The War for All the Oceans: From Nelson at the Nile to Napoleon at Waterloo
Roy Adkins and Lesley Adkins. New York: Viking Penguin, 2007. 560 pp. Illus. $27.95.
Reviewed by Michael J. Crawford
Combining narration with the texts of eyewitness accounts, The War for All the Oceans tells stories about the British Navy during the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812. The action ranges across the globe, from the Mediterranean theater, to the Indian Ocean, the Caribbean Sea, the South American littoral, and Chesapeake Bay. Accounts of major campaigns, small actions, hairbreadth escapes, acts of individual heroism, large-scale suffering and destruction, and personal sacrifices will keep readers turning pages. While the book contains enough about campaigns and battles to stir the blood of armchair warriors, the authors have included informative material on a wide selection of naval matters apart from combat, including impressment, prostitution, prisoners of war, shipwrecks, and the origins of the Burial of Drowned Persons Act. Two pages summarize the Battle of Trafalgar—for fuller documentation the work refers readers to Roy Adkins’s earlier Nelson’s Trafalgar. Although the authors range far and wide in their selection of stories, the book is a collection of tales about, and not an overall history of, the Royal Navy in the Napoleonic era.
This ethnocentric narrative will please Anglophiles. The authors tell nearly all the stories from the British perspective, the contemporary texts being almost exclusively from British participants in the events reported. The most notable—and laudable—exceptions are the accounts of French and American prisoners of war held in England. The Adkins’ heroes are Horatio Nelson, Thomas Cochrane, William Sydney Smith, and the British sailor. The authors ignore Nelson’s bumbling involvement in Italian politics and gloss over his controversial role in the execution of Francesco Caracciolo. The book reflects the biases of its sources. British tars are noble and generous, and like the sailors in Gilbert and Sullivan’s H.M.S. Pinafore, “quite devoid of fear.” In contrast, Spaniards are cowardly and superstitious; Frenchmen fanatical and easily duped; Turks cruel, ruthless, and undisciplined; and Americans coarse and unprofessional.
A narrow selectivity characterizes the section on the War of 1812, which consists of accounts of a few of the more famous ship duels on the high seas, the campaigns against Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, Maryland, and the Battles of Lake Borgne and New Orleans. The crucial campaigns on Lakes Erie, Ontario, and Champlain receive not a line.
The stories in this book evoke the romance of seafaring in the age of wooden ships and muzzle-loading guns. All the original first-hand texts are well selected and written with verve and clarity. Still the reader should be aware that, like the musical H.M.S. Pinafore, this is fine entertainment, but not objective history.
Soldier Slaves
James W. Parkinson and Lee Benson. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. 249 pp. Illus. Maps. Sources. Index. $28.95.
Reviewed by Ron Benigo
This is a book that will both inspire and frustrate you.
Buoyed by a key piece of California legislation sponsored ironically by antiwar icon Tom Hayden, Parkinson, a personal injury attorney from the affluent California desert town of Bermuda Dunes, is in search of clients for a mega-class- action suit against some of the giants of Japanese industry.
Although Hayden’s legislation was implicitly aimed at civilian prisoners interned in Germany, the legal action proposed by Parkinson and his colleagues is in behalf of American prisoners of war captured by the Japanese in various Pacific-theater engagements during World War II. Many of these prisoners were subsequently transported to the Japanese homeland and forced to labor without pay for Japanese industries.
One of Parkinson’s early stops is a reunion in St. George, Utah, where he speaks to members of the 20th Pursuit Squadron including Technical Sergeant Harold Poole, U.S. Army Air Forces, a survivor of the Bataan Death March and 3½ years of captivity at the hands of the Japanese. It is Poole’s story that gives the book special appeal.
Through Poole’s eyes, we experience the shock and helplessness from the Japanese attack and invasion. We witness the destruction of Clark Field and all but three of its aircraft, and root for Poole as he mans an abandoned machine gun and engages and destroys a Japanese Zero on a strafing run, an act of heroism for which he was later awarded a Silver Star.
We accompany Poole and his mates to the Bataan Peninsula, a foreboding place where they are ordered to await supplies and reinforcements that never materialize. We share the frustration at learning of General Douglas MacArthur’s abandonment of Corrigidor and the subsequent surrender of the remaining U.S and Filipino forces. We see the tragedy of the forced march from Bataan to the Japanese prison camps, which claimed the lives of more than 15,000 troops. We also see the courage of the death march survivors through their subsequent internment as they desperately seek to make it through another day with little or no food or medical treatment for rampant disease. Brutal prison guards regard and treat them as something far less than human. We also travel with Poole to Japan where he and his fellow prisoners are illegally forced into slavery as menial labor for Japan’s major industries supplying the war effort. Each chapter of the story seems to bring a new obstacle even more daunting than the last.
Some, like Poole, make it on their faith. Others feed on resentment and a hope for future revenge. But all share the common bond of somehow retaining their humanity and self worth in the face of unspeakable horror. It is a story that will awaken your pride in the American soldier, especially those of this generation.
But this is also a story of geopolitics and the conflict between national interest and a legal system trying to right a grave wrong. The aforementioned law sponsored by California State Senator Hayden extended the statute of limitations for claims against foreign companies that employed American prisoners as slave labor during World War II. The passage of the law engendered several claims against German companies by U.S. citizens. For the most part, these claims entered the legal system and were adjudicated or settled with no government interference. Not so, however, with the claims against the Japanese. Here, the U.S. Department of State intervened on behalf of the Japanese. Citing the treaty of 1951, which dealt with the settlement of World War II-related claims against the Japanese government, the State Department extrapolated the terms to include claims against Japanese companies. The legal battle and the position taken by the U.S. government will anger and frustrate readers as they follow Parkinson and his colleagues through the maze of justice.
What is perhaps most frustrating is the sense that most of the heroes of this story entered this class-action suit with no desire for financial gain. In fact, part of the claim against the Japanese companies specifically seeks an apology, and it is the prospect of this apology that encouraged most of the remaining survivors to join the suit and stay with it. But to apologize in legal matters is tantamount to admitting culpability, and the reader will be left like the survivors, still waiting for someone to say, “I’m sorry.”
Iwo Jima
Eric Hammel. St. Paul, MN: Zenith Press, 2006. 255 pp. Bib. Index. Illus. $40.
Reviewed by Hal Buell
The World War II battle for Iwo Jima, fought more than 60 years ago on a remote, minuscule island in the Pacific Ocean, is memorialized primarily by a famous photograph and the Marine Corps Memorial it inspired. Now, noted military historian Eric Hammel has produced a book that offers a detailed chronicle of the bloodiest battle in Marine Corps history, illustrated with some 500 photos.
Iwo Jima is well-produced, printed on high-quality paper that renders superior imagery. The photographs are almost exclusively from the Marine Corps, the Navy, and the National Archives. Even those made by wire services and the wartime Still Picture Pool are incorrectly credited to the military.
The pictures, probably the largest collection of Iwo photos to appear in a single volume, provide substantial detail on the battle. The old standbys are there, but so are many photos not seen before, the result no doubt of extensive research in military archives. Hammel’s captions are excellent. They are not mere descriptions of the obvious action but provide information that embellishes the basic text.
Despite the book’s size—coffee-table format—the large number of pictures on 256 pages poses a problem. Too many photos are printed small, giving the design a checkerboard effect that too often breaks up the text into blocks of just several paragraphs. And there is noticeable repetition in picture content. Perhaps fewer would have been better.
Hammel has done his homework. His text, enhanced by several pages of maps, sets the stage for the battle and records its progress in considerable detail. He uses military jargon and vernacular to describe units, equipment, times, and places. This will delight the enthusiastic military buff but left this reviewer (not a military historian but still knowledgeable about the Iwo story) put off by arcane language and an “inside-baseball” feel.
Each of the Medal of Honor citations—and there were 27, one third of all awarded to Marines in World War II—is included. Every citation, accompanied by a picture of the recipient, tells in compelling detail the valor of those who fought on Iwo Jima.
The author relates the seldom-told story of Navy frogmen who hit the Iwo beach two days before the invasion to clear mines and other obstacles. Once their job was done they left, prompting Tokyo radio to report that Japanese defenders drove the American invaders into the sea. The real invasion came two days later. Untold, however, is the story about kamikaze attacks on U.S. ships that destroyed one vessel and sent another to base for repairs.
No picture book about Iwo Jima is complete without the story of the flag raisings on Mt. Suribachi during the battle’s fifth day. The picture, which has inspired movies, books, documentaries, and countless articles, is included as are other pictures made by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal and other photographers on Suribachi’s summit. The picture of the first flag raising is there as well. Hammel avoids getting involved in the decades-long tale of the controversy over the picture and sticks to his telling of the Iwo battle’s history.
Iwo Jima provides a single source for much detail—text and pictures—of that faraway conflict and should be included in the library of anyone interested in what has become a memorable time in the American experience.
Fatal Ascent: HMS Seal, 1940
Melanie Wiggins. Staplehurst, England: Spellmount Limited, 2006. 272 pp. Illus. Bib. Index. $35.
Reviewed by Captain James B. Bryant. U.S. Navy (Retired)
In the spring of 1940, things were not going well for the Royal Navy. It failed to stop the Germans from invading Norway and Denmark, then HMS Seal, the last of the Porpoise-class mine-laying submarines, was captured in May 1940. This book is a well-researched narrative of this event and the captivity of the crew.
The Seal was the first Royal Navy vessel to surrender since the War of 1812. This provided Adolf Hitler a propaganda windfall and he capitalized on it by returning the Seal to service as a training boat in the German Navy. The commanding and executive officers were court-martialed after their release from captivity, which is the usual practice in this situation, but the unique and mitigating circumstances of this surrender make the chapter on the court-martial particularly interesting.
The Seal’s war operations are recounted in the first third of the book, mainly from the view of several enlisted men. The description of the sub’s final operation in the Kattegat is fascinating. After laying a minefield, the Seal snagged a German mine while attempting to avoid patrols. The mine exploded, which caused significant flooding aft. The stern was jammed into the muddy bottom, leaving the boat stuck at an extreme up angle. The tale of the long ordeal of bringing the boat back the surface is riveting. The confusion and difficult decisions of the surrender, signaled by a wardroom tablecloth, the failure to scuttle the boat, and capture by the Germans are carefully documented.
Submarine technology aficionados will likely want more details on the operation and construction of this unusual boat, but this book was written for a wider audience. The insight into the operational use of ASDIC by Royal Navy submarines is very good.
The true value of Fatal Ascent lies in the story of the bravery, perseverance, and struggle for survival of the crew during five years of captivity in the German prison camps. The author follows the lives of the Seal’s crew and the notable experiences of other prisoners during their captivity. The story of life in these POW camps, attempted escapes, and the variations of prisoner treatment make up the other two thirds of this book.
Hitler’s decision to move all the prisoners of war back to Germany to prevent their recapture resulted in a significant loss of life because of exposure, lack of food, and Allied air raids. The extreme efforts made to save lives and reduce suffering are graphically recounted through the eyes of the Seal’s crew.
Intertwined in this story is the history of the British traitor and Nazi radio propagandist known as Lord Haw-Haw. Like his Japanese counterpart, Tokyo Rose, he was widely listened to because he provided critical information and the names of prisoners, along with Nazi propaganda.
My copy of 1942 Jane’s Fighting Ships has the following note under the Porpoise- class minelayer submarines—“Very successful ships.” Five of the six boats of this class were lost during the war.