BOOKS The Great Ships Pass; British Battleships at War, 1939-1945, by Peter C. Smith (Annapolis MD, Naval Institute Press, 1978, 544 pp., illus., $14.95). There were fifteen of them at the outbreak of World War II, and they were old. But as Mr. Smith shows in this account, Royal Navy battleships were hard worked, steaming abroad continuously on vital occasions-more so than in World War I when they were kept together and in reserve to counter a German High Seas Fleet whose weight and power came near to matching their own. Mr. Smith offers a close and fascinating picture of the work of these great ships. He also offers us a balanced view of the strategic role of the British battleship in her last days, in the not-so-subtle pressure she exerted to keep victorious Axis legions penned in the continent of Europe while worldwide forces were mustered to their final undoing. Even Rommel's bold bid to drive the British from the south shore of the Mediterranean came to grief finally because the Italian Navy, despite its central strategic position and superior weight of metal, could not assure his sea supply. And at that level, Prime Minister Winston Churchill's hand seems a sure one, as he pursues England's ageold game of sending strong forces abroad from a threatened homeland to maintain an advanced sea strategy which, if it had broken anywhere, would have brought catastrophe everywhere. in that game for ultimate stakes, battleships were the ultimate counters. Mr. Smith rightly criticizes some of Churchill's interference in matters depending on tactical factors he did not fully grasp, as in sending Prince of Wales and Repulse to Singapore. This reviewer however has only sympathy for Churchill's order that the heavy ships pounding the Bismarck stay with her till she sank, even if it meant exhausting their fuel and being towed home themselves. Despite her ultimate power the battleship in her last great war was from the outset hampered by auxiliary arms (the submarine and dive bomber) and increasingly dependent on her own auxiliaries. By the end of the war, the aircraft carrier had become the dominant and infinitely more flexible weapon, as she proved from the outset to be in the Pacific. Mr. Smith's book is a worthy contribution to general history. It is difficult perhaps for the general historian (and sometimes the naval historian) to imagine that a mere dozen of anything could shape and control events often far 50
removed from their physical presence, as British battleships in fact did, from the days of the Tudor "Main Battle" to "those far-distant, storm-beaten ships" of the Napoleonic Wars and down to the last of the line who held the old lines in World War II. A certain unavoidable aura of majesty clings to these great ships and the traditions that grew up around them in four centuries; Mr. Smith conveys that, but he spells out also the working job these ships did until PS the end. U-Boat War, by Lothar-Gunther Buchheim, tr. Gudie Lawaetz (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1978, Illus., c. 300 pp., $17.50). The terror and beauty of the "other side" of sea war-the war waged by groups of men in small boats far¡ from any support, operating under the sea-is memorably conveyed in this combined
Photo: Lothar-Gunther Buchheim
photo-essay and reminiscence by the author of the recent best-selling novel, The Boat. As a 23-year old war artist, Buchheim was moved by the ultimate confrontation with the sea encountered in submarines, and by a conviction that both the valor and the horror of the war should be conveyed. The book is both protest and testament "of everything we did and endured," one worthy of the fell PS occasions the U-boats sailed on. A History of War at Sea; An Atlas and Chronology of Conflict at Sea from Earliest Times to the Present, by Helmut Pense!, tr. G. D. G. Smith (Annapolis MD, Naval Institute Press, 1978, 176 pp. illus., $15.95). This remarkable compact work, a virtual encyclopedia of sea warfare in history, gives diagrams and maps of 3,000 years of armed encounters, including many even an avid naval reader might never have explored. The Naval Institute issues a range of special titles of the highest quality (catalog is free on request by mail, Annapolis MD 21402) but for the general reader we recommend this authoritative work to begin on-and keep by his elbow . PS
North .Atlantic Panorama, by P . Ransome-Wallis (Middletown, CT, Wesleyan University Press, 1977, 192 pp., illus., $17.95). This straightforward, profusely illustrated volume briefly describes every liner on the fabled North Atlantic run built between 1900 and 1976. Though necessarily sketchy as to detail, the text gives the essential history of the ships, their eventual fates, and their various incarnations as ownerships were changed over the years. Here one finds the smaller vessels, such as the Canadian Montcalm or the French Line's DeGrasse, that often get lost in the shadows of their more famous and glamorous sisters. Ships are often shown in more than one form as their owners and missions changed over the years; three stackers lose a funnel, superstructures are altered to the point of becoming nearly unrecognizable. The Europa, for example, which became the French Liberte after World War II, went through three total transformations in her 32-year career. Such changes are well shown in the photographs, some of which appear here DOD for the first time in print. Cunard White Star Liners of the 1930's,by H . M. Le Flemings (Greenwich, CT, 7 C's Press, 1978, 32 pp., Illus. , $5). R.M.S. Mauretania The Ship and Her Record by Gerald Aylmer (Greenwich, CT, 7 C's Press, 1978, 64 pp., illus., $5). These offerings from the 7C's Press line of historic reprints will be welcomed by fans of the North Atlantic shipping scene during the early years of this century. H. M. Le Flemings' "Cunard White Star Liners of the l 930's" originally published in soft cover by Ian Allan, Ltd., some twenty years ago is basically a photo format book covering the period from approximately 1905 to 1936. It includes not only the standard "portraits" , but drydock , interior, and other detail views. Some thirty ships are described in the text with a brief history of each. Comparison of the reprint with an original copy shows a good quality of reproduction with little detail lost from the photos. One cannot help but compare the $5 price of the 7 C's version to the original price of 2/6 (35 cents) but the limited market for this type of book dictates the price. Aylmer's "R.M.S. Mauretania," first printed in 1934, gives a concise synopsis of the JMauretania's career and a brief history 1of her owners, the Cunard Company, amd her builders, Swan, Hunter SEA HISTORY, FALL 1978