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A Shipyard in Maine, by Ralph Linwood Snow and Capt. Douglas K. Lee (Tilbury House, Gardiner ME, and the Maine Maritime Museum, Bath ME, 1999, 39lpp, illus, appen, biblio, index, ISBN 0-88448193-x; $49.95hc) This book is a magnificent history of the Percy and Small shipyard in Bath and the great schooners built there. The site, now occupied by the Maine Maritime Museum, saw 7 sixmasted, 15 five-masted, and 19 four -masted schooners built between 1894 and 1920, along with many smaller craft. The yard also built and operated vessels for its own account, and so the book includes many revealing details of the vagaries of making money afloat. The yard and vessel histories are elegantly narrated by Snow, with copious photographs and excellent line drawings by Capt. Lee. M uch of this material will be of considerable interest to model builders as well as to maritime historians. Included in the vessels built by Percy and Small was the Wyoming, one of the most famo us of the great six-masters ever built, and the Annie C. Ross, a four-master that survived in trade until 194 1. John A. Noble, the lithographer of Staten Island fame and chronicler of the end of working sail, went to sea in her and ultimately owned her yawl boat from which his "Rowboat Sketches" were made. T his is a beautiful and monumental work, telling the story of this very significant shipyard and its ships in wonderful detail. It is truly a joy to own and should be in every schooner buff's library. TOWNSEND HORNOR Osterville, Massachusetts The Buckley-Class Destroyer Escorts, by Bruce Hampton Franklin (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis MD, 1999, 174pp, illus, biblio, appen, index, ISBN 1-55750280-3; $39.95hc) In June of 1941 England requested that the US design and manufacture a ship for oceangoing convoy escort. The plans were finalized by Gibbs and Cox, the same marine architects who did the drawings for
the American Liberty ships and designed the liners America and United States. Construction began in early 1942 and a total of 565 units in many different configurations and classes were completed, of which 154 were Buckley-class DEs, and England received 46 of these. The book covers this history and deals with the many variations in armament and other fearures. All the ships were 306 feet long and had turboelecrric propulsion. There the similarity between ships ended. The most varied alterations were to the armament. The vessels lent to England had some of their armament installed by the Royal Navy. The biggest change in armament was the elimination of the torpedo rubes and the replacement of the 3" 150 main battery with 5"/38 closed mounts. The book continues to discuss the careers of the DEs after World War II, and concludes with a detailed description of armament, modifications, etc. and photographs of each of the 154 Buckley-class vessels including information on the namesake and significant operations. Perhaps one of the most spectacular performances by a DE was the location and sinking of five Japanese submarines in twelve days by USS England (CDE-635). This book will make great reading and a treasured memento of days long ago for all DE sailors. DAVIDE. PERKJNS Sebring, Florida Spain's Men of the Sea: Daily Life on the Indies Fleets in the Sixteenth Century, by Pablo E. Perez-Mellaina, translated by Carla Rahn Phillips (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore MD, 1998, 289pp, illus, notes, index, ISBN 0-8018-5746-5; $29.95hc) The author provides a portrait of the daily life of seamen and officers serving Spain's Atlantic fleets on their voyages ro the New World in the century after its discovery by Columbus. These fleets sailed the Atlantic during Spain's sixteenth-century Golden Age bringing human and material cargo to the New World while
SEA HISTORY 92, SPRING 2000