Class of 1957 Book Review Site. ©2007. To add a Book Review, or to comment on a book already in this listing, send your material or review to Sam Coulbourn at Persnav@shore.net. Photo at top of each page shows ENS Arleigh Burke beneath 14-inch gun aboard Battleship USS Arizona, 1923.  Revised 27 March 2008.  

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NAVAL HISTORY

 

NAVAL HISTORY

At All Costs: How A Crippled Ship And Two American Merchant Mariners Turned The Tide Of World War II                          

 

By Sam Moses, 2006, Random House.

 

             A great nautical history of the endeavors by the British to resupply Malta in 1942. Malta's brave citizens and a few British airmen based there were running out of time defending the island from the Italians and the Germans. Malta was the key to the Med and the North African Invasion by the allies as the last base to supply allied subs and aircraft was at Malta.

             Fourteen merchant ships escorted by 33 destroyers, seven cruisers, four aircraft carriers and two battleships with the SS Ohio, the biggest and fastest tanker in the world, lent to Churchill by FDR at the center, were sent on the resupply mission. Read how many made it.

 

Reviewed by George Bouvet, February, 2007.

 

 

NAVAL HISTORY

Class of '47 Annapolis -- America's Best

 

By Jack Sheehan,  2006.

 

             The book covers that class's outstanding grads including Vice Admiral Jim Stockdale (Vietnam POW); Admiral Stansfield Turner (Director of the CIA under '47 classmate, Jimmy Carter); Admiral Wm. J. Crowe, CNO and then Chairman, Joint Chiefs;  Arkansas business man  Jack T. Stevens, who possessed a Midas touch and transformed several industries, chaired the Augusta National Golf Board, and incidentally, donated $10M to the construction of Jack T. Stephens field, the current USNA football playing field at Navy-Marine Corps Stadium.

             There's much more, such as naval aviator Tom Hudner, who was awarded the medal of honor at age 26. Hudner's flight leader, Jesse Brown, was downed by North Korean ground fire. When Hudner realized Brown survived the crash landing but could not free himself from the crumpled Corsair, Hudner radioed for a rescue 'copter, then landed wheels-up beside Brown and rushed over to drag him from the crash.  Unfortunately, and contrary to the Hollywood version in the movie "Bridges of Toko-ri", Brown died of his wounds at the crash site, but the helo, (piloted by Mickey Rooney in the movie) did rescue Hudner. Incidentally, Brown was black - the first naval fighter pilot of his race.

             Sheehan's an excellent writer - I anticipated turgid prose but was delighted to find the book and easy, informative, and interesting read!  It explains the mission of the Naval Academy (and by inference, ALL this country’s military academies) more clearly and forcefully, in the words of the class of '47 members, than anything I've ever read.  Well, there is another than runs close - The Long Gray Line by Rick Atkinson, the story of the USMA class of '66, which was decimated in Vietnam.  I found T-L-G-L depressing, but Class of '47 is uplifting.

 

Review November 2006.

 

 

NAVAL HISTORY

Sea of Thunder                           

 

 By Evan Thomas, 2006.

 

             Evan Thomas takes us inside the naval war of 1941-1945 in the South Pacific in a way that blends the best of military and cultural history and riveting narrative drama. He follows four men throughout: Admiral William ("Bull") Halsey, the macho, gallant, racist American fleet commander; Admiral Takeo Kurita, the Japanese battleship commander charged with making what was, in essence, a suicidal fleet attack against the American invasion of the Philippines; Admiral Matome Ugaki, a self-styled samurai who was the commander of all kamikazes and himself the last kamikaze of the war; and Commander Ernest Evans, a Cherokee Indian and Annapolis graduate who led his destroyer on the last great charge in the last great naval battle in history.

             Sea of Thunder climaxes with the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the biggest naval battle ever fought, over four bloody and harrowing days in October 1944. We see Halsey make an epic blunder just as he reaches for true glory; we see the Japanese navy literally sailing in circles, torn between the desire to die heroically and the exhausted, unacceptable realization that death is futile; we sail with Commander Evans and the men of the USS Johnston into the jaws of the Japanese fleet and exult and suffer with them as they torpedo a cruiser, bluff and confuse the enemy -- and then, their ship sunk, endure fifty horrific hours in shark-infested water.

             Thomas, a journalist and historian, traveled to Japan, where he interviewed veterans of the Imperial Japanese Navy who survived the Battle of Leyte Gulf and friends and family of the two Japanese admirals. From new documents and interviews, he was able to piece together and answer mysteries about the Battle of Leyte Gulf that have puzzled historians for decades. He writes with a knowing feel for the clash of cultures.

             Sea of Thunder is a taut, fast-paced, suspenseful narrative of the last great naval war, an important contribution to the history of the Second World War.

             I have just finished Evan Thomas' Sea of Thunder. Even though I was well aware of how the sea battles turned out (my father was skipper of the CVE Gambier Bay--the only US carrier sunk by enemy surface ships), I was held spellbound by the unfolding thinking and decisions of American and Japanese commanders. Never before have I read such damning commentary about Admiral Halsey. While a courageous fighter, he was over his head when organization became the central issue. My father spoke with Admiral Halsey on a train shortly after WW II and criticized the decision to leave the San Bernardino Straits unguarded. My understanding is that Halsey never accepted that he erred.

             Moving fast forward to Iraq, Sea of Thunder allowed me to see the unending errors made in the best of circumstances by commanders, soldiers, and sailors because the units were ships rather than individuals, and action, therefore, moved at a different pace. I for one, cannot imagine fighting my way through Sadr City trying to separate the good guys from the bad guys when I did not know the Iraqi language and all the Iraqis around me knew who the good and bad guys were but were unwilling to say because of fear of reprisal. I would appreciate any of my Marine Classmates describing the mindset of one of our Army or Marine troops trying to make "good" decisions and defeat the enemy while still trying to survive fighting their way through Sadr City.

 

Review by Vic Vieweg, January, 2007.

 

 

NAVAL HISTORY

Silent Steel: The Mysterious Death of the Nuclear Attack Sub USS Scorpion

 

By Stephen Johnson, 2005.

 

             The book describes all the events in the history of USS SCORPION (SSN 589) to the time of her demise on the way back from a Med deployment in May 1968 with 99 of her crew lost.

             Johnson has written about SCORPION in the past and has been in contact with many of the families over the years. He researched all the records made available to him by the Navy including the Court of Inquiry. He presents all of this information and covers all the postulated theories of how the boat was lost but does not speculate on how or why. He covers the Navy’s “SUBMISS/SUBSUNK” procedures and the effect on the families. The information presented is well documented but leaves possible cause(s) of the loss for the reader to discover.

 

 

NAVAL HISTORY

The Secret Voyage of Sir Francis Drake 1577-1580

 

By Samuel Bawlf, 2003.

 

             Drake's journey may have been the greatest sea voyage of all time. In a ship barely 100 feet long he traveled 40,000 miles and circumnavigated the globe with only crude navigational instruments.

             Bawlf's account of Drake’s journey up the coast of British Columbia  to Alaska and on the way back into Puget Sound in search of the Northwest Passage is based on new findings and research.

 

 

NAVAL HISTORY

 Torpedo Junction: U-Boat War Off America's East Coast 1942

 

By Homer H. Hickam, 1991.

 

             A Naval Institute BlueJacket Book, which is a true story of the problems encountered, primarily in 1942, with German U-Boats operating at will and sinking numerous merchant shipping by torpedo and gunfire along the US eastern seaboard and the Gulf of Mexico. Some of the attacks were within visual range of the coast and seriously affected the US defense efforts at the beginning of the war.  The Navy had insufficient escort ships and until such time that the Merchant ships were convinced to travel in convoys the sinkings continued.

  

 

 NAVAL HISTORY

Barrow’s Boys: A Stirring Story of Daring, Fortitude and Outright Lunacy

 

By Fergus Fleming, 2000.

 

             A highly entertaining and sometimes startling account of an untraveled Admiralty petty civil servant who launched thirty years of expeditions by underemployed (and underpaid) naval officers to Africa, the Arctic and the Antarctic during the Victorian period. Some became heroic icons like Ross and some quite dead icons like Franklin. Many just got sick in some god awful headwater of the Niger and died. Others, struggling to find the Northwest Passage first ate their boots, then each other, then died. Some of the accounts of stupidity are almost unbelievable but so are some of the stories of amazing heroism and leadership. 

 

(Continued on page 2)

 

In our April 2008 edition we offer two fresh reviews on one book, prepared by Midshipmen in Professor Wick Murray’s class.  The book, Very Special Intelligence, may be one you’ll want to pick up.  See Page 5.

 

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