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Appointment in Normandy, by Walter Jaffee (The Glencannon Press, Palo Alto CA, 1995, 590pp, illus, appen, biblio, index, ISBN 0-9637586-4-0; $3 l.95hc) "Nobody who was aboard yesterday will ever forget it," said Carl Nolte the day after D-Day observances at Normandy aboard the Liberty shipleremiah 0 ' Brien, who made her famous trip all the way from San Francisco to be there. In a clear and well-paced narrative, greatly enriched by the recorded remarks of members of the ship 's company as the long voyage unfolded, Captain Jaffee brings the reader aboard in an historical experience the like of which the world had never seen: the volunteered effort of 60- and 70-year-old veterans that repaired a 51-year-old freighter the size of a city block, restored her to steaming condition, and then sailed her from one ocean to another to honor the heroes of D-Day in a way the world would really notice and remember. Jaffee's canvas is broad and full of humanity. He even remembers us shorebound supporters in NMHS , who helped get the needed legislation through the Congress, and then pitched in with an every-member mailing to solicit matching funds . The voyage was undertaken and carried out in a generous spirit, and the reward, in the deep-seated, overflowingly expressed gratitude of our French and British allies, was worth all the effort. You will share in that reward, and in the need we feel to perpetuate the D-Day story in enduring gratitude, when you read this exciting true life adventure story. PS Captain's Daughter, Coasterman's Wife: Carrie Hubbard Davis of Orient, by Joan Druett (Oystcrponds Historical Society, Box 844, Orient NY 11957, 1995,64pp,illus;$9pb+$1.50s&h, NY residents add 8.5% sales tax) This entrancing story of the marriage and sailing experience of Carrie Hubbard Davis, a young woman of the seaport vi ll age of Orient on New York 's Long Island, in the 1870s and ' 80s,cameabout through the happy chance that the maritime scholar Joan Druett found herself li ving in the house that Carrie lived in with her husband, Charles Davis. Davis sai led in the coasting trade to the Connecticut shore across the Sound in a small schooner commanded by William Hubbard, Carrie's father. Carrie in her letters offers unending homey details about her way of life,
delighting in the seasons, and in friends and neighbors and the exquisite manners of her somewhat feckless husband, who seemed to charm everyone but did not have much stick-to-itiveness. Their second son (the first died in infancy) grew up to become the distinguished photographer, inventor, author and marine artist William Steeple Davis, whose marine photographs and drawings add greatly to the feeling of this narrativeso much so one wishes a complete picture book of his work in this genre might be published! In his will he provided an artist-in-residence fund to enable artists to work in the quietude of what Ms. Druett calls "the sea-girt Long Island hamlet" of Orient-and so when Ms. Druett's husband Ron became the Davis artist-in-residence in 1994, the author came to live in Carrie 's house. It is sheer magic that it was Joan Druett who happened on these letters with their memorable scenes of ordinary life which so seldom get noted down because everybody at the time knows all about them . PS Stealth at Sea: The History of the Submarine, by Dan van der Vat (Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston MA and New YorkNY, 1995,374pp,iUus,appen,biblio, index, ISBN 0-395-65242-1 ; $24.95 hc) To say that the submarine revolutionized naval warfare in this century is no exaggeration. The technical achievement of getting a warship capable of dealing ship-killing blows to travel long distances concealed underwater had far more than a tactical impact on naval warfare: it gave new meaning, and devastating possibilities, to the "guerre de course," or war against enemy shipping, which had been the traditional strategy of the weaker naval power. This strategy , used most effectively by the Americans in the American Revolution and War of 1812, was practiced brilliantly by the Germans using the U-boat (Unterseeboot) as their primary weapon . They came perilously close to shutti ng down England as an operating belligerent in both World War I and II. And US submarines operating in the Pacific had hamstrung the Japanese war economy even before the atomic bomb brought a quick conclusion to World War II in the Pacific. Van der Vat 's book provides an authoritative review of these operations, and of the strategies of submarine attack and shipping defense, closely tied to SEA HISTORY 74, SUMMER 1995