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BEACH RED: A Novel by Peter Bowman. New York: Random House. 1945. 122 pages. $2.50.
Reviewed by Lieutenant John C. Reed, U. S. Naval Reserve
Mr. Bowman calls his book a novel; I am not sure that he is justified in doing so. It is a highly imaginative account of the thoughts and sensations of a man under fire; the time a year ago, the place, any Pacific island. Mr. Bowman tells us what his hero thinks about and dreams about during one hour, from landing time until his death in the jungle. This account, sharp as it is, is not a novel.
Neither is it a poem, although the author has broken up his sentences and printed them in such a form that the pages at first inspection look like pages of free verse. Apparently he has used this form to gain emphasis for some of his thoughts. At the bottom of every second page comes a single aphoristic line, summing up the spirit of the preceding sections with a sharp snap. But the book is not a poem, although the language at times is reminiscent of what the textbooks call “poetic diction.”
This is a curious book. Inevitably it provokes comparisons with other accounts of nien under fire, and, like all such accounts, it tends to be over-written. The images and figures of speech that Mr. Bowman uses are highly “literary”; they arc too consciously apt to carry conviction. Metaphor is piled on metaphor; quotations from the lusher portions of The Song of Solomon, the Psalms, and Ecclesiastes are mixed with realistic descriptions of jungle fighting. And in the end, the hero comes to the conclusion that:
There arc little people
and there arc big people, and the little people arc in the overwhelming majority; but just the same they always
do what the big people tell them to do. And that is at once the silliest and the most outrageously
impertinent form of tyranny the world has ever know'll, for
it is the persecution of the many by the few.
This book will interest and move some readers deeply; others will find it baffling. It is recommended to those who are attracted by literary experiments. The conventional mind probably will be annoyed by it.
BRASSEY’S NAVAL ANNUAL, 1945. Edited by Rear Admiral II. G. Thurs- ficld. New York: The Macmillan Company. $5.00.
Reviewed by Commander W. T. Dutton, U. S. Navy
Brasscy's 1945 edition follows the lead of its many predecessors in its choice of subjects and its manner of presentation. The naval chronicle for 1944 is well condensed into sixty pages while its severity is pleasantly lightened with inclusion of personal experiences and interesting detail. The reference section of 126 pages includes, as before, the names, characteristics, silhouettes, and descriptive notes concerning all the world’s warcraft and ship-borne aircraft.
The articles in Brassey's are always clearly and interestingly written. Of particularly timely interest is a review of the arguments for and against the amalgamation of the three fighting services into one. The editor, Rear Admiral H. G. Thursfield, who wrote this chapter himself, does not favor such union. He believes that cordial collaboration and co-operation among the services has and can be obtained without incurring the disadvantage of the complete loss of the esprit de corps of each service.
Sir Archibald Hurd’s chapter on “The Future of the British Maritime Industries” stresses the sad financial plight of English shipping and its urgent need for capital with which to finance replacements for ships lost or worn out in arduous war service. The current American loan to Great Britain should do much to alleviate this situation which the author maintains is of vital importance to the entire English post-war economic recovery.
Most of the other articles are of a historical narrative type and deal chiefly with amphibious warfare and the naval air arm. However, the chapter on “Strategy and Propaganda in German Naval Thought” by Dr. II. Rosinski is an illuminating article on a little known subject which should be read by all students of naval history or strategy.
BATTLE REPORT, VOLUME II, The Battle of the Atlantic. By Commander Walter Karig, Lieutenant Stephen L. Freeland, and Lieutenant Earl Burton, all U. S. Naval Reserve. New York: Farrar and Rinehart. 1946. 325 pages. $3.50.
Reviewed by Commander Louis J. Gulliver, U. S. Navy (Retired)
This excellent book is a needed and timely continuation of the factual story of the U. S. Navy’s part in the winning of World War II.
Here, for the first time, is the full account of the battle for the control of the Atlantic —a battle that began well before Pearl Harbor and which had to be won in order that there could be a D-Day in Normandy, June 6, 1944. Volume I, published in 1944, described naval events in the Pacific from Pearl Harbor to the Coral Sea.
Special mention should be made of the photographs in Volume II that serve to make more vivid and informative the text. These were chosen and captioned (as were those in Vol. I) by Commander E. John Long, U. S. Naval Reserve, formerly on duty in Navy Public Relations and now Assistant Curator, Naval Academy Museum.
The authors of Battle Report Vol. II have covered a vast water front. Necessarily condensed, as the authors explain, this narrative includes episodes tremendously exciting. It should be said, in this connection, that the authors were on duty in the Atlantic during a part of the war and their writing has eyewitness authenticity.
The Atlantic is a hard ocean in which to fight sea battles, as the authors make clear in their vivid descriptions of wintry Atlantic blizzards, bitter cold night watches, and a three-year travail against German submarines and German surface raiders, determined to cut the Atlantic lifeline to our Allies in Europe.
Volume II of Battle Report discloses new Navy tactics, created from a desperate scratch, for the suppression of the terrible U-boats and their fantastically new and efficient methods of attack and evasion.
The authors accord due credit to all Allied naval personnel, ships, and aircraft. For example:
The British pioneered many of the tactics and implements which the U. S. Navy perfected in regaining control of the Atlantic (from German submarines),—the escort carrier, for example, and night flying and many amphibious techniques and ships, the LST and LCT, and the commando reconnaissance raids.
The naval war in the Atlantic was more than a seemingly unending fight to sink German submarines. There was, besides, the business of holding off hostile shore-based aviation in Norway and France, and of de-
stroying speedy German and Italian small craft operating on a hit-and-run basis. Finally there was the recurrent probability that Hitler’s big ships might come out. If and when they did, they might easily sink one or more vitally needed convoys bound for Russia or England before our forces could bring them to bay. (The great Bismarck did come out and so, too, did the Scharnhorst.)
The tremendous battle in the Atlantic was won against odds both psychological and military. Propaganda by Axis agents in Central and South America paved the way for possible U-boat supply bases, and food and fuel havens for enemy big ships. The counter-operations in this field, played by the Atlantic Navy, are well told by Commander Karig and Lieutenants Freeland and Burton.
The importance of the winning of the Battle of the Atlantic, as well as the knowledge gained there in tactics, weapons, and “know-how,” is reflected in the subsequent winning of the battle of the Pacific that ended the war. This reviewer looks forward to the projected Battle Report, Volume III, which will pick up the narrative again in the Pacific.
PATTON: FIGHTING MAN. By William Bancroft Mcllor. G. P. Putnam’s Sons. New York. 1946. 245 pages. $3.00.
Reviewed by Lieutenant Commander Robert Duncan Bass,
U. S. Naval Reserve
Patton is now a legendary figure. Old Blood and Guts has taken his place beside Jackson, Stuart, and Custer. His is a name to be cherished forever by Americans.
Biographer Mcllor has tried to capture that legend. Seizing every dramatic situation in the life of a hero whose every gesture was pure theater, even theatrical, he has written a life that reads like a moving picture script.
The curtain rises on flaxen haired Georgie Patton playing soldier in the California sunshine, an eight-year-old Achilles spurning the plea of dying Hector to “leave me not for the dogs of the Achaians to devour.” Scene after scene sweeps by. Achilles is now a cadet at VMI. Next, a plebe at West Point. A turnback, then regimental adjutant. And, finally, a shavetail in the cavalry.
The second act finds Second Lieutenant Patton on a knight errant’s quest for the Pentathlon in the Olympic Games at Stockholm. Then a swordsman at the famed French Cavalry School at Samur. On “Special Service” with General Pershing on the Mexican border, he kills General Cardenas and personally carries the body and dumps it on the ground before the tent of Pershing. First Lieutenant Patton now.
Captain Patton, in command of headquarters company for General Pershing lands in France on June 13, 1917. Soon he is t lie first man assigned to t he American Tank Corps, a tanker without a single tank. But tanks arrive, and Major Patton receives the Silver Star for gallantry when his tanks smash into the salient at St. Mihiel. Then the Argonne Forest, where Tanker Patton is left for dead, only to revive and receive the Purple Heart, the Distinguished Service Cross, and a colonelcy.
This is the apex, the turning point, and there comes a slow and tedious interlude. The great American Army disintegrates. The tanker returns to the cavalry. The cavalryman becomes a polo player. The polo player turns sailor and sails his Arcturus to Hawaii. Restlessness, tedium, spit and polish.
Brigadier General Patton, twenty years older, is again American tanker number one. There is a nucleus of an armored force, and Old Blood and Guts is at Fort Bcnning, into the swamps of Louisiana, over the mountains of Tennessee, through the pine forest of Carolina, on to the desert of Nevada-Cali- fornia. “Thanks to you men and General Devers, we are ready. I shall be delighted to lead you against any enemy, anywhere.”
There is the roar of battle at Casablanca. “The lions tremble at seeing him,” reads the inscription on the Grand Cross of Ouissam Alaouite, a decoration from the Sultan of Morocco. General Patton is needed at Kas- serine Pass, Sicily. Is this the end? No! Normandy, Paris, Metz, and across the Rhine.
He and his men celebrated that last day by capturing 50,000 more Germans—twelve infantry and six armored divisions. These were captives taken prisoner by the biggest army in the history of the United States. For when the end came,
General Patton was in command of more than five hundred thousand fighting men.
This is the climax; the denouement is painful—a word, a slip of the tongue, and:
All good things must come to an end. The best thing that has ever come to me is the honor and privilege of having commanded the Third Army. Please accept my heartfelt congratulations on your valor and devotion to duty, and my fervent gratitude for your unwavering loyalty.
The band strikes up “Auld Lang Syne,” and George Smith Patton, Jr., General walks slowly off the stage.
And Death softly draws the curtain.
WAR NEUROSES. By Roy R. Grinker, M.D., and John P. Spiegel, M.D. Philadelphia: The Blakiston Co. 1945. 145 pages. $2.75.
Reviewed by Captain J. B. Pollard,
U. S. Navy (Retired)
War Neuroses is by the same authors as Men under Stress, which, in the opinion of this reviewer, is one of the most outstanding medical offerings based on psychiatric findings coming out of the war. There is naturally quite a bit of similarity in the two books but War Neuroses goes into greater detail in relation to Clinical Syndromes, Psychiatric Problems in the Air Forces, Etiology, Prognosis, Treatment and Results, and finally Psychobiologic Dynamics. It is a study of man’s ego in its various stages of dissolution, brought about by the trying and at times terrifying experiences of modern warfare.
The greater part of the book is devoted to the discussion of Clinical Syndromes and describes the methods by which each variety of personality attempts to deal with more or less overwhelming anxiety.
The following classification is used which is based on phenomenology rather than psychopathology:
(1) Free-floating anxiety states, severe and mild
(2) Somatic regressions
(3) Psychosomatic visceral disturbances
(4) Conversion states
(5) Depressed states
(6) Concussion states
(7)Exhaustion states
(8)Psychotic states
(9)Malingering
These are all discussed in a most interesting and comprehensive manner and cases cited of each variety with methods of treatment administered and results obtained. It is interesting to note that very few cases of actual malingering were observed.
This book, combined with Men under Stress, gives us documented evidence that psychiatric problems are of paramount importance in everyday world events and it is apparent that the medical man of the future should be trained to deal with this type of case which exists not only among the armed forces but civilians as well.
This treatise is particularly well written, contains a great deal of valuable information, and should be of tremendous assistance to those of the medical profession dealing with psychiatric problems.
Thumbnail Reviews
Ships of the Redwood Coast. By Jack McNairn and
Jerry MacMullen. Stanford University Press.
1945. 156 pages. $3.00.
A colorful and scholarly contribution to California maritime history is this story of the little wooden schooners, sail and later steam, that carried timber south from the “dog-holes” along the Redwood coast. Chapters tell of the schooners themselves, their owners and skippers, the shipyards, the wrecks, and the present resting-place of many of these old craft in “Rotten Row,” San Francisco Bay. Appendices list some 250 of the wooden steam schooners and as many of their commanders.
Japanese as It Is Spoken: A Beginner’s Grammar.
By Joseph Ballantine. Stanford University
Press. 1945. 255 pages. $3.00.
This grammar of spoken Japanese, intended particularly for those in military or other government service, is written by a specialist in the field, resident for over twenty years in Japan and an assistant to the Secretary of State. Its noteworthy features are its accurate guide to pronunciation, its fairly simple treatment of the grammar, and its very full appendices, making up more than half the book and including a 5,000-word English-Japancse vocabulary.
Fighting Divisions. By Chief Warrant Officer E. J. Kahn, Jr. and Technical Sergeant Henry McLcmore. Washington: The Infantry Journal, 1945. 218 pages. $2.50.
This useful reference hook pictures the insignia of 66 U. S. Army infantry divisions (including one mountain and four airborne) and 16 armored divisions, and adds two or more pages of lively comment on the record and wartime service of each division. The data, based on official reports, may be taken as authentic.
List of Books of Professional Interest
Andrews, John Paul. Your Personal Plane. New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce. 1945. $2.50. A forecast of private ownership of aircraft as well as a guide book for civic-minded men who are wisely planning to find for their communities a strong position in the air future.
Burk, R. E. and Grummitt, Oliver. Advances in Nuclear Chemistry and in Theoretical Organic Chemistry. New York: Interscicnce Publishers. 1945. $3.50. Modern physical concepts applied to the solution of problems of inorganic and organic chemistry.
Cave, Hugh B. Wings Across the World. Philadelphia: Dodd, Mead. 1945. $2.50. Story of the Air Transport Command.
Cousins, Norman. Modern Man Is Obsolete. New York: Viking Press. 1945. $1.00. The implications of atomic energy.
Fricdheim, Eric, and Taylor, Samuel W. Fighters Up. New York: Macmillan. 1944. $2.50. Complete story of the Eighth and Ninth Air Forces Fighter commands operating in the European theater.
Fuller, J. F. C. Armament and History. New York: Scribner’s. 1945. $2.50. Authoritative study of past and present ordnance.
Gorman, Major J. T. Modern Weapons of War. New York: Ryerson Press. 1944. $1.50. A survey of the whole field of modern fighting equipment as used on air, land, and sea. Griffin, Alexander R. Out of Carnage. New York:
Howell, Soskin. 1945. $3.00. The new techniques of aerial rescue, of serum and vaccine discovery and use, and of new drugs produced under the stress of wartime need.
Hauser, Heinrich. The German Talks Back. New York: Henry Holt. 1945. $2.50. A warning that the German people are utterly unreconciled to defeat and to Allied plans for occupation.
Hobbs, William Herbert. Fortress Islands of the Pacific. Ann Arbor, Michigan: J. W. Edwards. 1945. $2.50. The climate and physical resources of our outlying Pacific bases and the conditions of life on these islands.
Keesing, Felix M. Native Peoples of the Pacific World. New York: Macmillan. 1945. $3.00. A comprehensive discussion of the origin and history, and possible future of the remarkable peoples who arc natives of the Pacific islands.
Markey, Morris. Well Done\ New York: Apple- ton-Ccntury. 1945. $2.75. The aircraft carrier Essex in combat.
Morgenthau, Henry. Germany Is Our Problem. New York: Harper. 1945. $2.00. The whole Morgenthau long-term plan for Germany.
Nelson, Frederick M. Korea and the Old Orders in Eastern Asia. Baton Rouge, Louisiana: State University Press. 1945. $3.75. A reconstruction of the Confucian pre-Westcrn international system as it existed and confronted the eastward expansion of Western nations.
Price, Willard. Japan and the Son of Heaven. New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce. 1945. $2.75. The remarkable story of the Japanese imperial dynasty and their conception of the God Emperor.
Singer, Kurt. Spies and Traitors of World War II. New York: Prentice-Hall. 1945. $2.75. A global picture of undercover warfare.
Sturzo, Don Luigi. Italy and the Coming World. New York: Roy Publishers. 1945. $3.50. The author is a liberal, philosophical priest and publicist.
Weeks, Mary E. Discovery of the Elements. 5th edition. Easton, Pennsylvania: Journal of Chemical Education. 1945. $4.00.
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