book reviews - canadian nautical research society · 2019-01-16 · dutch east india company...

Book Reviews

Wendy van Duivenvoorde. DutchEast India Company Shipbuilding:The Archaeological Study of Bataviaand Other Seventeenth CenturyShips. College Station, TX: TexasA&M University Press, www.tamupress.com, 2015. 310 pp., illus-trations, maps, bibliography, index.US $90.00, hardback; ISBN 978-1-62349-179-6.

James Bender. Dutch Warships in theAge of Sail 1600 - 1714: Design,Construction and Fates. Annapolis,MD: Naval Institute Press, www.usni.org, 2014. 328 pp., illustrations,maps, notes, bibliography, index. US$78.95, hardback; ISBN 978-1-84832-157-1.

Although it tends to be lost in theshuffle of the First World War cente-nary, 2017 is the 350th anniversary ofthe end of the Second Anglo-DutchWar, which was fought from 1665-1667. The interdisciplinary and morenuanced approaches of the last sev-eral decades are actively working toreshape conceptions of not only theSecond Anglo-Dutch War, but also ofthe global context of seventeenthcentury conflicts. Both books underdiscussion examine Dutch shipbuild-ing and ships, and provide detailswhich, until recently, have been un-known or hard to acquire in Englishlanguage texts.

Wendy van Duivenvoorde'sDutch East India Company Ship-building: The Archaeological Studyof Batavia and Other SeventeenthCentury Ships provides a detailed,

technical discussion of one particularship, while setting it in within thecontext of seventeenth-centuryDutch, and especially, VereenigdeOost-Indische Compagnie (VOC),shipbuilding. It is a meticulous anddefinitive cataloguing of the materialrecovered from the Batavia, wreckedoff the west coast of Australia in1628, as well as a discussion of thecontext of the disaster. The variouschapters detail the study of the wreck,the disciplinary context of other VOCships, and the archaeological find-ings. The author`s objective was to“create a better understanding ofDutch shipbuilding practices in thelate-sixteenth and early-seventeenthcentury, in particular for ships de-signed and constructed to sail longdistances over the world's oceans.” Itis important that she states that theunderstanding of the Batavia in thisbook is not a final reconstruction, buta working hypothesis and educatedguess. The sheer wealth of documen-tation about the study and recovery ofthe Batavia, information knownabout other contemporary ships, andarchival documents ensured her suc-cess.

For those who are interested inthe early-modern aspects of the ageof sail, Dutch East India CompanyShipbuilding is a must-buy, and anexcellent example of the interdisci-plinary work that is driving modernunderstandings of the early-modernmaritime world. For example, in-cluded in the book are transcribedand translated documents from Dutcharchives that define the dimensions of

The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord, XXVII, No. 3 (July 2017), 289-346.

290 The Northern Mariner / Le marin du nord

various different types of woodenships. These are absolutely invalu-able, and provide important contextfor the technical discussion and 'edu-cated guesses'. Further, the book isbeautifully printed and presented. There are numerous detailed and welllaid-out images, including archivaldocuments, screen-shots of computerprograms used to reconstruct theBatavia, and explanatory diagrams. Van Duivenvoorde's efforts on thisbook continue the original accom-plishments of the Batavia team led byWestern Australia’s Jeremy Green,who provided the foreword.

James Bender's Dutch Warshipsin the Age of Sail 1600-1714: Design,Construction, Careers and Fates is amuch more straightforward historicaleffort, and makes an equally impor-tant contribution as a reference workfor historical research on the early-modern maritime world. AlthoughDutch Warships in the Age of Saildoes not quite do for the Dutch navywhat Rif Winfield's fantastic BritishWarships in the Age of Sail did forthe British navy, it is, nevertheless, adetailed, and definitive cataloguing ofDutch warships during the describedperiod.

The book begins with theauthor’s brief explanation of thetext`s structure, followed by a key toabbreviations, a glossary and bibliog-raphy. Despite its rather unorthodoxplacement of information, this layoutworks really well to provide contextfor the reader. There is a 24-pageintroduction from the excellent andauthoritative English historian of theAnglo-Dutch Wars, J.D. Davies, inwhich he provides needed back-ground on the Dutch state, and theDutch methods for the creation,maintenance and use of maritimemilitary forces. Next comes twosections of fleet lists; the former sim-ply listing ships that took part in eachcampaign, and the latter, providing

much more detail for each ship. Un-fortunately, unlike the Winfield vol-umes, Bender does not supply a com-plete set of characteristics for eachship. Dimensions for some ships areprovided intermittently, althoughmost ships do have crew, armamentand commanders detailed. Bendercannot be criticized for being unableto match Winfield’s wealth of techni-cal details since his Royal Navy re-cords remain largely intact, whilemost of Bender’s comparable Dutchrecords were lost in a fire in 1844. The details are accompanied by alarge number of excellent (althoughall black and white) reproductions ofcontemporary drawings, paintingsand other images.

Both Dutch East India CompanyShipbuilding and Dutch Warships inthe Age of Sail are highly recom-mended. They should certainly bepurchased for university libraries andwould make valued additions to thepersonal libraries of academic schol-ars and history buffs.

Samuel McLeanToronto, Ontario

Andrew Boyd. The Royal Navy inEastern Waters, Linchpin of Victory,1935-1942. Barnsley, S. Yorks: Sea-forth Publishing, www.pen-and-sword.com, 2017. xxi+538 pg. illus-trations, tables, maps, appendix,notes, bibliography, index. UK£30.00, US $39.95, cloth; ISBN 978-1-47389-248-4. (Distributed in NorthAmerica by Naval Institute Press,www.usnip.org).

This is a big book, physically andhistoriographically. Andrew Boyd, aformer Royal Navy (RN) submarinerand Foreign Office civil servant,challenges a considerable field ofliterature regarding the efficiency ofthe interwar Royal Navy, the circum-

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stances surrounding loss of the battle-ship Prince of Wales and the battle-cruiser Repulse (Force Z) to Japaneseair attack in December 1941, andBritish strategy for defense of South-east Asia and the Indian Ocean. Inparticular, Boyd rejects those such asCorrelli Barnett, who describe BritishEastern defense policy as “strategicillusion, weakness, and then irrele-vance” in the late 1930s and early1940s. Boyd’s work supports andextends David Edgerton’s challengeto Barnett’s and Paul Kennedy’s viewof twentieth-century Britain as a na-tion in decline. In contrast, Edgertonand Boyd highlight Britain’sstrengths, enduring prowess, andeffectiveness, especially comparedwith nations other than the UnitedStates. Boyd’s principal innovationis to recast our frame of referencewhen considering British Easterndefense strategy. Instead of focusingon the defense of the Singapore baseand Southeast Asia, Boyd argues thatin the late 1930s, planners in Londonbegan to conceive of an eastern em-pire stretching from the South ChinaSea and Singapore in the east all theway to the eastern Mediterranean inthe west. Within this area lay thecritical Middle Eastern oil fields, theresources of India-Australia, and thesea lines of communication connect-ing these resources with the rest ofthe empire. While modern historianshave separated the Mediterranean,Indian Ocean, and Pacific Oceans intheir accounts of the Second WorldWar, Boyd recasts British defensepolicy by highlighting the linkages,both physical and mental, betweenthese regions.

The author begins by examiningthe Navy’s rearmament program ofthe 1930s, setting himself in opposi-tion to what he describes as “the stan-dard narrative” of the Navy’s inter-war decline. Barnett is the chiefculprit in Boyd’s account, especially

the view that the interwar RoyalNavy was intellectually conservativeand consumed with refighting the1916 Battle of Jutland. In contrast,Boyd wants to show that in the 1930sthe Navy was both stronger and moreinnovative than has been suggested,even by fellow revisionists such asJohn Ferris and Jon Sumida. Hedescribes British interwar warships asbroadly comparable to their foreigncounterparts and draws upon recentworks by Sumida, Geoffrey Till,Norman Friedman, Thomas Hones,Mark Mandeles, and D.K. Brown toargue for the interwar Royal Navy. Boyd makes a strong case, though inat least one technical area he goes toofar in suggesting that the carrier HMSEagle was “comparable” to USSLexington in both size and capabili-ties (16). Boyd’s synthesis of recentrevisionist works raises a larger inter-pretive question. To what degreeshould internal consistency and ‘ap-propriate for the information knownat the time’ be the standard of histori-cal evaluation of military organiza-tions? For example, Boyd acceptsand expands on Till’s 1979 argument(in Air Power and the Royal Navy,1914-1945: A Historical Survey) thatthe RN’s interwar Fleet Air Arm(FAA) reflected a uniquely Britishcontext and was in large measureappropriate for the tasks envisionedand undertaken, despite serious limi-tations. In contrast, WilliamsonMurray accepts Till’s position, butconcludes that the RN still “got itwrong” on naval aviation by makingcomparisons with American and Jap-anese naval aviation. (See William-son and A. Reed Millet’s 1996 Mili-tary Innovation in the Interwar Pe-riod). Both perspectives appear tohave merit and the question requiresfurther investigation.

Boyd then examines the develop-ment of British strategy to defend itseastern empire. He highlights a key


1937 meeting where British officialsdecided that in the eastern empirethree areas took priority: the SuezCanal, the oilfields of the PersianGulf, and the northern approaches toIndia. To defend these locations (andaccess to them) required control ofIraq, Egypt, Iran, a neutral or friendlyTurkey, open sea lines of communi-cation in the Indian Ocean from Indiato Australia, and at the eastern edgeof this region, Singapore. To defendthis region, the RN would have to beflexible, shifting forces between theeastern Mediterranean and Far Eastas the strategic threats changed. Af-ter the start of the Second WorldWar, Britain adopted a forward de-fensive posture in the eastern Medi-terranean and Middle East whichconsumed much of the nation’s mili-tary resource in 1940-1941, and inthe Far East, relied upon a limiteddefensive screen. Britain’s earlywartime commitment to hold theeastern Mediterranean “meant theforces available to meet potentialJapanese intervention were . . . re-duced in crucial ways” (131). Boydargues that this commitment discour-aged Germany from undertaking amajor offensive into the Middle East.

Turing to Southeast Asia, Boyddemonstrates that in 1940, Admiraltystaff clung to the view that a purelynaval fleet (as opposed to a mixedsea-air force) was the foundation ofeastern defense. As a result, in 1941,the Admiralty sought to persuade theAmericans to move their fleet to Sin-gapore to replace the ships the Admi-ralty could no longer send east. By1941 the defense of Singapore andthe surrounding area required Britishair and sea forces only available atthe expense of its defense of the east-ern Mediterranean. Faced with thischoice of conducting a forward de-fense of the eastern empire in theeastern Mediterranean or in Southeast

Asia, London gave the Mediterraneanpriority.

Boyd also demonstrates the criti-cal role played by the United Statesin shaping Britain’s eastern defensestrategy in 1941. Early that year, RNplans proposed that the bulk of Brit-ish naval forces in the Far East wouldprotect Indian Ocean convoys in theevent of war with Japan while theAmericans and Dutch guarded theDutch East Indies and the SouthChina Sea. In response to Americancriticism of these plans (if the Britishvalued Singapore as highly as theyclaimed, why were so few Britishnaval forces assigned to defend Sin-gapore?), the Admiralty began toconsider deploying the limited cover-ing forces available to the SouthChina Sea rather than the IndianOcean. This is an important pointthat has not previously been recog-nized. The Admiralty also sought toplay its part in supporting the grow-ing Anglo-American deterrence pos-ture in the western Pacific. TheAmericans were sending troops andplanes, including heavy bombers, tothe Philippines in an effort to dis-suade Japan from striking south andagreed to provide destroyers to sup-port a British capital ship squadronbased at Singapore. Boyd’s argumentsuccessfully and creatively incorpo-rates the deployment of Prince ofWales and Repulse with elements oflate 1941 allied planning such as theAmerican reinforcement of the Phil-ippines. He concludes that this deter-rence strategy “had the potential tocheck Japan. Failure [of the strategy]laying in timing and execution.”(272)

Boyd then challenges the tradi-tional understanding of Force Z’sdeployment to Singapore by arguingthat the Admiralty’s shift to an offen-sive forward strategy, not Churchill’sposturing, that played the critical rolein the decision to send Force Z east.

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He also disputes the notion that thecarrier Indomitable was to beassigned to Force Z, suggesting thatlater accounts are “post factoattempts by key participants to sug-gest they were more proactive inaddressing the Japanese air threatthan they actually were.” (302) Fi-nally, contrary to those who view the1942 Japanese raid into the IndianOcean as a sign of the RN’s helpless-ness, Boyd insists that Somervillecame within a hair of achieving amajor victory over the Japanese. Thekey to this argument is a counter-factual night torpedo air strike on twoJapanese carriers detached fromNagumo’s retiring force late on 5April. This would have been one ofthe more challenging naval air opera-tions of the Second World War.

A number of maps help thereader navigate the text, includingseveral maps detailing the relativepositions of Somerville and Nagumoduring the 1942 Ceylon raid—anindispensable element for the type ofdetailed operational argument Boydmakes. An appendix lays out inter-war major power naval constructionwhile the 75 pages of notes demon-strate the author’s prodigiousresearch, principally among Britisharchival records.

Boyd’s characterization of aneastern empire defended from theeastern Mediterranean to the SouthChina Sea is an innovative approachto understanding British policy andstrategy in the late 1930s and early1940s. The extensive evidence mar-shalled is compelling and futurescholars will have to take note of thisreconceptualization. This book isrecommended for specialist navalhistorians as well as general readersinterested in the Second World Warat sea.

(The views expressed in thisreview are those of the author and donot reflect the official policy or posi-

tion of the U.S. government, the De-partment of Defense, or Air Univer-sity.)

Corbin WilliamsonPrattville, Alabama

Ken Cuthbertson. The Halifax Explo-sion. Canada’s Worst Disaster, De-cember 6, 1917. Toronto, ON: HarperCollins Canada, www.harpercollins.com, 2017. 352 pp., illustrations,notes, bibliography, index. CDN$34.99, cloth; ISBN 978-1-44345-025-6.

The 1917 Halifax explosion has in-spired numerous books, but Kingston,Ontario, journalist, author and editor,Ken Cuthbertson, offers a fresh takeon it this year, the 100th anniversaryof the tragedy. Cuthbertson has writ-ten several highly acclaimed biogra-phies of well-known journalists, mostrecently, famed war correspondentWilliam L. Shirer (A Complex Fate,2015). His instincts and interest inthe human aspects of the title eventdrive and sustain this carefully re-searched new look at the cataclysmicmorning of December 6, 1917.

The book, rather prosaically ti-tled, uses 31 chapters plus an intro-duction, a valuable bibliography andendnotes to retell this tragic story toa new generation in chronologicalorder, focused tightly from 30 No-vember 1917 to April 1918. One byone, Cuthbertson provides consider-able background and backstory on themany players in an organic and inte-grated way that effectively buildsinsight into their motives and actions.His foreshadowing, though occasion-ally a little heavy-handed, brings thereader breathlessly to the point ofimpact, fire, explosion and death. Ifound the book hard to put down.

Cuthbertson observes the charac-ters clearly and (mostly) sympatheti-


cally, from the principals—CaptainsHaakon From, of the Belgian Relieffreighter SS Imo, who did not sur-vive, and Aimé Le Médec of the mu-nitions ship SS Mont Blanc, whodid—to harbour pilots, Naval ChiefExamining Officer Wyatt, sailors likeBert Griffin, and ordinary peoplesuch as Mary Jean Hinch, who werevictims of and survived the almostindescribable “Thing” that had hap-pened to them.

The author sympathizes with LeMédec, portraying him as somethingof a heroic victim, starting from theNew York moment when he muststoically accept wartime orders fromhis government to transport the3,000-ton cargo of TNT, gun cotton,picric acid (an explosive nitrate com-pound) and benzol that transforms hisship—slow, worn out and entirelyunsuited to the job —into a floatingbomb. Captain Le Médec reluctantlyabandoned Mont Blanc, hopelesslyablaze in the middle of Halifax har-bour, after the collision, thereby sav-ing himself and his crew (and possi-bly a Mi’kmaq toddler and mother),but by then readers will only winceand agree that by then there was re-ally nothing else to do. The rudimen-tary systems and directions that wereintended to prevent human error,which he had apparently followedmore or less to the letter, were absentor had failed catastrophically. Sadly,it would not be the last time for suchdreadful occurrences.

Cuthbertson seems less sympa-thetic to Imo’s reputedly irascible andimpatient Captain From, who was,indeed, in a hurry to get out of theharbour and was decapitated whenMont Blanc exploded.

Of the three trials and investiga-tions following the event, one exoner-ated From, one exonerated Le Médec,and the third, adjudicated by thePrivy Council in London, held theofficers equally responsible for the

collision. This inability to reach aunanimous conclusion does not seemunusual for such huge disasters at thetime. When the Empress of Irelandsank after a collision in the St. Law-rence only three years earlier, Nor-way’s inquiry found the Norwegianvessel blameless, while the Canadianinquiry headed by Lord Mersey (whohad investigated Titanic’s sinking)found that the Empress was not thecause of the collision. Two sets ofirreconcilable (might one say “alter-native?”) facts. Humans failed. Athousand died. The controversy con-tinues.

Cuthbertson is—rightly, I think—unsympathetic about the systemicflaws he found, lackadaisical enforce-ment of maritime rules, simple in-competence, carelessness of govern-ment and military officials, and all-too-human institutional infightingbetween the Harbour Pilots’ Associa-tion, the Royal Navy, the Royal Ca-nadian Navy, the civilian HarbourMaster authorities and othersinvolved in the Halifax tragedy, nevermind the ugly, inevitable and ever-so-familiar buck-passing, cover-up andscapegoat-seeking by authorities afterthe event. He points out that themedia played its own unsavoury rolein the investigative part of the saga.

This era, of course, was suppos-edly when hubris was being bled outof the human race in the War to EndAll Wars. The unsinkable Titanichad gone down just five years before. Some things don’t seem to change.

The recent (2013) railway trag-edy at Lac Mégantic, Quebec,showed similar issues of lax regula-tory oversight and enforcement byTransport Canada, no doubt influ-enced heavily by industry lobbyistspressuring big government to keepbusiness operating costs low. Havingworked in laboratory medicine and asa safety officer, I nodded in agree-ment with Cuthbertson. “To Err is

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Human,” a landmark 2000 report,similarly stated the problem withmedical errors— not so much aboutbad people in health care, but aboutgood people working in bad systemsthat need to be made safer. It’s notthat we don’t know what to do (saferharbour rules did exist in 1917) andmany approaches do reduce failuresin complex systems. But it’s rare thatrobust operation controls are fullyimplemented or maintained for long,since safety is so expensive! Explainthat to the survivors of the Lac Még-antic disaster or the devastatedHaligonians before them.

Cuthbertson’s criticism of the“system” and those in charge of it inHalifax and elsewhere in 1917 isclear and fair. Harbour authoritiessubsequently improved procedure todeal more sensibly with munitionsships, showing there was at leastsome recognition at the time thatsimply blaming the people involvedwas not a solution for the future. Cuthbertson softens his judgementwith the caveat that “Western societywas still transitioning from beingrural and agrarian to being urban andindustrialized.” A century later, westill are, it seems. That may be oneof the lessons to be drawn from thisfine book.

David MoreKingston, Ontario

J.D. Davies. Pepys’s Navy: Ships,Men and Warfare, 1649-1689. Barn-sley, S. Yorks.: Seaforth Pub-lishing,www.seaforthpublishing. com, 2016. 304 pp., illustrations, notes, appen-dix, bibliography, index. UK £19.99,paper; ISBN 978-1-4738-7928-7.

Apart from its slightly smaller dimen-sions, cover illustration, and modifiedtitle that substitutes the word “War-fare” for “Organisation,” this is the

paperback edition of the superb origi-nal that appeared in 2008 as a jointpublication between Seaforth Pub-lishing and the Naval Institute Press. The innumerable strengths of the firstversion are found here, from the com-prehensive and detailed examinationof all aspects of the English Restora-tion navy to the lavish collection ofboth colour and black and white illus-trations that appear throughout thebook. While it cannot be considereda ‘new’ or fresh contribution, Davies’splendid work remains an essentialsource for students and scholars ofthe Royal Navy.

The principal focus of Davies’book is the 40-year period between1649 and 1689, when under the ad-ministration of Samuel Pepys, theEnglish navy underwent the funda-mental changes that enabled it totransition into the world’s most pow-erful navy over the following centuryand a half. Davies convincingly ar-gues that it was during the ‘extended’Restoration Period, under the mon-archs Charles II and his brotherJames II, when England continued toduel with the Dutch for maritimeeconomic supremacy, that the Englishnavy became a permanent nationalinstitution. The period witnessed theconstruction and operation of largerand heavier warships, employinginnovative and more effective fight-ing tactics, and commanded by anincreasingly professional officercorps, while being overseen by acompetent and committed administra-tion.

Every aspect of England’s Resto-ration Navy is examined over 55chapters contained within thirteenmain sections. Davies modeled hisstudy on Brian Lavery’s Nelson’sNavy (1989), and was determined todo for the navy of the seventeenthcentury what Lavery had so effec-tively achieved for that of the laterperiod. In this book, Davies devotes


concise chapters to ship types, ship-building, officers and crews, methodsof naval recruitment, and life andwork aboard ship. Other chaptersprovide the necessary context forunderstanding developments in thenavy during periods of war andpeace, such as changes relating todockyards, naval bases and victual-ling, and the state and influence ofEngland’s Dutch and French navalcounterparts. He addresses fightingtactics through the analysis of threeseparate battles — Scheveningen,Lowestoft, and Texel; the case stud-ies providing welcome attention tothese largely neglected battles.

Davies, a widely recognizedscholar of the Royal Navy and Resto-ration Period, is clearly at home here. His expertise on the topic is unparal-leled, having spent much of the pastfour decades researching and writingeither academic monographs or his-torical fiction novels set in the pe-riod. His first major study, Gentle-man and Tarpaulins: The Officersand Men of the Restoration Navy(1991), which examined the reactionsof naval personnel to the demandsimposed by Pepys and the structureof the service and the role of theNavy in the life of the country, cer-tainly informs this much broadertreatment. Davies’ use of the bestavailable evidence allows readers toreap the benefits of his notes. Though he makes thorough use ofPepys’s famous diary and the navaladministrator’s other published andunpublished works, Davies is verycareful in weighing that testimonywith that found in additional originalmanuscript sources such as the Admi-ralty Records, as well as publishedprimary materials including thosevolumes produced by the Navy Re-cords Society. Of further value andenjoyment to readers are its wonder-ful illustrations. Davies’s use ofimages and photographs is extensive

and rarely experienced for aneconomically-priced book, for he hasgathered a truly impressive arrayfrom repositories ranging from theNational Maritime Museum, BritishLibrary, British Museum, and U.S.Naval Academy, to private collec-tions, as well as the author’s ownphotograph collection.

The strengths of Davies’s bookalso reside in its prose. For the pastdecade, he has produced no fewerthan seven works of historical fictionnovels set within the context of theseventeenth-century English navy. Writing with flair and purpose,Davies engages academic and popu-lar audiences alike. Whether describ-ing the intricacies of working theship, the supply chain of ships’masts, sails, rigging and armaments,or the victualling system in this book,or relating the latest exploits of hisfictional “gentleman” Captain Mat-thew Quinton in his engrossing nov-els, Davies makes the world of theseventeenth century RestorationNavy accessible to all his readers.

Though the stellar work stands onits own in every regard, this reviewerfeels that the author may have missedan opportunity to include a guestpreface to expand the audience. An-other relatively simple enhancementwould have been to update the sug-gestions for further reading. Thesenitpicks aside, Davies’s outstandingstudy of the seventeenth-centuryEnglish navy should continue to bethe go-to book on the subject. Thereadable text and affordable price ofthis edition will further increase itsaccessibility to scholars and non-scholars alike, who will eagerly signon for the passage.

Michael DoveSt. Thomas, Ontario

Book Reviews 297

Bartholomew Diggins. (George S.Burkhardt, ed.) Sailing with Farra-gut. The Civil War Recollections ofBartholomew Diggins. Knoxville,TN: University of Tennessee Press,www.utpress.org, 2016. 241 pp.,i l lus t ra t ions , maps , no t e s ,bibliography, index. US $53.95,cloth; ISBN 978-1-62190-208-9.

George S. Burkhardt’s Sailing withFarragut: The Civil War Recollec-tions of Bartholomew Diggins depictsthe American Civil War through theeyes of an ordinary sailor who foughtagainst the Confederacy under Admi-ral David Farragut for Union controlof the Mississippi and Gulf Coastports between 1862 and 1864. Partof the Voices of the Civil War series,Burkhardt’s edition of Diggins helpsfill a void, the serious lack of navalprimary accounts by common sailors,marines and others, from either side,engaged in the conflict between theStates. Burkhardt credits this dearthof personal narratives to the high rateof illiteracy among the naval rank andfile, both Union and Confederate. Hetells us that 45 percent of the U.S.Navy’s strength in 1863 was foreign-born while another 8 to 23 percent ofthe enlistees were African-Ameri-cans, mostly illiterate. USS Hart-ford, Diggins’ ship, carried a crew of324, of which 216 were foreign-born,representing 25 different nationali-ties. Many of Diggins’s crewmates,he says, understood only basiccommands.

A young Irish immigrant in 1862,Diggins never gave his reasons forenlisting in the navy. Burkhardtdoubts it was due to patriotic fervor,suggesting instead Diggins’s need foremployment, the lure of prize money,and his personal desire for regularmeals and better sleeping conditionsthan were offered by the army’s tradi-tional muddy ground. USS Hartford,Farragut’s flagship, was tasked with

taking rebel-held New Orleans underthe Union’s Anaconda policy, de-signed to shut down Southern portsand split the Confederacy at the Mis-sissippi. Diggins describes the largefire rafts “filled with pine knots andother combustible matter…all inflames 30 to 50 feet high,” used bythe Confederates to defend New Or-leans (10), and the “teroble roar andnois” of the guns during the siege ofthe city (17). New Orleans havingfallen, he details firsthand the contin-ued defiance of local rebels and thedramatic response of Union GeneralBenjamin F. Butler, the infamous“Beast Butler.”

After the reduction of New Or-leans, Diggins takes us up the Missis-sippi to Vicksburg, where he criti-cizes Farragut for his dangerous pas-sage of the well-fortified city whosebatteries commanded the steep, over-hanging banks of the river. He enu-merates the hazards of “brown waterwarfare,” such as currents, tides,storms, groundings, and gunfire fromenemy ships and forts, as well asrandom shots from shore, by whichhe was seriously wounded. An addedproblem for the “brown water navy,”he says, was runaway slaves, desper-ate for safe passage, and seeking toserve with the fleet to earn their free-dom.

When Farragut’s vessels attackedrebel-held Port Hudson, Diggins re-counts his mission ashore to disrupttelegraph communications behindenemy lines, and his stint at blockadeduty at the mouth of the Red River toinhibit the flow of Confederate trafficacross the Mississippi. Digginsfound blockade duty especially irk-some due to heavy weather and ra-tions infested with worms and“wevils.” The surrender of Vicks-burg and Port Hudson, however,raised Yankee spirits, and Hartfordturned north with the rest of the Un-ion flotilla for repairs and refitting


ending Diggins’ first voyage withFarragut.

His second voyage with the admi-ral began in 1864, and focused onrebel-held Mobile. He gives us aneyewitness account of the Battle ofMobile Bay, listing the Union vesselsinvolved, their fleet formation, andFarragut’s heroics. Diggins greatlyadmired him for storming throughConfederate defenses, even quotingthe Admiral’s famous “Damn theTorpedoes” line in reference to hisships entering the heavily-minedharbour.

In an interesting sidelight to thestruggle for Mobile, Diggins des-cribes previously unrecorded skir-mishes in which he and his crew-mates on Hartford participated, whatBurkhardt terms the Ivanhoe Saga. On the dark night of 30 July 1864,blockade runner Ivanhoe, a fast Eng-lish iron-hulled paddle-wheelsteamer, carrying medicines, shoes,blankets, and provisions sorelyneeded by the beleaguered city,grounded in Mobile harbour. Over aweek-long series of actions, the Un-ion fleet tried to destroy the steamer,while the Confederates tried as hardto save her and salvage her cargo. Ontwo separate nights, Diggins becamepart of a boarding party of 100 menseeking to sack Ivanhoe, each manarmed with a revolver, cutlass, andcarbine. Hand-to-hand combat withdesperate defenders ensued, but inthe end, the rebels prevailed in mak-ing off with Ivanhoe’s cargo.

Naval aspects of the Civil Warlargely ended with the fall of Mobile,and USS Hartford sailed north withFarragut and Diggins, each to receiverecognition for their services—Farragut becoming America’s firstfull admiral, and Diggins beingawarded the Medal of Honor for hisgallantry at Mobile. Surprisingly,Burkhardt tells us, USS Hartford

survived, though much deteriorated,until 1956.

Throughout his Recollections,Diggins details information on gun-boats, ironclads, supply ships, moni-tors, submarines, and Confederatemines and torpedoes, and explainscontemporary weaponry, tactics, andstrategy. His personal contact with,and comments on, a selection of Un-ion leaders including Farragut, Admi-ral David Porter, generals Butler,Nathaniel Banks, and U. S. Grantenlivens his narrative. Burkhardt hasdone a fine job editing Diggins’ Rec-ollections. He introduces each chap-ter with useful background informa-tion, supplementing Diggins’ originalmanuscript with period maps andphotographs. He, likewise, displaysa mastery of a rich array of primaryand secondary sources. Overall,Burkhardt’s Sailing with Farragut:The Civil War Recollections ofBartholomew Diggins is a sterlingaddition to the library of literature onAmerica’s Civil War.

William L. WelchNatick, Massachusetts

Laura Sook Duncombe. PirateWomen: The Princesses, Prostitutes,and Privateers Who Ruled the SevenSeas. Chicago, IL: Chicago ReviewPress. www.chicagoreviewpress.com,2017. 272 pp., illustrations, bibliogra-phy, index. US $26.99, CDN $35.99;ISBN 978-1-61373-601-2.

Laura Sook Duncombe’s new bookon pirate women covers a lot ofground geographically and chrono-logically. She has chosen a variedselection of female sea rovers, somenotorious while others are obscure;they inhabited different eras, from theancient world to the modern period.Their stories are often a blend ofhistory and myth. In some cases,

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they exist only in novels or Holly-wood films. Duncombe argues thatwhat these women had in common,despite their diverse backstories, isthat their need for freedom drovethem to the sea. Certainly, the ship-board world offered danger and op-portunity as well as escape from theirlives ashore.

Many of Duncombe’s subjectsare historical figures. She includesthe best known women pirates suchas Anne Bonny and Mary Read. Oneof her underlying arguments, how-ever, is that most such women lan-guish in anonymity. This is true ofeven the most successful pirates. Anapt example is Cheng I Sao: despiteher massive fleet and her many suc-cesses at sea in the nineteenth cen-tury, Cheng I Sao is not well knownin the western world. And even inher own country, her true name isuncertain: Cheng I Sao simply means“wife of Cheng I”. Yet, Duncombeargues that Cheng I Sao is the mostprosperous pirate of all time of eithergender. (174) In the majority ofcases, the lives of these women are sopoorly documented, it is almost im-possible to know what aspects arefact and which ones are fiction. Theauthor attempts to sift through theoften conflicting accounts of theirfeats and legacies.

In order to do this, Duncombehas consulted some of the relevantsecondary sources and a few primarysources in print. Her research in-cluded some of the “must read” textsfor anyone tackling female piracy,such as John C. Appleby’s Womenand English Piracy, 1540-1720:Partners and Victims of Crime andDavid Cordingly’s Seafaring Women:Adventures of Pirate Queens, FemaleStowaways, and Sailors' Wives. Shealso draws on popular culture-—everything from Treasure Island tothe “Pirates of the Caribbean” films. She even includes juicy gossip that

Bartholomew Roberts, one of mostinfamous pirates of the Golden Age,may have been a woman! Althoughshe has used diverse sources for herresearch, Duncombe’s bibliography isnot extensive. Her analysis wouldhave benefitted from some of therecent works on gender and seafaring.

Duncombe isn’t an historian noris her intended audience professionalacademics. General readers won’t betroubled by the absence of referencesin the text. Academic readers, how-ever, will wish the author had backedup some of her bolder claims withmore evidence and specifics. State-ments such as “Without Americanpirates, there might not have been anAmerica as it exists today” (146)raise a number of unanswered ques-tions.

The author tries to contextualizeher subjects in their various national,cultural and time periods, even incases where the female pirate is awork of fiction. She includes, forexample, the story of GunpowderGert, a completely fabricated charac-ter whose story, it seems, was con-vincing enough to fool the CanadianBroadcasting Company. Historicalrealities or speculation regardingthese female pirates are only part ofthe author’s focus. She is also in-trigued by how accounts of thesewomen were recorded and passeddown through history. Duncombe’sbook is a fascinating exploration ofpirate tropes, myths and histories.

The material is entertaining andthe author writes in an engaging man-ner. Duncombe colloquially refers tosome of her subjects’ “stone-coldsass” (127) and “gaining excellentstreet cred” (186). It must also besaid that the author has a seriousagenda beneath the swashbucklingfun. She wishes to explore thesewomen’s lives and legacies from afeminist perspective. Without ques-tion, female pirates represent a mas-


sive rejection of the gender norms oftheir respective societies: “Pirateslive outside the laws of man, butwomen pirates live outside the lawsof nature.” (xi) Her approach istimely and may hopefully lead to a“rethinking” of some of the conven-tional wisdom about female piracy. She is right to point out the biasedportrayal or lack of knowledge aboutthese women. Her examination ex-tends to how women are discrimi-nated against in Hollywood. Although this is certainly true, a bookfocusing on female pirates is not thebest place for that discussion.

Overall, Duncombe does providean enjoyable romp through historyvia the lives of several women pi-rates. This is a useful book in termsof raising questions about how pi-rates, and women pirates in particu-lar, are portrayed in history and infiction. There are a number of otherauthors who have published works onfemale pirates so the book jacket’sclaim that it is “the most comprehen-sive overview of women pirates” isarguable. Nevertheless, it definitelyfulfills its second claim that it is“chock-full of swashbuckling adven-tures that pull these unique womenfrom the shadows…” While it mayleave a more academic reader longingfor references and more evidence,Pirate Women is a fun and informa-tive read aimed at a general audience.

Cheryl FuryGrand Bay-Westfield, New Bruns-wick

Ursula Feldkamp and Gerd Kelbing(Hrsg.) Die abenteuerlichen Reiseneiner Kapitänsfrau. Bordbriefe derHelmine Schröder von Frachtsegel-schiffen um Kap Hoorn. Bremen-haven, Germany: DeutschesSchiffahrtsmuseum und OceanumVerlag, www.dsm.museum, 2016.

239 pp., illustrations, maps, notes,bibliography. Euro 17,90€, hardback;ISBN 798-3-86927-138-5.

The title of this delightful work—-which we might render as The adven-turesome travels of a sea-captain’swife—hints at the tradition of thepicaresque novel once popular insixteenth- and seventeenth-centuryGermany. These were livelyromances of voyage and discovery,danger and intrigue, featuring suchmemorable characters as Simplicius,Springinsfeld and Courasche. Some-where along the way, these fictionaltypes would discover long-hiddensecrets, and encounter exotic worlds;somewhere they might even find abundle of letters that provided a keyto a network of unexpected humanrelationships. The real-life lettersand diaries of Helmine Schröder néeArppe, (1857-1940) led to the presentvolume. Their discovery, after muchdogged sleuthing, proved much morethan a family treasure and a cause fora grand family reunion. They offerthe general reader a unique historicalperspective on the last days of com-mercial sail, and of a woman’s at-tempts to break into it. The book’ssubtitle—Shipboard letters fromsailing freighters around CapeHorn—captures both the imaginationand the reality.

It was not uncommon in the nine-teenth century for wives to accom-pany their skipper-husbands on therelatively short voyages in the Baltictrade. But that was rarely the casewith deep-sea sailing freighters,whose voyages could take manymonths, and sometimes years. Thatwas because they often engaged inthe tramp trade and had to pick upwhatever cargoes and destinationsthey could. As the editors explain,ship owners did not want to deal withthe ethical and moral issues of havinga woman on board for lengthy voy-

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ages. And besides, social proprietiesof the day required the captain’s wifebe isolated from the rest of the crew.

In the event, Helmine Schröderwas unusual for the time by overcom-ing such obstacles. The eldest ofeleven children, Helmine finished herschooling at the age of sixteen, andbecame a teacher. At the age of 24,she married her uncle, Captain Rob-ert Schröder. Fourteen years hersenior, he had, by that time, sailedaround Cape Horn 22 times. Heworked out of Antwerp with the Bel-gian shipping firm of T.C.Engels, thathad been dealing in the saltpeter tradewith Chile. At the time of their mar-riage, Captain Schröder skippered thethree-masted wooden bark Marnix deSt. Aldegonde. The increasing com-petition by steamships in world tradehad been making it more difficult forcompanies to find experienced andqualified crew for tallship freighters. In fact, few such ships had been builtsince the 1870s. These facts likelyplayed a role in Helmine’s obtainingpermission to accompany her hus-band. Together they undertook theirfirst voyage to Chile in 1881-1882. Robert then left her at home inRostock, in the northern seaboardstate of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern,as she was pregnant. In November1883, he set sail with the steel barkTheodore Engel, not returning toAntwerp until October 1886, whenhis son was just over two years old. That November, the young familywent to sea on the Chile route aboardthe Theodore Engel, finally comingashore for good a year later in orderto run a family factory in Rostock. Though the editors offer few techni-cal details on these ships, the book’scover reproduces an anonymouspainting of the bow of the Marnixwith all sails set.

The Afterword by co-editorUrsula Feldkamp sheds particularlyhelpful light on issues faced by cap-

tains’ wives at sea: pregnancy, isola-tion in the ‘golden cage’ of her cabin,the ‘appropriate’ clothing,’ andmeals. Sea-going wives, it turns out,caused the crew additional work; forexample, crew had to douse and resetthe mizzen sail whenever she laun-dered, and lamented her use of fresh-water. Feldkamp explains how hap-pily Helmine adapted to shipboardlife, standing watch with her hus-band, and even learning to calculatethe ship’s position with sextant andchronometer. Yet, despite her capa-bility, being a woman, she couldnever have been accepted as crew.

Helmine was sensitive to all thisin letters addressed to her family athome. Both in letters and diary shewrote of the domestic concerns of lifeaboard, of the business of operating acommercial vessel, of the excitingplaces she visited, and of her admira-tion of her husband’s nautical talents;she wrote of the brave crewmen whohandled sails under the most frighten-ing conditions, and of her wonder atthe raw ocean’s power and majesty. Her deep Christian faith permeatesher letters and diaries, as does herlove for her husband—the “my Rob-ert” of so many entries—and for herdistant family. She herself was aspunky, yet gentle, observer of anautical world she was exploringwith open and unfeigned pleasure. “If you want to be a competent sea-faring wife,” she had written in hervery first letter, “you mustn’t beafraid of a bit of wind.” To this, herhusband added a postscript: “I alwaysthought that my Helmine would expe-rience some fear, but no, nothingstartles her.” Even at the prospect ofher husband’s skippering a steamshipwith its regular runs and reliableschedules, she looked back to highseas sailing. Especially aboard herhoneymoon ship “the Marnix.”Though not quite as quixotic as theliterary formula of the picaresque


novel, the adventures of this particu-lar captain’s wife form a refreshingcounterpoint to the usual narrativesof macho sailors battling the Horn. They make a very significant contri-bution to maritime history. Michael HadleyVictoria, British Columbia

Manfred Griehl. Airwar over theAtlantic. Barnsley, S. Yorks: Pen andSword Books Ltd., www.pen-and-sword.co.uk, 2016. 72 pp., illustra-tions, index. UK £12.99, US $19.99,paper; ISBN 978-1-84832-791-7.

Part of the Luftwaffe at War photo-graphic reference series published byPen and Sword Books, this volumefocuses on German air operationsover the Atlantic Ocean, most notablythe Focke-Wulf Fw-200 Condorairframes. A four-page introductionoffers an overview of German avia-tion in the Atlantic from 1938 to1945, followed by eight full-sizecolour pictures depicting Fw-200crews and aircraft. The remainder ofthe work is a 56-page collection ofcaptioned black and white photo-graphs, usually one or two images perpage.

The introductory text is a com-pact piece. It is sometimes a littlechoppy, both textually and chrono-logically, but it serves largely as anoperational history of Kampf-geschwader (KG) 40, the most nota-ble German unit of the Atlantic airwar. The introduction hits its strideduring this section, examining theunit’s aircraft, tactics, officers, andoperations over the course of roughlytwo full double-columned pages.

The photographs are arranged sothat the full-colour images appearfirst, then the black and white ones,clustered by date and aircraft type. The initial photos appear to date from

when the KG 40 unit was stationed inFrance and were most likely taken forpropaganda purposes. After thesethere are 28 pages of captioned pho-tographs focusing on the Fw-200from initial acceptance through oper-ational use, featuring armaments andaircrews mixed in with overall viewsof the aircrafts. This section is fol-lowed by ten images of the HeinkelHe-177 long-range bomber. Thirteenphotographs of Junkers Ju-88 bomb-ers and their operation, five picturesof the enormous Blohm and Voss Bv-222 and Bv-238 flying boats, andnine images of the Ju-290 long rangepatrol aircraft appear on the remain-ing pages. There is a final mix of 13images involving previously visitedairframes, lesser-used aircraft, experi-mental designs, anti-shipping arma-ments, and two views of He-115floatplane attack training.

The publication data states thatthis is the 2016 edition of a work firstcrafted in 2003. An examination ofthe earlier version shows that the twoeditions are identical save for varia-tions of their cover and publisher,making this more of a re-releaserather than a revision. As it stands, itwould be beneficial to carry out somelevel of alteration. The introductorytext could be streamlined, possiblywith the text divided into subsectionsby discussed subject or unit ratherthan as an unbroken stream. Thereare also some odd lines mixed inwhere the wording is not as clear as itcould be, and aircraft are introducedby their model designations wellbefore any sort of minimal descrip-tion of them is given (5). Some formof citation in this section is alsoneeded, as there are no footnotes,endnotes, or bibliography to befound. Some captions are a little odd,such as a joke about patrolling sol-diers protecting cows on the frontis-piece, while others contain informa-tion unrelated to the image, such as

Book Reviews 303

the discussion of changing exteriorcamouflage patterns on a detail imageof a cockpit interior (53). The intro-ductory caption for the He-177 mightneed some restructuring as well, aslay readers might not realize thatthere are two engines powering eachpropeller, making them think thereference to four engines is a typo(45). More photographs would alsobe appreciated. The He-115, despitebeing the cover image, is heavilyunderrepresented in the work,although there are many good profileand operational shots of the airframein existence. Other maritime air-frames that are not included could beadded in an expansion, most notablythe tri-motor Bv-138 “Sea Dragon”flying boat, which was an importantairframe for German long-range re-connaissance and patrol operations. Additionally, a concluding section onthe results of the Luftwaffe’s wartimeAtlantic operations with regard topost-war operations and aviationdesign would be useful. Given therarity of surviving maritime-use air-frames from the Second World War,a section detailing surviving aircraftwould help as well. For example,there is a single Fw-200 under resto-ration in Berlin, the remains of oneBv-138 in Denmark, and two recov-ered He-115 wrecks awaiting restora-tion. For those interested in the At-lantic air war, information on thesesurviving traces of the conflict couldbe a helpful research tool.

Despite its flaws, this work is adecent visual primer on some of theLuftwaffe’s airframes and actionsover the Atlantic Ocean during theSecond World War. Above all, it isspecifically helpful for those inter-ested in KG 40 and the wartime useof the Fw-200 Condor. Since workson this subject are not nearly as prev-alent as those on other aspects of theLuftwaffe in the Second World War,an improved second edition would

prove useful to both lay and scholarlycommunities.

Charles Ross Patterson IIYorktown, Virginia

Poul Grooss. The Naval War in theBaltic 1939-1945. Barnsley, S.Yorks: Seaforth Publishing, www.seaforthpublishing.com, 2017. 400pp., illustrations, maps, appendices,index. UK £30.00, US $39.99, cloth;ISBN 978-1-5267-0000-1.

This work is a 2017 English transla-tion of Poul Grooss’ 2014 study ofthe Baltic naval war, originally re-leased in Danish as Krigen IØstersøen 1939-1945. While the titlebelies the author’s intent to write anaval history, Grooss admits in theintroduction that due to the nature ofcombat in the Baltic region, the textcan be seen more as a “joint-opera-tion” piece which covers the interwo-ven actions on both land and sea(xiii). The work is arranged chrono-logically, with the actions of eachparticipating nation discussed in turn. After the introduction, Grooss offersa brief history of the Baltic region,followed by examinations of theinterwar political and militarymaneuverings that placed the BalticStates in their assorted positions justprior to the outbreak of the SecondWorld War. Wartime actions makeup the core of the text, with primaryemphasis placed on the early and latewar time periods, when naval activitywas at its peak. The final sectionscover the post-war aftermath andramifications, followed by appendi-ces and indices.

The foreword and introductorypages detail the overall importance ofthe Baltic campaigns to the narrativeof the Second World War, and whythese actions had a greater signifi-cance than previously thought.


Grooss points out that since casualtynumbers are heavily disputed, thedeath toll may have actually equaledor surpassed that of the war in theAtlantic (xiv). The existing histori-ography of the subject is shallow, andGrooss explains that the unchartednature of his study had led him towork largely with primary sources,several of which conflict dependingon the national bias of the originalauthors. Most importantly, he makesit clear that he in no way intends forhis coverage of Sweden’s actionsduring the war to be seen as an “at-tack” on the country, he merely dis-covered a great deal of new informa-tion during his research not previ-ously found by other historians (xv). One could argue that the two firstchapters serve as additional introduc-tory material, focusing on the regionand interwar lead-up to hostilities. The 11-page first chapter offers aphysical description of the Balticregion, including natural geographyand man-made modifications such ascanals, along with a brief coverage ofthe area’s power struggles from theage of the Vikings through the FirstWorld War. The shorter secondchapter consists of four pages of textand two pages of photographs, suc-cinctly covering the political jockey-ing of the primary countries duringthe interwar period, and how eacharrived at their own starting pointwhen hostilities finally broke out.

The heart of The Naval War inthe Baltic consists of six chapters thatcover the war from 1939 to 1945. While Grooss discusses the early andfinal years of the war in a more day-to-day or month-to-month approach,the years 1943 and 1944 are detailedin much broader terms, due to thecomparative lack of historically-sig-nificant naval actions. Political andmilitary maneuverings are discussedin terms of their symbiotic relation-ships, and the broader terms of the

war are often discussed prior to spe-cific naval actions, putting them fullyinto context and improving readerunderstanding of why the actionswere carried out as they were. Ofgreat interest are the actions of Swe-den, Finland, and the occupied coun-tries during the wartime years, alongwith the late war OperationRESCUE/HANNIBAL to evacuatecivilians in the face of the comingSoviet forces. A wide assortment ofphotographs, maps, and diagrams areworked into the text, enabling readersto visualize the people, ships, equip-ment, and locations described byGrooss. To highlight technologicalinformation or other details outsidethe narrative, Grooss uses grey infor-mational text boxes outside the maintext. Footnotes cover the more com-mon notes and points of clarification,such as details of surviving wartimevessels and their present locations. Notable post-war aspects and events,such as remaining minefields andshipwrecks, British testing of Germanair warning systems, and the late/postwar execution of German personnelby Germans for wartime actions, iscovered in its own chapter. This isfollowed by a Postscript analysis ofthe participating countries, in whichGrooss concludes that in the finaloutcome of the Baltic fighting, Swe-den is the one nation that emergedrelatively “untouched by the devasta-tion,” and therefore could be deemed“a kind of winner” compared to theoccupied, weakened, and impover-ished lands surrounding it (360). Ofspecial note amongst the appendixesis Grooss’ “Cross-reference List ofPlace Names in Various Languages,”which is an extremely useful tool notonly for this work, but for generalresearch into wartime documentsoriginating from the Baltic area andrelating to inhabitants or belligerents(375-384).

Book Reviews 305

Two things would improve thiswork; firstly, the grey informationaltext boxes, while interesting in theircontent, tend to break up the narra-tive, as well as noticeably divergingfrom the overall story. Collectingthese sections into appendices oftechnical data or battle plans mighthelp to smooth the book’s overallflow. The primary problem area isthe lack of direct citation. Whilethere is no reason to doubt Grooss’scholarship, and there is some refer-ence to where he obtained his infor-mation within the main text and foot-notes, there are no real direct cita-tions for interested scholars to followbeyond the bibliography at the end. Including such citations, even asendnotes, would greatly improve thework’s functionality as a researchtool for current and future students ofthe war in the Baltic.

Overall, The Naval War in theBaltic is not only a guide to importantnaval actions that took place withinthe Baltic region, but also offers agreat deal in terms of the geopoliticalrelationships and combined armsactions in the area as well. The trans-lation of this work from its author’snative Danish into English is a boonfor American scholars, providingaccess to Grooss’ research into un-tapped archival sources and offeringhis professional perspective as a Dan-ish military officer. For those inter-ested in lesser-known Second WorldWar naval actions, or even Sweden’swartime acts undertaken during their“neutrality,” this is an excellentsource of background informationand analysis.


Philip J. Hatfield. Lines in the Ice:Exploring the Roof of the World.Montreal, QC: McGill-Queen’s Uni-

versity Press, www.mqup.ca, 2016.256 pp., illustrations, maps, bibliog-raphy, index. CDN $44.95, cloth;ISBN 978-0-7735-4820-6.

The polar region has captured ourimaginations for centuries, fuelling aseemingly insatiable appetite for talesof exploration, discovery and oftentragedy. While numerous scholarlymonographs and popular treatmentsdedicated to the history, ethnologyand ecology of the Arctic have ap-peared in that time, it is within thepast decade that work on the ‘roof ofthe world’ has drawn widespreadpublic attention. Among the chiefreasons are the promises and perils ofan increasingly ice-free navigablenorthwest passage and the competingclaims of polar nations over theirArctic sovereignty. This has spurredseveral high-profile military man-oeuvres as expressions of respectivenational ambitions in the region. Themost recent contribution to the boomin awareness and literature pertainingto the Arctic arose with the fascinat-ing discoveries of the two ships of thefabled 1845 Franklin Expedition,beginning with a Parks Canada teamlocating the Erebus in 2014. Thoughthe book under review appeared priorto the finding of Terror in 2016, ituses the re-ignition of public interestgenerated by the Erebus discoveryamid the jockeying of polar nations tooffer readers a fairly comprehensiverecord of human exploration andhabitation in this vast, unforgivingand beautiful landscape.

The book’s author, Curator ofCanadian and Caribbean Studies atthe British Library, was a lead curatorof a 2014 exhibition of the samename at the British Library, and thebook is an expanded treatment of theexhibition, published in North Amer-ica by McGill-Queen’s UniversityPress. Oversized and lavishly illus-trated, this is by all appearances, a


traditional coffee-table book. Basedexclusively on secondary research,this history of the Arctic is engag-ingly presented through some 84 miniessays, none of which are more thantwo pages in length. The approach isvery effective, allowing readers togain a nuanced understanding of aremarkably diverse and complexenvironment and its past at a comfort-able pace.

The essays themselves are orga-nized within three main sections. “The Draw of the Arctic” seeks toexplain the allure of the region toboth indigenous and non-Arctic peo-ples. Resident Inuit communities ofcourse long pre-dated European inter-est and presence in the north, thoughit may surprise many readers that theArctic became part of the Europeanimagination as far back as the days ofHerodotus in the fourth century BC. For Europeans, these mysteriouslands and seascapes gradually movedfrom the realm of imagination toreality as attempts to locate traderoutes increased between the six-teenth and eighteenth centuries.Greater contact with the North, how-ever, ushered in an era of destructivechange for the region’s inhabitants.

Section Two: “Seeking an ArcticPassage” chronicles the series ofpolar missions conducted by theUnited States and Europe in the nine-teenth century, particularly whenBritain emerged from the post-Napo-leonic era as the foremost Arcticexploring nation. The highly publi-cized Franklin Expedition, and latersearch for survivors, receives specialfocus, though there is also ampleattention devoted to other explorersincluding Buchan, Ross, Parry, Rae,McClure, McClintock, Nares, andAmundsen. The rigours and accom-plishments of these missions are re-called, but so too is the erosion of theInuit way of life and the physicallandscape that accompanied this more

extensive and sustained encroach-ment, leaving a legacy of pollutionthat motivated zoologists and conser-vationists to take action. These expe-ditions also had a dramatic culturalimpact on Europeans and NorthAmericans through the work of art-ists, writers, and photographers. Essays on Mary Shelley’s iconic taleof Frankenstein and American car-toonist Thomas Nast’s relocation ofSanta’s home from northern Europeto the North Pole in the late nine-teenth century, serve to deepen ourunderstanding of how the Arctic be-came part of the popular imagination.

These discussions set the stagefor the third section: “The Arctic andthe Modern World,” in which thepressures of trade, oil and mineralexploration, military defense, masstourism, and climate change havecontinued through the twentieth andtwenty-first centuries to remould anddistress the landscape and its inhabit-ants. The “lines in the ice” refer tothose human marks on the region,from mapping sea routes and Inuitoverland trails, to the Soviet con-struction of the White Sea-BalticCanal and the establishment of theDistant Early Warning System (DEWLine), to growing infrastructure asso-ciated with resource extraction andthe result of daily human activities. Though the forecast appears bleak,Hatfield is also mindful of how theArctic has inspired art, literature,science and cartography over timeand how this may act to rally us insupport.

The commonly-held perceptionof the Arctic, by those living far tothe south of it, has been a vast, deso-late and uninhabited region. Special-ists and generalists will benefit fromthe book’s wonderful achievement inpresenting the history of exploring,working and living in the Arctic as amulti-layered relationship. Readersof this journal will certainly appreci-

Book Reviews 307

ate the author’s coverage of earlymodern mapmaking and the numer-ous voyages made in search a north-erly passage around North America. A remarkable collection of illustra-tions, from an indigenous carved mapto a twenty-first century NASA visu-alization of changing ice levels overthe past four decades, all combine toenhance the ways we see and under-stand the high north. Hatfield mustbe applauded for examining both theingenuity and creativity arising fromhuman activity in the region, as wellas giving equal time to the remark-able destruction and devastation of it. Michael DoveSt. Thomas, Ontario

Eric Hoops (ed.) DeutschesSchiffahrtsagrchiv 36/37 /2013/2014. Bremerhaven: DeutschesSchiffahrtsmuseum and OceanumVerlag, www.dsm. museum, 2015.415 pp., illustrations, notes, bibliog-raphies, English summaries. Euro23,50 €, hardback; ISBN 798-3-86927-138-5.

Eric Hoops (ed.) DeutschesSchiffahrtsarchiv 38/2015. Bremer-haven: Deutsches Schiffahrtsmuseum and Oceanum Verlag, www.dsm.museum, 2016. 391 pp., illustrations,notes, bibliographies, English sum-maries. Euro 23,50 €, hardback;ISBN 978-3-86927-038-8.

The German Maritime Museum inBremerhaven has been producing itshandsome “German NauticalArchive” for forty years. Publishedannually since 1978, this “ScientificYearbook of the German MaritimeMuseum,” as it is formally known,began appearing as a refereed journalin 2004. The present two volumescontinue the rich scholarly traditionof examining, celebrating, preserving

and re-assessing the great maritimehistory of Germany, and indeed ofCentral Europe. The resources of theMuseum itself embrace not only ar-chives and technical laboratories, butfloating exhibits (including coastal,riverine and deep-sea vessels), andgraphic artifacts as diverse as themediaeval “Bremen Cog” (1380) andthe control panel of Germany’s first nuclear-powered vessel Otto Hahn(1968). The value which Germanyplaces on its cultural traditions can beseen by the fact that the Museum wasdesigned by architect Hans Scharoun(1893-1972), famous, among otherachievements, for his design of theBerlin Philharmonic concert hall. Hewas a proponent of the so-called ‘or-ganic philosophy’ of architecturewhich sought to blend the human andtechnical needs of site, space andstructure, in order to form an organicwhole. The visitor to both concerthall and museum feels the effect ofthat blend. The German MaritimeMuseum, in short, is harmonic. Themuseum is a national treasure, and itsAnnual reflects that.

These Annuals embody the high-est scholarly standards while docu-menting an uncommonly eclecticrange of themes and issues: every-thing from marine archaeology andengineering, ship construction, art,literature, and social and politicalhistory. What unifies these contribu-tions is their focus on the seas andseafaring. As an aid to further dia-logue and international research, eacharticle includes the full postal addressof the contributor, and a brief—occasionally very brief—summary inEnglish. Many articles are supportedby obviously very expensive colourphotographs and technical drawings.

The first volume under review—for the years 2013/2014—embracesthe typically wide range of themes. These run from an examination oftides as understood in the literature of


antiquity, to the development of highseas fishing vessels in the nineteenthand twentieth centuries on the south-ern Baltic coast, to the restoration ofBaltic seaside resorts and marinas inthe 1990s, and a study of the MANhigh-speed diesel engines once in-stalled in the torpedo boats of Ger-many’s Second World War Kriegs-marine. The value of the latter studylay in possible applications to themodern Federal German Navy.

Clear and graphic communicationhas been central to the success ofthese volumes. Occasionally, how-ever, good communication has seem-ed to be overridden by an overween-ing sense of scholarly style. Thisfirst volume, for example, is not acasual read. It is a book for deeply-dyed specialists. For example, thevolume opens with a 100-page dis-quisition on “Types and Contents ofTidal Analyses in the Literature ofAntiquity.” With its closely-arguedtext—and 651 footnotes—it is not forthe faint-hearted. It is written in whatsocial critic Rudolf Walter Leonhardthad described in the 1960s as ‘profes-sor German’ (Professorendeutsch):convoluted and opaque. The sum-mary in English gives some of theflavour: “the concepts and concep-tions of the tides could moreoverserve as an instrument of the — atleast latently negative — cultural-anthropological assessment of thegroups of the population confrontedwith the phenomenon of the tides.” The author himself summarizes ahalf-dozen characteristics of how oneviewed tides in antiquity. He notes inantiquity the beginnings of a scien-tific way of viewing tidal phenom-ena; observers of the period saw sin-gle causes of what were in fact multi-causal synergies; their explanations,he points out, were couched in bothpagan and Christian mind-sets; whatsatisfied their ‘scientific’ understand-ing seems not to have caused any

problems for ‘religious’ views; but inthe final analysis, these nascent ideasabout tides sometimes disconcertedthe indigenous populations in antiq-uity whenever they confronted newrealities.

Author Torst Capelle’s “Agolden boat and its context”—anexamination of a golden charm brace-let discovered in 1797 in what is nowRomania—treats his readers to an 89-page abridged version of the bookwhich he had published on the sub-ject in 1994. Whereas his book couldprovide only black-and-white photosof the ‘golden chain of miniatures,’the article can now include colourphotographs—all of them for the firsttime. Twenty-eight impressive colourplates, many of them full-page, heregrace a text that has been updated bythe inclusion of the most recent re-search. The chain, which is nowheld in the Antiquities Department ofthe Kunsthistorisches Museum inVienna, contains some 14 medallionsfrom the Roman era, as well as four‘charms’ of Germanic/Teutonic ori-gin from the period of the ‘Migrationof Peoples” (Völkerwanderung)which occurred between the fourthcentury and the sixth century A.D.Taking pride of place in the chain(and in the article) is the largest itemin the collection, a manned boat ingold. As the author observes, thegolden chain is an important objetd’art that reflects the complex cul-tural interrelationships throughoutthe early Teutonic world.

The second volume under re-view—for the year 2015—is an alto-gether different work. It is a consis-tently well-written and more conge-nial collection of papers that appealto specialist and non-specialist alike. It runs from the arcane (timber raftingin antiquity as seen by Roman legalspecialists), to a ‘who-dunnit’ exami-nation of a nineteenth-century crime,to the stranding of the passenger

Book Reviews 309

vessel Hohenzollern in Sardinia in1908, to an 83-page reflection onlate-mediaeval ship construction andtrade in the Baltic (with 311 foot-notes). The volume continues its richfare with Part I of “Traditional Sail-making from the 17th to 20th centu-ries” (Part II to be continued in thevolume for 2017), and a study of two‘forgotten’ types of boat unique tothe Southern Baltic (Quatzen undPolten).

As if this were not rich enough,the volume ends with an article onthe painting Der Mönch am Meer(The Monk by the Sea) by GermanRomantic landscape painter CasparDavid Friedrich (1774-1840). It, too,is a detective story, for prior to itslatest restoration, Friedrich’s paintinghad been neglected, abused, re-touched and overpainted such that itno longer reflected the painter’s orig-inal intentions. Infrared examinationand restoration led to what authorSabina Cibura describes as ‘particu-larly spectacular insights’ into thepainting, and its relationships withother paintings and drawings byFriedrich. In short, viewers who sawthe reconditioned ‘Monk by the Sea’in Berlin’s Alte Nationalgalerie inJanuary 2016 discovered for the firsttime in the painting not only the exis-tence of a long-hidden ship, but afresh way of interpreting a uniquemoment in Friedrich’s philosophy ofnature. Sumptuous, detailed illustra-tions and diagrams, both in colourand black-and white, accompany eachof the articles.

Over the years, editor Eric Hoopshas rendered sterling professionalservice to the international nauticalresearch community. The volumesthat have appeared under his hand, asevery editor can understand, are theresult of the interplay of many variet-ies of talent, teamwork and travail.May his leadership continue.

Michael Hadley Victoria, British Columbia

Rick James. West Coast Wrecks andOther Maritime Tales. Madeira Park,BC: Raincoast Chronicles 21. Har-bour Publishing. www.harbourpublishing.com, 2011. 128 pp., map,illustrations, bibliography, index.CDN $24.95, paper; ISBN 978-1-55017-545-5.

British Columbia’s Pacific coastfeatures a robust maritime history,and stories recalling vessels that wereshipwrecked throughout the regionand local seafaring traditions havethrilled and entertained the publicsince the nineteenth century. In WestCoast Wrecks and Other MaritimeTales, author Rick James presents acompilation of shipwrecks that oc-curred along the BC coast over thepast 140 years while offering a lo-cal’s insight into the area’s uniquemaritime history. Although Jamesclaims that the book is not intendedto be an all-inclusive source whendiscussing BC’s shipwrecks, thereader will find that the ships he men-tions and their associated historiesprovide an excellent and encompass-ing summary of the province’s mari-time past.

From nineteenth-century woodensailing vessels to mid-twentieth-cen-tury steel packet steamers, Jameschronologically presents the historiesof almost every conceivable type ofshipping that traveled Canada’s west-ern coast. Considering that each ves-sel’s story occupies only a few pages,the book provides a concise overviewof British Columbia’s maritime pastthrough which readers can under-stand the economic and wartime con-ditions that resulted in the develop-ment of specific vessel types. Insome cases, such as Canada’sinvolvement in the First World War,


these conditions actually resulted inthe overproduction of ships, which iswhy so many vessels were ultimatelyabandoned along the region’s shore-lines. The remains of some ship-wrecks discussed in the book stillremain undiscovered, adding a layerof mystery to their respective stories.

The author has an obvious pas-sion for BC’s maritime history alongwith extensive experience with boththe subject matter and the people whoshare his interest. James writes wellwith a lively style, but while he doesprovide a list of selected sources andnames of various individuals whowere consulted, there are no foot-notes or citations throughout the nar-rative. This would indicate that hisbook is intended for the general pub-lic rather than academic researchers.

In addition to recounting thehistories of various ships that havebeen lost along the BC coast, Jamesalso focuses on the contributions ofdiver Fred Rogers, who has not onlyauthored books on BC shipwrecksbut has discovered and explored sev-eral of these vessels. While readerswho live outside the province may beunfamiliar with these explorations,James attributes much of the modernknowledge about the area’s ship-wrecks to Rogers’ accomplishments. He suggests that Rogers’ work wasdriven by a desire for historicalknowledge, highlighting the impor-tance of leaving underwater artifactsundisturbed. Wreck sites are non-renewable resources that can be usedas a means to educate the public, ifthey are not damaged.

West Coast Wrecks also includesa brief history of the developmentand use of the Easthope marine en-gine, the first gasoline engine pro-duced in British Columbia. Thesetypes of engines were primarily usedon fishing boats throughout the earlytwentieth century, but few have beenpreserved. James suggests that this

engine was a distinct part of BC’smaritime cultural identity but doesnot compare their construction andefficiency with similar engines usedelsewhere during the same time pe-riod to allow the reader to appreciateits uniqueness.

West Coast Wrecks and OtherMaritime Tales provides an excellentoverview of British Columbia’s mari-time past since the 1860s and shouldappeal to readers who not only havean interest in shipwrecks but alsohistory in general. By means of aseries of concise narratives, Jamesallows the reader to situate specificvessels within the province’s broadermaritime history. The book alsoserves as a great introduction to themaritime traditions of this region andmay serve as a platform for readers toperform further research that is morefocused to their own particular inter-ests.

James D. Moore IIISterling, Virginia

John Jordan (ed.) Warship 2016.London and New York, NY: Conway( B l o o m s b u r y P u b l i s h i n g ) ,www.bloomsbury.com, 2016. 208pp., illustrations, maps, tables, notes,sources. US $60.00, hardback; ISBN978-1-8448-6326-6. (E-book avail-able.)

What makes Warship 2016 differentfrom previous issues is the hard coverformat with the designs and notesprinted directly on it, rather than acloth binding with paper dustcover.Otherwise, it continues to provide awide variety of both historic andcurrent information, a formula itsreaders expect. As stated on the backcover, Warship is devoted to the de-sign, development and service historyof the world’s combat ships.

Book Reviews 311

The first three items in this edi-tion describe in detail three classes of1930s warships: the French colonialsloops of the Bouganville class, byJohn Jordan, the similarly-purposedItalian sloop Eritrea, by MicheleCosentino, and the Japanese Asashioclass of powerful destroyers, by HansLengerer. All three studies includeelevations, plans and excellent photo-graphs. The operational histories ofthe eight Bouganvilles that were com-pleted and the Eritrea are recounted;the latter serving in both Italian and,later, French service (as FrancisGarnier). The article on the Asashioclass discusses how Japanesedestroyer design was influenced bythe capsizing of the torpedo boatTomozuru while running trials in1934 and the “Fourth Fleet Incident”of 1935 which respectively revealeddeficiencies in stability and strengthin Japanese warships (see Warship2011 and 2013). The Asashio class ismeticulously described with plansand photographs. All ten units werelost in action during the war in thePacific. Later in the book, there is anarticle by Vladimir Yakubov andRichard Worth about another class ofthe same period, the Soviet Fugasclass of useful and versatile smallminesweepers.

The major article on modern shiptypes describes the U. S. Navy’s rev-olutionary Freedom and Independ-ence classes. These are designatedLittoral Combat Ships (LCS) and area totally new type of naval vessel. Author Conrad Waters includes inthis category the modern corvettesused by several European navieswhich would be useful in coastalwaters. Also of technical interest,Peter Marland describes the develop-ment of Action Information Organisa-tion in the post-Second World WarRoyal Navy. This follows up on hisarticle in the previous issue on Royal

Navy weapons and fire control duringthe same period.

Turning to historic events, EnricoCernuschi and Vincent P. O’Haraconclude a two-part account of navalwar in the Adriatic in the First WorldWar. In 1917-18, the Austro-Hungar-ian fleet was pretty well boxed inand, in spite of good performance byindividual units, was not able to domuch. Then Stephen Dent investi-gates the use of the old French battle-ship Courbet as a target for “bounc-ing bombs”, such as those used tobreach the Ruhr Dam. These neverreached a satisfactory conclusion. On the lighter side, Richard Wrighthas researched the involvement, orrather non-involvement of the Chi-nese Navy’s flagship Hai Chi in therevolution of 1911 which saw the endof the Chinese Empire. After attend-ing King George V’s coronation re-view, the ship was kept cruising be-tween England and North Americauntil events at home settled down.Perhaps this was because the loyaltyof the crew was uncertain.

No Warship annual would becomplete without examining someunusual nineteenth-century design. The French and Russian navies haveprovided the most interesting exam-ples and this year it is the Frenchcoast defence ship Tempête, a small,slow, monitor launched in 1876. Asister ship Vengeur is mentioned butnot the similar Tonnerre and Fulmin-ant. This article by Philippe Caressecould easily apply to the wholegroup. Stephen McLaughlin has notcontinued his accounts of early Rus-sian ironclads in this issue, choosing,instead, to amplify some of the dis-cussions he and William Schleihaufdeveloped in their analysis of theDewar brothers’ Jutland, The NavalStaff Appreciation. (See review inThe Northern Mariner/Le marin dunord, Vol. XXVII No.1). He givesexamples of divisional tactics that


might have been employed at threecritical stages of the battle. This iswhat Vice Admiral Sturdee advo-cated, but the Commander-in-Chief,Admiral Jellicoe, firmly rejected it.Conclusion? It would have beenrisky.

Reviews of the year’s nauticalbooks wind up this volume alongwith Warship Gallery, actually ashort article on the First World Warbattleship HMS Colossus.

C. Douglas Maginley, Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia

Klaus-Peter Kiedel & Horst Koper-schmidt. Rund um Steubenhöft undAlte Liebe. Mit dem PressefotografenKonrad Nonnast in den CuxhavenerHäfen in den 1950er und 1960erJahren. Bremerhaven, Germany.Deutsches Schiffahrtsmuseum andOceanum Verlag, www.dsm.museum,2014. 96 pp., illustrations. Euro 19,90€, hardback; ISBN 978-3-86927-084-5.

Klaus-Peter Kiedel. Menschen,Schiffe, Ladungen. Mit dem foto-grafen Walter Lüden im HamburgerHafen in den 1950er und 1960erJahren. Bremerhaven, Germany.Deutsches Schiffahrtsmuseum andOceanum Verlag, www.dsm.museum,2015. 95 pp., illustrations. Euro 19,90€, hardback; ISBN 978-3-86927-085-2.

Klaus-Peter Kiedel und ArnoldKudas. Dampfer, Kümos undContainerschiffe. Fotografien amNord-Ostsee-Kanal von 1960 bis2015. Bremerhaven, Germany.Deutsches Schiffahrtsmuseum andOceanum Verlag, www.dsm.museum,2016. 95 pp., illustrations. Euro19.90 €, hardback; ISBN 978-3-86927-086-9.

The German Maritime Museum pro-duces a steady flow of excellent pub-lications, three of which, on photog-raphy, ports and shipping, are re-viewed here.

The German photographerKonrad Nonnast (1919- 1992) tookup professional photography when hewas well into his twenties after serv-ing in the German Navy during theSecond World War. Once the gunsfell silent, with his country in ruins,Nonnast found employment at a ship-yard in the port of Cuxhaven on theeastern shores of the North Sea. Acouple of years later he switched toradio electronics. It is not quite clearwhen he made his career change andturned to newspaper photography, butby the mid-1950s, Konrad Nonnasthad become a well known reporterwho toured the Cuxhaven area on hismotorbike.

Until well in to the 1960s, hestuck with large format cameras using6 x 9 centimetre negatives. When hethought the time was right, heswitched to standard-sized film, thatis, 24 x 36 millimetre. But that wasmore than enough of that modernstuff for Nonnast. He continuedshooting in black and white, since itwould take quite some time beforepress photography entered the realmof colour.

In the 1950s and 60s, Nonnastdocumented the development of mari-time affairs in Cuxhaven, includingthe mass emigration to Canada (1948-1950) and Australia (1954-1962) thatcharacterized post-war shipping. Inthe second half of the 60s, masstransport took to the air, leaving thestately liners to people with time towaste. Nonnast focused on maritimeactivities in the port of Cuxhaven,capturing ocean liners, ferries, tugs,cargo steamers, tankers, maintenanceand repair at ship yards and wharfs,quayside storage houses, tankers, andthe handling of crates, boxes, barrels

Book Reviews 313

and all sorts of cargo in the pre-con-tainer era. The majority of the photo-graphs offer a fascinating portrayal ofmaritime life of the period.

Walter Lüden (1914-1996), acontemporary of Nonnast, was a self-taught photographer. He took upphotography while still in his teens,starting with a so called “Box” cam-era. After the Second World War, heturned professional and worked for anewspaper magazine using Leica andHasselblad cameras in the port city ofHamburg, at the river Elbe. Duringthe war, the city was nearly bombedout of existence but Lüden managedto keep himself afloat in the earlystage of Allied occupation by takingportrait pictures of English andAmerican officers. While document-ing the damaged cities in the north ofGermany, he witnessed the recon-struction of Hamburg and the eco-nomic miracle of West Germany. Within a couple of years working inthe area, Lüden became a part of portlife. His iconic photographs mirror aphotographer's eye. His dynamicimages illustrate the hustle and bustleof ship's and quayside activities. Aware of the dangers of movingcranes, trains and trucks, Lüden keptan open eye for interesting shots, notonly ships, cargoes and quays, butalso the denizens of this port environ-ment: sailors, dock workers, ship-builders, truck drivers, agents and ofcourse the specta tors ; theHamburger—the people, not thefood. By the time Lüden left Ham-burg in 1965 to live on an island inthe North of Germany, the ContainerRevolution was in full swing. Ro-ro(roll-on/roll-off cargo loading) hadbeen introduced and on the docks, aselsewhere, the times, they were a-changing. Full marks to Klaus-PeterKiedel for publishing the outstandingwork of photographer Walter Lüden.

To get to the port of Hamburg,ships must pass Cuxhaven, and on

occasion ships call at both ports. Konrad Nonnast in Cuxhaven andWalter Lüden in Hamburg sometimesphotographed the same ships in theirrespective ports. Among them werethe liners Italia (Nonnast p. 15,Lüden p. 80; an almost identical pho-tograph) and Hanseatic en route fromHamburg to New York.

The third book contains a varietyof photographs of shipping in theNord-Ostsee-Kanal between the Bal-tic port of Kiel and the port of Bruns-büttel near Cuxhaven during the sametime-frame as the previous books. The images, taken over the years byamateur photographers, illustrate inboth black and white and colour, thewide range of ship types passingthrough this canal. Although thepictures lack the photographic qualityof those by Nonnast and Lüden, theystill offer a good insight into the busyshipping history of this narrowstretch of water during the 1950s and60s.

Jacob Bart Hak Leiden, The Netherlands

John M. Lillard. Playing War: War-gaming and U.S. Preparations forWorld War II. Lincoln, NE: PotomacBooks, University of Nebraska Press,www.potomacbooksinc.com, 2016.xiii+210 pp., illustrations, tables,notes, bibliography, appendices. US$39.95, cloth; ISBN 978-1-61234-773-8. (E-book available.)

This work is an examination of theinterwar era war games carried out bythe United States Naval War College,designed to act as an “inquiry into thebehavior of a military organization”and address the college’s place in theformation of naval leaders and tacticsbefore the Second World War (3). Following an introduction describingthe book’s purpose and related


historiographies, the text examinesthe students, instructors, facilities,and gaming process. Once this back-ground information is covered, thethree phases of interwar war gamingare examined in their own chapters. The remainder of the work consistsof the conclusion, three appendixes,chapter notes, and a bibliography.

The introduction underlines theabsence of a proper examination ofthe Naval War College’s interwarwar games through a detailed surveyof related historiographies and dataregarding War College graduates inthe Second World War. Lillard feelsthat the tangential and slightly dis-missive way other historians haveviewed the interwar activities of theNaval War College in the context ofthe Second World War as un-deserved. He follows a rather de-tailed historiographical analysis withan outline of his work, describing thepurpose of the various chapters andthe logic behind their creation. Thefirst two focus on the student players,instructors, and general war gameprocess. Within these chapters,Lillard notes the current overempha-sis on the Admirals in charge of theCollege, but holds that the Captainsleading each section and the studentswho would become future instructorswere the most influential in terms ofmolding the classes and advocatingnew ideas (30-33). The overview ofthe games themselves is well laid out,with blueprints, photographs, andcharts supplied to help one visualizethe experience of the roughly dozenwar games carried out by each seniorclass.

The here main chapters examinethe War College within Lillard’sthree phases of the interwar period:the Early Phase of 1919-1927, theMiddle Phase of 1928-1934, and theLate Phase of 1935-1941. He de-scribes the first phase as a period ofgrowth, where the War College’s

influence expanded. Mahanian theo-ries and tactics are still quite evidentin the battleship-heavy war games,but a clear and gradual acceptance ofnewer ideas, most notably regardingthe use of aircraft, was beginning totake hold. The middle years saw themost innovative leaps forward, withthe casting off of Mahanian ideals infavour of experiments with new tac-tics, technologies, and concepts. Wargame data was collected and analyzedagainst data provided by previousgames and real-life fleet problems tohelp with examining facets in thelong term. Finally, insightful cri-tiques from the referees helped fur-ther shape the advancement of bothgames and theoretical thinking. Inthe late pre-war years, the War Col-lege entered a period of “increasingmaturity and relevance,” evolvingtheir games to deal with long-term,total war scenarios with allied powersand political considerations, an as-pect that would be strikingly similarto the reality of the looming war(112, 121, 126). While Lillard doesnote that the applicability of the wargames to real life was questionable,the environment helped offer a quan-titative approach which fleet prob-lems lacked, and built a tight commu-nity of leaders with shared experi-ences (133-137).

In terms of possible improve-ments for future editions, the occa-sional use of more obscure wordssuch as “lacuna” and “fulminated”tend to throw off a reader’s pace, andcould easily be replaced with theirmore well-known synonyms to im-prove the flow of the text. An appen-dix regarding wartime and post-wargames by the Naval War College andhow they compared to their interwarpredecessors would also be interest-ing, especially given the use of a1950s era photo within the main text(111).

Book Reviews 315

All in all, this work is an interest-ing study into an often overlookedpart of interwar naval history. Ithelps shed light on some of the moreunusual training received by futurenaval leaders of the Second WorldWar, and into the testing bed formany of the ideas, tactics, and tech-nologies that would come to the forein the 1940s. Playing War success-fully bridges an interwar gap in navalhistoriography, and would be a usefulresearch tool for those interested inthe academic side of US naval officerpreparations for the Second WorldWar.Charles Ross Patterson IIYorktown, Virginia

Dwight R. Messimer. Eleven Monthsto Freedom. A German POW’s Un-likely Escape from Siberia in 1915.Annapolis, MD: Naval InstitutePress, www.nip.org, 2016, ix+197pp., illustrations, maps, notes, bibli-ography, index. US $29.95, cloth;ISBN 978-1-68247-065-7. (E-bookavailable.)

The stories of prisoners of war(POWs) escaping from captivity inthe Second World War are legion; forexample, “The Great Escape” fromStalag Luft 3 in March, 1944 hasbeen the subject of several books anda famous movie. Lost to time are thechronicles of First World War POWescapees, which makes Dwight R.Messimer’s Eleven Months to Free-dom. A German POW’s UnlikelyEscape from Siberia in 1915 one ofthe rarest stories in escape history.

Erich Killinger was an ImperialGerman Navy midshipman at theoutbreak of World War One. He wasknown for his risk-taking ability andoften pushed the edge of therulebook. At the beginning of thewar, Killinger joined the fledglingGerman Naval Air Arm, and after

training, assigned to the Baltic Frontas an aircraft observer. On 6 April1915, after a combat mission over theImperial Russian city of Libau,Killinger’s engine malfunctioned,forcing him and his pilot to crash atsea. The Russians rescued them andthe two Germans immediately be-came prisoners of war.

Killinger’s time as a RussianPOW and his subsequent successfulescape is the heart of the narrative. He was first held in various prisonsand then, along with other Germansand Austrians captured by the Rus-sians, was transported to Siberia viatrain. Killinger and three fellowprisoners jumped from the train anddespite bitterly cold weather, he man-aged to make his way to Manchuriaand then-neutral China. He contactedGerman consulates and after convinc-ing the local German authorities ofhis story, Killinger was put aboard aliner destined for the then-neutralUSA. On the journey, he madefriends (and possibly enjoyed a ship-board romance with a married womanwho was a fellow passenger). FromSan Francisco, he took a trans-conti-nental train to New York. Thesewere the safest parts of his escape;the most difficult part came next. The British Royal Navy had imposeda very effective blockade of the Euro-pean coast and all ships approachingEurope were stopped and the passen-gers and crewmembers searched andquestioned. Killinger managed todisguise himself as a deckhand on aship bound for also-neutral Norway,passing the British blockade, arrivingin Norway, then travelling to pro-German Sweden, and finally returnedto Germany. He returned to GermanNaval Aviation, wrote a book abouthis exploits, and served to the end ofthe First World War.

Killinger’s post-World War Onecareer was typical of many Germans;he served as a sales representative


and traveled throughout the world. His book on his escape was reprintedin 1934. Then, in 1938, he joined theGerman Luftwaffe (Air Force)reserve. This was the only careerpath for a former aviator; HermannGoering, Commander-in-Chief of theLuftwaffe, declared that he had solecontrol of ALL military air assets.The German Navy had no air force ofits own, although Luftwaffe unitswere attached to the German Navy. Killinger had no choice—if hewanted to be part of aviation—it wasthe Luftwaffe or nothing.

Ultimately, Killinger becameCommandant of a POW camp—anatural choice for a man who hadbeen interrogated by the enemy andmanaged to escape. After the SecondWorld War, Killinger was tried forwar crimes based on abuse of prison-ers. He was found guilty of thecrimes charged, served a short prisonsentence and was released in 1948. He again rejoined the business worldfrom 1950 until his retirement in1963 and died in May, 1977.

Messimer’s narrative is fascinat-ing. His primary sources areKillinger’s two books as well as con-temporary military reports. He fullydescribes Killinger’s career and theescape. Especially noteworthy is thedescription of the international Ger-man “pipeline” established for escap-ees. The narrative provides muchcolour—the network of forgers forpassports, Mexican dollars for theescapees, Killinger’s attempts todisguise himself as a merchant sea-man, the precise efforts by Germanconsular officers to get Germans backto their country—all are the stuff ofgreat drama.

Messimer’s writing is clear andconcise. The narrative does not flagand holds the reader’s attention. Very good photographs from the au-thor’s collection bolster the narrativeand the maps provided make clear the

various locations involved. The au-thor’s use of primary sources issound. Further, the narrative illus-trates early Russo-German conflict inthe First World War—a subject notalways dealt with by Western writerson the Great War.

In many ways, Killinger’s escapecan be compared to Franz vonWerra’s escape from British captivityin the Second World War. Killingerescaped from a train in Siberia infreezing weather, made his waythrough several neutral nations andreturned to Germany. Von Werrawas transported to Canada, jumpedfrom a train in the dead of winter,found a boat and crossed the ice-strewn St. Lawrence River andslipped into the then-neutral USA. From there, he found his way toSouth America and ultimately Ger-many. (Von Werra’s story was re-counted in the book and the movieThe One That Got Away.) ElevenMonths to Freedom. A GermanPOW’s Unlikely Escape from Siberiain 1915 is a very entertaining readand is highly recommended. It wouldmake a great movie or TV-miniseries.

Robert L. ShoopColorado Springs, Colorado

Robert E. Mullins (John Beeler, ed.)The Transformation of British andAmerican Naval Policy in the Pre-Dreadnought Era: Ideas, Culture andStrategy. New York, NY: PalgraveMacmillan, www.palgrave.com,2016. xxiii+328 pp., illustrations,tables, notes, bibliography, index.UK £66.99, cloth; ISBN 978-3-319-32036-6. (E-book available.)

This work began in 2000 as theKing’s College London doctoral dis-sertation of Robert E. Mullins. Threeyears later, Professor John Beeler ofthe University of Alabama ap-

Book Reviews 317

proached Mullins to produce “a vast-ly transformed scholarly contributionto the fields of political science, na-val history, and strategic studies”(xvii). Mullins and Beeler (identifiedas both a ‘co-author’ and an editor),are both absolutely correct that thepolicy-process leading to the NavalDefence Act of 1889 on the Britishside, and the move towards a BlueWater battlefleet navy by the UnitedStates around the same time, wascomplex, involving a host of domes-tic and foreign, internal and externalfactors. The civil-military causalchain is highlighted; neither politicalnor naval leaders called the shotsexclusively of the others’ influence. Few military historians today can getaway with simplistic nuts-and-bolts,armchair-general analyses whichJohn Keegan famously addressed as‘the deficiencies of military history’in The Face of Battle (1976). Thisincluded “the history of strategicdoctrine…[which] suffers markedlyfrom that weakness endemic to thestudy of ideas, the failure to demon-strate connection between thoughtand action” (29).

This is the crux of the matter inThe Transformation of British andAmerican Naval Policy in the Pre-Dreadnought Era. After muchwringing of sources, including asharp attack on Arthur Marder, andreferences to political science, cul-tural studies, strategic and securitystudies, international relations andthe like, the author insists that Britishnaval policy, during the 1880s inparticular, was based on “strategicideas which were inspired by [select]examples drawn from naval historyand which were later institutionalisedand implemented through the lobby-ing efforts of naval officers” (32,original emphasis). For this, we canthank professors of naval history—namely Professor John Laughton atKing’s College London—for laying

the foundations of [correct] Britishand American naval (and presumablyalso foreign) policies.

Both the book and Mullins’ origi-nal dissertation tend to rely heavilyupon the work — sometimes theassumptions — of others. On the onehand, he argues that there was neverreally a foreign threat emanatingfrom France and Russia (virtuallythroughout the nineteenth-century);their navies, singly or combined,were second-rate at best and couldhave been defeated at any time by theRoyal Navy—the margin of qualita-tive and quantitative superiority overall rivals was that great. On the otherhand, it was foolish and irresponsiblefor mere economy-minded Britishpoliticians to dictate the force levelsof British naval and imperial powerthroughout the Victorian era. Therecould never be enough ironclads orbattleships, particularly of the largestclass possible. Yet many other histo-rians have concluded that succeedingBritish ministries rarely cut navalspending when convinced the threatwas real; and the nature of that naval‘threat’ was far more complicatedthan simply who had the largestbattlefleet of first-rates. Would Brit-ish seapower be able to operateagainst an enemy’s fortified coastlineeffectively or not? What about thedefence of imperial trade and colo-nies worldwide? As even OscarParkes noted in 1970, the NorthbrookAdmiralty, for example, had to con-sider attacks by swarms of torpedoboats, not just the calibre of guns andarmour thicknesses of rival powers’ironclads. Mullins quotes fromParkes a letter by Admiral Sir CooperKey (First Naval Lord) to AdmiralSir Geoffrey Phipps Hornby, datedDecember 1884, emphasising “Ishould have no fear whatever withFrance and Russia now, so far as ourNavy is concerned” (dissertation 47;Parkes, British Battleships, 328). But


in that same letter Key also stated, “Ihave always deprecated asking for avery large lump sum for shipbuildingpurposes—it will only induce otherNations to make another start.” Inother words, naval power was alwaysrelative, and foreign navies carefullycalculated Britain’s ability to harmwithout fear of injury as well. It wassuch ‘defensive supremacy’ that dom-inated Gladstone’s and Salisbury’sthinking — as well as that of Russia,for example. Anything else tendedtowards interventionist foreign poli-cies, arms races and finally, wars. What’s remarkable is that this sophis-ticated and perceptive logic was alsoshared by British naval professionalssuch as Key.

Citing Andrew Lambert, Profes-sor of Naval History at King’s Col-lege London, the authors maintainthat “the exploitation of British navalsupremacy [was] the logicaloutgrowth of a forward offensivenaval strategy.” This went beyond aclose blockade of enemy naval bases(and port cities) to actually bombard-ing them to rubble, suggesting that abattleship could go anywhere and doanything — something few in theAdmiralty or in America seem tohave believed. Thus, Mullins in hisdissertation was baffled that “Mahanwas curiously silent on the offensivepotential that followed from com-mand of the sea, examples for whichappeared throughout British experi-ences with global warfare betweenthe seventeenth and nineteenth centu-ries” (203; Transformation, p. 284,reduces this to “the eighteenth andnineteenth centuries”).

Perhaps this was because it wasnot so clear cut how effective com-mand of the sea was in winning warsagainst land powers—the AmericanCivil War being a large, fresh exam-ple closer to home. The Union block-ade and amphibious operations couldonly accomplish so much; assaults on

fortified ports could backfire, as withCharleston in April 1863. Althoughthe authors refer to the Civil Warexperience as contemporary proof ofthe primacy of an offensive policy,Vice-Admiral and naval historianPhilip Colomb was actually verycareful about when and how attackson territory from the sea might beconducted, even after attaining fullcommand of the sea. “In all attacksmade over sea against territory, weshall note one almost universal rule,”he noted in 1899. “No attacks ofmagnitude are ever known directfrom a distant base…,” the best illus-tration of that being the operations ofthe Union Navy during the AmericanCivil War (Naval Warfare, 1899, p.225). Colomb then went on to ob-serve that during the Franco-PrussianWar it was “well understood by theFrench Government in 1870 as ever ithad been in former days, that thenavy alone was practically powerlessto make territorial attacks, and thatwhether ships were steam ‘battle-ships’ or sailing ‘line-of-battle ships’they did not in themselves representthe proper force for conducting terri-torial attacks” (427). Finally, whenanalysing the Spanish-American War,Colomb concluded “Attacks on terri-tory by the fleet alone, except by wayof set bombardment for merely puni-tive or destructive purposes, are notnow, any more than they were twohundred years ago, the proper objectsfor a navy alone to carry out” (Ap-pendix, xxii). It should be added herethat the Royal Navy was distinctlyunable to force the defences of themain Russian naval base at Cronstadt,guarding St. Petersburg, throughoutthe Crimean War. The main, decisivetheatre of war remained the costlySiege of Sevastopol.

This book is asking readers tobuy into quite a bit. Indeed, asKeegan warned long ago, military(and naval) historians tend to “accept

Book Reviews 319

the conventions within which theyare working”. Notions such as ‘Brit-ish naval supremacy’ or ‘Pax Britan-nica’ become axiomatic, even tauto-logically so. Thus, “what has beencalled the ‘rhetoric of the past’—thatinventory of assumptions, and usagesthrough which the [military and na-val] historian makes his professionalapproach to the past—is notonly…much more strong and inflexi-ble than the rhetoric of almost allother sorts of history, but it is sostrong, so inflexible and above all sotime-hallowed that it exerts virtualpowers of dictatorship over the mili-tary [and naval] historian’s mind”(Face of Battle, 36).

This reviewer recommends thatpotential readers consider alternativeexplanations of at least British navalpolicy during this period, such as C.I. Hamilton’s The Making of theModern Admiralty: British NavalPolicy-Making, 1805-1927 (Cam-bridge University Press, 2011). Itoffers more insightful analysis (with-out the need to beat up poor ArthurMarder). Naval historians, Hamiltonwarns, must be careful with “themyt h s o f c o h e r e n c e a n ddoctrine…one must not try to sim-plify the inconsistency of the past,and falsely attribute the kind of ratio-nal planning now seen as fundamen-tal to good governance” (1). Hencethe Naval Defence Act of 1889 in hisview was blindsided by ‘matérielfactors’ and even these technologicaldiscussions could be “dangerouslyfocused”. This included Laughton’sarticle of 1884 on the state of thenavy which “dealt largely with thequestion of ship numbers.” Perhapsthe ‘historical school’ was decisive ininfluencing naval policy, perhaps not. Conservative MP John Colomb (theVice-Admiral’s younger brother)received “a chilly reception in theChamber”, notes Hamilton, “when herose to urge the formulation of the

strategic principles underlying na-tional defence” (211, 209). Mean-while it was largely business as usualin the Admiralty. As such, the realstrength of both the original disserta-tion by Mullins and this publishedversion lies not in the variousassumptions and agendas themselves,not entirely convincing in their inter-pretation of historical evidence, butin its new and useful history of ‘or-ganisational culture’ to support—notnecessarily supplant—‘policy-and-operations’ narratives.

Howard J. FullerWolverhampton, England

Vincent P. O’Hara and Leonard R.Heinz. Clash of Fleets: Naval Battlesof the Great War, 1914-1918. Anna-polis, MD: Naval Institute Press,www.usni.org, 2017. ix+372 pp,illustrations, maps, notes, appendix,indices. US $34.95, cloth; ISBN 978-1-68247-008-4.

For most people, the first image thatpops into the mind at the mention ofthe First World War is an endlessslaughter in the trenches, linked tonames like the Somme or Passchen-daele. The war at sea is a differentstory. The naval version of the FirstWorld War is usually presented in arather limited form. Invariably thehistory is laid out either as a discus-sion of German submarine operationsand their attempt to strangle GreatBritain, leading into the 1917 politi-cal ramifications of submarine opera-tions and the entrance of the UnitedStates into the war; or, alternately,the naval history of the First WorldWar focuses rather myopically on thegreat surface battle of Jutland on 31May to 1 June 1916. This ignores theother 143 wartime surface battles thatspanned the globe. While none werenecessarily as large as Jutland, col-


lectively these battles played an im-portant role in shaping the war.

The vastness of this surface warhas virtually never been discussed byhistorians, until now. VincentO’Hara, an independent scholar andthe 2015 Naval Institute Press Authorof the Year for his book Torch: NorthAfrica and the Allied Path to Victory,and Leonard Heinz, retired attorneyand naval enthusiast, have teamed upto produce an impressive study of allthe First World War battles. Clash ofFleets: Naval Battles of the GreatWar, 1914-1918 represents a majorstep forward in understanding thecomplexities of surface combat dur-ing the period. Organized into sevenchapters, the book presents a gener-ally chronological story of the war. While the first chapter deals with thenature of the fleets involved and thelast assesses the war experiences, theremaining five each focus on a singleyear of the war, breaking it downchronologically by geographic area.

Each chapter presents the readerwith all the naval engagements of theyear in a concise but effective man-ner. The authors first provide detailsconcerning weather conditions, themen and ships involved, reason forthe engagement, and casualties, thenfollow up with a discussion of eachbattle and its consequences. Fromthe smallest bumping of light forcesthrough to the mighty clashes of themain battle fleets, every theatre ofoperations and every navy, save theUnited States, is brought into thegeneral pattern of the naval war. Each entry includes a wealth of detailabout the engagement that is usefulfor both academics and historicalenthusiasts. Of particular value,however, is the final chapter wherethe authors compare the First WorldWar with both the earlier Russo-Japa-nese War (1904-05) and the SecondWorld War. Examining a variety offactors, the authors examine the

tempo and lethality of operationsproducing some surprising results.

The inclusion of more than justthe North Sea experiences is impor-tant here. Battles waged in placeslike the Aegean, the Black Sea, andthe Indian Ocean reveal the enormousscope of the war. Just as the fixationon the trench system across Franceexcludes a massive aspect of the landwarfare experience in places like theEastern front, or the Middle East, theemphasis on the North Sea denies aclear understanding of the scope ofthe war at sea. This is brought homeby the vast variety of experiences andengagements and the number of na-tions involved. It adds a huge rich-ness to our understanding and opensour eyes to the need for moreresearch. Probably the greatest weak-ness of the text lies with the need tolimit the scale of the discussion ofeach battle. Each of these events wasa pivotal moment in the lives of thoseinvolved, making the scale of detailafforded seem a bit short at times. With such a large number of engage-ments to cover, however, the authorshad to compromise although theymanage to find a balance betweendetail and scope.

On the whole, this book is anexcellent addition to any naval enthu-siast’s collection. Anyone who doesextensive work in the First WorldWar or naval history in general,should really add this to their collec-tion. It provides a wealth of informa-tion in an easily readable format. Anenjoyable, well written book, itshould also be considered by anyonewith just a simple interest in navalaffairs.

Robert DieneschWindsor, Ontario

Book Reviews 321

Steven Park. The Burning of His Maj-esty’s Schooner Gaspee: An Attackon Crown Rule Before the AmericanRevolution. Chicago IL: WestholmePublishing, (Journal of the AmericanRevolution Books), www.westholmepublishing.com, 2017. xi+188 pp.map, notes, bibliography, index. US$26.00, cloth; ISBN 978-1-59416-267-1.

Containing New England’s largestestuary, Narragansett Bay, RhodeIsland, was once called “Rogue’sIsland” and “the Sewer of New Eng-land” by Puritan minister CottonMather. This bay receives theTaunton, Providence, and SakonnetRivers extending northward from theAtlantic for 28 miles, roughly cleav-ing the state in two. The bay was anabundant source of seafood and wasthe site of many safe harbours. TheNarragansett colony, founded uponreligious independence and freedom,was settled by sundry disreputableentrepreneurs, and reprobates en-gaged in the so-called “slave tradetriangle.”

This triangular traffickingcommerce started with the importa-tion of vast quantities of molassesfrom the Caribbean to be processedin the colony’s many distilleries toproduce a high-demand commodity,rum. Vast numbers of barrels con-taining spirits were shipped to WestAfrica in exchange for slaves to betraded in the Caribbean or mainlandAmerica. Theoretically, Rhode Is-land was an enlightened colony ban-ning the importation of slaves in1652. Although slaving was illegal,the law was largely ignored. Duringthe mid-1700s, the city of Newporthad 22 distilleries from which rumwas exported and traded for slaves. Many Rhode Island residents grewrich on the “prohibited” business ofits day. When anchored in Newport,the decks of slave ships were

scrubbed with vinegar to mask theodour of sweat, blood and excrementin an attempt to pass inspection bythe authorities.

British coffers were low after therecent Seven Years War. One way topartly replenish the king’s treasurywas to police Narragansett Bay, catchsmugglers and both fine and taxthem. One vessel tasked with thisassignment was His Majesty’s Schoo-ner Gaspee, a sloop that was con-verted to a two-masted schooner in1767 or 1768. In a schooner rig, thesail area was larger, making it poten-tially faster, a needed attribute for arevenue vessel. Gaspee was a dimin-utive warship only 49 feet long carry-ing eight small cannon. She wasauthorized to carry a crew of 30 men,but rarely had this many due to a highrate of desertions in North Americanwaters and the difficulty with im-pressment in the colonies. Theschooner patrolled the bay with oneor two other vessels as a team. On 17February 1772, Gaspee seized acargo of rum, other spirits and sugarfrom the sloop Fortune, owned byJacob Greene, a member of a promi-nent Rhode Island family and causedconsternation among the local popu-lation. Five months later, Gaspee ranaground off Namquid Point in theafternoon of 9 June while in pursuitof the packet Hannah for tax evasion.

In darkness on 10 June, a raidingparty attempted to board the schoo-ner. When within shouting distanceof the schooner, Abraham Whippleidentified himself as sheriff of KentCounty. A scuffle ensued and theship’s captain, William Dudingston,who carried both naval and revenueservice commissions, was wounded. The 30 or 40 men in the Americanraiding party overwhelmed the Brit-ish ship’s crew. Purposely or acci-dentally, Gaspee was set afire. Sub-sequently the vessel’s powder maga-


zine exploded leaving little of theking’s vessel to salvage.

The dark night made it difficultto definitively identify the raidersdressed in non-descript dark clothing. The only witness who allegedly rec-ognized some of the men was AaronBiggs, variously described as “a freenegro, mulatto lad and indenturedservant.” (22) He claimed to havebeen rowing a boat nearby when theraid took place. (During a subsequenttrial, however, Biggs’s testimony wasdiscredited because of an accusationthat he was bribed, tried to avoid aflogging or was using this depositionas a means of flight from his master.)

Steven Park’s small book istightly focused upon a singular event,its legal implications and ponderingsabout its historical significance. Thehistoric background information andthe detailing of the Gaspee incidentoccupies the first third of Park’sbook. The remainder is an in-depthexamination of the history and appli-cation of Admiralty and British Lawas it might relate to bringing to jus-tice the culprits who had burned HisMajesty’s property. The legal prob-lems were many, but the most contro-versial was that those responsiblemight be sent across the Atlantic tostand trial three thousand miles awayin England. If not, there was a ques-tion of who had jurisdiction, theNorth American Vice-AdmiraltyCourts or the local colonial courts? This complex legal question of vici-nage agitated the independent-mindedpeople of Rhode Island and espe-cially proto-revolutionary firebrandssuch as Sam Adams of Massachusettsand Richard Henry Lee of Virginia. Park presents the opposing but subtlearguments in a clear manner. Courtsof oyer and terminer, commissionersof assizes and the court of Nisi Priusemerge from British legal obscurity.

There is an examination of histor-ical evidence for the burning of the

Gaspee as a significant spark of theRevolutionary War. Where does amuddled raid fit in relation to theBoston Massacre (5 March 1770), theBoston Tea party (16 December1773), the Battle of Machias, Maine(11 June 1775) during which HMSMargaretta was captured by rebels,and the Battle of Lexington and Con-cord (19 April 19, 1775)? Four ofthese events took place in what wasthen Massachusetts, with only one innearby Rhode Island. It is reminiscentof Luigi Pirandello’s play, in thiscase six events in search of the pri-mary catalyst for the American Revo-lution.

Park investigates many issues,but two comprise a large portion ofthe book. Was this incident merelythe result of a few disgruntled RhodeIsland merchants who attempted toteach some annoying policemen alesson that ended with unintended -consequences? Was this event pur-posely blown out of proportion as anexcuse for the Patriot movement tosubvert the Royal government andstart a rebellion? Reasonable argu-ments can be made for both cases.

In summary, Steven Park haswritten a scholarly 114-page text with566 notes and 15 pages of primaryand secondary source references,possibly an edited PhD thesis. It issurprising that Abraham Whipple,who was as a central figure in theGaspee event and later a distin-guished a captain the ContinentalNavy, is only mentioned in passing(10 and 16-18). This reviewer sug-gests two companion books to put theGaspee affair into historical perspec-tive: Sheldon S. Cohen’s CommodoreAbraham Whipple of the ContinentalNavy: Privateer, Patriot. Pioneer(University of Florida Press, 2010)and Christopher L. Pastore’s BetweenLand and Sea. The Atlantic Coastand the Transformation of New Eng-land. (Harvard University Press,

Book Reviews 323

2014), neither of which appears in theauthor’s secondary resource list. Insummary, this work is a challengingread for those with a limited interestin sixteenth- through eighteenth-cen-tury British legal history and its ap-plication. Still, Dr. Park presents hisarguments in a cogent, erudite man-ner, making his book worthy of aplace in the libraries of scholars ofthe maritime history of the AmericanRevolution.

Louis Arthur NortonWest Simsbury, Connecticut

Richard Perkins. British WarshipRecognition. The Perkins Identifica-tion Albums, Vol. II: Armoured Ships,1860-1895, Monitors and AviationShips. Barnsley, S. Yorks: SeaforthPublishing, www.seaforthpublishing.com, and National Maritime Mu-seum, 2016. 224 pp., introduction byAndrew Choong, illustrations, index.UK £60.00, cloth; ISBN 978-1-84832-386-5.

This work is a one-to-one scale repro-duction of the second volume fromRichard Perkins’ singularly uniquecollection of Royal Navy ship pro-files. Produced between 1927 and1946, with the vast majority of workoccurring prior to 1939, Perkin’swork was the undertaking of a dedi-cated enthusiast, seeking to documentall ships of the British fleet forroughly the eight decades betweenthe years 1860 and 1940. This vol-ume focuses specifically on the ar-moured ships of 1860-1895, moni-tors, and aviation ships of the RoyalNavy, with the original work largelyunmodified, save for slight page reor-ganizations, an introduction by An-drew Choong, NMM Curator of His-toric Photographs and Ships’ Plans,and a ship index at the end for quickreference.

The introduction appears to befor the Perkins Collection as a whole,rather than specifically for Volume II,and offers what little background isavailable on the man behind the workbefore discussing the albums. TheNational Maritime Museum origi-nally received the pages unbound, butstaff eventually bound the looseleaves at a later date (6). SincePerkins had a set order for the pages,any pages inserted out of this orderhave been returned to their intendedplace in this reproduction. It is alsonoted that the museum viewed thealbums as a “working collection”rather than “museum objects,” sothere is a small number of pencilnotes scattered throughout the vari-ous volumes added by museum staff-ers over the years, supplying addi-tional information not available toPerkins during his initial crafting ofthe works (7).

Regarding the main body of thisvolume, each page of Perkins’ foliohas been removed from its museumbinding, scanned in high definitionand reproduced at full scale, perfectlycapturing the appearance of the origi-nal images. His loose notes havebeen inserted and transcribed at thebeginning of the work, followed bythe scanned pages arranged in hisoriginal order. Perkins created a two-page listing of ships divided by typeand demarcated into class as an initialguide to his second volume of work. The ordering of ship classes withineach ship type seems to a degreerandom, as many seem to be follow-ing reverse chronological order onlyto be followed by a more recent shipclass. (20-21) The ship data andprofiles themselves are arranged witha high degree of uniformity usingPerkins’ template system, so eachvessel entry ideally contains all vari-ants of the ship’s name, a colourprofile drawing, notes regarding wea-pons and history, funnel or other key


details, and a service timeline. Perkins’ profile drawings appear tohave been produced separately fromhis main templates and then affixedafterwards, as seen from the edgesand different colorations visible inthe scans. The drawings are all incolour, depicting the period paintschemes of the vessels. Additionaldata is included in the form of redand green coloured details, whichillustrate minor removals and addi-tions to the ship, respectively. In theevent of a ship having major alter-ations during its service life, Perkinsincludes additional drawings of thevessel at different key points in time,so as to fully illustrate all possibleiterations of the same vessel’s visualappearance. The other data includedwith each ship’s entry varies basedon the vessel as well. Some vesselsnaturally have more information thanothers, depending on their servicelength, the variety of changes under-gone while in service, the informationavailable to Perkins at the time, and anumber of other factors.

In terms of possible improve-ments to this work and the futureeditions of remaining volumes, thereare two that come to mind. A moretightly focused Introduction high-lighting the specific volume in handwould be appreciated, as would anexplanation of why certain types ofvessels, like the pre-1895 armour-edships, monitors, and aviation shipsfound in Volume II are grouped to-gether. A general summary of war-ship evolution involving the specificvessel types would complement thedrawings that highlight vessel modifi-cations and improvements duringtheir service life. The other majorsuggestion would be to include morephotographic profiles of the coveredvessels in an appendix or anotherseparate section. Three such imagesfrom the Perkins image collection areat the very beginning on the frontis-

piece. The images’ description statesthat their inclusion is meant to illus-trate the variety of warships con-tained within this particular volume,but utilizing more of the collection’s11,000 photographic negatives in alarger capacity would help to furtherunderline the accuracy of Perkins’illustrations and provide examples oftheir usefulness in terms of rapid shipidentification. Such a section couldfeature certain notable vessels suchas HMS Warrior, or Monitor M33,that still survive, or more well-knownvessels like HMS Ark Royal, or ill-fated HMS Victoria. These are, ofcourse, minor cavils, merelysuggested as a means to enhancingthe book`s overall effectiveness.

As a whole, this work representsan opening up to the scholarly com-munity of an invaluable archive forBritish warship recognition. Perkins’painstakingly accurate depictions ofnaval vessel profiles, his documenta-tion of their service history, and an-notations of their modificationsthroughout their career make for anincredibly concise resource for iden-tifying vessels in photographs andother visual media, both in terms ofship name and rough time period ofthe image. An underutilized gemlong trapped in the repositories of theNational Maritime Museum, the pub-lication of this volume and other willbe of great import to those with aninterest in the Royal Navy during theeight decades prior to the SecondWorld War.


Andrew C. Rath. The Crimean Warin Imperial Context, 1854-1856. NewYork, NY: Palgrave MacMillan,www.palgrave.com, 2017. xxiv+301pp., maps, notes, bibliography, index.

Book Reviews 325

US $90.00, UK £60.00, hardback;ISBN 978-1-137-54451-3.

While the main focus of Rath’s workis the maritime conflict between 1854and 1856 in what became known asthe Crimean War, he explores themaritime aspect of the war in muchgreater detail. Arguing that thisstruggle for imperial dominance hasbeen much misrepresented, thinlyreferenced, and underscored by histo-rians and researchers, he criticizes thepublication of biased or slanted treat-ments throughout the twentieth cen-tury. He feels that these works do notrepresent a full appreciation and un-derstanding of the war’s far-flungnaval campaigns and their contribu-tion to the overall outcome of thewar. First, there were more thanthree empires fighting and vying forland, power, and military and navalsupremacy as sovereign states. TheOttoman Empire, various Italiankingdoms, Norway-Sweden, andDenmark became major players in theoutcome of the war. Second, many ofthe events, for example, the signingof diplomatic agreements that openedan isolated Japan to the westernworld and pushed Japan to create amodern navy that could challengeEuropean powers, occurred far fromCrimea and the siege of Sebastopol.

The book is clearly organized andprovides for an easy, but compre-hensive, read. It starts with an intro-duction that delivers the backgroundcircumstances which characterizedthe reigning imperial powers of Eu-rope in the 1850s and their ambitionsbeyond their realms. Rath also usesthis chapter to explain the format ofthe book and points out the majorfeatures, events, details and rationalefor each one of the succeeding tenchapters and conclusion. For exam-ple, in chapter one, Rath addressesthe collusion and strategic planningbetween Great Britain, France, and

the Ottoman Empire against growingRussian aggression against the Turks,which includes a feint offensive inthe Crimean Peninsula. Due tocircumstances, however, the intendedside raid or assault scheduled forSebastopol became the news-drawingsiege from which the war received itsname. While the campaign in theCrimea, and the siege of Sebastopolhave been the foci of many research-ers and authors, Rath uses this chap-ter to point out that the naval strate-gists of France and Britain saw theBaltic Sea as the future area of actionwhere they could stifle any Russiantranscontinental ambitions.

Within this format, Rath expertlyprovides expanded views and text onthe events and outcomes of eachchapter, along with any associatednaval campaign, not only in the BlackSea and the Crimean Peninsula, butaround the world. Each chapter has aregional focus so that the reader hasno problem understanding not onlythe campaign, but its significance tothe greater scheme of the war. Healso pays attention to the fact that thisconflict occurred in the mid-nine-teenth century in the midst of anevolving world, and that each cam-paign provided something to thisperiod; namely, new maritime steamand weapon technologies along witha greater appreciation for interna-tional maritime law and advances inmedicine and understanding diseaseunder wartime conditions.

This work is well researched andwritten with a much appreciated com-pleteness. A review of the end notesreveals a wide variety of both pri-mary and secondary sources includ-ing newspaper articles, official com-manding officers’ reports, personalcorrespondence in the form of lettersand diaries, and secondary sourcesfrom both the nineteenth and twenti-eth centuries. Also, the sources arenot just of British or French origin,


but from all nations, kingdoms, andnavies and militaries involved. Bybeing so inclusive with his sources,Rath was successful in providing awell-rounded and complete overviewof specific wartime campaigns andtheir contributions to the nature ofmaritime warfare within a changingmid-nineteenth-century world. Rath’s biography indicates that heattended the London School of Eco-nomic and Political Science andGeorgetown University before receiv-ing his Doctorate from McGill Uni-versity.

This work includes both primaryand secondary sources. It makes anexcellent contribution to understand-ing maritime history during the Cri-mean conflict but might be betterappreciated by those readers inter-ested in maritime warfare, maritimelaw, and maritime history in the mid-nineteenth century rather than a gen-eral audience. It should definitely bepart of the library of any historian orresearcher intent on conducting fu-ture research in this area.

Wayne AbrahamsonPensacola, Florida.

Robert K. Sutcliffe. British Expedi-tionary Warfare and the Defeat ofNapoleon 1793-1815. Woodbridge,Suffolk, UK: Boydell & Brewer Ltd.,www.boydellandbrewer.com, 2016.xxi+272 pp., illustrations, maps,charts and tables, appendices, notes,bibliography, index. £75, US $120,cloth; ISBN 978 1 84383 949 1.

The cover art of this volume is anillustration of the landing of Britishtroops in Egypt, in 1801. A shell isexploding in a boat carrying troops toshore; men are flung from the boat,others turn away in a vain effort atself-protection. From the title and thisimage, the prospective reader might

think they were going to learn aboutthe military campaigns, the battles,the triumphs and losses in whicharmy and navy collaborated, in theeffort to defeat Napoleon. Theywould be mistaken. This book isultimately about the British TransportBoard whose herculean, and underappreciated task, was to get thou-sands of troops, their equipment,supplies, horses and food from oneplace to another (often very far apart)while at the same time victualling theBritish fleet on all its stations, andsupporting troops and allies previ-ously carried to foreign soil. It is astory that has been largely ignored.Robert Sutcliffe’s book is a signifi-cant contribution to the study of thistopic.

The Transport Board was resur-rected in 1794 as a result of the Brit-ish experience during the AmericanWar of Independence. Its tasks in-cluded supplying the British Navywhile on station, moving troops, theirweapons and ammunition, camp ac-coutrements, food and other supplies.Having disembarked the army at adestination, the Transport Board thenworked to supply them, move themaround the local theatre by water,and, if necessary, extract them fromthreat of defeat. The Transport Boardwas also responsible for prisoners-of-war and providing hospital ships forforeign service. The movement oftroops and their supplies is the majorfocus of this book. The Board’s earlyhistory was one of slow incrementalimprovement in its ability to performits role. At the beginning and the endof this book, Sutcliffe is clear that thesuccess of the Transport Board, inshipping the troops and material todistant places, was in large part dueto the British domination of theoceans, especially after the Battle ofTrafalgar (1805).

Convoys of transport shipsranged in size from two to more than

Book Reviews 327

125 ships. During the years 1794 to1815 thousands of convoys were dis-patched. It was the British Navy es-cort ships’ responsibility to keepthem organized, moving at a goodspeed, and safe. This proved at timesto be a nightmare for the naval offi-cers, one of frustration, tainted withthe stress of pending ruin if the con-voy collapsed into individual shipsheaded for their destination at allpossible speed, attack by enemy ves-sels, or wrecked due to storm. AsSutcliffe indicates, the overwhelmingmajority of convoys were deliveredas a unit, unscathed, and on time;losses were minimal.

The majority of the TransportBoard’s carriers were merchant ships,hired for specific periods of time(most often for three months), sup-ported by the occasional use of Brit-ish naval ships converted to carrytroops, horses, or material. Coal col-liers were seen as ideal for service ashorse carriers. The use of the ships ofthe East India Company, though largeand good, was limited as the Govern-ment feared paying the penaltiesapplied if the vessels were not avail-able for the convoys headed for theFar East. Sutcliffe notes the Trans-port Board’s request to use moreships-of-the-line as troop ships wasrejected by the Admiralty, whichforever fretted over the need to block-ade the remnant navies of the Frenchand their allies. The size of the navalvessels would have allowed the trans-portation of larger proportions of thevarious battalions, depositing them inmore complete segments, thus mak-ing it easier to organize them afterlanding. The failure to use the largeships, no longer needed for blockadeduty or fleet actions, stands as amissed opportunity.

The text is heavy with statistics;cargo weight, ship tonnage, numbersof troops, officers, and horses, etc.,compared one year to another, even

month to month. It produces a de-tailed exacting account of the Trans-port Board’s activities and ultimatelytheir achievements. This makes forchapters rich in hoards of data fromwhich Sutcliffe draws clear conclu-sions. One of the clearest is the im-pact of the Government’s use of alarge number of the merchant ships,in the convoying of troops and mate-rial, reducing the available tonnagefor shipping trade. For example, theuse of colliers for carrying horses toNorthern Europe, resulted in fewercolliers being available for carryingcoal to market and thus a rise in itsprice. In a similar vein, the sending offood to Wellington’s troops resultedin shortages and higher prices inEngland. Merchant ship owners stoodto make money from the govern-ment’s need for tonnage, as long asdamage to the ship and its cargo wasminimal, and ships were readied andloaded promptly, avoiding financialpenalties. Sutcliffe’s analysis revealsthe significant economic impact ofshipping men, animals, armaments,material and food to places aroundthe globe (though largely Europe andNorth America), in terms of both thecost to the government and the infu-sion of money into the British econ-omy.

Though it is clear that the trans-port board improved in its capabili-ties as the period unfolded, it nevercould predict their long term futureneeds. This resulted, more than once,in the release of shipping to savemoney, then a mere three weeks or solater the need to assemble a host ofvessels for a new mission. The prob-lem being that ship owners had morethan likely found new employmentfor their released ships, thus creatinga shortage and subsequent delay inassembling the needed tonnage.

Two campaigns receive repeatedmention in the book, the Walcherenexpedition (1809) and Wellington’s


Peninsular campaign (1809 to1814).The Walcheren expedition,though a military disaster, was proba-bly the Transport Board’s most effi-cient preparation, being ready tomove troops and supplies only tenweeks after the request was given tothem, an astonishing accomplishmentin light of the other requirements theboard was fulfilling. Wellington’ssuccess in Portugal and Spain wasbuilt, in part, on the shoulders of theTransport Board which not only de-livered his troops to the theatre, butconsistently supplied the food, fodderand replacements of both men andhorses. The use of larger naval ves-sels as transports would have beenmost advantageous in both cam-paigns, according to Sutcliffe, butagain was not approved by the Admi-ralty.

Other examples appearing in thebook include the landing of troops inAboukir Bay, in 1801 to defeat theFrench in Egypt; the expeditions tothe West Indies that led to the captureof French and Spanish colonies; thebombardment of Copenhagen in1807; and the Castine expedition bythe British into Maine, United States,in 1814. Though convoys were de-layed at times, by ship shortages andproblems in gathering and loadingtroops and supplies, the TransportBoard ultimately played a positiverole as each of these events unfolded.

There are four illustrations in thebook, two which show troops em-barking, one of the burning of thePresident’s mansion in Washington(1814) and the other of the bombard-ment of Copenhagen (1807). Sevenmaps support the narrative. Thirtycharts and tables display the statisti-cal record and analysis of the Trans-port Board’s activities. All tables andcharts are referred to in the surround-ing text and help to visualize theissue being discussed. Footnotes arehelpful, with some containing details

contextualizing the point made in thetext. There are three appendices, eacha table of figures, the first, for thenumber of ships and tonnage belong-ing to a variety of British ports, 1799-1820; the second, showing the num-ber of ships built in several Englishports, 1786-1814; the third, showingmilitary force strength at home andaway, 1808-1816. The bibliographyis thorough and will assist othersdoing research in this area.

Resplendent in detail, this workprovides a seemingly definitive state-ment on the Transport Board’s troopmovement and support activity dur-ing the French Revolutionary andNapoleonic Wars. Robert Sutcliffe’sbook will appeal to naval and mari-time historians interested in this pe-riod, but also those focused on thelogistics behind seaborne militaryexpeditions, and anyone exploringthe organization and growth of Brit-ish government bureaucracy duringthis era.

Thomas MalcomsonToronto, Ontario

Garth Walpole (Russel Potter, ed.). Relics of the Franklin Expedition: Discovering Artifacts from theDoomed Arctic Voyage of 1845. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co.,Inc. www.mcfarlandpub.com, 2017. viii+229 pp., illustrations, maps,appendices, notes, bibliography, in-dex. US $39.95, paper: ISBN 978-1-4766-6718-8.

Numerous books and articles havebeen written discussing, and at oftentimes speculating on, the reasonsbehind the disappearance of the 1845Franklin Expedition, which involvedthe loss of expedition leader JohnFranklin, all officers and crew-members, and the vessels HMSErebus and HMS Terror. The lateGarth Walpole presents a comprehen-

Book Reviews 329

sive account of how historical arti-facts from the expedition, primarilythose now held at the National Mari-time Museum in London, England,were recovered and how these items,in the absence of written records,collectively offer biographical ac-counts of the participants inFranklin’s expedition. Since Walpoleunfortunately passed away beforecompleting his manuscript, so RusselPotter finished the final compilationof research notes and inserted thecorresponding images. The book isstill presented from Walpole’s pointof view, however, as Potter states, “Ididn’t want Garth’s voice or person-ality to be diminished in any way”(2).

Walpole immediately states hisintent to distinguish his research fromother material culture analyses bymaintaining that the items recoveredfrom the Franklin Expedition aremore appropriately designated asrelics rather than artifacts. The termrelic may be viewed as antiquated orunscientific by some individuals, butWalpole argues persuasively thatrelics can be viewed as the materialembodiment of an individual, or aphysical means by which thedeceased may be remembered. Asidefrom the recently-found sunkenwrecks of the Erebus and Terror, theonly remaining physical evidence ofthe Franklin Expedition consists ofthe assemblage of items recoveredfollowing the crewmembers’ disap-pearance. Considering that theseitems reflect personal life histories inthe absence of other historical infor-mation, the reference to them as rel-ics is quite fitting.

Walpole offers a chronologicalaccount of search and recovery expe-ditions that were organized followingthe disappearance of Franklin and hisships, and he acknowledges that thereare some discrepancies in the histori-cal record as to where specific indi-

viduals were located at a given timeand when specific material itemswere recovered. The accounts of thefirst recovery expeditions, whichoccurred between 1850 and 1852, aresomewhat confusing. Understand-ably, there were several vessels andexpedition leaders from Great Britainand America involved in searchingfor Franklin and his crew during thistime period, and they were all trans-iting around different geographicareas. Walpole’s accounts of thesearches at this time shifts betweenyears and locations of specific areaswith no clear indication as to why theaccounts are structured in that spe-cific way. This may cause furtherconfusion for the reader attempting tokeep track of who was involved in aspecific expedition and where theirvessel was located in relation to theothers. Chronological accounts ofsubsequent expeditions after 1852,however, and the related discussionsof participants and recovered materialitems, become much more straight-forward. This clarity is likely due tothe reduced number of recovery ef-forts that were supported throughoutthe latter nineteenth and early twenti-eth centuries and the greater attentionto historical record-keeping by thistime.

Walpole went to great effort toensure that all historic accounts andthe contexts in which specific relicswere recovered were as accurate aspossible, a feat that is especially im-pressive given the conflicting infor-mation offered by some personalaccounts. The book is extremely wellresearched, and all historicalaccounts are thoroughly cited. Allrelics described also include theircatalogue number designation fromthe National Maritime Museum. Infact, the book includes a full list ofthe museum’s Franklin collection,including reference to the specificexpedition from which items were


recovered. Academic researcherswho are interested in learning moreabout the contexts in which specificitems from the Franklin Expeditionwere recovered will find this book tobe a valuable resource.

The book does contain a fewfactual and editorial errors, and whileit is unclear how these were not re-vised before publication, they areinfrequent and do not detract fromthe book’s central discussions. Forexample, the grave of expeditionmember William Braine was locatedon Beechey Island; an illustration ofhis gravestone is provided, but on thesame page he is referred in the text asWilliam “Baines” (36). It is furthersuggested that the gravestones foundon Beechey Island should be viewedin the context of “eighteenth centuryVictorian values” (36), the wrongcentury. Compared with the meticu-lous details given as to when andwhere specific relics were collected,the book does not necessarily expandon why certain items were left behindand not conserved. Nevertheless,Walpole lists those items that werenot retrieved, letting the reader appre-ciate their value in terms of the over-all collection.

Walpole is completely successfulin explaining that as an assemblage,the relics recovered from the FranklinExpedition not only convey the lifehistories of the lost crewmembers,but also their role in fostering explo-ration and interactions among subse-quent British and American searchteams and Inuit communities. Due tothe meticulous historical detail of-fered, the book may be most appreci-ated by academic researchers andthose with a focused interest in theFranklin Expedition. General readersshould understand that the book pri-marily concerns how and where spe-cific relics were located rather thantheir historic context or how theywere functionally used.

James D. Moore IIISterling, Virginia

Anthony R. Wells. A Tale of TwoNavies. Geopolitics, Technology, andStrategy in the United States Navyand the Royal Navy. 1960-2015.Annapolis, MD: Naval InstitutePress, www.usni.org, 2017. xi+250pp., illustrations, notes, bibliography,index. US $35.00, cloth; ISBN 978-1-68247-120-3.

Anthony R. Wells is distinguished asthe only man to have served in intelli-gence roles in the Royal Navy as aBritish citizen, and in the U.S. Navyas an American citizen. Because hehas participated in this work on eitherside of the Atlantic, he has a uniqueperspective on the connectionbetween the two navies and the waythat shaped events. A Tale of TwoNavies covers that special relation-ship and the shared challenges since1960. The book is not an exhaustivereview of the entire Cold War, butinstead presents selected topics theauthor expects will be relevant forfuture discussion. The author’s intentis to provoke thought and discussionas much as it is to inform. He, there-fore, presents a way to think aboutmaritime affairs, rather than a simplehistory. Wells acknowledges that hisanalysis is occasionally hampered bya lack of information, as some of thekey documents remain classified and,therefore, unavailable to scholars. Henevertheless points to practical waysto learn from the past to prepare forthe future, based on the informationavailable and his own experience. This book consists of a series ofinterlocking yet independent thematicchapters that are organized mostlychronologically. The first half of thevolume covers a range of Cold Wartopics, including warfare in the nu-clear era, intelligence, and technol-ogy. One chapter recounts the de-

Book Reviews 331

mise of the Soviet Union, the para-digm shift it provoked, and the chal-lenges that faced both navies, espe-cially budget cuts and their effects. An analysis of the post-Cold Warchallenges follows, including the lossof clear purpose for NATO, and thecancellation of Cold War-era pro-jects. The last chapters of the bookdeal with current and ongoing issuessuch as ISIS and other extremism, therise of Chinese hegemony, and Rus-sia’s resurgence. As the First SeaLord and the Chief of Naval Opera-tions have issued a joint paper dis-cussing their vision for the future, theauthor considers the stated views aswell as history to analyse the futureof their combined strategy. As Wellsdemonstrates, the special relationshipbetween British and American navalforces has been illustrated by a con-sistent linkage of the two navies’respective strategic plans based onthe desire to defend shared values.

With his unique perspective andbreadth of experience, the authormakes thought-provoking argumentsfor historians, policymakers, andnational security scholars to reflecton. He demonstrates throughout theimportance of naval affairs as a cost-effective tool for diplomacy and theachievement of national goals. TheRoyal and U.S. Navies must thereforecontinue to learn from their relation-ship, including reviewing eachother’s mistakes, to succeed in meet-ing future challenges.

Wells regularly speaks of his ownexperience, adding force to his argu-ments by noting when he was invol-ved in a specific event or was part ofan analysis team studying variousaspects of an issue. Occasionally,this participation comes off as boast-ful. Nevertheless, he has conducted amassive amount of scholarly andprofessional research on his chosentopics, and is thoroughly familiarwith the information and the avail-

able sources. This is especially help-ful for prospective researchers, offer-ing source notes and a bibliographyas a jumping-off point.

One obstacle to a wider reader-ship is Wells’ assumption of a fairamount of historical, geopolitical,and technological knowledge amonghis readers. There is more informa-tion on a few of the less-well-knowntopics, such as the Soviet Black SeaFleet’s movements into the Mediter-ranean during the Six-Day War, butfor the most part, the author expectsthe reader to have a solid grasp oftwentieth-century maritime history. Lack of that knowledge does notnegate the benefits of reading thebook, since the author does explainthe outline of the events he refer-ences, but it may require the reader toconduct some additional research tofully understand where Wells is com-ing from. Otherwise, the main pointswill still be understood, but the nu-ances may be lost.

While the editing throughout thebook is excellent, with almost notypographical errors, there is a glar-ing error in Chapter 9 where, whilediscussing the Gulf War, the authorrefers to Iranian forces, when heclearly means Iraqi forces. (174) It isthe only instance your reviewer couldfind, but it does introduce a doubtthat some other such mistakes couldhave slipped into the text.

A Tale of Two Navies is writtenfor academics and professionals,although a general audience wouldalso benefit from the author’s insight,and come out with a much deeperunderstanding of how to think aboutnaval affairs. Whether one is a pol-icy expert or a rank amateur, Wells’work is an excellent acquisition forthose who want to expand their think-ing on modern maritime affairs.

Frédérik GenestKingston, Ontario


Evan Wilson. A Social History ofBritish Naval Officers 1775-1815.Rochester, NY: Boydell and Brewer,www.boydelland brewer.com, 2017.301 pp., illustrations, appendix,notes, bibliography, index. US$120.00, cloth; ISBN 978-1-78327-174-0.

Michael Lewis’s “A Social History ofthe Navy, 1793-1815,” published in1960, quickly became the primarysource on the background and careerpath of the officers that commandedthe British Navy during the FrenchRevolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. It earned the status of a classic. Con-cerns over Lewis’ use of the auto-biographical entries, in the dictionar-ies edited by John Marshall (1820s)and William O’Byrne (1849), as thedata for his profile did not severelydiminish Lewis’s place in the navalhistoriography. Evan Wilson aims tochange this. The question is, is hesuccessful?

It is the presence of Marshall andO’Byrne as Lewis’s source that pro-vides Wilson with his starting point. The first problem with the naval bio-graphical dictionaries, compiled in1820s and 1849 (as Wilson clearlyexplains), is that only men still aliveat the time of the call for their biogra-phy could write one. Of those stillalive, some may not have been in-clined, or able to produce a short bio-graphy. Among those who did, thetemptation to colour the narrative amore admiral, self-promoting shadecasts a dark shadow over the reliabil-ity of both compilations. Wilson setsout to avoid this dilemma byrandomly sampling lieutenants from“Bruno Pappalardo’s index of lieuten-ants’ passing certificates” (229). Hethen adds as much information aspossible, about the officers’ back-ground and careers, from officialsources, starting with the information

contained on their passing certifi-cates.

Wilson acknowledges the short-comings of his sources, such as thepropensity to lie about one’s age toqualify for writing the lieutenant’sexam, thereby distorting the age data. He avoids the use of the questionablebiographical dictionaries, drawinginstead on the entries in othersources, such as the Oxford Dic-tionary of National Biography(ODNB). Some of these entries,however, depend on Marshall and/orO’Byrne. For example Wilson citesthe ODNB regarding Sir ChristopherCole (121), but in the ODNB entry,Marshall is the first reference (Sup-plement, vol. 2, p. 41). The problem-atic biographical dictionaries appearto have spread widely throughoutother literature on naval officers.

A second problem with the twobiographical dictionaries is that manyof the personal accounts are fromofficers who entered the navy duringthe time period under study, many ofwhom did not become lieutenantsuntil late in the wars and never heldcommand in the era. To counter this,Wilson sampled from 1775 and 1805. This captures those officers in com-mand at the beginning of the warsand those who passed the lieutenants’exam in the midst of the war. In hissampling approach, Wilson avoidstwo of the major problems plaguingthe sources used by Lewis. All thiscareful and improved data collectionserves as a solid foundation for thepicture of the naval officers that Wil-son builds.

Wilson found that commissionedofficers were overwhelmingly fromEngland, followed distantly by Scot-land, Ireland, other countries or colo-nies, and Wales. The majority en-tered as midshipmen, captain’s ser-vants or volunteer boys between theages of 10 and 16 (18). Their earlyeducation was primarily at sea, with

Book Reviews 333

some time served as able seamen. Afew men came with merchant shipexperience and a handful came viathe Royal Naval Academy. Trainingwas at the hands of the commissionedofficers and, if present, the school-master aboard ship. After they hadlearned every aspect of the ship andsailing, came the opportunity to takethe lieutenants’ exam. The next chal-lenge was to obtain a position as alieutenant and then to keep it longenough to become a commander andthen post-captain. Most lieutenantsfinished their careers without suchopportunities.

Where Lewis found a significantnumber of members of the upperclass entering the navy, Wilson estab-lishes that the greatest supplier ofcommissioned officers to the navywas the professional or middlingclass, with few coming from the up-per classes. The navy offered theprofessional and middling groups aplace for their sons to rise in station,if they managed to achieve the rankof post-captain, live long enough tobe promoted to flag officer, and/oreither collect a king’s ransom in prizemoney, or be granted a governmentpension for great deeds done, orwounds suffered. But Wilson is clearthat for most who entered as midship-men or captain’s servant, and evenamong those who made it to lieuten-ant, the chances of rising above thatstation were slight. Success waslimited by the number of openings,the mediocrity of performance, death,disability, lack of a patron early inone’s career, the coming of peace, orsome combination of these factors. Wilson identifies commissioned offi-cers as men well trained, examined,and dedicated to a career in the navy.

Wilson, like Lewis, examines thebackground and careers of warrantofficers, but his is the first study ofthis group using a randomly createddatabase. He focuses only on the

surgeon, purser, chaplain, and master;those who shared the wardroom withcommissioned officers. Here, too, healters Lewis’ conclusions. Wilsonfound that warrant officers “straddledthe civilian and military worlds” (81).Many had relevant land experiencewith their profession before shippingout. And many spent only part oftheir lives at sea, leaving at somepoint to return to a shore-based enter-prise. Some were quite well edu-cated.

A separate chapter addressespatronage and promotion. Accordingto Wilson, while patronage was stillcritical to an officer’s career, at thestart, as well as when trying toachieve notice by more powerfulpatrons, ultimately talent (merit) wasthe key to advancement. This is arather positive perspective on patron-age, with no exploration of the grow-ing tension between the Admiraltyand the local commanders over theappointment of officers, that grewduring the period.

Separate chapters explore theissues of pay and prize money, andthe commissioned officers claim togentleman status. Post-captains offirst- and second-rate ships weredefinitely well off and could evensurvive on half-pay. The latter wasnot really true for lieutenants or war-rant officers, nor commanders of thenavy’s smaller vessels. The bountyof a large prize payout could enrich alieutenant, a commander or the war-rant officers, but captains benefitedmost from prize money (at least priorto 1808 changes in prize distribu-tion). Wilson notes that few lieuten-ants and warrant officers earned thekind of prize money that could setthem up for the rest of their life. Thestatus as gentleman was important,even critical, in a naval officer’s ca-reer. Upper class officers and otherswith a classical education previous totheir entry into the navy were more


easily seen as gentleman. Thosefrom the professional, or middleclass, who went to sea early and didnot have a classical education, had aharder time fully conforming to theexpectations of a gentleman. Wilsondemonstrates that the air of gentilitywas a persona sought by officers. Self-education, wealth, martial expe-rience, and medals all played a rolecreating the effect. The problemcommissioned officers faced was thetime they spent in skill development(an activity perceived as suited totradesmen, not gentleman).

Comparison between Britishofficers and those of the British mili-tary and other nations is captured in avery interesting chapter. It is more ofa beginning in this area of researchthan a final statement. Unlike Britishmilitary officers, naval officers couldnot purchase their rank and wererequired to have a more extensivepractical skill-training period. Wil-son found many variations in the waydifferent European nations createdtheir naval officers. Some focused onraising them to gentleman status,while providing a trained cadre to runthe ship, others trained men to besailors and gentlemen.

A minor issue is that in studyingthose who passed their lieutenant’sexam, Wilson does not explore thosewho never rose above the level ofmidshipman. His assessment of themidshipman or captains’ servants isbased on those who were successfulin moving forward. Lewis did sketchan overview of the sailor (chapter 8)but Wilson avoids this, focusing onlyon the commissioned and select war-rant officers. Given the scale of hisproject, this choice was for the best.

An appendix offers a thoroughexplanation of his reasons for, andmethod of sampling officers for thestudy. Drawing on men from 1775and 1805 provides enough data toaddress his questions. An argument

could be made for sampling fromthose who passed their lieutenant’sexam in 1795 (shortly after the startof the French Revolutionary War), asthey could potentially have their ca-reer throughout the period. Wilsonincludes a list of the names of thewarrant and commissioned officers inthe study.

Ten images are placed through-out the book. Three reflect aspects ofthe commissioned officer’s career(unemployment, social space onboard ship, and patronage), there arefive examples of officers beingpainted in a manner to solidify theirclaim to be members of the sociallyelite, and two on Nelson. Set through-out the text, 17 figures and 11 tablesillustrate Wilson’s discussion of hisstatistical analysis. They are clear andeasy to read. The book’s index isquite usable, the bibliography is com-plete. The archival sources will provehelpful to future researchers.

As noted above, Wilson’s goalwas to replace Lewis’ picture of thecommissioned and warrant officerwith a more accurate one. He haspresented a strong case for adjustingour idea of the background, the careerpath, prospects and social standing ofwarrant and commissioned officersbetween 1775 and 1815. This bookwill appeal to people studying theRoyal Navy of the long eighteenthcentury, the development of navalofficers, and the ideas of “nobility”Óand “gentleman”. The question nowarises, will Wilson become the newLewis?

Thomas MalcomsonToronto, Ontario

Christopher Wright. Arctic Cargo. AHistory of Marine Transportation inCanada’s North. Montreal QC: selfpublished. www.arcticcargo.ca, 2016.iv+571 pp., illustrations, maps, ta-

Book Reviews 335

bles, appendices, notes, bibliography,index. CDN $44.95, paper; ISBN978-0-9952526-0-9.

As the author points out in his fore-word, while much has been writtenabout the Arctic, no one has specifi-cally addressed Arctic transportationand trade. Who has used marine andriver transportation? What were theroutes followed? Over the last fourhundred years, what were the cargoestaken in and out? After a career as ananalyst and economist specialising inmarine issues and retiring as the prin-cipal analyst of a major consultinggroup, Christopher Wright set out tofill that gap with this volume.

The first two chapters provide thebackground and a preview. Untilabout 1950, Inuit society was largelynomadic, following the game on landand sea or under the ice. Gradually,however, permanent settlements grewup around Hudson Bay Companyposts and other trading endeavours,religious missions and governmentestablished centres. Today, the tradi-tional nomadic life is not likely to re-emerge unless we in the south totallydestroy our civilisation. With Chapter3, Wright describes the entry into theArctic of the whalers, the fur compa-nies, the missionaries and govern-ment expeditions that were intendedto reinforce the sovereignty of Can-ada. Chapter 7 discusses the variousroutes, from the East, the West andvia the Mackenzie River, followed bya chapter detailing the complex storyof the establishment of Churchill as agrain exporting port. For a long time,the clearly inferior, indeed impossi-ble, location of Nelson, British Co-lumbia, was favoured by some bu-reaucrats. In fact, the last section ofthe railway being constructed washeading towards Nelson until it wasdiverted to Churchill. Wright statesthat Churchill never lived up to itspromise as a grain port. It opened in

1931 but high insurance premiumsand other factors cancelled out theadvantage of a somewhat shorterdistance to European discharge ports.

The story of Arctic resource ex-traction appears in chapter 9, begin-ning inauspiciously with MartinFrobisher bringing 1300 tons of use-less rock to England during the years1576-1578. Originally searching forthe Northwest Passage, Frobisher wasstricken by gold fever when he foundsome heavy rock that he mistakenlythought contained gold. Wright doc-uments the subsequent attempts toestablish mines in the North. In thenineteenth and early-twentieth centu-ries various modest mining activitieshad some success, but large-scalemineral extraction had to wait untilrecent years. Many different mineralores can be found in the Arctic. When working for a consulting com-pany in the 1970s, Wright personallydeveloped the plans for mining andshipping a high grade of asbestos toEurope from the Ungava area. Thisactivity is now terminated; however,metal ores, such as nickel, zinc andlead, often mixed, were found inlarge quantities in Rankin Inlet, atNanisivik on Baffin Island, and in thePolaris mine at Little CornwallisIsland. There is certainly a lot morewaiting to be discovered.

The other Arctic resource wasoil. From 1972 to 1980, oil compa-nies financed innovative attempts todiscover the possibility of underwaterwells, like those now common inmore southern latitudes. This activityin the Beaufort Sea peaked in theearly 1980s but was eventuallythwarted by the problem of ice andthese projects were put on hold. Canadian Arctic oil may be consid-ered a reserve resource, although asmall amount has been shipped fromBent Horn. Although the trial voy-age of the American supertankerManhattan in 1969 was considered


successful, oil from the north slope ofAlaska is brought south by pipeline.

The next chapter looks at defenceand military endeavours. In the Sec-ond World War, the United Statesbuilt weather stations in the Arctic tosupport the air delivery of warplanesto Britain and provide weather data toassist Atlantic convoys. During theCold War, the U.S. and Canada builtthe early warning radar lines whichrequired a large amount of shipping,mostly American. This promptedCanada to increase its Department ofTransport fleet, especially icebreak-ers, and led to the formation of theCoast Guard in 1962.

A long Chapter 11 is devoted tothe annual sealift of food and othersupplies to the various settlementsthroughout the Arctic. Wrightreaches back to the earliest days (sup-plies for the first Hudson Bay Com-pany’s posts) through to the nine-teenth century. One or two ships ayear sufficed in the 1920s and 1930s,but these tasks greatly increased afterthe war in 1945. During the 1950sand early sixties, the Department ofTransport’s Canadian Marine Serviceand then the Coast Guard providedmuch of the lift capability. From1950 to 1970 the Eastern Arctic Pa-trol ship CCGS C. D. Howe visited asmany settlements as possible eachyear delivering cargo as well as pro-viding medical and dental care. Ice-breakers also brought supplies and anumber of former landing ships werepurchased, proving most useful in theports with great tidal variation. After1970, Canadian commercial shipsprovided most of the cargo lift capa-bility.

It would be natural to ask: howcan all this diverse information possi-bly be presented to the reader? Theanswer lies in the author’s back-ground as an analyst and the solutionis in tables—lots and lots of tablescomparing everything conceivable:

ports, populations, companies, ships,itineraries, goods shipped in andshipped out, catalogued by place, bypurpose and by year. In the appendi-ces—more tables! This is not a criti-cism. It is what makes the book uni-que and was really the only way tofulfil the author’s intentions. ArcticCargoes is not light reading, but avaluable reference book that shouldbe on the shelves of professional andacademic libraries.

C. Douglas MaginleyMahone Bay, Nova Scotia

Malcolm Wright. British andCommonwealth Warship Camouflageof WWII, Volume 3: Cruisers, Mine-layers and Armed Merchant Cruisers.Barnsley, S. Yorks., Seaforth Pub-lishing. www.pen-and-sword.org,2016. 192 pp., illustrations, notes.bibliography, symbols. UK £30.00,cloth. ISBN 978-1-84832-253-0.

Broadly speaking the books on aca-demic’s shelf will split into threecategories, the highly academic, thegood general work and the specialistreference. This book certainly fits itthe latter, but it does it so well thateven though it could have comeacross as disjointed or terribly sec-tional, instead it actually is nice toread. This is a book which whilstshould be on every academic whostudies navies in WWII book shelf, itshould also be on anyone who is justinterested in that period’s shelves aswell. This is leaving aside its utilityto modellers and war gamers, whowould find this work indispensable intheir pursuit of realism. This workthough is strange in a way, for anacademic review, as its purpose is notso much its words, as its illustrations,and so that’s where this review willstart.

Book Reviews 337

From first glance at the ‘C’ classcruiser on the front cover, HMSCaledon, beautifully illustrated in fullpainted colour, clouds, smoke, cam-ouflage, water, all done in impecca-ble detail, and in the bottom rightcorner, the faintest Mal Wright, theimpression given is one of not justcompetency but pride in the work andthe presentation of it. It speaks greatthings of the partnership between theauthor and the editing/publishingteam, as this is a lot of colour inkused. The quality of the presentationslives up to the standard set by thiscover, in fact several possibly exceedit in terms of scalability from image.What is certain, is that if presentedwith a photograph from WWII, areader would be able to narrow downdate range considerably simply byusing this book. Furthermore next toeach image there is a little history, anexplanation of the ship, its service,and why it’s the colour it is at thattime.

HMS Rawlapindi (p.191) is afine example of this, the image pro-vided is clear, and it’s pure renditionsomehow emotive; especially whenplaced next to its history. A historythat describes how even though shewas terribly outclassed, she engagedthe German battlecruisers Scharn-horst and Gneisenau, actually manag-ing to score a hit before she wassunk, taking 266 men to the bottomwith her. Including, although Wrightdoesn’t mention this, Ludovic Ken-nedy’s father (Sub-Lieutenant; aPersonal Record of the War at Sea,1942) who was the Captain of Rawla-pindi.

For ships though with longerwartime careers, their records canspan many pages, for example HMSLondon starts off with her 1932scheme on p.79, and finished with her1949 scheme on p.82 – there 14 im-ages of her in total over these pages,each showing her and how she looked

at the different stages through herlife, often providing both port andstarboard views. These illustrationsare further brought to life by descrip-tions that are alongside them, forexample on p.81 “Around August1942, London had her scheme simpli-fied and changed to 507c and 507bfor easier crew maintenance. Notethat the patter of the 507b is similarto the areas of MS1 previously car-ried, with B5 eliminated. There werea few changes to the shape of thepatters, but they generally followedthe same lines. The decks remainedgrey. The number of light AA gunshad not changed, but those by thefront of the bridge were raised uphigher for better coverage…” and itgoes on. These are incredibly detaileddescriptions that provide context thatcan both further illuminate image, butalso help the researcher to again re-fine down what they might be look-ing at.

The award for possibly the moststriking image in the book, goes toone of its most unassuming, the starkblack and white (Dec 41-Dec 42) ofHMS Manxman, an Abdiel classminelayer, on p.179. The edges are soprecise, the detail so delicate, eventhe portholes are clearly defined.That this was the camouflage chosenfor a ship which would operate inde-pendently in the Mediterranean andIndian Ocean, might seem strange butdazzle camouflage like this was sup-posed to break up a ships outline; itwas like this that Manxman wouldcarry out a solo supply run to Maltawhen no other ship had got throughin three months (p.179). The awardfor most delicate must go to HMSSuffolk (May 41), a Kent class heavycruiser, on p.67. The blend and place-ments on green, especially the port-side view must have required a verydelicate brush. This picture encapsu-lates what must have been this worksmotto, ‘if it’s worth doing, it’s worth


doing perfectly’. The camouflage ofcourse was the Admiralty designeddisruptive camouflage scheme, ascheme the intention of which “wasnot to hide the ship, but to make itdifficult for the viewer to tell what iswas, as well as the details of itscourse and distance” (p.67) – putanother way, this was camouflagedesigned for anti-raider, whethersurface or subsurface, duties. Some-thing which in 1941, the year of Bis-marck’s cruise (Suffolk playing animportant part in the chase) was ofcritical importance.

Overall, this review has managedto touch on just five of the one hun-dred and twenty one ships featured,so therefore hasn’t even scraped thesurface of this very inclusive, andexhaustive reference; a referencewhich as has already been said is avery good read, and therefore a mustbuy.

Alex ClarkeEpsom, Surrey

book reviews - canadian nautical research society · 2019-01-16 · dutch east india company...

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