Men, Wind and Sea. By Riley Brown, Radioman, First Class, U. S. Coast Guard. New York: Carlyle House. 266 pages. 1939. $2.75.
Reviewed by Lieutenant Commander Richard F. Armknecht (C.E.C.), U. S. Navy
This is the story of the Coast Guard, told informally.
The modern Coast Guard is an amalgamation of several services. The oldest of these, the Revenue Marine, was founded in 1789, a few months after the adoption of the Constitution. By that time the Continental Navy had been scrapped or sold, so in the beginning the Coast Guard was the only sea service of the young republic. It was founded because the newly enacted revenue laws could not be enforced without it; to this day a considerable part of the Guard’s duty is the prevention of smuggling. The title Revenue Marine was changed in 1863 to Revenue Cutter Service, which it remained until 1915, when combination with the Life Saving Service was effected and the modern Coast Guard born. In 1939 the Lighthouse Service became a part of the Guard.
Out of the thousands of incidents in which coast guardsmen or their predecessors in the amalgamated services have been involved, Guardsman Brown has chosen those he thought representative. They prove an interesting lot. Sometimes it is men whom the guardsmen battle, as in the rumrunner tales and war-time adventures, but mostly it is guardsmen against the wind and the sea—treacherous, unrelenting enemies, as we all know.
The Mono Castle, Tzenny Chandris, and Akron are among the disasters covered; there are several tales of rescue by the Life Saving Service; and accounts of flood-time rescues in the Ohio River valley, of the work of the ice patrol, and of Coast Guard aviation.
Guardsman Brown’s style is simple but adequate, and certainly he has done what he set out to do—give the public a brief history of the Coast Guard, together with a sound idea of how the Guard carries out its duties.
Death Loses a Pair of Wings. By Robin Lampson. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 518 pages. 1939. $3.00.
Reviewed by Lieutenant V. P. Douw, U. S. Navy .
My first acquaintance with Mr. Lampson was purely accidental. I was attracted by the title of his first novel, Laughter out of the Ground, and had carried it back to the ship with me to read over the weekend during a navy yard overhaul. When I opened the book and discovered that it was written in poetry, I recoiled. Oh, well, it was all I had, so I pitched in. I finished it in one sitting, and after the first six pages, I had completely forgotten the broken lines. I became absorbed in a whacking good story and some of the most beautiful prose I had ever read. That is how good the poetry was.
I had to wait over three years for Mr. Lampson’s next book, but it was worth it. In this volume of 514 pages is to be found the story of William Gorgas and his conquest of yellow fever, told in a manner reserved for epics. It traces the life of Gorgas from boyhood to his elimination of yellow fever from Cuba, leaving the more glamorous latter years of his life to be filled in with the finger-tip facts of common knowledge. Along with a very thorough biography of the man whom destiny refused admittance to the Army other than through the Medical Corps, we are given a graphic and hair-raising picture of the scourge of the south, Yellow Jack. In this book, yellow fever is not merely a factor that delayed the building of the Panama Canal by several years, or the result of distressing sanitary conditions in Cuba before the United States cleaned it up, but a monster relentlessly taking its toll, year in and year out, not only in the tropics but in our own southern states, a plague of astounding proportions, a dreadful personage that preyed upon the physical and mental lives of our southern grandfathers. Our present indifference to and ignorance of it are themselves a monument to the work of Gorgas.
If you are interested in the subject matter of this book, don’t let the broken lines deter you from reading it. To use Mr. Lampson’s own words, the lines are
written in what I call free hexameters—lines having six wave-tops each and making use of the natural cadences of English speech rather than of such classical devices as iambics, rhyme, and stanzas. These lines are to be read with a marked stress on the important words instead of on accented syllables.
This much I would quote for those interested in the technique of his style. To all I would add: don’t bother about stresses or accents; the smooth-flowing lines will take care of all that themselves.
Simplified Celestial Navigation. By Lieut. Comdr. P. V. H. Weems, U. S. Navy (Retired), and E. A. Link, Jr. Annapolis, Maryland: Weems System of Navigation. 1940. $3.00.
Reviewed by Lieut. Comdr. L. H. McDonald, U. S. Navy (Retired)
A modern aviation pilot qualified to fly the oceans must be the master of so many subjects, that one wonders how he learns his profession before he is too old to be a qualified pilot.
The authors of this book, one an expert on sea and air navigation, the other an authority on flight training of pilots, best known for his contribution to aviation of The Link Trainer, have attempted to assist pilots in mastering celestial navigation by presenting only the essentials in a short treatise, omitting much of the theory. It is applicable to air navigation only, and while some fundamental definitions pertaining to navigation in general are given, it will be necessary for a student to have some knowledge of navigation such as compass errors, courses, headings, and piloting to advance to celestial navigation.
Simplification appears to be in making the text brief, and omitting such text as is found in other books the student will use such as a Line of Position Book and the British Air Almanac. Descriptions of equipment such as sextants, watches, and computers are omitted but a pocket is provided in the inside back cover to contain descriptive matter on these and other articles as supplied by the manufacturers. But two methods of determining a position are given in the interests of simplification. These are methods developed by Weems as are the books and equipment to be used.
The text while brief, is supplemented by excellent illustrations and then reviewed or repeated by 100 questions and answers in which essential problems are solved and explained step by step. These presentations aid uniquely in learning this subject.
The back pocket contains a chart and navigation log with complete computations of all sights for the flight of the Archbold Expedition plane “Guba” from San Diego, California, to Hollandia, Netherlands East Indies. A thorough study and understanding of this chart is in itself a long step in mastering celestial navigation pertaining to aviation.
Environment and Conflict in Europe. American Geographical Society Special Publication No. 24. 1939. Paper. $1.00.
This is essentially a new war map of Europe (not including lower Italy, Greece, Eastern Russia, and the northern parts of the Scandinavian countries) 25.5" by 21" in size, together with 17 smaller maps on the same sheet. These include a map of the Western Front (15.5" by 7.5"), and smaller maps of Europe covering climate, population, languages, routes to the East, land reliefs, mineral wealth, and other matters of military interest. The map sheet is accompanied by a pamphlet containing a good map of Poland in black and white, an index to the maps, and notes on sources. The whole is based on latest information and is excellent for use in the study of current military operations, though some of the smaller maps are too reduced in size to be altogether satisfactory.