BOOK REVIEWS

Jonathan Adams. A Maritime Archaeology shipbuilding technology from an of Ships. Innovation and Social Change in archaeological perspective. As the second Medieval and Early Modern Europe. half of the book’s title – Innovation and Oakville, CT: Casemate Academic, Social Change in Medieval and Early www.casemateacademic.com, 2014. 250 Modern Europe – suggests, Adams provides pp., illustrations, tables, glossary, a discussion of the broader social and appendices, bibliography, index. US $50.00, political contexts, economic factors, the paper; ISBN 978-1-84217-297-1. exchanges of technological knowledge, and the availability (or shortages) of materials A Maritime Archaeology of Ships is a that together contributed to changes in synthesis of discoveries and insights ships, commercial and naval enterprises, acquired over the course of one maritime and ultimately to Europe’s maritime archaeologist’s remarkable career. Dr. expansion. It is an ambitious endeavour Jonathan Adams, the author of this volume, that Adams undertakes, amalgamating a is a professor in the Archaeology wealth of archaeological and historical Department at the University of sources and ranging from such topics as Southampton, where he also serves as the plank fastenings and frame assemblies to Director of the Centre for Maritime the widespread changes imposed on Archaeology. Starting in the 1970s, Adams European societies by the growth of state directed or participated in the study of some navies and commercial fleets over the of the most spectacular and informative course of the sixteenth to nineteenth shipwreck investigations of the past four centuries. decades, including Henry VIII’s warship The first three of the book’s nine Mary Rose (lost in the Solent in 1545), the chapters are devoted to providing the reader English galleon Sea Venture (inspiration for with contexts for his subsequent inquiries: Shakespeare’s The Tempest, stranded on a archaeological methodologies and Bermudian reef in 1609), the Dutch East theoretical approaches in the maritime Indiaman Amsterdam (lost on the south sphere; an overview of the importance of coast of England in 1749), and the early- watercraft over the course of human sixteenth century ‘Kravel Wreck’ sunk off existence; and an introduction to the Sweden’s Baltic coast. These wrecks and principal wreck sites examined in this book many others provide the foundation for and the manner in which they were located Adams’ study of the role of wooden ships – and studied. Adams draws heavily upon specifically ship conception, design, finds in the Baltic, where favourable construction, use, and disposal – in preservation conditions have yielded Europe’s transition from the Medieval to astounding sites from nearly every decade Early Modern eras. of the early modern era, including such This work is, however, much, much recent discoveries as the seventeenth- more than a simple examination of century Ghost and Lion merchantman

The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord, XXV No. 2, (April 2015), 163-210 164 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord wrecks, and the Swedish warships Mars colleagues for his ability to put his (lost in 1564) and Svärdet (lost in 1676). considerable artistic talents to excellent use In subsequent chapters, Adams when recording and interpreting explores European shipping in the Medieval shipwrecks. and Early Modern eras, with a focus on the A Maritime Archaeology of Ships is major shifts in wooden vessel design and a landmark achievement that belongs in the building practices. Both state vessels libraries of all serious professionals in the (represented archaeologically by Mary field of medieval and early modern Rose, the Kravel Wreck, and Mars) and maritime archaeology and history. merchant craft (including Sea Venture, the Kevin Crisman English galleon Warwick, and the mid- College Station, Texas nineteenth century Slufter Wrecksite 4, a British-built collier) provide the basis for his interpretations. Adams’ firsthand Murray Ault. The View from the Deck: knowledge of most of these wrecks allows Recollections of the 10th Annual Voyage of him to move beyond basic description and the CGS C.D. Howe, 1959. Renfrew, ON: offer insights into the wider implications of General Store Publishing House Inc., what the archaeological record has revealed. www.gsph.com, 2014. xvii, 162 pp., A separate and somewhat side-bar illustrations, maps, appendices. CDN chapter is devoted to the elusive “hulk,” a $20.00, paper; ISBN 978-1-77123-089-6; medieval Northern European vessel type ISBN 978-1-77123-209-8 (epub). ISBN posited by scholars working from vaguely- 978-1-77123-210-4 (mobi), ISBN 978-1- worded contemporary documents and 77123-211- 1 (pdf). stylized depictions. No unequivocal example of a hulk has been found in the In 1959, a young Murray Ault applied for archaeological record, and after re- and obtained a job as a cabin boy on the examining the other evidence, Adams Canadian Coast Guard ship C.D. Howe, the concludes that “we were looking for what Department of Transport’s Eastern Arctic did not exist” (p.109), and that the term patrol ship. Intrigued by the tales of the “hulk” in the late medieval era was applied Arctic he had heard from a friend who had in a haphazard fashion to an assortment of done the job the year before, Ault saw it as large merchant vessels of previously- an interesting way to earn some money in a defined types. gap year between finishing high school in Adams’ book is superbly illustrated Ottawa and heading to university. Ault was throughout by numerous black and white an observant young man. He kept a diary, sketches, plans, ship diagrams, took photographs and wrote letters home, contemporary prints and paintings, and all of which have been preserved. They are photos; a section of sixteen tipped-in colour the basis of this interesting book, 55 years photos and paintings, including a after his Arctic adventure. We tend to forget photomosaic of Mars, adds much to the that our experiences of today, even of events scholarly and aesthetic content. The that seem to us to be unremarkable, are the observant reader will note that the colour history of tomorrow. What was it really like paintings of wrecks, and nearly all of the back in “those days”? Diaries and books of book’s archaeological plans, perspective this kind illuminate the past for us. sketches, and many photos are works The C.D. Howe was an important generated by the author. Indeed, Adams is ship that for twenty years represented the renowned among his professional government of Canada in the North. She Book Reviews 165 carried medical and dental teams, the Arctic. The families are still in touch, hydrographers, scientists, Royal Canadian and the friends have contributed Mounted Police officers, and Inuit photographs and an appendix. Other inhabitants returning from medical appendices give details of the ship and its treatment in the south. The calls she made complement. to many small settlements in the Arctic and Ault went on to become a teacher the supplies she delivered made her visits and later, a government consultant, but his the event of the year, even though her Arctic voyage in the C.D. Howe plainly had demanding schedule meant that her stay a great influence on him. His interest in the might be very short. Ault and the other Canadian North and its people remains cabin stewards worked hard cleaning the unabated. Now he has told us what the cabins, helping in the pantry and performing view from the deck looked like fifty-five any other tasks they were assigned. He years ago. would also help the seamen take cargo C. Douglas Maginley ashore in the ship’s barge and, whenever he Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia could, he would go ashore and talk with residents – and he took photographs! The ship’s officers and crew – all Isabel Campbell. Unlikely Diplomats: The except for Murray and three other cabin Canadian Brigade in Germany, 1951-64. boys – were French-speaking Quebecers, Vancouver, BC: University of British while the medical and scientific staffs were Columbia Press, www.ubcpress.ca, 2014. English-speakers. At one point in the x+252 pp., notes, bibliography, index. CDN voyage, the cabin boys felt discriminated $32.95, US $35.95, paper; ISBN 978-0- against, because they were forbidden to use 7748-2564-1. certain areas of the ship. I think that this was more hierarchical than language-based. The post-war world brought increasingly What were these boys, the lowest-paid complex geo-political issues, and Canada members of the crew, doing fraternizing found itself acting on the global stage in a with the scientists and hydrographers who manner that could scarcely be imagined enjoyed officer status? But the only a decade before. The Cold War was in professionals saw that these were well full-swing, and as part of Canada’s educated young men on their way to college commitment to the North Atlantic Treaty and after a while, the restrictions were Organization (NATO), the country ignored. In fact, Ault spent much of his positioned a brigade in West Germany in spare time helping Dr. L. Ochinsky, an order to counter the Soviet Union and its anthropologist. allies on the crucial European front. Isabel The 1959 voyage appeared to be Campbell’s Unlikely Diplomats: The typical: they ran into storms, into ice that Canadian Brigade in Germany, 1951-1964 they could break through themselves, and documents Canada’s decision to commit thicker ice that required the help of the troops on foreign soil and the many issues icebreaker N.B. Maclean. They called at which policymakers faced in administering many minor settlements as far north as the force and understanding exactly what Ellesmere Island, as well as at major centres role the Canadians would undertake in the like Churchill and Frobisher (now Iqualuit). event of Soviet aggression. At the latter port, Ault was surprised to Campbell has done a tremendous encounter family friends from Ottawa job incorporating the wide array of literature whose father was now the administrator of on Canada’s Cold War commitment and 166 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord especially the significant primary materials populace that their soldiers were not there held by Library and Archives Canada as as occupiers but rather to aid Germany well as the Directorate of History and against Soviet attack. At times, however, Heritage of the Department of National civilians failed to appreciate the finer points Defence. The archival holdings for key of this distinction, resulting in tensions individuals, such as Lester B. Pearson between Canadian troops and local (secretary of state for external affairs in residents. Canadians struggled to establish 1948-1957, leader of the Liberal a strong independent identity and voice Opposition, 1957-1963, and prime within NATO while attached to the BAOR minister,1963-1968), were thoroughly and subject to their priorities and logistical mined, and there are very few (if any) gaps systems, which in many cases, did not in the coverage of significant primary properly account for legitimate Canadian documentation. needs and differences. At times, the British The three key themes of the book commanders even impeded the Brigade are Canada’s evolving role on the global commander’s direct communication links stage, the impact of nuclear deterrence, and back to Ottawa. Canada’s unique approach to global Troop experiences comprise a security. There is a great deal of overlap significant portion of Campbell’s work and among the three, but the constant factors these changed significantly over the period were Canada’s uncertain role as a middle examined. In the earliest phases, the troops power within NATO, which tracked into consisted primarily of reservists under relations with both the British and short-term commitments and subject to Americans, always with an eye to retaining fairly rigid discipline with few recreational national independence. Canada viewed outlets. Drunkenness, venereal disease, and NATO as an avenue for negotiating other misbehaviour were commonplace. relationships with its two most important The Canadian government, however, then partners, preferring to develop socio- began to allow families to join Brigade economic ties as opposed to simply viewing members in Germany, while improving NATO as a purely military alliance. As housing and recreational facilities, which Campbell points out, Canada faced curbed many of the earlier excesses. Of difficulties in attempting to bring the voices note was the gradual transition from of smaller NATO countries into reservists to regular troops in the late-1950s policymaking. to early-1960s. This was due, in part, to the Each of the six chapters addresses development of the army into a professional the Canadian Brigade from differing force, but also to the understanding that viewpoints, ranging from Canadian Canadian soldiers were serving in many perspectives on the post-war world, to grand ways as diplomats (hence the title of the strategy, and the experiences of troops while book), and cordial relations with German posted overseas. Canada’s relationship with civilians were an essential part of this role. the West Germans was at times ambiguous Campbell’s third theme addresses and even problematic. The Canadian the complexity of developing a nuclear Brigade was incorporated into the British deterrence policy during this period. Army of the Rhine (BAOR) but unlike Canada’s record with nuclear weapons was British troops, the Canadians were not ambivalent at best, and Canadian formally part of an occupation force. As commanders were not at all certain that Campbell notes, Canadian politicians did tactical nuclear weapons were useful tools their utmost to explain to the German or even advisable, given the likely prospect Book Reviews 167 of conducting conventional land operations early modern period, certainly not the clout with non-nuclear air support. Leaders at all it would have taken to suppress piracy in the levels were uncertain when, and under what 1720s, as is often claimed. The author conditions, nuclear weapons could or provides a much later and very different would be used. While Canada operated the explanation for the demise of piracy in this Honest John missile system, this was not a vast open ocean with meandering coasts of brigade-level asset, leaving Canadian coves, islands, and ports, most of it very far commanders in the unenviable position of from London. potentially not maintaining positive control Chet’s book is, in part, an over a national nuclear asset. historiographical essay. Borrowing from One minor quibble concerning the Linda Colley’s famous work on early suggestion there was a lack of effective ties modern identities of Britons (Yale, 2009), between the military and senior civil Chet agrees that London lacked cohesive servants. While this may have been the recognition from a large portion of its case in terms of the formal bureaucratic subject population until the building of structure, individuals such as Lester Pearson connective railways and the imposition of had worked closely with senior officers nationalist conscription in the Great War since the interwar period and these (pp.4-5). As a result, piracy, smuggling, and relationships certainly had an impact on other maritime “perdation” continued in decision-making processes. These defiance of official, unprecedented, and interpersonal ties, although challenging to counter-cultural attempts to end it. This trace through the surviving written record, widespread resistance was rooted in the would be an important subject to explore as belief “that maritime commerce was beyond the literature on the topic grows. This is not the jurisdiction of landed government…and to detract from what is an excellent work that activities sanctioned by common and valuable addition to the historiography custom and common law…could not be of Canada’s part in the early Cold War. legitimately declared unlawful by statute” Isabel Campbell’s Unlikely Diplomats: The (p.95). Similar to an explanation that Canadian Brigade in Germany, 1951-64 Atlantic-Caribbean slavery ended when it will be of interest to specialists and general became more profitable to employ low readers alike. wage labour, Chet posits that so, too, did piracy end when free trade notions took Tavis Harris hold in the first third of the nineteenth Edmonton, Alberta century, making maritime plunder less profitable than “legitimate” trade. Specific Guy Chet. The Ocean Is a Wilderness. factors that contributed to the shift were Atlantic Piracy and the Limits of State affordable insurance (more on this below), a Authority, 1688-1856. Amherst & Boston, general expansion of markets along with a MA: University of Massachusetts Press, rise in profit margins, and improvement of www.umass.edu, 2014. xvii+I57 pp., convoy tactics. There is a chapter focused notes, bibliography, index. US $80.00, on lucrative smuggling of both contraband cloth; ISBN 978-1-62534-084-9 or US and the loot accumulated by pirates, a $22.95, paper; ISBN 978-1-62534-085-6. business carried out, Chet argues, by respectable merchant families and trade The basic argument of this book is that firms with no stigma attached and none Britain had very limited naval or legal imposed by official denunciation (p.79). effectiveness in the Atlantic world in the Smuggling, like its cousin piracy, withered 168 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord only when it became unprofitable. profitable and attractive. Chet takes on influential historians This reviewer remains unconvinced of Atlantic-Caribbean raiding (notably that there was not at least an appreciable dip Marcus Rediker and Robert Ritchie) who in piracy in the 1720s – for complicated make the 1720s suppression argument, reasons and not in perpetuity – but I am citing a decrease in the number of trials and persuaded that maritime perdation was convictions of pirates, a measurement that highly resistant to state efforts to eradicate Chet disputes. He provides cases of piracy it. Chet has succeeded in reminding me that from the mid-eighteenth to the mid- the past is a different country. The approach nineteenth centuries, depredations that he of examining the clout of early modern believes are numerous enough to controvert maritime states raises many new intriguing the supposed earlier eradication of piracy. research questions. An unwieldy but He also challenges the assumption of a clear probably productive contrast might be made distinction between pirates and privateers, a between the Atlantic, where the British had British legal nicety that did not reflect limited effectiveness, and the South China activity in the real Atlantic-Caribbean world Sea and especially the Indian Ocean, where (p.49). the East India Company functioned as a Sources used for this book include state, possessing corporate sovereignty, legal and government records on both sides even in the charter of the company’s first of the Atlantic, merchant letter books, structure at the beginning of the seventeenth confessions and last words of convicted century (Philip Stern, The Company-State, pirates, newspapers and periodicals, and – Oxford, 2011). It seems a worthwhile task importantly – early modern analyses of to contrast the company’s charter with the insurance premiums, as well as guides to apparently less effective official constraints insurance practices dating from the mid- available in the Atlantic. eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries. Patricia Risso Although Chet cautions against the Albuquerque, New Mexico haphazard nature of insurance rates (p.xiii), those rates are a crucial part of his argument: overall, rates tended to go down Harold Chubbs and Wade Kearley. Facing over time because of increasing competition the Sea: Lightkeepers and Their Families. among insurers, not because piracy had St. John’s, NL: Flanker Press, decreased. This downward tendency was www.flankerpress.com, 2013. 132 pp., stable except during times of war. Not until illustrations, maps, bibliography, index. the mid-nineteenth century did insurers CDN $34.95, cloth; ISBN 978-1-7717-301-8. believe they were taking on risks for natural Facing the Sea: Lightkeepers and Their perils of the sea without much risk from Families is the third book to have appeared pirates (p.14). Chet returns to insurers in a under the auspices of the Canadian Coast chapter describing how investors and Guard Alumni Association (Newfoundland merchants were able to incorporate Division) to further their aim of preserving companies with most of the risk or, as the the history of the lightstations of chapter title indicates, “Holding the Bag.” Newfoundland and Labrador. The first two What the state had considered legitimate books consisted of colour plates and black trade since the early eighteenth century – and white sketches of selected lighthouses trade that did not involve piracy, violation by artist Leslie H. Noseworthy. As the title of monopolies, and commerce with of this latest effort suggests, it deals more enemies, or smuggling – became more Book Reviews 169 with the experiences of the people who “the first female keepers in the history of lived and worked at the stations. It the region”? (p.87) Even setting aside the nonetheless shares with its predecessors the question of which region they mean, it was oversize format common to coffee-table common even in nineteenth-century books, to which end it is also heavily Newfoundland not only for keepers’ wives illustrated, this time with photographs and to mind the lights when the keepers were maps instead of paintings and sketches. absent or injured, but also for their children There are no footnotes or endnotes, no to do so. The authors would also have us index, and the bibliography gives new believe that in the 1950s the Associated meaning to the word “perfunctory.” Press kept a news boat at Cape Race for Harold Chubbs spent thirty years as receiving news from passing liners, which a Canadian Coast Guard technician based in was subsequently telegraphed to New York St. John’s, while co-author Wade Kearley is for publication. (p.15) The actual dates of a professional writer whose output includes this service were 1859-1866. non-fiction and poetry. Their book has 25 The book’s real value lies in those chapters organized by lightstation and stories that are based on Chubbs’ beginning with Cape Race, after which the conversations with lightkeepers and their chapters proceed clockwise around the families, which he had the good sense to island from one station to another. The write down and preserve for posterity. Cape Race and Southwest Belle Isle stations These provide genuine insight into work lead the way with five stories (or sections); and life in what Kearley describes as “one most of the remaining stations get only one of the most extreme environments on earth” or two. (p.11). Anyone doubting this assessment As with the Noseworthy books, the need only read the “Entombed In Ice” story coverage is selective, and the authors do not in the chapter on South Head Lightstation, explain why they included some stations or else view the photographs that and excluded others. Among the most accompany it. Built in 1925 on a narrow glaring omissions are Fort Amherst and ledge some thirty metres above sea level, Cape Spear, respectively the oldest and the station was reputed to occupy the second oldest lighthouses in the province. smallest piece of land of any light station in The book is badly marred by errors the Newfoundland region. In windy and typos, which begin with the very first weather, the waves struck the cliff so story, a recounting of the role of the Cape forcefully that dishes rattled on their shelves Race wireless station in the RMS Titanic in the keepers’ duplex. The men and their disaster of 1912. As but one example from families became inured to such things, but this particular entry, the authors would have nothing could prepare them for what us believe that officer-in-charge Walter happened in January 1961, when as a result Gray received word of Titanic’s distress of rough seas and sub-zero temperatures, so from his assistant Herbert Harvey, this much sea spray froze on the duplex that the despite documented evidence that operator people within were entombed for a day and Jack Godwin was on duty when the initial got out only with the greatest of difficulty. distress call came in, and that it was he who Mercifully, the families were removed and informed Gray. Elsewhere, they claim that South Head became a rotational station. Sophia Flynn and Netti Budgell, who were This and other stories in the book prove appointed as temporary keepers at beyond a shadow of a doubt that Southwest Belle Isle in 1969 while their Newfoundland lightkeepers and their husbands recovered from accident, were families were as hardy and as resourceful as 170 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord those to be found anywhere on the planet. journey in Lost beneath the ice. The book is This, then, is a book that should not divided into two parts; the first covers the be assessed on the basis of scholarly rigour. ship’s voyage, and the second, the It should instead be read for the rich archaeological survey conducted by Parks material it contains on living and working Canada that led to the discovery and conditions in the Newfoundland documentation of the shipwreck. Two lightkeeping service, material that will be additional sections present an extensive useful when the long overdue general selection of high- quality historical and history of that service is finally written. In contemporary images which complement the meantime, the members of the Canadian them. It should be noted that illustrations Coast Guard Alumni Association comprise the majority of the book, while the (Newfoundland Division) are to be text takes up only about one-third of the commended for their efforts in preserving publication. these first-hand accounts by a disappearing Cohen’s account of the Investigator breed of everyday heroes. expedition is based on the personal diaries of McClure, the ship’s commander, James E. Candow Alexander Armstrong, the ship’s surgeon, Halifax, Nova Scotia and Johann Miertsching, a missionary who joined the expedition as an interpreter. Andrew Cohen. Lost Beneath the Ice. The Their diaries are combined with several Story of HMS Investigator. Toronto, ON: secondary sources about the search for the Dundurn Press, www.dundurn.com, 2013. Northwest Passage in order to reconstruct 151 pp., illustrations, maps. CDN $29.99, the journey and its historical context. UK £20.99, cloth; ISBN 978-1-45971-949-1. Cohen’s various sources are presented in a short bibliography, and cited in the text The discovery of HMS Erebus, one through quotations or simply by the authors’ of the two ships from Sir John Franklin’s names when he references them. The ill-fated 1845 expedition, caused a media author offers interesting insight into the sensation last year. The ship was located “mercurial” and ambitious personality of and identified by a team led by Parks Captain McClure and how it influenced the Canada. This significant milestone for development of the expedition. His Canadian history was preceded in 2010 by description of the hardships endured by the equally important discovery of the HMS Investigator’s crew is both impressive and Investigator, one of the ships that left moving. The author, however, emphasizes England in 1850 to search for the lost the role of scientific research in polar Franklin expedition. Although Investigator exploration, while the real motivation also did not find Franklin’s ships, it discovered includes economic, political, and territorial the final portion of the Northwest Passage. factors, which are summarized in just two During the journey, Investigator was sentences. trapped for year and a half in the frozen The second part of the book briefly waters of Mercy Bay on Banks Island, narrates the search, discovery, and where it was abandoned by its crew after documentation of the shipwreck between they were rescued in 1853. 2010 and 2011 by Parks Canada underwater Best-selling author, Andrew Cohen, archaeologists. After outlining the historical a professor of journalism and international relationship between Investigator and the affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa, modern Canadian Arctic Archipelago, provides a vivid account of Investigator’s Cohen justifies the search by the “benefits Book Reviews 171 that its discovery might yield for information along with a realistic anthropology, archaeology, and history.” description of archaeological work. This overlooks the implications of this Moreover, the number and quality of the archaeological project in relation to the illustrations compensate for the limited current assertion of Canada’s Arctic amount of text. Although a chapter sovereignty over the Northwest Passage. exploring the connections between the The political and economic motivations that current archaeological research in the Arctic lie behind the project, especially at a time and Canada’s sovereignty claims over the when climate change is making the Northwest Passage would have been a Northwest Passage accessible for shipping valuable addition to the book, the abundant traffic, deserve further explanation. and exceptional colour illustrations will Nevertheless, Cohen’s account is engaging ensure this book a place in the library of any and descriptive, focusing on the maritime historian or general reader methodology used to document the interested in this captivating historical shipwreck in the harsh Arctic environment. event. A more in-depth analysis of the preliminary José Luis Casabán results of the archaeological research of College Station, Texas Investigator’s remains would have been useful. The book is splendidly illustrated Ian Collard. The British Cruise Ship. An with high quality images and photographs, Illustrated History 1844-1939. Stroud, including a portrait of Captain McClure, Glous: Amberley Publishing, nine pages of ship plans, and various www.amberley-books.com, 2014. 128 pp., paintings by S.G. Cresswell, the ship’s illustrations. UK £19.99, paper; ISBN 978- illustrator. Two contemporary maps show 1-44562-2121-0. the route Investigator took, but unfortunately, they are too small to allow In the era of Queen Victoria, travel by large, the reader to fully appreciate the detail – a swift, deep-sea ships to far countries was larger map would be beneficial. The considered very exciting, with destinations paintings illustrate various moments of the such as Egypt or Aden seen as gateways to expedition, and become a perfect India, the Far East and Hong Kong. It complement to the account, helping the wasn’t long before luxurious passenger reader visualize the events narrated in the liners were being built specifically for these book. The images selected to illustrate the trades and fitted out with the best archaeological project are also superb and accommodation as they followed their perfectly depict not only the archaeological published schedules. work conducted by Parks Canada but also Ian Collard is a prolific author on the beautiful, but challenging working the subject of historic merchant shipping environment. All images are credited in the and has written books on the Blue Star Line last pages of the book, making it a handy Fleet History and Mersey Shipping Through source for scholars researching the topic. Time. Every page of this illustrated history Andrew Cohen presents a well- contains stimulating photographs, as well as written, accurate, and lively account of one reproductions of posters, menus and sailing of the most famous episodes of the age of lists from that era. Arctic exploration. Although this book is A turning point came as early as written for a general audience rather than 1844 when the inventive, Scottish-born scholars, it offers solid historical shipowner, Arthur Anderson, and his 172 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord business partner, Brodie McGhie, developed nowhere.” He also describes how, during the notion of deep-sea leisure cruising. the war years, many merchant ships were Instead of speedily transporting passengers converted into temporary armed cruisers of from point A to point B, Anderson proposed which a great number were sunk. Some the idea of longer, circular, leisure cruises. were lost in heroic circumstances, such as He then invited William Makepeace the SS Jervis Bay, sunk by the German Thackeray to take such a voyage and, most battle cruiser Admiral Scheer, which importantly, to write about the experience resulted in a Victoria Cross being awarded afterwards. to the ship’s captain. The author explains in detail the Essentially an illustrated study of differences between passenger liners and the development of passenger liners in the these luxury cruise vessels. He also nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, recounts how American-owned but British- Collard’s book compares and contrasts the operated steamships developed a regular differences between ships used solely for transatlantic passenger service from London pleasure and normal line voyages where to New York. Carrying only First Class passengers were transported to a specific passengers, this service remained a port or country. From a turning point in significant presence in international 1957, when more people crossed the shipping until the outbreak of the First Atlantic by air than by sea, the 1960s World War in 1914 caused a disruption to became the era of sea cruises. Passenger global business. ships were quickly refurbished for the Subsequent steamships were profitable and growing American tourist designed for a new and more sophisticated industry and, within the next decade, most clientele and, from the late 1880s, set the deep-sea liner shipping companies ended scene for a growing number of British their regular passenger services. shipping lines that followed Anderson’s Almost every page of this book initiative and converted their vessels to offer features four or five illustrations depicting leisure-only voyages. The outcome was known cruise ships and their fashionable that transatlantic cargo shipping gradually passengers sailing between such unlikely became more specialized and the demand cruising ports as Immingham and Oslo for for pleasure cruising grew strongly. the benefit of the British middle classes. In this excellent book, Ian Collard The cruise of the magnificent 20,000 ton relates how British cruise ships frequently Scythia from the United States to the sailed to new ports the world over and how, Mediterranean became such a sought-after from the 1880s, most new passenger ships annual classic that sailing schedules were were designed solely for luxury cruising. manipulated and advertised as “133 days – This change in employment not only kept the wonder belt of the world.” many an under-invested shipping company The message of specialized afloat during the depression years but also shipping markets, past, present and possibly, marked the establishment of British even future, is that there are very few clear passenger vessels operating for no other boundaries. Today shipowners still invest to purpose than leisure. meet a market need, and many of them The author also examines in detail work to very tight profit margins. During the turning point for British-flag passenger two world wars and the Falklands conflict, vessels which had survived the depression passenger ships and their crews maintained years by carrying alcohol-starved American regular services and their endurance and citizens on so-called “booze cruises to unexampled courage contributed strongly to Book Reviews 173 the eventual victory. Doorstep: The Unknown Campaign on One unusual case quoted by the North America’s West Coast, published author is the fate of the 1939-built, twin- eleven years ago by the same publisher and funneled passenger ship Mauretania, which now with his wife Melanie Arnis as a co- was converted to a war-time troopship author. Brendan Coyle (not to be confused within a year. After completing 48 voyages with the namesake actor of Downton Abbey and carrying over 355,000 troops, the vessel fame) is a recreational diver who has returned to passenger service in 1962 and worked in several fields of maritime cruised out of New York to Cannes and industry and a self-professed historical Italy. This venture soon proved to be enthusiast with a passion for military and unprofitable, however, and in 1965, the ship naval matters on the West Coast. He grew was broken up at Inverkeithing. up in New Westminster and now resides in This intelligent and entertaining Steveston, downstream at the mouth the book would be enjoyed not only by readers Fraser River in Richmond on Lulu Island. of maritime history, but also those interested Given that the target audience is the in the global economics and politics of the general public, the book with its twentieth century. Although sea cruising provocative title is unencumbered by lay at the most sophisticated end of the footnotes or references and has a basic specialised shipping industry, it also bibliography of sources and electronic web- operated in a very narrow market where its sites. One might have expected to see principal assets were luxury ships that Galen Perras’ Stepping Stones to Nowhere: moved from port to port. Passengers turned The Aleutian Islands, Alaska, and American out to be a dream cargo and they were Military Strategy, 1867-1945 (UBC Press, sought after by shipowners rather than the 2003) among other related books and traditional bulk cargoes, liquid cargoes, and academic articles there, which have even later, refrigerated goods. appeared since original publication of War on Our Doorstep. Coyle, however, has Michael Clark conducted extensive secondary research, London, England field visits to remote battlefields and other sites, and interviews with many veterans Brendan Coyle and Melanie Arnis. Enemy and participants for first-hand accounts. He Offshore! Japan’s Secret War on North and Arnis draw upon this work to construct America’s West Coast. Victoria, BC: a good narrative with factual information Heritage House Publishing, and just enough colour to engage the reader. www.heritagehouse.ca, 2013. 143 pp., The photographs and illustrations are bibliography, index. CDN $9.95, paper; essentially drawn selectively from War on ISBN 978-1-927527-53-5 (pbk.) ISBN 978- Our Doorstep, many of them the same. 1-927-54-2 (epub) ISBN 978-1-927527-55- The subject matter in Enemy 9 (pdf). Ashore! follows familiar ground by focusing on Japanese submarine activities off the This small book is an offering in Heritage Pacific Coast of North America, Canadian House’s “Amazing Stories” series, a preparations and involvement in the defence mainstay on the BC Ferries, tourist racks, of the West Coast (particularly in the air), and local-focused book shops on Vancouver the Japanese seizure and American Island and the mainland. It is an recapture of certain islands in Alaska, the abbreviated and more readable popular highway built through British Columbia and version of Brendan Coyle’s War on Our the Yukon to the northern American state, 174 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord and incendiary balloons sent across the proportions. The ships, mostly unsuited for Pacific from Japan intended to set forests ocean service, were sold or abandoned in afire and undermine civilian morale. Each backwater anchorages and by 1825 had of these topics is presented in separate rotted away and sunk. In Coffins of the chapters, more interesting vignettes that are Brave, Kevin Crisman has combined his loosely connected by a short prologue and own investigations of these vessels with epilogue. The information provided is those of eleven other nautical archaeologists simple and straightforward, as other authors to bring to light the history and uniqueness have covered the subjects in far more depth of these vessels of an often forgotten war. and detail. For the most part, the Crisman has divided his work into sensationalism suggested in the title and four distinct sections. His introduction sub-title are largely avoided. At this point gives a concise review of the causes of the in the historical record, there is very little War of 1812 and specifically, the actually left secret about Japan’s war off importance to both sides of the Great Lakes North America, at least as presented here. area. He then divides the Lakes into three Coyle and Arnis provide a good main areas of conflict – the Upper Lakes introduction to a subject that might be Huron and Erie, Lake Ontario, and finally unknown to casual or general readers. The Lake Champlain. book is an easy read, perhaps even possible Part One, the Upper Lakes, begins in the 90-minute Saanich-Tsawwassen ferry with a detailed discussion of the problems ride or waiting in line for a missed sailing. besetting both Great Britain and the United Those looking for more are recommended States at the beginning of the war due to the to Coyle’s War on Our Doorstep, which remoteness of the area involved and the some day might be revised and updated by administrative chaos in both Washington Heritage House, and a growing academic and London. Crisman begins a theme literature on the involvement of British which will extend throughout the entire Columbia and the western and northern book in which he describes the work of the U.S. states in the war against Japan during shipwright, who had to design vessels to the the Second World War. specific requirements of lake sailing while dealing with the problems of supplies and Chris Madsen labour. It would be Noah and Adam Brown North Vancouver, British Columbia who would create the American fleet for Oliver Hazard Perry. Perry, in turn, would Kevin Crisman. Coffins of the Brave: Lake command the victory of Lake Erie and Shipwrecks of the War of 1812. College isolate the British in Upper Canada. Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, Having dealt with the military www.tamu.edu, 2014. x+415 pp., history, Crisman then presents four sub- illustrations, maps, appendices, glossary, sections by individual nautical bibliography, indices. US $60.00, cloth; archaeologists describing both British and ISBN 978-1-62349-032-4. American vessels involved in the Upper Lakes including the American brig Niagara, With the ratification of the Treaty of Ghent the British brig General Hunter, His in 1815 and the Rush-Bagot Agreement of Majesty’s hired schooner Nancy and the 1817, the necessity for the United States and Royal Navy schooners Tecumseth and Great Britain to maintain large naval forces Newash. The brig Niagara is the only on the Great Lakes ended and so also ended vessel of the Lakes fleets to be salvaged and a three-year naval arms race of gigantic reconstructed. The author gives a detailed Book Reviews 175 account of the salvage of the hull and the Lakes, Lake Champlain is included because three variations of her reconstructions from of its importance along with the American 1913 to 1988 as modern naval architects victories at Baltimore and New Orleans in tried to reproduce a vessel suited to lake bringing about a neutral solution to the war service. Since Niagara is a working vessel, on Christmas Eve of 1814. Thomas the author also describes the problems of Macdonough had been the American modern sailors in manning of nineteenth- commander on Champlain since 1812 and century ships. The British transport had been gradually increasing the size of the schooner Nancy is the only pre-1812 vessel American fleet. Crisman then concisely believed to be extant. Built for the fur trade details the British plans of June 1814 to in 1789 and taken over by the military in seek protection of Montreal and Lower 1812, she presents the only example of lake Canada by destroying American advanced shipbuilding prior to the war available for bases on Champlain. Carefully detailed is documentation. the advance southward by British General Part Two of Coffins of the Brave George Prevost and his flank protection on deals with the war on Lake Ontario, the the lake by Commodore George Downie. smallest of the Great Lakes. Crisman Greatly outnumbered, the Americans chose follows his usual pattern of presenting a to fight a defensive battle in Plattsburgh concise picture of the naval war. Lake Bay. The defeat of the British flotilla on Ontario became the centre of the war since September 11, 1814, caused General it controlled all military movement east and Prevost to withdraw his superior land forces west. In an attempt to control this fearing the exposure of his lakeside flank. movement, the British commander James Currently four ships from the 1814 Yeo, and his American counterpart, Isaac battle are known to have survived to the Chauncey, both accomplished extraordinary present day – the U.S. schooner feats of logistics in building squadrons but Ticonderoga, the U.S. brig Eagle, the U.S. neither seemed willing or able to bring row galley Allen, and the Royal Navy brig about a decisive battle. Linnet. Like the surviving vessels on the The vessels examined by Crisman Great Lakes, these survivors were examined and his associates include the American by Crisman and his associates. wrecks Hamilton and Scourge and the brig The most important theme of Jefferson and the British frigates Prince Coffins of the Brave is the nautical Regent and Princess Charlotte and the archaeological investigation of the War of unfinished ship-of-the-line St. Lawrence. 1812 wrecks. These detailed accounts As if to balance things out, Crisman also begin with location of the wreck sites includes the salvage project of the Brown’s through interviews with local residents and Bay vessel, one of the many small gunboats archival research. Once a wreck was designed to work in shallow inshore regions identified, extensive plans were drawn and of the lake. photographs taken. In examining the submerged Accompanying these visuals are wrecks of the Hamilton and Scourge, precise written explanations of the Crisman includes the diary of Scourge construction techniques used by the lakes crewman Ned Myers to describe the storm shipwrights. These explanations verify which sent both vessels to the bottom. statements in the history theme of the Part Three of Crisman’s book deals constraints placed upon the builders due to with the war on Lake Champlain. Although lack of traditional building materials and the not generally considered as one of the Great geography of the lakes. Perhaps the most 176 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord interesting outcome of the archaeological this challenge, not unlike the challenge studies is the drawing-board reconstruction Antarctica presents to any kind of human of the ships. The reader is able to have a activity on the frozen continent, extremely graphic representation of how the naval well, but not without some shortfalls. The vessels actually appeared. Crisman result is a book nearly as thick as the concludes the archeological theme with a Antarctic ice shelf itself, covering the review of the efforts made by local and period from man’s first sightings of the governmental groups to preserve and continent to the era of the Antarctic Treaty display the hulks when possible for public of 1959 in a little more than 600 pages. view. He also has written a brief statement The book is organized concerning the archaeological legacy of the chronologically and divided into 21 Plattsburgh Bay battle which, because it chapters ranging from the first voyages to occurred in shallow waters, has enabled the frozen South by James Cook, through divers to plot the progress of the encounter the various expeditions of the heroic era of from the artifacts lying on the bottom. Antarctic exploration and the mechanical Coffins of the Brave is richly era to today’s era of the Antarctic Treaty illustrated not only with the archaeological regime. drawings and photographs but with prints, Each chapter provides a narrative paintings, and sketches many dating from account of expeditions from each of the the War of 1812 period. respective periods, nearly always including Kevin Crisman is currently an a discussion of the motives behind the associate professor of nautical archaeology expeditions and issues of territoriality and at Texas A&M University and is director of sovereignty, in other words, colonialism and the Center for Maritime Archaeology and decolonization in the Antarctic context. A Conservation. In his opening to Coffins of short epilogue concludes the volume the Brave, Crisman comments that he has followed by an extensive bibliography, taken many years to assemble this text. It which might be the most useful part of the has been well worth the wait. book for any historian familiar with the history of Antarctica. Fred Hopkins When reviewing a book one must Linthicum Heights, Maryland consider whether it contributes to the existing body of knowledge. The few David Day. Antarctica: A Biography. New historians specializing in the history of York: Oxford University Press, Antarctica, will find very little here that is www.global.oup.com, 2013. 624 pp., new. Other readers, however, will learn a illustrations, index, bibliography. US great deal since most Antarctic research is $34.95, cloth; ISBN 978-0-19986-145-3. usually published in somewhat obscure journals or by publishers serving only niche Writing a book that is nothing less than the markets. complete history of human activities on an This book provides a welcome entire continent is an enormous challenge, compendium of Antarctic history, offering even if the continent is Antarctica and thus, an excellent overview for the non-specialist a continent with neither an indigenous and a handy resource for the specialist who population nor even a permanent one. In wants certain information without fact, the first human activities there did not unnecessary detail. Nevertheless, take place until the late eighteenth century. Antarctica: A Biography has a few It needs to be stated that David Day has met shortcomings. The only maps included in Book Reviews 177 the book are one overview of the complete Edward Duyker. Dumont D’Urville, continent in the endpaper and a single map Explorer & Polymath. Otago, NZ: Otago of territorial claims as of 1986. Additional University Press, www.otago.ac.nz, 2014. maps are necessary for locating where the 617 pp., illustrations, maps, appendix, events mentioned in the narrative occurred notes, glossary, bibliography, index. NZ and without at least some historical maps, it $70.00, cloth; ISBN 978-1-877578-70-0. is difficult to understand the growth of geographical knowledge about Antarctica The name Jules-Sébastien-César Dumont from the late eighteenth century on. d’Urville (23 May 1790 to 8 May 1842) Despite a very good index, a timeline would usually appears as a footnote, a reference in have been helpful for keeping track of such a wide variety of academic papers, but it is a rich and sometimes dense chronology of likely most English language readers know events. A section of 30, mostly well- little about him. Edward Duyker brings known, black and white pictures and d’Urville to life as one of the most multi- photographs completes the book, but these talented yet complex nineteenth-century few images are hardly enough to illustrate explorers. Largely considered a the history of an entire continent. Although botanist/mariner, d’Urville’s intellectual Day sometimes relies on interpretations that perambulations ranged much farther afield. might be considered outdated by Not only was he an explorer, surveyor, contemporary Antarctic historians, the very cartographer, entomologist, zoologist, nature of such a monumental undertaking anthropologist, geologist, hydrographer, and makes such nitpicking irrelevant. thermometrographer, as a mariner, he made Short on analysis and long on historical journeys circumnavigating the description, Day has written a book in the world several times and visited the Antarctic best tradition of Leopold von Ranke, the twice (1837 and 1840). The last journey well-known German historian who dared to was his attempt to reach the south magnetic write the history of the papacy covering pole at around longitude 140o. D’Urville four centuries. His was a complete history spoke or read French, English, Latin, Greek, that basically left nothing out, but limited Hebrew, Chinese, Egyptian Arabic, itself to description rather than analysis. Khoisan, and several Polynesian dialectics. Like Ranke, Day is less strong in his In 1820 d’Urville sailed the eastern analytical approach, but he has provided a Mediterranean, bringing back over 3,000 comprehensive foundation for future plant specimens, about 300 to 400 of which historical analysis of Antarctic topics. had never been described in European Antarctica: A Biography offers an entry collections, plus approximately 900 rock point for historians new to the frozen South samples. This enormous scientific and a one-stop reference for specialists. It enterprise resulted in the publication of is well written, for even casual readers, and Enumeratio Plantarum, a study written in is recommended for its eloquent overview Latin, describing the botanical specimens he of Antarctic history. For example, it would had collected during his voyage. This led to be an ideal companion for the long journey d’Urville’s election to the prestigious to the frozen continent of Antarctica. Linean Society. During his Mediterranean travels, he was also instrumental in the Ingo Heidbrink excavation and acquisition of the statue of Norfolk, Virginia Venus de Milo for France. From his voyages in the South Pacific, he was able to delineate the ethnographic divides of 178 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord Micronésié and Melanésié with respect to school as a child and failed his qualifying Polynesia, demarcations that stand today. In exams for entry into university. Instead, he 1821, d’Urville was made Chevalier de la matriculated as a cadet at France’s naval Légion d’honneur. In mid-life he academy. He rose through the ranks of the commanded the two vessels that took navy, but always lagged behind his more France’s Charles X into exile in Britain in personable and outgoing peers. The naval 1830. hierarchy considered him a scientist, while While on his extended expeditions the scientific community largely thought of in the southern hemisphere, Captain him as a naval officer at a time when the d’Urville and his crew were plagued with French Navy was far from its zenith. He dysentery, cholera, scurvy, and various was, in fact, both. forms of malnutrition and he was the first to In 1834-35 d’Urville published a use gelatin as a form of protein for his two-volume work, Voyage pittoresque ship’s company. Personally, d’Urville also autour du monde, using the literary device endured depression, gout, gastroenteritis, of a fictional mariner with adventures and debilitating headaches. His vessel, first borrowed and rewoven from the voyage called la Coquille and later renamed narratives of others. On his return to France Astrolabe, suffered many calamities during in 1840, d’Urville was promoted to rear his epic adventures ranging from lost admiral and awarded the gold medal of the anchors to threats of being overrun by Société de Géographie, and earned praises hostile inhabitants in the New Zealand from the members of the French academy of islands, to groundings on coral and amid Sciences. He wrote the first three volumes Antarctic ice. of Voyage au pôle sud et dans l’Océanie and Intellectually gifted but socially was working on the fourth book when he inept, d’Urville was eccentric, politically died with his wife in a bizarre train injudicious and sometimes intemperate in accident. his dealings with colleagues. His manner, Duyker’s biography is an extremely described as “abrupt” and “brusque” detailed analysis of a multifaceted man contributed to an abrasive personality. He during a tumultuous time in French history. appears to have alienated many of those The author skillfully recounts dramatic who controlled the fate of his divergent events such as hostile raids by natives, careers – hindering his rise in both the rampant illness onboard a vessel far from scientific and naval communities. One of land, and surveying the Antarctic coastline his subordinates described him as under crepuscular light and severe weather “ambitious for fame and glory . . . vain conditions as d’Urville and the people [believing] himself much superior to other around him dealt with the multiplicity of men of his corps. . . . I have never seen him challenges. The moving story of his long- miss the opportunity of glorifying suffering wife Adélie and the loss of several himself . . . a rare occurrence with naval of their children while d’Urville was at sea officers.”(p.199-200) Duyker refers to his is tragic. attire as “relaxed,” usually consisting of Dumont D’Urville, Explorer & tattered, threadbare britches and coat with a Polymath is dense with detail that produces beat-up straw or woollen cap, not the typical an avalanche of information. Costly, but dress of a French naval officer. beautifully bound and well illustrated, this No one would have predicted that scholarly biography is a rewarding read d’Urville would become a maritime about one of the most erudite explorers of Renaissance man. He had struggled with the nineteenth century. Duyker recounts an Book Reviews 179 important part of the French contribution to War. Friedman describes how weapons exploration, cartography, hydrography, technology evolved from rudimentary entomology and anthropology in a neatly bombs and torpedoes through to the advent packaged and brilliantly narrated memoire of guided weapons at the end of the war and of one extraordinary man. their refinement into the post-war era. Chapter 2, “Making anti-aircraft Louis Arthur Norton fire effective” introduces the reader to the West Simsbury, Connecticut complex set of physical problems involved in hitting a target (an aircraft) moving Norman Friedman. Naval Anti-Aircraft rapidly through three dimensions, while the Guns & Gunnery. Annapolis, MD: Naval gun platform (a ship) is moving through two Institute Press, www.nip.org, 2013. 399 dimensions, constantly pitching and rolling. pp., illustrations, plans, appendix, notes, During an action, there are numerous bibliography, index. US $86.95, cloth; aircraft continually changing direction while ISBN 978-1-59114-604-9. the ships are maneuvering wildly. Complexity is heaped upon complexity as This monumental work provides a complete the author tries to disentangle for the reader account of the history of naval anti-aircraft the components of the process of hitting a guns and gunnery in the fifty years from the maneuvering aircraft. First World War to the post-Second World Chapter 3 describes the state of War period. The author states his purpose anti-aircraft defence up to about 1920 and is as: “This book is about the gun defence of followed by other chapters devoted to key surface ships, but fleet air defence also historical periods for the major navies. For involved fighters, both carrier and land- example, there are inter-war chapters on the based.” (p.54). He covers the experience of Royal Navy, the U.S. Navy and other France, Italy, Germany, Holland, Japan, European navies with more space devoted Russia, and Sweden whose navies to the Second World War navies. The developed anti-aircraft systems, but the author divides the guns and their mountings main focus is on the America and British into three basic streams and follows their navies, since they were most active and progress: heavy (3-6 inches), intermediate most extensively documented. (1.1 inch and 40 mm down to 20mm), and The anti-aircraft gun and the light (.50 calibre and smaller) machine supporting gunnery system were guns. He also offers a useful “translation” increasingly critical to the survival of ships between British and U.S. parlance for the at sea during the period, as aircraft processes of direction and control and for succeeded the heavy guns of the battleship the equipment used to solve the problems of as the dominant naval weapon. The book hitting and destroying aircraft. He traces follows the progression from anti-aircraft each gun and the continual processes of defence to the role of ships in aircraft automating and applying power to them, direction and as radar pickets since the their mounts and ammunition systems, to technology and tactics of air warfare at sea make them faster. He also examines the continued to advance. refinement of radar systems and direction In Chapter 1, “An Evolving equipment as well as supporting calculation Threat,” the author considers the evolution and communications equipment to make of aircraft from slow, lightly-armed biplanes them more accurate and effective. During through to massed air attacks on fleets of the large, pivotal sea battles of the Second ships by the middle of the Second World World War, such as Leyte Gulf, Operation 180 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord Pedestal (the Relief of Malta), and and then communicate it to the guns and preparations for the invasion of Japan, the other ships. By the post-war period, problems and solutions were rapidly strategies for air warfare at sea had expanded to masses of aircraft and fleets of emerged. ships. The author skillfully combines text, Chapter 10, “Axis Navies at War” photographs, and drawings to transmit covers the German, Italian, and Japanese masses of information covering various experience. Chapter 11, “Post-War pieces of equipment. All photographs are Developments”, looks at system black and white with breath-taking two- refinements based on wartime experience. page spreads introducing each chapter. The Friedman throws an interesting sidelight on rest are mostly a full or half-page with long one particular high-velocity gun and its captions. The dramatic image on the front direction system, the 3 inch/70, that the US cover is “The Channel Dash” by Barry Navy rejected but was successfully used by Wilkinson, showing the 1942 attack of the RCN. torpedo-carrying Swordfish on the Each chapter describes the Gneisenau and Scharnhorst , while the back elements of the developing anti-aircraft cover shows 5-inch and 40- mm Bofors gunnery comprising crews, guns, their guns in action on the USS New Jersey. mounts, and the power systems serving The list of abbreviations contains them; optical and electronic rangefinders, some of the terms necessary to navigate the radars and direction systems; and the flood of acronyms and initialisms combat information and communication encountered. There are extensive notes, a systems controlling the guns. The reader is bibliography, and an index. The appendix, never allowed to lose sight of most “Gun Data”, offers detailed specifications important element, the human being, who for the artillery pieces. The bibliography combines the essential functions of the lists Friedman’s primary information system: vision, calculation, and movement. sources as well as published sources. The ergonomics of all human processes Wonderfully voluminous notes, mostly from sighting, calculating, communicating, based on primary sources provide rich, handling ammunition and firing the guns almost dramatic detail on the development are described and illustrated in detail. and use of the guns. Friedman attributes the failure of the British This book goes beyond technology: Pacific Fleet to achieve a good standard of the author’s grasp and knowledge of naval effectiveness in 1945, at the apex of its history, ships, and weaponry also enable development, partly to the inability of him to trace the effects of economic, people to operate and maintain complex diplomatic, and logistical factors involved equipment. Supporting technologies of in the implementation of the systems. There ammunition (shells), fuses and fuse-setting are new insights; for instance, that the clocks developed rapidly during the war as traumatic sinking of HMS Prince of Wales did complex machines such as telescopes, and Repulse in a single attack. Friedman range-finders and optical systems, and attributes the loss, in part, to the Washington auxiliary equipment like gyroscopes. Treaty, which led to British ships being too Radars were integrated into this process, “tightly-designed” and, therefore, unable to accelerating more rapidly in the final stages. expand their anti-aircraft capability in the Finally, combat information centres began form of automatic guns and directors and, to include computers to calculate and plot more critically, the back-up diesel aircraft positions, integrate the information, generators needed to power them. The loss Book Reviews 181 of their main power early on left the RN gives an overview of the ship, its loss and ships unable to defend themselves. the salvage effort that culminated in its Naval Anti-Aircraft Guns & raising and preservation in a dedicated dry Gunnery is far more than the title suggests; dock in Portsmouth. The lengthy chapter 2 it brings alive the inner dynamics of modern covers clothing with a detailed discussion of sea battles. It is an important reference items from fabric to socks, leather and cloth book for all libraries dealing with naval, air jerkins, through shoes, hats and fasteners. and defence history. We enthusiastically Each section is a precise analysis of the recommend it to readers interested in the many variations of the article of clothing history of aircraft, guns, radar, found within the wreck. A good example communications, and electronics in warfare. would be the “331 individual items of footwear” (p. 59) which constituted parts of Ian Dew and Kathy Traynor two different types of shoe, along with a North Bay, Ontario few ankle and thigh boots. The detail describing how the shoes were constructed Julie Gardiner, Michael J. Allen (eds.) and the source of materials is simply Before the Mast. Life and Death Aboard the stunning. Chapter 5 explores the musical Mary Rose. Portsmouth, UK; Mary Rose instruments found aboard, including Trust and Oxbow Books, percussion, wind, and stringed. These items www.oxbowbooks.com, 2013. xx+732 pp., provide significant insight into Tudor era illustrations, figures, tables, appendices, instruments. The numerous carpentry tools bibliography, index. UK £49.99, US found in the Mary Rose are described in $100.00, cloth; ISBN 0-9544029-4-4. chapter 8. A short seventh chapter covers the navigation and ship’s communication The Mary Rose Trust has reissued this 2005 equipment. Here, as in other chapters, the publication detailing the archaeological place of origin of the items is debated, finds among the remains of the Tudor ship Italian or Flemish, giving insight into the pertaining to life afloat in the 1540s. era’s lanes of trade not only for material Editors Julie Gardiner and Michael J. Allen objects but also for knowledge. The Mary have assembled the work of 54 experts Rose’s navigational artefacts are “the (including their own) who explored various earliest dated assemblage” (p.264) of such aspects of the material found buried with instruments in Europe. Furniture, stowage the wreck as it was first uncovered in the and implements necessary for cooking and late 1970s through to its lifting out of the serving food are dealt with in chapters 9, 10 Solent’s muddy bottom in 1982. This is the and 11, respectively. All chapters in the fourth volume in a five volume series book begin with a narrative providing describing the archaeological treasure trove context for the subject discussed within. recovered from the site. Each section (by the different authors) Section one contains eleven within each chapter also has an introductory chapters of various lengths concerning piece and ends with a summary, most often objects that lend insight into the lives of the placing the insights gained from the found men serving afloat (chapter 6, on money objects into a larger context. In most cases, found in the wreck, is 14 pages while the artefact-specific section reveals where chapter 2, on clothing remains, is 88 pages). the objects were made and how. Each themed chapter contains the work of Perhaps the most dynamic chapter multiple experts examining artefacts for this reviewer was the fourth, dealing relevant to the theme. The first chapter with the barber surgeon and the tools of his 182 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord two trades. The description of a barber celebration of the science of archaeology surgeon’s career and the use of medicines and its critical place in our understanding of and his various implements of practice are the past. brought to life with thorough background The volume contains 543 figures, research and painstaking analysis of the 98 tables of data throughout the text and 71 artefacts, especially the wooden vessels colour plates divided between two sections. containing medicinal items. The presence The figures include drawings and black and of wooden feeding bottles, urethral syringes white photographs of some of the articles and needles for suturing are only three of discussed in the surrounding text as well as the many interesting elements among the photographs of replicas made after the collection. original object and photographs illustrating Section two focuses on the use of the item’s use. Three general appendices biology and chemistry to explore the record the contents of chests, catalogue material discovered with the remains of the textile fragments and give details of plant ship. Chapter 12 discusses the environment remains (the later in six sub-appendices). in which the wreck was found and how An extensive bibliography and index artefacts were extracted and analysed. contribute to the volume’s importance as a Chapter 13 turns to the human remains reference tool. removed from the ship. This includes a This book is for naval, economic, thorough examination of skulls and bones, social and material culture historians and dentition, and DNA (not for the squeamish). archaeologists interested in the maritime Although mainly British, there were clearly history and way of life during the Tudor era. some Europeans among the crew. The Lay readers will need to be willing to weigh effect of the work activity aboard ship through the technical sections, though they appears in the surviving bones, as does a will be amply rewarded for the endeavour. distinct impact of the bow men’s repetitive Thomas Malcomson action on their left scapula. Battle wounds Toronto, Ontario are also discussed, as in a noted skull defect, the probable result of an arrow (p.533). Chapters 14 and 15 continue the analysis of John D. Grainger. Dictionary of British organic material with an examination of Naval Battles. Woodbridge, Sussex: Boydell food stuff (mammal, fish, and bird) and the Press, www.boydellandbrewer.com, 2014. presence of pests, parasites and pollen 588 pp., illustrations, maps, glossary, aboard the ship, respectively. Chapter 16 bibliography. US $165.00; ISBN 978-1- examines the use of science in the study of 84383-704-6. (Originally published 2012.) artefacts from the archaeological site. The final section, chapter 17, It might seem an impossible task to covers ongoing investigation of artefacts catalogue every ship and battle in which the and future research goals while reviewing Royal Navy has been involved over its the overall findings presented in the book. illustrious history. John Grainger, however, At the date of original publication (2005) has accomplished just such a task. His there was still a considerable amount of Dictionary of British Naval Battles, recently artefacts remaining to be identified and published by Boydell Press, is the most examined, leaving open the possibility that complete and comprehensive listing of many other aspects of daily life aboard the Royal Navy ships, battles, and campaigns Mary Rose awaited discovery. This volume available anywhere in print. In this (the entire series of five even more so) is a masterful work, Grainger has succeeded in Book Reviews 183 bringing together an enormous quantity of such as “Victory v. Embuscade, 28 May information in an eminently readable 1803” or “Dartmouth v. French warships, 4 format. Having published over twenty February 1695.” Other entries might cover books on maritime history and other geographical locations or actual wars, such historical topics, there may be no better as “St. Pierre, Canada” or “First Dutch author from whom we should expect a work War.” Grainger’s work is a dictionary, not of this high quality. an encyclopedia, so a listing of all of the Grainger describes how he ships at Trafalgar, for example, is not (nor organized the various entries in the nearly should it be) included. For general readers 600-page book. Defining “British,” who are searching for a ship, a battle, or a “naval,” and “battles” is the first task at specific sea captain, the exhaustive index hand. “British” includes ships belonging to should be enough to point to the proper the dominions up until the time when those page. various territories, such as Canada, India, It is hard to imagine any historian, Australia, and South Africa, among others, researcher, or the general reader with an became independent nations. “Naval” interest in maritime history not having this includes those ships belonging to the dictionary within arm’s reach. It is a government, so privateers are generally stunning achievement, combining excluded, except in those cases where meticulous and exhaustive research with an privateers were engaged by British vessels, easy-to-read presentation that makes the such as the clash between Blackbeard and book a pleasure to read. I challenge anyone the British captain, Robert Maynard, in to find a significant, or even a minor action Ocracoke, North Carolina, in 1718. This involving a British ship that is not included entry can be found under “Pearl and Lyme in this book. John Grainger’s Dictionary of v. Adventure, 21 November 1718” on page British Naval Battles is highly 344. Readers would have to know either recommended to scholars and general the name of the British ship or the British readers alike. It is a book that should be captain in order to find this information included in every personal and professional rather than searching the index for library. “Blackbeard.” In a similar case, in order to find the entry on the sinking of the Prince Jeffery M. Shaw of Wales and Repulse by Japanese aircraft in Newport, Rhode Island December 1941, one would look under the heading “Malaya” on page 278. Grainger specifically states in the preface that ships Lars Hellwinkell. Hitler’s Gateway to the sunk by aircraft are not included in the Atlantic. German Naval Bases in France, dictionary, but because Japanese submarines 1940-1945. Barnsley, S. Yorks.: Seaforth were also part of this engagement, Prince of Publishing, www.pen-and-sword.co.uk, Wales and Malaya are included. 2014. 234 pp., illustrations, notes, index. Grainger’s method of organizing UK £25.00, cloth; ISBN 978-1-84832-199- the numerous entries is the best conceivable 1. (Distributed in North America by Naval method for presenting such an Institute Press, ISBN 978-1-59114-164-8.) overwhelming amount of data in a single volume. Being a dictionary, entries are in It is said, sometimes attributed to Winston alphabetical order, but this might be by ship Churchill, that “The victors write the name, which is always followed by some histories.” Thus, it is useful to have a book other ship name or some other information, such as this written from the German 184 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord perspective. Lars Hellwinkell has done forced to help the occupier or else starve or what appears to be a very useful, even- be sent off to prison camps. The French handed (and well translated) job of looking Resistance did what they could to cause closely at the seizure, operation, defence problems for the Germans, but even within and recapture of the French Atlantic ports, the French regime there were arguments, primarily Brest, the French Navy’s principal sympathies, and a largely “hands off” pre-war dockyard, St. Nazaire, Lorient and attitude. The situation wasn’t helped when, other secondary bases. Hellwinkell opens a year or so later, the deadly RN attack on the tale with an examination of German Dakar in North Africa killed many French plans from the outset, or at least from the people. Then came the massive bombing time they decided to seize control of campaigns by the Royal Air Force and later, western France and the Low Countries in the USAF, designed to destroy the harbours’ order to gain access to Atlantic ports instead usefulness, especially when the Atlantic U- of being forced to operate from the North boat campaign became a critical threat to Sea. This was a plan that the German naval the Allies. Those raids never really hierarchy sold to Hitler and his prevented the Kriegsmarine from using the commanders, based on Vizeadmiral facilities, but they killed an unacceptable Wolfgang Wegener’s initial assessment of number of French civilians in spite of the requirement in 1932. By 1938, the warnings by clandestine radio (rare) and Army was being encouraged to prepare for dropped leaflets. It was a Hobson’s choice a drive to the coast. Everything went for the Allies, and a major continuing almost perfectly to plan in 1940, as the problem for the occupiers. French were forced to give up the entire One gets the impression from coast, from the Belgian border to Spain, reading Hellwinkell’s detailed examination with minimal German casualties. of the operations at various ports that many The French were faced with a very of the solutions tended to be made by local real dilemma: the English, albeit signatories individuals. There were, indeed, many of the Entente Cordiale in 1904, had been a cases of atrocities – workers executed for traditional enemy, while the Germans were slackness, attempts at avoiding work or air a more recent opponent dating from the raids, and even poor attitudes. These abuses Franco-Prussian War of the 1870s. Once tended to be committed by commanders Germany seized the French naval following orders from Hitler or his establishments, the occupiers needed French immediate staff. On the other hand, there technical assistance and labour to retain were cases of other area commanders maximum use of the facilities for their U- simply trying to preserve even a neutral boat, destroyer and minesweeper operations. attitude among their French workers, and These sites also served as a base for large finally, in the latter days of 1945, arranging German raiders, such as Graff Spee, truces with besieging American, British and Gneisenau, and the converted merchant Canadian forces so locals could at least raiders sent out to aggravate and complicate receive food and medical supplies. At the the Allied ocean controls. Germany had end of the war, port facilities were initially identified Trondheim, Norway, as a destroyed by the Germans before major support base for Atlantic operations; surrendering. When one admiral queried however, once under German control, the whether this destruction served any purpose, French ports assumed primary importance. he was promptly recalled to Germany and Over four and a half years, French court martialled. Elsewhere, occupiers were dockyard operating staff and workers were able to negotiate with the local FFI Book Reviews 185 resistance. Many of the former U-boat theory, and compiled his treatise from direct bunkers remain in use today, simply association with shipwrights. because they were almost impossible to As a result of this energetic and destroy in any practical way. penetrating interest in technical detail, A thoroughly interesting and Witsen’s 1671 “magnum opus,” Aeloude en unusual book, Hitler’s Gateway to the Hedenaegshe Scheeps-bouw en Bestier Atlantic would be very useful as a different (Ancient and Modern Shipbuilding and sort of reference source. A better map Management) was a mass of detail and would have helped, but this is offset by a digression. According to the translator of fascinatingly large collection of well Witsen’s work: “aside from its many produced photographs. intriguing qualities, the book has one major handicap – it is almost unreadable, due to its F.M. McKee totally chaotic structure, which consists of Toronto, Ontario numerous layers of discourse moving in endless concentric circles around a main A.J. Hoving. Nicolaes Witsen and theme, shipbuilding” (p.5). Shipbuilding in the Dutch Golden Age. Into this Dante-esque pit of College Station, TX: Texas A & M apparent confusion, Hoving leads us like University Press, www.tamupress.com, Virgil, steering us clear of the whirlpools of 2012. xiv+310 pages, illustrations, consuming detail, or the quagmires of appendix, notes, bibliography, index; US digression, and concentrates on extracting $120.00, hardback; ISBN 978-1-60344-286-2. the true essence of Witsen’s document, a detailed insight into the Dutch shipbuilding This is a fascinating book on several art and culture of the day. different levels: the unique and compelling Hoving’s book consists of two character of the original author; the light it major sections: Chapter 2, entitled “How sheds on the culture and differences in Ships Are Built in Holland Today” (that is, shipbuilding technology of the day; and the how they were built in 1671), and Chapter interesting and insightful way that the 3, “Contracts as Historical Sources.” In the present-day author has brought this tale to first of these, Hoving brings clarity to the us. example of construction of a Pinas (a Nicolaes Witsen (1641-1717) was frigate-sized merchantman), through the son of a prosperous Amsterdam carefully selected extracts from Witsen, merchant, educated in law, active in civic interspersed with explanatory paragraphs, affairs (thirteen times Burgomaster of supported by plentiful reproductions of Amsterdam) and in diplomacy. Nothing in original diagrams from Witsen’s plates, and his background or professional life would supplemented by more comprehensively suggest that such a man would be likely to illustrative drawings by Hoving himself and write a shipbuilding treatise that would G.A. De Weerdt. In the second major become a reference for every author on section, Hoving reviews a number of continental shipbuilding for more than a contract examples that Witsen presents for century. But Nicolaes Witsen was clearly a ships built between 1628 and 1642, Renaissance man, and keenly interested in highlighting the variety of contractual the most important commercial technology precision and shipbuilder/trade-centric of his day, shipbuilding. Even more latitude. There are even detailed outfit lists surprising, he was interested in the practical (sure to fascinate the retired pursers among details of shipbuilding rather than the our readership!). Regarding the lack of any 186 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord detailed contractual specification of the variations of texts, including amendments to actual shape of the ship to be built, Hoving soften comments antagonistic to either the also introduces ship-model building as a English (relative to the butchering of research method. By this means, through captured fireship crews following the raid careful adherence to the formulaic or on the Medway in 1667) or the Swedes proportional norms of Dutch shipbuilding as (relative to the Dutch-Swedish Battle of the documented by Witsen, the shape of the Sound in 1658). Clearly editorial pressure ship evolves naturally from a fairly limited is not a new phenomenon. set of principal dimensions. With Hoving’s help, Witsen offers That this is possible is due to one the modern reader a number of interesting significant difference between the English insights into Dutch shipbuilding technology and Dutch shipbuilding traditions of the and culture of the day. The book is full of day. It is interesting to note that Sir entertaining vignettes of the outlook and Anthony Deane’s Doctrine of Naval culture of the time, and the style of Architecture (1670) was a close discourse. For example, from Witsen’s own contemporary of Witsen’s. Deane (translated) words: “That the material from documented and advanced a long-standing which one builds ships is wood, everyone English practice of developing transverse knows. Nec in navi cadentem linum sections (initially by models, then through attingere, falling in a ship without touching drawings). Ships of the time were built wood, as the ancients said, when discussing frame-first, erecting the framework on the a case which seemed impossible to stocks and then planking it. Contemporary them”(p.22); or on the harvesting of timber: Dutch practice could be characterized “Never should a tree be cut as long as it conversely as shell-first; the keel and stern bears fruit: it is with trees as with women, frame was erected, and then the planking weak when they carry”(p.23); or from a was extended from the keel (garboard) contract: “The ship is painted with snakes outwards, each successive plank being and monsters to one’s own taste”(p.187). fastened to its predecessor until reaching the Hoving has done an admirable job turn of the bilge. Then the lower frames of translating, editing and presenting would be inserted into the ship and the Witsen’s work to us, although his occasional upper futtocks raised. In a number of ways, wry comments indicate that this has not this practice mirrored what is still common been a simple task (“although this book in modern clinker construction. It clearly cannot be read with the ease of a novel, I do left a lot to the individual discretion of the not feel particularly apologetic as the shipwright. As Hoving states, “In contrast original did not meet this standard, either,” to English practice, Dutch shipbuilders were and, later, “again, Witsen would not have kings of their profession, and they allowed won any prizes for clear formulation...”). no interference in their work. If a ship Overall, it is an excellent book, bound to be turned out to be a bad ship, they simply of interest to both period modellers and stated that it had ‘fallen off the ax that way’ those with a technical/historical interest in – and there was no changing that”(p.177). shipbuilding. To emphasize the applied For those with a more nature of this technical expertise, Hoving historiographical than technical interest, the chose as a dedicatory quote some words appendix includes an interesting discussion from one of Witsen’s successors in writing of “book archaeology,” noting that books of shipbuilding tomes, Cornelius van Yk, this era were no more standard, repeatable, Master Shipbuilder in Delfshaven 1697: articles than were ships. It documents “And certainly if by reading books Book Reviews 187 the arts could be mastered, I would master always maintains a sense of the local within many more than the few I do now.” the global, illustrating what was occurring in Newfoundland and placing it within Richard W. Greenwood international trends and processes. This is Victoria, British Columbia no easy task, as the eighteenth century was rife with global conflicts, shifting alliances, Olaf U. Janzen. War and Trade in revolutions, and economic and social Eighteenth-Century Newfoundland. St. change. Janzen lays these out in his John’s, NL: International Maritime History wonderfully clear style, never confusing nor Association, Research in Maritime History overwhelming the reader. No. 52, 2013. iii+235 pp., illustrations, Another clear theme is the imperial notes, maps, UK £25.00, paper; ISBN 978- control and the challenges of asserting it – 7-9278869-02-4. Distributed by University over both imperial competitors and the local of Liverpool Press, http://www.liverpool peoples. “Local peoples” includes the universitypress.co.uk. Aboriginal Mi’kmaq Indians, as well as more recent settlers from France and One of the biggest challenges historians England. Janzen’s articles touch on many face is balancing the details with the points, including how the absence of the overview. All too often, a historian can get imperial power can have as much effect as caught up in the minute while forgetting the its presence – illustrated in the establishment larger picture, or lose sight of the detail of French settlements at Codroy and the while painting with broader strokes. Olaf surrounding bays before 1755. Another U. Janzen easily meets this challenge example is the difficultly of imposing throughout War and Trade in Eighteen- imperial control on communities rendered Century Newfoundland, a collection of sparse and fragmented by their geographic articles published throughout his academic locale as well as their primary industry career. which repeatedly frustrated the Royal Navy The twelve articles are drawn from charged with protecting the dispersed Janzen’s thirty years as a historian in English fishing settlements. Newfoundland, from his early work in the Another topic Janzen explores is 1980s concerning Newfoundland during the the expression and definition of imperial War of American Independence through to boundaries, as seen in the Treaty of Utrecht later research on the role of the British and the subsequent British surveys under Navy in Aboriginal migration. Presented in the command of William Taverner and Lt. chronological order by topic, rather than John Gaudy, and later surveys by Hugh date of publication, the articles present an Palliser. Finally, there is the need to interesting traverse through understand local peoples and their customs Newfoundland’s development in the 1700s. to get the best out of the relationships. This In the introduction, Janzen lays out can be seen in Janzen’s comparison of his areas of interest, namely the western French and British communications with the coast of the island and the use of previously Mi’kmaq Indians, with reference to the under-utilized French primary and second practice of gift giving. All these themes are sources. He expresses an interest in the presented within the context of the local and particular as well as the general, and this, I the international and the interaction between would argue, is the true selling point of the the two. collection. Whatever the topic – piracy, As a collection of essays, rather settlement, war, and commerce – Janzen than a single long essay, War and Trade in 188 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord Eighteen-Century Newfoundland naturally Edward Monroe Jones and Shan S. has a couple of irksome factors. The first is Roderick. Submarine Torpedo Tactics: An repetition. The best example is the Chenu American History. Jefferson, NC: family, whose story is outlined in full in McFarland, www.mcfarlandprub.com, three articles, in the second and third 2014. viii+221 pp., illustrations, maps, instances, repeated almost verbatim. As the appendices, notes, bibliography, index. US three essays all present unique themes, this $45.00, paper; ISBN 978-1-4766-1758-9. is unavoidable, but still unfortunate. The second irritant is the lack of Edward Jones and Shawn Roderick have discussion referring to resources. Space in tackled a huge subject in their new book articles is precious, so it’s understandable Submarine Torpedo Tactics: An American that discussion of resources is limited, with History. Recognizing the highly technical more space dedicated to setting up and and acronym-filled content of U.S. Navy laying out the argument. In many of the submarine system technical manuals, the articles, however, Janzen has deliberately authors have attempted to distill and explain used lesser-known French sources or the history of the topic in an accessible unusual records from the Scottish archives, publication. as he states in the introduction. The sources Electing to attack issues themselves can, of course, be located in the chronologically, the authors begin with the footnotes, but it would have been interesting history of the development of the self- to know why these sources had not been propelled torpedo, then move into fire used previously and what they contributed control techniques used to employ this new to the study of Newfoundland history. weapon as the techniques and weapons These criticisms are minor, however, and evolved from the First World War, through result more from the nature of an essay the inter-war period, and into the Second collection than through any intentional World War. Readers of classic Second omissions. World War submarine histories will Such small points do not detract recognize terms such as the “Is-Was” (the from an excellent piece of work, and Submarine Attack Course Finder), the indeed, the collected essays generally build “Banjo” (a large hand-held slide rule), and to illustrate less well known aspects of the TDC (torpedo data computer); each eighteenth-century Newfoundland. The last device is pictured, and its use is outlined two essays, concerning Newfoundland with examples. The authors take this during the War of American Independence, opportunity to analyze the approach work particularly well as separate entities, problem for a diesel submarine to reach the presenting as they do, two sides of the optimum firing position against a surface American attempts to disrupt British ship target in order to employ a spread of involvement in the fishery. straight-running torpedoes, effectively War and Trade in Eighteenth illustrating tactics with diagrams. Issues Century Newfound presents an interesting covered include visual periscope ranging insight into some parts of Newfoundland’s methods, as well as incorporation of the lesser known history; but more importantly, new technologies of both sonar and radar to it represents an engaging look into the work aid in range determination. Excerpts of of Olaf U. Janzen. Second World War patrol reports are quoted at great length to illustrate tactical Kate Jordan employment; at times the excerpts distract Melbourne, Australia from the tactical discussion, particularly a Book Reviews 189 segue into German tactical computers and a submerged target, ignoring any noise or German patrol report which was not jamming countermeasures, and homing on adequately tied to the book’s topic. the submerged target to detonation. The Moving past the Second World book does not discuss the development of War, the book increases its emphasis on the torpedo-mounted passive or active sonar to continued development of the submarine detect and close a target, nor does it discuss platform and its missions, at the expense of the addition of wire guidance capability, further delving into torpedo design allowing the shooting submarine to provide improvements and concurrent fire control updated information or new programming system development. A section discussing to a torpedo after it had been launched. the development of Guppy diesel Also missing from the discussion is submarines describes fire control party the evolution of the submarine fire control organization, and introduces the time- system as employed on nuclear powered bearing plot and the geoplot, but does not American submarines, and how it improved define an Ekelund range or show how such over 60 years through operational a range may be calculated from passive experience, fire control party organization, sonar bearing information. The discussion expanded submarine platform capability, of the evolution of the Mark 101 fire control and improved torpedo capability. Thus, the system is a bit confused, and is oddly transitions and relationships between concluded by discussing submarine manually generated solutions via hand electronic surveillance missions, including plotting, computer generated solutions using an excerpt from the book Blind Man’s Bluff. programmed algorithms (Kalman automated The remaining chapters of the book cover calculations, or KAST, was mentioned the evolution of the American submarine without explanation), and fire control without discussing the evolution of the system solutions developed by manual torpedo, or the tactics used to optimally manipulation of parameters, remain employ it. unaddressed. The authors provide a table of The book would benefit from the submarine fire control systems, but that recognition of two completely different table requires revision, as neither the CCS employments of submarine fired torpedoes: Mark 1 nor the Mark 117 fire control against surface ship targets, and against systems are listed; Sturgeon and Los submarines. The history of employment Angeles class submarines are incorrectly versus surface ships, well covered in this listed as carrying the Ohio class Mark 118 book, evolved over the course of two wars, system. first through analysis of visual information To summarize, this is the first book only, then through the addition of radar and specifically written to discuss the evolution sonar information. The ability to stealthily of American submarine torpedo tactics. It torpedo a submerged submarine is a does a solid job of tracking the evolution of completely different tactical problem, the American submarine platform, and of requiring the development of an estimated the tactics used to attack surface ships target range, course, and speed sufficient for during two world wars. Future editions a homing torpedo to acquire the enemy should concentrate on expansion of the submarine, without the use of active sonar, synergy between torpedo technology which could reveal the pending threat. Also development, sensor and fire control system required to successfully attack a submerged development, and fire control party target was the development of a torpedo- coordination, particularly in the nuclear mounted sensor capable of detecting a submarine era. Which area leapt forward 190 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord first; how was the required solution submarines that incorporated the latest accuracy determined based on torpedo technology in submarine design and was capability; what about pre-programmed focused on a Cold War anti-submarine role. torpedo presets (e.g., search depth, search Events of the early 1960s, notably the speed) to maximize weapon effectiveness; Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, placed a high what were the capability gains from the demand on the U.S. submarine fleet and transition from Mark 37, to Mark 48, to there was enormous pressure to counter the ADCAP torpedo? The present edition, Soviet submarine threat, particularly their however, with its bibliography, footnotes, ballistic-missile-firing submarines, with glossary, and illustrations, should prove modern quiet submarine-killers. USS useful to both historians, and to laymen Thresher represented the culmination of this striving to understand the optimization of a technology and the U.S. Navy was very complex multi-variable system as it evolved keen to complete her first of class trials as over decades. they had already started constructing follow-on submarines of the class that David Ruff would eventually number over 50 College Station, Texas submarines. For reasons that remain speculative, USS Thresher suffered a D. Allan Kerr. Silent Strength – casualty on 10 April 1963 when conducting Remembering the Men of Genius and deep dive trials after a refit, causing the Adventure Lost in the World’s Worst submarine to exceed her maximum diving Submarine Disaster. Portsmouth, NH: Peter depth and subsequently implode, killing all E. Randall Publisher, www.perpublisher 129 personnel on board, including some .com, 2014. xiii+124 pp. illustrations, crew shipyard staff as well as the crew. This list. US $29.95, cloth; ISBN 978-1-937721- remains, to date, the largest loss of life in 19-0. any one single submarine disaster, including the loss of the Russian submarine Kursk in Any book about the death of a submarine is 2000. inevitably a lightning rod to a wide First and foremost, it important to audience fascinated by the mystery understand what this book is and what it is surrounding submarine disasters, which like not. Simply put, it is a testimonial to the their aviation brethren, fuel speculation and men who were onboard USS Thresher on conspiracy theories as there are usually no that fateful day and their surviving families. survivors to tell the tale. The USS Thresher As the author clearly states, his goal was to disaster has always been seen to be different “attach names and faces to the tragedy, to – how does a brand-new, state-of-the-art personalize, on some modest level, the epic U.S. Navy nuclear-powered submarine event known as the Thresher disaster” (p.1). come to be lost, without any survivors, 200 The author, D. Allen Kerr, who had nautical miles off Cape Cod, Massachusetts, previously served in the U.S. Navy and now when it is simply conducting peacetime sea- writes for the Portsmouth Herald trials? It is a story that captured worldwide newspaper, compiled the personal stories of attention and sympathy at the time, 24 of the 129 men who were lost, as a series regardless of political or ideological of newspaper articles, in time for the fiftieth affiliation, particularly for the young crew anniversary events commemorating USS and their families. Thresher’s loss in 2013. In addition to his In 1963, USS Thresher was the first research, by conducting personal interviews of a new class of nuclear-propelled attack with some of the surviving family members Book Reviews 191 he brings together a number of poignant information emerges. To be fair, Silent stories of perseverance by young families Strength – Remembering the Men of Genius who had lost their husbands and fathers and and Adventure Lost in the World’s Worst how they coped with life after the disaster. Submarine Disaster is designed to tell the Understandably, because most of story of the human side of the disaster and the people on board were young men, they to ensure its lessons are not lost over time. did not have lengthy biographies or career So as a memorial collection of personal accomplishments, yet Kerr succeeds in stories intertwined around the loss of USS teasing out their personal stories to paint a Thresher, it is quite appropriate for anyone picture of what they might have achieved with an interest in human side of a had they lived, and in so doing, he brings submarine disaster. At $29.95 US it may home the depth of the tragedy even more. seem a bit pricey, but the proceeds are He also makes it clear that the 129 souls donated to a worthy cause - the Thresher who lost their lives on 10 April 1963 did not Memorial Project. do so in vain, since the U.S. Navy instituted Norman Jolin a comprehensive submarine safety program Kanata, Ontario (SUBSAFE) to address the issues uncovered during the subsequent investigation into the loss of USS Thresher Kristin Kube. Hochseefischer. Die (pp.76-79). Lebenswelt eines maritimen Berufstandes Extensively illustrated with aus biografischer Perspektive. personal pictures that really bring out the Munster/New York, NY: Waxmann Verlag human aspects of the tragedy, the book is GmbH, www.waxmann.com, 2013, Beiträge only 124 pages long, but it is handsomely zur Volkskultur in Nordwestdeutschland, bound and presents well. That said, it Band 123. 420 pp., illustrations, notes, remains a collection of individual appendix, glossary, bibliography. 34.90 €, narratives, in a rather workmanlike paper; ISBN 978-3-8309-2941-3. (E-book compilation that reflects the initial intent of 34.90 €) publishing a series of individual newspaper articles. Consequently, it has the tendency After the unification of East and West to become a bit of a hodgepodge of Germany, the German deep-sea fishing information, which is somewhat repetitive industry was taken over by companies from at times. For example, the flagpole over the Iceland and The Netherlands. Thresher memorial is 129 feet tall to Hochseefisher examines the lives of represent the 129 men lost – a fact repeated fishermen in the post-war era from 1945 in many individual narratives, as is the until the decline of Germany’s deep-sea SUBSAFE program and reference to Robert fishery in the 1990s. Ballard’s discovery of RMS Titanic in 1985 During the second half of the (pp.45-46) as a cover story to explore the nineteenth century, the sail-powered fishing wreck of USS Thresher. industry was gradually replaced by steam. For readers, who, like me, are Once engineers and stokers began to work anticipating a twenty-first-century update on board fishing ships, they changed the on the cause of the disaster, this is not the composition of the crews. The German book for you. The definitive account deep-sea fishery arose between 1885 and remains Norman Polmar’s excellent The 1930, in parallel with the extensive process Death of USS Thresher (Chilton Books, of industrialisation in Germany but the 1964) which continues to be updated as new major changes occurred in the actual 192 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord process of fishing itself. New machines and months at sea. Crews became more fishing techniques required skilled hands on international as foreign fish workers were deck. hired. Although the fishing fleets of East and In 1900, the waters around Iceland West Germany had similar fishing vessels were one of Germany’s prime fishing areas. and worked the same areas, there were major In the pre-First World War period, the deep- differences in their crews. East German sea fishery employed a work force of about crews were larger than in the Western fleet, 6,000 men and a fishing fleet of 263 ships. and working conditions were better, safety By 1919, a mere 82 ships remained. Five standards higher and crews remained years later the figure rose to 401 ships. After together longer. West German deck hands that, the size of fishing vessels increased, learned their trade by doing it, while East while the number of vessels declined. Germans went through a two-year During the Second World War, 244 apprenticeship. fishing vessels were sunk, leaving only 58 In East Germany, fishing, like ships actively fishing, but post-war everything else, was state owned, and fishing rebuilding of the fishing fleet was tempered was done in flotillas. The West Germany by Allied restrictions. Nevertheless, by fishery was in the hands of several 1950, the fleet numbered around 230 ships companies, both large and small. On board with much of the work still done by hand. ship, it was a highly specialized occupational After the so-called Cod Wars in the 1950s world based on a strict division of labour. and 1970s, the idea of exclusive economic Fishermen were proud of their profession zones of 200 nautical miles became accepted and considered themselves as the ones who and national interests limited the Freedom of did the real work. They saw their role as the Seas. Thus, German trawlers set a course distinct from that of the skipper, mate, for South America in search of new fishing engineers, deckhands and radio-operator. grounds. Political resistance and the lack of Although crews were highly heterogeneous, interest in exotic fish in Europe soon made it comradeship was the most important social clear that this alternative was a dead end. In good of the collective. Accepting the social 1984 the decline of the German fishery norms on board helped the team to function became apparent. After 1990, foreign smoothly. companies took over deep-sea fishing from Kube’s study of the participants in German companies and the German Germany’s deep-sea fishery looks at cultural “national” deep-sea fishery ceased to exist. patterns, life at sea and on land, perception After the war, the deep-sea fishery and self-perception. It is based on 39 employed some 30,000 men from East and interviews, 20 of them with deep-sea West Germany; by 2012 this number had fishermen and 19 involving other people, shrunk to about 100. In the early days the including six crewmembers and 13 industrial production of ice was a major step representatives from the wider fishing forward, encouraging the establishment of community. Hochseefischer takes a fishing ports. Advances in industrialization scientific approach to the life of fishermen reshaped the fishery thanks to the ongoing and the result is a monolithic work on the development of engines, ergonomic history of a maritime profession from a equipment, sorting machines and biographical perspective. communication and sonar systems. New Jacob Bart Hak production concepts were developed as Leiden, The Netherlands larger super trawlers were built, crewed by 80 to 100 men apiece who spent three to nine Book Reviews 193 Tim McGrath. Give Me a Fast Ship. The McGrath’s study of Barry is a Continental Navy and America’s Revolution virtual reprise of his earlier work John at Sea. New York, NY: NAL Caliber, Barry: An American Hero in the Age of Sail www.penguin.com, 2014. 543 pp., (Westholme, 2010), but he more than illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, rewards us with his mini-biography of John index. US $26.95, CDN $31.00, cloth; Paul Jones to whom Fast Ship owes its title. ISBN 978-0-451-41610-0. It was Jones who supposedly said: “I wish to have no connection with any ship that As his title suggests, Tim McGrath’s Give does not sail fast” (p. vii). McGrath’s Me a Fast Ship: The Continental Navy and sketch of Jones, whether hero or not, is America’s Revolution at Sea studies a remarkably even-handed. He praises Jones largely unremembered phase of the for his raid on Britain’s shores at American rebellion of 1776 – the war at sea Whitehaven in 1778, stating: “The last time that daring colonials fought against the a British seaport had been raided was in Royal Navy on and across the Atlantic to 1667, during the Second Anglo-Dutch War” the very shores of the mother country itself. (p.219). He also lauds Jones’s courage off Well researched and documented, Fast Ship Flamborough Head the following year in the tells naval history as it should be told, with famous confrontation between the sea battles galore and single-ship Bonhomme Richard and HMS Serapis. engagements, along with a roster of heroes, McGrath describes Jones’s courage as “as likely and unlikely, on both sides of the natural to him as breathing…Pure warrior… contest. And, McGrath does it all in a style he paid no heed to personal danger” (p.228). reminiscent of C.S. Forester and Patrick He tempers this, however, by suggesting O’Brian. that “Jones established little connection McGrath’s cast of players in Fast with his men … [he] wanted [his own] glory Ship is enormous. There’s John Adams of first and foremost” (p. 220). Massachusetts, for example, who McGrath A rare treat in Fast Ship is calls the “midwife” of the American navy McGrath’s colourful sketch of the obscure (p. 7). It was “landlubber” Adams, who Gustavus Conyngham. Calling him a terror piloted the legislation that created the U.S. to British shipping and the most successful Navy through an often balky Congress. of all Continental Navy captains, McGrath’s Esek Hopkins of Rhode Island is named as tale of Conyngham’s own capture, his the first “Commodore” and commander of incarceration in the notorious Mill Prison in an American fleet, though McGrath much England, and his various escape attempts, prefers one of Hopkins’ subordinates, the last one finally successful, reads like the Captain Nicholas Biddle of Pennsylvania, stuff of legend. for his superior fighting skills. Trained in In a fascinating chapter entitled the Royal Navy, Biddle is described as a “Shubael Gardner,” McGrath also reflects man who “fear[ed] Nothing” (p.78). on the tragedy of war in an ordinary man’s McGrath also praises British officers such life and death. Gardner, a whaleman from as Andrew Snape Hamond, Richard Pearson the island of Nantucket which was “neutral” of Serapis fame, and Sir George Collier of territory during the war, was disowned by Penobscot notoriety. But, it is Americans his fellow Quakers for having served aboard like John Barry, John Paul Jones, and a an American ship of war. Restored to virtually unknown Anglo-Irishman and civilian life in 1782, Gardner shipped out of converted Yankee, Gustavus Conyngham, Nantucket aboard the whaler Somerset, who claim the most attention. which was promptly seized, crew and 194 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord vessel, by the American frigate Alliance, vessel positions during battles, including the Captain Barry. Barry persuaded Gardner to strategies involved in ship maneuvering, are resume his naval service as a gunner and uniformly helpful. The extensive master’s mate and he was subsequently bibliography is useful and informative as killed in an engagement with the British well. ship of war, Sybil. Unfortunately for Give Me a Fast Ship: The Gardner, he died after King George had Continental Navy and America’s Revolution ordered British forces to cease firing, and at Sea should appeal to arm-chair mariners, amazingly enough, after Congress, itself scholars, and professional sailors alike. had found that Somerset had been illegally William L. Welch seized in the first place! Natick, Massachusetts Fast Ship is replete with the requisite sea battles and single-ship engagements from Glasgow against the Ian McLaughlan. Sloop of War:1650-1763. Continental fleet off Block Island (1776) to Barnsley, S. Yorks: Seaforth Publishing, the Penobscot Expedition in Maine (1779), www.seaforthpublishing.com, 2014. 288 and from Bonhomme Richard vs Serapis off pp., plans, illustrations, paintings, Flamborough Head (1779) to Alliance vs photographs, tables, notes, bibliography and Atalanta and Trepassey off Nova Scotia index. UK £40.00, cloth; ISBN 978-1- (1781), all of which McGrath manages 84832-187-8. successfully. Nor does he shy away from the subject of mutiny in the Continental (Editor’s note: This book was previously service. The revolt by British prisoners reviewed in vol. XXIV, no. 2 (April 2014), against the Americans aboard Randolph in pp. 191-3; we received this second review 1777 was quelled by Captain Biddle with and are printing it as it offers a different liberal use of the lash, the horrendous perspective.) effects of which McGrath describes. This is another high quality book Mutinies of American sailors against their by Seaforth, beautifully produced and officers occurred on Ranger under John organized and lavishly illustrated with Paul Jones in 1778, another under Jones on images, including many from the board of Alliance in 1780, and two under Barry on the author, along with black and white Alliance in 1781 and 1782. As keen copies of his own water colour paintings. commanders, both men responded with There are also photographs of paintings and appropriate severity. McGrath suggests that models from the National Maritime the mutinies were caused by lack of pay and Museum along with lines and plans. hard usage. McLaughlan, more correctly Derek Fast Ship includes sections Andrews, did a wonderful job of initially explaining recruitment and discipline in the researching what had to have been a very Continental service, and details of the so- difficult subject, when considering the range called Articles of War. McGrath also notes of vessels referred to as sloops of war how the Navy was provisioned, the uses and starting with fishing boats and eventually to practices of naval weaponry and gunnery, purpose-built vessels. While McLaughlan and how naval vessels were “worked.” His was initially inspired by the chapter on description of life in the “fo c’ sle” for sloops of war in Robert Gardiner’s book, ordinary seamen is particularly well done. Line of Battle, and later mentored by A glossary of naval and nautical terms, Gardiner, who suggested that he contact colourful illustrations, maps, and charts of Derek Andrews, considered by many to be Book Reviews 195 the greatest expert in England on the sloop selection of mast and spar dimensions, of war, and to whom the book is rightfully selected sloop plans, performance reports, a dedicated. list of designers and builders and The book is based in large part on a armaments. Most of the vessels, despite lifetime of research done by Derek their widely differing hulls, rigs, armament Andrews. When ill health deprived and crews listed as being ketches, Andrews of the energy to write the book, he brigantines, sloops, advice boats, pinks, unselfishly turned his research notes over to yachts and one specialised vessel, the bomb McLaughlan for completion. Nonetheless, ketch were ordered by the Navy and were McLaughlan added to Andrews work and built in Royal Dockyards; but many were presents the findings clearly, logically and also either prizes, or were purchased in, in an easy to read manner. While many invariably during a time of urgent need; books have been written on the rated ships, however, they disappeared just as quickly little has been published on the sloop of war afterwards, as has happened numerous times or her counterpart, the French Corvette, since, including the Second World War. The despite the fact that by the end of the vessels were unrated, and not included in Napoleonic War, this class had became the the formal establishment rules that divided most numerous in the Royal Navy. the Royal Navy’s fighting ships into six McLaughlan chose to begin the first of three rates. books with the period 1650 to 1763. If he is Being unregulated, ship builders able to write them, the next two will cover were permitted a degree of freedom to the periods 1763 to 1815, and from 1815 to experiment, in large part this was trial and 1950 respectively. error, and resulted in countless The book’s eighteen chapters focus combinations of rig and hull, however their on a number of aspects of the early history performance was carefully studied, and development of the sloop of war. evaluated and where worthy, incorporated Rigging, fishing boats and related ship into later designs. types, such as small warships, brigantines, Long used to finding the rigging of advice boats and sloops (1689-1702), oared vessels toward the back of a book, I was vessels, ketches, bomb vessels, fireships, surprised to find it here as the first chapter, sloops of war (and peace) and early and however the author put it where it is to later corvettes are all discussed in relation to provide a better understanding when the sloop of war. McLaughlin also considering the various hull types he discusses the role of these ships in the discusses later. While today we understand numerous wars involving England, Holland, a sloop to have a single mast, as described France and Spain (1651-1678), against here, sloops could have one, two, or three France (1688-1714), the Commonwealth masts carrying sails on two and occasionally and Restoration navies (1651-1688), wars three, but rarely ever, on a single mast. for trade and empire (1714-1763). Finally, The first chapter on sail plans the author describes and illustrates various discusses first “square” then “fore and aft” aspects of sloop construction from early- rigs including lateen, as well as examining seventeenth century vessels to 1763, the importance of the windward capabilities covering both peacetime (1714-1728) and of the two rigs, their advantages and wartime naval vessels as well as privateers. disadvantages. The author lays out the There are also six appendices various sails and rigs with illustrations which contribute to the overall usefulness of keyed to the discussion regarding each sail, this book detailing a list of vessels, as including notes. For someone unfamiliar 196 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord with sails, their terminology and their use, particular. Quite a few focus on shipwrecks this chapter is an excellent primer. and disasters. They are usually based on McLaughlan indicates that while this material gleaned from newspapers and section on sails is a brief overview, it is still magazines, Internet sites, and some worthy of careful study. The rest of the reference works, with occasional forays into book, however, is certainly not a primer or archives. an overview when discussing the This book is no exception. It is an development of the rigs, hulls, and their entertaining read, the sort of book that can work. This has all been superbly brought be picked up for a story or two, put down together despite there being a lack of formal and then picked up again. The focus is documentation more commonly found when made clear in the title: these are tales of the researching the rated vessels. service provided by Newfoundlanders Subsequent chapters continue to during the Great War – in the Royal Naval examine the development progression of the Reserve, in the merchant marine, or in sloop of war, with each chapter well schooners delivering salt cod to distant endowed with illustrations, water colour overseas markets. Some of the stories have paintings, photographs of models and been taken from Parsons’ previous books paintings depicting the various ships along and reprinted here, provided the tale had a with addition of countless plans and lines bearing on the central theme of the Great drawings. War at sea. The stories are arranged An extremely well researched and chronologically in four main groupings: written book on a complex subject, this 1914-1915; 1916, 1917, and 1918 (which book is highly recommended to historians, includes a couple of tales that carry the model builders, and anyone wishing to learn story beyond the war). Each grouping is more of the progression of the development preceded by a brief summary of wartime of this, the largest class of small ships in the developments which Parsons regards as Royal Navy at the end of the Napoleonic relevant to his narratives; the great naval Wars. encounters that dominate most works on the war at sea (such as Coronel and the N. Roger Cole Falklands or Jutland) are not mentioned. Scarborough, Ontario The stories presented by Parsons are not without value to the historian. Robert C. Parsons. Courage at Sea: Through them, for example, we are Newfoundland Sailors in the Great War. St. reminded that Newfoundland’s service to John’s, NL: Flanker Press, the Empire during the Great War was not www.flankerpress.com, 2014. xvi+222 pp., limited to military service at Gallipoli or on photographs, illustrations, map, appendices, the Western Front. Several tales describe general sources, indices. CDN $19.95, the experiences of Newfoundlanders in the paper; ISBN 978-1-77117-381-0. service of the Royal Naval Reserve, maintaining the North Sea blockade which Robert Parsons is a prolific author of books played so critical a role in the eventual on the “nautical history” of Newfoundland defeat of Germany. Almost none of the (to use the publisher’s categorization). For stories focus upon those who served in the the most part, his books are collections of merchant marine on ships delivering sorely “tales” and “stories” centred on life and needed food and war materiel through the work at sea in Atlantic Canada generally, gauntlet of German U-boats and surface and Newfoundland and Labrador in raiders. Instead, most of the stories relate to Book Reviews 197 two- and three-masted schooners which schooners ran a high risk of interception by continued to deliver salt cod to markets in U-boats and the essential service that those Southern Europe, the Caribbean, and Brazil schooners performed in feeding a war- while the war raged on in Europe. They too wracked Europe – are nonsense. Yes, some risked encounters with U-boats, armed schooners did encounter U-boats and were merchant ships, or mines as they plied their sunk. Yet most schooners in the fish trade trade, and Parsons dramatizes those which escaped the notice of enemy submarines or fell victim to these threats. In all, armed enemy cruisers. The number that approximately forty stories, averaging just a actually fell victim to enemy action was but few pages each, are told. a fraction of the total. Estimating what that This means that there is little room total might have been during the war would for context or analysis; Parsons is a story- have been a worthwhile exercise in teller, not an historian. As a result, too historical research into the nature of many factual details which can easily be Newfoundland’s sea service during the war, checked in today’s Internet world are but Parsons never tries to suggest just how fudged or distorted. Thus, HMS many trans-Atlantic passages were actually Formidable is identified as a “battleship.” undertaken by vessels engaged in the fish Technically that’s true, but it was an aging trade during the war. Nor were those pre-dreadnought battleship when it was vessels performing a vital war service for torpedoed in the Channel near Portland in the Entente Powers in Europe, carrying food January 1915. Reservist Leander Green did and supplies to English ports. Instead, their receive a Distinguished Service Medal, but destinations were generally ports in neutral it is sheer speculation by Parsons that Green countries like Portugal and Spain in Europe, earned the medal during efforts to rescue or Brazil in South America, and their Formidable’s crew (Green was serving in cargoes of saltcod were commodities in a patrol cruisers in the North Sea at the time). trade which was extremely profitable to Perhaps Parsons can be forgiven for their owners and to their country. Some of factual errors when dealing with specific their destinations were ports in countries actions; let’s blame it on the persistence of like Italy and Greece which were neutral the “fog of war.” Other errors are not so when the war began and did not enter the easily excused. The United States did not war until later. Most of the schooners that declare war in April 1917 “immediately fell victim to enemy action had already following the sinking of the SS Lusitania” delivered their cargoes of fish to market, (p.42); the liner was torpedoed nearly two and were on the return journey home, oft years earlier, in May 1915. Nor did “several times with a cargo of salt, when they American citizens” die in that tragedy; the became targets of opportunity for U-boats toll was 128 Americans among the 1,198 patrolling the sea lanes entering or departing who lost their lives that day. More from the Straits of Gibraltar. What is importantly, given Parsons’ determination to particularly ironic is that the Newfoundland shed light on Newfoundlanders at sea, the fishing economy did exceptionally well risk to schooners that were transporting fish during the war, so much so that war-time to overseas markets of encountering the shortages of steamer shipping (which to that enemy was quite small. Nor did those point carried most of the fish to market) schooners keep “the vital food and supply obliged the fish trade to fall back once again lines flowing between Europe and North to the use of the very schooners to which America,” (pp.86-87) a point Parsons makes Parsons gives so much attention. It is a real repeatedly. Both points – the insistence that shame therefore that he says so little about 198 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord the conditions and circumstances which their living by the sea will have to stay necessitated the use of schooners in the hungry a while longer. trade at all, and so much about those few Olaf U. Janzen schooners who became victims of the war at Corner Brook, NL sea. This imbalance between explaining the larger picture and focussing instead on Lawrence Phillips. Pembroke Dockyard and the episodic is rooted in considerable extent the Old Navy: A Bicentennial History. on Parsons’ limited attention to the available Stroud, UK: The History Press, literature on the several ways that the war at www.thehisorypress.co.uk, 2014. 333 sea had an impact on Newfoundland. Mark pages, illustrations, index. UK £19.99; Hunter’s recent book on the Newfoundland paper; ISBN 978-0-75095-214-9. Naval Reserve (To Employ and Uplift Them [St. John’s, 2009]) is not cited, nor is This book is a distinguished contribution to Bernard Ransom’s older but still valuable the literature on shipbuilding and essay on the Reserve which appeared in A dockyards. It is also a unique contribution Nation’s Navy: In Quest of Canadian Naval to the history the Pax Britannica, more Identity (Montréal & Kingston, 1996), particularly to its earlier years after the edited by Michael L. Hadley, Rob Huebert defeat of Napoleon and the end of the War and Fred W. Crickard. Another source of 1812. Contrary to the general which appears not to have been consulted is appreciation that the Admiralty scaled down Tin Pots and Pirate Ships: Canadian Naval its establishments ashore and afloat, in fact, Forces and German Sea Raiders 1880-1918 it set in place new measures for maintaining (Montréal and Kingston, 1991) by Michael the naval primacy upon which England’s Hadley and Roger Sarty; their book had national profit and power depended and the much to say about schooners that were security of the British Empire could be threatened or attacked by enemy ships, sustained. One of those measures was the including a few of those covered (in less establishment, by Admiralty order, of a new detail!) by Parsons. Also missing is the dockyard for the construction of men-of- article by Charles Dana Gibson on “Allied war at Pembroke on Milford Haven, in Fishing Fleets and U-Boat Attacks in World Wales. Wars I and II” which appeared in the From this decision many benefits October 1991 issue of The Northern flowed, and right until it was wound up as a Mariner / Le marin du nord. And there is naval establishment, over 250 warships no question that better sources are available went down the ways to those Welsh waters. on the Newfoundland economy and society Here in this remote quarter of the United during the Great War than the few used by Kingdom, a place not even connected by Parsons. railways until mid-century, many of the I have little doubt that Courage at most powerful future gun-carrying Sea will sell well, especially now that the platforms met saltwater. The influence of hundredth anniversary of the Great War is these vessels on world history was profound upon us. People will buy it, and read it, and in their collectivity. In their individual many will find it entertaining. But they careers, given delightfully though won’t be well informed by it, and those who necessarily briefly in this work, they did the hunger for a better understanding of the magnificent and painful work of the Pax – impact that the war had on those in and the wars to follow – and for this Newfoundland and Labrador who made reviewer, it was a delight to see the essential Book Reviews 199 particulars of so many ships of war that drawn to the painting of the Erebus, a have been so central to Canadian history, vessel much in the news these days, for it in particular aspects of Arctic exploration was Franklin’s ship, recently found in a and Pacific Coast voyaging and survey. surprisingly shallow icy passage in the The author begins his book with these Canadian high Arctic. The United celebratory words facing his title page, Kingdom had transferred its sovereignty of from John Ruskin (1895): “For one thing these islands to Canada in 1880, and left it this century will in after years be to other nations to press on with the transit considered to have done in a superb of the Northwest Passage. manner and one thing I think only... it will The Erebus, we learn, was a bomb always be said of us, with unabated vessel of 1826, and at 375 tons, not far off reverence, ‘They built ships of the line’ ... the size of Captain George Vancouver’s the ship of the line is [man’s] first work. command, the Discovery. Mortar ships, Into that he has put as much of his human now obsolete, were sometimes converted patience, common sense, forethought, for surveying duties, and she sailed for the experimental philosophy, self control, Antarctic. With the Terror, Franklin sailed habits of order and obedience, thoroughly to explore the possibility of a Northwest wrought handwork, defiance of brute Passage. Erebus was abandoned 22 April elements, careless courage, careful 1848, the search for Franklin and his men patriotism, and calm expectation of the commenced some time afterwards by 39 judgement of God, as can well be put into public and private expeditions, and finally, a space of 300 feet long by 80 broad. And by Admiralty Order of 16 June 1854, I am thankful to have lived in an age when Erebus was removed from the Navy List. I could see this thing so done.” The lure of the Arctic passage has Lieutenant Commander Phillips is received disproportionate attention from no stranger to those who know the Canadian history enthusiasts far beyond its activities of the Society for Nautical strategic or commercial importance. Research, for he was the chief energizer of Although the search for the Arctic grail is its centenary activities. He also has served doubtless compelling, it is in the Pacific with distinction on the boards of the Ocean, and on the shores of British Hakluyt Society and the Navy Records Columbia, where the solid importance of Society. He is a tireless supporter for maritime influence is felt, and it is here historical matters naval and maritime. He that many of the vessels that came from the is editor of The Royal Navy Day By Day, Pembroke yard found wide fields of the RN’s standard naval history reference activity. The fourth-rate Constance, a book, now in its fourth edition, which is beautiful frigate built of good English – dedicated to Her Majesty The Queen and and Welsh – oak, was commissioned for which is issued to every ship and the Pacific Station. She entered Esquimalt establishment in the Fleet. His remarkable harbour, Vancouver Island, and came to professional network has brought him into anchor in Constance Cove, a momentous contact with all the leading departments of event presaging later naval events in government or of private scholarship that British, Canadian and Commonwealth have allowed him to enrich his text with a annals. Other Pembroke-built vessels, the most delightful collection of photographs, fourth-rate Sutlej, wearing the flag of Rear including a handsome cluster of colour Admiral John Kingcombe, 1862-1866, saw illustrations, many of which have not been every port of call of importance in the published before. My eye was particularly eastern Pacific. She arrived back at 200 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord Spithead, and during a fleet review there, There are amazing Pembroke in 1867, a junior officer sensing the decline stories to be found in this remarkable book. of sail as a motive power, commented: “We For example, there’s the account of the fired a salute and then, standing in under Royal Yacht Victoria and Albert, designed all plain sail and starboard studding sails, by the famed Sir William White, and built [we] passed right through the fleet; and all to replace the monarch’s fifty-year-old the men crowded the rails and yards and vessel of the same name. For reasons that cheered us down the lines. For the days of are explained by the author, the vessel sail were passing even then; we had come proved top-heavy when in dock, and that from the ends of the world; and the ended White’s career and spoiled the splendid appearance of a fully-rigged man- Yard’s reputation. The Queen-Empress of-war standing in the anchorage moved refused to board her, and that was the end every sailor’s heart.” It is this sort of detail of that. George V and George VI had no and anecdote that gives true vitality to this such qualms, and she survived until 1954. book. Much of her furniture was transferred to Then there is the screw sloop the Britannia, coins under her masts were Alert, on Pacific Station for eleven years, retrieved, and her figurehead still stands on and later famous in polar exploration and the parade ground of HMS Nelson at in lighthouse service in Labrador and Portsmouth. Then there’s the story of the Quebec. And what about the famous ill-fated cruiser Curacao, sliced in two by Zealous, the ironclad wearing the flag of the Cunarder Queen Mary in 1942. Many Rear Admiral George Hastings, the first photographs from the author’s collection ironclad to sail the Pacific? She was six grace this book, giving us the appreciation years in the Pacific without docking (a of the immense labour of love exhibited by worry to all concerned with naval affairs) the author. His various references to the and her crews were exchanged over the injuries and deaths suffered by the isthmus at Panama in early 1870, another dockyard hands and artificers give this first. On the way home she hit a rock and work its truly human dimension. He also that reemphasized the need for a dock on recounts the lives of the dockyard British soil, and that was part of the origins superintendents and their families. This is of HM Dockyard, Esquimalt, opened in good social history, too, for we have an 1887. The loveliest cruiser of the Pax, the appreciation of the dockyard as a working second-class cruiser Amphion, had two establishment. tours of duty in the Pacific, never fired a Yes, they built ships-of-the-line in gun in anger (showing the effectiveness of Pembroke, and in doing so, established a the Pax) and was paid off in 1904. There’s community. Sadly, like so much else in a street named for her in Victoria. She was British naval history, all this has passed one of those vessels struck from the Navy away. Even so, we have this fine book – as List by the Fisher “reforms” and it is good a tribute to that time and place as interesting to note that Fisher’s own could be written, a credit to the author, Renown, his flagship on the North America those who have aided his work, and the and West Indies Station and also in the publisher. We all stand in his debt. Mediterranean, was constructed at Barry Gough Pembroke. Of shallow draft, she could Victoria, British Columbia steam through the Suez Canal and did so twice on vice regal duties. She was also a grand sight in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Book Reviews 201 Jamie Prenatt and Mark Stille. Axis Midget their enemies would be the British and the Submarines 1939-45. New York, NY: French, and that Italy’s navy could not Osprey publishing, match the naval might of those two nations, www.opspreypublishing.com, 2014. 48 pp., especially Britain. During the years illustrations, tables, bibliography, index. US following the First World War, Italian naval $17.95, CDN $18.95, UK £9.99, paper; engineers sought to capitalize on the success ISBN 978-1-4728-0122-7. of one of their intrepid craft in that conflict. The authors present Italy’s efforts and In times of war and conflict, all belligerent involvement in this new form of undersea players seek to develop tactics, weapons technology in a well-organized and detailed and strategies that best facilitate their own narrative, strengthened by numerous images ideal outcomes. Often, the development of and illustrations. They also clearly explain these tactics, weapons, and strategies is Italy’s successes and failures during the war. dependent on terrain, geography, and the Germany’s program to develop and availability of resources and technologies. use unmanned torpedoes and midget During the Second World War, Italy, submarines came about late in the Second Germany, and Japan, as well as a number of World War and was, in reality, a chaotic other nations, delved into the research and effort as German engineers and military development of unconventional submarine persons flailed about with different craft, types of vessels that could potentially concepts. Again, the authors present the be used for both offensive and defensive rather dubious machinations by German warfare. In Axis Midget Submarines 1939- developers very well, including their 45, the authors go beyond the infamous U- failures. Not only did their experiments boat war in the Atlantic Ocean and other result in the loss of men, but they distracted undersea endeavours by the Axis nations. Germany from other submarine programs Instead, they focus on the evolution of that were more successful. In this section, “midget craft” as the Axis means of the historical narrative is once more backed overcoming their deficiencies in other up with an excellent series of photos, combat areas. Aside from an introduction cutaway drawings, and illustrations. and origins page, the work is laid out in Japan, much like Italy, knew who three simple chapters, with each one its next enemy would be, developing its discussing the evolution of midget craft in midget submarine program in response. Italy, Germany, and Japan respectively. They determined which craft would be used There is no specific conclusion to the book: as offensive weapons that would/could be it simply ends with a bibliography and an deployed in the vanguard of any open- index. ocean, large-scale surface-fleet Italy was, perhaps, the first nation confrontations. As early as 1932, Japanese to seriously consider developing alternative designers began construction on various submarine types, due perhaps to its naval types of weapons. Again, the authors take experiences in the First World War and the the time to not only discuss the original limitations of the 1922 Washington Naval plans for such a fleet, but also to discuss Treaty on capital surface ships. Italy started how the roles of alternative fleets changed redeveloping its alternative naval program over time. Much like Germany, Japan’s well before its entry into the Second World efforts throughout the war changed as losses War. Because of Italy’s geographical of both men and material mounted. position in the Mediterranean Sea, members Although the authors do an of the Italian government and military knew excellent job in clearly presenting their 202 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord information, and provide extremely useful Marcus Redicker approaches maritime images, illustrations, and cutaway drawings history from a unique perspective by (many provided by noted maritime artist drawing upon figures from the edges of this Peter Wright), there are a few areas where distinct society; that is, those from below- the work could have been stronger. Firstly, deck – the ordinary men who plied the sea there is the lack of citations within the text, some of whom were considered outside of and the authors’ almost complete reliance the law. He divides them into three groups: on secondary sources. Secondly, there is a slaves, pirates and what he terms the lack of contemporary maps depicting areas “motley crew.” These are stories of ordinary of operations. While the narrative is good, seamen of the merchant fleet or the British associated maps would have provided Royal Navy, but the setting is largely from readers with a better understanding the the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. attacks and misfortunes of the vessel Redicker’s graceful prose brings these operators and the outcomes for their people to life. intended targets. Lastly, there are places in The author has written two very the text where the authors could have powerful books, one about the slave trade chosen better words or terminology. They (Slave Ship, 2007) and another concerned could have also occasionally provided a few with pirates and piracy (Villains of All brief explanatory sentences to clarify their Nations, 2004) and there is some obvious meanings. thematic and textual overlap. Redicker’s This work offers a quick and previous accounts of the capture, middle interesting read, illustrated by appealing passage and inhumane consequences of the artwork illustrating the evolution of a slave trade were extremely graphic and unique type of undersea warfare. Moreover, upsetting to read. They are reiterated here, the authors’ academic degrees and but in a different and rarely presented combined 60-plus years of military and context, that of the rebelling slave rising to intelligence service provide their work with the level of outlaw. academic authority. While geared towards a The author makes part of his point general audience, the book would be better about slavery by invoking many disturbing understood by readers with a basic images. For example: former free men and knowledge of Second World War naval women shackled in the ship’s hold; history. Although not intended as an prisoners surrounded by nets on deck to academic reference, Axis Midget prevent them from jumping overboard; Submarines 1939-45 does offer a quick frequent horrendous physical punishments reference to a little-known aspect of the designed to spread fear and intimidation; Second World War and a useful starting ghastly executions to deter others from point for more detailed research. revolting; and victim’s limbs and bodily remains fed to circling sharks. The latter Wayne Abrahamson cruelty was particularly terrifying to the Pensacola, Florida slaves because, according to their religious folklore, their dismembered bodies would Marcus Redicker. Sailors, Pirates, and not be admitted to the nether world. Often Motley Crews in the Age of Sail. Boston, missed in discussions about the introduction MA: Beacon Press, www.beacon.org, 2014. of Africans into slave culture is the fact that xii+241 pages, illustrations, notes, index. many of those placed in bondage developed US $26.95; CDN $31.00, cloth; ISBN 978- close bonds with each other, especially 0-8070-3309-8. during the middle passage. When separated Book Reviews 203 upon landing at the place where they were were doing something similar. The to be sold, they suffered great emotional difference being, the latter was sanctioned stress. by the society of the times. Some insurrectionists were able to Finally, the author dwells upon “the take possession of their ship, thus becoming motley crew,” disgruntled and sometimes- outlaws or pirates in the sight of the law. violent seamen who frequented the ports Because of the extreme abuse that they throughout North America. They were a suffered just for being primitive blacks, it is pack of rebels of varied ethnic and racial difficult not to develop great sympathy for composition, but also representative of the the mutineers. Redicker writes about many population from which sailors came. Their slave ship voyages and incidents, but he lot could be miserable, but many were devotes one chapter to exploring the famous trapped in their occupation. There were few Amistad rebellion from a fresh perspective. attractive economic alternatives for such This is a valuable read. Many know of the men and, after a while, a significant number event(s) and perhaps the outcome from the found their lifestyle pleasurable. What is 1997 film, but few realize that there was a often forgotten is these men sailed the play about the rebellion written in 1839 vessels that docked in foreign ports called The Long, Low, Black Schooner and a representing what these people in other publication about the events that year parts of the world came to regard as during the trial entitled A True History of prototypical North Americans. Redicker the African Chief Jingua and His makes the point that “the motley crew,” Comrades. often dismissed as ignorant ruffians, both Redicker’s description of the produced maritime history and became the culture of piracy cause the reader think product of it. “Contemporary globalization differently about these maritime makes it easier to understand the importance desperadoes. The pirates were extremely of the original transnational work, the deep egalitarian. Often, they were more sea sailor, and the centrality of the seas in advanced in democratic ways and means human endeavor as a place where important than their contemporaries ashore. Their historical processes such as the genesis of method of governing preceded the French ideas and class formation have taken place” Revolution by almost century. The crew (p.178). elected the captain and “officers,” but if the The author does sermonize at times captain oppressed or abused his men, he – wandering off theme to make an obscure was in serious trouble. The pirate’s dark point – but despite this minor occasional society constructed formal rules that were flaw, I highly recommend Outlaws of the social pacts that enumerated rights and Atlantic. It is an extremely well written and responsibilities among the captains and intellectually stimulating book; a logical crew. These included the hierarchy of extension of Redicker’s earlier works. His authority, enforcing discipline, distribution look at history in general and maritime of plunder, and the policies with regard to history in particular from “the bottom up” is punishments. The lash was used far less thought provoking. It is a fresh viewpoint frequently than in the navies of the world from which to investigate various cultures and in merchant vessels. Disputes between within a historical context. crewmen were settled on shore, usually by Louis Arthur Norton fists, sword or pistol. Pirates kill and West Simsbury, Connecticut pillage for a living, but Redicker attempts to make the case that many of their victims 204 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord David Stevens. In All Respects Ready: Australia between the Naval Board, Australia’s Navy in World War One. South Government, the governor-general and the Melbourne, AU: Oxford University Press, Admiralty can now be fully analyzed http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/, 2014. 470 pp., without fear or favour. illustrations, maps, index. UK £29.99, The result is an absolutely paper; ISBN 978-0-19-557858-4. outstanding piece of historical research covering the full gambit of RAN activities At long last the full story of the Royal during the First World War. The well- Australian Navy (RAN) in the First World known action between Sydney and Emden, War has been told. David Stevens is the capture of German New Guinea and the Australia’s preeminent naval historian and submarine AE2’s actions in the Dardanelles this book is his magnum opus; the result of campaign are all well covered, but so are several years of research, including a period the little known range of the RAN activities of secondment with the Royal Navy in the North Sea, South East Asia, Pacific Historical Section at Portsmouth in 2011. Ocean, East African waters, Caribbean, off The original history of the RAN in the U.S. east coast, Mediterranean and in the First World War was published by home waters. The activities of men and Arthur Jose in 1928 but suffered from ships previously consigned to the footnotes political censorship and a lack of proper of history are now covered fully and often access to essential documents. Part of this for the first time. was the reluctance, by both the Royal Navy The layout of the book is excellent and RAN, to release information still and provides several chronological chapters considered to be classified, and also Jose’s which are easy to read and well-illustrated own difficult manner (he chose to conduct with maps and photographs (including his research and writing in Sydney while the several that have never been published bulk of the source material remained at before). Stevens makes use of extensive Navy Office in Melbourne!). That said, the first-hand reference material including original history was a good document but diaries and letters written by RAN suffered from too many gaps in data, some personnel, as well as official records (all of post-war victory jingoism, a reluctance to which are comprehensively foot-noted for call into question political decision making further research if the reader so wishes). (as the decision makers were still in Of note is the extensive use of positions of influence) and Jose’s tendency records from the “lower deck,” and from to describe at length those areas where junior officers, which give a deeper source documentation was good to the appreciation of what it was like to serve at neglect of others. sea in the RAN during the war – it’s not just Now with the benefit of access to what the admirals and politicians thought or once-closed documents, in both Australia wrote. Each chapter finishes with a vignette and England, modern research facilities of a notable sailor, officer or civilian such as the scanning and e-mailing across administrator who played an important role the globe of vast quantities of material and during the war – or, in the case of Able assistance from other like-minded Seaman “Dinkum” Minogue, someone who researchers, David Stevens has been able to stood out from their peers due to their produce a much more in-depth and well- unique (i.e. downright odd) character. rounded history of what the RAN actually There is something for everyone in did during the First World War. the book from the development of naval Additionally, the political situation within aviation through to the often-forgotten Book Reviews 205 administration and logistics efforts across Bildquellen. Wiefelstede/Oceanum Verlag & the globe to support Australian units in the Bremerhaven/Deutsches Schiffahrtsmuseum many and diverse locations where they (Schriftenreihe des Deutschen operated. The home front is also covered Schiffahrtsmuseums, Band 66), well with the analysis of recruiting and www.dsm.museum, 2012. 344 pp., training issues, dockyard construction work illustrations, maps, English and French and the ongoing efforts to ensure a regular summaries. Euro 69,90 €, cloth; ISBN 978- supply of coal to RAN vessels, often in the 3-86927-066-1. face of tense and bitter industrial disputes during 1916-17. The interaction with other From the high middle-ages onwards navies, particularly the Imperial Japanese cartographers in the western world began to Navy that operated in Indian and Pacific illuminate their maps with the images of Oceans throughout the war, also gets its fair towns, churches, castles and other share of analysis. conspicuous landmarks. In the beginning, For the Canadian reader, there are these images were basically decorative, only references to HMAS Australia operating off secondarily serving as sources of the west coast of Mexico in 1914, with information on, for example, itinerary maps. HMCS Rainbow, searching for von Spee’s Much later, mapmakers began to decorate elusive East Asian Squadron, and also the sea charts as well; they used only the convoy escort and patrol work conducted in margins of their charts to disseminate 1915-16 by HMA Ships Melbourne and commercial data – preferably regional Sydney on the east coast of Canada. The products – that might be useful to their two cruisers were frequent visitors to customers. One image you will never find Halifax, where some of the Australian on these maps and charts, even on the high sailors deserted and joined the Canadian seas, is a picture of a ship. The only Expeditionary Force – with at least two exception is pictures of Noah’s ark, used at being killed in action at Vimy Ridge. the time as a theological motif symbolizing I could find very little to fault in the importance of the (Roman Catholic) this extensive review of the RAN in the Church. First World War. There are some very During the fourteenth century, ship minor typographical errors, but you need a illustrations started to be used more widely fine tooth comb to locate them. The book is as (secular) decorative elements on sea written in a style that makes it easily read charts, a custom that lasted until far into the and understood by all, regardless of whether seventeenth century. The reasons for using they are admiral, professor, student or just such pictures, the scale upon which they vaguely interested in what the Australian were used, and their relation to the purpose Navy did during the First World War. The of the chart as a whole, have remained bottom line is – read it. You will not be relatively unknown. Author René Tebel disappointed! became intrigued by the phenomenon and made it the subject of his thesis at the Greg Swinden University of Vienna in 2004. The Evatt, ACT, Australia Deutsches Schiffahrtsmuseum considered his study very suitable for publication in René Tebel. Das Schiff im Kartenbild des their series Schriften. Mittelalters und der Frühen Neuzeit. Tebel did not set himself an easy Kartographische Zeugnisse aus sieben task. He had to master a great number of Jahrhunderten als maritimhistorische specialist studies on cartography, art history, 206 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord and early shipbuilding; the book has a 53- carracks, let alone taking a chance on giving page bibliography with more than one his contemporary pictures a specific name. thousand titles, most of them in German and On the Deutsches Schiffahrts- published before 2004. Books published museum website, one can find a digital since 2004 have not been included, which catalogue which is accessible via an means the bibliography might have missed entrance code on the last page of the book, more recent titles. Finally, the author had to to find the official name of a map or chart, study in detail many hundreds of maps and where to find it, whether it has been charts, among them some relatively reproduced, relevant literature, etc. – but unknown specimens. that is not an easy road either. In the first two sections of his book, Ergo conclusio: a book filled to the Tebel first dwells on the use of ship pictures brim with data and knowledge, in text and as a decorative motif in general over the illustrations, on maps and charts from the centuries, then addresses the ship as a twelfth to the seventeenth centuries, means of information about such things as decorated with maritime motifs – and at the the qualities of a port or the results of a same time, a rather inaccessible treasure- voyage of discovery. In the third part of his chamber. book he focuses on the decorated charts as Leo Akveld sources for the study of ship typology. Rotterdam, The Netherlands The book is profusely illustrated. Sometimes surprisingly clarifying pictures have been borrowed from unknown books Rodney K. Watterson. Whips to Walls: unearthed by the author. It is really a great Naval Discipline from Flogging to pleasure to glance through the colourful Progressive-Era Reform at Portsmouth wealth of Tebel’s study. Despite being a Prison. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute pioneering and admirably organized Press, 2014. xii+245 pp., illustrations, collection of data on maps and charts from figures, tables, notes, bibliography, index. the early period of mapmaking, especially US $59.95, paper; ISBN 978-1-6251-445-1. those decorated with ship motifs, Das Schiff eBook; ISBN 978-1-61251-446-8. im Kartenbild has a number of obvious drawbacks. Tebel does not draw a firm Retired Captain Rodney Watterson, USN, conclusion from all his painstaking has written an important study of the shift research. Even for a German-speaking from the lash to prison as the major tool in author, his rather complicated style and use dealing with behaviour deemed criminal by of language, do not make his subject matter the United States Navy. After reviewing the easily accessible, a problem that even navy’s use of summary punishment flogging carries over into the English-language as a response to sailors’ recalcitrant summary. Nor does his exuberant use of behaviour, and the lash’s demise, Watterson notes heighten the readability of the main focuses on the navy’s shift to a reliance on text. A strict editor might have done a great incarceration. The story of Portsmouth job here. And if you expect – as I did – to Naval Prison, at Portsmouth Navy Yard, find the specific names of at least some of New Hampshire, under the command of the ship types that sailed the seas in those Thomas Mott Osborne during the early days, you are cherishing a false hope. progressive era dominates the second half of The author speaks about “rowed ships of the the book. Mediterranean” or “square-rigged ships From the beginning of the United from the Atlantic,” not about galleys or States Navy, the officers in command of its Book Reviews 207 ships and vessels employed the cat of nine appeared to be open to reform, were kept tails and iron fetters to punish sailors who out of the prison to encourage their disobeyed orders, attempted to desert, retention and redemption within the service. talked back or engaged in any of the One set of offenses which appear to have numerous other behaviours deemed to deeply troubled the navy and landed those undermine discipline and order aboard ship. convicted in the naval prison were moral The lash was the inherited tool, which offenses (primarily homosexual activity). remained after the King had been thrown The navy relied on state and federal off and the Thirteen Colonies became the facilities, prison ships and detention United States. The new country and infant barracks at first. This make-shift navy formed a set of Articles of War, arrangement eventually fell to the navy’s assessing guilt and assigning punishment desire to have its own prison system. The through the captains’ discretion for minor early progressive era’s call for issues with seamen and via courts martial rationalization and efficiency further for officers and more serious offenses by encouraged realignment and solidification seamen. This approach was taken directly of the naval prison system. Ultimately, one from the Royal Navy. prison was established in Mare Island, After describing the heavy reliance California (for the Pacific theatre) and on flogging in the early navy, Watterson Portsmouth Naval Yard became the prison turns to the effort to abolish the use of the on the east coast (for the Atlantic theatre). whip to punish. This movement is fraught The Portsmouth Prison opened in 1908, but with ambiguity as a desire to dispense with its early record of reintegrating reformed a method many found repulsive clashed men back into the navy was not good. The with the concern over the void it would use of standard prison methods (i.e. total leave in with behaviour deemed silence among prisoners, lock-step inappropriate. The act which abolished the marching as prisoners moved through the lash in the navy came into law in September facility, chains, depersonalizing prison garb) 1850. Confinement, badges of dishonour, were eventually viewed from the prolonged “police duty” and loss of pay progressive movement’s perspective as were some of the alternatives that officers antiquated and in need of reform. used to enforce their sense of order. Enter Thomas Mott Osborne, Watterson examines punishment reports and whose term as warden at the infamous Sing courts martial in the post-lash period and Sing penitentiary introduced the world to finds inconsistency in the assignment of the his reform methods of prisoner alternative punishments. As the Department representation and self-governance. His of the Navy struggled with this problem, time there raised his profile as a prison they came to the decision to use prison reformer in America, but it ended in a cloud confinement for major offences. These of controversy over his method, and a offenses were divided into two categories; scandal over homosexual activity in the those that broke civilian laws (i.e. murder, prison and in his own life. He rose above embezzlement) and those that broke naval this with his own spin on the events law (i.e. desertion, disobedience). Those published in articles, books and speeches, who broke the civilian laws were placed in preserving his reputation as a major civilian prisons, while those offending naval successful prison reformer. Based on this laws went to the navy’s facilities. Minor reputation, Secretary of the Navy Josephus offences, (i.e. dress violation, first offence Daniels, and Under-Secretary F. D. for drunkenness) in which the offender Roosevelt brought Osborne to the 208 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord Portsmouth Navy Prison, in August 1917 and Sing and Portsmouth Naval Prison) and encouraged his reforms. Osborne introduced Osborne’s own potential homosexuality. The his inmate self-government and book clearly presents the picture that during representation initiatives, instituted sports Osborne’s time at both penal institutions and theatre programs (including a travelling homosexual activity became widespread and theatre group of prisoners who performed for problematic to prisoners, prison local organizations) and removed the marine administrators both below and above prison guards stationed in the prison to Warden/Commandant Osborne, but less so to outside the prison. His reforms quickly met him. The question that is left ambiguous in with an aggressive backlash. Osborne’s two Watterson’s work is Osborne’s own main opponents were every officer who involvement in homosexual activity both commanded the marines at the Naval Yard within and outside the prisons. His penchant and officers in command at sea who found for dressing in disguises to enter the world of their sailors regarding time in prison as easier the sailor and the prisoner, to live among than life afloat. As opponents to Osborne them, sometimes in secret and openly at and criticism of Daniels’ handling of the others, is at first a wonderful method of United States Navy in the First World War collecting data on those he will lead, or mounted, Daniels and Roosevelt’s supportive reform. As Osborne’s story is unwrapped for relationship cooled and finally ruptured. the reader however, this activity develops Osborne was removed from Portsmouth more of a voyeuristic role, if not potentially, Navy Prison, in March 1920, under similar a homoerotic activity. This tension parallels overcast skies as those that drove him from the navy’s struggle with “morality” crimes. Sing Sing. His career as a prison reformer Nine figures and twelve tables hold continued; consulting, writing and speaking statistical evidence that supports Watterson’s about his successes and the continued need to description of early naval punishment and reform America’s prison system. life at Portsmouth Navy Prison. Heavy use Watterson draws out the controversy of archival material from Daniels, Osborne, of reform and resistance within the service to and the Portsmouth Navy Prison give an those reforms. It is the resistance that impressive depth and grounding to ultimately prevails as the commandants that Watterson’s perspective. Twenty images followed Osborne removed most of his appear in a group in the middle of the book. reforms. A major element in the story is the One of the images is of Osborne dressed as a power of Osborne’s personality to blindly sailor for one of his undercover trips aboard push forward, shaping and reshaping all a naval vessel. This book adds to our objections and criticisms of his methods, understanding of the evolution of casting doubt on the person engaged in the punishment in the United States Navy, criticism. He was a forward-thinking person especially with regard to the development of of the progressive stripe, but he also had an a naval penal system and its first attempts at inability to work collegially with those who reform. It is also an important examination did not accept his perspective. His use of of Thomas Mott Osborne, one of the Daniels and Roosevelt (and their use of Progressive Era’s most controversial prison Osborne) is another major force in how reformers. reform unfolded at Portsmouth. Thomas Malcomson An unresolved tension exists within Toronto, Ontario the book between the presence of homosexual behaviour between sailors on ships, prisoners in confinement (both at Sing Book Reviews 209 Thomas Wildenberg. Billy Mitchell’s War the USN and Marine Corps (USMC) who with the Navy: The Interwar Rivalry Over wanted, justifiably, to control air assets vital Air Power. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute to their respective missions. Nor did the US Press, www.nip.org, 2013. xii+271 pp., Army want to lose a significant part of its illustrations, maps, appendices, endnotes, service. bibliography, index. US $34.95, cloth; Ultimately, both Mitchell and the ISBN 978-0-87021-038-9. USN won their respective arguments. Mitchell proved that bomber aircraft could General William (“Billy”) Mitchell occupies sink battleships. In 1921, he carried out a high place in the United States Air Force’s tests on captured German battleships that pantheon of heroes. After distinguished exposed the threat air power posed to the service in the First World War with the then- traditional surface fleet. This threat was titled U.S. Air Service of the U.S. Army, conclusively established in December 1941, Mitchell began a campaign for an when Japanese bombers sank HMS Repulse independent American air force with and HMS Prince of Wales. Further, by the responsibility to control ALL American end of the Second World War, the USAAF military aviation assets. Thomas Wildenberg was operating almost independently of the provides a detailed look at this forgotten U.S. Army. Mitchell’s dream of an controversy in the U.S. military. independent American Air Force came to After the First World War, Mitchell fruition in 1947 when the USAAF became and other officers of the U.S. Air Service the U.S. Air Force. (later named the U.S. Army Air Corps But Mitchell’s idea of an [USAAC] and by the Second World War, independent air force controlling all military the U.S. Army Air Force [USAAF]) looked aviation assets failed. The USN won its at the British Royal Air Force (RAF) which side of the dispute: it retained control of had been formed in 1918 by the merger of Naval Aviation and the USMC retained two British military air arms – the Royal control of its aviation branch. In addition to Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air the air branches of the USN and USMC, it Service. The conclusion Mitchell and was realized after the Second World War others formed from the RAF – one military that the American Army had its own unique air service had to control all military air aviation requirements. The result is that assets. Thus, in 1919, began the each of America’s five military branches – controversy over creating an independent Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and U.S. air force that would control all military Coast Guard – is in charge of its own air functions including bombing, air-to-air aviation requirements. This structure has combat, reconnaissance, fleet protection, been replicated in other nations: Great close air support for troops on ground, Britain’s military services,British Army, maritime patrol and coastal defense, search Royal Navy, and Royal Marines, each have and rescue, transport, etc. aviation units in addition to the Royal Air Mitchell and others carried on this Force. Countries such as Australia, France, tug-of-war for years, even after Mitchell Germany, Italy, Spain, and Thailand each resigned from the USAAC having been have army aviation, an independent air court-martialed as a result of his charges force, and naval aviation. (Canada had the that the U.S. Navy (USN) and USAAC same tripartite military aviation structure were incompetent and negligent in until unification of its armed forces in American air policy. The argument for an 1968.) independent air arm was bitterly opposed by Thomas Wildenberg, a noted naval 210 The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord historian, details the struggle that lasted between 1919 and 1941. He provides a brief but accurate biography of Billy Mitchell which places the protagonist of this narrative in his historical perspective. Wildenberg drew on primary sources – some oral history, archives, and many government documents – as well as secondary sources in writing his book. The result is an in-depth treatment of the interwar controversy over air power and is unlikely to be bettered in a short account. For those who want to read more about Billy Mitchell, Wildenberg, unusually but quite helpfully, includes a section titled “Other Biographies of Billy Mitchell,” which contains an annotated bibliography of the eleven prior biographies of Mitchell. The illustrations are quite relevant and add to the narrative. One appendix is a helpful timeline that shows the overlap between U.S. presidents, secretaries of war and navy, U.S. Army chiefs of staff and chiefs of naval operations, and the various heads of the two services air arms. The writing is clear and concise and rarely confuses the reader. The end notes are both informational and referential and document Wildenberg’s assertions. This book is not for the strict maritime enthusiast, but rather, the reader interested in the development of air power during the period 1919-41 will find this to be a most useful addition to the bookshelf. One caveat: it must be remembered that Wildenberg is a naval historian and therefore, writes from a naval perspective. It would be interesting to find the Army/Air Force perspective on Mitchell’s career and the struggle for an independent air arm for a comparison. That said, Billy Mitchell’s War with the Navy can be recommended. Robert L. Shoop Colorado Springs, Colorado