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NAVY NEWS, OCTOBER 1991
At Your Leisure
24 carat The illustrated Pe mystery CHRISTOPHER Columbus' status as the discoverer of the Americas has been chipped about a bit in recent years. It had long been known that the Vikings got there first; Tim Severin's Brendan Voyage proved an Irish monk could have made the crossing; even more improbably, it was shown that the ancient Egyptians might have made it on a bundle of reeds, though Thor Heyerdahl justified his Ra expeditions with a catalogue of archaeological parallels. With the 500th anniversary of 1492 looming on the horizon a whole new world of speculation is likely to open up — and in Columbus — For Gold, God and Glory (Hodder & Stoughton £ 19.95) John Dyson follows the accepted pattern of retracing an ancient mariner's course in an authentic reproduction of a contemporary vessel to suggest that not only did Columbus know where he was going and may well have possessed a secret map. but that his motive was not to find a new trade route to the East after all. He was after gold, pure and simple, and had a strong suspicion as to where he might find it ...
Contrary It took another master mariner. Dr. Luis Coin, sometime lecturer at the University of Cadiz, to realise that Columbus may have deliberately covered his tracks. Though his log had always been regarded by historians as a reliable document. Coin found it contained obser"AGAIN and again ships have vanished incredibly quickly and, while shipbuilders and naval architects endeavour to take every possible eventuality into consideration, each new sinking produces something they haven't allowed for." So writes John Harris in his introduction to Lost at Sea (Mandarin, £3.99). This former merchant seaman, who has more than once had to swim for his life, recounts the fates of ships ranging from Henry VIM's Mary Rose to the Herald of Free Enterprise and the Marchioness.
vation that did not make sense — for instance, Columbus complained of contrary currents that do not exist west of the Canaries where he said he was sailing, but the current would have been against him had he been heading south. Thus he suggests Columbus falsified his "diario" to conceal his true route deep into Portuguese waters — where capture would have meant certain death. Afficionados of medieval detective stories will find much to excite the imagination here — why, for instance, did the first known map of the New World include long stretches of the Venezuelan and Gulf of Mexico coastline which had not been explored before it was published in 1500? Columbus was in the pay of Spain and political considerations demanded a whole scries of cover-ups to conceal the importance of his discoveries from rival maritime powers. No big surprise there, certainly. — JFA Storms, shipwreck, war and mutiny — all rear their ugly heads in these true
NNJI In Brief stories of disaster. Among the Royal Navy vessels covered are HM ships Royal George, Lutine, Hampshire, Captain and Victoria. D
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"Sixth rates in a calm" by Willem Van de Velde, brilliant contemporary of Pepys.
and Afrikakorps 1941-43 by Gordon Williamson, illustrated by Ron Volstad. Each costs £7.50. D
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Worth its considerable weight in gold is The Macmillan and Silk Cut Nautical Almanac 1992, published by Macmillan at £19.99. It contains the essential navigational data needed by yachtsmen for the waters round the United Kingdom, Ireland and the coast of Europe from the border of Spain and France on the Atlantic coast to the North Sea border of Germany and Denmark. LOOKING FOR A NAVAL BOOK? TRY US FIRST. We are NOT second hand dealers but have a huge stock of current Naval titles (many at bargain prices) Write/ phone (until 9pm-6 days) for our latest FREE catalogue. We can normally supply books as reviewed on this page by return of post. MARITIME BOOKS LISKEARD PL14 4EL
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WORLD WAR II REVIEW A newsletter full of news, views and reviews for all those interested in the events of 1939-45. For free sample copy send a stamped, addressed A4 envelope to Broadhead Publishing, Broadhead Castleshaw. Delph, Oldham OL3 5LZ
SINCE Richard Ollard's Pepys appeared in 1974 Robert Latham has completed a definitive transcription of the complete Diary with Companion and Index and a bestselling single volume Shorter Pepys comprising an abridgement of about a third of the text. "Nothing of comparable importance has appeared or is likely to appear in any field of Pepysian studies," Ollard now avers in the preface to a new illustrated version of his own book (Sinclair-Stevenson £25) — but surely he is being over generous? The lasting appeal of the great — perhaps the greatest — of our Naval administrators is that he was not so much, after all, a man of his own times as of all time, and so must continue to fascinate succeeding generations of readers and scholars. Contemporary illustrations add a fresh charm to a biography characterised by an elegant but essentially modem prose that is worthy of its subject. Perhaps the best are provided by Willem van de Velde, doyen of maritime artists in the period that saw the flowering of Dutch landscape, who was long in England during Pepys' lifetime and whose "fidelity to seamanlike detail ... is as conspicuous as beauty of execution." — JFA
Arnie's unstoppable hit machine is box office manna THERE'S a new line in Terminators this year. The old T-800 familiar from the original picture has been superseded in Terminator 2 — Judgment Day by the T-1000, partactor, part computer-generated special effect, liable when under attack to liquefy into a sort of bad tempered puddle, before assuming some even more threatening shape. his hands ought to be — the daughter, that had the movie And that's not all that's hitting the headlines before changed. The neanderthal anyone had so much as hulk which was the A. plugged in a camera. PerSchwarzenegger of yesterhaps the first thing to say year continues his metamorabout the Godfather series is phosis into loveable Arnie, what a gripping, virtuoso protector of the weak, friend piece of film making it sort of character, you might of children and, no doubt, amounts to: rambling, comthink, for whom the services congressman-in-waiting. Inplex, peopled by vivid charof a Terminator would be deed, the film forgets for acters, punctuated by specindicated. whole stretches that he's tacular action set-pieces. An In fact, Edward is kind, supposed to be a machine, epic, in fact — for once the anxious to please and danas it concentrates on his over-used term is exactly gerous only to himself when paternal relationship with appropriate. trying to scratch. We never the adolescent hero — a The second thing to say is actually learn why the scientiresome tyke whom most that the films present a sanitist decided to build a huaudiences would be happy tised, even admiring picture man version of a Swiss army to see suffering termination of a bunch of people, the knife — no doubt by casting circa Reel 2. Mafia, who might charitably Vincent Price, looking nuttier Otherwise though, the be described as the scum of than a vegetarian's rissole, movie is pure action, a the earth. What are we to the film makers hoped to Brock's benefit of fire and make, for instance, of Don place the matter beyond disexplosions, a demolition Corleone announcing that he cussion. derby of careening, cartdraws the line at peddling Be that as it may, the picwheeling vehicles, a stuntdrugs? Considering the ture tells of the bizarre Edman's pipe-dream of bodies things he doesn't draw the ward's efforts to conform hurtling from buildings, line at, murder and extortion and settle down in small crashing through walls. At being but two of them, one's town America. Alternately the centre of it all is Schwaradmiration for such delicate comical and touching, it's a zenegger, as monolithically scruples remains somewhat refreshingly offbeat attracimpassive as ever, in conmuted. tion, not really like anything trast to Linda Hamilton, Still, moral qualms apart, it else one can think of. Pop burning up the screen in a must be conceded that Copidol Johnny Depp stars in performance of unbridled pola presents his romantithe title role, with Winona ferocity. cised gallery of Borgia-like Ryder as his high school A much gentler fantasyDons, hatchet-faced hitmen, inamorata. figure is Edward Scissortreacherous Vatican fixers It was the withdrawal of an hands. He's a whey-faced, and so on with all his cusailing Ms Ryder from the black-garbed teenager, protomary flair and eye for the cast of Godfather Part 3 and vided by the mad scientist telling details. her replacement by Sofia who created him with an asBob Baker Coppola, the director's sortment of blades where
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