicopter scheme and the likelihood when war broke out, King "piloted" Canada to that the new Liberal government will sink the Britain's side, "as he had always known (but $4-billion submarine project when its defence seldom said) he would." review is complete in 1994. Our study of the Still, as Adrian Preston remarks, Macken• past should help us better to understand the zie King never really expected to carry much present. Canada's Defence: Perspectives on weight with Britain or the United States in Policy in the Twentieth Century provides strategy making. What displeased King most, some insights for the post-Cold War debate and rightly so, was British and American on defence policy. failure to consult, however superficially, especially on matters of Canadian interest. David P. Beatty Despite these slights, Robert Bothwell empha• Sackville, New Brunswick sizes that Canada's Munitions and Supply accomplishments under CD. Howe during John D. Harbron. The Longest Battle: The World War II rated high whether in primary RCN in the Atlantic 1939-1945. St. Cathar• production or secondary industry. Canada ines, Ontario: Vanwell Publishing, 1993. ix + ranked fourth in importance as a supplier 132 pp., photographs, illustrations, figures, among allied countries. maps, select bibliography, index. $29.95, In tracing American influence on the cloth; ISBN 1-55125-002-0. Canadian military from 1939 to 1963, J.L. Granatstein comments that no small power The author, who spent a lifetime collecting "living cheek by jowl with a superpower" naval memorabilia, both the published sort could expect to retain full military indepen• and that which came occasionally to hand 110 The Northern Mariner during his career as a reporter and editor, was British navies. Others may have done as reorganizing and cleaning out his den and much, but none did more. basement last year. Rather than discard his It is a book to be dipped into, to be large accumulation of papers, clippings, per• scanned, to be given to those who either knew sonal photos and scrap albums, menus, song the Canadian Navy intimately or to those who sheets and ration cards, all associated with the know almost nothing of its wartime role but wartime navy, he compiled this small book. It who would wish to. As says Rear Admiral Pat is a sampling — a more formal scrap book if "Budgie" Budge, who rose from boy seaman you will — of material bearing on Canada's to that rank, in his foreword, there was a wartime navy. It contains more illustration "selflessness and teamwork of men and than written text - there are over 130 photos, women...fifty years ago...[which can] solve from official functions to glimpses of an the difficult problems our country faces..." It idyllic life before the war to convoys, ships is hardly a monumental history, yet it is a burning at sea, Wrens in Canada and overseas valuable addition to a maritime bookshelf. and the traditional frigate in heavy seas. There are reproductions of ration books, German F.M. McKee recruiting posters, and such esoterica as a wall Markdale, Ontario map of Norwegian ships at sea on 9 April, 1940. It is just the sort of thing that would Erich Topp; Eric Rust (trans.). The Odyssey of appear in a lad's scrap book. a U-boat Commander: Recollections of Erich For the wartime naval vet it will be a Topp. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1992. x + 242 nostalgic evening, scanning the photos and pp., photographs, index. US $49.95, cloth; drawings, most of them unique to this vol• ISBN 0-275-93898-0. ume, each with an extensive descriptive paragraph rather than just a cut-line. For the Erich Topp gained fame as a German U-boat young, it will tell in an interesting, informal ace in World War II and later attained the way why the RCN was there and what it did. rank of Rear Admiral in the Bundesmarine. In In keeping with the well-merited new atten• total, he sank thirty-four Allied ships of tion now accorded to the Merchant Navy's 185,430 tons and ranks fourth among U-boat role there is a substantial section on wartime aces. His memoirs have been translated into shipbuilding and its problems, and on the English by Eric Rust, a noted historian of the unheard-of autocratic authority of industrial Kriegsmarine, and constitute an important czar CD. Howe and his influential Depart• addition to the growing body of literature on ment of Munitions and Supply. the U-boat service. Due to Harbron's long-time interest in the Those hoping for a blow-by-blow account Kriegsmarine, there are many pictures of the of Topp's wartime experiences will be disap• ships, U-boats and leaders of that unfortunate pointed; only a third of the book covers 1939- force, as well as an assessment of its wartime 1945. Still, the war's shadow looms heavily operational problems, its decimation by 1945 over the postwar chapters concerning his and its slow resurgence in the 1950s to 1990s. career as an architect and, subsequently, a A rather uncommon item is the detailed docu• senior officer with the Bundesmarine. The mentation, both unusual and yet in some ways text is a mixture of diaries and letters, written typical, of the extensive naval family of before, during, and after the war, and inter• LCDR Ian Tate and his wife Stella Davidson. pretation and amplification of those primary Tate was one of the few survivors of HMCS sources. This structure provides an authentic Valleyfield sunk in mid-Atlantic by torpedo in glimpse of Topp's experiences and world- May 1944. Between their two families, eleven view but has the drawback of making the men and women served in the Canadian and book seem disjointed in places. Book Reviews 111

Topp does not dwell on his successes, Deputy Inspector of the Navy in the late providing only a few descriptions of torpedo- 1960s he was slated for a senior NATO attacks. The sinking of the US destroyer command in Norway until his nomination Reuben James before the United States had ignited a diplomatic crisis because he had entered the war is discussed in the greatest sunk several Norwegian ships. Topp stepped depth. After learning the identity of his vic• aside and was replaced by another former tim, he was well aware of the political and submariner who had the good fortune not to historical implications of his action. Topp had have torpedoed any Norwegian ships! an outstanding style of leadership and once returned to port simply because his chief Robert C. Fisher navigator had forgotten his lucky talisman, Ottawa, Ontario determined to ensure a happy crew. He con• sidered two wartime incidents remarkable, a Barbara Broom (comp.). Geoffrey Broom's counter-attack by the famous Commander F.J. War: Letters and P.O.W. Diaries. South Walker's Stork during the battle for convoy Church, Durham: Pentland Press, 1993. xi + HG-84 from which he sank five merchant 238 pp. photographs, appendix. £16.50, cloth; ships, and a surprise attack in the fog off ISBN 1-85821-008-9. Newfoundland by HMCS Sackville com• manded by Lieutenant Alan Easton (somewhat Geoffrey Broom joined the Royal Naval less famous, though well known to The North• Patrol Service in 1940 at age twenty. He was ern Mariner's readers as the author of 50 trained as a signalman in HMS Ganges, then North). In both cases the escort captains joined HM Trawler Norse for minesweeping claimed to have sunk the U-boat which nar• duties in the eastern Mediterranean. After two rowly escaped thanks to her captain's keen and a half years in Norse, he was attached to instincts. Unlike better-known aces such as the communications section of the special Otto Kretschmer and Günther Prien, Topp's force on Leros. Captured when the island fell successes came in a later phase of the war and in November 1943, he spent the remainder of a more thorough discussion of his exploits the war in the naval POW camp at Marlag could have shed light on the submarine war in and Milag Nord. After demobilization, Broom the period when Allied counter-measures were was in the agricultural machinery business improving. Nevertheless, colourful U-boat until his death in 1978. The jacket notes sug• personalities such as Engelbert Endrass, gest that this book will be "of value not only Reinhard Suhren, and Werner Hartenstein to historians but also to readers of autobiogra• come to life in these pages. phies" and that it makes a "compelling read." The most controversial passages of the Knowing very little about World War II book are Topp's heavy criticism of D8nitz's minesweeping, or the German naval POW decision to continue the U-boat war in spite camp, I was keen to read Broom's story. But of horrendous losses after May 1943. The while this book has all the right ingredients, German admiral justified it on the grounds the final result is much less than compelling. that it tied down vast numbers of Allied Broom managed to capture very little aircraft and escorts which could otherwise be history in his letters and diary entries. Ever used to bomb German cities or attack coastal conscious of the censor, his letters from HMT shipping. Topp argues that the specialized Norse shed little light on minesweeping opera• Allied maritime forces could not have been tions in the Mediterranean or on the unsuc• readily converted to these other missions, and cessful attempt to defend the Dodecanese that the continued deployment of obsolete Islands. He makes much of the boredom and U-boats was a needless sacrifice. His career discomfort of life in a small ship, but it is the ended in controversy as well. After a stint as physical rather than the social or historical 112 The Northern Mariner

details that fill Broom's letters. His account of 1938-1945, which includes that of its shipping life in a POW camp is similarly disappoint• activities, is of similar restricted value. ing. At 24, Broom had neither the percipience Nor does the editor deliver a thorough nor the objectivity essential to the successful and circumspect evaluation of the actual text diarist. Again, his entries dwell on mundane of the diary. This would have required an details, and he faithfully records the details of academic approach. Indeed, the book does not almost every meal consumed in captivity. satisfy academic requirements - nor does it There are some glimpses of the tensions of make any pretence to do so either. Further• camp life but these often involve a measure of more, the editor does not offer any comment self-justification. Quite frankly, this book on why the diary was not written in a strictly quickly became tiresome reading. chronological manner (pp. 11, 14ff, 91ff and Geoffrey Broom's War does not add passim). In short, the edition will benefit only much to our knowledge of World War II, and those readers who have specialised in the it has little charm as an autobiography. It is shipping and trade history of World War II unlikely to be of much interest to any but the and who are consequently able to add up the most thorough of researchers. inexhaustible fountain of individual data to a comprehensive overall picture. This circle of Richard Summers readers — though probably somewhat limited Ottawa, Ontario in its numbers — will definitely get their money's worth out of the book. They will Hans Jürgen Witthoft. Die Oldenburg-Portu- receive detailed information, for example giesische Dampfschiffs-Rhederei im Zweiten about the important question of how trade Weltkrieg: Ein Tagebuch. Hamburg: Ernst vessels were equipped in case there was a Kabel Verlag for the Deutsches Schiffahrts- mobilisation (p. 94) or about that concerning museum, 1992. 205 pp., illustrations, figures, which trade vessels with what equipment were photographs, notes, appendix. DM 39,80, to be handed over to the navy as assistant war cloth; ISBN 3-8225-0191-3. ships (p.l74f). The degree of diligence with which the The "war diary" of Die Oldenburg-Portugiesi- transcription of the diary was performed from sche Dampfschiffahrts-Rhederei (OPDR) the handwriting which "is, however, legible covers the period August 1939 to late 1944, for us today only with considerable difficulty" giving information which varies greatly in could be determined solely by checking the density and quality. It was written by an occasional examples in the book, where the OPDR employee, but the question of whether handwritten original of the diary is provided it was written at official request or of his own alongside the transcribed version. Minor accord remains unsolved. One can question mistakes (eg. Funktelegrafie instead of Funk- whether it made sense to write it in this entelegrafie) admittedly do not weigh very particular form, devoid of an adequate intro• heavily, but they inspire doubt as to the duction. Surely one could have sketched out circumspection employed in the transcription. the firm's development and placed the period In conclusion, the book will interest those from 1939 to 1944 (especially that up to the who wish to learn how a private shipping end of 1940) into the context of this shipping company gradually had to adjust from peace company's business history. Alas, this is what to wartime economy in the first few years of Hans Jürgen Witthöft, the editor, leaves the war and about what details it had to take undone. Instead, he tries to deliver some into consideration in the process. additional pieces of information in fifty-three footnotes lest the reader should feel totally Rolf Walter left to himself. The list of the OPDR fleet Jena, Germany Book Reviews 113

Mark P. Parillo. The Japanese Merchant easily cracked codes for the merchant marine, Marine in World War II. Annapolis, MD: the drafting of sailors and skilled dock work• Naval Institute Press, 1993. xxi + 308 pp., ers, and their replacement with unskilled sol• figures, maps, photographs, tables, appendix, diers, and the Navy's fatal flaw in strategic bibliography, index. Cdn $39.95, US $28.95, planning that not only failed to emphasize, cloth; ISBN 1-55750-677-9. Canadian dis• but denigrated convoy protection. Parillo tributor, Vanwell Publishing, St. Catharines, places each of these factors in a cultural and Ont. historical context. It has often been noted how Japan's In a terrible war of attrition, the US Navy adherence to Mahan and to the concept of a during World War II increasingly pressed final, great sea battle between fleets, was a Japan's far-flung oceanic empire back to the critical error. The decision to remove assets home islands. The loss of vital lines of supply from the merchant marine and to send them to as the merchant marine was devastated on the the Navy's combined fleet — a fleet which high seas and, later, on the coast of Japan was ultimately doomed - helped place a itself, was a crucial factor in the final victory. noose of starvation, lack of strategic res• Mark Parillo begins his book by recount• ources, and retreat around Japan's neck. The ing the misadventures of a sergeant in the loss of its merchant marine was Japan's great• Imperial Japanese Army whose transport est defeat and, as Parillo clearly shows, was vessel is sunk, a not uncommon — indeed, by another sacrifice made at the alter of Mahan. 1944, an anticipated — experience for Japan's Extensively supported by detailed appen• fighting men and their supplies of shipping dices on ship building, imports, oil stockpiles out or shipping home. Yet in just five pages, and consumption, tonnage, and losses, The the prologue is able to establish what makes Japanese Merchant Marine in World War II this book different in its assessment of the is a definitive work that will stand as a refer• destruction of the Japanese merchant fleet. ence. It is an essential purchase for the histor• Parillo is the first scholar to offer the Japan• ian of the Pacific War; it should also be ese perspective on this debacle, drawing required reading for policy analysts and carefully from a variety of archival and pub• politicians making decisions about the status lished sources (there are thirty-seven pages of of Canada's and the United States' own notes) from scholars and participants alike. merchant marine, which serve not only as Parillo cites Japan's feudal history, the economic necessities but as strategic assets. UN's strong adherence to Mahan, and bushido as the determining factors in the loss of the James P. Delgado merchant fleet. While many have examined Vancouver, British Columbia America's submarine campaign against Japan "through the periscope" and from the victor's James T. Murphy, with A.B. Feuer. Skip perspective, Parillo offers a thoughtful and Bombing. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1993. xix + painstaking drawn-out series of discussions 179 pp., photographs, illustrations, maps, that stresses Japanese failures, omissions, and index. US $45, cloth; ISBN 0-275-94540-5. as he calls them, "paths not taken." Each of the book's fifteen chapters exam• James Murphy flew fifty-two combat missions ines factors such as the decision of Japan's as a US Army Air Corps B-17F bomber pilot military government to allocate fuel and steel in the southwest Pacific during World War II. resources to the navy, to the detriment of the This book is an account of his experiences at merchant marine, a "debilitating draft" of that time. Murphy reviews his tour of duty vessels to military transport, a move that from July 1942 to June 1943 as a member of ultimately crippled the economy, the use of 63 Squadron, 43 Bomb Group flying recon- 114 The Northern Mariner

naissance, low altitude bombing and skip conditions, poor food, ubiquitous mosquitos, bombing missions against Japanese forces. extreme heat and the stress of flying combat Stationed in northeast Australia and subse• missions over long stretches of water and in quently in Port Moresby, Murphy claims that and around the Owen Stanley Mountains. Yet "five pilots, including myself,...were crucial to Murphy's attempts at providing amplifying the success of low altitude and skip bombing, context are plodding and full of minor inac• which resulted in an early turnaround of the curacies (e.g., he states there was no British Japanese advance in the Southwest Pacific." aerial resistance in Singapore, HMS Repulse (p.xv) Much of the book is devoted to sup• is called a battleship, and Eddie Rickenbacker porting this claim — though it is hard to and Dick Bong are termed the "leading aces" demonstrate conclusively that Japanese defeats of their respective wars, though one hopes he in and around New Guinea can be so neatly is only being American-specific). His narra• explained. The highly-decorated Murphy was tive is interrupted by excerpts from hometown credited with destroying nine enemy ships. newspapers as well as by poems and lengthy The tactical evolution of skip bombing unit reports. Murphy also describes with forms but a brief, though interesting, portion unabashed delight his slaughter of Japanese of the book. Because high-altitude bombing of troops struggling in the water after their shipping was wildly inaccurate, skip bombing barges were sunk, (p. 120) and several times was developed as an effective alternative. It refers to his adversaries as "bastards" and involved attacking a vessel at the extremely "sons of bitches." Despite these flaws, Skip low level of two hundred feet and releasing Bombing remains a valuable memoir. time delay-fused bombs sixty to a hundred feet before the target, causing the bombs to Serge Durflinger "skip" along the water's surface before deton• Verdun, Quebec ating near a ship's hull. At first adopted by medium bombers (such as the B-25), the tac• Peter T. Haydon. The 1962 Cuban Missile tic was later used with much success by B-17s Crisis: Canadian Involvement Reconsidered. which, because of their range, could be used Toronto: Canadian Institute of Strategic for strikes against Rabaul and other distant Studies, 1993. xii + 297 pp., photographs, targets. But, as the B-17 was itself a large maps, appendices, glossary, bibliography, target lacking forward gun mounts, it was index. $20 (orders outside Canada payable in essential that they benefit from the element of US funds), paper; ISBN 0-919769-64-0. surprise provided by the cloak of night or early dawn. Daring daylight raids also were This is an important study of Canada's par• conducted from the low altitude of 2000 feet. ticipation in the Cuban Missile crisis of Most missions described by the author October 1962. Peter Haydon reexamines were against Japanese shipping (especially Canada's ambiguous support for the blockade troopships and supply vessels) in and around and describes the significant Canadian contri• Rabaul and New Guinea or in support of bution to naval operations. His account is operations at Guadalcanal. Still, Murphy's avowedly revisionist, placing the crisis within boast that 72 per cent of "skipped" bombs the broader context of Canadian-American struck their targets is open to question, since defence cooperation, and Canadian civil- the claim is based solely on the mission military relations. It is in the latter that his reports provided by members of his squadron, account is most original and important. and these are almost surely exaggerated. Canada's support for US actions was Skip Bombing is well-written and illus• equivocal at the highest quarters. While oper• trated and offers insights into the morale ationally the Royal Canadian Navy partici• problems associated with atrocious weather pated heavily with American forces, it did so Book Reviews 115 at first only with the permission of Minister tic of particular interest. Operational details of of Defence Douglas Harkness. Prime Minister Canada's naval participation in the blockade John Diefenbaker neither fully supported the of Cuba and interdiction of Soviet supply US blockade of Cuba nor the RCN's support ships and strategic submarine forces are for the action. His faint-heartedness during the recounted. The scope and scale of these crisis ever after plagued his government. The operations has not previously been revealed. Liberal Party under Lester Pearson added the The RCN demonstrated marked technical and issue to the list of failures in foreign policy of professional effectiveness. Discussion of naval the minority Conservative government. Com• operations is restricted ostensibly to one bined with the ongoing controversy surround• chapter, which serves as the culmination point ing Canada's acquisition of nuclear weapons, for issues raised throughout the book. it was a potent weapon in the next election. Beyond those simply interested in the The domestic political quotient has domi• details of the Cuban missile crises, this book nated accounts ever since. Haydon challenges should appeal to anyone examining Canadian the portrayals of Diefenbaker as faint-hearted, defence relations with the United States, or soft-headed, or, simply, obdurate because the Canadian civil-military relations. It is in that American president took military action with• quarter that Haydon raised the most disturbing out full prior consultation. Haydon shows the questions. Anyone interested in the shaping of many good causes for Diefenbaker's wavering Canadian foreign and defence policy should support for US policy. But in developing his read this account and reflect on its implica• argument he offers a very serious indictment tions for the unity of high policy with prosaic of Canada's national command authority. The realities and functional necessity. command system linking the political leader• ship, Ottawa military headquarters and oper• Michael A. Hennessy ational forces proved ill-suited to the chal• Kingston, Ontario lenges faced. Thus, Haydon shows that Dief• enbaker's expectation of prior consultation Nigel "Sharkey" Ward. A Maverick at War: was unwarranted by proper formal agreement, Sea Harrier Over the Falklands. Annapolis, and that at the highest levels Canada's mili• MD: Naval Institute Press, 1992. xviii + 299 tary/naval commitments to the United States pp., illustrations, maps, index. $33.95, US were not fully understood. The nature of civil $25.95, cloth; ISBN 1-55750-756-2. Canadian military relations in Canada is too rarely distributor, Vanwell Publishing, St. Cathar• probed, and Haydon demonstrates very grave ines, Ont. deficiencies. The "system," never tested in war, could be said to have failed in this crisis. This is a valuable memoir of "Sharkey" The book originated as a master's thesis Ward's service as commanding officer of and has not fully overcome the stylistic and Naval Air Squadron 801 during the Falklands structural limitations of the thesis format. War. 801 Squadron was composed of Sea Even so, his account shows a great deal of Harriers and for the war was based on HMS original research and reflects the deep expert Invincible. The author was himself actively knowledge gained from many years service in engaged in aerial combat during the cam• the RCN, including submarine operations paign, being responsible for three confirmed during the crisis itself. Only with expert kills. His abilities as a pilot and commanding knowledge could the operational details be officer cannot be denied. The descriptions of gleaned from reports and pro forma message actual combat are both vivid and comprehen• traffic. Readers of this journal will find his sible to mere sailors or landlubbers. However, discussion of joint USA-Canadian anti-sub• the most significant portions of the book are marine warfare operations in the North Atlan• Ward's criticisms of Admiral Woodward's 116 The Northern Mariner

interference in tactical matters. Ward bluntly Ward has written a forceful memoir that tells us what he thinks of the Task Force takes direct issue with Admiral Woodward's commander's understanding and use of naval own version of the Falklands War. Indeed, airpower during the campaign. Neither does Sea Harrier Over the Falklands should be he spare the admiral's staff. Ward claims the read in conjunction with Woodward's One air war was poorly run by amateurs who had Hundred Days. They provide dramatically no idea how to handle a carrier task force. different views of the conflict. And after Ward identifies two basic problems with reading "Sharkey" Ward's account this the way in which the British handled the air reviewer is once again left to wonder why the war. Most important was Woodward's com• Royal Navy gave command of the task force plete lack of experience of naval aviation; this to a career submariner. led to a misuse of the task force's Sea Har• riers. Thus for no particular good reason the M. Stephen Salmon combat air patrol (CAP) was diverted from its Orleans, Ontario normal station from the Sheffield just before the Exocet attack that sank the destroyer. Milan Vego. Soviet Naval Tactics. Annapolis, Ward also criticizes the high level CAP flown MD: Naval Institute Press, 1992. xxxvi + 455 by the Hermes'1 Sea Harriers (800 Squadron) pp., tables, figures, appendices, notes, select during the landing at San Carlos. Apparently bibliography, index. $76.50, US $56.95, cloth; this tactic was forced on 800 Squadron by the ISBN 0-87021-675-9. Canadian distributor, Admiral's staff. Ward maintains that this Vanwell Publishing, St. Catharines, Ont. allowed the Argentinean air force to attack the ships in the landing force without having to In the early 1980s US Secretary of the Navy risk an engagement with Sea Harriers on their John Lehman observed that the Americans way in. Then, only after the attack, could the and their allies could take heart from the fact Hermes' aircraft find and attempt to destroy that militarily, the Russians were not twelve the enemy. Ward blames the loss of the feet tall, but rather were only eight feet tall at Ardent to use of a high-level CAP, arguing best. Milan Vego continues this process of that a low-level CAP gave a significantly reduction with his surgical dissection of the greater level of deterrence because the nature of Soviet naval tactics, a process Argentinean pilots were under instruction not dramatically accelerated, no doubt, by the to tangle with the British fighters. current logistical and industrial sclerosis The second major impediment to provid• besetting the Russian war machine. ing effective air cover for the task force was It may seem strange in a way to see a what is described as lack of training for most book entitled Soviet Naval Tactics as distinct pilots of 800 Squadron on the Hermes. This from Russian Naval Tactics. And yet the inadequate preparation as outlined in Sea retention of the word "Soviet" in the title was Harriers Over the Falklands manifested itself intentional. Vego's thesis is that naval cultures in a want of confidence in the airplane's radar are highly conservative and that the Russian package. The pilots' uncertainty in the Sea navy and the navies of the constituent parts of Harrier's abilities was picked up by the Ad• the one-time Soviet empire (not to mention miral's staff. This led directly to a denigrating Soviet-influenced navies like that of Yugo• of the planners' trust in the aircraft's capabil• slavia in which Vego served as a lieutenant ities and thence their misuse of it. The author commander) are likely to cleave to Soviet claims that with the same equipment his tactical doctrine well into the future. Further• squadron was able to make radar contact with more, he would argue, Russia will weather its the enemy at twice the distance of the aircraft sickly season and reemerge as a significant in 800 Squadron. naval power in the mid to long term. Thus it Book Reviews 117

behooves us to know a great deal more Interestingly enough, the process of .(something the paucity of tactical literature democratization which has contributed has not helped us do) about the way the materially to the economic and political Russians are likely to use their warships. dislocation experienced by Russia today, may Central to Vego's analysis is the question be one of the solutions to this weakness. At of nomenclatural distinctions. He writes that the heart of that process is a challenge to the Soviet term combat action "is often trans• institutional rigidities and hierarchical tradi• lated in the West as combat operation. How• tion, which, as Vego observes, has given rise ever, this is grossly inaccurate and misleading, to "the deeply ingrained habit of deference to because the Soviets make a clear distinction orders." (p.354) between combat actions and operations." The author concludes his grand schema (p. 18) The Soviets, he notes, have a "theoriz• on a cautionary note. "It would be a grave ing penchant" (p.351) which at its best results mistake indeed," he writes, "to assume that in a pedantic precision and at its worst results the real or perceived deficiencies in Soviet in a definitional complexity which plays into force control will somehow guarantee ultimate the hands of naval bureaucrats eager to orch• success for the U.S. or any other Western estrate naval engagements centrally. navy." (p.359) As a senior intelligence oper• The increased range of naval weapons ative in the Japanese foreign ministry does not, he maintains, reduce the importance informed the reviewer recently, "the Russians of tactical manoeuvres, "it merely simplifies will be back." This is a book that naval their execution." (p.46) At the heart of Soviet commanders will need to have to hand when tactical doctrine was and is the massing of the Russians put to sea again. force, the exploitation of speed and surprise to achieve maximum shock effect, the employ• James A. Boutilier ment of deception, the layering of defences, Victoria, British Columbia and the coordination of land, sea, and air components, in what traditionally was called F.W. Crickard and K. Orr (eds.). The Niobe the struggle for the first salvo. While all of Papers Volume Four: Oceans Policy in the these traits remain in place, advances in anti• 1990s: An Atlantic Perspective. Halifax: missile technology have caused the Soviets to Nautica Books, 1992. xv + 152 pp., figures, begin rethinking the first salvo concept and maps, glossary. $12, paper; ISBN 0-920885- highlighting naval manoeuvre as a substitute 25-3. for or complement to massing. The Russian navy is first and foremost a Recently a range of periodicals and other pub• defensive force designed, at its simplest, to lications have appeared, dealing with Canadi• protect Russian ballistic missile submarines an foreign policy and national defence. The and the Russian homeland. Soviet doctrine Niobe Papers (named after the cruiser which emphasized centralized control, the was the first ship of the Canadian Navy) minimization of local decision making, and differ from the others in their specific concern the vectoring of the Russian attack submarines with maritime and naval affairs. Each volume against incoming targets from naval headquar• is a collection of papers given at a conference ters ashore. Vego demonstrates, in his lucid sponsored by the Naval Officers' Association and encyclopaedic analysis of Soviet naval of Canada (NOAC) and devoted to a particu• tactics, how command rigidities, reminiscent lar aspect of Canada's maritime interests. This of those found in Jellicoe's Grand Fleet at one, on Atlantic concerns, was held in 1992. Jutland, would likely have constituted the Rear-Admiral (Ret'd) F.W. Crickard, a greatest source of weakness in any Soviet or Research Associate with Dalhousie Univer• Russian naval operations. sity's Centre for Foreign Policy Studies, has 118 The Northern Mariner been editor, either alone or with colleagues, of Government policy by Dr. Hugues Morrisette. all the Niobe Papers and deserves great credit Turning then to the subject of Canadian for keeping maritime matters before the Maritime Sovereignty, F.A. Mathys, QC, who public in this way. represented Canada in the Canada-France This volume is divided into four thematic Maritime Boundary Arbitration, provides a sections: Shipping, Waterways and Regional clear explanation of the St. Pierre and Mique- Interests, Coastal Policy and Maritime Sover• lon boundary dispute: the arguments put eignty. Three of these sections commence forward by each side, the judges' decisions with papers of an historical nature; these were and the reasoning behind them. It is apparent provided by members of the Canadian Nauti• that the judges had no concept of seafaring or cal Research Society (L. Fischer, K. Macken• of the practical problems of fishing or zie and R. Sarty), because the conference that offshore exploration, so that the final award is generated these papers was held in conjunc• somewhat bizarre. However, as Mathys says, tion with the annual meeting of the CNRS. it is final and must be accepted by all, and it The section on Coastal Policy has only is not unfavourable to Canada. one paper, by Cynthia Lamson of Dalhousie The final paper, on Maritime Enforce• University's School for Resource and Envi• ment, is by Rear-Admiral L.E. Murray and Lt. ronmental Studies. She makes an impassioned D.A. Robinson. This reflects the situation as plea to regard our small coastal communities it is today; a rather cautious effort that relies as national assets, not liabilities. When gov• more on international agreements than on ac• ernments make decisions relating to the fish• tive enforcement. There has been an increased ery, offshore resources, international agree• allocation of Armed Forces aircraft and Navy ments and the provision of services, it is the vessels to fishery protection — even a submar• welfare of these communities that should be ine was successfully used in this role — and the first consideration. As one who lives in on several occasions Navy and Coast Guard such a community and is in frequent contact ships have co-operated with the RCMP on with fishermen, both inshore and offshore, I drug interceptions. However, there is no real concur. effort to patrol the sea frontiers and the In the Shipping section, Mary Brooks of economic zone. Admiral Murray extensively Dalhousie's School of Business Administra• quotes the 1990 Osbaldeston Report {All the tion analyses cargo movements through Cana• Ships that Sail: A Study of Canada's Fleets, da's East Coast ports. While bulk commodity Treasury Board of Canada, 1990) on the utili• shipments are relatively stable, container zation of the Canadian Government fleets. traffic is extremely volatile. Container lines The Committee, (of which Admiral Murray have no port loyalty, going where costs are was a member), recommended the continu• least and cargo movement swiftest. Much ation of the status quo, but with more effi• Canadian cargo goes through American ports cient consultation and sharing of resources which are in determined competition with between departments. Canadian terminals. (Since this paper was What seems lacking in Niobe Papers 4 is delivered, Boston has announced a major any vision of the future or real proposals for upgrading of its container facilities.) Dr. change. True, it is not the place of serving Brooks suggests that there can only be one officers or officials to put forward radical major East Coast container port, presumably views in a public forum, but others might Halifax. Others would provide only secondary have done so. The efforts to intercept drug or feeder services. "mother ships" seem to be purely reactive - In addition to Ken Mackenzie's historical in response to information that the RCMP paper, the Waterways/Regional Interests sec• receives from informers or the American tion contains only a short statement of Quebec Drug Enforcement Agency. Measures against Book Reviews 119 illegal immigration and fishery violations Robert Friedheim's contribution to the could also be improved if we really wanted. massive literature about UNCLOS is a rigor• The Osbaldeston Report notwithstanding, a ous examination of the negotiation of the case can be made for a more pro-active Treaty designed to answer two questions. policy. Perhaps future Niobe Papers will First, how well did the negotiation processes reflect a wider diversity of views. used by the diplomats engender consent among the large number of participants? Douglas Maginley Second, how adequate is the outcome for Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia managing the oceans' resources? The major question underlying the entire book is whether Robert L. Friedheim. Negotiating the New the costs of the elaborate, expensive negotiat• Ocean Regime. Columbia: University of South ing process involving over 150 states dealing Carolina Press, 1993. xiv + 418 pp., figures, with over 150 issues was justified by the tables, notes, index. US $49.95, cloth; ISBN outcome. The principal lesson to be learned is 0-87249-838-7. whether this type of open-ended, massive negotiating format has value in dealing with As we approach the mid-1990s, we can pre• problems to be faced in the future. dict with certainty that the 1982 United Much of the book is devoted to an expla• Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea nation and application of the methodology for (UNCLOS) will finally become operational as evaluating the negotiating of UNCLOS. While a matter of international treaty law for those unquestionably of value, the core of the book sixty-plus countries that will be parties to the would be beyond the interest of many readers. Treaty. This will be important both as a For the casual reader interested in oceans law, matter of technical law and because several policy and management issues, the chapter new international bodies, such as the Interna• entitled "The Regime Negotiated" provides a tional Seabed Authority and the Law of the superb encapsulation of the negotiated trade• Sea Tribunal for dispute settlement will come offs, successes and failures that led to and are into existence, although operationally and as found in UNCLOS. Not surprisingly, the a practical matter of ocean policy and practice author concludes that the Treaty regime was little will change. Most western countries, the second-best alternative for most of the including Canada, are unlikely soon to participants with the middle developed states become legally bound by the Treaty while (Canada) paying the lowest price (achieving some, like the United States, remain uninter• their goals with the minimum of lost oppor• ested, if not hostile, to UNCLOS. tunity or unattained negotiating goals). The Studying and analyzing UNCLOS has developing world (Group of 77) are seen as been a pastime of many academics during the having paid "a higher price than is usually last two decades. This is not surprising given acknowledged." Friedheim concludes that the that UNCLOS deals with virtually all aspects effort expended in concluding UNCLOS was of human interaction with the oceans: fishing; considered worthwhile by the principal par• hydrocarbon and mineral extraction; scientific ticipants in the process. Less clear is whether research; pollution; national sovereignty over UNCLOS is adequate to manage the ocean ocean space; and the navigational rights of resources. Although setting this out as a vessels. UNCLOS is lengthy, detailed and a question to be examined, the author does not sophisticated international response to com• really assess it. Clearly, this abstraction was mon areas, resources and problems. Moreover, not the true focus of the book. it is one of the most impressive products of The author is more ambiguous about his the United Nations system having taken over assessment of the negotiating processes' of a decade of negotiations to conclude. UNCLOS relevance of the future. Some 120 The Northern Mariner lessons exist and they are set out in the final the way marine incidents unfold or develop. chapter. This chapter would be of special Unfortunately, Waters' statistical analysis, interest for those studying or involved with using American data, could not be replicated complex multilateral negotiations. in Canada. Each American state must report Friedheim's text is a valuable addition to certain kinds of boating accidents to the Coast the law of the sea literature but is aimed at Guard which is compiled annually in Boating those who are UNCLOS specialists or negoti• Statistics. Thus, we learn that in 1991, 46.1 ations theory specialists. percent of accidents resulted from collision. In Canada the Coast Guard only keeps track of Ted L. McDorman incidents that come to its attention; there is no Victoria, British Columbia systematic attempt to integrate "on scene" with other data concerning resources John M. Waters, Jr. A Guide to Small Boat deployed, weather, type of vessel, and so on. Emergencies. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute The Canadian data are incomplete and lack Press, 1993. xv + 333 pp., figures, photo• internal or external validity. Consequently graphs, tables, appendices, index. Cdn $27.50, there is no solid empirical basis for prevention US $19.95, paper; ISBN 1-55750-913-1. through regulation or education. This situation Canadian distributor, Vanwell Publishing, St. will likely get worse in the current political Catharines, Ont. climate in Canada, where less than three percent of the approximately $220 million After a quarter century as a ship's captain, spent each year on federal SAR goes into search-and-rescue (SAR) pilot, and operation• prevention. al commander, John Waters has retired from Waters has produced an exceedingly read• the US Coast Guard. During his service he able book. The appendices include a draft witnessed a wide variety of mishaps and float plan, an emergency bill for a four-person tragedies involving small boats and, in the crew, and checklists associated with different preface, confesses to a few of his own. In this functions (such as pre-boarding) or times of book he distils this experience into eleven day (such as sunset) or unexpected difficulties chapters organized around the dominant theme (like heavy weather). There is also a list of of small boat mishaps, such as fires, ground• factors to consider when insuring a boat and ings and collisions. The text is illustrated with a list of required and recommended safety photographs culled largely from US Coast equipment. Finally, he attaches a list of rec• Guard files, maps, and line drawings. ommended reading. It is all good advice, but These days, the demands placed on the it fails to engage with socio-cultural or politi• US Coast Guard, like drug interdiction, lead cal variables that jeopardize safety. Thus, his frequently to arbitrary behaviour that gener• failure to discuss gender relationships and the ates a steady flow of irate letters to the editors way "macho" attitudes and behaviour lead to of boating magazines. However, the Coast trouble is a major omission. It is easier to Guard are heroes in Waters' book. This may dwell on the technical and equipment issues. irritate Canadian readers, but it is more than The human side of boating safety is much offset by the detail of the advice given and more difficult to analyse. In the meantime, the clarity of Waters' prose. In general, he Waters is to be commended. Despite its discusses the causes of incidents, such as American and East Coast orientation, the book groundings, and what to do about them. is a good read and certainly recommended for Nested within this discussion are examples all smallboat operators. drawn from actual cases taken from memory or from US Coast Guard files. The use of real Roger Boshier incidents effectively supports the analysis of Vancouver, British Columbia Book Reviews 121

Melvin H. Ross and James P. Duffy. Sailboat experience with the ibod. Chartering: The Complete Guide and Interna• Planning the trip is half the fun of char• tional Directory. Old Saybrook, CT: Globe tering and here the book offers more good Pequot Press, 1993. xviii + 203 pp., photo• advice. Careful analysis of the type of experi• graphs, index. US $13.95, paper; ISBN 1- ence desired will help ensure a pleasant time 56440-137-5. for the party. The nuts and bolts of getting ready are also covered. From health and legal This book offers something to both the exper• requirements for the chartering area to a small ienced and novice charterer. For the novice it notebook for a personal log, most of the describes almost everything you need to know pre-trip concerns are mentioned. Of critical when planning that first trip. For the more importance is the nature of the charter con• experienced it makes the point that one does tract. The book indicates what you can expect not have to travel a long distance to have a to find in a contract from a good company. rewarding experience, since seven of the areas Over a third of the book is devoted to described are in Canada and the United States. describing charter areas of the world. I par• The authors begin by stating the obvious. ticularly like the classification system used; Chartering offers the sailor the ability to the most popular (example: The Greek Isles), satisfy the dream of sailing in those locations the most exotic (Seychelle Islands), the most that you have read about and are beyond easy challenging (Maine), the easiest (British cruising range. You can literally sail around Virgin Islands), and the most unusual (North the world without having to do any mainten• Carolina). Within each category, three to ance, face the rigors of long ocean passages, seven areas are described, ranging from half or quit your job. In addition chartering allows way around the world to the middle of North you always to have a boat that is suitable to America. For each area the authors provide the location and the size of your crew. information about what cab be found in terms The book provides a good description of of sailing and shore side experience. A poss• various types of charters — bareboat, crewed ible itinerary that covers some of the more bareboat, flotilla, and sailing school. These interesting aspects of the area is described. allow you to tailor the charter to the experi• Another third of the book is a directory ence and the nature of the crew with which of chartering companies organized by geo• you will be sailing. Thus, five very experi• graphic region. Each listing has the cruising enced adults require different arrangements area, type of charters available, number and than one experienced adult, a tolerant spouse, length of boats, high and low season dates, and two preteen children. The book provides and how to contact each company. The direc• the information needed to make the correct tory itself is worth the price of the book for choices so that the charter will be a pleasant the time it saves looking through sailing experience for all. The book also emphasizes magazines for charter companies in the area that flexibility in choosing a type of charter you would like to sail. will broaden the sailing possibilities; some I recommend this book to anyone think• areas like the Galapagos Islands are only ing about that first charter. It will help you available by crewed bareboat and flotilla make the right choice of type and location of charter. Provisioning is another consideration. your charter, resulting in an experience which Whether you or the charter company does the will make you eager for more. I would also provisioning, what matters is striking a bal• recommend it to experienced charterers look• ance between familiar and new foods, as well ing for new locations and conditions to sail. as between time devoted to preparing your own and dining out. Much of the enjoyment Roy Hostetter of the charter will be determined by the Comer Brook, Newfoundland