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A Rumor of War
Philip Caputo. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1977. 346 pp. $10.00 ($9.00).
Reviewed by Major W. Hays Parks,
(d. S. Marine Corps
(Major Parks, who is currently assigned to the international Law Division, Judge Advocate General of the Navy, served in infantry and staff assignments with the 1st Marine Division tn the Republic of Vietnam.)
Currently a best-seller, A Rumor of
Urr .
War is a narrative of the author’s expe- r|ence as a Marine infantry platoon leader during the first year U.S. ground forces were assigned to the Republic of Vietnam.
The dust jacket describes the book as a ‘uniquely American saga.” To the c°ntrary, there are a number of parallels in experience, impressions, and scyle to Pierre Leulliette’s classic, St. Michael and the Dragon, in which a young French paratrooper eloquently describes small-unit combat in Algeria during 1955-1956. Philosophically, Rumor bears resemblance to Jean Lar- teguy s Les Centurions and Les Preto- rtens. Popular during Caputo's period °f active duty, they are fictional accounts of a French colonial parachute Regiment from the conclusion of the attle of Dien Bien Phu through the Algerian conflict. A Rumor of War repeats the frustrations voiced by Lar- teguy s characters of combat service in an *nsurgent war fought without na- tlQnal purpose or will to win and ^‘thin increasingly restrictive political
boundaries.
Comparisons of Leulliette and Lar- |eguy are not intended to suggest a ack of originality. While unique, each veteran’s war and his experiences ^ erein bear similarities to past con- lcts and the experiences of others,
and Caputo does well in describing the common experience shared by many in Vietnam.
Beginning with his enlistment in the Marines, Philip Caputo has recaptured the optimism and adventurism which existed in the early 1960s. Books on guerrilla warfare were high on the reading list of every Marine officer and officer aspirant. Having attended The Basic School (the entry course for all new Marine officers) at Quantico during 1964, I found I was nodding in agreement with his description of the atmosphere which prevailed there at the time. While comprehensive without burdening the reader with excess detail, it is unfortunate nonetheless that Caputo finds it necessary to seek out occasional needless derogatory trivia. For example, he devotes a condescending paragraph to his counterguerrilla instructor inasmuch as that officer, in a previous tour in Vietnam, had been wounded “. . . under less than heroic circumstances ... in the buttocks while squatting over a latrine. ...” Had Caputo pursued his normal journalistic curiosity, he would have found that the officer referred to subsequently was awarded the Navy Cross for heroically leading 1st Battalion, 4th Marines, in a three-day pitched battle against a vastly numerically superior force, despite multiple wounds. Although it appears he reveres his experience as a Marine, such occasional comments serve as unnecessary detractors from the book’s overall quality.
On his Vietnam service, Caputo is honest in relating his observations at the time they were formed rather than in retrospect—initially much like a young college freshman, unknowing, awed by all; subsequently more like a sophomore, all-knowing in having “the answer” with regard to all questions, whether tactical, strategic, or political. Competency of contemporaries and seniors is directly proportionate to their agreement with his views of issues and answers, and is less presumed the more senior the officer. He has the normal contempt of a junior officer for battalion and regimental staffs, preferring to remain a “field Marine.” In this respect he resembles Larteguy’s fictional Colonel Raspeguy, who remarks in Les Centurions:
I’d like ... to have two armies: one for display, with lovely guns, tanks, little soldiers, fanfares, staffs, distinguished and doddering generals, and dear little regimental officers who would be deeply concerned over their general’s bowel movements or their colonel’s piles: an army that would be shown for a modest fee on every fairground in the country.
The other would be the real one, composed entirely of young enthusiasts in camouflage battledress, who would not be put on display but from whom impossible efforts would be demanded and to whom all sorts of tricks would be taught. That’s the army in which I should like to fight.
These often-quoted remarks are followed by a seldom-quoted admonition by the senior officer with whom Raspeguy has been talking, who warns of the danger of such an attitude. Caputo ultimately suffers such a downfall. Based on information obtained from an informer, he violates procedures and diverts a patrol to "snatch” two Viet Cong suspects, dead or alive. Two bodies are brought in, one that of the informer. He acknowledges the gravity of his error, then condemns the Marine Corps in the pages that follow for taking action against him. His indignation over being called to account is his defensive reaction at the time—not unlike the role reversal experienced by former Army Lieutenant Colonel Tony Herbert, an enthusiast who, erring, took the offense by declaring that everyone was out of step but him.
A Rumor of War is an articulate, descriptive account of the Vietnam War during the period 1965-1966 as seen through the eyes of one Marine second lieutenant. Caputo, while perceiving himself possessed of great wisdom, has not placed himself above it all. He describes the war’s effects on him as they occur, candidly and without apology. He makes mistakes, and writes of them with the same forthrightness he uses in criticizing others. He has succeeded in the difficult task of recording his thoughts of a decade previously virtually devoid of the bias of hindsight and without interference from any intervening experience. Therein lies the value of the book, and it is doubtful Philip Caputo’s effort will be surpassed.
Naval Warfare in the Twentieth Century:
Essays in honour of Arthur Marder
Gerald Jordan, Editor. (Foreword by Admiral of the Fleet the Earl Mountbatten of Burma.) New York: Crane Russak, 1977. 243 pp. Bib. 46.95 (Approx. $13.00).
Reviewed by Commander D. K. Hankinson, Royal Navy (Retired)
(Commander Hankinson joined the Royal Navy as a cadet in 1942 at the age of 13. He served mostly in fleet destroyers on the Atlantic. Mediterranean, and Far East Stations. He commanded HMS Cambrian, a modernized fleet destroyer of the CA class, in 1962-1964 and took part in the Dar-es-Salaam incident in 1964 [described in the November 1969 Proceedings]. His last service appointment was with the Directorate of Naval Plans, Ministry of Defence. In 1966 he retired in order to pursue his career as a portrait painter.)
Some months ago, the British Broadcasting Corporation aired a piece of music written to honor a distinguished British composer who had recently died. The result was, to me, an unhappy one, because although the piece had undoubted qualities, it sounded paltry in comparison with the work of the man it was honoring. So it was with misgivings that 1 approached this book of 13 essays written in honor of Arthur Marder—a hero, a giant to all who have an affection for the Royal Navy, or an interest in naval history in general. Sadly, my misgivings were well-founded. The writings are, with exceptions, of high caliber and the authors renowned and expert, but because of the book’s dedication, one is tempted to expect the Marder magic, and, of course, it isn’t there; how could it be?
Commander Edward M. Bvrne JACiC. US. Navy
Military law
“Military Law is unquestionably the most authoritative and comprehensive study of the Uniform Code of Military Justice and its present day application now in existence.”
—Trial Magazine
1976. 800 pages. 8" x 10”. Bibliography. Index.
List price: $19.50 Member's price: $15.60 A Naval Institute Press Book
Add $1.00 to each order for postage and handling. (Please use book order form in Books of Interest to the Professional section)
This is a comprehensive, introductory text on military law designed to assist the non-lawyer. Military and civilian readers will find a complete overview of the military justice system using a combination of text material, discussion cases, self-quizzes, and appendices. Discussion cases include some of history’s most dramatic and significant military justice decisions.
As a result, a multifaceted approach to military law is presented. The hook limits itself to a manageable size by concentrating on the duties and responsibilities of participants in combination with an overview of the system. Its numerous appendices are designed to demonstrate how the military justice system operates by providing many examples of the forms and guides used in actual practice.
Military Law
2nd Edition By Edward Byrne
At first sight, it is a polyglot collection with no apparent sequence; not apparent, that is, unless one first reads the introduction by Gerald Jordan, the editor. This is a fine piece of writing which provides a masterly summary of the scope of the book and strings together the widely varying essays as they examine some of the rarer aspects of 20th century naval history.
(For a change, this is an introduction that must be read.)
Space does not permit fair comment °n all 13 essays, so I confine myself to those which I found especially noteworthy.
The essays begin with a study by Peter Kemp entitled “From Tryon to Fisher,” an excellent prologue. It pinpoints the conflict between 19th and 20th century British naval attitudes and stresses the contribution made to the Royal Navy’s rejuvenation by the much-maligned Admiral Sir George Tryon whose calamitous collision between the Victoria and Camperdown in 1893 has totally overshadowed his worth as a reformer.
Admiral Brian Scofield has written °n " 'Jacky’ Fisher, H.M.S. Indomitable and the Dogger Bank.” It is a de- hghtful picture of life in the Royal Navy in World War I by one who remembers it first-hand and can describe *t with atmosphere and color.
'Coronel: Anatomy of a Disaster,” Jack Sweetman’s account of events leading up to the disastrous destructor1 of a British Squadron off Coronel m 1914, reads like a Greek tragedy. And the author’s sympathy with the Problems and tribulations besetting the British commander, Rear Admiral ^lr Christopher Cradock, helps one tmderstand how a sailor of such distinction should end his life and a brilliant career in an action regarded by many as heroic and others as crassly foolhardy. This is an extract of naval history in the best Marder tradition—lucid, authoritative, lively, and exciting.
Air Chief Marshal Sir John Slessor has contributed an interesting precis °n the failures and lessons of Jutland (based on Marder’s writings), which tmderlines the pigheadedness of the hJaval High Command in World ^ar I and ends, in a somewhat tortu- °Us non sequitur, with a sharp stab at the Royal Navy’s abuse of air power in ^orld War II. The criticism is valid ar"l the non sequitur not so surprising when one remembers who the author ls- Closely related to this work is an essay by Admiral Sir Peter Gretton entitled, "U-boat campaigns in the Two ^orld Wars.” This is a crystalline
comment on the well-documented U-boat threat of the 1940s and its eventual defeat with the aid of maritime airpower. Unlike Slessor, Gretton places much of the blame for the lack of air support in the early stages of the campaign on tardy Royal Air Force cooperation rather than on lack of understanding by the Admiralty.
To me, the two most fascinating essays in the book are by a Japanese and an American.
"Japanese Admirals and Politics of Naval Limitation” by Sadao Asada is a clear and profound account of Japanese naval strategic and political planning between the wars. Asada paints striking portraits of two of the day’s most powerful Japanese personalities— Admirals Kato Tomosaburo and, his junior and rival, Kato Kanji. Around these two he weaves a vivid picture of the Japanese hierarchy, its intrigue, and the immense power held by the samurai. It allows a piercing insight into an aspect of naval history not apparent to many, especially Europeans, and does much to explain the circumstances and attitudes leading up to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
William Braisted’s “On the American Red and Red-Orange Plans, 1919-1939” is one of the most amazing studies that I, as a Britisher, have ever read on military planning of that period. It is, I am sure, meticulously researched and totally authoritative, and unfolds the almost unbelievable story of how, in 1919, a Lieutenant Commander Holloway H. Frost of the U.S. War Plans Division predicted that any future war against the United States would be waged by Great Britain.
Frost argued that Britain's economy was being strangled by the U.S. expansion into traditional British markets, and that in order to survive Britain would have no option but to reduce U.S. strength by force of arms; this, Frost claimed, was feasible because Britain at that time held a naval superiority over the United States of 2.5 : 1. Nowhere in Braisted’s account does it appear that there was any diplomatic, political, or secret service intelligence evidence to support Frost’s preposterous assumptions, which makes it all the more incredible that for the next ten years the main weight of U.S. naval and military planning was based on this slender hypothesis (including contingency war plans for the pre-emptive invasion of Canada and the seizure of British possessions in Bermuda, the Bahamas, and West Indies!). If for nothing else, this essay justifies a study of this book.
One of the underlying interests of this book is the comparison of styles and attitudes of the 13 contributors. There are those who write from the heart, those who write from experience, those who are natural historians, and those who, sadly, seem to have nothing of their own to say but merely cast around in official archives and regurgitate extracts from other historians’ works. These latter are the antithesis of Marder. It seems to them that it is scholarly to quote a profusion of references and sprinkle a few erudite names to indicate research; the result is that much of their work has the significance of a flat souffle.
Overall, the book has value, especially at its reasonable price, because although it will not shine like a beacon on historical shelves alongside the works of the man it honors, it does contain much useful, original writing.
38 4 4 8
FA-448 riR.Q'K.AIRFORCE
Alfi FORCE
railroad building in both Europe and North America. This theme carries through the book, with ever- tncreasing pressure on politicians and businessmen to do that which will keep people employed and important Segments of industrialized countries productive. No matter whether it is shipyards in Scotland in the Thirties 0r aerospace factories in California in the Seventies, very large numbers of jobs, tax dollars, and foreign trade alances are involved, and Mr. Sampson shows some understanding, 'f little sympathy, for the motivations °f those who sell the arms. Several of the individual accounts bring to mind the moonshiner in Betty McDonald’s °°k, The Egg and I, who said “the Nw punishes a God-fearing man for faking good whiskey, but it doesn’t ^ a thing to the damn fool who tinks too much of it.” Acquiring Weapons for defense is acceptable; using them to kill people is not.
The arms trade always has involved tibes and scandals because of the Secrecy usually present and because the S£akes are so high for the company that wins a new contract. It was in act the availability of unusually detailed information regarding illicit Payments abroad by the Lockheed and °tthrop aerospace companies that tfade this book both possible and
worthwhile as a new contribution in this field.
Mr. Sampson goes astray, however, in a chapter devoted to Lockheed bribes in Japan to promote L-1011 TriStar airliner sales. The airliner has no military association at all, other than its construction by a company which also builds warplanes; but the bribes involved in its sale and the political crisis caused by the revelation of these scandals fit into the author’s development of a picture of pervasive corruption which is one of the main themes of the book.
In another diversion, Mr. Sampson makes the suggestion that men, because of their competitive nature and upbringing, are unsuited to positions involving responsibility for critical negotiations with other countries. Women would do much better, he asserts, with no reference to the track records of Mrs. Ghandi in India and Mrs. Meir in Israel.
The scandals, the secrecy, and the high stakes for both client and purveyor are well used in this book to provide a fascinating framework for a great deal of reference material and also for a multifaceted problem which will not go away. The tough question for Americans is how we are to control at least our own national input to arms sales so that U.S. foreign policy, security of friendly countries, and world peace are best served. The Carter Administration had addressed this problem, but it is by no means resolved.
f the hundreds of naval books appearing in 1977, a total of ten have been chosen for this annual survey. The standards which guided their election were strictly subjective; no sort of quotas, thematic or otherwise, Were established. Six books which appeared too late for mention last year have also been included.
Among the notable naval books of 1976 was The Letters and Papers of Alfred Thayer Mahan, edited by Robert Seager II and Doris D. Maguire. This giant collection was one of the principal sources of a companion volume which is certainly, tom a scholarly standpoint, the notale naval book of 1977: Dr. Seager’s Massively researched, distinctly well- Wr'tten biography of Alfred Thayer Mahan: The Man and His Utters. Although the author modestly maintains that too many of Mahan’s papers have een lost or remain hidden to permit , Is work to qualify as a definitive 10graphy, it offers the closest look we are likely to have at the most influen- t*al American military intellectual. As ®ager states, “It is . . . not the story ? 3 swashbuckling naval officer. Save °r a few minutes . . . [in] 1861 ahan never heard a gun fired in afger. Only in the paper of his books k he experience combat. It is the Portrait—warts and all—of a histoid0’ strategist, tactician, philosopher, P'scopalian, theologian, diplomat, 'ftiperialist, mercantilist, capitalist, nglophile, patriot, Republican, ra- Clst> Social Darwinist, journalist, emicist, naval reformer, adviser to
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presidents and legislators, teacher, academic administrator, social climber, egoist, introvert, swain, husband, and father. Mahan remains one of the few military figures in American history whose brain power was his main shield and buckler. . . . He was an intellectual in uniform, and his busy pen was mightier than his sheathed sword.” It is said that every biographer ends up loving or hating his subject. Dr. Seager does enough sniping at Mahan to exclude him from the former category, but he does not appear to fall into the latter, either; overall, his approach is commendably even-handed.
Following the publication of Red Star Rising at Sea, the translation of a series of articles originally appearing in the Soviet naval journal Morskoi Shornik and later published in the 1974 issues of the Proceedings, Admiral Sergei Gorshkov was often referred to as “the Soviet Mahan.” The label has at best a limited validity, but it does point up the fact that Gorshkov views sea power, a la Mahan, in a broad strategic context as a vital adjunct of national power. The parable he preached in Red Star Rising—that despite the supposed primacy of continental concerns, Russia is only as great as its fleet—is enlarged and expanded in his new book, Sea Power and the State. It is divided into four parts. The first, “The Ocean and the Sea Power of the State,” explains the political and economic significance of the sea. The second, “Pages in the History of War Fleets,” is a review of naval history from the 16th century to the present, with emphasis on the Russian/Soviet experience. The next, "The Development of War Fleets after the Second World War,” compares the postwar programs of the United States and the NATO countries with those of the Soviet Union. The last, “Problems of the Naval Art,” is an essay on naval strategy in war and peace. As is the case with any Soviet publication, this is a work to be consulted with caution. Even in what might be taken for purely historical passages, every fact has been forced on the Procrustean bed of Marxist- Leninist ideology. But as an insight into the thinking of the man who conceived and still directs the Soviet naval
Notable Naval Books of 1977
By Professor Jack Sweetman, Associate Editor
offensive, its value is immense.
The meaning of Gorshkov’s new book is among the matters addressed in Soviet Naval Influence: Domestic and Foreign Dimensions, edited by Michael MccGwire and John McDonnell, a collection of 30 papers stemming from the third annual seminar on Soviet naval developments held at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, in September 1974. The great majority of the papers have been updated tion on the Soviet fleet in the 19771978 edition of that hardy perennial, Jane’s Fighting Ships, the fifth produced under the editorship of Captain John E. Moore, Royal Navy (Retired). After 80 years in the business, a new Jane’s is something more than a notable naval book; it is in many respects a notable naval event. In recent years Captain Moore’s forewords, assessing current developments and suggesting future concerns, have provoked connigh irresistible invitation to casual browsing. Edited by Lieutenant Commander Peter Kemp, OBE, Royal Navy (Retired), former Head of Naval Historical Branch, Ministry of Defence, it combines the contributions of over two dozen British and American experts (including the late Rear Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison) in some 3,700 “articles,” ranging in length from a couple of lines to a couple of pages, on every conceivable topic as
through 1976. And four chapters are reprints of original Proceedings articles. Taken together, they represent the single most comprehensive available analysis of Soviet naval policy, programs, deployments, technology, and capabilities. Some of their conclusions are controversial, but, given the number of educated guesses which must be made in evaluating just about anything about the Soviet Navy, that is both inevitable and healthy.
The interpretation of Soviet naval policy depends in considerable part upon an estimate of the intended strategic role of Soviet ship types. The best contemporary accounting of Soviet naval hardware is contained in Ulrich Schulz-Torge’s richly illustrated, two-volume study of Die sow- jetische Kriegsmarine (The Soviet Navy). The work is in German and, as noted in a full-length review in the July 1977 Proceedings, not devoid of error; but much of its data is presented in a tabular format easily absorbed by English-language readers, and the occasional slips do not seriously detract from its utility. The author is a West German naval officer.
There is, of course, a sizeable secsiderable comment, constructive and otherwise. The latest, in which he enters the high-low shipbuilding controversy, is unlikely to prove an exception. In this inflationary era, it is pleasant to record that Jane’s price, though steep, is the same as last year.
Another outstanding naval annual is the Italian Almanacco Navale 1977, edited by Giorgio Giorgerini and Au- gusto Nani. Unlike Jane's, whose sheer size makes it the epitome of inconvenience to carry, store, or consult anywhere other than on an ample desk or table top, the Almanacco Navale is a reasonably compact lVi" x 10”. It also includes illustrated sections on naval aircraft and missile systems, as well as six color plates of the naval and merchant flags of the nations of the world, features not found in Jane’s. To facilitate ease of international reference, each copy comes equipped with a laminated card translating the column headings of the data tables into English, French, Spanish, and German.
The Oxford Companion to Ships & the Sea is a different but certainly no less useful sort of reference work. The words “reference work” should be taken advisedly, as it presents a well-
sociated with ships and the sea: biographies, battles, nautical terms and technology, ships’ histories, naval customs, marine painting, navigation, fishery, and you name it. Perhaps the best indication of the wealth and diversity of its contents may be provided by a list of the articles found on a random opening of the book to pages 194-195: Conflans, Hubert de
Brienne (a 17th-century French admiral); Congress, U.S.S.; Conical Buoy; Connard, Philip (a British marine painter); Conning Tower; Connolly. Richard L. (an American admiral); and Conrad, Joseph (the author). “Monumental” is the word.
As might be expected, a good many of the Companion's entries relate to World War I events and personalities. The fact that “Subchaser” is not among them is probably due to the fact that, despite a number of American contributors, the book is basically British; and the subchasers— wooden-hulled craft, 110 feet i° length and only 15 feet five inches abeam, mass-produced to counter the Kaiser’s U-boats—were a distinctly American contribution to the war at sea. In 1918, several hundred sub-
chasers, manned almost exclusively by reservists, crossed the Atlantic to the European War Zone. Captain Alexander R. Moffat, U.S. Naval Reserve (Retired), relates his experiences as an untrained amateur commissioned officer’’ in command of Subchaser 143 *o Maverick Navy, the year’s most delightful naval memoir. A born storyteller, Moffat quickly enlists his reader’s sympathy as he traces his sometimes painful progress from
well-intentioned ignorance to a level of professional competence which won irn the Navy Cross.
World War I was supposed to be che war to end war. It did not quite succeed. As the war clouds built up on the international horizon in the late 1930s and even more so after they roke over Europe, the United States and the British Empire found themselves forced into a gingerly collabora- ^*on by the pressure of events. Dr. James R. Leutze, Associate Professor and Director of the Curriculum of eace, War and Defense at the Uni- yersity of North Carolina, Chapel . I> examines the origins of the al- ance in Bargaining for Supremacy: nglo-American Naval Collaboration, 937-1941. His thesis is that each P°wer was determined to shape its )°mt strategy in such a way that it jy°uld have control, and that the real reakthrough to cooperation did not c°me until the British had become so esperate that they were willing to acCePt American aid on almost any terms.
. Despite the existence of an unoffi- C|al alignment with Britain by the autumn of 1941, it took the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December to bring the United States into the war. The neutralization of the Pacific Fleet battle line on that shocking Sunday was followed by one disaster after another as Japanese forces swept forward in a seemingly invincible wave of conquest, sinking the Prince of Wales and the Repulse, invading the Philippines, overrunning Malaya, capturing Singapore, virtually annihilating the American-British-Dutch-
Australian fleet at the battle of the Java Sea, gobbling up the Netherlands East Indies, and pushing on to northern New Guinea and the Solomons. Not until May 1942, when an amphibious invasion force bound for Port Moresby, on the southern coast of New Guinea, was turned back by American aircraft carriers at the battle of the Coral Sea, did the Japanese offensive suffer a strategic reverse. The engagement is usually regarded, in terms of American objectives, as a purely defensive action. In a major reassessment of The First South Pacific Campaign, John B. Lundstrom argues that this was not the case: “The Coral Sea campaign did not represent merely an attempt to blunt an attack on Port Moresby; rather, Nimitz meant it as an actual contest of strength between the Japanese and American forces. . . . Thus, the importance of the Coral Sea campaign remains unappreciated. Coral Sea could easily have been as decisive as Midway, had the Japanese actually committed forces there in the magnitude which Nimitz thought. It is supposed that before Midway Nimitz finally decided to use his carriers ... to stop the Combined Fleet.
Actually Nimitz opted to do that very same thing in the South Pacific.”
The battle Mr. Lundstrom believes Admiral Nimitz was seeking at Coral Sea came a month later at Midway, and marked the turning-point of the Pacific war. In August, U.S. Marines landed on Guadalcanal, in the Solomons, to bring an end to the expansion of Japan's island perimeter. The ensuing struggle, which lasted until the opening weeks of 1943, was of un
surpassed ferocity. Unlike the garrisons of the Central Pacific islands invaded later in the war, isolated from outside assistance by American command of the sea, the Japanese troops on Guadalcanal were regularly reinforced, resupplied, and supported by their forces in the northern Solomons. Fortunately, the Americans often received invaluable, early warning of the approach of Japanese air and naval forces from coastwatchers on islands far behind enemy lines. Who were these coastwatchers? A Somerset Maughamesque assortment of very rugged individualists, their ranks included British colonial administrators, Australian officers, missionaries, planters, old island hands, and a U.S. Army corporal. Admiral Halsey summed up their contribution with the words, “The Coastwatchers saved Guadalcanal, and Guadalcanal saved the Pacific.” Besides providing vital intelligence, they rescued Allied airmen and sailors (including Lieutenant [junior grade] John F. Kennedy), arranged the evacuation of European civilians overrun by the Japanese advance, and played a constant, deadly game of hide-and-seek with overwhelming enemy forces. Best-selling author Walter Lord describes the exploits of these gallant men in Lonely Vigil: Coastwatchers of the Solomons. His narrative, based upon extensive original research, is a true adventure story as enthralling as any war novel.
The enemy vessels for which the coastwatchers kept watch, and hundreds more besides, are treated in a definitive study of Warships of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1869-1945, comcence of the battleship as a weapon system. Based largely on official records recently made accessible to researchers by the expiration of the British government’s 30-year rule, the work will undoubtedly become the standard reference for British battleships. It is illustrated with over 600 photographs and plans, the latter of which include 16 fold-outs and four color plates of camouflage patterns.
The first volume of the Naval His-
histories—The U.S. Navy: An Illustrated History, by Nathan Miller, and The U.S. Marine Corps Story, by J. Robert Moskin. Though both are histories of U.S. fighting forces, their authors set about the tasks of reporting more than 200 years of service in different ways.
Nathan Miller unfolds the whole panorama of America’s naval past with a crisp narrative and over 400 maps and illustrations, many in excellent
piled by Hansgeorg Jentschura, Dieter Jung, and Peter Mickel. With origins dating back over 30 years, this work, extensively updated and expanded by its translators, Antony Preston and J. D. Brown, contains a wealth of information never previously available outside Japan. The text, organized chronologically by class, presents specifications, construction notes, and brief histories of each ship. It is complemented by nearly 400 general- arrangement drawings and some 200 photographs, many of which are published for the first time.
A companion volume, identical in format, to the preceding is British Battleships of World War Two, by Alan Raven and John Roberts. Descriptively subtitled The development of the Royal Navy’s battleships and battlecruisers from 1911 to 1946, it traces the technological history of every line of battle ship, from the veteran Queen Elizabeths to the Vanguard, which served or was put under construction in World War II. Three concluding chapters review the operational experience of British battleships in the war and assess the reasons for the obsolestory Division’s account of The United States Navy in the Vietnam Conflict is subtitled The Setting of the Stage to 1939. Co-authored by Vice Admiral Edwin B. Hooper, U.S. Navy (Retired), Dean C. Allard, and Oscar P. Fitzgerald, it is, in effect, an extended introduction to American intervention in Southeast Asia’s Thirty Years War, beginning with the establishment of Western presence in the area and tracing the expansion of American involvement through the French Indochina War to the beginning of aid to the Republic of South Vietnam. Of especial interest are the pages describing the consideration given the possibility of relieving the French forces encircled at Dienbienphu by means of an American air strike; the refugee evacuation, “Passage to Freedom,” conducted by the U.S. Navy following the partition of Vietnam by the Geneva Accords; and the beginning of the American advisory effort to the South Vietnamese Navy. Succeeding volumes of the series will be awaited with keen interest.
This year’s round-up concludes with the recognition of two ambitious
color. The result is a truly beautiful book, the most attractive history of the U. S. Navy to appear to date and likely to any time soon. Like so many works which have ambitious themes and scopes, The U. S. Navy does not quite deliver all that it promises- Coverage through World War II *s complete and balanced, but the postwar period receives disappointingly short shrift.
Similar in scope, though much more detailed in execution, ,s J. Robert Moskin’s telling of The U.S. Marine Corps Story. A huge book, over 1,000 pages, it is the most comprehensive, candid history ever published of the Corps, from the War of the Revolution to the present. As one might expect in a history of one of the world’s most elite fighting units, much of the book is devoted to war years and the “men who risked everything to do what had to be done- Unlike many of its historians, Mr- Moskin has never been a Marine, bur he writes of the Marine Corps achievements with a pride all Amcr*' cans can share.
2] Alfred Thayer Mahan: The Man and His Letters
Robert Seager II. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1977. 713 pp. Illus. Append. *24-95 ($19.95).
Almanacco Navale 1977
^'Otgio Giorgerini and Augusto Nani (Editors).
enoa, Italy: Istituto Idrografico Della Marina, 1977. 766 pp iiius Append. (Approx.
$30.00).
bargaining for Supremacy: Anglo-American Naval Collaboration, !937-194l
James R. Leutze. Chapel Hill, N.C.: The University of North Carolina Press, 1977. 328 PP- Append. Bib. $17.95 ($16.15).
E§ British Battleships of World War Two
^lan Raven and John Roberts. Annapolis, Md.: */aval Institute Press, 1976. 436 pp. Illus. Append. Bib. $32.00 ($25.60).
2] The First South Pacific Campaign: acific Fleet Strategy December 194l-june 1942
John B. Lundstrom. Annapolis, Md.: Naval nstitute Press, 1976. 240 pp. Illus. Maps. Append. Bib. $14.50 ($11.60).
Jane’s Fighting Ships 1977-78 Uaptain John E. Moore, Royal Navy (Retired)
, lt0r)- New York: Franklin Watts Inc.,
J11- 829 pp. Illus. $72.50 ($65.25).
Lonely Vigil: Coastwatchers of the Solomons
Walter Lord. New York: The Viking Press, 1977. 322 pp. Illus. Maps. $ 12.50 ($ 11.25).
0 Maverick Navy Captain Alexander W. Moffat, U.S. Naval Reserve (Retired). Middletown, Ct.: Wesleyan University Press, 1976. 157 pp. Illus. Append. $8.95 ($7.15).
0 The Oxford Companion to Ships & the Sea
Peter Kemp (Editor). New York: Oxford University Press, 1976. 972 pp. Illus. Maps. Append. $35.00 ($28.00).
Sea Power of the State Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union S. G. Gorshkov. Moscow: Military Publishing House, Ministry of Defense, U.S.S.R., 1976. 463 pp. (In Russian). [J] In spring 1978, Naval Institute Press will offer an English language edition. 396 pp. Maps. $17.95 ($14.35).
Soviet Naval Influence: Domestic and Foreign Dimensions Michael MccGwire and John McDonnell (Editors). New York: Praeger, 1977. 661 pp. Maps. Append. Bib. $40.00 ($36.00).
Die sowjetische Kriegsmarine Ulrich Schulz-Torge. Bonn: Wehr & Wissen, 1976. Two Vols. 801 pp. Illus. Bib. DM 122. $50.00.
0 The U.S. Marine Corps Story
J. Robert Moskin. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1977. 1,039 pp. Maps. Illus. Append. Bib. $29.95. ($23.95).
The United States Navy and the Vietnam Conflict. Volume I:
The Setting of the Stage to 1959
Vice Admiral Edwin B. Hooper, U.S. Navy (Retired), Dean C. Allard, and Oscar P. Fitzgerald. Washington, D.C.: Naval History Division, 1977. 419 pp. Illus. Maps. Append. Bib. $9.00 ($8.10).
[31 The U.S. Navy: An Illustrated History
Nathan Miller. Copublished by the American Heritage Publishing Co., New York, and the Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Md.,
1977. 416 pp. Illus. Maps. $34.95 ($24.95); Deluxe Edition, $39.95 ($29.95).
[3] Warships of the Imperial Japanese Navy 1869-1945
Hansgeorg Jentschura, Dieter Jung, and Peter Mickel (Translated by Anthony Preston and J.D. Brown). Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1977. 284 pp. Illus. $24.00 ($19.20).
Y-78
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