REVIEWS
War at Sea, 1939-1945, John Ham ilton (Sterling Publi shing , NYC ; Blandford Pr. , Dorset , UK; Ca pricorn Link , Lane Cove, NSW , Aus. , 1986 , 272pp, illus , maps, $49.95 hb). John Hamilton' s paintings , as gathered in thi s magnificent volume, convey vivid images of ships in act ion in all oceans in what all mu st hope is the last of th e great world wars . From the gall ant sight of the Ajax and Achilles steami ng into ac tion aga in st the Graf Spee , battle fl ags streaming at the peak , to U-boats be ing harri ed in th e bitter Battle of the North Atlantic (which the auth or-artist ri ghtl y declares at th e outset was the critical arena of th e whole war at sea), or a corvette standing by a stricken tanker, or a horror-struck torpedoed merchant seaman hunched over, alone , on a drifting raft , Hamilton encompasses the full range of the war at sea. The written narrati ve is clear, strai ghtfo rward and fact ual, mak ing an understated seamanl y accompan iment to these terrible sometimes inspiring scenes. The war is long over now , and in another few decades , it will slip over the hori zo n of living memory . It should never be forgotten, however. This powerful testament will help make sure th at its terrors, its sufferin gs and destructi ons and moments of hero ic performance will live on for th ose who escaped its ex perience. PS
Icebound: The Jeannette Expedition's Quest for the North Pole, by Leonard F. Guttridge (Naval Institute Press , Annapolis, MD, 1986, 336 pp, illus, $23.95hb). In the late nineteenth century, there were few secrets of geography so impenetrable as the nature of the Arctic's North Pole. Theori es of the day held variously that the Pole itself was ice-free; that it was warmed by them1al currents from Japan; that the Arctic Ocean was an enormous glac ial continent. Numerous major expeditions were launched amidst great fa nfare, and all were defeated--often at terrible cost- by the Pole's indomitable sentries: excruciating cold , treacherous weather and , worst of all , impassable icepac ks. By far the gravest threat to any expedition was to be trapped in the ice , isolated in a bleak and unforgiving wasteland , with dwindling supplies and dwindling hope for success. It was these rigors th at the 420 ton bark Jeannelle face d when she left San Francisco Harbor on Jul y 8, 1879. Her destinati on was th e North Pole by way of th e Bering Sea , her nobl e purpose , in SEA HISTORY , AUTUMN 1986
Captain De Long ' s words , ' ' to determine laws of meteorology, hydrography, astro nomy and gravitation , reveal ocean c urrents, develop ocean fis heries , discover lands and peoples hitherto unknown , and by ex tending the world ' s knowledge . . . solve great prob lems important to humanity ." The expedition 's more profane purpose was to boost the circulati on of the New York Herald, which financed the trip and had exc lusive rights to its story. (The Herald had also backed Henry Stanley's wildly newsworth y search for Dr. Livingstone in Africa.) T hrough the influence of the Herald's owner, Ja mes Gordon Bennett, the US Navy was induced to put its own considerab le reso urces behind the Jeannette exped ition , whose departure fro m San Francisco that summer day was celebrated by much of the city ' s population. Here was an unprecedented opportunity for the United States to win th e North Pole , the press shrilled , an ac hievement that would be th e " event of the century. " Leonard G uttrid ge ' s Icebound: The J eannette Expedition ' s Quest for the North Pole is the story of the Jeannette' s spectacul ar fa ilure to achieve any of its stated goa ls, and of the unre lieved misfo rtune which dogged the trip from th e o utset. Guttridge re lates in heartbreaking detail the escalating seri es of miscalculations, mi sunderstandin gs and mi shapsand appallingly bad luck- which doomed the expedition. The first blow came when the Jeannette was imprisoned in the ice- pack early on, even before reaching Wrangel Is land , the gateway to the Arctic. And the pack they were caught in was drifting south . The Jeannelle was found to burn too much coal. There was a shortage of wa ter. The maps were inaccurate. The nav igator we nt blind from a secret illness. There were regular equipment fa ilure s . And still the Jeannette remained locked in the ice. In 1880 , Captain De Long wrote despondently: " The knowled ge th at we have done nothing [i s] alm o st enough to make me tear my hair in impotent rage." In the end , the Jeannette spent an inc red ible two winters trapped in th e floes befo re th e ice finally crushed and sank he r earl y one morning. The party retreated in three small boats toward Siberia in an increasing state of desperation and disarray. The final outcome of the ex ped ition was so shattering that a nava l enquiry was convened-and devoted the greater part of its energies to suppress ing its findin gs . Guttridge does a fin e job of recreating th e drama of the Jeannette fiasco , and
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