BOOK REVIEWS Klaus Barthelmess. The Arts of Modern concerning the biological parameters of Whaling. Sandefjord, Norway: The the raw material, the whales, about the Whaling Museum, Publication 32, history of their products on the world’s [email protected], 2007. markets and about the industry’s 58 pp., illustrations, bibliography. ISBN: technology and history. He envisioned 978-82-993797-5-5. his whaling museum as a research institution about the beginning of the This publication, accompanying Norwegian whaling industry, at its an exhibit, was published on the occasion scientific foundation, rather than at its of the nintieth anniversary of Commander end, as a memorial to a whaling industry C.R. Christensen’s Whaling Museum in that had long declined to insignificance, Sandefjord, Norway. With his keen as is the whaling museum in New interest in cetology, biology, art and Bedford, America’s once-leading whaling history, combined with his talent for port.” (p.5) writing, Klaus Barthelmess from Cologne, Apart from being an entre- Germany, seemed to be the ideal preneur, Lars Christensen was an art candidate to bring together a wide array connoisseur. His interest in architecture is of artefacts – at first glance, with no reflected in the museum building. Given apparent interrelationship other than the breadth of Christensen’s interests it is whaling. Barthelmess creates categories perhaps fitting that the author’s lengthy along rather unconventional lines and his introduction frequently reaches beyond catalogue presents the reader with a the particulars of the exhibit to discuss the colourful bouquet of topics, materials and broader historical development, and data regarding the artists. The author issues of style, regarding the “arts of discusses sixty-six objects and paintings, modern whaling.” This is what this gathered from various collections in reviewer expected to find in the Norway and abroad. Among these introduction to a catalogue bearing this collections are his own. very title. In the first of many very short The Whaling Museum in chapters, Barthelmess discusses the Sandefjord was founded and financed various types of artists: professionals who entirely by local entrepreneur Lars did not have first-hand whaling Christensen. In his introduction, experience, professional artists who did, Barthelmess captures the essence of both amateur whalemen-artists and so on. In the man and his museum collection: “At this case the text relates to the artefacts an early age, he [Christensen] had presented in the catalogue. accumulated immense wealth from In other introductory chapters the whaling, which was then expanding at a link to the exhibit is not nearly so clear. numbing speed across all the world’s The breadth and depth of Barthelmess’ oceans. A keen-eyed entrepreneur, he saw knowledge is impressive – but his the need to base the booming industry’s willingness to share this knowledge is development on sound research: research overbearing. This is unfortunate because The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord, XVII No. 4, (October 2007), 57-102 58 Book Reviews he is impressively concise and yet still earlier book, The Early Exploration of highly informative in the specific Inland Washington Waters: Journals and treatment of the sixty-six objects in the Logs from Six Expeditions 1786-1792 exhibit. He is meticulous in his (2004), which included excerpts from references and truly manages to capture Vancouver’s journal from 27 April, near and hold the interest of the reader– the mouth of the Columbia River, to 23 whoever this reader may have been in the June at Birch Bay, immediately south of minds of the author and the editors. the Fraser River estuary. These books are Much to my regret, however, the intended for readers wanting to learn what author’s solid expertise in the subject the original European explorers had to say matter stands in dramatic contrast to the about the Puget Sound country and its weak organization and presentation of the inhabitants on first contact, and to follow data. There seems to be no thematic or in the explorers’ wake. chronological order in the arrangement of Puget Sound was the first place objects and paintings. If this had been the where the survey was conducted primarily case, the artefacts could have served as from small boats rather than from the points of reference for his compelling ships, which remained at anchor. The story, and Klaus Barthelmess could have front cover of the book is graced with a saved himself the trouble of presenting a delightfully evocative watercolour rather confusing introduction that seems painting by Steve Mayo depicting HM to attempt to tell “everything you always Brig Chatham entering Cattle Pass in the wanted to know about modern whaling San Juan Islands, led by a small boat crew but were afraid to ask.” – capturing the quintessence of the Vancouver expedition’s coastal survey. Joost C.A. Schokkenbroek Brief biographies are included for all the Amsterdam, The Netherlands contributors, and there are five page-sized charts of Vancouver’s original charts, with major place names superimposed. One Richard W. Blumenthal (ed.). With covers the coast from the Columbia River Vancouver in Inland Washington Waters: to Puget Sound. The others are Journals of 12 Crewmen, April-June enlargements of Puget Sound and the San 1792. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co. Juan Islands. Virtually all of the places Inc., www.mcfarlandpub.com, 2007. 230 named by Vancouver and his crews still pp., maps, bibliography, index. US exist on the maps and charts mariners use $39.95, paper; ISBN 0-7864-2669-0. today, a tribute to the dedication, fortitude and character of these early explorers and This book reproduces selected hydrographers. portions of the logs and journals of With so many contributions (over twelve of the officers and men who twenty logs and journals), there is bound accompanied Captain George Vancouver to be some repetition, particularly in the in his survey work charting the continental copying of log bearings, depths, speed coast through the Strait of Juan de Fuca (knots), wind and weather conditions. The and into Puget Sound. It is a sequel to an editor has omitted much of this The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord 59 information in the interest of brevity, by the Vancouver expedition that is not relying primarily on secondary sources and dealt with by Vancouver himself in any microfilms of the originals where he was detail. This is most likely because able to find them. For the most part, he Vancouver was totally (some say has not included the footnotes of previous obsessively) focused on his orders: to chart editors, substituting his own where deemed every nook and cranny of the continental necessary. coast to determine if there was any truth to It is only in the log remarks and the fabled existence of a Northwest the private journals that the personality of Passage to the Atlantic that would be each contributor comes to the fore. The navigable by ocean going ships. This is most notable contributions are those of why he seemingly ignored the shallow and Peter Puget (2nd Lt., HMS Discovery in sometimes dangerous entrances to major 1792), Archibald Menzies (surgeon, rivers such as the Columbia and the Fraser. naturalist), Thomas Manby (midshipman, It is curious that the accounts of and later in 1792, master of Chatham), and the charting of Gray’s Harbour by Joseph William Broughton (Lt. Commander, Whidbey (Master, Discovery), and the Chatham). There are four different journal charting of the lower 100 miles of the accounts of encounters with a skunk. Columbia River by Broughton, in October Manby’s account is quite amusing: “I 1792, were not included in this or the killed a remarkable animal about the size previous edition. These were included in of a Cat, of a brown colour, with a large Vancouver’s account based on Whidbey’s bushy tail, that spread over his back. After and Broughton’s journals. Both these firing I approached him with all speed and journals have now disappeared and the was saluted, by a discharge from him the journal of Edward Bell, clerk of the most nauseous and fetid, my sense of Chatham, seems to be the only surviving smelling ever experienced. My gun and account that chronicles the exploration of cloaths were so impregnated with the the lower 100 miles of the Columbia River. stench that tho’ boiled in many waters, the It appears as a separate chapter in volume cursed effusive could never be eradicated. two of W.Kaye Lamb’s monumental four- A skunk is the name of this diabolical volume edition: The Voyage of George animal, … (and) I promise faithfully never Vancouver 1791-1795, published by the to disturb another on any Hakluyt Society in 1984. consideration.” (p.186) This book, with its inclusive Broughton’s contributions were bibliography and index, should serve as based on a “rough” journal transcribed inspiration to learn more about Vancouver, from microfilm, keeping the columnar his officers and men, and their epic voyage format while the ship was underway and – the longest continuous voyage under sail using only the remarks while at anchor; in history – both in time and in distance and a one-week fragment describing the covered. charting of the San Juan Islands. This fragment is the only part of Broughton’s journal known to have survived. It is also Bill Wolferstan the only significant exploration carried out Victoria, British Columbia 60 Book Reviews Tom Docherty. Dinghy Drop; squadron operational logs, letters and 279 Squadron RAF 1941-46. Barnsley, interviews with crew members. Much of South Yorkshire: Pen & Sword Books it consists of details of searches for Ltd., www.pen-and-sword.co.uk, 2007. known or suspected downed aircraft, and, xi + 259 pp., illustrations, appendices, after locating survivors in their tiny bibliography, index. UK ₤19.99, cloth; rubber dinghies, dropping supplies and ISBN 978-1-84415-482-1. larger inflatable or solid life boats. In many cases squadron aircraft then located This smallish book, although and vectored high speed rescue launches closely related to the sea, will be of or even fishing trawlers to the survivors. considerably more interest to air force There is no specific index item, but, as readers than to those involved with memory serves, there are only one or two matters maritime. It tells, sometimes in references to this squadron’s assistance exhaustive detail, the full history of the provided to seamen in lifeboats from Royal Air Force’s Search and Rescue 279 sunken merchantmen in the Atlantic Squadron, formed in November 1941 and battle, although other histories provide fully operational from January 1942 to many instances of aircraft succouring January 1946. The squadron was one of such survivors. two specifically created and equipped to The squadron began with slightly search for, and where practical, aid in the modified Lockheed Hudson bombers of rescue of airmen down at sea, whether various improving marks, and only later due to enemy attack or aircraft failure. progressed to Hawker Hurricane fighters At first, naturally, this involved for searches, and Avro Lancaster and aircraft that ditched or crashed around the finally Vickers Warwick bombers to British Isles, mostly in the North Sea and deliver survival equipment, the latter English Channel. But as the war spread, being especially modified to carry and and in particular as the RAF, USAF, drop the inflatable Lindholme dinghy and RCAF and others implemented major the more rigid Cunliffe Owen life boat. raids on occupied Europe, the scope for The technology of air-dropped assistance rescue expanded. There was a sub-flight was by no means simple. There seem to based on Iceland and one even in Burma be rather a lot of cases when the late in 1945. The major squadron effort parachutes of the dropped dinghies failed was in the area from southern Norway to to open properly, and, when survivors the Bay of Biscay, and was concentrated, were able to board them, they had if the author’s comprehensive individual problems getting the engine to start or stories are fully representational, between keep running. eastern Scotland, the Dutch coast and the A large part of the challenge was north-eastern English Channel. the weather. Often conditions were foggy Docherty has told the day-by-day, at the least, and often stormy, when sometimes hour-by-hour stories of returning aircraft crashed. The more seemingly all the search and rescue general reader might find it interesting to flights. He compiled this material from note the number of aircraft crashes that occurred due to weather, and also The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord 61 mechanical failure, or navigation Rescue Ships, 1940-1945 (Gravesend: difficulties (some at least of these World Ship Society, 1998). resulting from bad weather) not only among bombers and fighters returning Fraser McKee from combat missions, but among rescue Toronto, Ontario aircraft as well. Docherty lists the 62 crew killed between February 1942 and November 1945 from 279 Squadron Peter Elphick. Liberty: The Ships That alone. The appendices are Won the War. London: Chatham comprehensive, listing every single Publishing, www.chathampublishing.com, aircraft and every crew member on five 2006. 512 pp., illustrations, appendices, occasions of the squadron’s existence, a bibliography, index. UK £15.99, paper; comprehensive medical summary report, ISBN 1-86176-276-3. as well as all the sub-bases and main Peter Elphick argues that the operating locations. contributions of the Allied merchant fleets The book suggests some in the Second World War have been intriguing questions. It seems remarkable “largely ignored by historians and almost that it was not until late 1941 that the wholly forgotten by the man in the street.” RAF appreciated that search and rescue (p. 3) With the present book Elphick units were necessary. Until then, the hopes to correct that oversight. A retired fighting squadrons were expected to Master Mariner who served on Liberties search for their own downed aircraft. in the post-war period, he certainly knows But, as with the Merchant Navy, it soon the ships and brings an admirable passion became obvious that both for morale to the work. Adding extensive research in reasons and the need for experienced archival sources, personal recollections of crews, a determined and visible rescue those who served on Liberties, and an service was necessary and quickly impressive command of the secondary instituted. It is a bit puzzling why the literature to his personal experience, squadron was only ever equipped with Elphick has produced an exhaustive study one Sea Otter (a sister to the famous naval of these important vessels. Walrus), and thus could never land on the Elphick divides his subject into sea even in good weather to pick up three sections. Part one covers the survivors. Perhaps Sunderlands or genesis of the Liberty design, the British Catalinas were too valuable in their anti- Shipbuilding Mission to the United States U-boat roles or some such. It may be in 1940, and the building of the ships. other squadrons were so equipped, and Part two covers the employment of the 279 was more a search and first succour ships during the war, and part three unit. completes the journey by examining their They did well, and the tale is post-war usage. interesting and rather unique, worth its Although the shortest part of the place on a wartime maritime history book, part one is perhaps the most bookshelf, like Arnold Hague’s Convoy satisfying. It is here that Elphick sketches in the “big picture.” In an easy, readable 62 Book Reviews style, he locates the genesis of the Liberty ships were added to the American design in British efforts to revive their Merchant Marine every day, requiring shipbuilding industry during the Great some 200 additional seamen. The US Depression. Their efforts focussed on Maritime Commission could not fill the designing a new class of cargo vessel demand. Elphick cites this shortfall as featuring improved performance and the “principal reason behind the … reduced production costs. Dramatically decision to transfer Liberty ships to other escalating shipping losses following the allied merchant fleets.” (p.110) This outbreak of war forced Great Britain to statement serves as the launching point turn toward America for aid. To that end, for an extended discussion of the many the British government recruited Robert Allied nations that operated Liberties and Cyril Thompson of the Joseph L. the polyglot nature of the crews. Thompson shipyard to head a mission to In part two, Elphick devotes a convince the Americans to build ships for chapter to the ships’ wartime service in England. He was successful and placed each of the various theatres: the North an order for sixty ships based on designs Atlantic, the Murmansk run, Operation developed by his firm. Following ‘Torch’, the Pacific, etc. Each chapter America’s entry into the war, US planners follows the same pattern, essentially a adopted the Liberty design and embarked series of vignettes that illustrate the on a massive shipbuilding program. experiences of the men and their ships. Eighteen shipyards, mostly new Emphasis is really on the crews’ themselves, built 2,710 Liberties before experiences and is illustrative of the war’s end. experiences of the larger merchant fleet. The book is as much about those These brief stories, rarely more than two who built and operated the Liberties as it short paragraphs, follow a common is the ships themselves. Part one includes pattern. Ship ___, under the command of chapters about the shipyards, the ____, was torpedoed by U-boat ___, shipbuilders, and the wartime crews. commanded by ____, and a summary of Henry J. Kaiser, who introduced mass the crew’s fate. While these accounts production to shipbuilding, usually reveal intensive work in British, German, receives credit for the success of the and US archives, they quickly become Liberty program. Elphick recognizes monotonous. A few longer accounts, Kaiser’s contribution, but adds needed especially those that include survivors’ perspective. To his considerable reminisces, help alleviate the tedium. managerial talents, Kaiser added a The last section of the book prodigious ego and a flair for self- covers the Liberties in the post-war promotion. While undeniably important, period. Elphick again uses the Kaiser controlled or had an interest in experiences of a few ships and their only six of the eighteen yards that built crews to illustrate the larger story. Where Liberties. part two is a story of heroism and Staffing the ships presented as perseverance in the face of great odds, great a challenge as did building them. part three is a sad story of decay, neglect, At one point, an average of four new and the increasing marginalization of The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord 63 these once-vital vessels. The book ends contemporary accounts as well as on a hopeful note with the successful archaeological meeting proceedings and efforts to preserve the Jeremiah O’Brien dive-hobbyist magazines. The final work and the John W. Brown, the last surviving is a compendium of most known vessel examples of the once-numerous class. losses. Elphick has largely achieved his Gaines is an engineer and this is goal. Liberty should appeal to both evident in the meticulous attention to popular and scholarly audiences. detail throughout the text. His sense of Specialists and non-specialists alike will organization makes the Encyclopedia easy find the work easily accessible due to the to search, provided one knows the rough virtual absence of jargon and his careful sinking location. Once “on site,” the explanations of technical issues. Scholars information conveyed is useful for wishing to build on Elphick’s work may identification purposes as it contains be disappointed by the lack of vessel type and tonnage, and often, documentation. Citations are sparse and length, beam and depth. Key propulsion there appears to be no pattern determining elements, sail or steam, paddle wheel or which items merit a reference and which screw, are usually present. A short sketch do not. While Elphick includes an of the sinking is present as well. extensive bibliography and useful For many vessels, there is appendices, the lack of citations makes it considerable information presented in the difficult to tie specific quotes or facts text, especially if the vessel was later back to a source. inspected by salvage crews. In some cases, the vessel was captured and entered Larry Bartlett service on the other side. Both its capture Fort Worth, Texas and its ultimate sinking are included as part of the entry. If a vessel wrecked and was then recovered, that is reported, W. Craig Gaines. Encyclopedia of Civil including where it eventually sank. War Shipwrecks. Baton Rouge, LA: Most important, there are Louisiana State University Press, citations for every entry. These are easily www.lsu.edu, 2008. 256 pp., maps, identified and chased down for those illustrations, bibliography, index of seeking more details. The citations shipwrecks. US $ 39.95, cloth; ISBN represent a wide range of sources that are 978-0-8071-3274-6. not critically evaluated. In a work of this sort, that is not a problem because many Gaines has compiled a non-academic sources represent research remarkable listing of Civil War on vessels that is notably absent from the shipwrecks. It is arranged alphabetically more official records. In his desire to be by state and is truly comprehensive. By complete, Gaines utilized some resources his own count, there are well over 2,000 that are often treated with disdain by wrecks, from the Great Lakes, Atlantic, academics. While this might be due to his Gulf and the Pacific. He drew from lack of formal, academic historical official records, newspapers and other training, it is more likely because he 64 Book Reviews wished to identify every site possible. information supplied such as the type of For this he is to be commended. hull, propulsion, draft and cargo. By There are some lapses that are incorporating the information Gaines puzzling. In North Carolina, he missed at compiled into a GIS, a state survey for least two vessels. The blockade runner the years 1860-5 could easily be Star has long been known locally along generated. The interpretive potential of Pamlico Sound but was only recently such a data base is immense, both from (2004) investigated by trained management and research perspectives. archaeologists who found it referenced in It is in this way that this text is so the Naval Official Records of the War of important. In one fell swoop, Gaines has Rebellion. A similar omission is a made it possible roughly to identify Confederate gunboat wreck near locations where shipwrecks are likely to Grimesland, NC, that was reported in one be found and he has provided the means of the Society for Historical Archaeology to identify those wrecks from a specific Proceedings cited elsewhere in the period. Encyclopedia. It may be that there was This book ought to be on the difficulty in recognizing this latter vessel shelf of every Civil War historian, as a Civil War wreck because work on it avocational or professional, as a research was funded by a Revolutionary War tool. It is a must-read for state Bicentennial Grant, and was never underwater resource managers, including commissioned. That only a very few those involved in fisheries and other vessels could be identified as missing renewable resources, because these from the text for one state suggests that wrecks are often prime fishing sites. the Encylcopedia is reasonably complete Heritage tourists can benefit from this for other locations as well. work because it will flesh out and provide Most encyclopedias are useful context to areas they have visited. mainly as starting points for additional Finally, as a teaching aid for showing research. That may not be the case here. how research is done and what it can lead Gaines’ labour of love has provided a to, this text would benefit graduate level level of detail that makes it of special instructors. value; State Historic Preservation Officers charged with inventorying and Lawrence E. Babits evaluating archaeological sites, for Greenville, North Carolina example, will find the book to be especially helpful. The information on each sinking provides a rough location and some evaluation of the vessel’s condition after abandonment. In many cases, ultimate removal or destruction is also mentioned. Since the sinking location is included, GIS applications are readily apparent, especially with the layering The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord 65 Howard D. Grier. Hitler, Dönitz and the Rigorous training was one of the key Baltic Sea, The Third Reich’s Last Hope, reasons why German submarines 1944-1945. Annapolis, MD: Naval remained operationally efficient right to Institute Press, www.usni.org, 2007. xxii the end. Even during the last phase of the + 287 pp., maps, appendices, notes, war, the period covered by this new study, bibliography, index. US $ 31.46, cloth; commanding officers had six months of ISBN 978-1-59114-219-5. specialized training. This culminated in an intensive four- to six-week commanding The name Karl Dönitz still officer’s qualifying course run by veteran resonates in Germany. On the one hand, U-boat skippers which included handling his daughter, Ursula, was invited to a boat against live convoys. Each newly launch Germany’s newest submarine in commissioned boat progressed through at mid-2005, underlining her father’s least six months of rigorous tests and reputation as the forceful and charismatic workups. Exacting standards came at a driving force behind the formidable U- price - thirty boats and 856 submariners boat arm of the Second World War. On the were lost in wartime training and trials. A other hand, a public campaign the same large organization was involved; in fact, year to raise funds to restore a cross on between forty and sixty percent of the the grand admiral’s vandalized grave over 400 boats in commission in 1944-45 outside Hamburg proved too politically were undergoing trials and training. charged for two organizations whose Grier writes that Germany’s members are mostly naval retirees. The strategy in 1944-45 has been incorrectly Marine-Offizier Vereiningung (Naval described as one of blindly refusing to Officers’ Association) and the Verband give up ground with consequently Deutscher U-Boot-Fahrer (German unnecessary losses. He argues that many Submariners’ Association) both declined in the Third Reich leadership actually to support the campaign in their journals believed that new weapons such as jet on the grounds that Karl Dönitz was not a aircraft, the V-weapons aimed at southern suitable role model for today’s generation. England and greatly improved U-boats In Hitler, Dönitz and the Baltic Sea, would turn the tide. Indeed, Grier cites Howard Grier, an American academic, the fact that until March 1945, weeks examines Hitler’s strategic decisions in before the surrender, about half of POWS the last eighteen months of the Second still told Allied interrogators that they had World War regarding holding onto the confidence in Hitler and believed that southeastern Baltic and the role of his Germany had decisive secret weapons. (p. trusted Naval C-in-C, Admiral Dönitz, in 211) Hitler’s aims were strategic as he influencing the Führer’s decisions. was attempting to hold onto critically Post- construction testing and important assets such as oil fields in operational training were the core of the Romania and his U-boat testing and German submarine command. They were training areas. The new ocean-going type conducted from several ports as bases in XXI and smaller type XXIII - both known the southeastern Baltic, safe from Allied generically as “Electro-boats” because of aerial mining until the war’s final months. their increased battery capacity - were 66 Book Reviews famously assembled in a few yards using succeed. In any event, mines dropped by hull sections built in several locations Bomber Command successively closed inland. The ambitious production targets areas of the southeastern Baltic to were not realized, however, and ninety- submarine training starting in late 1944. one of the type XXIs delivered by the end By the war’s final weeks, even as Soviet of the war were still on trials and armies overran ports in the southeastern workups. The author stretches reality in Baltic, testing and training had been order to build his scenario that, until the shifted back to the western Baltic using summer of 1944, the German leadership, deep water off Bornholm – the area still saw the war as winnable. (p.213) which had been vacated back in 1940 The narrative is more convincing when British aerial mines had first caused in tracing Admiral Dönitz’s interventions too much disruption. in favour of holding territory in the The detailed narrative recounts Baltic, initially on the Leningrad front, how and when Hitler summoned senior and then over successive months in commanders to discuss specific Courland (western Latvia) and Prussia operations. The author’s focus is and Pomerania – then German and now generally on the situation on the ground mostly in Poland. The author’s but these conferences do cast light on assessments of Hitler’s fascination with how the Führer conducted his war. Grier U-boats, the potential promised by the writes that Hitler came to rely on a few new classes of far more capable boats and trusted operational commanders who his strategic emphasis on holding the area were personally loyal, ruthless and are not groundbreaking. Australian militarily effective. Generals Schörner journalist Chester Wilmot drew the same and Rendulic were shuffled between conclusions in his seminal The Struggle critical areas on the eastern front to for Europe (1952). What is new in stabilize situations which threatened to Hitler, Donitz and the Baltic is a detailed turn into disasters. The hard-bitten description in English from a German Ferdinand Schörner, eventually a field perspective of the fighting retreat in the marshal, had stood out early as an Baltic, largely a land battle with several outstanding commander and had won shore bombardments by German fleet Germany’s highest honour in the First units. The book is based on prodigious World War. In the Second World War, he archival research from mostly German acquired a fearsome reputation for sources and is backed by several summarily executing soldiers found admirably clear maps. There is, however, behind German lines and was tried by the a lack of analysis about the priority the Soviets for war crimes. His sentence was Soviet high command placed on eventually commuted and he died progressively clearing the Germans first peacefully at age 81. In fact, Schörner from Gulf of Finland and then from the was one of the few field commanders eastern Baltic coasts. Nor does the author who disregarded orders from Hitler not to say anything about the U-boat training give up ground and conducted successful infrastructure which was so important if retreats. He also disregarded Hitler’s Germany’s endgame strategy was to “scorched earth” instructions to destroy The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord 67 infrastructure and housing. The author that German strategy was to hold territory places Dönitz in this tight circle of trusted to preserve the U-boat test and training supporters of the Führer and argues that areas in the southeastern Baltic. the grand admiral’s undisputed influence Recommended for those interested in a helped to shape key decisions about the detailed account of this campaign and of military campaign in the east. In his view, the interplay between Hitler and his senior it was Donitz’s tenacity, unwavering commanders as seen from the German personal loyalty, force of personality and point of view. acceptance of National Socialist ideology that made him Hitler's choice as his Jan Drent successor as head of state. Victoria, British Columbia Grier did research in Sweden and his discussions of decisions by its government and that of Finland cast light John Jordan. Warship 2007. London, UK: on an aspect of the war seldom covered in Conway Maritime Press, general histories. He traces how Swedish www.anovabooks.com, 2007. 208 pp., policy changed as German fortunes illustrations, tables. UK £30.00, cloth; ebbed. His coverage of the “Courland ISBN 978-1-84486-041-8. pocket” – western Latvia – in the last winter of the war when its only This issue of Warship follows the connection with Germany was by sea, is pattern we have come to expect, with a interesting as this is a chapter of the war principal feature and articles that can be which has not received much attention considered loosely related to each other. from historians. The centrepiece of the 2007 issue is an This book includes 36 pages of article by Enrico Cernuschi and Vincent P. useful endnotes and a comprehensive O’Hara on the Italian navy’s efforts to bibliography. There is a very helpful acquire an air arm. This began in 1907 “Dramatis Personae” at the front of the with the experimental use of an book which lists names of various senior observation balloon, towed by an old personnel found in the narrative along cruiser, to detect mines, and later attempts with their responsibilities; this helps the in 1911 to use a balloon for gunnery reader sort out unfamiliar names. It’s in a spotting. In 1913, Italy created a small robust US Naval Institute binding; there naval air service using float planes which are a few grainy rather standard saw action in the First World War. photographs of U-boats. The chapter After that war, the Regia Marina headings include a gloomy stylized Nazi wanted a real aircraft carrier. Between eagle superimposed on a collage of a map 1919 and 1943, they considered many and a U-boat under air attack. This proposals for either new construction or tawdry design belies the scrupulously the conversion of liners, but none came to academic nature of the text. Hitler, Dönitz fruition, although work on the liners and the Baltic Sea is an account from a Roma and Conte di Savoia was fairly well German perspective of the land campaign advanced at the time of the Italian in the Baltic in 1944-45. It demonstrates Armistice in September 1943. As in the 68 Book Reviews case of the Royal Navy’s Fleet Air Arm, Jordan, and is the last in a series on the progress and the provision of suitable interwar contre-torpilleurs. As described aircraft was hampered by opposition from by Hans Lengerer, Japan’s six the Air Force. Hatsuharus had stability problems on In the post-war period, the ever completion and had to undergo major increasing use of anti-submarine alterations. By the time Japan entered the helicopters carried by cruisers, destroyers war, however, they were effective ships, and frigates culminated in the and like all Japanese destroyers, fought a construction of small and medium hard war, all becoming casualties. carriers and air-capable landing ships. In Two battleship losses separated 1989, the Italian Parliament finally by 48 years are the subject of other repealed a 1937 law which confined the articles. There is no mystery concerning operation of fixed-wing aircraft to the Air the loss of the French battleship Iena in Force, and in 1991, the navy received its 1907. Like a number of casualties in first Harrier jets which operated from the several navies in the early twentieth Giuseppe Garibaldi and the new Cavour. century, she blew up because of the All issues of Warship feature instability of cordite when it is old, or design histories of ships and classes. subjected to high temperatures, or New Warship author Jon Wise deals here improperly stowed. The Soviet battleship with the Royal Navy’s missile trials ship Novorossiisk sank in Sevastopol harbour Girdle Ness, which was converted in the in October 1955, apparently due to a 1950s from a Canadian-built wartime mine that might have been there since the maintenance ship. Trials of the Sea Slug war. In this case, there could be a missile were conducted by Girdle Ness mystery, for she was formerly the Italian between 1956 and 1959 and they became warship Giulio Cesare, handed over as an integral part of the British fleet’s war reparations. There is a persistent armament in the County class destroyers rumour that she was sabotaged by former from 1962, finally seeing action in the wartime divers working from an Italian Falklands war. submarine. The article, by Phillippe Two classes of destroyers are Caresse and Stephen McLaughlin, described; the large French Mogador analyses all the possibilities but does not class from just before the Second World come to a firm conclusion. War, and the Japanese Hatsuharus. Only Three articles relate to the First three of the French ships were ordered World War. David Hobbs looks in detail and two completed. On paper, they were at the planned 1918 air attack on the the most powerful destroyer-type ships in German High Seas Fleet by torpedo- the world, but problems with their carrying Royal Naval Air Service complicated armament were never sorted airplanes (the war ended before it could out in their short life. Mogador and her be carried out). CNRS member William sister, Volta, were both scuttled at Toulon Schleihauf describes the post-war when it was occupied by the Germans in gunnery trials using the former German November 1942. This article was battleship Baden as a target. The third contributed by Warship editor John article is an ingenious identification The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord 69 exercise on a 1918 aerial photograph of a new publications aimed at scholarly large number of destroyers berthed at the readers, as well as the general public. Port Edgar destroyer base on the Forth. Benerson Little’s new book, The From an earlier period, there is a profile Buccaneer’s Realm: Pirate Life on the of the nineteenth-century constructor Spanish Main, 1674-1688, is an Nathaniel Barnaby by David K. Brown. incredibly detailed snapshot of a brief but As usual, there is a review of vibrant era in the history of piracy. It world navies and events in the previous boasts an impressive range of anecdotes year (2006) followed by a section which will entertain “armchair containing short notes on miscellaneous adventurers” as well as provide them with naval matters; then a book review section a treasure trove of information. Those which includes Observed Secretly - looking for swashbuckling tales will not Northern Window by late CNRS member, be disappointed. It is not, however, a Daniel G. Harris and Philip Chaplin (also book for readers looking for a long-term deceased). Finally, the usual photo analysis of piracy. gallery appears: this time, Soviet cruisers The Buccaneer’s Realm purports before and during the Second World War. to describe pirates’ cultural and physical A complete collection of Warship environments. It does a fine job in this volumes would contain a huge body of regard, but it would have been more technical and operational naval history by helpful if some of this vivid description the most respected marine historians. could have been placed in a larger and longer historical context. For instance, a C. Douglas Maginley number of the points the author makes Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia about pirates would hold true of other members of the maritime community, and in some cases, of the land community as Benerson Little. The Buccaneer’s Realm. well. In terms of gauging the atypicality Pirate Life on the Spanish Main, or typicality of the pirate lifestyle, it 1674-1688. Sterling, VCA: Potomac would be beneficial if Little made more of Books, www.booksinternational.com, these connections for his readers. We 2007. xvi + 343 pp., illustrations, maps, might also wonder about the interplay appendices, notes, bibliography, index, between piracy and other forms of US $29.95, cloth; ISBN maritime employment. In earlier periods, 978-1-59797-101-0. men moved from more legitimate forms of seafaring to piracy and then back again. Early modern pirates seem to Was this the case in this era, or did the hold a great allure for us. This has only men who crewed pirate ships live been enhanced by the recent success of exclusively outside the law? Little’s work the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. doesn’t really address this issue Simply put, pirates are “hot,” and it comprehensively, although he does rightly should come as no surprise that this is suggest a close relationship between reflected in a seemingly endless array of piracy and privateering. 70 Book Reviews The strength of the book is the land community rests largely on large number of engaging anecdotes Lawrence Stone’s controversial The about many colourful characters. It is Family, Sex and Marriage and Antonia evident that Little is charmed by his Fraser’s The Weaker Vessel. From these subjects – sometimes too much so. He works, he makes the debatable (and asserts that the real pirates of the possibly anachronistic) claim that “Sex Caribbean “surpassed anything in fiction itself in the seventeenth century was little or film” and that “from 1674 to 1688 different from sex today…Bathing, oral reigned the boldest, truest and perhaps hygiene, antibiotics, and contraceptives… greatest pirates of the Caribbean…” (p. are the major differences.” (p.168) 12) These are grandiose claims indeed. Furthermore, in the past, sodomy was While Little clearly revels in pirates and typically a capital offence, so those piratical feats during this important 14- wanting to conduct homosexual acts were year period, he seems to ignore the fact risking death by doing so. These are that many of the acts and attitudes he significant differences in my estimation. extols can also be attributed to men of Although Little uses B.R. Burg’s earlier eras. provocative work, Sodomy and the Pirate Other strengths of the book Tradition, he does not directly tackle the include some interesting appendices thesis that homosexual acts among pirates which cover varied topics such as were widespread, habitual and buccaneer organization and planning a acceptable. Little goes on to claim that boucanier barbecue. There are maps and “Adultery and premarital sex was as several diagrams which illustrate some of common as it is today,” yet he does not the most common types of ships and explain that, if this were so, why weapons of the period. Such material is illegitimacy rates remained extremely informative as well as entertaining, low in the early modern world, which particularly for readers who are not lacked effectual birth control. (p.170) specialists in the field. Sadly, the book is marred by such Arguably, the great weakness of assertions which are not borne out by the the book is that the author likes to make evidence provided. bold assertions and sweeping Although Little has consulted a generalizations which he does not back range of primary and secondary sources up with adequate proof or references. For on his topic, his bibliography lacks some instance, the “The Torrid Zone” chapter key sources, such as the works of Marcus on sex and romance on the Spanish Main, Rediker and David Cordingly. Little’s is largely based on limited evidence and perspective would have been enhanced by anecdotes. Early modern historians incorporating and perhaps refuting some usually complain about the lack of of their findings. information about the sexual habits of our Stylistically, Little’s prose is ancestors and, as a result, this confines somewhat choppy at times. He begins a them to rather tentative conclusions. story, veers off into a thorough Little shows no such caution. His explanation of some aspect of pirate life, analysis of the sexual practices of the and then returns to his tale. This jarring The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord 71 quality detracts from the “flow” of the rather than established. Remarkably, book as well as readers’ capacity to three competing expeditions practically absorb the reams of information in this overlapped in the Antarctic, and were at detailed work. Overall, The Buccaneer’s least able to narrow the focus of the Realm is a panorama that reveals a vast search. In January 1840, a French number of aspects of the pirate world expedition under Jules-Sebastien-César during a colourful 14-year period. Dumont d’Urville, in Astrolabe and Zelée, Although Little makes certain statements reached the coast of Adélie Land, and which will make some cautious historians deduced that the South Magntic Pole must uncomfortable, it is evident he can spin a lie south of that location, probably on riveting tale and sweep away readers to land. At exactly the same time, the ships the glory days of the Spanish Main. of the United States Exploring Expedition, under Lieutenant Charles Cheryl Fury Wilkes, were also off this coast, and one Fredericton, New Brunswick of his ships, Porpoise, even met Astrolabe and Zelée on 30 January 1840. Wilkes, too was able to deduce that the South Granville Allen Mawer. South by Magnetic Pole must lie south of Adélie Northwest. The magnetic crusade and the Land and the Wilkes Coast. A year later, contest for Antarctica. Edinburgh, UK: in January 1841, James Clark Ross, in Birlinn Limited, www.birlinn.co.uk, command of Erebus and Terror, was the 2006. xii + 319 pp., maps, illustrations, first to penetrate into the Ross Sea, and appendix, bibliography, glossary, notes, was able to determine that the South index. UK £ 25.00, CDN $ 55.95, cloth; Magnetic Pole musts lie some distance to ISBN 978 1 84158 5 017. the west, thus getting a cross-bearing on its location. While all three expedition A small library of books has been leaders suspected that they were seeing written about the search for the the coasts of a continent, they could not geographic South Pole, i.e. the southern be entirely sure of this. end of the Earth’s axis of rotation, but The first party to reach the South Mawer’s is the first to focus on the search Magnetic Pole (or at least its close for the South Magnetic Pole, i.e. the proximity) was the northern party of location where a dip-needle (a freely Ernest Shackleton’s Nimrod expedition in suspended magnet on a horizontal axis) 1907-9, consisting of Douglas Mawson, points vertically downwards. Alistair Mackay and Edgeworth David. Once Commander James Clark Starting from Shackleton’s base at Cape Ross had located the North Magnetic Pole Royda, they man-hauled north along the on the west coast of Boothia Peninsula (in west coast of the Ross Sea, then up a what is now Nunavut) on 1 June 1831, it series of glaciers onto the Antarctic Ice was only natural that attempts would be Cap. On 16 January 1909, at 72° 25’S; made to locate the South Magnetic Pole, 155° 16’E, they calculated that they had although at the time the existence of the reached the Pole. Their return trip to the Antarctic continent was only suspected, Ross Sea was a brutal race against time, 72 Book Reviews and they came within an ace of literally was disputed (at least in part) by France “missing the boat” when Nimrod steamed on the basis of Dumont d’Urville’s past their campsite without spotting it. discovery, and by Norway. Mawer’s The next attempt at pinpointing handling of these topics is the South Magnetic Pole was made by a comprehensive. These claims (and all three-man party from the Cape Denison other territorial claims in the Antarctic) base of Mawson’s Australasian Antarctic have been in abeyance ever since the Expedition of 1911-14. On 12 December Antarctic Treaty came into effect on 23 1912, having sledged 3,480 km south June 1961. across the Ice Cap, Robert Bage, Frank Mawer’s accounts of attempts at Hurley and Eric Webb were forced to turn tracking the South Magnetic Pole, which back at 70° 36½’S; 148° 10’E by has now moved well offshore, off Adélie dwindling food supplies. At that point, Land, come to as close to the present as Webb calculated that the Pole lay some the year 2000. On 23 December 2000, 80-100 km further south, i.e. that it had Dr. Charles Barton, of the Australian moved a substantial distance north in the Bureau of Mineral Resources, on board intervening four years. the MV Sir Hubert Wilkins, determined Mawer has described all five of that the ship was only 1.6 km from the these expeditions in considerable detail, pole, at 64° 40’S; 138° 00’E, i.e. off and what is strikingly apparent is that the Adélie Land. hardships and drama of the latter two The major weakness of the book, sledge-hauling expeditions match and it is a serious one, concerns the anything experienced by the better- numerous maps and charts. Without known attempts at reaching the exception, Mawer has opted to reproduce geographic South Pole, such as those of contemporary maps and charts, most of Scott, Amundsen and Shackleton. which have had to be substantially Apart from fairly detailed reduced to fit the page size, to the point descriptions of the expeditions mentioned where the place names and details are thus far, together with a great deal of largely illegible. To make matters worse, technical detail, Mawer also engages in they are all printed in a grey tone, which lengthy discussions of the controversies simply exacerbates the problem. that arose from them. The first of these is Inclusion of a set of maps specifically the controversy between Wilkes, Ross drafted for the book would have been and Dumont d’Urville as to the accuracy enormously better. A map showing the of their respective cartographic depictions migration of the South Magnetic Pole of the land they claimed to have seen. since its first discovery would also have The second deals with the later disputes been useful. The author has included an over territorial claims. Douglas excellent bibliography, but has Mawson’s BANZARE (Britain, Australia, overlooked (or opted to omit) a recent New Zealand Research Expedition) was and important source; namely, Nathaniel dispatched south primarily to establish Philbrick’s book on the United States the Australian claim to the “Australian Exploring Expedition (Sea of Glory, quadrant” (45° to 160°E). That claim 2003). The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord 73 These points notwithstanding, The competing crews in the 1979 Mawer has contributed a serious study, Fastnet Race expected a challenge, an long overdue, of the history of the search exhilarating ride and three days of top- for the South Magnetic Pole that matches flight competition. Unfortunately, what the best examples of the literature on the resulted was the worst tragedy ever to parallel search for the geographic South befall an ocean-sailing race. Twenty-four Pole. boats were abandoned, nineteen men died and 136 had to be rescued. This book William Barr looks at the race through the eyes of a Calgary, Alberta handful of sailors on four of the yachts whom the author interviewed about what they still call “that night.” It describes their optimistic camaraderie at the start Adam Mayers. Beyond Endurance. and recounts their descriptions of terror, Toronto: McClelland & Stewart. courage and split-second decisions in www.mmcclelland.com, 2007. 250 pp., ferocious seas. photographs, maps, appendices, Until now, the one best-selling bibliography, CDN $ 36.99, cloth; ISBN book about the Fastnet tragedy was a 978-0-7710-5755-7. first-person account by a sailing journalist. Mayers’ dramatic narrative Subtitled “300 boats, 600 miles gives his readers a frank and objective and one deadly storm,” this book is a summary of ocean racing. He makes the fascinating account of the 1979 Fastnet point that his eyewitnesses encountered Race. Some 3,000 yachtsmen, most of neither bad weather, nor even rough whom were amateur ocean-racing weather, but a killer storm and he pays his enthusiasts in their mid-thirties, raced respects to Sebastian Junger’s The Perfect from Cowes on the Isle of Wight in the Storm with vivid explanations of knock- English Channel to the Fastnet downs. He has traced the origin of the Lighthouse, off the south coast of Ireland, storm to Minnesota via Georgian Bay in and back to Plymouth. The two previous Lake Huron, Ontario, where, within 24 Fastnet Races had been uneventful and hours, it struck a farming community, the 1979 race started calmly enough, until killing two people, injuring 130 more and the yachts left the shelter of the Cornish destroying dozens of homes and farm coast and were hit by a Force 10 storm. buildings. The storm arrived in Nova Adam Mayers is a Canadian Scotia on the opening day of the Fastnet journalist and sailing enthusiast who was Race and then swung out into the North living in Cornwall, England, in 1979. His Atlantic. Once the race started, the first book on ocean racing, Sea of French weather forecast proved more Dreams, was about the 2002 Around accurate than the British one used by the Alone global yacht race which nearly cost race officials. Staff at the British the life of Canadian Derek Hatfield after a Meteorological Office later admitted that five-cent screw came loose and drained they did see the storm, but with the tools the yacht’s batteries. they had at hand, they could not assess its 74 Book Reviews severity. Search-and-rescue officials were the participants, their extraordinary unable to launch an effective response strength and skill kept them alive. because the fleet was so large that the The reader does not need to be an location of most of the yachts was ocean racing enthusiast to enjoy this unknown. adventure story. There are ample Mayers makes an excellent illustrations, mainly from the personal analysis of “accident theory” in ocean collections of those interviewed. In a racing where, in a tightly coupled short afterword, their subsequent sailing environment with many things connected, exploits are recapped, along with what the smallest thing can lead to catastrophic has happened to their yachts. Maritime failure. On a boat, mechanical systems historians might find that the book’s lack are in constant motion, twisting and of an index and its very brief bending, straining their fastenings and bibliography limits its usefulness. The fittings. No one knows when a piece of Fastnet Lighthouse is known as the equipment will break until it breaks, but teardrop of Ireland, as it was the last point there is the ever-present consequence of seen by emigrants, and it lived up to its small problems growing into major name for the nineteen men who died in catastrophes. After the 1979 Fastnet race, the 1979 Fastnet Race. Adlard Coles updated his yachtsman’s guide, Heavy Weather Sailing, due to log- Michael Clark book recordings of cyclonic gusts where London, UK wind speeds varied by more than twenty knots within a few miles. The book’s contribution to Roberta M. Styran and Robert R. Taylor. maritime history is Mayers’ practical The Welland Canals Corridor, Then and knowledge of ocean-sailing, combined Now. St. Catharines, ON: Looking Back with his journalistic ability to portray the Press, www.lookingbackpress.com, 2004. participants’ characters. He has skillfully 128 pp., photographs. CDN $ paper; organized his material into ISBN 1-55068-932-0. chronologically divided chapters that include exhaustive details known only to Madeleine Muntz. John Laing Weller: the competitors he has traced. These “The Man Who Does Things”. St. interviews are mixed with realism and Catharines, ON: Vanwell Publishing Ltd., sympathy as participants shared the www.vanwell.com, 2007. 150 pp, intimate details of those intense, dramatic illustrations, CDN $ 22.00, paper; ISBN few days in the Irish Sea thirty years ago. 1-55068-984-3. Some of the recollections differ in detail, though rarely in substance. For many, While Vanwell Press (and its reliving the race was not easy, but the Looking Back Press imprint) have a St. author makes it clear that, without Catharines address, they are perhaps best exception, they came away from it feeling known for their national and international more alive and more self-aware. Despite book list. Here, by contrast, are two very the hallucinations suffered by many of local titles. So local, in fact, illustrations The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord 75 in both volumes cover the area where change inherent in building a four- lane Vanwell's corporate headquarters now highway over the course of the canal. stands. (Styran, p.111; Muntz p. 63) Occasionally the pictures fit The Welland Canals Corridor is together perfectly; for example, the Pic an example of what has become a staple River and Margaretha Green upbound of the market for illustrated histories: the with the Queenston Street bridge open “then and now” volume. Find a and the Garden City Skyway in the reasonable selection of historical images; background. Images of downtown stand in the same location and take a Merritton (pp.62-3) even match to the modern photograph; place on facing season. That said, the general sense is pages. It is a simple formula and it sells. that the modern pictures were taken first Do it well enough, and you can go back and then complementary historical ones twenty-five years later and use the “now” were tracked down. pictures as “then.” Part of the fascination In general, The Welland Canals of the genre is recognizing the survivors Corridor: Then and Now works at a from “then” in the “now.” Sometimes the simple level and being 128 pages, mostly clue is a road or a rail line or an early with full-page illustrations (a reasonable hydro corridor. In this book, the number of which are in colour) it is a connecting theme centres on the multiple reasonably inexpensive collection. canals that have crossed the Niagara Nevertheless, from a historian’s Peninsula closing in on two centuries, and perspective, there are other titles that the communities that have grown up supply illustrations with a stronger around them. historical context than this title, which This volume breaks with the like most of its counterparts, confines standard formula in that the juxtapositions most of the storytelling to the captions. are often more thematic and less specific The Vanwell offices are located in location. Divers from different eras stand that part of St. Catharines known as Port at different points on the canal (pp.118-9) Weller, a community named for Peggy while the gardens are at opposite ends. Muntz's grandfather, J. L. Weller. Not (pp.122-3) Often scenes match, but many government canal superintendents imperfectly. The two aerial views of Port have communities named after them, and Colborne (pp.16-17) are taken from the circumstances of this decision aren't different angles, with one taking in much well addressed in this title. More than just more of the community. The Henley a professional biography of Weller, this Regatta has eights in the old photo and book approaches a family memoir with fours in the new, rowing in different significant background on Weller's father directions on different sections of the (stagecoach magnate, William Weller) as course. (pp.102-3) The scenes of the well as his children and their spouses. second canal in St. Catharines are Grand-daughter and author, Peggy Muntz, particularly awkwardly matched. One is now in a retirement facility and the spread appears to be deliberately back-to- manuscript reached publication thanks, in back, and really fails to convey the some part, to people associated with the 76 Book Reviews St. Catharines Museum, including, among references are to the family scrapbooks others, Roberta Styran who was the lead and papers. Some additional material is in the other title in this review. This incorporated but not enough to take it far reviewer suspects that Appendix B beyond its beginnings. (Family Experiences, 1912-19) was lifted out of the original manuscript and the Walter Lewis sections on the creation of the Fourth Acton, Ontario Canal that remain (chapters six and seven) were extended with their help. That said, there are some substantial Carla Rahn Phillips. The Treasure of the quotes (pp.57-60 and 66-70) that pad out San José. Death at Sea in the War of the what was left behind. Spanish Succession. Baltimore, MD: The Those caveats aside, the volume Johns Hopkins University Press, provides some insight into the character www.press.jhu.edu, 2007. xiii + 258 pp., and the activities of the government illustrations, maps, appendices, notes, engineer who designed the Fourth Canal bibliography, index. US $ 35.00, cloth; and who worked tirelessly in supervising ISBN 978-0-8018-8580-9. its construction right up until the altered priorities of the First World War forced a In 1989, the government of halt to activity. All of this had to be done Columbia invited the author, a professor while the traffic of the Third Canal in early modern history at the University flowed past sites where the new steam- of Minnesota, along with other scholars driven devices worked alongside to advise them on the possible salvage of equipment hauled by mules. That the shipwreck of the Spanish galleon, San Alexander Grant, the engineer who José, near the port city of Cartagena off supervised the completion of the task the Columbian coast. The ship, part of a through the 1920s, gets more credit is one Spanish fleet and heavily loaded with of the things that Muntz routinely alludes gold, silver and other valuables, went to, even as she draws on the family down in a battle with a British squadron scrapbooks to show instances where her under commodore Charles Wager in June grandfather was given his due, or when 1708. The ship’s riches, already famous more acknowledgment was deserved. at the start of the voyage, have since John Laing Weller is well grown ever larger through rumour and illustrated from the author’s collection legend. The Columbian government donated to the St Catharines Museum, wanted to salvage the wreck, if it could with some additions from the author's be found, as part of the country’s colonial niece. Additional photographs highlight and maritime past. The wreck, however, the strengths of the museum's collections. has never been located. The title succeeds as a family memoir, After her visit, the author took and provides another point of entry into the fortunate decision to search for every an understanding of the history of the document about the legendary treasure canal in the twentieth century. While ship she could find. And lucky she was! reasonably well footnoted, many of those She has unearthed large quantities of fine The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord 77 material during her time-consuming and to whom the escape of a second treasure painstaking research in Spanish archives ship was an outright blunder, have and in collections in Great Britain and the described what happened according to United States. As a result, she is now able them and how the San José went down. to tell the story of the galleon, from its This reconstruction makes fascinating construction and outfitting, to its fatal reading and illustrates how much can be journey and wreck, and even up to and achieved by the clever use of sometimes including the aftermath in which widows complementary, but more often, and other relatives of the deceased contradictory and conflicting sources. seamen and soldiers succeeded in getting Many witnesses attempted, of course, to back pay or compensation from the clear themselves from possible future Spanish king. In all, the story accusations by giving accounts that were encompasses almost two decades, from favourable to their own conduct. The the start of the ship’s construction in 1697 chapter is preceded by two informative to the closure of the books of back pay chapters on the crew and soldiers aboard and compensation in 1716. The author the San José and on the commander of the has used this wealth of documents to fleet, Count Casa Alegre, and his second write a marvellous book, fascinating from and third officers, Don Miguel Augustín beginning to end. And what is more, de Villanueva and Count Vega Florida, there is no “fiction,” “docu-fiction,” or respectively. other postmodern niceties, just pure and Incidentally, the author discusses simple history in which the actors in the many other aspects of Spanish and drama can be followed on the basis of European politics as well as the workings their often conflicting testimonies, logs of the colonial empire. Through and recollections. Phillips also knows focussing upon the family background how to successfully combine the micro- and careers of the first officers of the history of the ship with European political fleet, she comments upon naval service history at large during the eventful years and upward social mobility in Spain’s of the Spanish succession in the early multi-layered aristocracy. The dire eighteenth century. financial straits of the Spanish monarchy The main chapters of the book are discussed along with the practice of deal with the shipwreck in June 1708 and lending money to the crown. Merchants with the ship’s officers, seamen and and naval officers saw it as a way to soldiers. As to the wreck during the advance their careers, although it brought battle, the author offers a reconstruction some of them to the very brink of of what happened using the many bankruptcy. By discussing the personal accounts and logs of the crew preparations made for the return fleet, members of other ships who escaped Phillips shows the importance of unharmed, or were captured by the British patronage in the administration and and made statements later. British economy of the empire. Throughout the officers and seamen, too, for whom the book, the reader is made to realise how sinking of the San José was, of course, long, drawn-out and time-consuming the not what they had intended to achieve and decision-making process in the empire 78 Book Reviews was, due to long distances, uncertain experienced on board were central to the circumstances, the threat of war at sea, making of global capitalism. personal choices and slow bureaucratic The appearance of this book is procedures. timely, as the world observes the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave Jaap de Moor trade in Britain (1807) and in the United Amsterdam, The Netherlands States (1808). Rediker’s focus is the so- called “golden age” of Atlantic slavery for these two nations, the beginning of Marcus Rediker. The Slave Ship. A which he dates to 1700. It was in that Human History. New York, NY: Viking, year that the first slavers sailed from both Penguin Group, www.penguin.com, Rhode Island and Liverpool, the eventual 2007. 434 pp., illustrations, notes, index. centres of these countries’ slave trades, to US $ 27.95, CDN $34.00, cloth; ISBN participate in the highly risky yet 978-0-670-01823-9. phenomenally lucrative trade in human beings. Many of us are familiar with the Too frequently, the ships, numbers. Over twelve million people captains, crews and cargoes physically were collected in Africa to be shipped to enabling the overseas trades of the early New World destinations, with a mortality modern period are absent from figure of about five million between the conventional narratives. This initial stage and the slaves’ first few years conspicuous void in the historiography in America. An estimated 1.8 million leads one to presume that the process of died en route to auction while moving people and cargoes from port to experiencing the Middle Passage. These port was more or less a routine activity, statistics, though expressions of the with little real significance or numerical loss, are in their coldness and consequence for the development of trade rationality very much an abstraction from and society. As Marcus Rediker understanding the full magnitude of demonstrates in convincing and terrifying suffering and torment spawned by this fashion, however, one must appreciate the trade and those who profited by it. maritime dimension of the Atlantic slave Statistics, Rediker explains, hide the trade to achieve a fuller understanding of names and identities of slaves, as well as not only the creation and continuance of the inhumane nature of the trade, for part an over-three-hundred-year- old trading of the enslavement process was in the system, but also the rise and movement of numbering of people and record keeping capitalism around the world. Rediker’s in the ledgers and account books focus is the slave ship, an instrument, he generated to organize and administer the reveals, that was nothing less than crucial trade. Rediker’s study is invaluable for in establishing and sustaining this brutal its ability to make readers care deeply process of forced migration. Indeed, about this subject beyond the numbers. Rediker places the ship alongside the He personalizes this massive tragedy, as plantation as a formative institution of he relates the trade in African slaves in slavery, while arguing that the horrors human terms with truly staggering and The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord 79 unforgettable accounts of men, women much more difficult to deny. He is and children being torn from their homes, writing history from below, meaning from shackled in chains aboard floating the perspective of the lower class, and in dungeons where they faced torture, this case, those captive below deck. beatings and rape, to experiencing further Indeed, it is difficult to recall a time in horrors at shipboard auctions and a which humankind sank so low for so long lifetime of subservience. While the ship on such a massive scale. was the setting for considerable violence Rediker provides maritime and terror, it also provided the historians with numerous insights into environment for slaves to create novel seafaring and the shipping industry with means of communication, knowledge respect to the slave trade, but could do gathering, and a culture of resistance, more to compare the experience of this which enabled the majority of them to trade with that of others. With a mortality survive the ocean passage and their rate of one in five and an even greater risk bondage in America. of contracting serious illness, combined Rediker, an eminent Marxist with rigid discipline, harsh punishment historian of maritime life and labour, and the possibility of being dumped in the describes the slave ship as: “a strange and West Indies prior to the return voyage to potent combination of war machine, England, by far the worst berth a sailor mobile prison, and factory.” (p.9) He could take was on a slave ship. Rediker structures his book into four distinct spends little time examining the methods narratives, being the interaction between of recruitment employed by slavers or the captains and crews; the relationship pressures on ship owners to man their between crews and slaves; the resultant vessels throughout the eighteenth century. cooperation between slaves; and finally Instead, we are often provided with a the gradual success of abolitionists, such description of the common sailor, based as Thomas Clarkson, in using the image mainly on his earlier study, to represent of the slave ship to convince a great many the entire period under review. More people that this barbarous trade had to could have been said on the relationships end. By focusing on all of the actors in linking owners, merchant investors and this human tragedy, including the suppliers, as well as the particular hundreds of thousands of non-slaves networks found in the chief slave trade comprising ships’ captains, skilled ports of Liverpool, Bristol and Newport. officers and sailors, Rediker thereby The Slave Ship is a valuable enlarges the historical drama. As companion to Emma Christopher’s Slave previously explored in Between the Devil Ship Sailors (2006) and Jeffrey Bolster’s and the Deep Blue Sea (1987), the Black Jacks (1997), and should be familiar tensions between merchant regarded alongside other groundbreaking capital and the labour of the proletariat works by historians of the slave trade, are at the forefront. Unlike that study, such as those by Philip Curtin, John here Rediker’s conclusions about the Thornton, and David Eltis. Several profundity of violence found in this trade clearly labelled maps and well-chosen and the system that encouraged it are illustrations further strengthen this study. 80 Book Reviews Inclusion of the various renditions of the The author sets the stage by slave ship Brooks, used to turn the tide of outlining the revolutionary design of the public and political opinion against the iron-clad steamers. The rules of trade, is particularly effective in shipbuilding changed overnight with the reminding readers that the ship and the special nature of this new type of maritime dimension in general cannot be warship. The author’s central thesis is divorced from examinations of the that failure of the monitor program, the Atlantic slave trade and the legacy of epitome of the boondoggling and war racism, exploitation and inequality it was profiteering in the popular consciousness instrumental in creating. and press of the time, had its deepest roots in the program itself, and Michael F. Dove particularly in the nature of the Navy’s St. Thomas, Ontario contracts. The style is immediate and highly readable. A passionate interplay develops among the major figures early in the William H. Roberts. Civil War Ironclads: book, focusing on the general inspector of the U.S. Navy and Industrial ironclads, Alban Stimers. The book is Mobilization. Baltimore, MD: Johns based largely on primary sources, Hopkins University Press, (Johns particularly the correspondence of Hopkins Studies in the History of Gideon Welles, secretary of the Navy; Technology), www.press.jhup.edu, 2007. Gustavus Fox, assistant secretary; John xi, 285 p. Illustrations, tables, Ericsson, inventor and shipbuilder; and appendices, notes, sources, index. US $ engineer Stimers. The monitor project 55.00, paper; ISBN 978-0-8018-8751-2. organization, headed by Stimers, was meant to capitalize on the strengths of The book is a tightly focused private industry and break the technical examination of shipbuilding and and bureaucratic logjam presented by the industrial mobilization during the US Navy bureau system of American Civil War and its aftermath. In administration. In this, it presaged the ten compact chapters, the story unfolds of modern Special Projects Office structure the challenges faced in building monitors used to produce the Polaris missile in the interior of the country, in cities system in the mid-twentieth century. such as Cincinnati and Pittsburgh. The Various aspects of the failure of work covers the construction of the five the light draught monitor program and of classes of monitors following the Stimers are analyzed throughout the prototype of the USS Monitor, and in book. The fact that the already ambitious particular, the Casco class of light design, overloaded with changes and draught monitor. The period covered is improvements, would not float when from early in the Civil War until 1918, launched was a testament to the pace of when the last appeal from a civilian technical change, which had outstripped contractor for payment was turned down the constructors’ ability to perform by a US court. calculations. It was also a symptom of a The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord 81 dysfunctional organization which would nature of the shipbuilding enterprise. The not, or could not, provide oversight to the inability to put precious shipyard space to monitor program. Lessons learned in profitable use once it was dedicated to combat were incorporated into ships building and reworking the monitors already under construction or already on virtually ensured the business failure of active service at great cost in time and each contractor. money. The author uses the phrase The monitors, once built, were “better is the enemy of good enough” to indeed “good for fifty years” in the words characterize continuous improvement, of John Ericsson, the genius behind the which was the most essential problem early ironclads. Although the light with the program. Building times for the draught monitors were completed too late later monitors, especially the light for the war, they spent their service lives draughts, stretched from six months to quietly along the coasts and in the river over three years. systems of the United States, effectively For a work dedicated to contracts underlining the power of the federal and economics, it is also a wonderfully government into the 1900s. enlivening look at the people and the In the last chapter, entitled politics who served Fox’s desire for “Additions, Alterations and perfection. Stimers, in particular, hoped Improvements,” the long, bitter history of that by fulfilling those ambitions he the attempt to reckon the cost of the would set his seal on history. The part continuous modifications and of the played by passion and human nature as contractors’ attempts to be paid is dynamic generators is also depicted in the followed in some detail. It would have senior levels of the US Navy bureaux. been helpful if the author, in tracing the The monitor is described as the site of the long term effects of the monitor program social struggle between the line officers of on the US Navy, had defined the concept the sailing navy and the engineering of the “reverse salient” for the benefit of officers of a new, mechanized navy non-engineers. represented by Stimers. This study of the logistics of The deep problems faced by shipbuilding is a re-examination of a civilian contractors are described and classic case of shipbuilding gone wrong. analyzed with supporting detail in charts This work should be of interest generally and tables, illustrating the economic with a special appeal for readers environment in which the program interested in coastal and riverine warfare. functioned. Basic problems included It should be of interest to any student of shortages of material and skilled labour, warfare in coastal and interior waterways. and inflation. To these were added the Civil War Ironclads could easily be a case disadvantages of river-based construction, study to accompany any text in the history such as, currents, ice and water levels, all of technology or management. Anyone of which forced launch schedules and concerned with managing complex necessitated expensive workarounds for technology, of which building warships is fitting out. Added to the myriad problems still among the most complex, will be able faced by the contractors was the singular to apply lessons learned. Any harried or 82 Book Reviews overworked project manager plagued by ones found in more traditional accounts specification creep or feature bloat will of the decline of American shipping since be repaid many times over by reading this the Civil War. This is a brilliant work of work. synthesis in which the authors offer their unique interpretation of the past based on Kathy Crewdson and Ian Dew much of the most recent scholarship. Thunder Bay, Ontario Each author is a distinguished historian: Alex Roland has written several books and teaches the history of Alex Roland, W. Jeffrey Bolster, technology and military history at Duke Alexander Keyssar. The Way of the Ship: University; Jeffery Bolster, a professor of America’s Maritime History maritime history at the University of New Reenvisioned, 1600-2000. Hoboken, NJ: Hampshire, is the author of Black Jacks: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., African American Seamen in the Age of www.wiley.com, 2007. xv + 521 pp., Sail (Cambridge, MA: 1997); and illustrations, maps, tables, appendices, Alexander Keyssar, a prize-winning glossary, bibliographic essay, notes, historian of several books, is Stirling index. US $ 35.00/ CAN $ 41.99, cloth; Professor of History and Social Policy at ISBN 978-0-470-13600-3. the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Benefactors from If you purchase only one book on the American Maritime History Project, maritime history this year, buy this one. Inc. sponsored the authors’ research and There has been a deluge of books on writing. many aspects of American maritime The Way of the Ship is divided shipping, but what appears to have been into five parts, each containing eight to lacking is a comprehensive, single eleven well-crafted, short chapters that volume chronicle of the history of the make for easy reading and subject since its beginning in the early comprehension. Rather than write as a seventeenth century to the end of the committee (never a good idea), each twentieth century. The authors have author appears to have taken sought to fill this gap by retelling the rich responsibility for one of the sections: history of American maritime shipping Bolster for part one, Roland for parts two from new perspectives. First, they view and five, and Keyssar for parts three and the story from a global perspective, and four. Part one is an excellent, up-to-date second, they incorporate the crucial synthesis of the history of American contributions of coastal, riverine and colonial shipping to the end of the Great Lakes shipping into an up-to-date American Revolution. It argues that the account of oceanic shipping. “America is great wealth of American colonists, made a brown-water nation with a blue-water in large part by shipping and especially consciousness,” claim the authors. They its invisible earnings, played a key role in present a unique, refreshing, authoritative creating the new nation. Part two, total picture, drawing some significant covering the period from the creation of conclusions that differ from the usual the United States of America to the Civil The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord 83 War, incorporates the golden age of ocean place of maritime labour from the colonial sail, but instead emphasizes the rise of period to the present is another important coastal and inland shipping. It presents a feature of the book, as is the place different view of American maritime reserved for brief, engaging sketches of history when domestic, waterborne some of the most interesting innovators, commerce exceeded the value and volume businessmen, politicians, and labour of ocean trade by a factor of three and leaders in American history, from Robert four. Part three treats the rise of marine Fulton to Malcolm McClean. One could industry and labour in the gilded age, and go on, for there are other praiseworthy part four examines the weight of war on contributions. shipping between 1905 and 1956. Among The book’s greatest strength, many insightful observations is one however, is the reasoned discussion of the pointing to the unintended consequences failure of American policy makers to find of the decision to build navy ships in a way to support a sustainable American government-owned shipyards. This fact, oceanic shipping industry during the last combined with Americans’ love of wood third of the nineteenth and all of the and sail, long inhibited technological twentieth century. A large part of the transfer to commercial yards in the new answer lay in the subordination of age of iron and steam. The great surge in economic considerations to false shipbuilding during the First and Second arguments about the need to support vital World Wars did little for American links between shipping and national shipping. Part five, which deals with the security. Preferences and subsidies also rise of the megaship and the worldwide had a way of setting one interest against transformation of shipping and ports another, so that the maritime industry brought about by changes in ship never spoke with one voice. But this is a technology, telecommunications and history. The authors remain analytical markets reflected in globalization, is and eschew advocacy and nostalgia. Four perhaps the most challenging part of the appendices will aid in making their work book. a ready reference tool, and colour The authors employ five reproductions of sixteen maritime analytical threads in each part — paintings by John Stobart will delight fans economics, policy, labour, military, and of one of America’s great marine artists. technology — to pull their history The Way of the Ship allows readers to together and to move it forward. This has enjoy, to consider, and to appreciate the allowed them to focus on the continually richness of American maritime history in changing nature of cargoes and of ships, ways that are fresh and intellectually from tobacco exports to oil imports, and challenging. from the 30-ton pinnaces of the early colonial period to the Ultra Large Crude James Pritchard Carriers (ULCC) capable of carrying Kingston, Ontario more than 300,000 tons of oil that have shaped the history of American shipping. The weight and importance given to the 84 Book Reviews Roy E. Schreiber (ed.). Captain Bligh's frequently mixing in the dance or being Second Chance. An Eyewitness Account the musician to his own slave.” (pp.36-7) of his Return to the South Seas by Lt. Still he looked forward to the George Tobin. London: Chatham amelioration, especially in the lot of the Publishing, 2007. West Indies' slaves, even as he correctly www.chathampublishing.com, 184 pp., predicted that once they were freed, sugar illustrations, maps, notes, index; UK £ production would decline. He also 19.99, cloth; ISBN 987-1-86176-280-1. remarked that several French slavers, flying the tricoleur arrived with full William Bligh achieved in his cargoes. So much for “Liberty and second voyage to Tahiti what he had so Equality”! (p.38) With the vessels memorably failed to accomplish in his refitted and re-provisioned, the expedition first trip in 1789, to transport breadfruit departed Africa shortly before Christmas tree to the West Indies as cheap slave 1791, making Tasmania on 9 February food. The present account, completed off 1792, before shaping a course south of the North American coast in 1797 and New Zealand. On 1 April, the ship veered unpublished until now, was penned by north to Tahiti, which welcomed the Bligh's third lieutenant, George Tobin. visitors a week later, thirty-six weeks Tobin, the son of a Nevis planter, was from Spithead. (p.71) After five months born in Salisbury, Wiltshire. His formal at anchor off the island, the expedition education abruptly ended when he headed homeward west into the Indian entered the navy on HMS Namur as a Ocean, and thence to the West Indies, captain's servant in 1780, not yet aged where the precious cargo of breadfruit twelve. An unemployed midshipman at trees were principally destined. the end of the American war, he was a There are several curiosities to be newly-promoted lieutenant when, in April noted in Tobin's account; the first relates 1791 at Deptford, he joined Bligh's 400- to Bligh. Captain Bligh, known by the ton West Indiaman HMS Providence. In lower deck as the “Bounty Bastard,” is the intervening years he had sailed once scarcely mentioned, not even a word of to the Far East. (p.55) his ungovernable temper and inability to The Providence took him first to get the best from his crew, which formed Tenerife and Cape Verde for fresh water part of the background of the first and provisions. At Cape Town, Tobin voyage. In Tobin’s account, Bligh was a found slaves at work in a limestone reformed soul. He praised Bligh’s quarry (p.34) and noted Robben Island seamanship and noted his role as master housing convicts. In the matter of on Cook's third voyage to the Pacific in domestic slaves, he wrote of “an 1776. (p.55) He particularly admired unrestrained manner between the owner Bligh's behaviour among the Tahitians, and the slave ... The Cape Town slaves and his concern for the health of those appear cheerful and content ... In the who served under him. Tobin remarked evening they commonly resort to the that before paying off his ship, Bligh dancing houses, where the master does thanked all hands for their conduct during not feel his dignity wounded by the voyage, promising them his interest The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord 85 for their advancement in the sea service. represent good taste. He was struck by As it turned out, such patronage counted their cleanliness, when English personal at first for little as Bligh's popularity, habits were still at their most foul. He during his two years' absence, had came quickly to admire the Tahitians and evaporated. According to the newspapers, correctly feared their future harm from the crew received his thanks with cheers both the activities of missionaries and the and applause. vices of men who made their living at sea. Those unfamiliar with the balance As the manuscript was largely of Bligh's career should know that he was completed while Tobin was serving on the involved in two later mutinies. The first North American coast, he makes several of these was the great naval mutiny of references to Nova Scotia. Perhaps one 1797 and the second, when he served as worth relating arose during a swimming governor of New South Wales in 1808. In party near Halifax, where one of Tobin's 1797, he played a key role in helping to fellow officers left his pocket watch on a confine the mutiny to Spithead and the flat rock a few steps from the water's Nore, while in 1808 he was imprisoned by edge. When he emerged from his swim, the military mutineers for two years, and he found a snake curled around the watch was exonerated from any share in the lulled to sleep by its soft vibrations. (p.51) blame. On the high seas, under Duncan, It put him in mind of an incident with a Bligh’s ship was involved in the naval snake near Cape Town in 1791. victory over the Dutch at Camperdown in Tobin was a skilled watercolourist 1797, where the Dutch flagship struck to and his account is copiously illustrated him. In 1801, at the dishonourable battle from paintings now in the Mitchell of Copenhagen, under Nelson, he Library of the State Library of New South commanded perhaps the most lethally Wales, and formerly owned by Earl armed warship in the line. Spencer. In preparing his manuscript, By far Tobin's most interesting Tobin was denied by the Admiralty Board comments concerned the people of Tahiti. from consulting his original lieutenant's He was greatly impressed with the sexual logs, a matter which clearly rankled. The freedom he observed among Tahitians. logs are now located in the National “If frail, yet do they largely teem with Archives, Kew. George Tobin brought his charity and benevolence.” (p.77) He artistic talents to North America when he admired the girls’ contempt for pain when was appointed second lieutenant on HMS being tattooed. “The deeper the wounds, Thetis, a frigate commanded by Alexander the greater the triumph, the more their Cochrane, when Rear Admiral Murray led boast, nor is persuasion at all required to the North American squadron. Six of gain an exhibition of their proud Tobin's watercolours from 1794-5, stains.” (p.78) He wondered how much principally of the capture by Thetis and more attractive such tattoos would be on HMS Hussar of a French frigate and the white flesh of English girls, even on sloop off Virginia, are held by the State their “most ignoble parts.” He frequently Library of New South Wales, and another compared behaviour and attitudes to that eight are in the collection of the National of the English who thought themselves to Maritime Museum, Greenwich. One 86 Book Reviews painting of the Halifax Naval Yard in least notionally aware that behind the 1797 is in the collection of Library and queues of disciplined, patient troops Archives Canada (Winckworth (itself a bit of myth) awaiting evacuation Collection). It was on the North from the beaches at Dunkirk with other American coast that Tobin was made troops, their colleagues, fighting commander of the schooner Princess of hopeless, but not fruitless, rearguard Wales, and in 1798, of the new Bermuda- actions that permitted the evacuation. built 14-gun sloop Dasher, in which he Their courage is eclipsed in terms of escorted a convoy to England the public awareness by the “miracle” of following year. Though connected to Dunkirk that saw the safe evacuation of Nelson through marriage, he reached some 330,000 men from France – highly captain's rank only in 1802, and briefly trained soldiers saved to fight another became flag captain of HMS day. Their loss would have severely Northumberland under Cochrane, then a weakened an already weak Britain and rear admiral and commander of the perhaps have led to Hitler launching his Leeward Islands station. At war's end, invasion, an invasion that surely would Tobin, now a companion of the Order of have succeeded, given the lack of troops Bath, never again went to sea. available to oppose him. Clearly, without Regrettably, almost none of this detail Dunkirk, the progress of the war would appears in the editor's introduction. have been much different, if not the ultimate outcome. Julian Gwyn This book is not a typical Berwick, Nova Scotia offering of The Northern Mariner book reviews in that it focuses on a military campaign. Dunkirk is famous, and Hugh Sebag-Montefiore. indeed legendary, for its naval Dunkirk, Fight to the Last Man. component, the deeds associated with the Cambridge, MA: Harvard University evacuation and the brave “little ships” Press, www.hup.harvard.edu, 2006. 701 that ferried over to Britain the hundreds pp., photographs, maps, appendices, of thousands of soldiers. The fact that the notes, bibliography, index. US $ 35.00, need for the evacuation resulted from cloth; ISBN 978-0-674-02439-7. military defeat in the fields of France and Belgium is often obscured by the Hugh Sebag-Montefiore, a scion wondrous nature of the withdrawal itself. of the London-based investment firm, Churchill, of course, was under no Sebags, has delivered a wonderful illusion on this score, remarking that account of a well known event from a “Wars are not won by evacuations.” relatively new perspective. I use the Sebag-Montefiore, who, interestingly, word “relatively,” since students of the had two relatives evacuated from catastrophic 1940 Allied defeats in Dunkirk, concentrates his narrative on the Belgium and France are well aware of the much less known or understood story of broad outlines of the story that Sebag- the rearguard forces. It is a story that Montefiore relates. Indeed, most are at deserves to be told. And, it is a story of The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord 87 heroism, brutality, and horror. A worthy Roman soldier Vegetius, who remarked: volume indeed to both review and for all “Let him who desires peace, prepare for members of the Canadian Nautical war.” This part of Sebag-Montefiore’s Research Society to read and ponder. book includes a fascinating and Sebag-Montefiore covers the illuminating discussion on intelligence entire campaign in Belgium and Flanders and how information was misused and to provide context for the story. He is misunderstood, as well as the melancholy unsparing in his criticism of France and story of defeat and confusion in the first its generals who proved woefully days of the German offensive. inadequate in meeting the challenges The second part of the book takes presented them. That this was almost the narrative to the outskirts of Dunkirk certainly yet another baleful legacy of The after the German early triumphs. The Great War is perhaps not adequately author notes that the fog of war affected allowed for. The author offers useful the German Army as well as the Allies summaries of the intelligence gathering and that the occasion for more than one manoeuvres that affected the campaign German “halt” order as their armoured and how they were conducted by both formations romped through Northern sides. The well known “Mechelen France and Belgium was lack of incident,” where the German war plans knowledge and fear of the Allies. What fell into the hands of the Belgians, is well were considered ineffectual ripostes on analyzed, particularly how the the part of the BEF and the French Army information was digested and, ultimately, were, in fact, sources of great concern to misunderstood to the detriment of the the nervous German High Command. In Allied defence. He also describes how particular, the British counterattack at intelligence received from a German Arras affected the thinking of the German traitor in the Abwehr Military Intelligence High Command out of all proportion to branch was misused when received what was physically achieved. Indeed, it through Dutch sources. This aspect of the can be argued that the small “victory” at story is perhaps less well known and Arras was a necessary prerequisite for the understood by most. “success” at Dunkirk a few days later. The book is organized in four The inverted commas are, of course, basic sections, although not so divided in necessary as the reality of the situation formal terms. The first part describes the was defeat. BEF’s arrival in France and the plans The third part describes the developed for the defence of the West. rearguard actions around Dunkirk that The author develops one of his abiding provide the focus for the book. These themes for the book in describing the involve a selection of the numerous small fundamentally poorly prepared British actions that slowed and discouraged the Army and its lamentable state of German advance. It also includes a equipment. A critical lesson from the pre- number of harrowing descriptions of what war period is the harsh advice (as can only be described as atrocities unwelcome to today’s leaders as it was to conducted by the German Army involving those in the inter-war years) of the rough the massacre of surrendered soldiers and 88 Book Reviews civilians. After the war, some German analysis is a thoroughly compelling officers were eventually tried for these narrative that, frankly, should be required incidents and either executed or reading for anyone who wishes to imprisoned. understand this rather less fashionably The fourth part covers the interesting period of Second World War evacuation and the final rearguard actions defeat. that permitted the trapped BEF and a Sebag-Montefiore has at least segment of the demoralised French army three lessons, or observations, for us. to escape to Britain. It also covers the The first, already mentioned in this futile sacrifice of the Highland Division review, is to never permit one’s military at St. Valery, which performed the task of to run down as it is a fundamentally atonement for the British “abandonment” flawed saving and policy in the long-run. of France in its hour of need. The The second relates to coalitions and the bitterness of Sebag-Montefiore’s account difficulties of the junior partner. Britain in this regard is a reminder of the was clearly subordinate in its role of troubled relationship between Great assisting the French in defending their Britain and France that has its country, yet it still needed to be far more reverberations to this day. aggressive in participating in the conduct The book concludes with a of that defence. The British Army number of sections that provide suffered a major defeat in 1940 and many information as to what happened to the thousands of men died as a consequence. principals – important and not so Had a more frank and demanding important – discussed in the narrative. relationship with the French been in The map section is superb and quite the place, it is quite possible that the best this reviewer has seen in many a campaign would have had a different volume on military matters. The outcome. In 1940, German victory was photographs included are also excellent. by no means inevitable nor the German A series of appendices provides statistical Army invincible. British unwillingness at details that are usefully presented and the highest and mid- levels to tackle the provide a bare bones report as to what French as to plans and intentions was was achieved with the Dunkirk ultimately self-defeating. Both these evacuation. Finally, the notes and lessons are highly relevant today for bibliography are of a high standard. The Canada as we have questions to answer in author’s research has been exceptional each case – that of the equipping and and included all the archives from each manning of the Canadian Forces, as well nation involved, as well as a as our role in coalition warfare, such as comprehensive review of the appropriate that in Afghanistan. Finally, Sebag- war diaries, military records and Montefiore notes on a personal basis that appropriate secondary sources. Veterans had defeat been total as a result of the and their surviving families were tracked 1940 campaigns with the occupation of down to provide additional detail and Great Britain following the capitulation confirmation or refutation of the accepted of the BEF in Flanders, his Jewish family truth. The result of this comprehensive almost certainly would have been wiped The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord 89 out as part of the “Final Solution.” The racial unrest, even though tension had courage and sacrifice of those rearguard been present in the armed forces since forces, therefore, was not expended in their inception and, since 1948, vain and enabled Britain to survive as the desegregation. The main reason was keystone to ultimate Allied victory after President Nixon’s decision to move to an five more years of total war. For that all-volunteer force, which cut back on the Sebag-Montefiore is grateful, and so recruiting pool for the Navy. The Navy should we. had been a haven for individuals who Is this book worth reading? were obligated to join the armed forces Absolutely. but did not want to serve on the ground in Vietnam. The Nixon decision led to a Ian Yeates change in the standards for new naval Regina, Saskatchewan recruits. Lower test category scores for black sailors, coupled with long deployments during the Vietnam War, less John Darrell Sherwood. Black Sailor, than desirable assignments and fewer White Navy: Racial Unrest in the Fleet opportunities to advance, and the spread During the Vietnam War Era. New York: of black power ideology all played a role New York University Press, in the increased tension throughout the www.nyupress.org, 2007. v + 434 pp., fleet and undermined the morale of the illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, black personnel. index. US $ 35.00, cloth; ISBN By the end of 1972, the Navy had 978-0-8147-40360-1. been significantly engaged in the Linebacker air campaigns while trying to Sherwood chronicles racial unrest reconstitute the fleet for the post-Vietnam in the United States Navy by focusing on future. It was also working toward the case studies of three eruptions of tension integration of many unskilled black that occurred in October and November sailors who encountered the Navy’s 1972 and a series of other incidents pervasive institutional racism but now had through August 1973. The major a means to express their protest. Even so, incidents, aboard the USS Kitty Hawk, some among the Navy’s leaders and other USS Hassayampa, and USS Americans in positions of political power Constellation, occurred towards the end were reluctant to admit that racial of the American war in Vietnam and prejudice existed in this branch of the highlight not only the institutional racism service. The racial unrest in the Navy inherent in America’s long naval history, during the Vietnam War era served as a but also the effects of an arduous war in dramatic backdrop for the Civil Rights Southeast Asia that would claim as its struggle, which had also factionalized to victim two American presidents, tens of include a violent alternative to the passive thousands of lives, and the lost innocence resistance of Martin Luther King, Jr. of a generation of its youth. Sherwood brings together an Sherwood maintains that a extensive list of materials from the Naval number of factors led to the outbreak of Historical Center including operational 90 Book Reviews records, JAGMAN investigation reports, that Holloway’s success could not have which detailed the incidents of alleged occurred without Zumwalt. racism and possible corrective and Black Sailor, White Navy is a disciplinary action, oral histories supplied well-constructed narrative that examines by many of the participants, and the very the origins and events of the naval little utilized, but extremely valuable version of the Civil Rights movement in papers of Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr. the early 1970s. While there is a held at the Naval Historical Center. tendency to indulge in biography Zumwalt, who was chief of naval throughout the work, it is clear that operations during the period, is the main Sherwood made his selections protagonist in the narrative. Although judiciously. Black Sailor, White Navy is a Sherwood does not use the extensive very valuable contribution to both our Zumwalt papers available at the Vietnam understanding of the dynamics of the Archive at Texas Tech University or United States Navy and the Civil Rights really go outside of the Naval Historical movement toward the end of the Vietnam Center, he still provides impressive War era. evidence to support his narrative. It was Zumwalt who had the Ronald Bruce Frankum, Jr. forethought to engage the Navy in a Millersville, Pennsylvania reexamination of its policies on race, to recognize that a dilemma did exist, and who had the courage to begin the process Peter C. Smith. Midway: Dauntless of rectifying the problem, often in the Victory, Fresh Perspectives on America’s face of institutional and Congressional Seminal Naval Victory of World War II. opposition. Sherwood maintains that Barnsley, S. Yorkshire: Pen & Sword Zumwalt had to play the role of Books Ltd., www.pen-and-sword.co.uk , iconoclast by confronting entrenched 2007. 384 pp., illustrations, maps, naval tradition but he was not a radical. diagrams, tables, appendices, notes, He recognized that a real problem existed bibliography, glossary, index. UK £30.00, and understood that it needed to be fixed US $ 60.00, cloth; ISBN: before the Navy suffered irreversible 9781844155835. damage. Zumwalt is the hero in this story, although his role in reforming the Much has been written about the navy is scrutinized. It was Zumwalt’s battle for Midway Island which took successor, Admiral James Holloway, III, place between 4 and 6 June 1942. It was who proved more successful in correcting the subject of several major Hollywood the disparity of black sailors in the Navy films, mostly with complete disregard for by focusing on creating more historical accuracy, and there have been opportunities for these men to advance to two television specials in this century leadership positions rather than, as dealing with the battle. This work is the Zumwalt had done, to try to change the latest in what seems to be an ongoing racial attitudes of the institution. fascination with the events of over sixty- Sherwood correctly implies, however, five years ago. The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord 91 Midway Island was critical to the of their own. Lacking the support of the plans of Admiral Yamamoto, the carrier aircraft, the invasion force turned Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial around and returned to its bases. It was a Japanese Navy’s (IJN) Combined Fleet decisive victory for the Americans and it and the architect of the raid on Pearl marked the turning of the tide of the war Harbor. Midway was close enough to in the Pacific. Hawaii to provide a base for attacks and This book is the author’s second for mounting an invasion of those islands, on Midway. His earlier work was as well as others in the South Pacific, specifically commissioned and produced should such a scenario have later proven in 1977 to tell the true story of the battle feasible to the Japanese. But Yamamoto in the face of the fiction posing as fact in also wanted to draw out the remaining US the Hollywood movie Midway, which naval forces in the region and force a came out in Britain in that year. In this decisive battle. The IJN, flushed with the work, Peter C. Smith takes a fresh look at euphoria of their success in the first six both the facts of the battle itself and the months of the war, naturally assumed that myths and controversies that have arisen the US Navy would be defeated in such a over the years. He also makes the case battle. A large invasion force, protected that it was the USN dive bombers, the by four aircraft carriers of the IJN Mobile “Dauntless” in the title, which were the Force, together with their cruiser and key to victory, and they have not been destroyer screens, set sail for Midway. given appropriate credit for their role in The Americans were extremely the battle. well-informed about the plans of the IJN. Using an enormous variety of Led by a small cell in the headquarters of sources, the author describes the origins Admiral Nimitz in Pearl Harbor, the USN of the planning of the raid by the IJN, the had broken the IJN codes and knew of the development of the intelligence picture by imminent attack. Nimitz deployed his Nimitz’ staff in Pearl Harbor (including forces to counter the threat, and the battle the conflicts in interpretation of that began on the morning of 4 June, when intelligence between the staff and the carrier-borne aircraft from each side Naval Intelligence bureaucracy in discovered the other at long range and Washington), the battle itself and the attacked. Neither the Japanese nor the aftermath. What is fascinating is the way American ships saw each other and there in which Smith weaves his analysis and were no ship-to-ship engagements, conclusions into the retelling of the although submarines from both sides did historic events. He concentrates on how make attacks. The only successful the men who actually did the fighting ― engagement was by a Japanese submarine the pilots and aircrew, as well as the on the by-then crippled USS Hornet. commanders at sea saw the battle ― by using survivor accounts and contemporary Through a combination of luck, operational reports. The author great skill and dogged determination, the interviewed a number of surviving Americans prevailed and sank all four of participants from both sides during his the IJN carriers with the loss of only one research. 92 Book Reviews Along the way, Peter Smith of them are of the “Spell Check” type – separates the reality from the myths, right spelling, wrong word in context, criticizes where criticism is warranted, such as “where” for “were” (p.176), sometimes in contradiction of accepted “thee” for “three” (p.177) and “changing” accounts of events, and provides very for “charging” (p.335). objective and astute observations of those These minor irritants aside, events of more than 65 years ago. For Dauntless Victory is a major contribution example, the war was almost over before to maritime history and one which is the well-publicised claim by the US likely to add to the controversy over Army Air Corps that their B-17 and B-24 Midway since I am sure that not all bombers had been responsible for the devotees of the battle, especially those victory at Midway was challenged by the who inhabit the internet sites devoted to USN. He also shows how even Midway, will agree with the author’s operational reports have been assessments. manipulated to foster particular agendas or to embellish or tarnish reputations. It Michael Young is a fascinating read. Ottawa, Ontario The book is well illustrated with a good selection of photographs including some previously unpublished. There are David A. Taylor, Boat Building in good maps but in places they are hard to Winterton, Trinity Bay, Newfoundland. decipher. Also included are damage Ottawa: Canadian Museum of diagrams showing the extent and effects Civilization, Cultural Studies Paper 80, of the hits on the ships that were sunk. www.civilazation.ca, 2006, xxi + 164 pp., Regrettably, the author is not well photographs, illustrations, map, notes, served by the layout chosen by the appendices, bibliography, CDN $ 29.95, publisher. It detracts from the paper; ISBN 0-660-19599-2. cohesiveness of the text. Some of this is because the author uses footnotes and he I collected this book a quarter of has provided extensive a century ago in its first edition because I biographical/service record sketches of thought it was an extremely thorough and the participants he names. These would well written study of a unique boat have been better placed in an appendix. building micro-culture. At the same time It is exacerbated by the choice of type it was also a useful manual in the art of size in which the main text is barely conducting this type of field research in larger than the footnotes. In the early social and material history. Upon reading chapters there are several instances where the second edition I haven’t changed my much of the page is taken up by mind. footnotes, such as page 27, where there In 1980, Taylor’s research report are only six lines of text and the rest is was submitted as his Master’s thesis for footnotes. There are also a lot of typos an Arts degree in Folklore at Memorial which could have been detected by more University. It was published in 1982 by diligent proof reading and editing. Most what was then known as The National The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord 93 Museum of Man. The museum’s name worked all the harder to ferret out and has changed and, while the book is understand the smallest details, republished in almost the same large construction idiosyncrasies and traditional overall format, it also has changed. By techniques. Then he clearly presented resizing and combining the photographs, these minutiae of information collecting footnotes into endnotes, and accumulated by his keen curiosity. He using a more compact, though clean and also detailed the variations between the clearer typeface, they have produced a builders or in their procedures. more attractive volume in 164 pages He explored the historic designs instead of the original 270! Incidentally, which led to the boats then in use, though the first edition was free; values have also here he had less success. There has been changed. little work on the roots and development Taylor set out to document all of the traditional wooden small craft of aspects of traditional wooden boat Newfoundland, before or after Taylor’s building in one small community and study. Many worthwhile and less went about it with youthful but dedicated worthwhile volumes have described the American enthusiasm. He brought his regional cod and its disappearance; but Maine boat-building research experience few words seem to have been left over for to Newfoundland, expanded upon it and the tools used to capture the cod and their succeeded admirably. He arrived at parallel decline. That decline was Winterton at the opportune moment, as partially fostered by the reduction in fish small, wooden workboat building was but also by the arrival and almost approaching a finite craft, time was universal adoption of glass-reinforced running out, and all but one of the eight plastic as a boat-building material. local boat-builders were over 60. All of David A. Taylor deserves the them cooperated with him, perhaps recognition awarded Edwin T. Adney, H. capturing some of his enthusiasm, and I. Chapelle, Eric McKee, Christian perhaps appreciating the contribution they Nielsen, David Zimmerly and other were making to the provincial folk-life ethnologists who have researched and archive. Whatever the reasons, Taylor recorded indigenous small craft. His examined not only the construction of the work was more geographically restricted various types of boats but also the life and though perhaps a more comprehensive history of the community and the end-use and focused examination, but was no less of the boats. significant for the imposed limitations. He described the design process, The photographs are clear and the transference to the building shop, then well chosen to enhance the author’s text; the methods, tools and materials used. and the unattributed isometric sketches But he also described the influence and expand his ideas beyond the written word. historical traditions behind the boats, and The large scale fold-out lines plans at the how and why they developed and back of the book by J. Rodger Pearson are changed. While Taylor’s boat-building examples of what should be the norm in techno-naivety is apparent, his lack of this type of book. And the glossary was a experience proved to be an asset. He delightful insight into the uniquely 94 Book Reviews picturesque yet descriptive terms Stig Tenold. Tankers in Trouble: Newfoundland boat builders used. Norwegian Shipping and the Crisis of the Unfortunately, with the disappearance of 1970s and 1980s. “Research in Maritime the wooden boat, these words, like the History,” No. 32; St. John’s, NF: cod, will disappear. What better word International Maritime Economic History than Dell to describe the narrow area Association, 2006. x + 257 pp., tables, inside a boat at the keel, where the bilge figures, bibliography. US $ 25.00 (free to water collects. members of the IMEHA), paper; ISBN The second edition might have 0-9738934-2-7. been more useful if an editor had examined and commented on the state of Stig Tenhold has written an boat building in Winterton today and authoritative study of the 1970s tanker noted the changes which have taken place crisis and its effects on Norwegian since Taylor’s interviews in 1978/9. Has shipowners. Tankers in Trouble uses a the fishery completely disappeared and multi-layered structure to analyze how been replaced by tourism? Has the the collapse in the worldwide tanker Winterton Boat Building Museum market led to a depression in global succeeded, and is it a true medium of shipping, and in particular, how the materiel culture transference? The Norwegian-registered tanker sector was answers to these and other questions all but destroyed. The author proceeds would have made this second edition progressively in three parts from an more valuable, but perhaps this criticism examination of pre-1973 international should only be made by those who were shipping markets to the Norwegian privileged to read the first edition. It is shipping registry and finally, to an all- good that the museum has reissued this too-brief review of the strategies of four book, making all the valuable information Norwegian tanker owners. once more available to inspire a new Chapter one lays out the structure generation with the complexities of and argument in a straightforward Newfoundland’s wooden boats in their fashion. Shipping as a servant of post- cultural context. war economic expansion had grown in concert with increased world trade David A. Walker through to the early 1970s. While this Halifax, Nova Scotia progress was not uninterrupted by downturns in the business cycle, the general trend was upward. Shipowners had made profits and continued to expect more. The author argues that Norwegian owners followed these general tendencies but they did so within a particular national pattern. What Norwegian shipowners did do to a greater extent than competitors in the other traditional maritime nations was The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord 95 to invest in large, fast, turbine-powered tonnage of vessels on order, but some tankers. The increasing demand fuelled Norwegian firms had ordered vessels in by steady oil prices led to the building of anticipation of future charters. One larger and larger vessels, most of which owner, Hilmar Reksten, had ordered four were tied to the time charter market. In 420,000 deadweight Ultra Large Crude the beginning, the vessels were built only Carriers (ULCC) just before the market to meet signed charters. As time went on, collapsed. He did so without long term however, factors outside the seemingly charter cover! These steam-turbine- simple supply and demand equation driven ULCCs were ordered, not as a mad began to intrude on shipowners’ gamble, but as part of a rational economic calculations. Western European equation that included: government governments’ concerns for continued incentives, access to relatively easy viability of national shipbuilding financing, and a view of future prospects industries led to financial incentives to based on past outcomes. build vessels. The availability of such OPEC price hikes helped usher in incentives, as accelerated depreciation a period of global stagnation that put an and direct investment grants, positively end to the post-war economic boom. encouraged shipowners to acquire new World shipping markets fared poorly with tonnage whether or not they needed it. Norwegian tanker owners having a When this type of stimulation was added particularly difficult time trying to come to the booming tanker market of the early to terms with the new reality. In Chapter 1970s, risk itself appears to have Eight, Tenhold traces the fates of four disappeared from the shipowners’ different tanker owners, only two of calculations. While the business cycle which will be considered here, Sig. had not been abolished, the profitability Bergesen d.y., and Hilmar Rekstens of the good times indicated to shipowners Rederi. These mini-histories demonstrate that the growth in demand would continue that Norwegian corporate reaction to the uninterrupted. Thus, when the 1973 oil shipping crisis was far from monolithic. crisis with its jump in prices destroyed the An individual firm’s behaviour depended predictability of the demand equation, upon such variables as fleet size and Norwegian shipowners were unprepared structure, tonnage on order, percentage of for the resulting collapse of the tanker tonnage tied to long term charters, and the market. firm’s risk profile. Tenhold argues that Norwegian The most spectacular fall from tanker operators had become victims of grace came with the collapse of Rekstens. their own success. Prosperity had lulled Hilmar Reksten was known as a them into thinking entirely within a buccaneer for his seemingly unending market box that did not extend beyond the series of winning bets on the future of the West’s never-ending demand for oil and tanker sector throughout the 1960s and their own tax planning. The OPEC early 1970s. As the author admits, decision to raise oil prices could not have analysing Rekstens shipping business is come at a worse time for the tanker complicated by the fact that he allegedly market. Not only was there a record held substantial maritime assets outside of 96 Book Reviews Norway. His management strategy, markets in the last third of the twentieth however, was to bank on continued century. The author has shown that he expansion of global demand for crude oil. has a command of both economic theory Arranging charter contracts in advance of and the specifics of the Norwegian new buildings was treated as an old- shipping sector. Tankers in Trouble fashioned risk-averse strategy that would deserves to be read by everyone only reduce profits. Before 1973, interested in the political economy of Reksten’s aggressiveness appeared to pay post-war shipping. off. He kept building the largest and most efficient tankers which he used in M. Stephen Salmon the spot market. When the demand for Ottawa, Ontario large fast vessels came crashing down in the fall of 1973, Rekstens was stuck, not only with unemployed ships but also with Geoffrey Till (ed.). The Development of a host of ULCCs on order. With the British Naval Thinking. Essays in virtual disappearance of the spot market, Memory of Bryan Ranft. Abingdon, UK: the tonnage on order became less Routledge, www.routledge.com, Cass employable than the company’s existing Series, Naval Policy and History, 2006. vessels. By 1975, Rekstens was bankrupt xvi + 214 pp., notes, bibliography, index. with the Norwegian government and the US $ 49.95, paper; ISBN company’s bankers left to restructure the 978-0-7146-8276-4. old firm. If Hilmar Reksten represented the It has often been remarked that wild west of Norwegian ship ownership, while the Royal Navy made the British then Bergesen was the solid, stuffy, Empire possible, especially during the conservative alternative. In 1970, long, golden years of Pax Britannica, it is Bergesen was Norway’s largest a frustrating thing to seek the principles shipowner with 2.2 million dwt which of strategic thought underpinning the had expanded to 2.8 million by 1973, process. Of course, we know how many with an additional eleven tankers and one ships of each type were built, which 223,000 dwt combination oil/ore carrier provides a clue to the types of service on order. Looking solely at order books, expected, whether battle or cruising; we the firm appeared to be vulnerable to any know where the ships were stationed; we downturn in the market. But Bergesen’s understand their weaponry. What we strategy of having negotiated charters seek in vain is a coherent statement of before ordering new vessels protected it naval strategy from the brains of the from the worst of the collapse. By Royal Navy itself. In what is, perhaps, an foregoing the spot market prior to 1973, apocryphal story, Admiral Jackie Fisher the firm had passed on potential profits, was asked in pre-1914 days, “What were but in the long run this risk-adverse the RN’s plans against Germany in the behaviour paid off. event of war?” He is said to have Tankers in Trouble is a valuable responded by tapping his forehead and addition to our understanding of shipping saying, “They’re up here.” This implied, The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord 97 of course, that there was no accepted manifestation of the policy. In effect, strategic doctrine for the RN as we eighteenth century officers were supposed understand the term, but that experienced to “just know” what to do. officers were expected to just do the right Andrew Lambert contributes an thing as they had always done. Like the article on how some strategic thinking did “English Constitution,” the RN’s strategic develop up to 1914. At first, the practices doctrine was unwritten. This collection of of the eighteenth century continued, nine essays attempts to illuminate whereby aspiring officers observed their strategic thinking by examining select superiors and learned the practicalities of events and personalities from the seamanship. Further examples were to eighteenth century to the present. hand in the recent glorious war, so that Geoffrey Till’s masterful “officer training,” or “staff work,” as we introduction places the whole issue in understand it, was unknown. Moreover, historical context, or rather “contexts,” as after the brief Crimean War there was no the nature of Britain’s naval power altered realistic expectation of a major naval war from one generation to the next. There to require much deep thought or study of does seem to have been a stable belief of past lessons. Further, it was widely the need for strong naval forces on the accepted that the adoption of steam power part of a succession of senior politicians: made the experiences of the sailing navy Britain was an island dependent on sea obsolete. John Knox Laughton began the lanes for food and survival, let alone move towards educating officers in naval prosperity, so financial support was history in the 1870s at Greenwich, and denied rarely. Yet, where was the was a founder of the Navy Records doctrine? Towards the end of the Society designed to increase general nineteenth century, concerned observers awareness of naval history. Yet he met came to fear that the gentlemen officers of with spotty success, and the the RN were brave and excellent sailors, disappointments of the First World War but quite lacking in any knowledge of were illustrative of the problem: technical military or naval history and the strategic competence alone was no substitute for a insights such studies might provide. balanced historical/strategic overview, Nicholas Rodger explains that the and few RN officers had the whole notion of strategy as we understand it was package. foreign to the eighteenth century RN. Geoffrey Till examines a raft of There were few books touching on the individuals who published widely on subject, and no formal officer training naval issues before the First World War schools, so aspiring officers read what such as Colomb, Corbett, Callwell, they could, but mostly kept their eyes and Clowes and Custance. Corbett’s pre- ears open to pick up practical knowledge. eminent role in promoting historical Masterstrokes such as the establishment education for officers is emphasized, of the Western Squadron might occur, but whereby officers were encouraged to they were never explained in writing. The think of the implications of offence and extensive expansion of Plymouth defence, protection of routes or ships, and Dockyard might be the best concrete command of the sea or decisive battle. It 98 Book Reviews seems the latter two were usually Nicholas Tracy. Who’s Who in Nelson’s confused by most officers. Andrew Navy. 200 Naval Heroes. London: Gordon examines the breathtakingly Chatham Publishing, radical views of Jackie Fisher and www.chathampublishing.com, 2006. 384 illustrates how they are even more pp. Illustrations, notes, index. CDN breathtaking when juxtaposed to the $56.95, cloth; ISBN 1-86176-244-5. uninspired values of his traditional (Distributed in Canada by Vanwell colleagues. Publishing Ltd.) Geoffrey Till again points out more intellectual activity in the interwar The blurb on the back cover years, after the disappointments of touted it as “The only modern 1914-18. Admiral Richmond led the bibliographical dictionary of the Royal debate on the future of the battleship, and Navy in the Nelson Era” and “… much finished as holder of the Chair of Naval more than a reference book.” Who’s Who History at Cambridge, in itself a timely in Nelson’s Navy includes bibliographical recognition of the need for serious entries for 200 naval personnel, focusing academic study of the subject. The on the late-eighteenth and early- experiences of the Second World War are nineteenth centuries, the era of Admiral touched on by Jack Gardner with a view Viscount Horatio Nelson, 1765-1805. to the balanced theories of Roskill and This book is one of dozens of Gretton who continued to play down the publications commemorating the two significance of traditional big battles hundredth anniversary of the Battle of which still seemed to mesmerize the Trafalgar and the death of Nelson on 21 officer corps. The uncertain situation in October 1805. British naval and the nuclear age is handled by Richard maritime organizations and others Hill, while Eric Grove wraps up the sponsored hundreds of events, activities, collection with a treatment of British re-enactments and publications spread thinking at the end of the twentieth; as over the “Nelson Decade,” 1995-2005, Britain moves closer to Europe, there is corresponding to the period of Nelson’s ongoing debate on the role of the RN. great victories, notably Cape St. Vincent The mere fact of such a debate occurring (1797), the Nile (1798), Copenhagen is a strong indication that future (1801), and Trafalgar (1805). One historians will not lack for concrete indication of the success of these statements of doctrine as do those of the endeavours was confirmed by a fully- eighteenth century. booked day-long conference, “The This is a very solid collection of Nelson Legacy,” 29 September 2007, at essays by established scholars on an the Royal Naval Museum, and plans for important topic. The research is extensive another one in 2009. and the topic is one that serious students Biographical dictionaries are of the Royal Navy cannot ignore. enjoying a revival, although Who’s Who has published annually since 1848. John Paul Webb Knox Laughton, 1830-1915, personally London, Ontario wrote 926 entries on “naval worthies” for The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord 99 the Dictionary of National Biography "Lt., M-C (Master and Commander), (1885-1900). Most important, recently, Capt., R-Adm., V-Adm., Adm." has been the sixty-volume Oxford Nicholas Tracy, a professor in the Dictionary of National Biography (2004), Department of History, University of New available in published form and online, Brunswick, is a prolific writer and editor containing 55,000 entries. Of course, one on British and Canadian naval history. must be dead to be eligible for an entry in Beginning in the late 1960s, his articles these dictionaries of national biography. have appeared in the most prominent The work under review is not, as claimed, periodicals. He edited the five-volume “the only modern” such dictionary. See abridgement of that fabulous, unique Colin White, ed., The Trafalgar Captains: source, The Naval Chronicle (1998-1999). Their Lives and Memorials (2005), The original was forty volumes, two per sponsored by the 1805 Club, and year, covering items of interest to all containing thirty-eight entries. officers of the Royal Navy, 1799-1818, a The format of Who's Who in total of about 20,000 pages. Other works Nelson's Navy features an introduction by Tracy include Age of Sail, 2 vols. and explanation of naval ranks, 23 (2002-2004), Nelson's Battles (1996), chapters, each an alphabetical letter with Canadian Naval Strategy (1995), and two none for Q, X, and Z, one page (p.375) volumes for the Navy Records Society listing sources and bibliographical (1997 and 2005). references, and an Index of Persons. (pp. No doubt, the 200 entries cover 376-384) Unfortunately, it lacks a subject the most important naval operational index. personnel of the period. Five pages are Each of the 200 entries is devoted to Nelson, four to Cuthbert identical in format: the last name in Collingwood, etc. Both of Jane Austen’s capital letters, the full name with final brothers appear, one an Admiral of the rank, followed in most entries by Fleet, and the other a rear admiral. aristocratic status, e.g., Baronet, Baron, Nelson’s Band of Brothers is there, e.g. Viscount, Earl, and various initials, e.g., Edward Berry, Thomas Hardy, Thomas KB, GCB, KCB, describing special Troubridge, and even William Bligh, who honours. was praised as a navigator but condemned There then follow several for continuous abusive language. There paragraphs: a brief description of why are two Brentons, including Edward, the each man is prominent and what he is naval historian. Inevitably, Thomas known for; date and place of birth, family, Cochrane, Edward Pellew, Sidney Smith, early career, e.g., assignment to first ship; Richard Howe, Robert Calder, Lords much detail on each ship in turn, with the Bridport and Keith, and Earl St. Vincent number of guns in parenthesis, and are included. Then there is Lieutenant frequently, the ship’s captain; more details (later Captain) John Lapenotierre of HMS on the immediate family, marriage, wife, Pickle, who delivered the Trafalgar children, and various naval relationships, dispatch to the Admiralty; Captain Peter and every entry concluded with a table, Haywood, a mutineer aboard HMS containing exact dates of attaining rank: Bounty (subsequently court-martialled, 100 Book Reviews reprieved, restored); Alexander Roosevelt’s “day that will live in infamy,” Dalrymple, hydrographer and without when the Imperial Japanese Navy naval rank; and four Parkers: Hyde (of launched a surprise attack on the US Copenhagen infamy), Peter (but oddly, Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, is well Captain, not the more famous admiral, known to many people. Few events in chief mourner at Nelson’s funeral), the history of the USA have generated as William and Richard. This latter choice much controversy. That people still argue is even more surprising than the omission about this attack shows the depth of of Admiral Peter Parker; Richard Parker, feeling that has grown up about it. But never an officer, was the leader of the why do we need another book? mutiny at the Nore in 1797, subsequently In examining where this book executed. If Seaman Richard Parker, why stands in relation to existing literature, it not Lieutenant Fletcher Christian, is important to be aware of revisionist actually, illegally acting captain of HMS history since the verdict of the Roberts Bounty, who was twice mentioned but Commission in 1941. Both Admiral had no entry? Kimmel (the commander-in-chief Pacific Nicholas Tracy has produced a Fleet) and Lieutenant General Short (the good, error-free, biographical dictionary. Army and Army Air Corps commander) It is especially timely. It clearly fought long campaigns to clear their demonstrated what others have observed names after being forced into retirement about the Royal Navy, the early American by its verdict. The initial war-time view Navy, and, no doubt, others of the period. was that this was a cowardly sneak attack There was a complex web of personal and on a nation at peace and in the middle of service relationships, including naval negotiations. In many respects, the families and naval dynasties. commission had been a hasty affair, but Connections, patronage, influence, America found itself at war and needed a “interests,” and relations prevailed. clear-cut decision on who was responsible. While it was possible to Eugene L. Rasor replace the immediate commanders in Emory, Virginia wartime (and the replacement of Kimmel with Chester Nimitz proved to be a George Victor. The Pearl Harbor Myth - masterstroke), the replacement of the Rethinking the Unthinkable. Dulles, VA: president, his ministers and the Chiefs of Potomac Books, Staff was less likely, especially in the www,potomacbooksinc.com, 2007. Ix + dark days of early 1942, when the allies 355 pp,, illustrations, map, notes, faced one problem after another and not references, index. US $ 22.00, cloth; just in the Far East. Clearly, the ISBN 978-1-5979-042-6. commission did what it set out to do, which was to find someone to blame. “Surely not another book about Attempts by Kimmel and Short to clear Pearl Harbor?” was the phrase that their names started soon after they were immediately sprang to mind on seeing coerced into retirement and grew with the this book. The attack, President report of the Joint Congressional The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord 101 Committee in 1945-46. Short died in topic from a different perspective from 1949 and Kimmel in 1968, but the that of other authors. Unlike some, in campaign was kept alive by their relatives questioning the evidence he avoids and friends. Revisionism culminated in extremes of speculation. He is the Dorn Report in 1995, which led to a particularly concerned to expose what he vote 52:47 in the US Senate on 25 May sees as the myth that has grown up about 1999 clearing them of leaving Pearl Pearl Harbor and FDR’s involvement, to Harbor vulnerable to attack. The Senate trace how this was established and declared that they performed their duties developed, and also to examine the “competently and professionally” and that secrecy and cover up which are evident in American losses at Pearl Harbor were the various hearings. But Victor also puts “not the result of dereliction of duty.” the escalating problem of what to do Finally, the two originally guilty about Japan during the period 1937-41 in parties became innocent scapegoats. But a context that has not been well if they were innocent, guilt had to rest researched before. This is FDR’s elsewhere. Since 1999, there have been a developing “Germany First” view, as well number of volumes which lay the blame as the perceived need to tempt Japan firmly in Washington and in particular, on away from attacking Soviet Russia as a President Roosevelt. They include Robert means to keep the Russians in the war Stinnett’s Day of Deceit (2000) and against Germany. Michael Gannon’s Pearl Harbor Victor also draws some unusual Betrayed (2002). These writers (among parallels between FDR’s actions and those several others) contend that there was of previous presidents, such as Polk (over ample evidence of a plan to attack Pearl Mexico), Lincoln (over Fort Sumter and Harbor (e.g. the “Magic Decrypts” of the Civil War), McKinley (over the USS diplomatic codes and the “bomb plot Maine incident at the start of the Spanish- message”) and that local commanders American war), and Wilson (over the SS should have been given this tactical Sussex and US entry into the First World information and not just vague strategic War). In all of these, he concludes that “war warnings.” But then, some writers the presidents manipulated the situation. called “foul,” and pointed out that He might also have mentioned Johnson in Kimmel and Short also bore a measure of Vietnam and Bush over Iraq in 2003. responsibility for the lack of Perhaps we are becoming more critical of reconnaissance and preparedness, and for what we will allow the president to do, failing to change the culture of Pearl but Victor points out that FDR was not the Harbor as a relaxed and comfortable first to manoeuvre in this way, or to cover posting. From this the post-revisionist up what Washington knew in order to view has grown. achieve a vital war aim. It is at this point in the The book also contains some controversy that George Victor’s book is excellent appendices with very detailed pitched. Victor, a retired psychologist and notes, references and an index, together author of psychological histories (e.g. of with maps and photographs. Hitler), has, therefore, approached the 102 Book Reviews The importance of this study lies not only in the new perspective Victor mentions concerning the need to keep Soviet Russia engaged in the war against Germany by policies that forced Japan to attack in SE Asia rather than Siberia, but also in suggesting a re-think on FDR’s actions. Other writers, notably Stinnett, who used the very emotive “deceit” in his title, criticise the concealment but Victor’s view is that this is sometimes necessary. For readers who came to the topic belonging to the sceptical school of thought regarding Washington’s prior knowledge, it will provide an opportunity to reconsider their view. For the non- sceptics, it will provide an opportunity to see the events in a different context, though they may not sanction the “deceit.” It is a measure of this study that it has taken a non-naval historian to see the events in a different light.

John Francis Greenwich, UK