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The Letters and Journals of James Fenimore Cooper
Edited by James Franklin Beard. Two volumes published to date. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of the Harvard University Press, 1960. Volume I, 444 pages; Volume II, 420 pages. $20.00 the set.
REVIEWED BY
Professor Edwin M. Hall, USNA
(Professor Hall, a member of the civilian faculty of the Naval Academy, is the author of a thesis on “Cooper and the Navy.”)
Shortly before his death in 1851, James Fenimore Cooper instructed his daughter Susan that no authorized biography should be written. Consequently the Cooper family was reluctant to make the novelist’s papers available to scholars. Even the two-volume Correspondence of James Fenimore-Cooper published in 1922 omitted everything that the editor, Cooper’s grandson and namesake, considered “of too intimate a nature for the eyes of the public.” Moreover no attempt was made to gather together the hundreds of Cooper letters that existed outside the family collection. Therefore no definitive biography has been possible.
James Franklin Beard has set out to remedy this lack, first by gathering and editing Cooper’s letters and journals, and then by writing a critical biography. The present two volumes, which bring the first part of the dual project down to Cooper’s return from abroad in 1833, are a magnificent beginning. In addition to the family’s papers, most of which are now in the Cooper Collection at Yale, Beard has rounded up dozens of others; he has provided clear, effective introductory material; and he has performed the herculean task of identifying the vast majority of the people mentioned.
The first volume, for which material was hardest to find, covers the first forty-one years of Cooper’s life; the second covers the next three. Subsequent volumes for the remaining eighteen years are likely to cover a span like that of the second one; thus we can expect about six more volumes before the letters and journals are complete.
Of the present volumes, the first is the more interesting, because Cooper worked most of the material of the second into the non-fiction he produced after his return to America.
Students of literature will find their conception of Cooper amplified but not essentially changed by the present work. There has been in the past some tendency to attribute Cooper’s contentiousness to the illness he underwent in 1823; the letters do modify that picture by showing that he was on bad terms with his wife’s family long before that year.
The naval interest should be greater in the later volumes, in which we can expect to find Cooper giving his views on naval administration, the Perry-Elliott controversy, and the Somers “mutiny.” Some new light is shed on Cooper’s two-year career as a midshipman by the publication of his letters to the Secretary of the Navy in the early 1820’s, in which he
goes into detail about his recruiting duties for USS Wasp while he was attached to her in 1809-1810. There are also some hitherto unpublished letters to William Branford Shubrick, the naval officer who was the novelist’s shipmate on Wasp and perhaps his closest friend.
All in all, then, Beard seems to have done, and to be continuing to do, a great service to Cooper’s memory. Unquestionably these volumes should cause a reawakening of interest in the man whom Robert E. Spiller has called a great critic of society and whom Herman Melville once spoke of as “our national novelist.”
Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Volume I*
Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, the Division of Naval History. Washington: Superintendent of Documents, 1959. 349 pages. $3.00.
REVIEWED BY
Rear Admiral E. W. Sylvester, USN {Ret.)
(Rear Admiral Sylvester is Director, The Mariners Museum, Newport News, Virginia.)
Volume I of Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships is the first of a multivolume dictionary of ships of the Continental and United States Navies being compiled by the Naval History Division of the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations. The expressed purpose of the Dictionary is “ ... to give the concise facts about every ship so that it may be a ready reference for those who have served in the ships and for the student, writer, and many others who seek a work like this.” Arranged alphabetically, Volume I gives the concise facts on all American naval ships from Submarine A-1 to auxiliary mine sweeper Buttress. The following facts, where known, are given for each ship: type and number, tonnage or displacement, principal dimensions, speed, complement, armament, and class, as first commissioned; the names of builder, sponsor, and first commanding officer; the dates of launching, acquisition, commissioning and disposition; and a concise operational history. Also, thumbnail sketches of the records of service of persons for whom ships have been
named are included, as background material.
The appendices in this volume cover battleships, cruisers, submarines, submarine tenders, submarine rescue ships, torpedo boats, destroyers, and escorts. Appendices other than these ship type appendices are planned, including an appendix devoted to ships of the Confederate Navy.
Quite aside from the great value of the Dictionary as an authoritative reference work, it has much to offer to the general reader, and particularly to those who have served, are serving, or may serve, in our Navy. Many of the concise operational histories are dramatic sagas-in-brief of “ship, captain and crew.” Many of the thumbnail sketches of the records of service of persons in whose honor fighting ships have been named will be sources of inspiration to those who read them.
Volume I eminently fulfills its stated purpose. The name of the first ship listed in the Dictionary, Submarine A-1, rates the work. The Dictionary must be rated A-1 in all respects— form, scope, and content. It is a credit to all who have had a hand in its initiation, planning, and production.
Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft 1959-60*
Compiled and edited by Leonard Bridgman. London: Sampson Low, Marston & Company, Ltd., 1959. Illustrated. 574 pages. $32.50
reviewed by
Captain Joseph K. Taussig, Jr., USN {Ret.)
{Captain Taussig is Corporate Representative, Government Relations, The Raytheon Company, and is ajormer Secretary-Treasurer and Executive Secretary, U. S. Naval Institute.)
This, the Fiftieth Anniversary issue, is a treasure among the superior sets of Jane's volumes. Its 557 pages of text and pictures on modern aircraft of all nations is followed by fifteen sample pages reprinted from the first edition of All the World's Air-Ships.
The title of the volume is misleading. Indeed, it does describe the world’s aircraft which can be classed as production or experimental models of today. It details the modifications of the prototype production models
and pictures almost every plane described. But it does much more than this.
Following the fixed and rotary-wing aircraft section is one entitled, “All the World’s Guided Missiles and Test Vehicles,” with 93 illustrations of the missiles and vehicles which are described in detail insofar as security considerations allow.
The editor then presents “All the World’s Aero-Engines,” and finally, a section entitled “All the World Airships”—which shows that the semantics of the game have changed in fifty years. By dropping a hyphen, “airships” now mean dirigibles.
A detailed Index of some 8,000 entries is available to locate those aircraft, missiles, engines, and air-ships described, or their manufacturers, as well as those aircraft described in the past ten years, but are no longer carried in the present volume.
We have come a long way in the aviation world, and this volume of Jane's abruptly bridges the gap of fifty years.
UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II SERIES
Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare 1943-1944**
By Maurice Matloff. Washington: Superintendent of Documents, 1959. Photographs,
maps, tables, and index. 640 pages. $5.00.
REVIEWED BY
Professor Theodore Ropp
{The reviewer is Professor of History at Duke University and author of War in the Modern World.)
This volume is a must for students of wartime strategy and diplomacy. MatlofPs book is the first full-scale official survey of the Casablanca and Trident conferences of 1943, and parallels the British volumes of the Grand Strategy series, insofar as military planning is concerned, to the end of the war. The editors do not explain their omission of Yalta and Potsdam, for both of which we are still dependent on Volume VI of the British series. The Army’s recent sampling of its series, Command Decisions, mentions Yalta in excerpts from Pogue’s Supreme Command, and Potsdam in Morton’s “The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb,” from Foreign Affairs. References to both conferences are found in other Army volumes, but there is no full-scale official American account of “what really happened” at these conferences. Page 468 of Command Decisions lists this volume as Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare, 1943-1945. Whether this was a typographical or a Freudian slip is an interesting question.
Dr. Matloff, in any case, is not responsible for this omission. His cogent and thoughtful book will provide a needed corrective for readers who have been dazzled by Churchill’s wondered prose or angered by Lord Alan- brooke’s niggling.
The very useful British chronological tables might have been adapted for this volume. Allied troop figures, which are scattered throughout the volume, should have been repeated in “The Tally Sheet” in a volume dealing with coalition warfare. But the book as a whole is excellent and ranks with the half dozen best in the forty-five Army volumes now published. It is better written than Matloff and Snell’s first volume, as well-paced as Cole’s Lorraine Campaign, as full of new information as Romanus and Sunderland’s volumes on China, and as interesting as the various contributions by Morton, an author whose style is almost up to Morison’s.
* * *
Cartwheel: The Reduction of Rabaul
By John Miller, Jr., Washington: Superintendent of Documents, 1959. Charts, maps, and illustrations. 418 pages. $5.25.
reviewed by
Colonel Vincent J. Esposito, Professor, USMA
{Colonel Esposito is Head of the Department of Military Art and Engineering at the United States Military Academy, West Point, New York.)
This volume is the fourth in a series of twelve designed to cover the operations of the United States Army in the war in the Pacific, 1941-45. As with all volumes of the series, Allied, Naval, Marine Corps, and Air Force activities are skillfully blended with the Army account to produce a fine general work.
The great Japanese base at Rabaul, on the island of New Britain, posed a double threat
to the Allies: it facilitated further Japanese aggression southward into New Guinea and Australia; and it blocked prohibitively the communications of any allied advance toward the Philippines from the South or Southwest Pacific. Operation Cartwheel initially was conceived to capture Rabaul. Later, when frontal assaults against clever and determined Japanese defenders consistently brought serious Allied losses, the island bypassing technique was developed and proved its worth through greater success with much fewer losses. The objective then became to isolate and neutralize the Japanese base at Rabaul.
Cartwheel encompassed some thirteen air-sea-ground operations extending over a period of eight months. Rabaul was to be encircled from two directions: Admiral Halsey’s South Pacific forces were to advance along the Solomon Islands axis; General MacArthur’s Southwest Pacific forces, along the New Guinea axis. The war against Germany held first priority on Allied resources, thus those that could be allotted to Pacific operations were severely limited. To exact maximum utilization from what was available was the prime requirement. The accounts of splendid co-operation between the two forces in timing operations for mutual assistance, willing transfer of troops, ships, planes, and equipment as needed, and in the execution of complex air-sea-ground operations definitely contradict tales of Service friction in the Pacific.
Many of the operations were of the small- unit type, and these the author covers in de
tail. But the work is not limited to tactics; it is also an excellent study of over-all Pacific strategy and high command during the period. In addition, it discusses lucidly and in interesting style many features: the nature and hazards of jungle fighting (in this, Doctor Miller writes with firsthand knowledge as a U. S. Marine veteran of the Bougainville operations); the effects on the plans and operations of both sides of exaggerated estimates of damage caused or casualties inflicted; the great and constant improvement in Allied weapons, equipment, and tactics in amphibious and jungle warfare; how large concentrations of Allied military might— supplied by a unique and ponderous logistical system extending back into the United States itself—became, in action, a few hungry, exhausted soldiers and marines, engaged in a merciless kill-or-be-killed hunt for their Japanese opponents; how in these grim little actions, leadership, discipline, and training frequently meant more than material superiority.
Doctor Miller has produced a work which proudly can take its place beside the other splendid works produced by the Office of the Chief of Military History.
* * *
The Army and Economic Mobilization*
By R. Elberton Smith. Washington: Superintendent of Documents, 1959. Tables, charts, and illustrations. 749 pages. $5.25.
REVIEWED BY
Associate Professor John R. Probert
{Professor Probert is an instructor in Economics, Department of English, History, and Government, USNA, and served in the Quartermaster Corps, U. S. Army, during World War II.)
“The experience of the United States in developing and utilizing its industrial capacity for World War II may well go down in history as the classic example of economic mobilization.” So states the author of this topical treatment of the substantive issues of economic mobilization in World War II and the basic policies and procedures devised to meet them.
As Smith sees it, economic mobilization, in essence, was “the development of a complex
array of governmental agencies, activities and controls for launching and managing the nation’s war production.” The shortages of resources arising out of the tremendous military requirements, the difficulties of mass- producing, to precise specifications, new and complicated military items, and the primacy of the element of time were the factors which necessitated the extensive governmental role.
This volume proves how well we learned the lessons of World War I and applied them to World War II. But in spite of the bottlenecks, the instances of war profiteering, the waste, the errors, and the constant criticism and bickering, we produced prodigiously.
Certainly Smith has achieved his broad, basic purpose in this volume, namely, “to provide the reader with a fund of knowledge that will enable him to understand the complex tasks associated with Army procurement and economic mobilization in World War II.” The great value which lies in reading it will be enhanced by reading Germany's Economic Preparations for War by Burton H. Klein, published by the Harvard University Press, in conjunction with it. Klein describes the abysmal failure of Nazi Germany to mobilize fully for war. For those despairing of the capacity of democracy to match the supposedly inherent superiority of dictatorship in this area, the reading of both books should be reassuring.
* * *
The Chemical Warfare Service:
Organizing for War**
By Leo P. Brophy and George J. B. Fisher. Washington: Superintendent of Docu
ments, 1959. Photographs, charts, tables, index. 489 pages. $4.00.
REVIEWED BY
Major General Charles E. Loucks, USA (Ret.)
{General Loucks served with the U. S. Army Chemical Corps from 1923 until his retirement as Army Deputy Chief Chemical Officer in 1955.)
This is the first of three volumes on the activities of The Chemical Warfare Service (redesignated The Chemical Corps after
World War II) from World War I through World War II. Part One deals with organization and administration. Part Two is devoted to training military personnel.
The Chemical Warfare Service was established as a new branch of the Army after World War I. The problems of the new service were aggravated by the doubts of high- ranking general staff officers that “gas” ever again would be an important factor in war. In the following years, budgets were meager and activities were devoted to modest research and development, procurement planning, and training activities.
The Chemical Warfare School at Edge- wood Arsenal was its principal training facility for Chemical Warfare Service Officers, and certain Army, Army Air Corps, Navy and Marine Corps personnel.
General Porter, a graduate of the Naval Academy, was the wartime chief. He persuaded the War Department in 1941 to make some long-needed decisions, including assignment to The Chemical Warfare Service of undivided responsibility for the incendiary program, responsibility for conducting a Biological Warfare Research program, and assignment of a combat function for chemical troops armed with the 4.2-inch mortar, instead of the 81-mm mortar as proposed by G-4.
The book is interestingly prepared and factual, with extensive research indicated by the many source references. This volume may be studied with profit by students interested in solving the problems inherent in organization and administration during a military emergency.
Fundamentals of Sonar, Second edition, revised*
By Dr. J. Warren Horton. Annapolis: U. S.
Naval Institute, 1959. 417 pages. 186 figures.
$10.00 ($8.00 to Naval Institute members).
REVIEWED BY
Commander Paul Roth, USN
('Commander Roth currently is attached to the Staff of
the Anti-Submarine Warfare Readiness Executive, Office
of the Chief of Naval Operations.)
It is an established fact that acoustic energy is the only type of energy which will penetrate sea water to any appreciable range and give a return echo which can be correlated with target position. The increased capability of the Soviet underseas fleet makes it mandatory that we expand our limited knowledge of sound propagation in the sea water medium.
This second edition of Dr. Horton’s unique and valuable treatise is a large step in this direction. His book is unique in the sense that it is the only text of its kind addressed exclusively to the acoustics of sound propagation in water and valuable in the sense that it compiles the basic acoustic information necessary for the pursuit of sound sonar engineering programs.
In the addenda of this second edition, Dr. Horton has included a chapter designed to make the book more useful in meeting the current complex problems in underwater acoustics. It is added to assist the sonar engineer in understanding the numerous variables which influence the behavior and performance of the more sophisticated sonar equipment now being developed. In addition to the new chapter, several necessary corrections have been made in the formulae which appear throughout the text and an expanded table of special logarithms which have application to sonar engineering has also been added.
The revised edition of Fundamentals of Sonar is a complete, informative, analytical engineering text not written for the neophyte. The title might be considered a misnomer, for in order properly to utilize this book, the reader must be versed in high mathematics, the physics of acoustics, and some basic knowledge of oceanography. The fundamentals of sonar might well be called The
Sonar Engineer’s Handbook. It is a valuable tool of the sonar engineer.
Race for the Pole
By John Edward Weems. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1960. Illustrated. Bibliography and index. 240 pages. $4.50.
REVIEWED BY
Lieutenant Commander Arnold S. Lott, USX
(Lieutenant Commander Lott is a Special Assistant to the Deputy Chief of Information, Navy Department. He is the author of Most Dangerous Sea, recently published by the U. S. Naval Institute.)
Race for the Pole, while it describes the efforts of both Commander Robert E. Peary and Doctor Frederick A. Cook to reach the North Pole, gives Peary far the greater coverage. Peary, of course, had devoted his entire life to reaching the North Pole. Cook, on the other hand, seemed to have undertaken his polar journey as a mere afterthought.
According to their respective claims, Peary reached the North Pole on 6 April 1909, and Cook on 21 April 1909. However, Cook’s announcement of discovering the North Pole was made public several days before Peary
issued his. Then, as now, there was considerable strategic value in being first to make a claim, even if it was later proved not valid.
From the first, Cook’s claim was disbelieved by arctic experts, among them Peter Freuchen, and Cook seemed notably unprepared to prove his. The fact that Cook had stated earlier he was first to reach the top of Mount McKinley (with no accompanying witnesses, as at the Pole) and the story proven to be fabricated, lent little credence to his polar claims. On the other hand, people who supported Cook vociferously shouted down what seemed quite acceptable proofs offered by Peary in behalf of his claim. The ensuing uproar, which neither time nor the deaths of the main contenders has failed to silence, is entertainingly described by Mr. Weems, who writes authentically after detailed research through a vast Peary-Cook bibliography.
Race for the Pole carries in its pages a bit of useful, though unwritten, advice for the first men to reach the moon: bring back some good proof!
The Ice Was All Between*
By Lieutenant Commander T. A. Irvine, RCN. New York: Longmans, Green & Company, Inc., 1959. Illustrated. 216 pages. $4.50.
REVIEWED BY
Lieutenant Commander Clarence O. Fiske, USN
{Commander Fiske has wintered in both polar regions and has served in several icebreakers. He currently is a student at the Navy Post Graduate School in Monterey.)
For the arm-chair explorer and the more conventional seafarer here is a book that will graphically and vividly portray life aboard an icebreaker, HMCS Labrador.
The author, a hydrographer and watch- stander, begins his tale with the birth of a new ship, Labrador, at Sorel, Canada, in 1954. The purpose of the voyage was scientific research to further knowledge of arctic Canada and the resupply of certain remote RCMP posts.
Mr. Irvine is an interesting and modest writer. He carefully explains technical terms and nautical parlance when necessary and his easy, informal style makes for sustained reading. His descriptions of icebreaking operations are the most informative and complete that this reviewer has read.
Mr. Irvine states that he hopes to dispel some of the misconceptions about the Arctic and to show that these operations can become routine and normal with proper equipment and training. The future growth of Canada, he says, both in economics and defense, will depend on such operations becoming routine. This book is a worthwhile addition to any polar library.
The Ocean of Air
By David I. Blumenstock. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1959. Illustrated. 457 pages. $6.75.
The Earth Beneath the Sea*
By Francis P. Shepard. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1959. Illustrated. 269 pages. $5.00.
REVIEWED BY
Captain Henry G. Munson, USN
{Captain Munson, a Naval Academy graduate in the class of 1932, is Hydrographer of the Navy.)
The Ocean of Air is an encyclopedic description of the atmosphere, including its interaction on land and sea environments, and the combined influence of all on man’s activities. It touches on all areas of the subject, beginning with definitions and descriptions of the observable and measures aspects of the atmosphere. The general systems which comprise the atmosphere and the general geographic distribution of these systems are explained in broad terms. The methods and instruments of observation and forecasting are covered briefly. Nearly half of the book is devoted to the influence of the atmosphere upon man’s historical development and his mental and physical productivity in commerce, agriculture, war, and transportation.
The book should find a welcome audience among professional and layman alike. To the professional, it will relate and dramatize aspects of the atmosphere with which he is probably already familiar. To the layman, its easy style and numerous references to many national and international problems will bring better understanding of this little known force behind current events and its direct influence on human existence.
* * *
This small but admirably written work, The Earth Beneath the Sea, is a popularization and updating of an earlier book entitled Submarine Geology, by the same author. Since the subject, if not a division of the science of oceanography, is inseparably related to it, the work is certain to take a position in the literature of this new and important science. The style and choice of technical terms is such that the book should prove of great interest to non-technical readers desiring to broaden their general knowledge of the subject. Because of the close relationship of certain aspects of submarine geology to modern naval warfare (anti-submarine warfare, amphibious operations and mine warfare being the most prominent modes affected by geological factors) the naval officer will find this book a valuable and easily understood introduction to the subject. Lastly, the serious navigator will read it with absorbing interest for its clear explanation of the processes by which the features of the bottom, which are of concern to navigation, are formed and changed.
Helicopters and Autogyros of the World*
By Paul Lambermont, with Anthony Pirie.
New York: Philosophical Library Inc., 1959. 255 pages. $10.00.
REVIEWED BY
Major Roy J. Edwards, USMC
(Major Edwards was designated Navy Helicopter
pilot §491 in June, 1951, and is an instructor in the
Weapons Department U. S. Naval Academy.)
Helicopters and Autogyros of the World was compiled by P. Lambermont, of France, and is the latest and most complete reference work on rotorcraft generally available today. The author is the editor of the Federation Aero- nautique Internationale (F.A.I.) monthly bulletin, the organization which confirms and registers all world aircraft records. His position with this organization undoubtedly has given him access to the finest library on aircraft information in existence.
This comprehensive catalogue of rotor- craft lists the efforts of twenty-two nations by sections, with each manufacturer by sub-section, and each machine by detailed entry. As a prelude to modern rotorcraft design practices, a short historical survey section is presented.
Helicopters and Autogyros of the World is especially recommended for the libraries of those activities associated with rotorcraft operation and for the pilots of these aircraft in order to give them a better appreciation of the helicopter, the most universal transportation vehicle known today.
Captains to the Northward, The New England Captains in the Continental Navy
By William James Morgan. Barre, Massachusetts: Barre Gazette, 1959. Illustrated.
260 pages. $7.50.
REVIEWED BY
Ernest S. Dodge
(The reviewer is Director of the Peabody Museum of
Salem and Editor of The American Neptune.)
With the exception of John Paul Jones and his exploits, the American commanders, ships, and sea fights of the Revolution are obscurely known. Few laymen could name a single commander or ship, except for Jones and Bon Homme Richard. In contrast, the heroes of the War of 1812, Hull, Bainbridge, Lawrence, and Perry, and the frigates Constitution, Constellation, United States, and Chesapeake, for example, are household words.
In recent years, William Bell Clark has devoted several books and articles to Revolutionary naval commanders of the southern Atlantic seaboard. Mr. Morgan, who is head of the Historical Research Section, Naval History Division of the Navy Department, has now brought together a great deal of material relating to the New England captains of the Continental Navy. These worthies were headed by Esek Hopkins of Rhode Island who was made Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Navy although he never received a captain’s commission. Commissions were
given to 22 captains from the four New England colonies. All were experienced seamen and most had engaged in privateering, which actually rewarded them much better than the Navy.
In reading this book one is struck by the speed with which the colonies were able to build the Continental frigates and, once built, the appalling length of time it took to get them to sea. Most of the attempted fleet actions were failures due to the lack of naval training and experience on the part of the officers in handling formations of ships. When the captains went out alone, their experiences as privateersmen usually insured their success in capturing merchant vessels. The most successful fleet cruise took place in the summer of 1779 when the ships Providence, Queen of France, and Ranger, under Commodore Abraham Whipple, stumbled into a convoyed Jamaica fleet of about 60 sail and cut out ten vessels. Eight reached port safely and the other two were recaptured. There were many blunders, the worst probably being the ill- fated Penobscot expedition. The Continental Navy did not weigh heavily in the outcome of the war, and its financial burden to the colonies was out of all proportion to the results it achieved.
While Mr. Morgan’s book brings together for the first time much information on the New England captains of the Continental Navy, its arrangement, strictly chronological, often breaks the continuity of episodes, making it difficult to follow at times. This is but a small complaint on a useful work.
The Vanishing Frenchman: The Mysterious Disappearance of Laperouse
By Edward W. Allen. Rutland: Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1959. Index, bibliography. Illustrated. 321 pages. $3.75.
REVIEWED BY
Captain Donald McClench, USNR {Ret.)
(Captain McClench is Head of the Navigation Branch, Division of Navigational Science, U. S. Navy Hydrographic Office.)
In essence, this book is an account of the life, times, explorations, and romance of Jean Francois de Galaup, Comte de Laperouse, and of the loss in 1788 of his two French frigates, Boussole and Astrolabe, following a remarkable voyage of discovery in the Pacific Ocean.
At times the Laperouse story is weakened by lengthy excursions into seemingly unrelated historical anecdote. Much of this reveals diligent research by the eminent Seattle lawyer-author. This book deserves a place on American bookshelves which contain little about the role of this distinguished French seaman and explorer in our Revolutionary War, and for whom a French survey vessel appropriately is named. The format and typography are excellent, there is a valuable bibliography of source material and an extensive index, and the illustrations are appropriate.
BOOK BRIEFS
Secret History of the Civil War
By Philip Van Doren Stern. Chicago: Rand McNally & Company, 1959. 320 pages. $5.00. '
“In 1953 the last of the long-suppressed secret service files of the Civil War were finally released. ... In this book I can only sketch the outlines of this most fascinating and baffling of all areas of Civil War history,” writes Mr. Stern in the preface. An arresting narrative, chiefly from published sources, of land and sea secret missions of both sides. The final chapter discusses Civil War codes and ciphers.
Master of the Moving Sea
The Life of Captain Peter John Riber Mathieson. By Gladys M. O. Gowlland. Flagstaff: J. F. Colton & Co., 1959. 304 pages. Illustrated. $10.00 in the United States, $10.50 elsewhere.
This autobiography-biography treats the long seafaring life of Captain Mathieson, who served in forty-one sail and steam ships, and under six flags. Editor Colton describes him as “superbly fitted to give a living picture of every phase of life, especially that on the wind ships of yesteryear.”
The Eddystone Light
By Fred Majdalany. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1960. $4.00.
“This is the story of a few men of vision and courage who, over two centuries, dedicated themselves in turn to the supremely difficult and dangerous task of lighting the Eddystone rocks.”
Trafalgar
By Oliver Warner. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1959. Illustrated. $4.50.
“Trafalgar . . . was the sunset of large- scale battles under sail, and it was the dawn of a supremacy at sea which held for more than a century. ... Its abiding lesson is in dedication of service. ...” This valuable book is one of the British Battle Series.
Guide for the Military Writer
By John W. Gause. Harrisburg: The Stack- pole Company, 1959. $3.95.
“We sincerely believe that this book can help greatly anyone who writes, whether he is college trained or not, whether he has 6 months or 20 years of service, and whether he enjoys writing or writes only because he cannot avoid it,” the publisher observes.
The Floors of the Ocean I. The North Atlantic
By Bruce C. Heezen, Marie Tharp, and Maurice Ewing. New York: The Geological Society of America, 1959. $4.50.
The text accompanies the Physiographic Diagram of the North Atlantic, Sheet I, priced at $1.50, and is a technical reference work, of specific interest to oceanographers, geologists, and hydrographers.
The Secret Invaders
By Bill Strutton and Michael Pearson. New York: British Book Centre, 1959. Illustrated. 286 pages. $3.95.
A story of Combined Operations Pilotage Parties (COPPs) and the exciting narrative of British beach reconnaissance in Europe and the Far East during World War II.
Taranto
By Don Newton and A. Cecil Hampshire.
London: William Kimber, 1959. 25 shillings.
“By superb airmanship and the faultless execution of a brilliantly conceived plan, they [the Fleet Air Arm] not only surprised and crippled the Italian fleet, but altered the course of the war in the Mediterranean. . . . ” Also see A. Cecil Hampshire, Triumph at Taranto, pages 70-79, March, 1959 Proceedings.
Aeronautical Dictionary
By Frank Davis Adams. Washington: Superintendent of Documents, 1959. $1.75.
Compiled by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, this is a comprehensive, authoritative aeronautical dictionary. “It is expected that this Dictionary will have a wide and varied audience.”
U. S. Marine Corps Aircraft 1914-1959
By William T. Larkins. Concord, California: Aviation History Publications, 1959.
$5.00.
A profusely illustrated and valuable compendium in which the “form of chronological presentation is the first time that such a method has been used in an aircraft book.
. . . A conscientious effort has been made to arrange every illustration as of the date of the photograph, not by the date of construction of the airplane.”
Yankee from Sweden
By Ruth White. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1960. $4.50.
A biography of the famous inventor and engineer, “based on published works and hitherto unutilized original sources.” In 1890, “Except for the heroic glamor of Ericsson’s pugnacious little Monitor, many of his other versatile and original contributions to engineering had passed or were passing into the common usage. ...”
Science and Technology in Contemporary War
By Major General G. I. Pokrovsky, Soviet Army. Translated and annotated by Raymond L. Garthoff. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1959. $4.00.
“This book is unique in two respects: it is the first volume of Soviet military writings to be translated and published in English . . . and to present the most comprehensive . . . Soviet work ever to be written on the crucial question of the influence of science and technology on modern war and warfare,” Dr. Garthoff comments.
Maritime Organic Moderated and Cooled Reactor
Washington: Office of Technical Services, Department of Commerce, 1959. Drawings, tables, figures. $3.50.
A paperback, describing the results of a six-week conceptual design study of an organic moderated and cooled reactor power plant adapted to a Class T-7 tanker. “A 60,000 dwt tanker, propelled by a 30,000 shp organic moderated and cooled reactor, can be built and operated at a cost which is only slightly higher than a conventional tanker.”
Aircraft & Missiles
By D. M. Desoutter. New York: John DeGraff, Inc., 1959. Illustrated. $7.50.
“Because it is intended for the general reader the book has been kept as simple as
possible. A few formulae have been included, but only of the simplest kind.”
Kings Point. The United States Merchant Marine Academy
L. J. Zaleski, editor. Maplewood, New Jersey: Zale Publishing Company, 1960. Paperback. $1.09 within the United States.
An informative presentation of cadet life, with introduction by the Superintendent. Liberally illustrated with outstanding photographs and pertinent captions.
Admirals in Collision
By Richard Hough. New York: The Viking Press, Inc., 1959. Illustrated. 182 pages. $3.95.
“In this book ... I have tried only to show how the strongly contrasting backgrounds, the personalities, and the careers of the two men who were most closely involved in the catastrophe can lead to several possible conclusions,” Mr. Hough comments. See Frank Lipscomb, “The Victoria and the Camperdown,” pages 53-61, January, 1958 Proceedings, and page 108, July, 1958 Proceedings.
They Sailed into Oblivion
By A. A. Hoehling. New York: Thomas Yoseloff, 1959. $5.95.
An arresting collection of more than a score of major sea disasters, from 1848 to 1959, well presented and illustrated.
NOTE: Members may save by ordering books through the Naval Institute. A discount of 20% or more is allowed on books published by the Naval Institute and a discount of 10% on books of other publishers (except on foreign and government publications, and on books on which publishers do not give a discount). Allow reasonable time for orders to be cleared and books to be delivered directly to you by publishers. Address, Secretary-Treasurer, U. S. Naval Institute, Annapolis, Maryland.
Readers using Navy and Marine Corps libraries will find books marked with a single asterisk (*) in many ship and station libraries; those with two asterisks (**) may be borrowed from the nearest Navy Auxiliary Library Service Collection at COM 14, COM 11, COM MARIANAS, NAVSTA, NORVA, and BUPERS (G14).