Dark Voyage: An American Privateer’s War on Britain’s African Slave Trade
Christian McBurney. Yardley, PA: Westholme Publishing, 2022. 366 pp. Notes. Glossary. Index. Maps. Illus. $35.
Reviewed by William Prom
By telling the story of a single Revolutionary War privateer, Christian McBurney makes a compelling argument about the effect of American privateering on the British slave trade in his latest book, Dark Voyage: An American Privateer’s War on Britain’s African Slave Trade. The account of the privateer Marlborough’s actions is far from simple, as McBurney tackles the complicated ramifications of a privateer attacking the slave trade.
The book provides a chronological narrative of the equipping of the purpose-built privateer Marlborough and her 1778 cruise off Africa to attack British slave ships and trading posts. The first two chapters provide background on privateering, the slave trade, and the Marlborough’s owner, John Brown. Most of the book then follows the ship’s exploits and challenges off Africa. Later chapters provide the outcomes of the Marlborough, her prizes, her crew, and her owner. The final chapter uses a wealth of data to complete the argument presented throughout: that American privateers had a damaging and long-lasting effect on the British slave trade. In his final argument, McBurney acknowledges and fully explains other or complementary reasons for his conclusion.
Dark Voyage includes detailed notes, an extensive bibliography, appendices with in-depth descriptions of every British slave ship captured by an American privateer, a list of the ship’s crew and other personnel named in the ship’s log, a table of African captives taken to the British Caribbean, and a list of British merchants declaring bankruptcy during the period. There also are contemporary maps, portraits, and paintings, as well as images of slave trade tools, ship models, and primary source documents.
McBurney relies on a variety of primary sources, especially The Journal of the Good Ship Marlborough. This firsthand account gives insights into the actions and motivations of the crew that make the book more than a recitation of events. McBurney frequently acknowledges that little is known of the human cargo the Marlborough fights over. He also provides several depictions of the violence and harsh conditions African captives faced in the Atlantic crossing and at their final destination, as a reminder of the slave trade’s human cost.
While the book is detailed on the cruise of the Marlborough, there is little reference to other events of the Revolutionary War to give greater context to the ship’s activities. This trade-off, however, keeps the narrative tight and the book’s length more approachable for a wider audience.
The most impressive aspect of the book is McBurney’s objective analysis of complexity at the core of the Marlborough’s story. By making a prize of a slave ship, the crew of the Marlborough were not freeing slaves, but taking part in the slave trade themselves. A less serious historian could have whitewashed the Marlborough’s participation in the slave trade and made the crew out to be unsung heroes of the American Revolution. Or the Marlborough could have been raked over the coals for profiting on slavery while dismissing the privateers’ effect on the British economy or the war effort. Instead, McBurney makes it clear the Marlborough’s owner and crew are not heroes, but that their deeds are worthy of research.
Dark Voyage’s detailed look into the privateer Marlborough sheds light on a previously overlooked series of events during the American Revolution and reveals their hidden complexity. McBurney’s work makes for an engaging read that can add a greater understanding of American privateering
in the Revolutionary War and the British slave trade.
Mr. Prom graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 2009 with a bachelor’s degree in history with honors and a commission in the Marine Corps. His work has appeared in Naval History, CIMSEC, and elsewhere.
Flying Camelot: The F-15, the F-16, and the Weaponization of Fighter Pilot Nostalgia
Michael W. Hankins. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2021. Notes. Images. Index. 256 pp. $32.95.
Reviewed by Christopher Booth
The F-15 Eagle and F-16 Fighting Falcon were the key workhorses that won the First Gulf War’s air campaign. In Flying Camelot: The F-15, the F-16, and the Weaponization of Fighter Pilot Nostalgia, Michael Hankins exams the actions of those who were critical in their design, in particular Air Force Colonel John Boyd and his acolytes in the “Fighter Mafia” and later “Reform Movement” (which included Pierre Sprey, Thomas Christie, Franklin “Chuck” Spinney, and others). Hankins is frequently critical of Boyd and seeks to puncture the explicitly religious aura and mythology that this cohort applied first to their efforts to shape fighter design and later to everything from Pentagon acquisition to U.S. military doctrine.
Hankins believes that “technological decisions” are informed by culture, and “fighter pilot nostalgia” was foundational in the internal Air Force and Pentagon fights over the design of the F-15 Eagle and F-16 Fighting Falcon. (The book also skims across the development of the A-10 Warthog and the F/A-18 Hornet—which grew out of the YF-17—the companion to the F-16’s YF-16 prototype.)
Flying Camelot begins with a meditation on culture, how it is constructed, enforced, and the meanings ascribed to it. It traces the antecedents of modern fighter pilot culture to the dogfights of World War I and its “heroic knights of the sky”—a fiction created by those who promoted a romanticized mythology separating aviators and their flying machines from the muddy trench fighting. Hankins devotes a substantial portion of the book to explaining fighter pilot culture, which he describes as aggressiveness, individualism, technology, heroic imagery, and community—which he claims is bound up with hypermasculinity.
He posits that at the end of the Vietnam War (as fighter pilots took over the leadership of the Air Force), this culture created a climate in which decision-makers were receptive to calls to develop new planes for the wars that fighter pilots wanted to fight, rather than what made sense operationally. To Hankins, Boyd and his movement personified fighter pilot culture, which often alienated potential allies, reinforced their sense of persecution, and led them to frequently be seen as zealots.
One senses that Hankins finds Boyd’s personality distasteful and only begrudgingly credits his contributions. He admits Boyd’s Energy Maneuverability Theory was key in the development of the F-15 and F-16 but otherwise describes him as overrated. Hankins is more generous in assessing the contribution of the Fighter Mafia and Reform Movement, stating that they helped drive debate and caused the military to questions its assumptions. He concludes, however, that they likely could have achieved much more, if not for their devotion to toxic fighter pilot culture.
Boyd resides in the pantheon of Marine Corps saints. The revered place that Boyd holds in the Corps is well documented in Robert Coram’s Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War, and his place in the firmament is cemented by the addition of Major Ian Brown’s A New Conception of War: John Boyd, The U.S. Marines, and Maneuver Warfare, to the Commandant’s Reading List. Flying Camelot, therefore, may be controversial to the converted, but might help provide a fuller picture of him and his movement.
Mr. Booth, a national security professional, served on activity duty as a U.S. Army armor and cavalry officer. He was a fellow in the General Robert H. Barrow Fellowship for Strategic Competition and the Brute Krulak Center for Innovation & Creativity. A distinguished graduate of Command and Staff College–Marine Corps University, he graduated from Vanderbilt University Law School and the College of William and Mary.
The Aircraft Carrier Hiryū
Stefan Draminski. Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing, 2022. 336 pp. $60.
Reviewed by David Baker
Accomplished writer and technical analyst Stefan Draminski, well known for his Anatomy of the Ship series, has made an excellent choice in his selection of the Japanese aircraft carrier Hiryū for his latest book. Although not as famous as the carrier Akagi, which played a seminal role in the Pacific from the attack on Pearl Harbor through the Battle of Midway, the Hiryū had technical features that make this an outstanding choice for the Draminski treatment. And the subject itself is fascinating, with few books on the topic to match its historical importance.
First, this is not a history book but rather a highly detailed technical tour of the entire structure—top to bottom, stem to stern—of this late-prewar carrier. In more than 600 scale line-drawings and 400 specially created color three-dimensional depictions, the reader can access every plate, rivet, and frame before examining a veritable inventory of equipment right down to fixtures and fittings, including searchlights, rangefinders, and binoculars.
The relevance of Draminski’s chosen subject is self-evident. She was fourth of the six battle-group carriers built for the Imperial Japanese Navy, and when she participated in the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Hiryū was the fastest carrier in the world. Also, although a sister of the Sōryū, the Hiryū was built to a modified specification and had the portside island mounted amidships. But that proved a dangerous flaw, wind currents aft causing across-deck turbulence and the island itself compromising aircraft placement. An amidships location had only ever been tried as a late modification to the Akagi but was never again fitted to a Japanese carrier.
Laid down in July 1936, the Hiryū was launched in November 1937 and commissioned in July 1939. It joined Chuichi Nagumo’s feared Mobile Force as one of the fleet carriers that saw action against Pearl Harbor in December 1941.
The technical excellence of Japan’s carrier designs is examined throughout the book, the first 61 pages of which provide a detailed chronology. Color side and plan views across full spreads follow, showing subtle modifications in date order over successive pages. Then, with full-deck deployments of appropriate aircraft preceding increasingly detailed three-dimensional color art, the book moves to full-spread line drawings of successive ship arrangements as they evolved throughout her life. Hull lines and body plans with shear elevation and frames throughout the hull display precise scale detail sufficient to build a highly detailed model at any scale.
Colors identify armor thickness at multiple locations, ammunition hoists, and ordnance elevators, full colorized interior sectional drawings are finished to a high standard, and deck plans provide exceptional detail. The hull and hangar structures occupy many number of pages, with masts, rigging and ancillary equipment shown. Flight deck design, layout, and fittings follow, with the construction of the underside showing stress members. Scale three-view drawings of the aircraft precede a useful explanation of the deck-landing lights system, a great technical advance for its day and itself a unique feature of Japanese carriers.
The book cannot be more highly recommended, but reader beware—this is not a history book with narrative text, rather a highly detailed technical reference. Exceptionally, Draminski learned Japanese to get the most from available resources and archives for his research, which pointed him to the Hiryū as the best documented of all Japanese carriers.
Mr. Baker is an international award-winning author, former space and defense consultant, and previous editor of two Jane’s yearbooks. He was CEO of an aerospace consulting company before becoming a professional writer and lecturer.