The Nelson Touch: The Life and Legend of Horatio Nelson
Terry Coleman. London: Bloomsbury, 2002. 423 pp. Illus. Appendixes. Notes. Bib. Index. $35.00 ($31.50).
Reviewed, by Rear Admiral Joseph Callo, U.S. Naval Reserve (Retired)
For the knowledgeable naval reader this work is a refresher course on the astonishing events of Lord Nelson’s life, with a twist—a consistent questioning of the many elements of the legend that surrounds Nelson’s career. Terry Coleman establishes his approach, as well as its challenges, in the first chapter. “This book is an attempt to tease out the man from the legend,” he writes, “which is not easy, because the two have become so intertwined.” On the other hand, for those not familiar with Nelson’s career, this book can be a reasonable beginning on that subject. This latter group must read it, however, with the understanding that the author is questioning, invariably with his own judgments, many of the earliest sources of Nelson biographers.
In one observation about the Battle of Copenhagen, for instance, the author focuses on a significant aspect of Nelson’s career. He sums up Nelson’s negotiations with the Danes after a truce in the fighting had been declared. “Nelson, by whatever means, had won the battle, but . . . the crown prince [of Denmark] had won the peace.” Coleman bases that opinion primarily on the lack of political and public acknowledgment of Nelson’s victory at Copenhagen. What is missing, however, is a balancing recognition that it was Nelson’s grasp of the strategic implications of the battle, rather than its tactical results or subsequent official validation, that was most significant in the long run. In a strategically focused analysis, it arguably is Nelson who won not only a tactical victory but also the larger strategic victory in the subsequent negotiations with the Danes.
One of the pluses of this work is the inclusion of many background details of Nelson’s life that do not appear in other biographies. These details fill in the important family, social, and political dynamics behind the specific events that saved Britain from invasion by Napoleon. They also add valuable perspective to Nelson’s complex character. The chapters that deal with the battles of Cape St. Vincent, the Nile, Copenhagen, and Trafalgar in particular benefit from the broader background of those events provided by the author.
While filling in these details, Coleman continues his questioning of the foundations of Nelson’s heroic reputation. For example, his interpretation of Nelson’s wearing of his uniform coat at the Battle of Trafalgar with his awards emblazoned on his chest is that it was an act of bravado that got the admiral killed hy a sharpshooter’s bullet. As with other situations, however, an alternative view of the issue is missing. In this case, what’s missing is a recognition that this type of behavior in combat was one of the elements of Nelson’s personality. That personality inspired his officers and seamen to a degree that made him a unique “force multiplier” in the British Navy of his time.
Because The Nelson Touch raises questions about the legend that surrounds Nelson, attention moves beyond what Nelson did to why and how he accomplished what he did. And the short chapters and crisp writing help the reader move briskly through the subject matter. The 32 illustrations with detailed captions and the three appendixes are significant pluses for this latest in the deservedly long list of biographies of the naval leader who was labeled by Alfred Thayer Mahan as “the man for whom genius and opportunity worked together.”
Fire on the Waters
David Foyer. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001. 448 pp. $25.00 ($22.50).
Reviewed by Captain Edward L. Beach, U.S. Navy (Retired)
David Poyer’s extremely novelized portrayal of our Navy of 1861 could not hurt our national memories of the terrible “War Between the States,” or so I believed as I began this book. Not so, if you take this book seriously. Though nominally set in the Union Navy, it is not a tale about the Civil War at sea; it is a polemic on the pathological hatred of blacks that presumably consumed U.S. society in the mid-19th century. The author concentrates on the horror stories, of which there are too many.
Beyond this, the biggest fault is an apparent willingness to ascribe motives and characteristics to important figures of the period, such as Gideon Welles, Franklin Buchanan, Gustavus Vasa Fox, Benjamin Isherwood, and Hiram Paulding, that are at variance with the common memory we have of them. This is a serious disservice— that the book is a novel is no excuse.
Where is the author’s authority for depicting such historical characters so un- flatteringly? Does he have inside information no one else has? Even novels should be obligated to treat with respect whatever historical personages they might contain, if only because such characterizations have a habit of being mistaken for truth. Paulding, for example, is described as an abolitionist with no understanding of the motivations of people. In fact, he was a special assistant to President Lincoln’s Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles, and enjoyed the confidence of both men.
In the case of one important character, the superannuated commodore in charge of the Norfolk Navy Yard who was too old for the post and too fond of drink, the author’s treatment of this sad portion of Civil War lore is right on target.
Fire on the Waters does have its good points; the author’s command of language being one of them. His beautiful description of hoisting out a big ship’s boat poeticizes an evolution that has followed the square-rigger into history. He must have studied the procedure carefully, for he treats it with loving detail. In his syntax he often uses words necessitating a trip to the big dictionary, but the words are there—so the annoyance has its uses.
The author and I, however, do not speak the same language. He has not written “a novel of the Civil War at sea,” as the subtitle suggests, but an antisocial diatribe aimed at the Union Navy, and indeed at the entire population north of the Mason- Dixon line. The best officers in the 5-gun Owanee “go South,” leaving only the protagonist, a capable engineer, and an escaped slave who has become an accomplished gunner to control the ship. In spite of his demonstrated ability, the black gunner is victimized by everyone on board, and even is hanged as punishment for an unauthorized absence in search of help for his family.
Of such punishment I never have heard, in this Navy or any other. It nearly kills him, but he is callously ordered back to duty, though severely hurt and barely able to walk. Through all this, the reader begins to expect the black gunner somehow will triumph at the end of the projected trilogy we are promised.
This book has not earned the adulatory hype the publisher features on its back cover. It is not “a study of honor and obligations . . . and tragic choices,” but a one- side description of a world existing only in the author’s imagination. Is it a good read? Maybe. Is it a true picture of the Union Navy in 1861? Hardly.
Pearl Harbor
H. P. Willmott, with Tohmatsu Haruo and W. Spencer Johnson. London: Cassell, 2001. 224 pp. Ulus. Maps. Appendices. Index. $30.00 ($27.00).
Reviewed by Ernest Arroyo
The year 2001 was significant for two events related to 7 December 1941. One was the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the other was the world premiere of Jerry Bruckheimer’s epic movie Pearl Harbor in May. These two events were the catalyst for many new books as well as the reissue of past works related to the Japanese surprise attack. One of the more scholarly works is H. P. Willmott’s Pearl Harbor. This is a totally new coffee-table book and should not be confused with his 1981 book with the same title.
The book’s opening chapter summarizes Japan’s aggressive rise from an isolated feudal nation in the 1850s to a world power in the 1930s. Following this is an informative chapter on the development of the Imperial Japanese Navy, dealing with her struggle for parity with the navies of Great Britain and the United States and Japan’s grand strategy to defeat the U. S. Fleet in an “all out decisive engagement.”
It was during the many failed attempts between the U. S. and Japan to resolve diplomatically the situation in China and the Far East that Japan decided war was inevitable if was to gain control of Southeast Asia. Plans were made to strike a crippling blow to the U.S. Pacific Fleet at the opening of hostilities to secure a free hand elsewhere. The author does an excellent job of describing the formation of the First Carrier Strike Force and the major problems of refueling at sea, high-level bombing, and the development of torpedoes that would operate in Pearl’s shallow waters.
The narrative of the attack on Pearl Harbor opens with the strike on Battleship Row. In fact, the attacks on the airfields at Kaneohe Naval Air Station and Wheeler and Hickam Fields occurred about 12 minutes prior. But he does tie in the raids at the airfields quite well afterwards. There also is no mention that after the “war warning” of 26 November 1941 the Hawaiian Army Department was on sabotage alert rather than a full war alert. Thus planes were parked wingtip to wingtip, making easy targets for the attackers. He also states that two torpedoes struck the Arizona (BB-39), when research has shown that she received no torpedo hits. These minor errors aside, the overall content of the account of the attack and its aftermath is done very well.
There is an interesting chapter devoted to the follow up or third strike controversy. The author approaches this subject very methodically and with logic, a subject that in many books barely rates a paragraph or two. In retrospect, he concludes that the attack was a failure that ultimately led to the demise of the Japanese Empire.
Along with the highly readable text, the book is well illustrated. The colorful maps and dimensional diagrams visually aid the reader in following the action. Missing is a bibliography that would have added to the already credible work. But this is more than rectified with extensive and informative appendices. History buffs will appreciate data about the ships and aircraft involved in the operation. All in all, this book is an excellent contribution to the literature on the subject and deserves a place in the library of anyone interested in the history of Pearl Harbor.
