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Editor’s Note: This is the 12th annual survey of the outstanding naval books of the current year. No effort is made to cover fiction or books appearing in foreign languages. British book prices are usually stated in shillings and pence. Any of these volumes may be purchased through the U. S. Naval Institute, which gives a discount to its members.
Naval history books rarely make the headlines of American newspapers, but on two occasions in the past decade the American press and radio have given prominent attention to the writings of Britain’s Captain Stephen W. Roskill, Royal Navy (Retired). Captain Roskill is today well known and admired as the author of the “Official Histories” of the Royal Navy in World War II, the correct title being The War at Sea, 3 vols., in the United Kingdom Military Series of the History oj the Second World War.
In May 1954, Roskill’s first volume emerged and caused a minor sensation by its pointed criticism of Winston Churchill’s alleged interference in such details as battle tactics during the Norwegian Campaign when that renowned leader was First Lord of the Admiralty, September 1939 to May 1940.
The second incident, similar to the first, was in October 1961 when the Annapolis Evening Capital carried the front page story “Churchill Blamed for Navy Losses,” the content of the story being the publication of the final volume of Roskill’s War at Sea history.
As is often the case, these two journalistic citations, seven years apart, accentuated the sensational; for, in reality, the criticism directed against Churchill occupies only a relatively minute space in each of the two volumes.
With the publication of this most recent volume of the Roskill works, the War at Sea is completed. This is definitely the most significant event in the naval history book field for 1961, and the final volume is the best naval book of the year, in this writer’s opinion.
The complete works: Volume I, The Defensive, covers the period from September 1939 to the end of 1941, ($7.85). Volume II, The Period of Balance carries on to May 1943, ($7.85). Volume III is in two parts: Part I, June 1943 through May 1944 and Part II, June 1944 to VJ-Day, 1945. (Part I and Part II of Volume III, $8.40 each). (British Information Service, New York).
History up to I860
The British naval historian, Michael Lewis, has long been among the foremost of his profession, and not the least of the Lewis achievements was a series of eight articles which appeared in the 1942-43 issues of the British journal, Mariner's Mirror. These articles constituted the most detailed analysis of the Spanish Armada’s ordnance history, and the articles have now been brought together in book form under the title Armada Guns (Allen & Unwin, 42/). This significant 1588 campaign marked the entrance of the ship’s gun into the center of the stage of naval battle, a position it was to retain for nearly three and a half centuries until airpower displaced it.
Almost every year sees another pirate book emerge and 1961 was no exception. There was one distinct difference, however, for few of the annual piratical accounts are as authoritative or as well-researched as Brethren of the Coast: Buccaneers of the South Seas (St. Martin’s, $4.95) by the British historical team of P. K. Kemp and Christopher Lloyd. The Kemp-
Lloyd pirates are of a different ilk not pirates in the same sense as Kidd or Teach, but a more legal type of buccaneer, such as the renowned William Dampier who thrice circumnavigated the earth and lived to write a rather remarkable account of his voyage, A Mew Voyage Round the World (1697). In fact, virtually all of Brethren’s characters were men of literary ability, and most left meaty journals, invaluable sources which its two authors have used extensively.
Every student of the age of sail must develop a profound admiration for that giant figure of the mid-18th century, Admiral Anson, whose epic voyage around the world, 1740—1744, must be classed with the great naval achievements of all time. Anson’s full career including his voyage, his successful service as First Lord of the Admiralty during the peak of the Seven Years’ War, and especially his influence on the selection and training of such brilliant commanders as Hawke, Boscawen, Saunders, Richard Howe, and Keppell all is admirably told in S. W. C. Pack’s Admiral Lord Anson (Cassell, 35/).
Early in 1793 the excesses of the French Revolution precipitated the international struggle which—with only a slight interlude lasted until 1815. The principal naval adversaries were, as they had been repeatedly since the end of the 17th century, France and Britain. The first year of the war had come and gone without any significant test of naval strength, but early in the summer of 1794 the test came, four to five hundred miles off the coast of Brittany, when Britain’s venerable Admiral Lord Howe met and defeated the French Fleet under Villaret-Joyeuse. When word—and proof in the form of six captured French men-of-war—reached Britain, the battle was given a name which is highly revered in British history and the title of Oliver Warner’s Glorious First of June (Macmillan, $4.50). A member of the highly commendable British Battle Series, this volume represents the first modern analysis of that 1794 engagement which is often cited as a tactical victory for Howe and Britain, but at the same time a strategic defeat in that the French grain convoy managed to evade the British and to reach its destination, Brest. Warner’s book reaches the high standards set by his Nile and Trafalgar in this same series.
Next June marks the 150th anniversary of the opening of the War of 1812. Four new books make significant contributions to an
BRITISH HISTORIAN HOLDS CHURCHILL PARTLY TO BLAME FOR EARLY SETBACKS
understanding of that struggle; three dealing rather extensively with the background of the war. A. Z. Carr’s The Coming of the War (Doubleday, $4.95) skillfully traces the war’s origins as far back as the end of the American Revolution and presents a well-founded analysis of America’s hot and cold wars from 1781 down to the War of 1812. Bradford Perkin’s Prologue to War (California, $7.95) is somewhat more narrow than the Carr treatment and deals with Anglo-American relations from 1803 to the outbreak of hostilities in June 1812—a period of intense “national humiliation and wounded honor”—plus an overdose of expansion fever which helped bring on the conflagration. Each of these books presents refreshing treatments of that “war within a war.”
A first-rate biography of James Madison has long been the labor of historian Irving Brant, and 1961 saw the completion of the sixth and final volume of this monumental biography which ranks with the best of American biographical works. Brant’s final volume, James Madison: Commander-in-Chief (Bobbs- Merrill, $7.50) delves deeply into the American official conduct of the War and carefully evaluates the Madison role as one of the seven Chief Executives to serve as wartime Commander in Chief.
The final campaign of the War of 1812, actually a campaign with heavy amphibious overtones, is thoroughly and expertly analyzed by Charles B. Brooks in his Siege of New Orleans (University of Washington Press, $6.50).
A rather interesting and basically accurate “historical dialogue” is contained in The Court Martial of Commodore Perry (Bobbs-Mer- rill, $3.95) by J. A. Rhodes and Dean Jauch- ius. These two writers have employed “author’s license tempered with historian’s conscience” to produce a short life of Oliver Hazard Perry.
The role of sea power in the Lone Star Republic of Texas has often been referred to as significant, but that subject has failed to inspire much detailed research other than a useful study by Jim Dan Hill nearly a quarter of a century ago. Chief among the leaders of that Navy was a former U. S. naval officer who resigned his commission in 1839 and became the head man in the infant Lone Star
Navy. The career of that pioneer is well set forth in T. H. Wells’ Commodore Moore and The Texas Navy (University of Texas, $4.75).
In the history of sea disasters and related heroics, no event ranks higher or is more often cited than that associated with the loss of H. M. Troopship Birkenhead on a submerged pinnacle in Table Bay, South Africa, in February 1852, a dramatic episode effectively recounted in J. L. Kerr’s The Unforgettable Ship (Harrap, 15/).
The Civil War and After
Arriving too late for last year’s roundup, was Volume I of V. C. Jones’s The Civil War at Sea (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, $6.00), the first part of a proposed trilogy which should be the most complete over-all account of sea power during the Civil War. This book is far from encyclopedic in scope, but it covers rather thoroughly the naval events from January 1861 to the Monitor-Virginia affair of March 1862. Volume II, covering the story up to the fall of Vicksburg and Port Hudson, July 1863, was emerging just as this annual compilation was going to press.
The best one-volume account devoted exclusively to the capture of New Orleans in April 1862 was also a late 1960 arrival and is The Night the War Was Lost (Doubleday, $4.95) by Charles L. Dufour. The Night was, according to Dufour’s well-founded estimation, 24 April 1862 when Farragut’s 14 men- of-war ran past Forts Jackson and St. Philip and brought New Orleans under the mercy of Union naval guns.
Unquestionably, the high seas Confederate who continued the war the longest and gave in the hardest was Shenandoah’s Commanding Officer, James I. Waddell, who had taken his far-ranging raider into the far North Pacific when he received unofficial word in June 1865 that the war was over. Waddell continued his mission for several weeks until he spoke a British ship and had that “unhappy rumor was confirmed.” The defiant Confederate’s self-written story, CSS Shenandoah: The Memoirs of Lieutenant Commanding James I. Waddell, CSN (Crown, $4.00) has been edited by James D. Horan and is especially welcome as another primary source on the Civil War.
In the great outpouring of Civil War pic-
ture books, one in particular contains both text and illustrations dealing extensively with the naval side of the war. Earl S. Miers’ The American Civil War (Ridge Press-Golden Press, $15.00) carries three full chapters which relate the war’s naval side as seen by corre- —spondents who witnessed the events or interviewed the participants shortly afterwards.
The Navy Department’s Naval History Division has just released the 1861 part of its Civil War Naval Chronology (1861-1865) (Government Printing Office, price to be announced), a remarkably detailed day-by-day account of sea power events from November, 1860 to the end of 1861. Later years of the Chronology will be released as completed.
For the second consecutive year, there has appeared a full account of the Greely Arctic Expedition of 1881-84. Last year’s Long Rescue by Theodore Powell was well received and the 1961 offering, Abandoned (McGraw- Hill, $5.95) by A. L. Todd, is especially welcome, for it is somewhat more seriously researched than its predecessor, being based on rather extensive use of previously unavailable papers of the Greely family and other private sources.
The Russian Revolution of 1917 always overshadows all other Russian revolts, but for Imperial Russia, the disastrous year of 1905 witnessed several uprisings, one of which was especially dramatic from the naval viewpoint and is lightly and pleasantly set forth in The Potemkin Mutiny (Pantheon, $3.95) by Richard Hough whose popular Fleet That Had to Die (1958) also dealt with the Russo-Japanese War era. Potemkin, the Czar’s finest warship on the Black Sea, was the scene of a shortlived mutiny which portended many of the “worker-soldier” uprisings of a dozen years later.
World War I
This year’s principal World War I naval book centers on that dynamic figure always associated with a generation of preparation of British sea power for its World War I role— John Fisher. Fisher has long been the special object of intense historical research by the University of Hawaii’s Historian Arthur J. Marder whose recently-published three volumes of Fisher letters (Fear God and Dread Nought) constitute one of the most significant
published collections of original source materials pertaining to sea power in the past century. A score of years ago Marder’s Anatomy of British Sea Power—1880-1905 (1940) was properly hailed as a superb contribution to naval literature, and now, after a long interruption devoted to the Fisher letters project, Marder has resumed his basic study and published From Dreadnought To Scafia Flow (Oxford, $10.00) a masterful account, superbly researched, of the Royal Navy’s development in the ten years leading into World War I.
Adding to the already extensive (but by no means • complete) published sources on “Jackie” Fisher is Peter K. Kemp’s first volume (of three) of The Papers of Admiral Sir John Fisher (Navy Records Society, 1960, 45/), consisting of a vast collection of hitherto unpublished Fisher material down to the year 1904. When finished, these three volumes, plus the Marder volumes of letters, will give to the naval history student the most complete collection of raw material on the naval history of any one man or one navy of this century.
A rather brief and stimulating re-telling of World War I’s cruiser-raider actions and the 1914 battles of Coronel and the Falklands is contained in Command the Far Seas (Hutchinson, 25/) by Keith Middlemas.
In the years following World War I, aviation made spectacular gains, and the first was the NC-4 flight across the Atlantic in 1919, a story pleasantly presented in Triumph (Harper, $4.50) by H. Steirman and G. D. Kittler. Quite properly, A. C. (“Putty”) Read plays a major role in that story, but a number of those early air pioneers, such as Towers, Byrd, Bellinger, and others, make their proper appearance in this brief account.
World War II—The Atlantic
Each major war brings forth new weapons and new tactics, and World War II was especially noteworthy in this respect. Perhaps no basic surface fighting technique was as thoroughly developed and perfected during that long struggle as were amphibious operations. Almost two years before Pearl Harbor, the British had established a semi-independent military unit composed of admirals, generals, and air marshals. The organization was known as Combined Operations. Closely associated with that group during the war and actually its Director in later years, Sir Bernard Fergusson has told that dynamic organization’s full story in The Watery Maze (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, $7.50). Across this volume’s pages pass the Allied great of the war—Churchill, FDR, Mountbatten, Eisenhower, Cunningham, Tedder, Montgomery, and others. The Watery Maze is one of the most important and authoritative works on military operations of World War II.
The Royal Navy’s Captain Donald Macintyre is one of the most prolific writers on World War II naval subjects as is evidenced by a check of these annual roundups for the past six or seven years. Macintyre has this year written of his special field of interest and experience (he has one of the war’s most successful ASW leaders) in The Battle of the Atlantic (Macmillan, $4.50), a most acceptable member of the British Battle Series.
Another recent Macintyre contribution is Fighting Admiral: The Life and Battles of Admiral of the Fleet Sir James Somerville (Evans, 25/), which is the biography of one of the Royal Navy’s most able World War II leaders, the man who commanded Force H out of Gibraltar from 1940 until 1942 when he was dispatched to the Indian Ocean to command the Eastern Fleet. This brief book offers a wealth of information on such events as Mers- el-Kebir, the Malta convoys, the Japanese thrust into the Indian Ocean in April 1942, etc.
Closely akin to Britain’s Combined Operations activities were the Royal Navy’s small craft known as H. M. Motor Launches which served with such distinction in both world wars. Their heroic story is well told in Inshore Heroes (W. H. Allen, 25/) by W. Granville and R. A. Kelly. This story begins with World War I, especially the attack on Zeebrugge in 1918, and is then carried through World War II and on to the Suez operation. During World War I, two dozen of these small ships were lost through enemy action; in World War II, the losses reached 80.
This year marked the twentieth anniversary of the Battle of Matapan (March 1941) when A. B. Cunningham met and defeated the Italian Fleet off the southern tip of the Peloponnesus. The full story of that great battle has been well told in such volumes as Roskill’s
War at Sea, Cunningham’s A Sailor's Odyssey, and others, but there will always be room for re-telling as was demonstrated this year when two brief books on the battle appeared. The first is Ronald Seth’s Two Fleets Surprised (Bles, 21/), a volume carefully prepared by using both Italian and British records; the second is S. W. C. Pack’s The Battle of Matapan (Macmillan, $4.50) in the British Battle Series.
Often a battle’s ultimate effects are not discernible to its participants or immediate observers; instead the payoff may come long after and in the form of lessons learned, usually “how not to do it.” One of the World War II events which fits well into this category is fully chronicled by British journalist W. Vaughan-Thomas in Anzio (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, $6.00). The payoff came, says the author—paraphrasing Field Marshal Kesselring—at the time of the Normandy landings five months after Anzio began.
World War II—The Pacific
Historian R. J. C. Butow has long made the inner workings of Japanese wartime diplomacy and politics his special field of intense investigation. His Japan's Decision to Surrender (Princeton University Press, $4.00) is the fullest and most authoritative account of the events leading up to VJ-Day. Now Butow has returned to the start of the whole affair and has related in full detail how it all began in Tojo and the Coming of the War (Princeton, $10.00). This impressive book is based on extensive delving into the vast manuscript sources of the period, plus a host of interviews with Japanese who were closely associated with the book’s major personality and theme.
l
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The vastness of the Pacific is often difficult to comprehend, and the understanding of how, when, where, why, and who of that 1941-45 war in the Pacific is likewise a mighty comprehensive assignment. No popular account of the Pacific War’s first half year’s struggle has reached the success currently achieved by John Toland’s But Not in Shame (Random House, $5.95), a skillfully woven historical fabric based on extensive interviewing of the participants, on the spot investigations, and admirable synthesis of a mountain of historical writings. Toland will be recognized as the author of Ships of the
Sky (1957) and The Battle of the Bulge (1959).
Wake Island, 1941, will always be the subject of controversy—whether Wake could have been saved, who was responsible for its loss, and a host of other imponderables. One American’s name has always been associated With the defense of Wake and that is Major James Devereux, U. S. Marine Corps. But the readers of Wake Island Command (Little, Brown, $4.95) will conclude that this book’s author, W. Scott Cunningham, should also be associated with that December 1941 event; for Commander Cunningham arrived on Wake to take command ten days before the war began. The loss of Wake and the author’s subsequent prisoner-of-war years form the bulk of this book.
The loss of Britain’s two mighty warships, HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales, on 10 December 1941 was, for the Allied world, a shock second only to Pearl Harbor. More than a decade ago Winston Churchill gave, in his Hinge of Fate, his version of what led to the tragedy on that December day off the north Malayan coast, and in 1951 the late Captain Russell Grenfell’s bitter denunciation of Churchill appeared in Main Fleet to Singapore (1951). 1961 saw the arrival of a popular account (also anti-Churchill, but less bitter than was Main Fleet) of that whole affair— Someone Had Blundered (Doubleday, $4.50) by British journalist Bernard Ash.
Those sinkings are also described in lesser detail in a Japanese version of the planning and execution of the campaign against Singapore, M. Tsuji’s Singapore: The Japanese Version (St. Martin’s, $5.50).
Often lost or overlooked in the maze of major happenings in the 1942-43 Guadalcanal Campaign is America’s most disastrous wartime defeat, the Battle of Savo Island. R. F. Newcomb, whose Abandon Ship (1959) related the tragic details of the loss of USS Indianapolis in July 1945, has now in Savo (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, $4.95) done a rather interesting job of piecing together most of the story surrounding that severe naval loss of August 1942.
Arriving too late for inclusion in last year’s compilation was P. A. Crowl’s Campaign in the Marianas (Government Printing Office, $6.50), a distinguished member of the U. S. Army in World War II Series. This volume
relates in great detail the capture of Saipan, Tinian, and Guam, and is therefore especially useful for its details of highly successful amphibious operations in mid-1944.
Also of special value to students of World War II is the Army History Series’ Master Index—Reader's Guide No. II (Government Printing Office, 75£) as an indispensable key to the 50-odd volumes already published in that series.
While considering official histories, mention should be made of the extensive history coming from Canberra. Australia and The War of 1939-45 will, when finished, contain more than a score of weighty volumes based on official sources and meriting serious attention by all serious students of the war. The latest volume, The New Guinea Offensives (Australian War Memorial, 40/) by David Dexter, contains frequent references to the role played by U. S. naval forces in that Southwest Pacific region. Among the Australian volumes already issued and containing much of interest and value on Pacific naval operations is G. H. Gill’s The Royal Australian Navy, 1939-42 (1957). A second and concluding navy volume is on the way to completion.
Rarely does one single small craft of PT category merit or attract enough attention to warrant the publication of a full book on the ship’s career, but not PT-109. That was the fateful craft commanded by Lieutenant J. F. Kennedy, U. S. Naval Reserve, in the Central Solomons in mid-1943. The craft and her commander’s wartime career are the themes of the full treatment given by R. J. Donovan in PT-109 (McGraw-Hill, $4.95), a volume which is being serialized in the Saturday Evening Post and will, it is reported, be given the full Hollywood treatment in the near future.
Once again Senior Historian Herbert Feis has scored high in his accounts of the diplomacy surrounding World War II, this time with Japan Subdued (Princeton, $4.00), a brief but highly authoritative account centered particularly on the atomic bombs unleashed in the final days of the Pacific War. While this Feis book is primarily diplomatic in scope, there is much of high military value therein.
A most interesting and useful account of the weapons of the 1939-45 war is found in Great Weapons of World War II (Walker, $10.00) by John Kirk and Robert Yound.
These two enterprising military historians have here compiled data and illustrations which make this a truly significant reference book on that great conflict.
Within the over-all history of the Korean conflict will ever be that knotty issue of the Truman-MacArthur controversy, an episode carefully analyzed by Trumbull Higgins in Korea and The Fall of MacArthur (Oxford, $5.00), which is a well-balanced case study in civil-military relations.
The heroic role of the U. S. Marines in the Korean war is well known but often from fictionalized accounts such as Battle Cry and Band of Brothers. In The March to Glory (World, $3.95) Robert Leckie relates faithfully and enthusiastically that remarkable story of the First Marines in their 1950 encounter with the six Chinese Communist divisions in North Korea.
From the U. S. Army’s Official History Program has come the first of five volumes which, when completed, will present a comprehensive account of the activities of the U. S. Army in Korea, 1950-53. As so often has been true of volumes in the Army World War II histories, this volume has much to do with American (and United Nations) sea power. Roy E. Appleman’s massive South to the Naklong, North to the Talu, (Government Printing Office, $10.00) covers the Korean struggle from June to November 1950. Taken with Cagle and Manson’s The Sea War in Korea (1957) and Montross and Canzona’s U. S. Marine Corps in Korea (3 vols. to date), this Army series will constitute the best and most thorough coverage of the military aspects of that struggle.
The Era of the Cold War
A late 1960 arrival meriting primary attention is Polaris! (Harcourt, Brace, $4.50) by James Barr and W. E. Howard which relates the full story of that “powerful weapon of war born of grave necessity in an age of trouble.” The development of that weapon was, to be sure, an all-hands achievement, but the dynamic figure of Vice Admiral W. F. Ra- born, Jr., U. S. Navy, stands at the center and will ever be associated with that project which ushered in a new age for the U. S. Navy’s role as the First Line of Defense.
The Raborn-Polaris story is also well told in The Sea and The Subs (Duell, Sloan & Pearce, $4.50) by Ed Rees. This book is especially good in presenting the human nature aspects of many of the U. S. Navy’s current SW and ASW leaders—Raborn, Rickover, Thach, and others.
Two other submarine books cover the field rather well in their own way, each giving more attention to the historical aspects than the other two sub books mentioned above. These additional contributions are Commander D. D. Lewis’s The Fight for the Sea (World, $6.00) and Arch Whitehouse’s Subs and Submariners (Doubleday, $4.95). The Lewis book is especially good for its superb bibliography which covers the entire underwater field as no other published source does.
Four years ago, the whole Free World, with two sputniks overhead, was pinning its hopes on Project Vanguard to meet the Soviet’s technological challenge. Finally Vanguard came through in January 1958, but not before that satellite program had experienced what appeared to be insurmountable delays, frustrations, and a world of difficulties. The full story of this operation is ably told by the program’s Head of the Propulsion Group, Kurt R. Stehling, in Project Vanguard (Doubleday, $4.50).
A related pioneering venture, also closely associated with America’s prestige in current world affairs, is ably described in Martin Cai- din’s The Astronauts (Dutton, $3.95) which came out too early to select Commander Shepherd as the man to lead the way; nonetheless this book, with its vast number of photographs and sketches, is especially useful for the layman who is interested but no expert in space science.
Exploration
One of the heaviest and costliest naval history books of 1961 list is a Hakluyt Society Publication of The Journal of Captain James Cook, Vol. II (Cambridge University Press, $19.50) edited byj. C. Beaglehole. This ponderous tome of more than a thousand pages consists of those journals of the 1772-1775 voyage of the Resolution and Adventure, Cook’s second voyage into the Pacific a voyage which, “in the annals of exploration, is unsurpassed for grandeur of design and execution and for variety of experience.”
One of the most solemn aspects of the Nautilus’s 1958 voyage under the North Sea was the tribute paid by her officers and crew to “those who had gone before”—those who had sought so long for the sea passage north of North America. To read the history of —those seekers will inspire genuine admiration as readers of Ernest Dodge’s Northwest By Sea (Oxford, $6.50) will testify. Dodge presents a brief history of those “iron men of sail and sledge” whose ghosts must stand in awe to see modern American and Canadian navy men and ships traverse that passage nowadays.
One of those pioneers whose ideas must now be highly regarded by all was the late Sir Hubert Wilkins, the Australian-born explorer who made the first attempt, in 1931, to navigate a submarine beneath the ice. That story is well told in Lowell Thomas’s Sir Hubert Wilkins: His World of Adventure (McGraw-Hill, $5.95).
Exploration at the other end of the world is the theme of Antarctic Command (Bobbs-Mer- rill, $5.00) by Captain Finne Ronne, U. S. Naval Reserve. Ronne, a veteran explorer, commanded the U. S. Navy’s Ellsworth Station at Antarctica during the International Geophysical Year, 1957—58, and in this book he presents an exceedingly frank account of the extreme difficulties, both personal and administrative, plus the individual heroism which that isolated group experienced. Captain Ronne’s account will undoubtedly become one of the most controversial books related to the U. S. Navy’s role in Antarctic exploration.
Miscellaneous
Several additions to the picture book library of sea power appeared in 1961, most of them genuinely impressive. Christopher Lloyd’s Ships and Seamen (World, $12.50) is a superb volume of more than 400 unique illustrations with meaningful captions. The period covered is rather extensive—from the Vikings to Polaris.
Much less naval in character, but powerful in impact, are the two new U. S. Naval Institute volumes by Carl C. Cutler. With the publication of Queens of the Western Ocean, Carl Cutler completes a task he began 40 years earlier when he produced Greyhounds of the Sea.
Queens, written especially for the Institute,
tells about the American sailing packet ships, the businessmen who conceived them, and the captains and seamen who drove them through on schedule.
It captures the buoyant spirit of pre-Civil War America which made possible the first real steps toward reliable, comfortable sea travel. Queens is illustrated with 69 pictures of the men and their ships, many in full color, and ten sets of ship’s lines and sail plans. It is also provided with exhaustive appendices, naming ships, masters, owners and records made and broken.
Greyhounds is a new edition of a classic history of .the clipper ships which first appeared in print in 1930, and has long been out of print. Cutler tells the story of the beautiful, fast, but short-lived clippers year by year, with the highlights of clipper racing and record-breaking each year brought vividly to life. An appendix to the volume lists 440 clipper ships. Greyhounds of the Sea and Queens of the Western Ocean sell for $12.50 each, both volumes $20.00; special price to Naval Institute members, $9.38 each, $15.00 both).
Arriving just as this roundup is nearing completion is Our Modern Navy (Van Nostrand, $5.95) by Captain J. L. Howard, (SC), U. S. Navy. This book appears to be a broad presentation by word and illustration of the balance of America’s modern sea power status —what the U. S. Navy is able to do with what it has today.
Privately printed by one of America’s leading industrial concerns is Three Generations of Shipbuilding, 1886-1961 (Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company, no price) which is a brief history, admirably illustrated of this firm’s contributions to American shipbuilding since the rise of the New Navy in the 1880’s.
Two salvage type accounts, both of British origin, are The Sea Surrenders (Cassel, 21 /) by Royal Navy Captain W. R. Fell, a salvage expert whose post-World War II duties took him to a host of trouble areas, including the wreck-littered harbor at Malta and later to the Suez Canal rehabilitation job in 1956-57; and W. O. Shelford’s Subsunk (Doubleday, $4.50) which is a rather complete history of modern submarine sinkings as well as rescue techniques and other experiments to improve submarine safety.
PUBLICATIONS
United States Naval Institute
Special postpaid price to members of the U. S. Naval Institute, both regular and associate, is
shown in parentheses. Prices subject to change without notice. On orders for Maryland delivery, please add 3 per cent sales tax. These books may be ordered from the
U. S. Naval Institute, Annapolis, Maryland
Admiral de Grasse and American Independence........... $5.00 ($3.75)
By Professor Charles L. Lewis, U. S. Naval Academy. 1045. 404 pages. Illustrated.
Air Operations in Naval Warfare Reading Supplement . . .... $2.00 ($1.60)
Edited by Commander Walter C. Biattmann, USN. 1957. 185 pages. Paper bound.
Amcrika Samoa: A History of American Samoa
and Its United States Naval Administration...................... $6.00 ($4.50)
By Captain J. A. C. Gray (MC) USN. 1960. 295 pages. Illustrated.
Annapolis Today........................................................... $4.00 ($3.00)
By Kendall Banning. Revised by A. Stuart Pitt. 1957. 300 pages. 59 photographs.
The Art of Knotting and Splicing................................. $5.00 ($3.75)
By Cyrus Day. Step-by-step pictures facing explanatory text. 2nd edition, 1955. 224 pages.
The Best of Taste, The Finest Food of Fifteen Nations.. $4.00 ($3.00)
Edited by the SACLANT-NATO Cookbook Committee. 1957. 244 pages. Illustrated.
The Bluejackets’ Manual, U. S. Navy........................ $1.95 ($1.56)
Revised by Captain John V. Noel, Jr., USN, Commander Frederick C. Dyer, USNR, and Master Chief Journalist William J. Miller, USN. 16th edition, 1960. 641 pages. Illustrated.
The Book of Navy Songs...................................... $2.65 ($1.99)
Compiled by the Trident Society of the Naval Academy. Over 90 old and new songs. 160 pages. Illustrated. Sold 07ily to Midshipmen and Naval Institute members.
A Brief History of Courts-Martial......................................... $ .50 ($ .40)
By Brigadier General James Snedeker, USMC (Ret.). 1954. 65 pages. Paper bound.
The Coast Guardsman’s Manual................................ $4.00 ($3.20)
By Captain W. C. Hogan, USCG. Revised by Lieutenant Commander M. M. Dickinson,
USCGR, assisted by Loran W. Behrens, BMC, USN-FR. 3rd edition. 1958. 819 pages. Il
lustrated.
David Glasgow Farragut
By Professor Charles L. Lewis, U. S. Naval Academy.
Vol. I, Admiral in the Making. 1941. 372 pages Illustrated $3.75 ($2.82)
Vol. II, Our First Admiral. 1943. 513 pages. Illustrated... $4.50 ($3.38)
Der Seekricg, The German Navy’s Story 1939-1945 .... $5.00 ($3.75)
By Vice Admiral Friedrich Ruge, German Navy. 1957. 440 pages. 43 photographs. 19 charts.
Descriptive Analysis of Naval Turbine Propulsion Plants $5.00 ($4.00)
By Commander C. N. Payne, USN. 1958. 187 pages. Illustrated.
The Divine Wind, Japan’s Kamikaze Force in World War II $4.50 ($3.38)
By Captain Rikihei Inoguchi and Commander Tadashi Nakajima, former Imperial Japanese Navy, with Commander Roger Pineatt, USNR. 1958. 240 pages. 61 photographs. 3 diagrams.
Division Oflicer’s Guide....................................................... $2.25 ($1.80)
By Captain J. V. Noel, Jr., USN. 4th edition, 1959. 282 pages.
Dutton’s Navigation and Piloting....................................... $8.00 ($6.40)
Prepared by Commander J. C. Hill, II, USN, Lieutenant Commander T. F. Utegaard, USN, and Gerard Riordan. TA completely rewritten text which supplants Navigation and Nautical Astronomy.) 1st edition, 1958. 771 pages. Illustrated.
Elementary Seamanship..................................................... $2.00 ($1.60)
Paper bound.
The French Navy in World War II.......................................................................... $6.00 ($4.50)
By Rear Admiral Paul Attphan, French Navy (Ret.), and Jacques Mordal. Translated by Captain A. C. J. Sabalot, USN (Ret.). 1959. 413 pages. 32 photographs. 13 charts and diagrams.
Fundamentals of Construction and Stability of Naval Ships..................................... $5.50 ($4.40)
By Professor Thomas C. Gillmer, U. S. Naval Academy. 2nd edition, revised, 1959. 373 pages. Illustrated.
Fundamentals of Sonar.......................................................................................... $10.00 ($8.00)
By Dr. J. Warren Horton. 2nd edition, 1959. 417 pages. 186 figures.
Garde D’Haiti 1915-1934: Twenty Years of Organization and
Training by the United States Marine Corps............................................................ $4.50 ($3.38)
Compiled by J. H, McCrocklin. 1956. 262 pages. 42 photographs.
Prepared by Lieutenant Commander Maurice C. Hartle, USN, Lieutenant Charles M. Lake, USN, Lieutenant Harry P. Madera, USN, and J. J. Metzger, BMC, USN (Ret.), of the Department of Seamanship and Navigation, U. S. Naval Academy. 1958. 81 pages. Illustrated.
Geography and National Power............................................................................... $2.50 ($2.00)
Edited by Professor William W. Jeffries, U. S. Naval Academy. 1958. 155 pages.
Greyhounds of the Sea............................................................................................ $12.50 ($9.38)
By Carl C. Cutler. 1961. 592 pages. 63 illustrations, 8 in full color. 26 sets of ships’ lines and sail plans.
Special price—Greyhounds of the Sea and Queens of the Western Ocean,
both volumes as a set................................................................................................. $20.00 ($15.00)
The Henry Huddleston Rogers Collection of Ship Models...................................... $3.00 ($2.25)
U. S. Naval Academy Museum. 2nd edition, 1958. 117 pages. Illustrated.
A History of Naval Tactics from 1530 to 1930 ....................................................... $6.50 ($4.88)
The Evolution of Tactical Maxims. By Rear Admiral S. S. Robison, USN (Ret.), and Mary L. Robison. 1942. 956 pages. Illustrated.
The V-Five Physical Education Series. 2nd revised edition, 1956. 366 pages. Illustrated.
How to Survive on Land and Sea............................................................................ $4.00 ($3.00)
The Human Machine, Biological Science for the Armed Services........................... $5.00 ($3.75)
By Captain Charles W. Shilling (MC), USN. 1955. 292 pages. Illustrated.
The Hunters and the Hunted.................................................................................... $3.50 ($2.63)
By Rear Admiral Eldo Cocchia, Italian Navy (Reserve). 1958. 180 pages. Photographs and diagrams.
Internal Combustion Engines............................................. •................................... $5.00 ($4.00)
By Commander P. W. Gill, USN, Commander J. H. Smith, Jr., USN, and Professor E. J. Ziurys. 4th edition, 1959. 570 pages. Illustrated.
International Law for Seagoing Officers.................................................................. $6.00 ($4.50)
By Commander Burdick H. Brittin, USN, and Dr. Liselotte B. Watson. 2nd edition, 1960. 318 pages. Illustrated.
Introduction to Applied Aerodynamics................................................................... $3.00 ($2.40)
By Commander Gregg Mueller, USN. 1957. 178 pages. Paper bound.
Introduction to Brazilian Portuguese................................................................ $6.50 ($5.20)
By Associate Professor Guy J. Riccio, U. S. Naval Academy. 1957. 299 pages.
Introduction to Marine Engineering................................................................. $5.50 ($4.40)
By Professor Robert F. Latham, U. S. Naval Academy. 1958. 208 pages. Illustrated.
The Italian Navy in World War II.................................................................... $5.75 ($4.32)
By Commander Marc’Antonio Bragadin. 1957. 380 pages. 121 photographs. 17 diagrams.
John Paul Jones: Fighter for Freedom and Glory.............................................. $6.00 ($4.50)
By Lincoln Lorenz. 1943. 846 pages. Illustrated.
Lion Six........................................................................................................... $2.50 ($1.88)
By Captain D. Harry Hammer, USNR. The story of the building of the great Naval Operat
ing Base at Guam. 1947. 109 pages. Illustrated.
Logarithmic and Trigonometric Tables............................................................ $1.65 ($1.32)
By the Department of Mathematics, U. S. Naval Academy. 1945. 89 pages.
A Long Line of Ships...................................................................................... $5.00 ($3.75)
By Lieutenant Commander Arnold S. Lott, USN. Mare Island Centennial Volume. 1954.
268 pages. Illustrated.
The Marine Officer’s Guide............................................................................. $5.75 ($4.32)
By General G. C. Thomas, USMC (Ret.), Colonel R. D. Heinl, Jr„ USMC, and Rear Ad
miral A. A. Ageton, USN (Ret.). 1956. 512 pages. 29 charts. 119 photographs.
Midway, The Battle That Doomed Japan, The Japanese Navy’s Story ..................... $4.50 ($3.38)
By Mitsuo Fuchida and Masatake Okumiya, former Imperial Japanese Navy. Edited by Roger Pineau and Clarke Kawakami. 1955. 266 pages. Illustrated.
Military Law........................................................................................................... $2.00 ($1.60)
Compiled by Captain J. K. Taussig, Jr., USN (Ret.), and Commander H. B. Sweitzer, USN. Revised and edited by Commander M. E. Wolfe, USN, and Lieutenant Commander R. I. Gulick, USN. 1958. 90 pages.
Modern Fencing...................................................................................................... $3.00 ($2.25)
By Clovis Deladrier, U. S. Naval Academy. 1948. 289 pages. Illustrated.
Most Dangerous Sea................................................................................................ $6.00 ($4.50)
By Lieutenant Commander Arnold S. Lott, USN. 1959. 322 pages. 38 photographs.
My Life................................................................................................................... $6.00 ($4.50)
By Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, German Navy. 1960. 430 pages. Illustrated.
Naval Customs, Traditions, and Usage.................................................................... $5.50 ($4.13)
Compiled by Commander Malcolm E. Wolfe, USN, Captain Frank J. Mulholland, USMC, Commander John M. Laudenslager, MSC, USNR, Lieutenant Horace J. Connery, MSC, USN, Rear Admiral Bruce McCandless, USN (Ret.), and Associate Professor Gregory J. Mann. 1959. 301 pages.
By Vice Admiral Leland P. Lovette, USN (Ret.). 4th edition, 1959. 358 pages. Illustrated. Naval Leadership, 2nd edition $3.50 ($2.80)
Naval Logistics........................................................................................................... $5.00. ($4.00)
Naval Leadership, 1st edition.................................................................................... $3.00 ($2.40)
Prepared at the U. S. Naval Academy for instruction of midshipmen. 1949. 324 pages.
By Vice Admiral George C. Dyer, USN (Ret.). 1960. 351 pages. Illustrated.
The Naval Officer's Guide.......................................................................................... $6.75. ($5.40)
By Rear Admiral Arthur A. Ageton, USN (Ret.), with Captain William P. Mack, USN. 5th edition, 1960. 649 pages. Illustrated.
Naval Phraseology..................................................................................................... $4.50. ($3.60)
English-French-Spanish-Italian-German-Portuguese. 1953. 326 pages.
Naval Shiphandling................................................................................................. $5.00 ($4.00)
By Captain R. S. Crenshaw, Jr., USN. 2nd edition, 1960. 529 pages. 175 illustrations. Physical Education Series—V-5 Association of America Basketball Football
Temporarily out of stock.
Boxing.................................. $4.00 ($3.00)
Revised, 1950. 288 pages.
Conditioning Exercises . . $4.50 ($3.38)
3rd edition, 1960. 275 pages.
How to Survive on Land and
Sea......................................... $4.00 ($3.00)
2nd revised edition, 1956. 366 pages.
Intramural Programs . . . $4.00 ($3.00)
Revised, 1950. 249 pages.
Temporarily out of stock.
Gymnastics and Tumbling . $4.50 ($3.38)
2nd revised edition, 1959. 414 pages.
Hand to Hand Combat . . $4.00 ($3.00)
1943. 228 pages.
Swimming and Diving
Temporarily out of stock.
Track and Field .... $4.00 ($3.00)
Revised, 1950. 217 pages.
Soccer.................................... $4.50 ($3.38) Championship Wrestling . . $4.50 ($3.38)
3rd edition, 1961. 172 pages. 1958. 223 pages.
Practical Manual of the Compass............................................................................ $3.60 ($2.88)
By Captain Harris Laning, USN, and Lieutenant Commander H. D. McGuire, USN. 1921. 173 pages. Illustrated.
Principles of Electronics and Electronic Systems..................................................... $7.50 ($6.00)
*
Edited by Professor John L. Daley, U. S. Naval Academy, and Commander F. S. Quinn, Jr., USN. 2nd edition, 1957. 492 pages. 556 figures.
Proceedings Cover Pictures.................................................................................... $2.50 ($1.88)
Sets of all 12 cover pictures appearing on the Proceedings in each year of 1952, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959. Printed on 13 x 13 mat. Complete set of 12 for any year.
Queens of the Western Ocean................................................................................. $12.50 ($9.38)
By Carl C. Cutler. 1961. 672 pages. 69 illustrations. 10 sets of ships’ lines and sail plans. Special price—Queens of the Western Ocean and Greyhounds of the Sea,
both volumes as a set..................................................... .'........................................ $20.00 ($15.00)
Reef Points
The Handbook of the Brigade of Midshipmen, 1961-1962 ................................ $1.35, net
Compiled by the Reef Points Staff of the Trident Society. The plebe’s bible, a compact book covering the Naval Academy and the history and traditions of the Naval Service.
Refresher Course in Fundamental Mathematics for Basic Technical Training . . $ .30, net
Prepared by Training Division, Bureau of Naval Personnel. 1942. 171 pages. Paper bound.
Round-Shot to Rockets.......................................................................................... $3.00 ($2.25)
By Taylor Peck. A history of the Washington Navy Yard and U. S. Naval Gun Factory. 1949. 267 pages. Illustrated.
The Rule of Nine.................................................................................................... $ .60 ($ .48)
By William Wallace, Jr. An easy, speedy way to check addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. 1959. 27 pages. Paper bound.
The Rules of the Nautical Road.............................................................................. $5.00 ($4.00)
-*
By Captain R. F. Farwell, USNR. Revised by Lieutenant Alfred Prunski, U. S. Coast Guard. Revised 2nd edition, 1954. 577 pages. Illustrated.
Russian Conversation and Grammar, 3rd edition, 1960 By Professor Claude P. Lemieux, U. S. Naval Academy.
Vol. One—109 pages. Paper bound........................................................ $2.50. ($2.00)
Vol. Two—121 pages. Paper bound........................................................ $2.50. ($2.00)
Russian Supplement to Naval Phraseology................................................................. $4.00. ($3.20)
By Professor Claude P. Lemieux, U. S. Naval Academy. 2nd edition, 1954. 140 pages.
Sailing and Small Craft Down the Ages...................................................................... $6.50. ($4.88)
By E. L. Bloomster. 1940. 280 pages. 425 silhouette drawings. Trade edition.
(Deluxe autographed edition)..................................................................................... $12.50 ($10.00)
The Sea War in Korea............................................................................................ $6.00 ($4.50)
A
By Commander Malcolm W. Cagle, USN, and Commander Frank A. Manson, USN. 1957. 555 pages. 176 photographs. 20 charts.
Selected Readings in Leadership............................................................................. $2.50 ($2.00)
Compiled by Commander Malcolm E. Wolfe, USN, and Captain F. J. Mulholland, USMC. Revised by Leadership Committee, Command Department, U. S. Naval Academy. Revised, 1960. 126 pages. Paper bound.
Service Etiquette..................................................................................................... $5.50 ($4.13)
By Rear Admiral Bruce McCandless, USN (Ret.), Captain Brooks J. Hartal, USN, and Oretha D- Swartz. Correct Social Usage for Service Men on Official and Unofficial Occasions. 1959. 365 pages.
Ships of the United States Navy and Their Sponsors
Vol. IV—1950-1958 .............................................................................................. $10.00. ($7.50)
Compiled by Keith Frazier Somerville and Harriotte W. B. Smith. 1959. 291 pages. Illustrated.
Soldiers of the Sea: The United States Marine Corps, 1775-1961 .... $14.00 ($10.50)
By Colonel Robert D. Heinl, Jr„ USMC. 1961. 849 pages. 127 photographs. 42 maps.
Sons of Gunboats...................................................................................................... $2.75. ($2.07)
By Commander F. L. Sawyer, USN (Ret.). Personal narrative of gunboat experiences in the Philippines, 1899-1900. 1946. 153 pages. Illustrated.
Squash Racquets........................................................................................................ $1.60. ($1.28)
By Commander Arthur M. Potter, USNR. 1958. 50 pages. Photographs and diagrams. Paper bound.
The United States Coast Guard, 1790-1915 . . . . ,..................................... $5.00. ($3.75)
By Captain Stephen H. Evans, U. S. Coast Guard. A definitive history (With a Postscript. 1915-1949). 1949. 228 pages. Illustrated.
The United States Coast Guard in World War II $6.00. ($4.50)
By Malcolm F. Willoughby. 1957. 347 pages. 200 photographs. 27 charts.
United States Destroyer Operations in World War II $10.00. ($7.50)
By Theodore Roscoe. 1953. 581 pages. Illustrated.
United States Submarine Operations in World War II........................................ $10.00... ($7.50)
By Theodore Roscoe. 1949. 577 pages. Illustrated.
Special price—2-volume set: Destroyer and Submarine books (listed above) $17.50 ($15.13)
Victory Without War, 1958-1961 $2.00 ($1.50)
By George Fielding Eliot. 1958. 126 pages.
Watch Officer’s Guide............................................................................................... $2.50 ($2.00)
Revised by Captain J. V. Noel, Jr., USN. 9th edition, 1961. 302 pages. Illustrated.
We Build a Navy....................................................................................................... $2.75 ($2.07)
By Lieutenant Commander H. H. Frost, USN. A vivid and dramatic narrative of our early Navy. 1929. 501 pages. Illustrated.
Welcome Aboard....................................................................................................... $4.00 ($3.00)
By Florence Ridgely Johnson. A guide for the naval officer’s bride. 5th edition, 1960. 273 pages.
White Ensign, The British Navy at War, 1939-1945 $4.50 ($3.38)
By Captain S. W. Roskill, D.S.C., R.N. (Ret.). 1960. 480 pages. Illustrated.
Your Naval Academy................................................................................................. $1.00 ($ .75)
By Midshipmen Burton and Hart. A handsome 48-page pictorial presentation of a Midshipman’s life at the Naval Academy. Brief descriptive captions. 1955. Paper bound.
U. S. NAVAL INSTITUTE ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND
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