Destroyer from America.
By John Fernald.
New York: The Macmillan Co. 1942. 155 pages. $1.75.
Reviewed by Lieutenant Commander Robert A. Cook, U. S. Navy (Retired)
The Porchester, one of the fifty overage destroyers sent by the United States to Great Britain, is the leading character of this fast moving, well-written story of convoying in the submarine infested waters of the North Atlantic.
From the time the ailing veteran sailed from Canada the green crew had trouble with her twenty-year-old boilers and engines. The Chief Engineer, constantly plagued by seasickness, nursed the machinery through all its breakdowns. The officers, some old hands in the service, others, new to the Navy, looked on their old American "tin can" with skepticism, but gradually their distrust gave way to confidence in the ship, in themselves, and in each other.
Lieutenant Fernald, R.N.V.R., who was the navigator of one of the American "four stackers," knows the sea, the customs of the service, and describes them well. If an occasional technical inaccuracy creeps in, the effectiveness of the story is not impaired. He makes very real the officers and men of the ship of the story and paints realistically the grimness of escort duty in the Atlantic.
For many months the trips of the Porchester were quiet, but tense with danger ever lurking on the horizon. The story moves to its climax when the ship proves her mettle, the Captain, his ability, and the crew, their courage. An enemy plane is shot down and a submarine sunk as the ship’s purpose is fulfilled in protection of a disabled merchantman from a convoy.
She returns to port with weary engines and a leave-hungry crew only to find the orders, all too familiar, “You are required for service tomorrow.”
MERCHANT SHIPS 1942.
Compiled, drawn, and edited by E. C. Talbot-Booth, R.D.
New York: The Macmillan Company. $19.00.
Reviewed by Commander W. P. McCarty, U. S. Navy
Rearranged to meet war-time demands, with a view to quick recognition by structural types, Merchant Ships 1942 will have a prominent place in naval as well as merchant ships patrolling the sea lanes. The index and method of grouping the line drawings (silhouettes) provide a ready means of identification. Of course, it is impossible in this volume to depict those ships of the enemy which we most desire to have—those which have been converted to commerce raiders, troop ships, and other types for war service.
To my knowledge, the previous edition of this book was used extensively in conjunction with Lloyd’s Register of Merchant Shipping by ships of our Navy immediately prior to and after our entry in the war.
THE COMMAND OF THE AIR.
By Giulio Douhet. Translated by Dino Ferrari.
New York: Coward-McCann, Inc. 1942. 394 pages. $4.00.
Reviewed by Lieutenant R. G. Jack, U. S. Navy
Enthusiastic airmen compare the late General Giulio Douhet to Mahan and Clausewitz. Although Douhet is having acknowledged success as a prophet, his works are limited by lack of factual evidence for his theories. Douhet says: (1) His primary purpose is to apply his theory of Air Power to Italy’s strategic position as a European-Mediterranean power; (2) Air Power was (1920-30) technically so immature that it could not be applied “all out” in Oceanic-Hemispheric warfare.
The Command of the Air is a collection of four publications written in the 1920’s and the forerunner of the present flood of similar works such as De Seversky’s Victory through Air Power and Huie’s Fight for Air Power. In his works, General Douhet defines the command of the air as “ ... to be in a position to prevent the enemy from flying, while retaining the ability to fly oneself” (p. 97), and again, “To be defeated in the air . . . is finally to be defeated and to be at the mercy of the enemy with no chance at all of defending oneself and compelled to accept whatever terms he sees fit to dictate. This is the meaning of the ‘command of the air’ ” (p. 23). Though you cannot argue with Douhet on these points, the late General would be the first to admit that it would not be easy to obtain such an “Air Power Victory” when fighting from one hemisphere to another or when fighting across the Pacific!
On many points, Douhet was astonishingly accurate. His prediction of 6,000 horsepower battleplanes with power turrets, good gun sights, and long endurance is practically a specification of the Army’s B-17, which is proving to be such an efficient weapon in Douhet’s own European war theater. Again, he pointed out that civilian morale is the best defense against air power, as proved in England in 1940. Some of Douhet’s theories have not yet been tested, such as using poison gas on civilians, and minimizing armies and navies with all major effort being expended in an Independent Air Force. The main point yet to be proved is that decisive air power would result in a relatively bloodless “one week” war. Absolute command of the air is so difficult to obtain that pure air power, as Douhet sees it, cannot be exercised, allowing the struggle to fall back to more old-fashioned methods of warfare.
Mahan and Clausewitz sifted the facts of thousands of years of war to find the rules guiding their respective types of warfare; General Douhet had only the meager evidence of the first World War and his unbounded faith in a new weapon’s possibilities. He deserves the highest credit for foretelling the things that have been proved correct. No serious student of military science can afford to ignore his message, nor is it likely that his lessons will be soon forgotten.
THE WAR: THIRD YEAR.
By Edgar Mclnnis.
New York: Oxford University Press. 1942. 347 pp. $2.00.
Reviewed by Lieutenant Robert Duncan Bass, U. S. Naval Reserve
The War: Third Year is the third of the annual volumes of the history of World War II written by Professor Edgar Mclnnis of the University of Toronto. Published originally in four separate parts as the Oxford Periodical History of the War, it covers the four phases of the struggle: “October to December, 1941”; “January to March, 1942”; “April to June, 1942”; and “July to September, 1942.”
The phase called “October to December, 1941” deals largely with the German campaign in Russia, the struggle for Moscow, the war in the Ukraine and the Crimea, and the final withdrawal and consolidation of the Nazi forces. The British offensive in Libya is traced through familiar places, such as Bardia, Tobruk, Halfaya Pass, and Benghazi, to the seizure of all Cyrenaica. And then the author gives a running account of the diplomatic maneuvering by the Japanese and Americans, which culminated in the attack on Pearl Harbor.
“January to March, 1942” deals almost exclusively with the war in the Pacific. Beginning with Pearl Harbor, Professor McInnis traces the Japanese campaigns through the storming of the American island outposts, the strangulation of the Philippines, the march through Malaya, the infiltration into Burma, and the seizure of the East Indies.
“April to June, 1942” reflects the truly global aspects of the war. Attention is given to the chicanery of the Nazis in the occupied countries, especially in France and in the Balkans, and to the political and diplomatic consolidation of the United Nations. But more attention is devoted to the growing Allied air offensive and to the German submarine campaign, to the countermarch of Rommel in Libya, to the Japanese over-running of Burma, and to the opening of the offensives in Southern Russia. And stress is laid upon the American air and naval victories in the battles of the Coral Sea and of Midway.
“July to September, 1942” continues with the Japanese reversal in China, the activity in the Aleutian Islands, and the opening struggle for Guadalcanal. The air war in the West, the raid on Dieppe, and continual naval warfare are summarized. But the main portion of this phase relates the Nazi campaign in the Ukraine, the Don Basin, and the Caucasus; and the volume ends with the Russians mounting their epic defense of Stalingrad.
“The Axis at Its Zenith” might well be the subtitle of The War: Third Year. For the author senses the shifting of the balance of power away from the Axis, a phenomenon we have since witnessed in the defeat of Rommel’s army, the Russian victories, and the capture of North Africa, as well as in the mounting ferocity of the air war in the West.
The “Documentary Appendix” contains revealing material: pacts, declarations, and Agreements signed by the warring powers, the “Chronology,” an almost daily listing of the events of the year, with which the “Appendix” closes, is indicative of both the scope and the purpose of the author.
His emphasis is on a running account of the war, and there is only a modicum of interpretation. Sheer narrative of campaigns of such magnitude, with advances and retreats, captures and losses, and maneuverings which fill each page, becomes tedious; and unless the reader is extremely careful, may lead to saturation and confusion.
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF KNOTS AND FANCY ROPE WORK (2d Edition).
By Raoul Graumont and John Hensel.
New York: Cornell Maritime Press. 1942. 629 pages. Now $5.00.
Reviewed by Captain H. A. Baldridge, U. S. Navy (Retired), Curator of the U. S. Naval Academy Museum
It is very difficult to review such a fine book because it appears to be the definitive work on the subject. One critic has written that it “fulfills the function of encyclopedia to the nth degree. It traces the history of knots from the day when Neolithic man tied a stone to a stick for his first ax; through the episode of the Gordian knot, which couldn’t be untied because the ends were hidden within it; . . . till you begin to wonder how anything is accomplished without the aid of a rope.” One can, in so few words allowed a reviewer in the Proceedings, add little which gives a better idea of the scope of the book.
From the experience gained in 1929-30 when revising Knight’s Modern Seamanship at the request of the late Admiral’s heirs and the publisher, D. Van Nostrand & Co., Inc., and from a continuing interest in the subject to date, this reviewer can unhesitatingly state that he knows of no book which is as authoritative and complete as the one by Graumont and Hensel. The former is French and the latter Danish, and both were brought up on blue water, which is sufficient to identify their backgrounds and fitness for the excellent job they have done.
This Second Edition is a bargain at $5.00, for the First Edition sold 2,000 copies at $10.00 in 1939 and achieved the distinction as one of the Fifty Books of the Year. The Second Edition has been thoroughly revised and 41 rope-work examples have been added to make a total of 3,257 shown on 316 fine plate illustrations. There is a total of 629 pages including plates, separate tables of Fiber and Wire Sizes and Characteristics, an Appendix, Terminology, Glossary, and a complete Index. The wire splicing section is especially good.
The book is of special interest at this time for obvious reasons to the sailor man—not only in the armed sea forces but those interested in yachts and small boats; and even to those embarked in troop and supply vessels; and finally this reviewer is impressed with its potential value to those in the air services—especially the riggers in the ground crews, the crews of the aircraft and the carriers—for this war has already shown to all those mentioned above, to paraphrase an old proverb, that a knot in time saves lives.
Thumbnail Reviews
Ski Track on the Battlefield. By V. A. Firsoff, M.A. New York: Barnes and Co. 1943. 153 pages. 37 illustrations. $2.00.
The first extended account of the employment of ski troops in modern war, with studies of campaigns in Finland, Russia, and Norway, and operations in the Alps.
Recollections of My Sea Life, from 1808 to 1830. By Captain John Harvey Boteler, R.N. London: Navy Records Society, vol. LXXXII. 1942. 257 pages.
Written in old age, and first privately printed in 1883, in the author’s 88th year. A mine of information about the old navy, though Navarino (1827) is the only important battle covered. Mentions an epidemic of dueling in 1828 between officers at Gibraltar and those of the U.S.S. Constitution of our Mediterranean squadron, one of the duels being fought from the two ends of a boat.
Fiji: Little India of the Pacific. By John Wesley Coulter. University of Chicago Press. 1942. 156 pages. $2.00.
Scientific study of agriculture and industry in this strategic Pacific group, where the Indian immigration of 100,000 almost equals the indigenous population. The author, Head of the Department of Geography in the University of Hawaii, is now a lieutenant colonel in active service.
Military and Naval Maps and Grids, Their Use and Construction. By William M. Flexner, Department of Mathematics, Cornell, and Gordon L. Walker, Department of Mathematics, U. of Delaware. New York: The Dryden Press. 1942. 96 pages. Paper. $1.00.
A textbook adequate for a semester’s work and requiring mathematical knowledge only up to plane trigonometry. It considers the properties of five kinds of maps: Gnomonic (Great Circle), Mercator, Lambert Conformal Conic, Stereographic, and American Polyconic.
War Planes of the Axis. By David C. Cooke. New York: Robert M. McBride and Co. 1942. 256 pages. $2.75.
Called by the publishers “the Jane of the air fleets,” this is a completely illustrated description of German, Italian, and Japanese fighting planes. By the author of War Wings: Fighting Planes of the American and British Air Forces.
H.M. Corvette. By Nicholas Monsarrat, Lieutenant, R.N.V.R. New York: J. B. Lippincott Co. 1943. 169 pages. $1.75.
Seventeen months’ corvette service in the North Atlantic convoys, simply and very effectively narrated by a medical officer.
Southwest Passage: The Yanks in the Pacific. By John Lardner. New York: J. B. Lippincott Co. 1943. 302 pages. $3.00.
Once started, this sports-writer’s war book is hard to drop. Covers Australia, the people in it or fighting around it, with humor, insight, and modesty. Lardner refuses to be a typewriter strategist.
Chile: A Geographic Extravaganza. By Benjamin Subercaseaux. Translation by Angel Flores. New York: The Macmillan Co. 1943. 255 pages. $3.00.
A translation of a Chilean best-seller; a delightful account of the history, geography, and people of the country, by one of its well-known younger writers.
The Courage and the Glory. By John J. Floherty. New York: J. B. Lippincott Co. 1942. 190 pages. $2.25.
Stories of Bulkeley, Colin Kelly, Arthur Wermuth, General MacArthur, and less familiar figures in the sea, land, and air war. “An answer to those who have wondered ... if American manhood had gone soft.”