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Heart of Oak: A Sailor's Life in Nelson's Navy Review

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(More customer reviews)James McGuane's "Heart of Oak" is a marvelous visual journey into, as the subtitle has it, "A Sailor's Life in Nelson's Navy". The book is filled with photographs of artifacts from British nautical museums (plus a number taken aboard HMS Victory and at other naval-related sites), pictures not of static, dead objects on dusty museum shelves, but photographs artfully dynamic, almost as if the tools portrayed were set down a few minutes ago and a horny-handed seaman might return shortly to resume his work. Many of the most fragile artifacts, such as a leather bucket and handmade trousers of light sailcloth, were recovered from the wreck of HMS Invincible lost in 1758, decades before the era of Horatio Nelson and Jack Aubrey, but nonetheless strongly representative of what would have still been found aboard a Royal Navy ship during the Napoleonic Wars. The range of articles pictured is remarkable: a tar brush, pistols and boarding pikes, sailmakers' fids, a surgeon's bleeding bowl, cable laid rope, a glim (the thick glass lens set into a powder magazine enclosure to admit light but not flame), a seaman's knit woolen cap, a ship's lead, hourglasses (well, 28-minute glasses, to be accurate), a square wooden plate with raised rim (keeps the food in place when the ship rolls), sailors' knives, a cat-o'-nine-tails, a pressgang's cosh, and much, much more. "Heart of Oak" is not a highly structured analysis of the physical accoutrements of nautical life two centuries ago, but it is a bit of a time machine, transporting the modern student of naval history (or a lover of the novels of Patrick O'Brian or C.S. Forester) back into that vanished world.

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US Navy Aircraft 1921-1941 / US Marine Corps Aircraft 1914-1959 Review

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(More customer reviews)Mr. Larkins book has many rare photos and is one of the best if not the best Naval Aviation books around.

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Pepy's Navy: The Ships, Men and Organisation, 1649-1689 Review

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(More customer reviews)It was during the mid- to late-1600s that Britain's navy became the basis for what would develop as a world-wide empire upon which 'the sun would did not set'. J. David Davies is Britain's leading naval historian and an expert on British 17th Century navy, it composition, leaders, ships, and deployments. He draws from his decades of research to write "Pepys's Navy: Ships, Men & Warfare 1649-1689", a comprehensive and meticulous history that begins when the 'Fleet Royal' was brought under Parliamentary control during the civil wars through to the accession of William and Mary to the throne of England in 1689 and the conclusion of the naval-based war with the Dutch. Every element of the British navy is addressed from its administration, ship types, shipbuilding, and naval recruitment, to its crews, seamanship, gunnery, shipboard life, dockyards, and bases. Of special note are the three major wars fought against the Dutch in the Channel and the North Sea during this forty year time span. A seminal work of superb and painstaking scholarship, "Pepys's Navy" is profusely embellished with both color and black-and-white illustrations, a list of abbreviations, notes, appendix, a bibliography, and an index. "Pepys's Navy" is a core addition to personal, community, and academic library Naval History reference collections.

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All aspects of the English navy in the second half of the seventeenth century are comprehensively described in this book by one of Britain's leading authorities of a period that witnessed the creation of a permanent naval service. One of the book's most significant players is Samuel Pepys, whose tireless work over thirty years did so much to develop systems for construction and administration that prepared the navy for its global struggle with the French. This book will appeal to scholar and layman alike.

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The Halifax Explosion and the Royal Canadian Navy: Inquiry and Intrigue (Studies in Canadian Military History) Review

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(More customer reviews)On December 6, 1917, two ships in the harbor at Halifax, Nova Scotia, collided. The resulting fire soon led to a massive explosion that destroyed the ships, much of the harbor, and a good part of the surrounding city. The scope and impact of the tragedy is almost unimaginable. And yet, according to author John Griffith Armstrong, the event is largely forgotten by Canadians and almost universally unknown to Americans. That's too bad -- not only for the sake of the people killed or wounded, but also for the lessons we can still learn from the event and its aftermath today. Armstrong's book shows us why.
As the author notes early in his book, the Halifax explosion, to the extent it's been studied by historians at all, is generally approached from a sociological viewpoint that concentrates on the event's impact on the people of Halifax. Armstrong's brief is different. He analyses the effect of the explosion and subsequent investigation on the Royal Canadian Navy.
In so doing, he's created a surprisingly interesting story that, while it gets a little bogged down in the minutia of inquiry transcripts quoted at length, nevertheless develops a number of themes that are still relevant today. For example: the tendency of military and political bureaucracies to obfuscate, shift blame, and throw others to the wolves in order to protect themselves (and the difficulties military and civilian bureaucracies have in communicating with, or even understanding, one another); the dangers that result from unclear divisions of responsibility; the ease with which opportunistic politicians can manipulate and enflame public opinion; and much more.
It's also very interesting to see the developing institutional ethos of the Royal Canadian Navy, which had existed as a nominally independent body for less than a decade at the time of the explosion.
On the whole, this book is a study of bureaucracy, legal proceedings, and institutional evolution that frankly may not appeal to a lot of people. But for students of disasters, institutions, the navy, or just an overlooked chapter in Canadian history, this title has a lot to recommend it.

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THE AGE OF INVINCIBLE: The Ship that defined the modern Royal Navy Review

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(More customer reviews)Well written, good photographs and a highly enjoyable read for anyone who is interested in Navy aviation of the Royal Navy.
I have several books on this subject and this is the best I have read so far.

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The story of HMS Invincible, a ship whose eventful life story, it is argued, embodies that of the Royal Navy itself during the second half of the 20th century and into the 21st. From her conception and design, through her various deployments (including the Falklands) and her evolving role and technical adaptation to meet changing strategic requirements, her fluctuating fortunes have been intertwined with those of the Royal Navy as a whole. Now, as a new breed of carriers is being commissioned to replace her, this thoroughly researched analysis of her career is the perfect platform from which to ask the important questions regarding the future role of the Royal Navy and Britain's place in the world.

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The History of the American Sailing Navy: The Ships and Their Development Review

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(More customer reviews)For those who are interested in the technical details of the US Navy sailing ships, this is the book of choice. This is perhaps one of the most complete and thorough research book that covers the history of the sailing ships serving the US Navy. The book's eight chapters plus an appendix covers sail ships that served in the US Navy from the colonial period up to the last one built before the Civil War. Sail ships ranging in sizes from small sloops to large Ship of the Line are covered. Details regarding the design considerations/proposals, dimensions, number/types of guns, tonnage, performance, etc. are included. Detail illustrations are also included.
This book mentions some brief history of some of the sailing vessels but not in detail. So for those who are interested in the history of a particular vessel this is not the book of choice.
Any naval historian, architecture, and those interested in sailing should get this book and will not be disappointed.

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Howard Chapelle was one of America's most distinguished navalhistorians. His crowning achievement, The History of the American SailingNavy, has long been out-of-print, but its treatment of the subject remainsunparallelled. Accompanying the authoritative text are detailed plans ofover 50 sailing vessels as well reproductions of contemporary paintingsand drawings. Lincoln Colcord said: "Chapelle, in my opinion, has thesoundest ideas on the history of naval architecture and the development ofAmerican ship types of any man writing on the subject...HIs work will beof permanent historical value."

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Abandon Ship The Saga of the U.S.S. Indianapolis, the Navy's Greatest Sea Disaster Review

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(More customer reviews)Richard F. Newcomb's "Abandon Ship!" succeeds in its primary goals of sifting through the reasons behind the sinking of the USS Indianapolis during the last days of World War II, and attempting to get behind the Navy's assignment of blame immediately afterward. Newcomb, a naval war correspondent, uses the reporter's tactics of extensive interviews and thorough research of unclassified documents to succinctly lay out his case for what happened and why.
In July, 1945 a Japanese submarine torpedoed the cruiser Indianapolis with almost 1,200 sailors on board. Eight hundred men made it off the ship, but when recovered four days later, only 300 of the crew were still alive. Five hundred men died of shark attacks, exhaustion, dehydration, drowning, and other conditions related to exposure. The ship's commander, Capt McVay, survived to face court martial charges for actions allegedly contributing to the loss of his ship. The Navy even called the Japanese submarine commander that sank the ship to testify against Captain McVay. This was the only time a ship's captain was court martialed for losing a ship in wartime. After the court martial, the Department of the Navy also publicly assigned blame to other Naval personnel, who weren't even previously considered, for failing to report the nonarrival of the Indianapolis into Leyte. The Navy never admitted to the gaping hole in its policy that allowed the nonarrival of a major vessel to literally "slip" beyond notice. This failure to check up on the ship's nonarrival contributed to the majority of the Indianapolis' crew dying through exposure and shark attacks. The men were in the water for four days until a US plane sighted them by chance. No resuce efforts were launched until then. The architects of this policy were the Navy's highest ranking officers, and they weren't ever considered for punishment.
Newcomb succeeds in piecing together the roles of several dozen key participants in the tragedy to explain what happened and why. His long experience with military organizations also enables Newcomb to translate the events for the lay reader. The book does suffer in its narrative prose at times due to Newcomb's colorful and fanciful phrasing, but in key passages it soars. Newcomb weaves over a dozen different perspectives of the sinking by crewmen in various parts of the ship to paint a vivd picture of what the ordeal was like. He also captures the atmosphere of Captain McVay's court martial and puts it in context with the average American's view of the sinking. At these times, the book crackles with tension. Newcomb's description of the sailors' ordeal in the water is lacking some realistic details, probably in deference to readers' sensibilities. After all, Newcomb wrote this only 13 years after the sinking. Many relatives and loved ones were still alive, and perhaps he wished to spare them anything graphic.
Newcomb has clearly done his homework through countless interviews and exhaustive research. However, his access to Navy records was severly limited due to the relative freshness of these events in the public and the Pentagon's eye. With over 50 years between the sinking and now, the story of the Indianpolis bears a second look.
Until then, this books still stands as an informative and riveting work.

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