REVIEWS BOOK LOCKER HIGH STRATEGY AND LOWLY LIBERTYS "Those far distant, storm-beaten ships, upon which the Grand Army never looked, stood between it and the dominion of the world." Wanting to verify this line ofAlfred Thayer Mahan' s, I looked for it in his classic The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783 (Boston MA: Little, Brown and Company, 1890). This comments on the Napoleonic Wars after 1783-but no luck. So I tried The Influence ofSea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire, 1783-1812 (Boston MA: Little, Brown and Company, 1892) and in Volume II found a note I'd made many years ago, at age 14: "118-good quote." And there it was! To show me an easier way to find quotes, my wife Norma made an Internet search, which turned up nine citations of the lines, ranging from a "Military Quotes" site to a Parliamentary debate in 1998, which cited the line using "domination" rather than Mahan's "dominion" (which is actually the stronger word-though it sounds more polite). The debate included a restatement of the Royal Navy's role as "an effective force that is capable of power projection and of being a force for good in rhe world." Hurrah for Mr. Spellar, who made these remarks five years ago to bring Europe up to a better level of working with American and British defense forces! So Mahan lives . And his oft-quoted, sometimes misquoted line is invariably stronger in his own original words. "Storm-beaten," for example, is not just poetic fancy but caps an appreciation of Britain's policy of keeping ships continuously at sea. This batters ships and men bur applies sea power's grip rigorously-and also produces a force that can win against odds. W. D. Pules ton's Mahan: The Life and Work ofAlfred Thayer Mahan (New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 1939) brings the man and his times brilliantly to life. Ir's our of print, and I've suggested that the Naval Institute Press reissue it, along with a biography of Admiral William S. Sims. Sims, a Mahanite who adapted to changing conditions, is well remembered in Elting E. Morison's Admiral Sims and the Modern American Navy (Boston MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1942). Both works capture the era of democracies confronting the challenge of European militarism, as well as details of naval reform . For a panoramic view of rhe years leading up to the US Navy's role in World War II, get Samuel Eliot Morison's The Two Ocean Navy (Boston MA: Little, Brown & Company, 1963). This is based on his fifteen-volume official history, US Naval Operations in World War II, but, as Morison observes, the shorter book gives a fuller picture of the scene before the war. His reporting on what happened at sea is matchless. He served in eight US warships to get a true feeling for what was going on. He shows how close-run were the D-Day landings, even with total air-sea superiority. On the fleet actions in the Pacific, his personal knowledge of the commanders and their ships offers a vivid picture of that scarifying war in which the Americans had to learn a lot in a hurry. Learn they did, and Morison shows how.
The Ships that Did the Job Mahan's great gift was to see the positive side of sea power in developing the resources that build a nation's strength and its ability to mobilize that strength in defense of freedom-his great concern. This took ships that move people and cargoes through oceans transformed into battlefields. And more than any other vehicle, the Liberty ship was the ship that did this in World War II. The story of these "ugly ducklings" is set forth in Peter Elphick's Liberty: The Ships that Won the War (Annapolis MD: Naval Institute Press, 2001). Cap rain Elphick's own experi ence at sea gives the tale the realism it deserves. The Jeremiah 0 'Brien's story is well told in Walter Jaffee's The Last Liberty (Palo Alto CA: The Glencannon Press, 1993) and the john W Brown's quite different story in Sherod Cooper's Liberty Ship (Annapolis MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997). We are fortunate to have these ships-and rhe ships fortunately found the right authors to tell us of their varied and challenging service in far oceans. PETER STANFORD, Editor at Large
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warships are relatively exrant, supposedly rhe archival drawings, calculations, and correspondence (probably dozens of items) detailing Constellation's alleged pre-18 5 3 hull form changes are lost or stolen. The book overlooks what this peculiar coincidence likely means: The ship's lines were not altered before 1853. Those familiar with rhe "Constellation Question" that fumed and occasionally overboiled between 1948 and 1995 will recognize that the book's general hypothesis is the same idea the supporters of the 1797 origin of rhe ship fanatically asserted decades ago. This volume simply applies a new coat of paint, reissues rhe same old argument, and employs the same stale evidence, or lack of evidence. Despite the book's authoritative tone, readability, handsome technical drawings, and many end notes, the author is a selfdescribed novice historian on a zealous crusade, and the result bears many marks of inexperience. The operational history of Constellation before 1845 is well presented. However, in the areas of ship design and construction the book ventures into unfamiliar waters. Successfully promoting rhe complex argument requires technical expertise and reasonable conformance to historians' principles. The endeavor fails here. Resurrecting the cold corpse of rhe "Constellation Question" without adequate understanding or significant new evidence muddles the issue and promotes a disservice to the struggling Baltimore ship. DANA M. WEGNER Naval Surface Warfare Center
From Annapolis to Scapa Flow: The Autobiography of Edward L. Beach, Sr. , by Edward L. Beach, Sr. with Edward L. Beach, Jr. (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis MD, 2003, 344pp, illus, index, ISBN 155750-298-6; $34.95) In 1896, a young Ensign Edward L. Beach appeared before an engineering examining board to seek promotion to lieutenant. His final question was: "Translate a short chapter from Victor Hugo's Les Miserables"-one of many anecdotes in this page-turner amply illustrating that it was a different navy during a different era. What makes this an important book is Beach's documentation of the transition from the wooden sailing navy of the 19th century to rhe new steel navy of the 20th.
SEA HISTORY 104, SPRING/SUMMER 2003