Notable Naval Books of 1963

Two extra-sized volumes take the lead as the most attractive naval books of 1963. The first of these, Men, Ships, and the Sea (National Geographic Society, $9.85) consists of more than two-score Geographic articles prepared by the veteran seaman-author Alan Villiers, and is definitely the most colorful and lavishly illustrated book on the subject. Australian Villiers has sailed in virtually every type of craft which floats; furthermore, for the past three decades he has written about his adventures. Exciting adventures they have been, and Villiers must be regarded as one of the leading publicists on man’s use of the sea. The superb National Geographic photographs supplemented by Villiers’ stimulating text combine to make this a volume which will long hold first place among books dealing with the sea.

The second volume is Great Sea Battles (Macmillan, $19.95 until 31 December 1963; thereafter $25.00) by Oliver Warner, well- known British biographer and naval historian. This handsomely illustrated book covers 26 decisive duels at sea from Lepanto, in 1571, to Leyte Gulf, in 1944, and contains a host of color illustrations which make this volume a veritable collector’s item.

History Through the 18th Century

One of Britain’s foremost and venerable naval historians, R. C. Anderson, has produced in Oared Fighting Ships; From Classical Times to the Coming of Steam (Percival Marshall, 25/-) a characteristically thorough account of large-oared fighting ships in the Mediterranean and Eastern Atlantic. His 11 essays devote particular attention to the Greek, Roman, and Byzantine navies, the English medieval galleys and Henry VIII’s galleys. There are also essays on the 17th and 18th century hybrid—the galleass—and on “Oared Men-of-War of the Baltic.”

Sea power plays a significant—though understandably secondary—role in G. P. Welch’s Britannia: The Roman Conquest and Occupation of Britain (Wesleyan University Press, $6.95) which is a sound, basic history of the Roman Empire of the West.

Whenever stories of great and heroic cruises are related, the Magellan voyage around the world early in the 16th century invariably stands as one of the foremost accomplishments. Details of the Magellan exploits are still being unearthed or re-dis- covered in Iberian archives, as is demonstrated by Magellan’s Voyage Around the World: Three Contemporary Accounts (Northwestern University Press, $7.50), edited, with an introduction, by Charles E. Nowell.

One of the most spectacular and historically fruitful salvage jobs in recent years is the theme of Commander Bengt Ohrelius’s Vasa, The King’s Ship (Cassell, 18/-) which is the story of the Royal Swedish ship Vasa, built in 1628 as a 64-gun ship of the line, which sank in Stockholm harbor only two hours out on her maiden voyage. Today’s visitors to Sweden’s superb National Maritime Museum in Stockholm have the distinct privilege of being able to inspect this remarkably well-preserved relic. This book is a thoroughly documented and admirably illustrated account of the Vasa and her career, from construction to her 1961 salvage.

English military historians have long been wont to play down the role of the Navy in the Great Civil War of the 1640s, but now with J. R. Powell’s The Navy in the English Civil War (Shoe String Press, $8.50) students of English naval history have a detailed and authoritative exposition of the actual role of that fighting force. While it would be incorrect to assert that the English Navy was the principal military factor in the struggle, to fail to give the Navy its full due would, as it has been too often in the past, be a genuine injustice. Powell’s contribution contains, among other items, many contemporary plans of English seaports, and all-in-all it is a remarkably thorough and scholarly job.

Another monumental contribution to English naval history is Ralph Davis’s The Rise of the English Shipping Industry in the 17th and 18th Centuries (St. Martin’s Press, $12.00), which sets forth with admirable thoroughness the development of the overseas mercantile routes, which, of course, constituted the primary reason for the existence of the Royal Navy. While primarily a study in commerce, this volume is naturally involved with a significant phase of the over-all story of the rise of English sea power.

For many years Britain’s Navy Records Society has contributed vastly to the study of naval history by editing and publishing documents dealing with major phases of the history of the Royal Navy. The latest of these compilations is Queen Anne’s Navy: Documents Concerning the Administration of the Navy of Queen Anne, 1702-1714 (Navy Records Society, 45/-), edited by the late Commander R. D. Merriman. These are not only official documents; they also include personal letters and other non-official materials which contribute considerably to a better understanding of the Royal Navy of two and a half centuries ago.

From the American Revolution Through the Civil War

Most military histories of the American Revolution tend to slight the role of sea power, but this is definitely not a characteristic of The Compact History of the Revolutionary War (Hawthorn, $6.95) by Colonel R. E. Dupuy and Colonel T. N. Dupuy, both U. S. Army, Retired. In their broad coverage of the Revolution, the Dupuys, father and son, present an authoritative account that draws some new and interesting conclusions about men and events. While the principal theme of the Revolution is the land operations, sea power did play a significant role—and this new history of the Revolution reveals a proper appreciation of that role.

A most worthwhile re-telling of one of the major battles in American history is Thomas J. Fleming’s Beal the Last Drum (St. Martin’s, $5.95) which re-traces the ramifications of the Yorktown Campaign of 1781, the last major North American encounter of the American Revolution. Fleming’s highly readable style, his over-all accuracy, and the sound research basis of his book combine to make it a worthwhile volume which gives appropriate attention to the role of sea power; especially the positive role of the French naval forces under De Grasse.

One of the major Royal Navy figures in the American Revolution was Admiral George Brydges Rodney, whose April 1782 victory over De Grasse in the Battle of the Saints was the principal bright spot in a war which displayed the Royal Navy in its most adverse status. Britain’s Donald Macintyre, World War II ASVV expert and prolific writer of the postwar era, has produced in Admiral Rodney (W. W. Norton, $6.00) a new and pleasingly fresh biographical account of Rodney.

In listing the foreign wars in which America has participated since its birth, reference is not usually made to the prolonged and frustrating maritime struggles involving the United States and the Barbary Pirates; in fact, this is one of those little known phases of American history. Glenn Tucker’s Dawn Like Thunder: The Barbary Wars and the Birth of the United States Navy (Bobbs-Merrill, $6.95) is a fascinating story of one of the strange chapters of early U. S. history, told in a succinct fashion with an excellent appraisal of such early U. S. naval pioneers as Truxtun, Preble, Decatur, and their contemporaries.

Although no prolonged commemoration is taking place, we are currently in the midst of the 150th anniversary of the War of 1812, and it is therefore most appropriate that at this time there should come forth a first-rate account of some of the people and events associated with that struggle. Harrison Bird’s Navies in the Mountains (Oxford, $6.50) is an excellent account of Commodore Thomass MacDonough’s struggle to build, man, and command in battle, the small force which met and defeated the British in the Battle of Lake Champlain, September 1814. In addition to the 1812 theme, Bird also devotes appropriate attention to the construction and fighting of another Lake Champlain Fleet, that was built and used by Benedict Arnold in 1776.

The most historic ship in the U. S. Navy is the subject of a most attractive and informative pictorial history Old Ironsides: The Story of the USS Constitution (Burdette, $4.95) by Captain Thomas P. Horgan, U. S. Naval Reserve (Retired). This great ship’s career, from launching on through her fighting career and down to her present historic “seamark” status, is all related by superb photographs excellently produced and accompanied by meaningful text. The author brings to this labor of love, a full background of nautical writing, and the result is an admirable addition to the graphic history of the U. S. Navy. In a Foreword and Introduction, two naval enthusiasts, John F. Kennedy and S. E. Morison, express their full admiration of Captain Horgan’s work.

The finest and most thorough naval history to emerge in 1963 is C. J. Bartlett’s Great Britain and Sea Power, 1815-1853 (Oxford, $6.40), which is much more than a mere history of the Royal Navy between the Napoleonic Era' and the Crimean Wars. This excellent volume deals with formulation of naval policy, design, and armament of British and foreign warships, sea power, and foreign policy, and the evolution of the war steamer.

This is the type of history which reflects years of research and analysis by the author and which will long stand as one of the major pieces of writing in its field.

Joseph T. Downey, who shipped aboard the USS Portsmouth in the 1840s, must have been a witty and irrepressible yeoman, for the sketches of life which he depicts in The Cruise of the Portsmouth, 1845-1847 (Yale University Press, $6.00) present a vivid lower-deck view of the American Navy in that Mexican War era. This work, edited by Howard R. Lamar, compares most favorably with Herman Melville’s White Jacket.

It is most gratifying that with all the current attention being given to the science of oceanography, the life and times of Matthew Fontaine Maury are not being forgotten or neglected. Maury was unquestionably the “Father of Oceanography,” and in Matthew Fontaine Maury, Scientist of the Sea (Rutgers University Press, $10.00), Frances Leigh Williams reveals the remarkable accomplishments and the dramatic life of this distinguished American naval officer-scientist. This fresh account is the best biography since that written by C. L. Lewis and published by the U. S. Naval Institute 35 years ago.

The U. S. Navy never had a more exasperating, tumultuous figure than Uriah Phillips Levy (1792-1862), America’s first high- ranking Jewish naval officer. Court-martialed six times during his career, three times dismissed from the Navy and subsequently reinstated, Levy was most assuredly a thorn in the side of U. S. naval administrators over several decades. In Navy Maverick (Doubleday, $4.50), Donovan Fitzpatrick and Saul Saphire present a brief but informative biography of this dramatic figure who played so significant a role in the Navy between the War of 1812 and the Civil War.

Public servants on delicate missions are often forbidden to prepare and keep diaries of their activities and thoughts, and U. S. Navy Lieutenant George Henry Preble, serving in the USS Macedonian in the 1850s had been so ordered. The occasion was Commodore M. C. Perry’s squadron visit to Japan in 1853, and, next to the flagship, the Macedonian was the most important ship in the squadron. But Preble kept a detailed diary, and a number of years ago it came to light in the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston. It is now published as The Opening of Japan: A Diary of Discovery in the Far East, 1853-1856 (University of Oklahoma Press, $6.95), edited by Boleslaw Szczesniak. This is a most informative personal account and contributes considerably to the history of American expansion in the Pacific.

The Civil War

Students of history are almost invariably grateful to the diarist, providing that the diary is reasonably accurate, complete, and legible —particularly if the diary is a true reflection of the life and times during which it was written. Naval Surgeon Samuel P. Boyer was undoubtedly a dedicated and effective healer of the sick and wounded, but today we give considerable thanks to his diarist qualities and for his meticulousness in the preparation of his Civil War and post-Civil War diaries. Under the editorship of Elinor and J. A. Barnes, two Boyer accounts have now been published with valuable editorial notes: Naval Surgeon: Blockading the South, 1862-1866 (Indiana University Press, $10.00) and Naval Surgeon: Revolt in Japan, 1868-1869 (Indiana $6.95). Both are genuinely appreciated personal accounts of two significant aspects of U. S. sea power a century ago (combined price $15.00).

The Confederate Navy (Doubleday, $7.95) by Philip Van Doren Stern is a thorough pictorial coverage of the Confederate Navy, its ships, weapons, personalities, and battles. The author’s effective text and the remarkable collection of illustrations make this the best pictorial volume on the subject.

A small but significant aspect of the sea power side of the Civil War is well set forth by Edward Cunningham in The Port Hudson Campaign (Louisiana State University Press, $5.00), which is a rather heavily documented, brief account of the taking by Farragut and General Banks of the final stronghold on the Mississippi a few days after the fall of Vicksburg in July 1863.

The Navy Department’s Naval History Division has released the 1863 portion of its detailed and illustrated Civil War Naval Chronology, 1861-1865 (Government Printing Office, price to be announced).

From 1865 to World War II

Among the major contributors to U. S. naval policy and practice at the start of the 20th century was Rear Admiral Richard Wainwright who served in the Navy from 1864 to 1911. He must be credited with having helped appreciably in the development of fleet organization, tactics, gunnery, and logistics. Captain Damon E. Cummings, U. S. Navy (Retired), has prepared a brief, but meaty biography of this distinguished officer: Admiral Richard Wainwright and the United States Fleet (Government Printing Office, $2.75). This well-documented study was prepared under the direction of the U. S. Naval History Division.

One of the better volumes in the British Battle Series is Captain G. Bennett’s Battles of Coronel and the Falklands (Macmillan, $5.00) which is a most interesting and worthwhile reappraisal of those two far-off naval engagements of strategic importance during the first few months of World War I. These were the battles wherein British Admiral Cradock, commanding a British search force off the southern tip of South America, swept northward along the Chilean coast, found German Admiral Graf Spee with his Tingstao Squadron, engaged Spee in battle, and was completely destroyed. The sequel to this engagement was Spee’s own demise, at the hands of Admiral Sturdee and his battle cruisers, one month later off the Falklands. This book, despite its brevity, brings forth some new and valuable information and interpretation on these engagements.

One of World War I’s several non-ending controversies surrounds the Dardanelles Campaign of 1915 and particularly the role of First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston S. Churchill. In Winston Churchill and the Dardanelles (Macmillan, $6.95), Trumbell Higgins adds new and meaningful analysis to this disastrous campaign. Incidentally, Churchill’s own account of his World War I role is again available in the long-out-of-print World Crisis (Scribner’s, 2 volumes, $7.50 each), an autobiographical account which is second only, among Churchill writings, to his monumental World War II history.

The principal American contribution to World War I naval history this year consists of one volume—the Cabinet Diaries of Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels, 1913-1921 (University of Nebraska Press, $8.50) edited by E. David Cronon. Much of what is contained herein was commented on by Daniels in his multi-volume autobiography of several years ago, but to have the diaries in this form is most useful and welcome.

Peter Fleming is a British author particularly noted for his stimulating Siege at Peking (1959) and for Operation Sea Lion (1957). Now he has come forth with a good biography of a remarkable Russian naval figure whose non- naval activities of four decades ago constitute a major portion of the full account of the birth and struggle for survival of Bolshevik Russia. The book is The Fate of Admiral Kolchak (Harcourt, Brace, World, $5.95) and it relates the tragic story of the major figure in the active White Russian opposition to the Bolshevik take-over the 1917-1920 era. Fleming here relates in detail the sad story of a brave and determined officer’s efforts to hold back what has come to be regarded as the tide of history. The book points up the stupidity of Allied policy—except that of the far-sighted Japanese—which led to Kolchak’s death and Soviet control of Siberia. The Kolchak command area was far from the sea; it was east of the Urals in the Siberian wastelands.

The name Trenchard is synonymous with the development of British military aviation, for Chief Air Marshall Trenchard (1874- 1958) was a major figure in the development of the Royal Air Force and influenced the history of the Royal Naval Air Service as well. Andrew Boyle’s Trenchard (W. W. Norton, $8.50) contains much of especial interest to the student of air history, in general, and naval air history in particular.

Welcome indeed is Captain Augustus Agar’s Showing the Flag (Evans, 30/-), which is Agar’s second autobiographical work, this one extending from 1920 to 1933. While Agar was not a major figure in Royal Navy affairs in the inter-war period, he was in several significant positions from which he was able to observe events of major importance.

A most interesting biography of a prominent American explorer is Arctic Odyssey: The Life of Rear Admiral Donald B. MacMillan (Dodd, Mead, $5.00) by Everett S. Allen. MacMillan, veteran Arctic explorer, was closely associated with Robert Peary in the latter’s north polar expeditions. The Allen biography reveals the 89-year-old explorer as a man well worth reading about.

World War II

The outstanding 1963 naval history book dealing with World War II is Samuel Eliot Morison’s Two-Ocean War (Little, Brown, $15.00) which is an admirable “condensation- plus” of the same author’s 15-volume History of United States Naval Operations in World War II (1947-1962). This oversized single volume, while containing the most important sections of the 15 volumes, also contains new information and interpretation concerning men and events. The result is the best one-volume popular account of the U. S. Navy’s role in World War II.

Turning to the Atlantic phase of World War II, a British combined operations veteran Major General J. F. Moulton, has presented in his Haste to the Battle: A Marine Commando at War (Cassell, 30/-) a straightforward account of how, in January 1944, he was selected to organize, train, and command the 48th Royal Marine Commando in preparation for the Normandy Invasion. In addition to that memorable operation, the same unit participated in the fearsome assault on the island of Walcheren off the Dutch coast later in 1944. This volume is one of the best case histories for a study of combined operations in the European Theater of World War II.

One of the most controversial events of the entire Atlantic War was the episode surrounding the sinking of the former Cunard liner Laconia. While carrying 3,000 passengers, including 1,800 Italian prisoners of war, from Suez to England via the Cape, she was torpedoed and sunk by the U-156. Following the sinking the U-boat conducted rescue operations, but three days later an aircraft, presumably American, attacked the U-156 which was jampacked with survivors and had four lifeboats in tow. As a result of these unfortunate developments, German U-boat commander Doenitz issued the Triton Noll Order which came to be known as the Laconia Order and expressly forbade submarine commanders from rescuing survivors from torpedoed ships. The ramifications of this sinking, and its wartime and postwar effects, have been remarkably well unraveled by Leonce Peillard in The Laconia Affair (Putnam, $4.95). The volume is based on extensive research and far- flung international interviewing.

Ladislas Farago’s The Tenth Fleet (Obolensky, $6.50) is a rather disorganized, salty account of the formation and operation of Admiral King’s paper ASW force, the Tenth Fleet. While this is not a first-class history, The Tenth Fleet does contain considerable information of value to the student of naval history. In addition to reciting the history of the Tenth Fleet in World War II, the author attempts to arouse America to the serious threat of submarine warfare against our own coasts today.

Typical of the Anglo-American merchant ships which were thrust into the business of war rather abruptly in 1939 and 1941 was the Alfred Holt Fleet of Great Britain. The story of that fleet’s significant contributions to victory—losses totaling 44 ships and 460 lives —is well told by Stephen Roskill in A Merchant Fleet in War (Collins, 25/-). In addition to having another Roskill volume, which in itself is an excellent dividend, this study accentuates the too-often neglected aspects of the merchant service’s contribution to winning the war.

Wings of the Morning (Morrow, $5.00) is by a former Royal Navy Swordfish pilot, Ian Cameron, and is the story of the Royal Navy’s Air Arm during World War II. The book carries excellent photographs and appendices giving details of the types of aircraft in service with the fleet during the war.

Two major additions to the impressive History of the Second World War: United Kingdom Military Series and Victory in the West Vol. I: The Battle of Normandy (British Information Services, $12.60) by Major L. F. Ellis and Associates and The Strategic Air Offensive (British Information Services, 4 volumes, $30.80) by Sir Charles Webster and Noble Frankland. Both of these magnificent British studies contain much of value to the student of naval history. The Ellis volume deals particularly with the Cross Channel attack, and the 4-volume air history devotes considerable attention to bombing attacks on inland ballbearing works, German harbors, U-boat pens, and the like. These air history volumes have aroused considerable interest among theorists and practitioners of air power.

Turning to the Pacific War, two 1963 books deal with PT-boat activities. The first and more important of these is At Close Quarters (Government Printing Office, $4.75) by the late Captain Robert J. Bulkley, U. S. Naval Reserve. This volume, prepared with the cooperation of the Navy Department’s Division of Naval History, is the most thorough, overall account of the wartime (and pre-war) career of this spectacular type of fighting ship. A second and less extensive account of the PT in World War II is Bern Keating’s The Mosquito Fleet (Putnam, $4.95).

A unique contribution to the naval history of World War II is contained in Seaman First Class James Fahey’s Pacific War Diary 1942- 45 (Houghton Mifflin, $6.50). While this volume contains nothing sensational, it is one of the few lower-deck accounts of the Pacific War, the author having served in the USS Montpelier (CL-57).

One of the most significant high-level studies dealing with World War II is Louis Morton’s Strategy and Command: The First Two Tears (Government Printing Office, $10.25), a massive account setting forth in detail the war in the Pacific from pre-war planning and thinking up through 1943. This is one of the latest volumes in the Army’s World War II Series. A companion volume dealing with a specific campaign is R. R. Smith’s Triumph in the Philippines (Government Printing Office, $10.25), which relates in detail the story of the war’s greatest joint operation, the reconquest of the Philippines—save Samar and Leyte, told in another volume. Both of these Army history volumes display the high level of scholarship which the entire 50-odd series has come to be noted for.

The American military historian most closely associated with the original concept and implementation of the Army History Series, Kent Roberts Greenfield, has produced in American Strategy in World War II: A Reconsideration (Johns Hopkins University Press, $4.50) a series of essays reappraising some of the more troublesome center issues of the war, such as Anglo-American tension over the timing and wait of the Cross Channel offensive; President Roosevelt’s influence in directing military strategy; and the military soundness of eight major strategic decisions. This is a highly significant contribution to the over-all analysis of World War II.

Pearl Harbor comes in for its almost annual re-telling, this time by A. A. Hoehling in The Week Befiore Pearl Harbor (Norton, $4.50), a rather light, but interesting and fast-moving account, setting forth events in Washington, Pearl Harbor, and Tokyo.

A significant World War II book, inadvertently omitted from the 1962 round-up, is Stanley Falk’s Bataan: The March to Death (Norton, $4.50), which is a carefully researched, well-presented account of one of the most excruciating experiences in all American military history. This book is a well-balanced history of not only what happened but why it happened, and is based on careful examination of historical documents from both the American and the Japanese side. The volume constitutes an authoritative fill-in regarding a most unhappy event in the Pacific War.

The Korean Conflict

Two 1963 volumes deal with the Korean War. First, is the fourth volume of the official U. S. Marine Operations in Korea, 1950-1953 (Government Printing Office, $2.25) which recounts the events of the so-called East Central Front where the First Marine Division and the First Marine Aircraft Wing fought from late December 1950, through March 1952. The other book, by no means official, but based on extensive use of official records and widespread interviewing, is This Kind of War (Macmillan, $10.00). In this unique book T. R. Fehrenbach attempts to present the Korean War in all of its contemporary aspects: high-level planning (or absence of same), low-level intrigue, United Nations forces in battle, and North Korean propagandists in action. The result is a large book written in a lively—sometimes sensational—style.

General

Three significant foreign policy studies contribute considerably to an over-all understanding of American-Japanese relations during the past century, and each study contains heavy naval undertones. The first, America Encounters Japan: From Perry to MacArthur (Johns Hopkins Press, $6.50), by William L. Neumann, is a study of American attitudes toward Japan and how those attitudes, private as well as official, were formulated or, as was often true, were based on myth and misconception. The second work is G. E. Wheeler’s Prelude to Pearl Harbor (University of Missouri Press, $5.95), a politico-military account of the role of the U. S. Navy in the Far East, 1921-1931. The third is Armin Rappaport’s Henry L. Stimson and Japan (University of Chicago Press, $6.00) which centers on the Hoover Administration. While none of the three works is specifically naval in concept, each pays particular attention to the naval aspects of American-Japanese relations over the past century.

In Statesmen and Admirals (Norton, $5.95), Thaddeus V. Tuleja delves deeply into the story of America’s quest for a Far Eastern naval policy in the period between the two world wars. The author has thoroughly documented his sprightly-written account of America’s first major consideration of disarmament, its ramifications, and its consequences. He has produced a most worthwhile companion volume to the three foreign policy studies mentioned above.

A most attractive and authoritative volume is U. S. Navy and Marine Corps Fighters, 1918-1962 (Aero, $9.75) by P. R. Matt and edited by Bruce Robertson. This thoroughly illustrated, fact-packed account begins with the description of the first U. S. Navy fighter— the Curtis HA of 1917—and proceeds through every successive design to the current Phantom F4H-1. Every progressive step in fighter development is discussed in the 15 chapters of this work. Whole lines of famous aircraft are featured. These are the qualities which make this volume the unquestioned leader in the field of reference works on American naval aviation.

The outstanding leader in the modern undersea reference work field is Norman Polmar’s Atomic Submarines (Van Nostrand, $6.95) which tells of the men and events which have produced these remarkable modern naval weapons. The story is traced from the earliest submarines, through two world wars, and on into the modern atomic age with the development of the completely new weapons system, Polaris. This volume’s thoroughness, readability, and over-all makeup combine to insure it a position as the most useful and authoritative book in its field.

The Naval Review 1964 (U. S. Naval Institute, $10.00 [$8.00 to Naval Institute members]) continues the high professional quality evidenced by the first of these annual volumes, issued last year. The 12 original essays and five appendixes of this book cover a wide variety of topics centering on the role of sea power in the modern world, especially sea power as practiced by the United States today. In addition to stimulating articles on the techniques and devices of modern sea power, there are studies dealing with the Soviet submarine force, a NATO European Navy, the design of U. S. Coast Guard cutters, “Reading and the Future of the Fighting Man,” “The Navy as Seen from Capital Hill,” (the latter by a prominent U. S. Senator), and a highly significant article on “Southeast Asia in Ferment.” Everything about this second annual Naval Review indicates that it will enjoy a success equal to that of its distinguished predecessor.

In 1959, the U. S. Navy’s History Division produced the A-through-B volume of the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships (Government Printing Office, $3.00), and that extremely valuable reference work became a best seller, going through several reprintings. Now, the C-through-F volume has been released ($4.25) and continues the high quality begun by its predecessor. In addition to listing, describing, setting forth the records and much other pertinent information regarding all U. S. Naval Fighting Ships in its alphabetical range, this volume also has several major appendixes: one dealing with all of the Conferderate States Navy Ships; another consisting of brief accounts, with lists, of privateers, the River Defense Fleet, the Texas Marine Department of the Confederacy, and the Confederate Stone Fleet. Still another appendix contains statistics on all aircraft carriers and escort carriers that have served in the U. S. Navy. The book is extensively illustrated.

An excellent professional handbook which will have wide appeal even outside its intended audience is Captain Malcolm W. Cagle’s Naval Aviator's Guide (U. S. Naval Institute, $5.50 [$4.40 to Naval Institute members]). Captain Cagle, also co-author of The Sea War in Korea, presents here meaningful guidance and background to all naval aviators, whether they be in pre-flight status or in advanced policy-direction positions. The book’s organization, illustrations, and general make-up combine with its professional advice to make it one of the major handbooks in the naval field.

Two books in the Cold War era merit particular attention, although neither volume is particularly naval in scope. The first, NATO and the Defense of the West (Praeger, $7.50) by Hubertus Prince Lowenstein and Volkmar von Zuhlsdorff, is probably the best over-all coverage of NATO, its ingredients, its problems, and its future. This book is particularly informative with special emphasis on the people who go to make up NATO commands. For example, in the authors’ detailed description of the three units of West Germany’s military contributions to NATO, the new German Bundesmarine and its top commanders come in for close attention. The second volume is Building the Atlantic World (Harper & Row, $6.00) by Robert Strausz-Hupe, J. E. Dougherty, and W. R. Kintner. This is a political history of NATO plus a timely analysis of NATO’s problems, bases of co-operation, and the so-called institutions for the future Atlantic community.