Book Reviews

Book Reviews Iain Ballantyne. The Deadly Deep: The Waging war using and defending Definitive History of Submarine War- against a submarine force was difficult. fare. New York, NY: Pegasus Books, Churchill stated the German “U-boat www.pegasusbooks.com, 2018. xii+705 war is hard widespread and bitter, a war pp., notes, bibliography and sources, il- of grouping and drowning, a war of am- lustrations, maps, glossary, appendix, buscade and stratagem, a war of science index. US $28.95, cloth; ISBN 978-1- and seamanship.” (260) Plans to com- 68-77-877-8. bat these U-boats were variations on a theme—“to take aggressive, coordinat- Publishing a book that lives up to its ed action and deny enemy submarines secondary title “The Definitive History their advantages of surface speed (over of Submarine Warfare” may have been slower escorts and merchant vessels) a challenge, but with the exception of and cover of darkness. They would have few perplexing omissions, Iain Ballan- to dive into an environment where they tyne has achieved his goal. Although were slow and sonar could search them reflecting the author’s point of view out.” (359) This resulted in a wartime from his British “literary periscope,” disease the author calls “periscopeitis”, the author provides us with a global ap- or paranoia producing false sightings praisal. of the enemy submersibles. This also He begins with the earliest attempts produced two deception ploys, surface by ancient Greek divers to design sub- vessels in dazzle camouflage paint and mersible vessels, the problems associ- Q-ships. ated with them and the clever solutions Ballantyne skillfully narrates in- that turned them into weapons. What triguing stories about submarine com- started with the Revolutionary War’s manders, sailors and their boats during Turtle, progressed through the Con- their quasi-piratical wartime encoun- federate Navy’s Hunley (which sank ters; each is a fast-moving gem of a the USS Housatonic) and finally, led to tale. He mentions officers on both John Philip Holland and Simon Lake sides of the conflict, including Captains and what turned into an extremely le- Otto Weddigen, Georg von Trapp (later thal weapon of the First World War. of Sound of Music fame), Fritz-Julius There were many imaginative varia- Lemp, Hans Rose, Max Horton, Admi- tions along the way, but the resulting rals Karl Dönitz, John Jellicoe, Jackie submarines employed by the Allies and Fisher, and US Admiral William Sims. Central Powers are the products of both There is also the trio of submarine aces, scientific and mechanical evolution. Otto Kretschmer, Günther Prien and The Northern Mariner / Le marin du nord, XVIII, No. 4 (Autumn 2018), 385-438 386 The Northern Mariner / Le marin du nord Joachim Schepke, who compiled re- Dressed only in a loin cloth, he identi- markable records before their demise fied himself to patrolling American sol- (almost all at the same time, but at dif- diers as a Japanese naval officer and re- ferent places). The author introduces quested to be allowed to kill himself in the reader to so many colourful subma- an honourable way. Instead, he became riners that it is difficult to decide whom Japanese POW #1 of the war. Another to mention in a review. example is American Admiral Charles Ballantyne graphically recounts Nimitz who came to the defense of his the ferocious battles off the English nemesis, Admiral Karl Dönitz, during Channel, Irish Coast, Scapa Flow, Bal- the Nuremberg War Crimes trials. He tic Mediterranean, Heligoland, Darda- stated that the German admiral’s con- nelles, and particularly Jutland, and the duct of war was similar to that of the frightening stories of large protected American Navy in the Pacific, includ- convoys overcoming submarines wait- ing not rescuing survivors of torpedoed ing to pounce on them. The Second enemy vessels and thereby saved the World War submarine adventures are Nazi Admiral from being hanged. even more fascinating because they The author chronicles other events; also involved the Australian, Japanese, perhaps the most frightening being sev- Italian and Russian fleets and a wide eral that occurred during the Cuban variety of special- purpose subma- Missile Crisis. His accounts make the rines—miniatures to infiltrate fortified reader realize how luck played a huge harbours to lay mines, and still others role in preventing a nuclear war. A fur- to land troops or carry critical supplies ther series of detailed and enthralling in secret. There are stories of convoys events occurred during the Falklands being attacked by wolfpacks in which War, especially the sinking of the Bel- one U-boat finds a convoy and sends grano by the Conqueror. messages to perhaps a dozen more subs Accompanying these human stories to join in an all-out attack. In time, is the development of more weapon- clever listening devices, enigma code ry; sophisticated deck guns, torpedoes, interception and depth charges were decoys, detection devices and their invented to counter them. The author countermeasures, including submarine vividly conveys the cruelty of a sense- nets, acoustical and magnetic mines less war upon the innocent through the and, most important, depth charges or horrendous loss of civilian life when a bomb carrying aircraft. All of these are U-boat under the command of Kapitän- framed within war-room strategies and leutenant Walter Schweiger sunk the ever-changing tactics, topics that could SS Lusitania and Oberleutenant Lemp accommodate a book on its own. sunk the SS Athenia. As it evolved, the submarine went A forgotten episode from the Sec- from a vessel barely worthy of protect- ond World War about midget sub cap- ing harbours from intruders into the tip tain Kazuo Sakamake portrays the hu- of the spear in most naval commands’ man side of submarine warfare. On 8 arsenals; from miniature one- or two- December 1941 Sakamake ran his ves- man subs to the largest commissioned sel aground on a coral reef while on his sub in the world, Russia’s Dmitriy Don- mission to attack Pearl Harbor. Washed skoy (26,000 tons when dived). These up on Waimanlo Beach, the Japanese weapons are extremely costly, theoreti- naval commander was captured before cally intended never to be used, but nec- he was able to atone for his ineptitude. essarily designed to operate 365 days a Book Reviews 387 year to deter existential threats —the Saxon T. Bisbee. Engines of Rebellion. spectre of nuclear annihilation. It is Confederate Ironclads and Steam En- estimated that there are roughly 16,000 gineering in the American Civil War. nuclear weapons, enough to destroy the Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama world many times over. Many, if not Press, www.uapress.ua.edu, 2018. xiii most, are submarine-based and could be +264 pp., illustrations, notes, appendix, launched by error or in anger. In the- bibliography, index. US $59.95, ISBN ory, however, the ballistic missile sub- 978-0-8173-1986-1. (E-book avail- marine is a weapon of peace. It exists able.) to persuade a potential aggressor that there is no point in using their weapons The American Civil War ushered in a of mass destruction since there can be new era of naval conflict wherein ar- no winners in such a conflict. The dan- mour, steam, screw propulsion, and ger is that not all political leaders may shell guns eclipsed wood, wind, and understand this. carronades. This dramatic shift was The Deadly Deep is a triumph of starkly highlighted on 8 March 1862, a historical survey work but there are when the ironclad ram, CSS Virgin- several puzzling flaws in Ballantyne’s ia, steamed into Hampton Roads and excellent work. Although he briefly destroyed the USS Cumberland and mentions the SSN Nautilus, it is puz- Congress. Only the arrival of the USS zling that he omits the sometimes iras- Monitor that night evened the odds. cible but brilliant father of the nuclear After the following day’s epic contest navy, Admiral Hyman Rickover. A between these newfangled warships the reference to the former submarine offi- import was clear—the future belonged cer, past President of the United States, to iron and steam. Jimmy Carter, would have been appro- As the Virginia’s early foray demon- priate. There is also no mention of the strates, the Confederacy aggressively loss of the USS Thresher and the subse- pursued this challenging technology, quent location of the undersea graves of despite disadvantages in every catego- Thresher and USS Scorpion by Robert ry that mattered—manpower, industri- Ballard as part of his mission to locate al facilities, and resources. Nonethe- the resting place of RMS Titanic. less, its ironclad construction program In spite of these, and perhaps a few launched numerous formidable vessels other omissions, Ballantyne’s writing is during the course of the war, including gripping and the multiple stories flow in the CSS Albemarle, Arkansas, Tennes- a compelling sequence. This important, see, and of course the Virginia, which just over 700-page book is written in subsequently earned their places in fast flowing prose informing the read- history. Theirs is an oft-told saga, ever about how the submarine was con- idenced by such now-classic titles as ceived, later developed and how it has History of the Confederate States Navy advanced. Ballantyne speculates about from its Organization to the Surrender where it likely is going— with a sober- of its Last Vessel (1894) by J. Thomas ing warning. I highly recommend this Scharf, Iron Afloat: The Story of the superb, engrossing book for all mari- Confederate Armorclads (1971) by Wil- time and naval historians. liam N. Still Jr., and individual vessel biographies like Ironclad Down: The Louis Arthur Norton USS Merrimack - CSS Virginia from West Simsbury, Connecticut Construction to Destruction (2007) by 388 The Northern Mariner / Le marin du nord Carl D.

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