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e Naval Books of 1967
A. Lambert, Associate Editor
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WARSHIPS of the BRITISH & COMMONWE NAVIES
Editor’s note: This is the 79th annual survey of significant naval books of the current year. No effort is made to cover fiction or books appearing in foreign languages. British book prices are usually stated in shillings. Most of the books may be purchased through the U. S. Naval Institute at a discount to members. Mr. Lambert is Head of the Acquisitions Department of the U. S. Naval Academy Library and compiler of the Proceedings’ monthly Professional Reading column.
The one, most outstanding book of this season is Walter Lord’s Incredible Victory. The scope is wide; the detail, minute, and considering the events took place over 25 years ago, the treatment is creditably suspenseful. For a more complete discussion and comparison with another study of the Battle of Midway, Rendezvous at Midway by Pat Frank and Joseph Harrington, see the Book Review section of this issue.
It is an unusual thing to mark a whole group of books as outstanding, but, as a group, this can be said of the books noted in Warship Compendiums. Rarely do so many fine reference works appear in one year.
Warship Compendiums
This year saw the publication of some unusually fine collections of ship photographs and data. The first of these albums covers current ships while the others are retrospective.
A comprehensive, up-to-date, though somewhat confusing, at first glance, compendium is Warships oj the British and Commonwealth Navies (Sportshelf, $8.00). This volume is the first edition of a new series which will replace the smaller annual British Warships. The reason for a reader’s initial confusion is the classification of warships used by the noted author, H. T. Lenton. He has abandoned the conventional groupings of aircraft carriers, destroyers and the like, in favor of “Fleet vessels,” “escort vessels,” “Fleet trains.” But, once past that hurdle, this diminutive book becomes a fair trove of information.
Almost as soon as it was published in 1950, British Battleships 1860-1950 (London: Seeley, Service, 8 guineas, approximately $24.00) became a collector’s item. There is little doubt that the same thing will happen with the revised edition. As a companion to the foregoing, British Destroyers 1892-1953 (London: Seeley, Service, 10 guineas, approximately $30.00) is a remarkahle gathering of facts, photographs, and line drawings. A chapter is devoted to each destroyer class, using much previously classified information. U. S. readers might be disappointed in the short shrift given the lend-lease four-pipers, but that is a minor consideration when weighed against the rest. Needless to say, this volume will join British Battleships as a collector’s piece.
German Warships of World War II (Sport- shelf, $6.75) and the two-volume German Surface Vessels (Doubleday, $2.95 each) are, in some ways, complementary; but, if a choice must be made, the latter two volumes by H. T. Lenton are preferred over J. C. Taylor’s book. Though Lenton has not indexed the volumes, they do cover a longer period, 1919 to 1945, and do seem to be more accurate in facts and figures than Taylor’s work. The Taylor book, in addition to ships’ data and photographs, supplies brief notes on significant actions in which the major units fought.
Weyer’s Warships of the World, 1968 compiled by Alexander Brandt, (U. S. Naval Institute, $15.00; members $12.00) for 67 years has been the German-language Jane's. Bound in soft plastic, its dimensions remain small. Said to be more accurate than Jane's, the scope and wealth of information, including excellent drawings and clear, dated photographs of ships and equally fine drawings of naval aircraft, is topped-off by a comprehensive index and concise explanatory notes. Available for the first time in an English-language edition, Weyer’s usefulness is even greater.
Rounding out this section is a major reference work, covering all types and classes of Japanese ships, Japanese Warships of World War II (Sportshelf, $11.00). Within its 400 pages, the author, Anthony J. Watts, has combined excellent photographs and line drawings with a massive and impressive array of information. In addition to the usual technical specifications he has provided a list of war losses, a brief history of each ship within a class, and the order of battle for the Japanese Combined Fleet.
In summary, this is truly a vintage year for reference books of this genre.
Annuals and Reviews
Certainly, more than a casual reading of the following volumes is in order. While this does not hold true of Jane's every year, it is true this year. It is always valid for the Bras- sey’s Annual and Naval Review.
“This issue,” according to Raymond V. B. Blackman, editor of Jane’s Fighting Ships (McGraw-Hill, $45.00), “might well be called a submarine edition.” Submarines are placed second only to aircraft carriers and ahead of cruisers in both the photographic presentation and in naval importance. Jane’s places the nuclear-powered, missile-firing submarine second in its appraisal because the editors cannot quite bring themselves to look upon this weapon as really belonging to the Fleet; the SSBN is simply the capital ship of submarines and an important feature in a modern “deterrent scheme.” While more new illustrations appear than in previous editions, the volume also has numerous errors of fact and typography; withal, a monumental undertaking.
Brassey’s Annual: The Armed Forces Yearbook (Praeger, $16.50) has improved in quality, to, perhaps, better than ever. Of special interest, amongst all the excellent essays, is the article “Commonality in Aircraft Design.” The nonspecialist will be surprised to discover that the argument about too many aircraft types started long before today’s F-lll controversy. There are too many essays to attempt even a listing of the table of contents, let alone a review of each essay. However, in addition to the essay already cited, the British Defence “White Paper 1966,” with its discussion of the cancellation of the aircraft carrier and the east of Suez defense posture, leads the list of required reading.
While the Naval Review 1967 (U. S. Naval Institute, $12.50; members, $10.00) is only in its fifth edition, as compared to Brassey’s 77th, it continues to present an excellent array of writers and correspondingly thought-provoking essays. Through the past five years, the Naval Review has held a good record in accurately gauging the future; this edition should do as well, but that will be left to time, events, and the reader’s own judgment. An annual feature, which is always interesting to compare year to year, is the military posture statement presented to the Congress by the Secretary of Defense.
Sea Power Studies
As a useful introduction of the general subject, Sea Power and Its Meaning (Franklin Watts, $5.95) more than serves the purpose.
A former carrier division commander, Admiral J. J. Clark, U. S. Navy (Retired), has collaborated with a capable journalist, Captain D. H. Barnes, U. S. Naval Reserve, to write a brief, 138-page summary of the principles underlying today’s meaning of sea power as seen through a naval eye. L. W. Martin in The Sea in Modern Strategy (Praeger, $5.00) analyzes the role played by sea power in modern diplomacy; he does not discuss naval strategy and tactics. Among the many subjects discussed is the sea’s growing economic importance; the legal changes likely to occur as a result of international politics; blockade policy, and the use of the sea in general and limited wars. Two other works published this year, and discussed elsewhere in this essay, The C.S.S. Florida and In Defense of Neutral Rights, cover separate, .specific historical aspects of diplomacy and sea power or, more directly, the national absence of sea power.
Another pair which blend well together are British Sea Power (London: Batsford, 45 shillings) and The Dilemma of British Defense (Ohio State University Press, $1.50). In the light of recent developments in England, there could not be two timelier studies. Walter Goldstein, in the latter work, neatly summarizes in 98 pages the background for Great Britain’s present defense posture. For a more detailed treatment of the same subject, but with a strictly naval slant, Vice Admiral B. B. Schofield, Royal Navy (Retired), skillfully traces the descent of the Royal Navy from a position of power to a state of eclipse. There is a natural bias to the admiral’s treatise, but the bias is well-stated nonetheless.
Sea Warfare 1939-1945 (University of California Press, $7.95), by Captain John Cres- well, Royal Navy, is the third edition of an operational history first published in 1950.
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An accomplished writer, Captain CreswelPs books are action studies rather than philosophical treatises, and, as such, approach the broad concept of sea power from the operational viewpoint. It is a wide-ranging analysis, taking in the entire war at sea by all principle navies and incorporates some new material. This corrected and updated third edition by the Captain is welcome.
Most studies of sea power and sea warfare give the submarine little notice, if mentioned. The books which deal with submarines specifically never go further into the subject than being sea stories. The Submarine and Sea Power (London: Peter Davies, 63 shillings) is an exception. Vice Admiral Sir Arthur Hezlet, Royal Navy (Retired), brings the experience of a long association with submarines to the writing of an incisive and lucid study which has been long overdue.
The forgotten part of any military appraisal of sea power, which is even less regarded in peacetime than it is during war, is commerce. In a very real sense, sea power is also supply, logistics, and commerce. U. S. Life Lines (Department of the Navy on request from Logistics Plans Division of the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations), makes two basic points: that the United States must import vast quantities of strategic materials, and that it is only by keeping the sea lanes open that the United States maintains an uninterrupted flow of those needed materials. This is a graphic and statistical representation—as such not really a narrative. The implications as presented in the tables are obvious to any study of sea power.
United States Navy Subjects
Born of military necessity during an economic, social, political revolution, the United States Navy has gone through its own revolutions and evolutions during its 190 years. Any viable, growing organization goes through such a process or it stratifies. Naturally, this growth is not a smooth process. There are periods in which specific aspects of the continuum can be artificially isolated and studied. Two of the next four books deal with seldom considered aspects of the Navy, while the other two cover more familiar ground. One of the best studies of the U. S. Navy was written over 25 years ago by Harold and Margaret
Sprout. Their work, The Rise of American Naval Power, 1775-1918 (Princeton University Press, S2.95) has been re-published and is now in a paper edition. A study of equally lasting qualities is The American Naval Revolution (Louisiana State University Press, $7.50) by Walter B. Herrick, Jr. (See review, page 124). This excellent work confines itself to the period from 1890 to 1898, when the Navy left behind wood and sails for steel and steam. During that time span, which was comparable to the current nuclear evolution, the United States grew from 12th to 6th in the rank of world naval powers. Professor Herrick, by careful evaluation of a wide variety of sources, both narrates and analyzes the growth of that force.
Of a somewhat less exciting nature is a scholarly treatise by Harold D. Langley, which illustrates the influence of social reform on naval customs in the 50 years prior to the Civil War. Social Reform in the United States Navy, 1798-1862 (University of Illinois Press, $8.50) investigates the role of religious societies working amongst the sailors; recruitment methods and manpower problems; the antigrog ration efforts of the American temperance crusade; and, the agitation against corporal punishment.
In Defense of Neutral Rights by Edward Baxter Billingsley (University of North Carolina Press, $6.00) is a study of the U. S. Navy’s difficulties in protecting neutral shipping during the final years of the Wars of Independence in Chili and Peru from 1817 to 1825. This volume is definitely an important contribution to understanding South American history, both past and present, as well as the problems of a neutral, weak naval power with growing commercial interests.
The Civil War
It would appear that, perhaps, the Civil War publication mania finally has run its course. In previous years, it was not unusual to consider a half-dozen entries, but this year we have only two.
The C.S.S. Florida: Her Building and Operations (University of Pennsylvania, $6.00) is notable for two reasons. It is a well-documented, comprehensive history of this Confederate commerce raider which, during her two cruises, destroyed about four million dollars of Federal shipping, and the author,
Frank Lawrence Owsley, Jr., re-emphasizes the effectiveness of commerce raiding by a much weaker naval power. As a matter of professional interest, the significance of commerce raiding as a high-seas guerrilla tactic should not be overlooked. It has been neglected in this country for the obvious reasons that the Union survived and has been a major naval power for over 60 years.
The other Civil War volume concerns the sinking of the Federal ironclad Cairo in December 1862. Edwin C. Bearss, author of Hardluck Ironclad (Louisiana State University Press, $5.95) tells the story of the archaeological investigation leading to the salvage of the vessel in 1964, as well as the history of the Western Flotilla and the river warfare in that theater. As a history of riverine operations, it becomes of added interest as a corollary to today’s river and delta fighting in Vietnam.
World War II
By April 1944, U. S. forces were smashing through the island chain which formed the Japanese defense system protecting the Philippine Sea. In Battles of the Philippine Sea (Crowell, $6.95), the writing team of the late Vice Admiral Charles A. Lockwood, U. S. Navy (Retired), and Colonel Hans Christian Adamson, U. S. Air Force (Retired), add to their previous laurels with a superb narrative of these battles which included several amphibious operations; four separate, simultaneous sea engagements; and the famed Marianas “Turkey Shoot.” Much first-hand material is backed by good photographs and maps.
Books about submarines mentioned earlier are usually operational accounts rather than analytical treatises. Rear Admiral Ivan Koly- shikin of the Soviet Navy, shows this same tendency in his memoir Submarines in Arctic Waters (Moscow: Progress Publishers, $2.50). He tells of his experiences while attached to the Soviet Northern Fleet and of taking part in war patrols against German units in those waters. The translation is stiff and larded with the usual contemporary Russian sentiments of ardent patriotism, but it is recommended because there are so few English- language accounts by Soviet naval officers.
Late in the spring of 1941, the island of Crete was protected by a strong British naval force; yet, that island succumbed to an invasion which was entirely airborne. I. McD. G. Stewart, the author of The Struggle for Crete (Oxford University Press, $11.20), was on the island during the battle and writes a detailed account of this very costly operation—losses in material and veteran troops were high on both sides. This volume will join John Wingate’s Never So Proud as one of the best descriptions of the German assault and the British evacuation.
Spain
While the next two books might be considered to be of limited notability, it is rewarding to see something published on the country. The first gives us a new study dealing with economic growth in the development of an overseas empire, and the second concerns a subject which is always exciting, the Spanish armada.
J. H. Parry, Harvard’s Professor of Oceanic History, in The Spanish Seaborne Empire (Knopf, $6.95), presents a wide-ranging study of the role played by oceanic trade in the founding and evolution of Spain’s empire. Special attention is paid to the strategic and economic significance of the sea routes to the New World and the Philippines. The Spanish Armada (Harper & Row, $4.95), by Jay Williams, is aimed at the young adult, but this profusely illustrated volume is a detailed account of a ten-day sea battle that altered history.
England
From its earliest days, the Royal Navy has attracted its share of talented and unusual people. Perhaps no one—other than Winston Churchill or Admiral Sir John Fisher—is so representative as Samuel Pepys. Leslie Wilcox in Mr. Pepys’ Navy (London: Bell, 45 shillings) has used that renowned diary and other contemporary sources to reconstruct the day-today administration of the Royal Navy during the Restoration era of the 17 th century.
Moving into the late 18th and early 19th centuries, another diary has provided the background for a history of the Persian Gulf pirates. Sir Charles Belgrave has used the diary of Francis Erskine Lock, a British naval officer who fought the pirates, to tell the story of The Pirate Coast (New York: Roy, $6.95). Unfortunately, excessive details detract from its readability.
JOHN P. HOLLAND
1841-1914
Inventor of the Modern Submarine by Richard Knowles Morris
BThis Irish-born teacher- inventor built his sixth submarine in 1897. She was purchased by the U.S. Government and became the first submarine of the U. S. Navy (USS Holland). 211 pages, plus 32-page illustration section. Line drawings. Ship plans. Appendixes. Bibliog- graphy. Index.
List Price $8.50 Member's Price $6.80
An excellent historical summary of the British gunboat and its role in British policy from 1854 to 1904 has been detailed in Send a Gunboat (London: Longmans, Green, 50
shillings) by Anthony Preston and John Major. A valuable feature of the book is a list of every British gunboat built during that halfcentury.
Sails as a means of moving warships eventually gave way to steam, but the gun continued to develop until it reached its zenith with the large caliber rifles carried on the dreadnoughts. Richard Hough in The Great Dreadnought (Harper & Row, $4.95) relates the strange tale of HMS Agincourt; a naval giant, originally constructed for the Turkish government, and, later, taken over by the Royal Navy and fought at Jutland. Hough supplies evidence to sustain his point that this ship’s cost toppled governments.
Personal Histories
This year has seen the publication of some excellent biographical material concerning well-known personalities in the navies of Great Britain and the United States. In Carrier Admiral (McKay, $6.95), Admiral J. J. Clark, U. S. Navy (Retired), has teamed with Professor Clark G. Reynolds to write the personal account of his career, which extended from World War I through the Korean War. During World War II, Admiral Clark was a most effective leader of fast carrier task forces and the writing style of his book is a forceful reflection of an active man.
Down to the Sea in Subs (Norton, $6.95), the autobiography of the late Admiral Lockwood, is not only the history of the man who was Commander, Submarine Force Pacific Fleet during much of World War II, but it is, in another sense, the history of submarining in the U. S. Navy. At the age of 24, Admiral Lockwood assumed his first submarine command in 1914, a mere 14 years after the Navy bought its first submarine. He retired after having directed the world’s most powerful underseas force in a successful interdictory campaign against the Japanese Empire. Although he retired in 1947, the Admiral does not end the story there, but moves on into the nuclear era with a final chapter that gives an excellent description of how the atomic submarine came into being.
Admiral Sir Percy Scott was a close associate of Admiral Sir “Jackie” Fisher, and, as such, experienced both advantages and handicaps in his drive to improve naval gunnery in the pre-1914 Royal Navy. Aim Straight (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 42 shillings) by Peter Padfield is a most welcome, full-length study of the life and achievements of “the father of modern naval gunnery.”
One of the most humane and retiring personalities to become Britains’ First Sea Lord was Admiral of the Fleet Sir Andrew Browne Cunningham. Oliver Warner’s Cunningham of Hyndhofie (London: John Murray, 42 shillings) is what could be called a popularization of the subject’s autobiography Sailor''s Odyssey. The autobiographical qualities of the latter work are kept and, perhaps, embellished through the viewpoint of an observer, which adds to the understanding of a great naval officer.
The Jellicoe Papers Vol. 1, 1893-1916 (London: Navy Records Society, 50 shillings) edited by A. Temple Patterson, is the first of two volumes which will constitute a major collection of published source materials relating to the career of the top British commander at Jutland. This volume, which deals with World War I and its build-up, closes with Jellicoe’s dispatch describing the Battle of Jutland.
General
A visual delight is The Great Age of Sail (Time-Life Books, $30.00) edited by Joseph Jobe, and, as a picture album covering the history of sailing, it is an unqualified success. It would be an outstanding reference work as well but its usefulness as such is reduced by not having an index. In tandem with the foregoing, but covering a narrower range, is The Glory of Sail 1897-1914 (Dodd, Mead, $17.50) which covers the great yachting events at Britain’s Cowes. Eight color-plates of yachting paintings supplement 83 excellent
double-page photographs.
Peoples, Seas, and Ships (London: J. M. Dent, 84 shillings) by Zvi Herman traces the colorful political and maritime events in the Eastern Mediterranean from the entry of the Egyptians into overseas trade to the end of the Phoenician era.
Unusual in its reliance on French sources, The Great Days of the Cape Horners (London: Souvenir Press, 37 shillings, 6 pence), by Yves Le Seal, is an illustrated, well-written account of squareriggers and the men who sailed them.
Guns, Sails and Empires (Pantheon, $5.00) by Carlo M. Cipolla is a study of a technological innovation—the development of guns and sailing ships and the fusing of the two into a weapon that swept all before it. This innovation, according to the author’s thesis, becomes the key to understanding the early phases of European expansion from 1400 onward.
Touching on an aspect of World War I is Edwin P. Hoyt’s intriguing account of The Last Cruise of the Emden (Macmillan, $5.95). While there is some question as to whether SMS Emden fired the first shots of World War I, there is no question that this ship created havoc amongst Allied ships and wireless stations in the eastern Indian Ocean.
Among all the books annotated on the pages of “Professional Reading” during 1967, there were many about the ground war in Vietnam, but there remains a regrettable lack of information describing the naval side of the war. The U. S. Marine Corps has published Doctrine of Riverine Operations (Govt. Printing Office, $1.50, paper), which, hopefully, is a start toward filling the need for naval and semi-naval studies.
There is a general lesson to be learned from reading many of the books reviewed in this essay. Regardless of the time period, the struggle for survival requires painful choices with no magic formula for sparing our nation, or any nation, the anguish of that struggle or promising immunity from danger.
★