REVIEWS The Fighting Captain: Frederick John Walker RN and the Battle of the Atlantic, by Alan Bum (Pen & Sword Books, Ltd., 47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire S70 2BR, UK, 1993, 224pp, illus, biblio, appen, index, gloss, ref, notes; ÂŁ17 .95 + ÂŁ2.50 foreign s&h) Why should the Admiralty have said in a 1950communique, "Captain Walker, more than any other, won the Battle of the Atlantic"? This book gives the answer in his record of sinking 20 U-boats, 8 more "when his ships went into sink after his death" (July 1944), and in the first six months of his group's formation an average rate of one U-boat every two weeks. Further, not a single man was lost and not a single Allied merchant ship sunk due to enemy action enjoying the protection of the Second Support Group under Walker' s command. He was meticulous about rescuing and treating survivors, friend and foe alike. After one sinking, "Doc Fraser operated for ... fourteen hours to save all but one of the Germans picked up by Starling." He achieved these results by a combination of technical competence (he perfected the innovative "creeping" attack), leadership and good fortune, while under the threat of Gnats, glider bombs, and other Boche deviltry. When in November 1941 he assumed command of HMS Stork and the 36th Escort Group, we had already lost over 2,000 merchant ships totaling 5 million tons, and the number of operational Uboats had nearly doubled . Walker took his ships to sea and set about developing group tactics, aimed to build an empathy among his commanding officers, enabling them to act on theirown initiative in any circumstances without the need for long-winded instruction. By contrast, the Donitz principle of centralization became a major factor in the initial containment and final defeat of the Uboat offensive. On his first encounter with the enemy, Walker's escort group sankfourU-boats in five days. Word got around, it could be done. Again and again Walker and his band of brothers showed the way , and this book describes how. At last he had hi s chance to prove his long-held belief that offensive use of an air/sea striking force gave the best chance of doing maximum damage to U-boats while providing maximum protection to convoys. The passage of convoy HG 76, in December 1941 , defined the shape of the convoy escorts which in 1943 would 38
begin to drive the U-boats inexorably away from the trade routes of the Atlantic. "Each convoy needed a close escort, a support group in the deep field , an aircraft carrier and aircraft to keep the U-boats submerged and drive off the German shadowers." Walker's dedication and determination show in hi s Group Operational Instruction from Starling: "Our job is to kill, and all officers must develop the spirit of vicious offensive. No matter how many convoys we shepherd through in safety, we shall have failed unless we can slaughter U-boats. All energies must be bent to this end." His modesty showed, too, when at the height of his acclaim he said in a public speech, "Please don ' t call me the 'Ace U-boat killer.' That formidable character is a Thousand British Tars." On I April 1944, this reviewer was a midshipman outward bound across the North Sea in the battleship Duke ofYork. Our captain broadcast that Captain Walker in Starling had sunk a U-boat while escorting a convoy 200 miles ahead. We knew we were in safe hands! Yet three months later, those hands were to be forever stilled. Captain J. F. Walker, CB, DSO (and three bars), RN, died sudden Iy whi le enjoying a few days' shore leave at 0200 on 9 July 1944. He was awarded total loyalty by all his men. One of his quartermasters who steered both hi s ships today spends all hi s working hours running the unique Captain Walker's Old Boys Association that still keeps his memory alive by monthly meetings and an annual reunion. MICHAEL BADHAM
The Wine-Dark Sea, by Patrick O 'Brian (W.W. Norton, New York NY, 1993 , 26lpp; $22hb) The sea, with its so litude , its unforgiving ferocity and its romantic lore, has produced some of our greatest literature. It has attracted the talented and the adventurous, commingled with the less admirable and mi sfit, packaged them in vessels that transport them to episodes of catastrophe, beauty and terror, punctuated with long periods in which to reflect and absorb. It has produced a new classic in Mr. O ' Brian's epic series about the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic wars. For the past 20 years or so thi s series has been savored by a small but addicted company of naval persons, academics and others devoted to the sea. Now, to
the horror of his cult-followers, Mr. O 'Brian, at age 78, and 48 years after his first novel, is becoming a superstar. Rarely has literary fame been so long deferred and so well-deserved. The newest in the series, The WineDark Sea, has the most interesting geography yet. It begins in the mysteriously boiling sea near a volcanic island in the Southwest Pacific, proceeds off the coast of Chile and includes an adventurous trek across the high Andes, with a narrative equal to the best travel literature. Back aboard ship, the pair play their violin and cello duets (Aubrey has an Amati violin and Maturin a Guarneri cello) into the ice of the great Southern Ocean, where they are nearly grabbed by an American fri gate. Despite the new fame, the AubreyMaturin series is not, happily, for everyone. To derive its fullest joys, the reader needs the intellectual and cultural curiosity ofMaturin himself. Mr. O 'Brian transports the reader into Georgian England. But the passage must be earned by mastering the lingo not only of "the wooden world" of Nelson 's navy, but the boudoirs, law courts and drawing rooms of Napoleonic Europe. Such terms as wuther, wharfinger, scuttlebut, turves,jolly-boat, slimedraught, knipperdolling, teapoy, stoat, nullifidian, mobcap, mangel-wurzel, groat, glebe, laudanum, fag, farrier, fenians , euchre, drover, curricle, crofter, burdock, calomei, bombazine, benefice, barouche, bark and ague lace every page like so much scrimshaw. I personally keep copies of The O>.ford Companion to Ships and the Sea and the recently published What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew by Daniel Pool close at hand when reading Mr. O'Brian. The Wine-Dark Sea is full of exciting sea battles, drawn from years of research by Mr. O ' Brian in the Royal Navy Archives at Greenwich. But there is far more here than , say, C. S. Forester's Hornblower series or Alexander Kent 's books. Not only in literary craftsmanship, but in the mastery of complex relationships, deep philosophical conflict and intensity of passion , he is unmatched. The subtlety of his personalities and the gaudy parade of characters are used to explore war, anthropology, engineering, botany, medicine and metaphysics and yet weave all this complexity into a grand and continuing flow of life. The Wine-Dark Sea ends with Jack and Stephen homeward bound. We can SEAHISTORY68, WINTER 1993-1994