U.S. NAVY COLOR
GUARD TEAM rapidly changing technologies on both sides in that desperately fought battle. And desperate it was: nearly two thirds of all who served in U-boats were lost. Even in American submarines the casualty rate was shockingly high, with nearly one out of four US submariners never coming home from the war. In the heartless arithmetic of war, submarines were a very good investment, however. US submarines sank 23 enemy ships for every submarine lost, the British sank 9 for each lost submarine. The Germans (with by far the largest submarine force) sank 20 ships per sub lost up until August 1942, but thereafter sank fewer than 2, for a wartime average of about 3. Besides the overview offered in such measurements as these, the author provides a close-in picture of strategic decision-making, and key actions at sea. PS Ships Versus Shore: Civil War Engagements Along Southern Shores and Rivers, by Dave Page (Rutledge Hill Press, Nashville TN, 1994, 41 Opp, illus, notes, biblio, index: $22.95hc) In this state-by-state guide to Confederate river and shore fortifications the author provides historical background to the little known and largely unheralded conflict between ship and shore. Sympathetic to the South and basing his research largely on the secondary literature of thi s conflict, he gives three- to six-page descriptions of all engagements of this nature throughout the South. Particularly interesting are his views on strategy, such as Federal control of water routes in and around the southern states as being the most significant strategic event responsible for the defeat of the South. Indeed, in his view the outcome of the war was decided in the West due to the Union controlling inland rivers while attempting to blockade southern ports. The war lasted as long as it did because of the Union ' s poor utilization of its naval advantages, such as not seizing southern ports and failing to have a sizable Marine Corps to support what is now termed amphibious warfare. While historians of this conflict will find Page's views thought-provoking, this book tries to be both a guidebook with travel tips to the hi storic sites and a serious explanation of "brown-water" warfare during the Civil War. As such it is an admirable effort that fails to do justice to either goal. HAROLD N. BOYER Aston, Pennsylvania SEA HISTORY 74, SUMMER 1995
The Shipping Board's"Agency Ships": Part I, The "Sub Boats," by Mark Goldberg (American Merchant Marine Museum , Kings Point NY, 1994, 402pp, illus, appen, biblio, ISBN 1-879180-011O; $24.95 pb + $2.50s&h) In the midst of World War I, America was large Iy discounted as a fighting force because, with less than 8% of the world's shipping capability in US flag ships , American men, materiel and supplies could not have reached the front. When Congress recognized this state of affairs in 1916, it created the United States Shipping Board, "charged with amassing a fleet of merchant ships in a hurry." One result of this effort was a contract with the Submarine Boat Company, which proceeded to build a shipyard in Newark, New Jersey, designed to assemble fabricated steel 3500-ton cargo carriers. This sixth volume of the American Merchant Marine History series provides a biography of each of the 150 "Sub Boats" to come out of that yard. JA To Foreign Shores: US Amphibious Operations in World War II, by John A. Lore II i (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis MD, 1995, 392pp, illus, notes, biblio, index, ISBN 1-55750-520-9; $38.95hc) Through probing, widespread research, sound strategic insight and a lively, ondeck and on-the-beach narrative style, this review of American landings on enemy shores in World War II provides a valid picture of how US forces confronted that dangerous moment when fighting men have to quit their ships to assault enemy land forces . Fortunately, by prewar study and by the development of everimproving doctrine under the pressure of combat experience, the far-flung landings necessary to bring the war home to the Axis powers ended up being far more dangerous for the enemy than the assaulting Americans-though the loss in casualties was often scarifyingly high . For here was where the worldwide resources of an oceanic coalition came to bear-and hot as it was for the landing Americans, in the end it always proved hotter for the defenders, no matter how skilled and valiant their defense. PS Tidewater Time Capsule: History Beneath the Patuxent, by Donald G. Shomette (Tidewater Publishers, Centreville MD, 1995,384pp, illus, notes, biblio, index, ISBN 0-87033-463-8; $29.95hc) Shomette's latest book provides a balanced blend of solid scholarship and
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