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The Last Liberty: The Biography of the SS Jeremiah O ' Brien, by Walter W. Jaffe (Glencannon Press, PO Box 341 , Palo Alto CA 94302, 1993, 490pp, illus, appen, index; $29hc incl s&h) This splendid work is dedicated to "all Liberty sailors, past, present and yet to come." A remarkable dedication for the story of a workhorse ship massproduced under emergency conditions for wartime serv ice over half a century ago ! The most remarkable thing about the Liberty ship Jeremiah O'Brien, built in South Portland, Maine, in 1943, however, is simply that she does have a qualified serv ing crew who steam her regularly around San Francisco Bay, and who, as these words are written, are making herready for an 8,000-mileocean voyage to revisit the Normandy beaches she brought men and guns to 50 years ago, in June 1944. Why thi s devoted service to a ship which last carried cargo in 1946, a ship built in a hurry with an outmoded engine (for ease of production) , for a war fought and won before most Americans alive today were born ? Captain Jaffe ' s spirited and carefully researched story brings you about as close as you can come to an answer to this question, without being part of the crew yourself. Wisely he begins by quoting the German Admiral Doenitz' s estimate of what it would take to win the U-boat war. The U-boats, Doenitz noted, were si nking enough ships to win in May 1942 when Doenitz wrote his appreciation for Hitler. "His mistake," Jaffe notes, "was in underestimating the ship-building capacity of American yards." And indeed, the U-boat war was won partly by improved anti-submarine warfare, but still more because we learned how to build ships faster than the Germans could si nk them. A graduate of the US Merchant Marine Academy at King's Point, and an experienced master mariner, Jaffe wri tes with authority about the construction techniques that produced thi s miracle, and about the wartime experience of the Libertys in general and the 0 ' Brien in particular. Wartime crew members contribute vivid vignettes of life aboard the ship, which had the distinction of being a "good feeder" with a Chinese cook in charge of the big iron galley stove. Abundant photographs help bring the story to life. One shot of self-propelled "Long Tom" guns waiting on pierside to be loaded for the battle in Normandy reminds one that it was the 0 ' Brien and
her kind that delivered the army 's punch when and where it counted. And after he r service in the Atlantic, she went on to do vital work in the Pacific war against the Japanese. Jaffe's account covers the resurrection of the ship by her volunteer crew. A veritable seafaring culture, that of the triple-expansion engine, was revived to bring this about. And new people, thankfully , are being trained in that culture today-note that Jaffe 's dedication incl udes future Liberty sailors! PETER STANFORD
History of the US Navy, by Robert W. Love, Jr. (Stackpole Books, Harrisburg PA , 1992, Vol. I: 766pp, illus, notes, index; Vol. II: 904pp, illus, notes, index; $39.95 hc, each) Professor Robert W. Love of the US Naval Academy has attempted a comprehensive history of the service whose officer candidates he educates. The result encompasses two volumes totaling l , 678 pages. Each volume is complete within itself and has its own index. If valued on size and effort alone, this work might earn the encomium "magisterial ," but unbalanced content and a plethora of errors rule out any such award. In the first paragraph of the introduction the author makes it clear that regardless of its all-encompassing title, the book is not an all-encompassing naval history: "The object of this bookis to c hronicle and explain the high politics of American naval history." The litany that follows-"the book is also concerned with the interplay among international politics, American foreign policy, overall military strategy, naval strategy, tactics, and naval operations"- fai ls to even mention trade. And trade is what naval history is all about-no trade, no navy. This review only addresses Volume I, which in itself raises a pertinent question: If Love ' s real interest as a historian lies in 1941-1992, why bother with 17751941 ? Professor Love devotes thirtythree chapters to the earlier period , but fails to cite a single archival source. He relies instead upon a vast bibliographic array of secondary sources interspersed with a slim selection of published documents. It is one thing to write a selective hi story. But Love chose to address the period 1775-1941 andmustpaythecritical price for a second-hand effort. "In this book I employ an occasional naval term," the author informs us on page xv. It is di smayi ng to discover that SEA HISTORY 69, SPRING 1994
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