Book Reviews and Book List

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Aboard the USS Monitor: 1862

Edited by Robert W. Daly. Annapolis:

U. S. Naval Institute, 1964. 278 pages.

$6.50. Members’ price $4.88.

REVIEWED BY

Virgil Carrington Jones (Mr. Jones is the author of several books on the Civil

War including the three-volume series The Civil War at

Sea.)

“Who won—the Merrimack or the Moni­torr

This century-old question left by the first battle between ironclads gets an on-the- scene answer from one of the participants.

Aboard the USS Monitor: 1862 is the first volume of the Naval Letters Series planned by the Naval Institute to make available to students of naval history interesting and im­portant papers hitherto found only in manu­script collections. Most of them will pertain to the 19th century. The general editor will be Rear Admiral John D. Hayes, U. S. Navy (Retired), a well-known naval historian.

The Union Navy’s first oceanic ironclad, Monitor, is seen engaging the Merrimack off Newport News in the jacket illustration from Aboard the USS Monitor: 1862.

This initial offering in the series is a com­pilation of the letters of Acting Paymaster William Frederick Keeler. They comprise a stark and realistic account of the fighting along the James River during 1862, as well as almost a day-by-day history of the famous Monitor, the little cheese-box-on-a-raft type of iron­clad that chugged down from New York and arrived in Hampton Roads just in time to check the destructive Virginia {Merrimack).

Keeler, who had just turned 40, was a rank teetotaler, and he writes soberly and maturely, though at times without the basic information needed to keep him from dis­torting the facts. But this fault is amply off­set by Professor Daly’s copious and carefully prepared explanatory and corrective notes which dominate the volume throughout and are a major contribution.

In some respects, Keeler was a prude, a stickler, an opinionated man uncurbed by modesty, but he wrote as though he had in mind the generation of a century later and was painting for it in words the pictures he knew the grandchildren and great-grand­children of those who fought the Civil War would want to visualize.

To stay at the side of Keeler may keep the reader away from the table where the drinks were poured, but it does not keep him from the excitement, the routine, the bright mo­ments and the dark moments, the comfort and the discomfort, and the many oddities connected with life on board the Monitor. This officer was on the spot when things hap­pened and at the first opportunity, he rushed down to his little cubby hole below deck to set down on paper what he had seen. Of the many incidents he described, the battle with the Merrimack and the sinking of the Monitor stand out.

Keeler was on the Monitor when the hawsers were cast loose on 27 February 1862, and the ship was started for Hampton Roads, only to have to turn back because she would not answer her rudder. The next day he was writing: “My first night on board was spent between a pair of linen sheets—if I have an enemy I wish him no greater ill than to be similarly situated with the surrounding tem­perature at freezing. I didn’t sleep a wink all night, but lay & shivered & shook till I thought the frame work of my berth would be shaken apart.”

A day or so later he added: “Our rooms are open at the top, for ventilation, & the doors are blinds, so that as far as sounds are concerned we might as well be in one room.”

He was confident always that the Monitor could and would sink the Merrimack, and he fretted with others when Lincoln’s orders kept the Union ironclad in shallow water where the heavier Confederate vessel was un­able to reach her.

During the battle it was his duty, on orders of the captain, to open the spirit room and deal out a half gill of whiskey to each man except himself, but he admitted “if liquor ever does good to any one & is ever useful it must be on some such occasion.” Yet his faith as a dry was not shaken. Soon he was writing: “There are three great evils in both our army & navy which if corrected would render them much more efficient—the first is whiskey, the second is whiskey & the third is whiskey.”

The most dominant fear always among the crew, he reveals, was not of the “Big Thing,” as the Merrimack was called, but that a large body of men in small boats or fast steamboats would board them some thick dark night.

At times his letters are filled with elegant writing: “She [the Merrimack\ remained there smoking, reflecting, & ruminating till nearly sunset, when she slowly crawled off nearly concealed in a huge, murky cloud of her own emission, black & repulsive as the perjured hearts of her traitorous crew.” Or: “The water hisses & boils with indignation as like some huge slimy reptile she slowly emerges from her loathsome lair with the morning light, vainly seeking with glairing [sic] eyes some mode of escape through the meshes of the net which she feels is daily closing her in.”

He watched Abraham Lincoln come on board and avert his face “as if to hide some disagreeable sight,” and from the President’s quivering lip and trembling frame Keeler sur­mised that the terrible drama of the battle of 9 March was passing in review before him.

When news that the Merrimack had been set afire and blown up by the Confederates reached him, he wrote his wife: “This latter information was not so gratifying to us as we had ever since the fight looked upon the ‘Big Thing’ as our exclusive game & were hoping in a short time to be able to gratify our curiosity by an inspection of her construction & internal arrangement. . . . We knew her days were numbered but felt confident that she would die game rather than fall by her own hand.”

Details of lesser importance are given their share of attention. He was at Drewry’s Bluff during the battle there in mid-May, and he went on board the USS Galena and found her looking “like a slaughter house ... of hu­man beings.” He describes scenes along the James during McClellan’s Peninsula cam­paign, the discomfort of summer nights while trying to sleep on the ironclad, the torture of flies and mosquitoes, the trip to the Washing­ton Navy Yard, and many other incidents. And then comes the New Year’s Eve when the Monitor failed to weather a storm while on her way south. His account of the experi­ence and of his own narrow escape is perhaps his greatest composition.

This is an important book. It is well edited, well planned, and well prepared, and it is complete with appendix, the author’s draw­ings, and index. The reader will turn its pages avidly, but he will do so with conscious care—for fear of missing one.

Death of the Thresher

By Norman Polmar. Philadelphia: Chilton

Books, 1964. 150 pages. Illustrated. S3.95.

REVIEWED BY

E. W. Grenfell, Vice Admiral,

U. S. Navy

{Admiral Grenfell is Commander, Submarine Force,

U. S. Atlantic Fleet.)

A book concerning the Thresher loss that would convey all of the facts known to the layman as well as to the professional naval officer was, to my mind, a requirement. That this story is told by a non-naval officer, even though aided by two submarine officers, makes this book an objective and completely unbiased tale.

There are some, lam sure, who may feel that this is a book which need not have been written, for in its writing there has been re­vived for all to see the disbelief, the amaze­ment, the shock, the sadness and heartache, and finally, the horrible realization and resig­nation to the fact that one of our super­nuclear submarines indeed was lost.

Yet, had it not been done now, and done exceedingly well, I feel that at some later date, possibly, there would have been a com­pulsion to dredge up information less current, to surmise more broadly as to cause and ef­fect, and to come up with a less accurate story of the Thresher.

Mr. Polmar’s book could well be called The Life of the Thresher, for he has given us a remarkably detailed accounting of her build­ing, her early trials, and her relative position in the fast-moving evolution of the sub­marine builders’ art. Even more important, however, he has shown us her people, sub­marine people at work, at home, at sea, and ashore; and he has allowed us to realize that the Thresher's people were submarine people, doing a job and excelling in what they were doing.

It is evident that Mr. Polmar has really spent painstaking effort in producing this volume. In reading it you will find yourself projected into Thresher's attack center during her early trials, or being with her first cap­tain as he doubted the accuracy of her in­struments during the first deep dive—which forced him to make the decision to abort that dive until he verified his intuitive feeling that his ship was sound even though the instru­ments indicated otherwise.

It is quite easy to follow with complete understanding the hypothetical sequence of events resulting in the Thresher's loss. As is pointed out, submariners have been in similar situations before, and undoubtedly will be

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again, for this is a hazard that men must ex­pect when they operate deep in the sea. Only a highly unlikely combination of circum­stances, occurring in a most improbable se­quence can produce an incident critical enough to overwhelm their training and equipment reliability.

Mr. Polmar predicts that we will again suffer submarine losses similar to Thresher. I believe what he means to point out is that, in the statistical abstract context, if we operate “X” number of submarines, we are bound to suffer “Y” number of casualties. I find that I cannot quite accept this premise, other than in the purely abstract sense. Our people are highly trained; our equipment is becoming more reliable and our systems more redun­dant, all in the interest of providing a much better margin of safety than ever before. Such a loss as predicted by Mr. Polmar, even if it should happen again in eighteen years, would find me viewing it with the same dis­belief that I felt on being informed of the Thresher situation.

There may be those, who upon reading of the growing pains of the Thresher during her early trials, and her post-shakedown avail­ability, will say: “Yes, if this and that had been done, or provision made for better in­spection here or there the Thresher never would have been lost.” It is always easy to be a Monday-morning quarterback, but I find that I am unable to agree with any such notion. Too often have I experienced the frustration of “getting back to sea.” Too often have I had the unexpected happen and the unexpected needed to correct that hap­pening. Always, the training of the people, the equipment strength, and realiability, have defeated the potential progression of a small error or failure into the catastrophic propor­tions of disaster. Probably it will always be so, and disasters such as the Thresher, Squalus and others, will be rare indeed in this Navy of ours.

Mr. Polmar has hypothesized as to the reason for Thresher's loss. He has done it ex­tremely well, and he has left us with one absolute fact ringing clear in our minds: We do not know precisely why this loss occurred. We may deduce that if we could pinpoint the cause we could provide an absolute preven­tion of another such disaster. I suspect that had we been privy to a televised accounting of those last few moments on board the Thresher, we would find the failure of a valve, or pipe, or a system, which on other submarines under the same conditions had never failed before; or the breakdown of a communication circuit or procedure which, though time-tested and reliable, somehow did not perform that moment on that day.

The Thresher, tragically, is gone, but in her going she had left a heritage of great respect and admiration for those who manned her, and for those that they left behind. Rest as­sured, that those left behind are dedicated to improving our ships and standards of opera­tions to the utmost in order to avoid any further incident of similar tragedy.

Mr. Polmar has told his story well. As he points out, in the quotation from Voltaire on

the dedication page of his book, there will be those who disagree with the way he has told it; I am not one of them. He has told the story of a proud ship and has left her memory untarnished.

The Red Army of China—A Short History

By Edgar O’Ballance, Major, British

Army. New York: Walter Praeger, 1963.

232 pages. $6.00.

Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power

By Chalmers A. Johnson. Stanford, Calif.

Stanford University Press, 1962. 256 pages. $5.75.

M. N. Roy’s Mission to China

By Robert C. North and Xenia J. Eudin.

Berkeley, Calif: University of California

Press, 1963. 399 pages. $7.50.

REVIEWED BY

Trevor N. Dupuy, Colonel,

U. S. Army (Retired)

{Colonel Dupuy is a military historian. During World

War II he commanded Chinese troops in combat.)

The common theme of these three books is the rise of Communism in China. The O’Ballance book covers the entire period from the early 1920s to the 1960s; the other two deal in greater depth with two important episodes. All are relatively objective in ap­praisal of differing aspects of one of the most significant political, social, and military cataclysms of modern history.

Though there have been a number of good books on recent Chinese history, and on the political and military anatomy of the Chinese Communist state, the field is vast, and we are still relatively ignorant of much of the military history of this continuing revolution. Above all, it is still difficult for the average Amer­ican—military or civilian—to understand how Nationalist China, one of the victorious Allies of World War II, was so suddenly, and apparently so easily, overthrown by the guerrilla armies of Mao Tse-tung. All three of these books make significant contributions toward eliminating some of these dark and unknown areas.

Major O’Ballance, a veteran of Britain’s territorial (or reserve) army and a successful free-lance writer, has attempted to meet one of the great requirements of our time: a scholarly, objective, and authoritative history of the Chinese Communist Army. The result is, unfortunately, short of the requirement. The writer has failed to consult many of the more obvious published and unpublished sources. The book has several serious omis­sions, and contains a number of inaccuracies, some rather significant. By his own admis­sion, he has in some instances been content to write about what “most probably . . . did happen.” Since there is no documentation, one cannot help wondering where O’Bal- lance’s facts come from, and where fact ends and fancy begins. These doubts will not be eased in the mind of the reader who knows even a little about World War II in the Far East, and about the Korean War.

It is surprising to find a military man com­menting as critically as does O’Ballance on the inactivity of Chinese Nationalist forces in China in 1943 and 1944 in the light of the logistical situation which existed at that time. He obviously has little feeling for the war situa­tion in China during those years, and has not bothered to consult the authorities, or to steep himself in the sequence of events. He ignores completely, for instance, the Japanese of­fensives of 1944, the pertinent experience of Chinese forces in Burma, and the part played by General Wedemeyer in the events of 1945 in China.

The role of U.S.-U.N. forces in Korea in 1950 receives similar cavalier treatment; it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the author is not fully familiar with the sequence of events in the U.N. offensive of September- October 1950, and that he again fails to ap­preciate logistical factors.

Offsetting these deficiencies is a crisp, clear, and relatively objective style and ap­proach. The writer has made a conscientious and partially successful effort to eliminate the confusion which Western readers almost in­evitably feel after a few pages of Chinese personal and geographical names. Despite the shortcomings of his coverage of the Korean War, he nonetheless is able, in a few brief paragraphs, to place in proper perspec­tive the role of the Chinese “volunteer” army, its shortcomings and its accomplishments. He does, however, fail to point out that it was only the diplomatic intervention of the

Soviet Union in the United Nations which saved that army from disaster when it was on the verge of collapse in mid-1951.

Some day, it is hoped, a competent scholar with sufficient military background, and adequate writing skill, will write a truly definitive history of the Chinese Communist Army.

Professor North and Mrs. Eudin have given us quite a different kind of book in M. N. Roy’s Mission to China. They have set for them­selves the limited but important task of analyzing the factors which led to the col­lapse of the Comintern’s efforts to take over the Chinese Revolution and the Kuomintang party in 1927. Approximately two-thirds of the book is taken up with presentation of the documents relating to these events, many of which have never previously been published in English. Their commentary and analysis, which takes up the first 130 pages of the vol­ume, is heavily larded with quotes from these same documents.

This is not a book for the reader who merely wants to become reasonably well- informed about the events which led up to the Chinese civil war, and to the victory of Mao Tse-tung and his followers. It is, how­ever, absolutely invaluable to the scholar or military man who wishes to understand why the Chinese Communist cause, apparently flourishing in the mid-1920s, was so sud­denly—and apparently completely—smashed by Chiang Kai-shek. Without a clear under­standing of these events, the subsequent rise and fall of Chiang cannot be properly ap­preciated.

The opposite side of the coin is clearly re­vealed in Professor Johnson’s book on Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power. If it is hard for the casual observer to understand how and why Chiang defeated the Communists so dramatically in 1927, it is even more difficult to comprehend the sudden and amazing collapse of his army and government in the three and a half years after World War II.

It is Professor Johnson’s thesis—not en­tirely original—that the Chinese Communist party, which had barely survived Chiang’s determined efforts to exterminate it, and which had made relatively little headway with the common people of China in more than 15 years of intensive effort, was pre-

ANNAPOLIS

Tecumseh—“God of 2.5.” He rates a left-hand salute and pennies in tribute from the Mid­shipmen. The history of this doughty old warrior and his place in the traditions of the Naval Academy are presented in a completely revised edition of Annapolis Today. This book is the “insider’s” account of the routine, customs, studies, drills, events, landmarks, and social activities of the world’s largest naval school. With more than 70 new photographs, Annapo­lis Today is also a complete pic­torial record of the Academy. By Kendall Banning, revised by A. Stuart Pitt. 330 pages. Ap­pendices, Index.

sented a splendid opportunity by the Jap­anese invasion of China in 1937. Nascent nationalism in China was stimulated by this invasion, and, as Professor Johnson explains, the Communists were foresighted enough to seize the opportunity. By identifying them­selves with the common people, particularly the farmers of agrarian China, in their op­position to the Japanese invader, the Com­munist party in effect captured the new Chinese nationalism. If Johnson is right, and it is hard to disagree with him, the events of 1945 through 1949 become much more under­standable. Some people—not including this reviewer—might even conclude that the re­sult was inevitable.

In the process of proving his thesis, John­son presents an excellent resume of the history of World War II in China, making consider­able use of previously-unpublished Japanese sources. To this reviewer, the comparison of the Chinese Communist guerrilla movement with that of Tito’s partisans in Yugoslavia, is unduly belabored.

The bibliography is impressive, though it was somewhat surprising to find that John­son, like O’Ballance, is apparently unac­quainted with the unpublished dissertation by S. M. Chiu on “A History of the Chinese Communist Army.”

It is hoped that the next author who under­takes a history of the Chinese Communist Army, or of the Chinese civil war, will take advantage of the scholarly works of Johnson, and North and Eudin.

Naval Review 1964

Edited by Frank Uhlig, Jr. Annapolis: U. S. Naval Institute, 1963. 393 pages. Illustrated. $10.00 Member’s price $8.00.

REVIEWED BY

Turner F. Caldwell, Tr., Rear Admiral, U. S. Navy

(.Admiral Caldwell is Commander, ASW Group Five. Previously he was Assistant Director, Strategic Plans Division, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations.)

One approaches a well-designed and well- printed book—as is the Naval Review 1964— with the hope that the literary contents will match the physical.

I am glad to report that this hope is ful­filled. The Naval Review 1964 is a valuable contribution to topical naval literature—it is a useful book.

The USS Enterprise (CVAN- 65) launches one of her A-5 Vigilantes in this dramatic photograph, one of 326 in the Naval Review 1964.

The New York Times

Naval officers today need guidance and help more than ever before, at least in mod­ern history. The turbulence and complexity of political, social, cultural, economic, tech­nical (and naval) change, all interacting on one another, have an impact on the pro­fessional officer which he finds confusing and often discouraging. It is the stated purpose of the editor to present a scrutiny, analysis, and discussion of selected aspects of these chang­ing factors. To be useful, a book purporting to do these things must do them well. The more reading and re-reading one does, the more one is convinced that the book is suc­cessful in the sense defined.

One does not need to agree with Stanton Candlin in the lead article, “The Return of Total Sea Power,” that surface ships are likely to decrease in importance as a decisive factor in naval warfare. The basic lesson of tech­nical development is that predictions are dangerous. Let us suppose, for instance, that scientific discovery leads to development of a much-improved air-defense system. This is certainly not beyond the bounds of possibil­ity. One of the major factors leading to Can- dlin’s assessment would sharply decrease in importance. With respect to the submarine, one observes that our automobiles ride on puncture-resistant tires; could not ships’ hulls be made “puncture resistant”? It is certainly premature to write off the surface ship, especially considering the fact that it is the only intercontinental, self-sustaining vehicle capable of carrying a very large payload, either in weapons, cargo, or people. But the reader will find Candlin’s article useful in providing information on technical change, of a breadth and scope which are not ordi­narily encountered.

Succeeding articles, of equally high caliber, cover such diverse topics as the impact of modern communications and data processing on naval organization, a look at the Soviet submarine force, advice by a Senator on testifying before Congress, technical problems in Coast Guard ship design, and the future of the enlisted man, as well as others.

It is easy to gain the impression that a col­lection of articles such as appear in the Naval Review 1964 is a potpourri, with something for everyone. We have previously stated that the naval officer today needs guidance. Let us list the contents of the Naval Review and assess each article from the standpoint of its providing guidance in one or more of the aspects previously mentioned.

“The Return of Total Sea Power,” by Candlin—scientific/technical and naval.

“Who Is in Control: Commander or Computer?” by Commander John A. Chas­tain, U. S. Navy (Retired)—political, sci­entific/technical, naval.

“The Soviet Submarine Force,” by Capi- taine de Corvette Claude Huan, French Navy—foreign naval.

“A NATO European Navy: How Prac­tical?” by Rear Admiral G. T. S. Gray, Royal Navy—political, social, cultural, naval.

“Southeast Asia in Ferment,” by William H. Hessler—political, cultural, economic, military/naval.

“The Navy as Seen from Capitol Hill,” by Senator Leverett Saltonstall—political, so­cial, military/naval.

“Sealift for Limited War,” by Captain Ira Dye, U. S. Navy—economic, military/ naval.

“The Vertical Assault: Its Present and Future,” by Major General Robert E. Cush­man, U. S. Marine Corps—military/naval.

“Developments and Problems in Coast Guard Cutter Design,” by Commander R. J. Carson, U. S. Coast Guard, and Lieutenant Commander W. F. Tighe, Jr., U. S. Coast Guard—technical/naval.

“Reading and the Future of the Fighting Man,” by Captain Harvey O. Webster, U. S. Navy, and Commander R. A. Kamo- rowski, U. S. Navy—social, cultural.

“The Future of the Enlisted Man,” by Captain John V. Noel, Jr., U. S. Navy— social, cultural, military/naval.

“The Naval Reserve Today,” by Rear Admiral Julian Becton, U. S. Navy—naval.

This compilation (which omits the appen­dixes) shows the wide range of guidance and information that is provided. If anything is slighted, it is the economic; we know how strong the pressures are to reduce defense costs, to reduce “flow of gold,” and to select military equipment on a “cost-effectiveness” basis. Perhaps the editor simply could not squeeze in anything on this subject. In fair­ness, it should be pointed out that economics are covered to a degree in the appendix, in a condensation of Defense Secretary Mc­Namara’s statement to the House Armed Service Committee on the 1964 budget.

Other items in the appendixes are worthy of mention. There is a comprehensive naval chronology covering the year-and-a-half pe­riod ending 30 June 1963, the ten best naval photographs of 1962 (and they are excellent), an interesting article on the careers of flag officers, and a summary of new warship con­struction, year by year, since World War II.

★

Professional Reading

By Robert M. Langdon

•        A study that will most certainly cause the perceptive reader to broaden his concepts of modern warfare, whether cold or hot, is Strategic Mobility (Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., $5.75) by a British analyst, Neville Brown. Basing his major conclusions on a thorough examination of the strategic aspects of the West’s overseas bases and commitments, especially in the light of the major international conflicts during the past decade, Brown asserts that strategic mo­bility may well have become one of the principles of war. He argues that the need for the West to maintain sufficient forces to cope with any contingency and to possess the capacity to deploy those forces, with speed and flexibility, is quite obvious. But, in addition to these accepted ca­pacities, Brown calls for the assignment of equally mobile units to likely trouble spots through­out the world. The alternative of holding these forces as strategic reserves in the country of their origin is, according to this author, strategically unsound.

•        Abel Parker Upshur (State Historical Society of Wisconsin, $5.50) is C. H. Hall’s scholarly biography of one of the more prominent Secretaries of the Navy during the pre-Civil War era. As President Tyler’s Secretary of the Navy, Upshur had the unhappy task of reviewing—and approving—the court-martial and acquittal of Captain Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, U. S. Navy, who had commanded the U. S. brig Somers when three young mutineers were hanged in 1841. The following year, as Secretary of State, Upshur’s career was suddenly ended by the explosion of the “Peacemaker” on board the steam frigate USS Princeton. This book is the first full account of the Upshur career.

•        In Submarines, Submariners, Submarining (Shoe String Press, Hamden, Connecticut, $4.00) Frank J. Anderson has performed a genuine service to students of naval history by bringing into this one small volume a checklist of submarine books in the English language, principally in the 20th century. Arranged by author and by subject, this is an excellent supplement to the Bibliography of the Submarine: 1557 to 1953, which was prepared a decade ago under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences. The Anderson work also contains a brief appendix of selected foreign language books on submarines.

•       Two recent books, both by veteran maritime writers, contribute appreciably to the field of maritime history. Frank O. Braynard’s SS Savannah: The Elegant Steam Ship (University of Georgia Press, $5.00) is the most complete biography of that first steamship to cross the Atlantic ... A major pictorial history is Gordon Newell’s Ocean Liners of the 20th Century (Superior Publishing Co., Seattle 11, Washington, $12.50) which carries a host of exciting sea tales plus a substantial number of high quality photographs and sketches.

•        The list of new books on unconventional warfare was recently increased by two worthy additions. Charles W. Thayer’s Guerrilla (Harper & Row, $3.95) is that author’s account of the growth and ramifications of the type of warfare so closely associated with the Cold War. Thayer contends that unconventional warfare calls for as much—and even more—political directing as it does for military directing ... In his Warfare in the Enemy's Rear (Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., $6.50), Otto Heilbrunn continues and expands on the systematic analysis which characterized his other major work, Partisan Warfare, which itself is a brief manual of prime military importance.

•       Bernard B. Fall’s The Two Viet-Nams (Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., $7.95) is definitely the full­est and most informative political and military analysis available on the significant events being played out in the rice paddies and jungles of Southeast Asia. Fall’s far-reaching study delves appropriately into the Vietnam past to give meaning and understanding to his explana­tion of the present. The work is thoroughly documented.