Conway Maritime Press - Warship 44

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New Works on the Period Before 1900 THE ATHENIAN TRIREME J S Morrison and J F Coates Cambridge University Press. 210 x 145mm,266pp,72 illustrations ISBN 0 521311004 (hardbach) f22.50, (paperback) f7.95 Ttrere can be no better place to start any history of warships than with the first well documented, purposebuilt ship configured for battle. This work combines the research efforts of a classical scholar and a naval architect in an effort to explain the real nature of the three banked, oared galley, its purposes and use. Essentially an oar driven ram, the trireme has fascinated historians and oarsmen for centuries. 250 Napoleon III even built a conjectural example. Now the authors work has been translated into wood by the Greek Navy, and the resulting ship should soon be tried at sea. Recommended. THE SEVENTY- FOUR GUN SHIP VOLUMES I AND II Jean Boudriot, translated by David Roberts Jean Boudriot Publications. 310 x 240mm. 166 & 213 pp, heavily illustrated. ISBN2903178143&15 1,939 each The publishing event of the year for enthusiasts concerned with the age of sail has to be the first two volumes of Jean Boudriot's four-volume study of the French 74 of the period of the American War of Independence, detailing every aspect of design and construction, along with a host of detail on the naval service ofthe age. The translation, by David Roberts, provides valuable guidance for areas where British and French practice and nomenclature differ. Otherwise, it is true to the original. This remains lhe book on wooden warship construction and everyone interested will await the final two volumes with anticipation. Volume III should be available by the time this review appears. THE WOODEN WORLD: AN ANATOMY OF THE GEORGIAN NAVY N A M Rodger Collins, 235 x 160mm, 445pp, illustrated. ISBN 0 002165481 917.50 In this thoughtful and provoking study, Nicholas Rodger dismantles many of the myths and misconceptions about the Royal Navy in the eighteenth century that have long garlanded our understanding on the human element of seapower. Recent work by the author and other scholars has overturned the image of a brutalised, divided society in favour of a complex but just and tolerant organisation, concerned to cany out its duties with the consent of the men. With numerous examples we are introduced to an open society, far less obsessed with class and rank than that of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and one in which no police force was needed, The image of seamen with
eakfast in a Portsmouth coffee house is one that must be taken to heart. The foundation of loyalty was not violence but trust and reward. Men followed good officers, and ran away from bad ones. No Navy in any age can afford to ignore this message. The central theme of the work is simple: the Royal Navy in the Seven Years War was a good service, because it was almost invariably successful. It is worth asking how far the weakness ofthe Flench cast the navy in an unjustly favourable light. The War of American Independence demonstrated that the superiority survived, but not in so great a deglee. Without the powerful leadership of Ansoir the service suffered. and there are examples enough in this book to reemphasise the importance of his contribution. Highly recommended. THE WAR OF 1812: A DOCUMENTARY HISTORY, VOLUME I Edited by William S Dudley US Naval Historical Centre, 250 x 170mm; 774pp, illustrated. In this magnificent volume the US Naval Historical Centre demonstrates some of the advantages to scholarship of Government funding. Where the British Navy Records Society has to rely on the unpaid labours of its editors for a series of excellent but often unconnected studies, the historical centre can begin to consider the War of t812, one of the formative experiences of the service, in three volumes, of which this is the first. While by no means as exhaustive as the series on the Quasi War with Flance, and the conflict with the Barbary Pirates, this will be a major work and more accessible because of its relative brevity. In this to l8l2 and the first year of the War, the subjects include the three famous frigate actions in which the Americans captured the Macedonian, Jaua and. Guetiere, along with minor engagements and the details of naval administration. Recommended.' FREE TRADE AND SAILORS'RIGHTS: A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE WAR OF 1812 Compiled by John C Freriksen Greenwood Press, 235 x 169mm,399pp. ISBN 0 313243131 f0.00 This work will be of tremendous benefit to all students of the War of 18t2, providing a comprehensive listing of all printed source materials relating to the war. The heavy American,/Canadian bias is to be expected. The war was a major event in North American history: a mere sideshow for Britain. Perhaps this work might encourage more studies of the British war effort. Excellent. WHY THE CRIMEAN WAR? A CAUTIONARY TALE Norman Rich University Press of New England, 220x 745mm, 257pp ISBN 0 87451 328 6 tr7.25 A handy resume of the latest work on the so-called Crimean War. However, this book, like almost every other work on the subject reduces the role of the Navy to insignificance, accepts the standard view that naval commanders wete incompetent and commits several mistakes offact. The Russian fortress in the not even a village! The importance of this theatre to the author can be gauged from its receiving little more than one page in the whole book. The navy is similarly ignored. On the diplomacy of the war this work is well informed, but the conflict is little understood. THE UNFORTUNATE DUKE: HENRY PELHAM, FIFTH DUKE OF NEWCASTLE: 1811-64 F Darrell Munsell University of Missouri Press, 230 x 155mm, 334pp ISBN 0 826204562 930.00 This usefuI biography of the Secretary of State for War during the Crimean conflict provides a remarkable example of political interference with senior commanders on active service. Newcastle blamed Admiral Dundas for the failure of the invasion of the Crimea, considering him a cautious and irresolute incompetent. Despite the fact that he had no authority over the naval officers, he advised General Lord Raglan to ignore any orders Dundas might give that would endanger the army, and hoped that thd naval second in command. Rear Admiral Lyons, would do the same. The reason for Newcastle's concern was the alarmist stories of the newspaper reporters on the spot, who Iistened to any rumours critical of Admiral Dundas and did not check their sources. A more rounded treatment, using Dundas's extant papers, would have suggested that Newcastle was unjustified in his fears. He was driven from office two months later when the newspapers he had tried to placate turned on him. A case of poetic justice? ARAB PIRACY IN THE GULF Sultan Muhammad Al- Qasimi Croom Helm,240 x 160mm, 244pp,20 coloured illustrations ISBN 0 709921063 s25.00 In this stimulating book the author attempts to demonstrate that the British East India Company deliberately accused the Arab traders of the Persian Gulf of piracy in order to destroy their ability to compete in economic terms. Previous. British studies have always accepted the contemporary accounts of piracy and brutality atface value. Using archives in Britain and India this book sets out to expose the dishonesty of the original claims, and the poor scholarship of later works. In accepting his revision we must begin to reconsider the cosy view of Britain in the nineteenth century acting as the disinterested world policeman. This study points to the cynical manipulation of the truth by apparently disinterested men, seeking to safeguard their economic expansion by crushing the opposition. How much more of the naval history of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries might not be open to the same critique? Recommended. HMS COLLINGWOOD 7844-7848 PACIFIC STATION Edited by Allison Kay The Pentland kess, 220 x 150mm, 279pp ISBN 0 9462703\ 7 f 10.00 This book consists of the edited journal of a lieutenant aboard the flagship of the Pacific Station, the 80-gun sailing ship Collingwood. It promises much, by the way 25r
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Page 3 and 4:
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Page 5 and 6:
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Page 17 and 18: Growler (SS-215) 21 February 1942 a
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Page 27 and 28: Hambledon, a Type I with the 2- pou
Page 29 and 30: i iculars on 1 December 1938 at an
Page 31 and 32: Asovn:. Talybonf, another Type 3, s
Page 33 and 34: TONE Modifications and War Service
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Page 37 and 38: for Yokusuka; arrived on 22nd; assi
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Page 41 and 42: Aircraft handling equipment KEY TO
Page 43 and 44: type (160 x 65 x 7.5 x 10.5mm) spac
Page 45 and 46: 21in Mk x the bow, French 550mm 24Y
Page 48 and 49: Top: Main electric motors/generator
Page 50 and 51: ,0 ,5 ,10 meters ,ZO C 1985, Przemy
Page 52 and 53: GpNnnal ARRANGEMENT - Knys I Compar
Page 54 and 55: Westan after thd explosion of a 5oo
Page 56 and 57: ,Albuera showing the supporting arr
Page 58 and 59: An unrecorded tiial against an MMS.
Page 62 and 63: of insight into the nineteenth cent
Page 64 and 65: An example of Sepping's iron tiller
Page 66 and 67: Box Numbers:- Available for private
Page 68: THE UARTERLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE
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Conway Maritime Press - Warship 44

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