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NOTABLE NAVAL BOOKS OF 1955 By Associate Editor Robert M. Langdon
Editor’s Note: This is the sixth annual survey of Notable Naval Books. It should be noted that this rundown is devoted to naval books published in English; furthermore, it excludes naval fiction unless there is a particular volume which is so outstanding that to omit it would present a distorted picture of notable naval books for the year. All of the books mentioned have been or will be reviewed in the Proceedings.
The Year’s Most Significant Book
The 1954 survey called Captain S. W. Roskill’s The War at Sea and Admiral Samuel E. Morison’s Sicily, Salerno and, Anzio the outstanding naval books that year. The succeeding volumes in these excellent series will undoubtedly merit similar distinction, but, unfortunately, 1955 saw neither Volume Two of the “Roskill Series” (of three volumes) nor Volume Ten of the “Morison Series” (of fourteen volumes), although word from those authors indicates that 1956 will not pass without both of these volumes appearing.
This year has seen the publication of no outstanding volume in either of the series mentioned or the naval biographical field; however, the publication of the massive and authoritative The United Stales and World Sea Power (Prentice-Hall, SI 1.85) must be called a noteworthy event in the field. This volume, edited by Professor E. B. Potter of the Naval Academy’s Department of English, History, and Government and written by Professor Potter and eleven of his colleagues, is, in the words of Captain Walter Karig, usnr (Ret.), “The most comprehensive and comprehensible study and the ablest analysis of sea power . . . now procurable. It is written without awe of great men, still living or long dead, and its critiques (as of the controversial Third Fleet- Seventh Fleet affair at Leyte) are models of laboratory synopsis.” If any single volume deserves the award as the outstanding naval book of the year, certainly the Potter-edited book is it.
World War II Books
For the past dozen years at least, books on World War II have led the list of notable naval books; in fact, one wonders where the publishing and writing fields would be today were it not for World War II topics and events.
Probably the most exciting and widely- heralded naval book to be published on this side of the Atlantic in 1955 was Midway, The Battle That Doomed Japan—The Japanese Navy’s Story (Naval Institute, $4.50 [$2.70]) by Mitsuo Fuchida and Masatake Okumiya. This remarkable volume, which is the first full-length account from the Japanese point-of-view of the most decisive battle of the Pacific War, is particularly authoritative because of the editorial work of two well-equipped American historians, Clarke H. Kawakami and Roger Pineau.
The appearance of Admiral Kimmel’s Story (Regnery, $5.00) early in 1955 caused no small stir in that it presented the only account to date by a major participant directly involved in the question of responsibility for the Pearl Harbor disaster. As in the case of most of the other works dealing with Pearl Harbor, Admiral H. E. Kimmel’s book, while a much-appreciated contribution to World War II literature, sways neither Roosevelt-haters nor worshippers from their deep-rooted prejudices; still to have the “I was there” account of Admiral Kimmel is of marked value.
An admirable, small “thriller” dealing with a single naval operation in World War II is Vice Admiral Charles A. Lockwood, USN (Ret.), and H. C. Adamson’s Hellcats of the Sea (Greenberg Associates, $5.00) which deals with Operation barney, a daring exploit whereby a number of United States submarines actually violated the sanctity of “Hirohito’s bathtub,” Japan’s Inland Sea. This volume is based on firsthand experience, in that Admiral Lockwood was commander, U. S. Submarines Pacific during the bulk of World War II.
1955 saw the publication of far fewer Service Histories than almost any year since the end of World War II, the only noteworthy contribution being Philip A. Crowl and Edmund G. Love’s Seizure of the Gilberts and Marshalls (U. S. Government Printing Office, $5.75). This volume, a noteworthy addition to the united states army in world war ii series, gives considerable attention to the U. S. Navy’s role in those operations which were so important in the drive across the mid-Pacific in 1943-44. Like its companion volumes in the Army series, it presents a remarkable synthesis of original source material both from the United States and the Japanese sides and offers excellent charts and photographs.
Leaving the Pacific War and turning to the Atlantic-European struggle, we find the major U. S. publication for 1955 was Wolfgang Frank’s The Sea Wolves (Rinehart, $5.00), the drama-packed story of German U-boats at war. Frank, the author of several readable volumes on the German
Navy, was Admiral Donitz’ Public Relations Officer during World War II and, it may truthfully be said, is still serving his chief in the public relations field. The Sea Wolves is without a doubt the most complete U-boat story to date, for it traces the history from post-Versailles days to the fall of Germany in 1945 and is based on authoritative accounts. In reading The Sea Wolves one is constantly impressed with the success achieved by the current German writers of naval history, for they are writing without their official records which, of course, are still in the possession of Great Britain and the United States.
Two years ago one of the outstanding naval volumes of the year was David Woodard’s Tirpitz, and this year the same author has made another significant contribution in his The Secret Raiders (Norton, $3.75), which is the best one-volume survey of German armed merchant raiders in the South Atlantic and Indian Ocean in World War II. Going back to World War I in his introduction, Woodard tells briefly but authoritatively the stories of the Atlantis, Pinguin, Orion, and all of their sister ships in what must be called one of the most dramatic and daring activities of the war.
A companion volume to The Secret Raiders is Ulrich Mohr’s Atlantis (Werner Laurie, $3.75), the story of one of the most remarkable achievements in modern naval history. The Atlantis, it will be remembered, was the German merchant raider which stayed at sea for 622 days in 1940-41 and did untold damage to Allied shipping.
One of the most publicized naval captures in World War II was the 1940 British seizure of the Allmark, the Graf Spee’s supply ship. In The Altmark Affair (Macmillan, $3.75) authors Willi Frischauer and Robert Jackson relate the Altmark story of the rescue of some 300 British prisoners. These men were victims of the Graf Spee’s raiding activities and were on their way to German prison camps when HMS Cossack violated Norwegian neutral waters and liberated them. The Altmark, incidentally, was not seized but was permitted to continue on her way to Kiel, where she was renamed and continued in service as a supply ship.
No more daring submarine exploit in World War II has ever been recorded than that of the “redoubtable Prien”—the U-boat commander who penetrated Scapa Flow in the autumn of 1939 and sank the Royal Oak. Numerous accounts of this exploit have appeared both in Germany and in the Allied nations during the past fifteen years, but probably the most complete and dependable account appears in Wolfgang Frank’s Enemy Submarine (Kimber, 15/) which is the story of Prien as revealed in his personal diaries and from the author’s having sailed with him in action. This book carries Prien from his early navy days down to his last U-boat mission in 1941. The same story is also well told in I Sank the Royal Oak (Gray’s Inn Press, S3.75), which was also based on Prien’s own notes.
Early in World War II a German writer, H. J. Brennecke, wrote an account of the cruise of the Admiral Scheer, one of Germany’s outstanding surface raiders. After the war the same author published a British edition of another highly-successful German merchant raider story, Ghost Cruiser H.K. 33, which has now been published in the United States under the title of The Cruise of the Raider IIK-33 (Norton, $3.50). This “ghost cruiser” was the Pinguin which sailed nearly 60,000 miles, captured 136,000 tons of allied shipping, and destroyed 5060,000 more tons through mine warfare. This remarkable total of 200,000 tons of Allied shipping destroyed is told in fascinating detail in the Brennecke volume.
Another German writer, Harald Busch, also wrote early in World War II, and his post-war contribution, U-boats at War (Bal- lantine, 35^ or $3.00) compares favorably with The Sea Wolves referred to above.
The 1954 survey called attention to the British publication Swastika at Sea by C. D. Bekker. United States readers will be grateful to know that the same volume with its excellent photographs and attractive style is now published on this side of the Atlantic as Defeat at Sea (Holt, $3.95). This volume, which presents the “struggle and eventual destruction of the German navy, 19391945,” is based on first-hand evidence and authoritative interviews with participants. It, too, rivals The Sea Wolves for top position in the popular presentation of the German naval side of World War II.
Escort (Kimber, 16/) by Commander D. A. Rainer, R.N.V.R., traces that officer’s distinguished career from command of a trawler to corvette to small destroyer to several large destroyers to groups of destroyers and lastly to command of a group of new and greatly-improved escort vessels. This volume bears the skillful editing of the Royal Navy’s most distinguished living historian, Captain Stephen W. Roskill, R.N.
Two first-hand accounts of British naval pilot exploits in World War II are related in Lieutenant Commander “Mike” Lithgow’s Mach One (Wingate, $3.15) and Hugh Popham’s Sea Flight (Kimber, $3.75). Both of these British aviators trace the stories of their careers from the “making of a pilot” stage through service aboard British aircraft carriers and, for each, a tour of duty in the United States. The Lithgow story is fortunately carried through into the 1950’s when the author had become recognized as one of Britain’s outstanding jet test pilots. Both of these volumes, each presenting one man’s experiences, are valuable and compare favorably with similar publications on this side of the Atlantic.
Of marked value is Lieutenant Commander P. K. Kemp’s Fleet Air Arm (Herbert Jenkins, $3.00), which traces the Royal Navy’s aviation career from pre-World War
I through World War II and into the “postwar pattern.” The Kemp volume gives excellent material on such World War II topics as the attack on Taranto, the Bismarck episode, the Battle of the Atlantic, the Tirpitz story, coastal commands, etc.
One of the most thrilling accounts of service in the Royal Navy during World War
II is John L. Turner’s Service Most Silent (Harrap, $2.50), which is the story of the Royal Navy’s fight against enemy mines. This unsung heroism is awe-inspiring, to say the least, for the dissection of the war’s deadliest weapons causes even the reader to cringe at the thought of touching a magnetic mine—to say nothing of actually deactivating such a lethal contraption. One of the more interesting revelations in this small volume is how the Germans set thousands of mines along the North Sea and Channel coast during the opening weeks of 1944 in anticipation of the Allied invasion. Realizing that they themselves would probably have to utilize those waters during the summer of 1944, the Germans provided each mine with a time mechanism whereby the mine would be “sterilized” or flooded at the end of five months. Thousands of these German-sown mines were thereby rendered useless—one week prior to the Normandy Landings.
A Norwegian account of the World War II adventure is Flight from Dakar (Dutton, $3.00) by E. O. Hauge and Vera Hartmann and is the detailed story of the internment and escape of the Norwegian merchantman Lidvard at Dakar, June, 1940-June, 1941.
It will be noted from the above that more notable naval books have appeared in Britain in 1955 than in the United States, although many of the British-published volumes later appear in this country and enjoy mild successes. One of the major factors to explain this lead by the British must be higher publishing costs in the United States, for certainly there are equally as many sea stories and tellers of sea stories on this side of the Atlantic as there are in the Royal Navy’s home area. Publishers’ notices indicate, moreover, that Britain will continue to lead in the number of books published on World War II naval activities.
Naval Biography
The career of Admiral W. H. Standley, USN, is certainly one of the most noteworthy in the United States naval service, and the appearance of Admiral Ambassador to Russia (Regnery, $6.00) is genuinely appreciated by students of U. S. naval history as well as by students of World War II diplomacy. Unfortunately, however, from the viewpoint of the former, too little attention has been paid to Admiral Standley’s distinguished naval career which extended from the mid-1890’s to the threshold of World War II, his last Navy position being Chief of Naval Operations (1933-37); but an excellent insight into the character of this high-ranking naval officer is provided by this volume.
More than a score of years of exciting service in the United States Coast Guard is presented by Harold Waters’ Adventure Unlimited (Prentice-Hall, $3.95) which traces this officer’s career from 1922 to 1946 and includes first-hand descriptions of life-saving, rum-chasing, ice-breaking, and “LST-ing” in the Pacific in World War II.
From Britain comes Admiral Sir Frederick Dreyer’s The Sea Heritage (London Museum Press, 30/) which is an autobiographical study in maritime warfare from 1893 until Admiral Dreyer’s retirement in 1939—and even on into World War II when this distinguished officer who had served under such outstanding Royal Navy leaders as A. E. Wilson, Fisher, Jellicoe, and Beatty, and who had commanded the Iron Duke at Jutland, returned to his first-love to become Britain’s first Commodore of North Atlantic Convoys and later Chief of Naval Air Service. Although The Sea Heritage is a definite contribution to naval literature, it obviously cannot compare with the great naval autobiographies simply because the author was denied, through retirement, a summit role in World War II.
Another British account, this one from a lower rank, is H. W. Edwards’ Under Four Flags (P. Marshall, $3.00), which is a vivid picture of the life and adventures of an apprentice seaman in the old days of sail.
Leaving the autobiographical area, we find four other significant contributions to naval biography. Students of American and naval history might well suppose that Admiral S. E. Morison is completely occupied with his monumental History of U. S. Naval Operations in World War II, but every year sees another Morison publication in an entirely different realm of history. This year’s contribution is Christopher Columbus, Mariner (Little, Brown, $3.75), which is a condensation, with a somewhat fresh approach, of Morison’s prize-winning, best-seller Admiral of the Ocean Sea (Little, Brown, 1942). Another significant contribution to naval biography is Helmut de Terra’s Humboldt (Knopf, $5.75) which deals with the fascinating career of that versatile explorer and scientist whose outstanding work has been commemorated in a score of geographical features bearing his distinguished name, e.g., the Humboldt Current. The venerable 18th century explorer and navigator, Captain James Cook, comes in for the refresher treatment in John Dwyther’s Captain Cook and The South Pacific (Houghton, Mifflin, $3.50), which is a well-written account of the cruise of the Endeavor, 1767-1771. Of particular value in this volume are the many appropriate prints from the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich.
It goes without saying that the “Gallant Dutch” have made outstanding contributions to naval and maritime history throughout the past four centuries, and Francis Vere’s Salt in Their Blood (Cassell, 18/) presents an admirable synthesis of the careers of the great leaders in the Netherlands’ naval history from the 16th Century down through the 1942 Battle of the Java Sea. Of interest is the source of Vere’s title; it comes from the Dutch World War II naval leader Admiral C. E. L. Helfrich, who referred to the Dutch seamen of World War II as having “Salt in their blood, and like the sea, they never change.”
Picture Books aNd Sea Stories
It is undoubtedly perfectly safe to assert that sea stories have and always will be told—and re-told—and 1955 bears out the latter portion of this truism. Late in 1954, there appeared what must be called the finest collection of sea stories ever published, A. C. Spectorsky’s The Book of the Sea (Appleton- Century-Crofts, $10.00) which is a “collection of writings about the sea in all its aspects” and is admirably illustrated with several dozen photographs and prints. Herein will be found the best from Mahan, Darwin, Maury, Kipling, Beach, Villiers, Thucydides, Carson, and a host of others.
The most significant sea stories volume to appear in 1955 is Hanson W. Baldwin’s Sea Fights and Shipwrecks (Hanover House, $3.95) which consists of eighteen true stories of men and ships from the days of sail down to the present. Perhaps the most fascinating of these stories is the first, which deals with the herosim and self-sacrifice of Herndon in the 1850’s whose ship, the Central America, bound from Colon to New York, was lost off the southeast coast of the United States. The most significant contribution contained in this volume, however, is connected with Baldwin’s account of the 1944 Battle for Leyte Gulf. Here for the first time are presented the comments and viewpoints (albeit in footnote form) of Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid, usn (Ret.) who was, of course, one of the principal participants in the most controversial naval battle of World War II. The Kinkaid comments along with Admiral Halsey’s notes on Baldwin’s essay, are well worth the price of this volume. All of these stories have appeared elsewhere, but Baldwin’s inclusion of notes and commentaries on sources makes the volume useful to the student of naval history.
From Britain comes A Hundred Years of Sea Stories (Cassell, 12/6) by the versatile Peter Kemp. This “delightful, bunkside collection” offers stirring sea tales “from Melville to Hemingway.”
While not strictly naval in scope, Ship Ashore (Coward-McCann, $5.00) by Jeannette E. Rattray is worthy of mention here in that it is a detailed record of maritime disasters off Montauk Point and Eastern Long Island from 1640 to 1955. During that period more than 600 vessels were wrecked in that area, including such well-known ships as the Savannah (1821) and the Great Western (1838). Even “The Great Iron Ship,” Great Eastern, was damaged on a rock to which she thereby gave its name. The role of the United States Life Saving Service receives appropriate attention in Miss Rattray’s volume.
Roy Meredith, author of several bestselling picture-history books (particularly Mr. Lincoln’s Cameraman: Mathew B. Brady, 1947), is especially well qualified to prepare a pictorial history of American warfare, and this he has done in his The American Wars— 1755-1953 (World, $10.00). This valuable account, instead of being just one more picture history of American warfare, is unique in that it is a pictorial history of those wars as seen by artists in uniform; in other words, this is combat art by military and naval artists—frequently by participants. Beginning with the French and Indian War, Meredith traces American combat art through every military and naval struggle including Korea, and presents not only the finest collection of combat art, but also provides stimulating introductory textual information which makes the volume among the best of the picture-histories. Herein are
found the best from the pens and brushes of Henry L. Walke, Homer Winslow, Frederick Remington, John W. Thomason, Dwight Shepler, Lester Dickson, and a host of others.
Merchant Ships: A Pictorial Study (Cornell Maritime, $15.00) by the U. S. Merchant Marine Academy’s John H. La Dage and Associates is absolutely unique in its massiveness and completeness in presenting “everything” about modern merchant ships. This tome of 150,000 words and 1,160 photographs offers detailed and authoritative treatment of types of merchant ships, building and repairing, operations, etc., and must be termed the best of its kind.
Novels
Two outstanding naval novels which must be mentioned in this listing for 1955 are C. S. (“Hornblower”) Forester’s The Good Shepherd (Little, Brown, $3.75) which is the story of one U. S. destroyer’s convoy duty on one transatlantic crossing in 1942; and Commander E. L. Beach’s Run Silent, Run Deep (Holt, $3.95) which is the dramatic story of a submarine command in the Pacific War. Both of these volumes approach The ■ Cruel Sea and The Caine Mutiny in stature.
Miscellaneous
To present the story of naval engineering in the Royal Navy but not to make the tale over-technical has been the successful goal of Commander Geoffrey Penn, R. N., whose Up Funnel, Down Screw (Hollis and Carter, $3.00) is a well-documented and well-illustrated story of the coming of steam and its application to naval vessels. Particular emphasis is appropriately given to the 1850-1905 period, although there is some attention paid to the earlier as well as to the later periods.
Another significant British contribution is Scott Claber’s Under the Lash (Torch- stream, $3.75) which is a history of corporal punishment in the British Armed Services since. 1189. The account deals mainly, of course, with punishment problems up to 1850 and gives considerable attention to corporal punishment in the Royal Navy, the Royal Marines, and the merchant navy. Many log extracts are offered along with a useful bibliography and index.
A brief but suitable account of one man’s
determination to know where he is and where he is headed (in a nautical sense) is contained in Per Collinder’s A History of Marine Navigation (St. Martin’s, $4.25) which traces the history of navigation from the early Phoenician days down to the age of radar.
Colonel H. C. Adamson’s Keepers of the Lights (Greenberg, $5.50) fills a definite need for some appropriately genuine tribute, based on authoritative sources, -to those heroic keepers of lighthouses and lightships off American shores.
A much-appreciated reference compilation is the Office of Naval History’s U. S. Naval Chronology, World War II (U. S. Government Printing Office, $1.75) which is a day by day (almost an hour by hour) account of the principal events in which the U. S. Navy was involved from September, 1939, to September, 1945.
One of the most unusual volumes to come from Britain in this year of the 150th Anniversary of Trafalgar is Dr. C. Nepean Long- ridge’s The Anatomy of Nelson’s Ships (P. Marshall, 63/) which is not just another Nelsonian history but is a detailed study of nearly three hundred pages, and more than 250 superb illustrations of Nelson’s Victory. The author is a master craftsman in model making and has compiled what must be called the definitive work on this subject.
Two volumes which contain a heavy portion of naval history deserve mention. John C. Vinson’s The Parchment Peace (Georgia Press, $4.50) is a thorough analysis of the United States Senate and the 1921-22 Washington Disarmament Conference. Based on professional historical research, this book goes a long way toward an accurate evaluation of this controversial episode. The other volume is Marshall Smelser’s The Campaign for the Sugar Islands, 1759 (Chapel Hill, $5.00) which is a study of amphibious warfare in the Seven Years’ War with British seizure of the French-owned islands, Guadeloupe and Martinique. The unique factor present in these operations was the amphibious assaults which in the words of Admiral S. E. Morison were “perhaps the most successful amphibious landings . . . between Troy and Normandy.” This volume is particularly valuable for all students of amphibious warfare and deserves a thorough reading.
The contributions of a single shipbuilding concern are well presented in H. J. Ballison’s Newport News Ships: Their History in Two World Wars (Mariners Museum, $8.00) which is a survey of the half century of contributions of the Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company. The photographs in this volume will arouse the nostalgia of many an old American sea dog.
The 1954 survey called attention to the publication of Volume I of Major General J. F. C. Fuller’s A Military History of the Western World (Funk and Wagnalls, $6.00). Volume II appeared in 1955 and carries the story through Waterloo with appropriate attention to the Spanish Armada, the Seven Years’ War, the American Revolution, and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
For the Professional
Without a doubt the most outstanding 1955 contribution to the purely professional field of naval literature was Naval Shiphandling (Naval Institute, $4.50 [$2.70]) by Commander R. S. Crenshaw, Jr., USN, aided by a distinguished group of officers of the U. S. Navy, Coast Guard, Merchant Marine, and Pilot Service. This volume presents all of the essential information a ship- handler must have to understand the handling of any type of power craft afloat, and is a “must” for the professional naval officer’s working library.
The Annuals
No survey of notable naval books would be complete without passing reference to “Jane's” and “Brassey’s” but the 1955 volumes were not available for consideration at the time this survey was completed. Another annual which deserves mention is the British Navy League's Yearbook (Navy League, 7/6). This volume which contains the usual welcome essays is noteworthy this year in that it is the Diamond Jubilee number and contains, in addition to the traditionally superior photographs, a particularly well- written and valuable essay “The Navy and the Crimean War, 1854-56” by the veteran writer “Taffrail.”
SALT IN THEIR BLOOD: The Lives of
the Famous Dutch Admirals. By Francis
Vere, Cassell & Co., London, 1955. 226
pages, illustrated. 18/.
Reviewed by Captain James C.
Siiaw, U. S. Navy
{Captain Shaw is U. S. Naval Attache at the Hague.)
An outstanding characteristic of the Dutch people is their love of freedom, a trait that in the 16th and 17th centuries engaged them in one of history’s most stirring struggles. Francis Vere, in Salt in Their Blood, relates the lives of the Klein Hoopken, the “Little Handful” of Dutch admirals whose loyalty, courage, and seamanship made liberty possible in a hundred years of bitter sea actions successively against the Spanish, English, Swedes, and French. At one time the Dutch fought the combined might of Britain and France. Usually outnumbered and frequently hampered by politics and poverty, their leaders still won most battles, and even when losing individual gun fights, won their strategic point—that the Netherlands would be free.
Boiset, Heemskerk, Hein, Tromp, the Evertsens, de With, Bankart, de Ruyter— these were some of the heroes. They fought with exuberance tempered by supreme skill in exploiting a resolute enemy’s weakness, or in utilizing the slightest breeze or tide. Fighting inland, they brought the sea to the foe, opening dykes and riding in on the flood with ironclad, hand-cranked paddleboats. When hostile infantry marched against the land, they again breached the dykes, this time to let the sea foil invasion. They accomplished the only successful invasion of England since Norman times—at Chatham. They carried the war world-wide, capturing fortresses, treasure fleets, and even—in 1673—the city of New York. They converted penny-pinching merchants who opposed a full-time Navy as against armed merchantmen. They convinced doubting politicans to finance fleets'. Almost all died in action, including the greatest—de Ruyter.
Mr. Vere brings these men to vivid life and is best when dealing with personalities. By his own admission, he is no naval authority and sometimes omits significant tactics or confuses the narrative with digressions. Over-all, however, his is an illuminating account of valiant patriotic seafighters.