Reviews The Sail and Steam Navy List: All the Ships of the Royal Navy, 1815-1889, by David
the end of the great transition period, in 1889. The great strength of this book is the Lyon and Rif Winfield (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis MD, 2004, 352pp, illus, excellent o rganization and clear presentation of material about a wide variety of ship photos, gloss, notes, biblio , index, appen, types during a time of great change, which ISBN 1-59114-484-1; $95hc) included the move The Sail and THE from wood to iron Steam Navy List to steel for hulls, is the final work paddle to screw of David Lyon, resteam propulsion, nowned author of ALL THE SHIPS OF THE breech-loading naval history narraROYAL NAVY 1815- 188!) cannon, and the tive and reference Davi1l Lyott & Rif Winfield introduction of arbooks, who spent mor. This is an immuch of his life in portant, lavishly-ilthe plans and reflustrated reference erence areas of the work which has National Maritime been produced in Museum in Greena limited print run wich . He is known due to its expense. for his many works It is of tremendous on maritime history value to anyone including The Deninterested in ships ny List; Sea Battles In Close-Up: The Age of Nelson; The Ship: of the era, and will likely soon be just as Steam Steel and Torpedoes and several other difficult to obrain as its predecessor, The books co-written with others. This work Sailing Navy List. is a companion to his important Sailing KEVIN J. FOSTER Washington, DC Navy List, published in 1993. Ir was unfinished at the time of his death and was completed by his friend Rif Winfield, auThe Eagle and the Rising Sun: The Japathor of 50-Gun Ship. Andrew Lambert, nese-American Ular, 1941-1943, by Alan another leading expert on the period, in- Schorn (W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., New troduces the administrative, political, and York, 2004, 540pp, photos, notes, biblio, international background in which these index, ISB N 0-393-04924-8, $28.95 hc) In this survey of the war in the Paships were built and operated, fo llowed by a survey of technical developments and a cific, Schorn provides an imroduction to snapshot of Royal Navy vessels at the end Japanese politics and international relations from the 1920s to the outbreak of of the Napoleonic Wars. The book provides a co ncise design war with the United Scates in 1941. The and construction history and fare for ev- book then details the operational history ery ship in the British Royal Navy built, of the war from Pearl Harbor to victo ry captured, purchased or hired. Readers will on Guadalcanal in 1943. Individuals loom gain new understanding of ship design large in this history and Schorn begins his evolution as described in the text, richly survey of evem s with a derailed analysis illustrated from the collections of the Na- of Emperor Hirohito's role in the com ing tional Maritime Museum. The text is di- conflict. He characterizes Hirohito as "bavided into rwo periods, 1815-1863 and sically weak-minded, surrounded by the 1862-1889, describing the impact of the military from childhood, and determined leading naval surveyors upon sailing ships, to walk in the footsteps of his revered Meiji wood and iron paddle steamers, wood and ancestors." Schorn srates that Hirohito was iron screw steamers, and later of ironclads, complicit in such atrocities as the Rape of cruising vessels, frigates , corvettes, cruis- Nanking and Unit 73 1's biological/chemiing vessels, and auxiliaries. A postscript cal warfare experiments, and that his orfleet list provides a picture of the navy near ders resulted in the deaths of 2.7 million
SAIL &STEAM .n-='!<---EAVY LIST I
SEA HISTORY 109, WINTER 2004-2005
Chinese noncombatants during the war in China . Pearl Harbor is shown to have Hirohito's sanction of the final preparations for the attack, and Schorn does not mince wo rds in assigning blame to both Adm iral Husband E. Kimmel and Ge neral George C. Short for the success of the Japanese attack. General George C. Marshall receives his share of the blame for placing a "Purple" cipher machine in Manila with General Douglas MacArthur- not in Hawaii-which Schorn considers to be a "grave error of judgement" on the part of Marshall. Heroes loom large in this history as well. Admirals C hester Nimitz, Richmond Kelly Turner, William H alsey, John Towers, and Willis Lee along with Generals Robert Eichelberger and George C. Kenney are shown as highly competent, imaginative leaders at a rime when these qualities were in short supply. Isoroku Yamamoto, when asked what chance there was of Japan 's defeating the United States and Great Brirain, stated "I can raise havoc with them for one yea r or at most eighteen months. After that I can give no one any guarantees." This is the histo ry of that struggle written in a highly opinionated and lively manner that is sure to create its own havoc amongst scholars and readers! Highly recommended! HAROLD N. BOYER Folsom, Pennsylvania
Slaves, Sailors, Citizens: African Americans in the Union Navy, by Steven J. Ramold (DeKalb, Illinois, Northern Illinois University Press, 2002, 253pp, illus, biblio, notes, index, ISB N 0-8 7580-286-9; $32hc) In July 1861 an exchange of memos berween Navy Secrerary Gideon Welles and Commodore Silas H. Stringham, whose blockading squadron was short of both ships and personnel, heralded a seachange in the story of the manning of the 41