An Eclectic Gallimaufry to Suit Every Taste

By NORMAN POLMAR

Norman Polmar is an internationally known naval analyst, consultant, and author whose byline periodically has appeared in Sea Power since July 1959 (the magazine was then called Navy).

The flow of military-naval books continues at a prodigious rate. Three of the books reviewed this year must be considered as especially outstanding contributions to military-naval literature. All are about aviation; listed alphabetically by author, they are:

American Military Aviation by Dr. Charles J. Gross, chief of history for the Air National Guard, is an excellent history. His survey is a balanced account, both interesting and readable, and particularly valuable for its perspective on what military aviation promised and what it actually accomplished.

Among the more interesting events described by Gross is the WWI program by Navy and Marine aviation to form a "Northern Bombing Group" in Europe to attack German naval targets on land, in both day and night attacks. Most histories of the period address only the U.S. Army's plan for massive bomber raids on German targets under the command of air-power zealot Billy Mitchell. Again, this fine history provides a balanced perspective on "military" aviation.

Air Warfare in the Missile Age by Lon O. Nordeen Jr. is an expansion and update of the earlier edition, published in 1985. Beginning with the air war over Vietnam (although the first air-to-air missiles used in combat were Sidewinders fired by Taiwanese F-86F Sabres in 1958), Nordeen takes his account up to the Kosovo conflict. This valuable work addresses the aircraft, tactics, and strategy of air warfare. Particularly useful are his accounts of the Indo-Pakistan, Middle East, and Falklands conflicts from an air-warfare perspective.

Unfortunately, the book suffers from an excess of repetition (the reader is told more than 20 times that the NATO name for the Soviet S-75 missile is the SA-2 Guideline), several errors in the naval aircraft discussions, and an inadequate glossary and unhelpful index. Still, the book should be considered important reading for all interested in modern air warfare.

Sunburst by Mark R. Peattie is a landmark English-language study of the rise of Japanese naval air power from 1909 to 1941. The Japanese naval air arm, built with the help of British advisors, differed from British and U.S. naval aviation by developing land-based as well as carrier-based strike arms. The effectiveness of that approach was demonstrated both at Pearl Harbor and, three days later, by the destruction at sea of the British capital ships Repulse and Prince of Wales.
Peattie has laid out the development, organization, weapons, and politics of the air arm that reigned supreme in the Pacific until June 1942. Japan's success was based in part upon the world's most arduous pilot selection and training process. But the same system sowed the seeds for defeat when, coupled with Japan's severely limited industrial capacity, the Japanese Navy was unable to replace the huge pilot, aircraft, and carrier losses of 1942 and 1943.

Despite the voluminous detail and some difficult translations in Peattie's work, his book is readable, interesting, and essential to an understanding of World War II in the Pacific.

PEOPLE

Marine Rifleman is an excellent memoir--well-written, informative, and candid. Wesley Fox served in the Corps for 43 years, from private to colonel, fought in both Korea and Vietnam, and was awarded the Medal of Honor. Particularly lucid are his descriptions of combat, but this reviewer found his tales of jump school and of escape and evasion during POW training--when he was not supposed to escape and evade--equally worthwhile. His book could serve as a model of how to write a meaningful memoir.

Another Marine's stories are told in The Marine, by Ben Wofford and William Richard White. The latter was a Marine who landed on Guadalcanal on 7 August 1942. His story is a graphic, well-written account of a Marine private, often under enemy fire, and living in conditions of extreme privation:

"Smoking would be frowned upon by a lot of people in years to come, but in 1942, cigarettes were a big (and pleasant) part of daily life. On Guadalcanal, they took the edge off the unbearable. White also points out that there is no substitute for toothpaste, soap, and razor blades. When your supply is gone, you realize just how shabby life can be. That said, a cold drink would have topped anyone's wish list. Almost anything would do, just so long as it was cold."
The other story, interspersed with White's account of Guadalcanal, is Dr. Wofford's report on White's losing battle with cancer in 1997--a poignant narrative, but combining it with the story of White's five months on Guadalcanal is awkward and detracts from that story. It would have been far better to have made White's final battle a last chapter.

Above and Beyond by Barrett Tillman, a renowned aviation writer, is the story of "aviation Medals of Honor"--the airmen who received the nation's highest military decoration. Tillman's fascinating accounts are based on meticulous research that uncovered a number of significant errors in the award citations, including: a Medal of Honor citation "written by committee during a 'lost weekend'; a medal offered to avert court martial of a favored subordinate; two or more awards to fallen comrades who probably performed none of the feats ascribed to them." At least three medals were presented--in clear violation of the criteria--for nwitnessed events.

The men cited include both the well known and others relatively obscure. An estimated 3,437 Americans had received the Medal of Honor through 2001; of those, 91 were awarded for in-flight heroism and, of that number, 13 went to Navy fliers and 14 to Marines.

Jimmy Flatley and John S. (Jimmy) Thach were the top U.S. fighter tacticians of the Pacific War. Steve Ewing's biography of Flatley--Reaper Leader--is an excellent work, and provides fascinating insights into this astute and skilled naval aviator's career from Naval Academy midshipman to rear admiral.

Along the way, Ewing effectively tells about the men Flatley worked with and the battles in which he fought. Indeed, the only criticism of this important work are the author's numerous "excursions"--e.g., his discussion of Captain Miles Browning, an officer unrelated to Flatley's career. Ewing, a college professor and author, is senior curator of the naval museum complex in Charleston Harbor, S.C., that is the final "homeport" of the carrier Yorktown, a key ship in Flatley's wartime service.

On 17 January 1991, in a later war, F/A-18 Hornet pilot Michael Scott Speicher was shot down over Iraq. Amy Waters Yarsinske, a former Navy intelligence officer, tells the story of that shoot-down--so far as it is known--in No One Left Behind. She contends that Speicher survived the ejection from his damaged aircraft and eventually was captured alive by the Iraqis. The U.S. Navy, after initially declaring him killed in action, later changed his status to missing and, in October 2002, Secretary of the Navy Gordon R. England declared him "missing in action, captured."

Yarsinske's book goes into considerable detail on how the aircraft wreckage, ejection seat, and parts of Speicher's personal gear were found, and speculates on what could have happened to him. Unfortunately, her theories are marred by an overstatement of the obvious, a paucity of footnotes, an error-filled glossary, and the lack of an index.

The First, The Few, The Forgotten is an exceptional account of the women who served as sailors and Marines during World War I. Well-written by Jean Ebbert and Marie-Beth Hall, two women with strong Navy ties, the story begins with Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels authorizing women to enlist in the Naval Coast Defense Reserve Force.

Daniels, most often remembered for abolishing booze in the U.S. Navy, wanted women in the Navy to make more male sailors available to man the massive number of ships being built. Most Navy women served as "yeomanettes," but some served in nonclerical billets. (Daniels also approved the enrollment of women in the Marine Corps, where virtually all of them served in clerical jobs.)

The First addresses all aspects of the story, from recruiting and uniforms to jobs and recreation, to the women's release from active duty and their postservice lives and problems.

Susan H. Godson's Serving Proudly is an official history of women in the U.S. Navy written under the auspices of the Naval Historical Center. It begins with the oft-told tales of women aboard sailing warships, and takes the reader up to the decisions in the 1990s to allow women to serve in combat billets. The book is comprehensive, but sterile, carefully avoiding most of the controversies about women in U.S. naval service--e.g., Naval Academy dropout rates, unmarried pregnancies, "dating" problems aboard ship, and other issues that are a vital part of the full story. One problem that is addressed, though, is male harassment of females.

For an official Navy project, there are some surprising errors in the book. Two examples: Adm. Nimitz did not command the Bureau of Personnel in 1941 (the Bureau of Naval Personnel was established in October 1942), and Marine pilots are naval aviators.

Stanley Willner was a merchant marine officer whose ship was sunk by a German merchant raider in the Indian Ocean on 29 November 1942. He and 38 other merchant mariners and U.S. Navy personnel were taken prisoner and ultimately delivered to the notorious Changi prison camp in Singapore (made famous in James Clavell's novel King Rat). Willner and many of his colleagues were then forced to work on the infamous Burma-Siam railway.

Using Willner's account, and those of other POWs, Gerald Reminick has written an interesting story of Willner's life as a Japanese prisoner in Death's Railway, illustrated with photos, maps, and prisoners' sketches. After the war Willner was a leading advocate in the effort to have merchant seamen recognized as WWII veterans, a battle that was won in 1988.

Although not always smooth reading, this book is highly recommended.

Zachary Friedenberg--physician, scientist, combat surgeon, and historian--has written a fascinating book in Medicine Under Sail, from the Trojan Wars through the War of 1812. Friedenberg tells about diseases and injuries that affected mariners and the surgeons, barber-surgeons, loblolly boys (surgeon assistants), and the itinerant quacks who treated them.

The book, which is well-documented, covers both successes (Captain Cook lost but one man to sickness during his three-year circumnavigation of the world) and failures (some ships lost their entire crews to sickness). The author's sidebar excursions are generally interesting--e.g., sickness among the slaves being transported--but his discussion of the development of lifeboats is too far afield.

Among the naval biographies recently published, The Autobiography of a Yankee Mariner by Christopher Prince, as edited by Michael Crawford, provides an interesting look at the American Revolution. Prince served in several ranks and billets in British as well as American ships. His autobiography--ably assisted by an introduction, commentaries, and notes by Crawford, a historian with the U.S. Naval Historical Center--makes good reading.

George Buker's The Penobscot Expedition, primarily a biography of the hapless Commodore Dudley Saltonstall, tells of one of the worst naval disasters in American history up to Pearl Harbor. The 1779 defeat of an American squadron by the British left Saltonstall accused of being a coward.

"He was a competent naval officer," is author Buker's own judgment of Saltonstall, who was called before a court-martial. As often occurs in war, though, the "fates" were against him and the enemy was a competent one. Buker, a retired naval officer and former history professor, provides a definitive book on this significant but little-known action in American naval history.

A highly competent early U.S. naval officer was Capt. John Percival. In Mad Jack Percival, novice author James Ellis has captured the persona of Percival. Serving in the American merchant ships as well as naval ships--including British warships (after being impressed)--Percival became one of the more notable young warriors of the War of 1812. His last command was the USS Constitution, which he sailed around the world in 1844­1846.

Robert S. (Stan) Norris, a leading historian of nuclear issues, has produced the definitive biography of General Leslie R. Groves, head of the U.S. atomic bomb project, in Racing for the Bomb. This well-written and comprehensive tome tells of the Navy's close involvement with the Manhattan Project as well and provides an insightful look at Groves--the "indispensable man."

The latest book about film stars and the military by retired Navy Capt. James E. Wise is International Film Stars at War, written with author Scott Baron. In this volume the military and film careers of 45 foreign stars--from Britain's Richard Attenborough to Germany's Oskar Werner--are described. Attenborough was taken out of RAF pilot training and assigned to the RAF film unit; Werner served in an artillery unit, but instead of combat was assigned to garrison duty and was thus able to continue his stage performances in Vienna--but after two weeks of officer school he was declared "unsuitable for such training." This is another fascinating book from Wise.

POLITICS AND WAR

Eliot A. Cohen, one of the leading U.S. defense analysts, has written a fascinating study in Supreme Command. He concludes that national leaders who involve themselves in the management of war--not just in setting policy--win wars. His principal examples are America's Abraham Lincoln, France's Georges Clemenceau, Britain's Winston Churchill, and Israel's David Ben-Gurion. This is an interesting, fascinating, and well-written book.

Immediately upon one hearing Cohen's thesis, "the great exceptions" also come to mind--Lyndon Johnson, for example. Cohen also addresses those leaders.
The Israeli attack on the U.S. intelligence collection ship Liberty in June 1967 created the greatest crisis in the 52-year relationship between Israel and the United States. In The Liberty Incident, Federal Judge A. Jay Cristol provides the most comprehensive account likely to be written. His research for the book included discussions with Israelis who held senior positions at the time, including Itzhak Rabin, who was chief of staff, and the pilots of Israeli aircraft and the commanders of the Israeli MTBs that attacked the Liberty. He also spoke with senior U.S. officials, including Admiral Isaac Kidd, who led the Navy's court of inquiry into the attack, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, and senior officers of the U.S. Sixth Fleet as well as the Hebrew linguists in the U.S. Navy EC-121 aircraft that was overflying the Liberty at the time of the incident and recorded the Israeli radio transmissions.

Much of his material directly contradicts previous books, especially those of Liberty survivor James Ennes and intelligence writer James Bamford. Cristol's own conclusion is that the attack on the Liberty was unquestionably a tragic accident. Cristol is a former U.S. Navy carrier pilot and a former JAG officer (who retired as a Navy Reserve captain); he also holds a PhD in history.

Libyan dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi was a principal antagonist of the United States during the 1980s. After he was linked to several acts of terrorism, President Ronald Reagan ordered strikes against key Libyan facilities. Joseph Stanik's El Dorado Canyon provides a well-written, detailed description of the U.S. air attacks. A scholar and former naval officer, Stanik had earlier produced a monograph, Swift and Effective Retribution (1996), for the Naval Historical Center.

In this comprehensive work, Stanik provides background on Libya and the history of U.S. relations with the area--both good and bad--as well as the account of the two strikes by U.S. Navy, Marine, and Air Force planes. He dispels the contention that Air Force participation was strictly political, to let that service "play" in the only game going at the time.

With the increasing interest in China as the U.S. military services seek to identify future antagonists, A Military History of China, edited by David A. Graff and Robin Higham, provides a superior background study. Although only some 70 pages of the 302 pages of text address the communist era, those pages make this a worthwhile read. The earlier periods are important to an understanding of this "potential enemy," especially the chapter on the Sino-Japanese conflict (1931­1945) by Stephen MacKinnon. This is a most useful volume.

Chinese Grand Strategy and Maritime Power by Thomas M. Kane, who teaches international politics at the University of Hull, takes a broader look at the implications of China as a naval power. "China's maritime ideas are grand, but China's navy is primitive," he astutely observes. "However, the fact that China's navy remains materially weak does not mean that it is strategically useless."

Much of Kane's work addresses technology and politics, which are significant topics, but only indirectly related to Chinese maritime power.
The Cold War was largely a nuclear confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. Two books have appeared in the West that provide details about the Soviet nuclear arms buildup, and include considerable information published for the first time in English.

Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces, edited by Pavel Podvig, is a compilation of chapters written by Russian nuclear weapon experts. It provides a comprehensive picture of the Soviet efforts in this field during the Cold War. The 103-page chapter Naval Strategic Nuclear Forces is invaluable. Written by Dr. Eugene Miasnikov and the late Dr. Maxim Tarasenko, it takes the reader through the history of Soviet strategic missile submarines--both cruise missile and ballistic--and provides technical and operational descriptions of the missile-launching submarines and their strategic weapons. Of particular interest are the chapter's sections on the structure, command and control, and support of strategic naval forces.

The leading Western expert on Soviet missiles, Steven J. Zaloga, addresses Soviet strategic nuclear forces in The Kremlin's Nuclear Sword. Zaloga provides more of an overview than Podvig does of Soviet weapons development, and makes useful comparisons with competitive U.S. strategic weapons. There are ample details of the Soviet weapons in this highly readable book.

The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 brought the world the closest it has ever been to nuclear war. Former U.S. naval intelligence officer Peter A. Huchthausen's October Fury is about the four Soviet Foxtrot diesel submarines, armed with nuclear torpedoes, that were in the Caribbean area at the time. This is an important story, but professionals will be put off by the author's style, repetition, technical errors, lack of notes (14 for the entire book), and the amount of space Huchthausen uses to tell about his exciting life as a junior officer in a destroyer in 1962.

The only operational cooperation between Germany and Japan during World War II was in submarine activities in the Indian Ocean. In Reluctant Allies, a team of German and Japanese naval officers and historians led by Hans-Joachim Krug looks at this cooperation and the grand strategy followed by the Axis nations during the war. This is a fascinating story, told in detail, of grand goals and grand failures, the latter mostly because of distrust among allies. The Krug book is difficult to follow in some places, however, because of the differing styles used by the multiple authors. The book also slights the significance of the American and British knowledge of Axis discussions by being able to decrypt Japanese diplomatic communications.

Jack Coombe's Gunsmoke Over the Atlantic tells of the American Civil War at sea. The fast-paced narrative describes the historic Monitor-vs.-Virginia (neé Merrimack) battle, the Union blockade of southern ports, amphibious landings, and the chases of Confederate blockade runners. Unfortunately, Coombe's work is spoiled by a number of errors, the improper use of naval terminology, and repetition (e.g., readers are told of the "dreaded" Virginia three times in two pages).

SURFACE SHIPS AND SUBMARINES

Norman Friedman's U.S. Amphibious Ships and Craft is the latest volume in the well-illustrated ship design series published by the Naval Institute. The coverage begins with the quest for transports between the World Wars, and continues through the current amphibious ship and craft procurement programs. The book is heavily illustrated with photos and ship plans executed by A.D. Baker III. As interesting as the ships built are the many designs that never reached fruition, which also are described in this volume.

Death of the USS Thresher, by the author of this review, is an update and expansion of the 1964 book that examined the first loss of a U.S. nuclear submarine. One hundred twenty-nine men died after a reactor scram (shutdown) started a series of events that led to the disaster. The Thresher was the U.S. Navy's most advanced submarine at the time.

Run Silent, by Philip Kaplan, a British publications art director, is a 240-page volume about the world's submarines. The book is unstructured, though, confusing in places, and filled with errors. There are six consecutive text pages about the Kursk, more than about submarines that were far more significant (e.g., the Nautilus, Albacore, or Alfa--which is not mentioned at all). The question must be asked: Why was this book published?

Fire on the Hangar Deck, by Wynn Foster, a retired Navy captain and naval aviator, is a superior account of the Oriskany tragedy, which was initiated by two sailors stacking flares in a hangar. Forty-four men died because of a combination of carelessness, a lack of adequate training, and improper supervision.
Journalist Gregory Freeman tells the story of the Forrestal fire in Sailors to the End. That disaster ostensively began when a missile on an aircraft blasted across the flight deck and struck the fuel tank under an A-4 Skyhawk. The pilot of the aircraft was John McCain, now a U.S. Senator. The ensuing fires and bomb detonations racked the carrier, killing 134 men and threatening the survival of the ship. Freeman's account is riveting, but he attempts to make the case that "old" bombs--possibly from the 1930s--were the real cause of the disaster. That thesis seems questionable. Newer bombs, which may have taken a few minutes longer before they "cooked off," probably would have been just as deadly given the conditions on the Forrestal's flight deck that fateful day. The real cause of the tragedy seems to have been the shortcuts taken in arming aircraft in an effort to speed up the launch cycle.

Foster's book is highly readable and technically accurate; Freeman's book--based mostly on interviews--is a more difficult read and contains numerous technical errors.

HMS Hood was the "pride of the Royal Navy." Andrew Norman has captured the great ship's essence in a small book of that name, based mainly on interviews with one of the three survivors of the Hood's sinking, official reports, recollections of men who earlier had served in the battle cruiser, and other original documents. The Hood, completed in 1920, was hailed at the time as the world's "largest, heaviest, and fastest warship." During a seven-minute encounter with the German battleship Bismarck (which was not a "pocket battleship," Mr. Norman) and a heavy cruiser on 24 May 1941, the Hood blew up, killing 1,418 men.
Norman's description of the life and death of the ship is interesting, as is his speculation on what killed her. His book includes many useful drawings and a large number of photos.

During World War II the Germans built 23 massive and well-protected "submarine pens" (not all of them completed) along the coasts of France, Norway, and Germany. These huge concrete and steel structures, largely impervious to Allied bombing, provided safe harbor to the U-boats in port. Jak P. Mallmann Showell, who has emerged as the leading contemporary writer on U-boats, has produced a commendable and particularly well-illustrated study of those facilities in Hitler's U-Boat Bases.

But the author glosses over the use of "foreign" labor in the construction of the U-boat pens, referring instead to British and Russian POW "volunteers" and pointing out how the latter had special medical facilities set up for them. This aspect of the book, albeit brief, suggests that the German and Allied labor practices were comparable in nature. The author's rationalization is obvious and makes one want to know more about who built Hitler's U-boat bases.
U-boat aficionado Lawrence Paterson provides a detailed history of Germany's First U-Boat Flotilla that is both well-written and meticulous in its coverage. That flotilla's history began in 1935 when the Third Reich commissioned its first U-boats, and ended with many of the surviving flotilla officers and sailors fighting against American troops during the battle for the French port of Brest in the fall of 1944. The book is strictly chronological, by the major events as they occurred. The index is mostly helpful, but it does not list any of the many Allied sailors and airmen named in the text.

Dwight Messimer's Verschollen--German for "missing" or "presumed dead"--is a valuable account of the 203 operational German U-boats sunk in World War I. The author provides comprehensive descriptions of the losses, including excerpts from survivor reports. Strangely, though, Messimer does not describe the several school boats lost while on training operations.

The fight between the Virginia and Monitor at Hampton Roads in 1862 was the first battle of armored warships. In Confederate Phoenix, naval historians R. Thomas Campbell and Alan B. Flanders provide an excellent history of the USS Merrimack--which, after being burned in 1861, was salvaged, rebuilt as the ironclad Virginia, and fought in epic battle with the Union Monitor. The fight between the two ships was inconclusive, although the Virginia suffered major damage. Reportedly, President Lincoln himself prevented the Monitor from again engaging the Confederate warship, and she was prematurely blown up to prevent her capture.

Well-researched and well-written, the book suffers only from the authors' bias in favor of describing the Merrimack's machinery in great detail while providing little information about her armament.

Spencer Dunmore's Lost Subs tells about submarine losses and the discovery of their hulks, from the Hunley of the American Civil War to the Russian Kursk. The book includes an abundance of illustrations--photos, paintings, diagrams, and underwater photography. Unfortunately, the author often goes too far afield--e.g., in his discussions of the U-boat campaigns of World War I and II--while ignoring important submarine losses. Numerous factual errors also detract from the book.
The latest edition of Combat Fleets of the World came off the press in mid-2002, a remarkable work eminently respected for its breadth and depth of coverage of the navies of the world. Its level of detail far exceeds that of any other naval reference work, and the author's commentary is both perceptive and cogent. egrettably, this is the last edition to be edited by A.D. Baker III, who has headed the effort since 1977. The only significant criticism of his latest tome is the sometimes unsatisfactory quality of photo reproduction.

The British annual Warship marked its 25th anniversary with the 2001-2002 edition. This first-class compendium of articles on the world's warships has something of interest for virtually every reader. Of particular note in this edition are an analysis by warship designer David K. Brown of why British mines were ineffective at the start of World War I, a study, by Pierre Hervieux of the Romanian Navy's 1941-1944 operations in the Black Sea, and a detailed history of Britain's Blackwood-class frigates, a product of the Cold War, by George Moore.

The USS Constellation is one of the most interesting warships in American history--both the frigate built in 1797 and the sloop of war that dates to 1853. Geoffrey Footner, a former shipping executive, Chesapeake Bay sailor, and author, has written a superb biography--USS Constellation: From Frigate to Sloop of War--of that famous ship. His painstaking research--evident in 75 pages of notes--and the resulting details have produced a definitive work on the ship, including new insights on the contention over whether or not the ship now at rest in Baltimore, Md., is the original frigate.

AIR AND SPACE

One of the most significant figures in American aviation history was Jerome C. Hunsaker, a Naval Academy graduate and naval officer. Among his many aircraft designs was that for the Navy's NC-4, the first aircraft to fly across the Atlantic. Hunsaker's numerous contributions to aeronautics also included establishing the U.S. Navy's aircraft design organization and the aeronautical engineering program at MIT.

William Trimble, a prominent aviation historian and author, has produced a comprehensive biography of Hunsaker in Jerome C. Hunsaker and the Rise of American Aeronautics. Trimble provides a scholarly and readable tribute to this important man.

Edwin Armistead's AWACS and Hawkeyes is subtitled The Complete History of Airborne Early Warning Aircraft. The book is comprehensive if not complete as it traces in detail the development of this major platform. The author takes the reader from Adm. E.J. King's 1942 desire to pass information between distant ships through the Kosovo campaign. Although the author's final chapter looks toward the future, he does not give proper attention to the potential for unmanned vehicles in the Airborne Early Warning (AEW) role.

Of greater importance, the book cannot be recommended without several cautions: there are several major errors (e.g., the AF-2W Guardian was not an AEW aircraft), too much repetition, some important omissions (the Soviet Bear-D and Hormone-B, while not AEW aircraft, certainly demonstrated that the Soviets could put large radars in naval aircraft), errors in the glossary as well, and a confusing index.

Harrowing escapes from damaged aircraft make a fascinating and important subject. In Eject!, veteran aviation engineer Jim Tuttle discusses parachutes, ejection seats, and jettisonable noses of aircraft from the earliest days of aviation to the F/A-18 Hornet and B-2 Spirit. His book provides a detailed look at numerous systems and ejections. But a miserable index and poor organization, the lack of dates, and of some first names, detract from this work. (Was "Schenk," who made the first use of an ejection seat in bailing out of an He 280 in the "early 1940s," the same man as Maj. Wolfgang Schenk, who commanded an Me 262 jet fighter unit?)

Air Force One is the designation of any aircraft carrying the President of the United States. In his book of that name, aviation writer Robert E. Dorr provides a well-written and well-illustrated history of the aircraft (including Army and Marine Corps helicopters) used by U.S. presidents. Interestingly, the first aircraft assigned to presidential duty was a Navy RD-2 Dolphin, but President Franklin D. Roosevelt--the first chief executive to fly while in office--never used it.
Two points stopped this reviewer: A photo of President Eisenhower and his wife, Mamie, waving from their Super Constellation, includes an unidentified "soldier" looking on--could it be British Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery? Also, Dorr cites the September 1957 flight by Eisenhower in a Marine HUS-1 Seahorse as the first presidential helicopter flight. But there are references in other documents to a flight from Gettysburg to Washington that Eisenhower took in an Army helicopter during the Suez crisis of November 1956.

Graphic, detailed, and up-to-date, Dorr's book is highly recommended.

Vietnam Air Losses, by Chris Hobson, provides a detailed description of each U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps fixed-wing aircraft loss in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War period. Aircraft serial numbers and details of casualties are provided as well as the cause of the loss. This is a valuable reference work. Perhaps, at some future date, Hobson could produce a similar directory of rotary-wing aircraft losses.

The Osprey organization continues to produce outstanding monographs. Two recent books are especially relevant to naval enthusiasts: István Toperczer's MiG-21 Units of the Vietnam War provides a different view of the Vietnam air war that emphasizes the MiG-21 fighter and covers such areas as training, tactics, maintenance, and airfields. In Gloster Gladiator Aces, Andrew Thomas tells all about Britain's biplane carrier-based fighter at the start of World War II. Both books feature excellent color and black-and-white illustrations as well as valuable appendixes.

To Reach the High Frontier, edited by Roger D. Launius and Dennis R. Jenkins, is a technical history of U.S. "launch vehicles." Navy efforts, especially Polaris, the first U.S. solid-propellant ballistic missile, are covered.

Finally, the outstanding and exceptionally well-illustrated At the Controls provides unique and detailed views of the control panels of numerous aircraft in the National Air and Space Museum collection. With photography by Eric F. Long and Mark A. Avino, and text by Tom Alison and Dana Bell, the book's naval aircraft include the OS2U Kingfisher, the FM Wildcat, and the M6A1 Seiran, a Japanese floatplane bomber. The control panels of such famous aircraft as the Spirit of St. Louis, the Il-2 Shturmovik, the B-29 Enola Gay, the SR-71 Blackbird, and the Me 262 (the world's first operational jet fighter) also are included.

SPIES AND SPOOKS

Jeffrey Richelson, probably the leading U.S. writer in the intelligence field, has produced, in The Wizards of Langley, an important study of U.S. technical intelligence during the Cold War. Many CIA projects and operations are described here for the first time. Richelson also details many service activities--e.g., the P2V Neptunes flown by the Air Force as RB-69s, and the mission of the U-2 spyplane launched from the carrier USS Ranger in the Pacific.

For two years in the 1960s John A. Fahey, a U.S. Navy officer wearing a U.S. Army uniform, openly spied in East Germany with the full knowledge of Soviet and East German officials. A member of the U.S. Military Liaison Mission to the Soviet forces in East Germany at the time, Fahey uses an incident in 1961, a week before the Berlin Wall went up, to explain, in his well-written Licensed to Spy, how his "spy license" worked. He was making a routine tour when East German border guards stopped his vehicle and accused him of spying. Unfazed, Fahey shouted in Russian, "Out of the way for a member of the Soviet Army!" His "reconnaissance," as he tactfully called it, had its dangerous moments---an occasional high-speed car chase and various encounters with trigger-happy East German secret policemen. But most of the time he just made his rounds, an American watchman behind enemy lines.

In Stealing Secrets, Telling Lies, James Gannon, an award-wining TV producer and journalist, provides a useful survey of how spies and codebreakers "helped shape" the 20th century. There is little new here, but his book is well-written and certainly has a niche.

Unfortunately, the march of spies continues at a rapid pace, and while Gannon discusses the spy game up to the Aldrich Ames case, there have been several more Americans since then who have sold out to the other side. This reviewer found a few omissions, especially regarding the "handlers," such as Alexander Feklisov (a.k.a. "Fromin"), who handled the Rosenbergs, was a key player in the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, and has written an autobiography, The Man Behind the Rosenbergs (2001), as have other Soviets who were involved with espionage in the United States but are not mentioned by Gannon.

When Newsweek bureau chief in Moscow, Bill Powell befriended a Soviet military intelligence (GRU) officer who had been recruited by the CIA in the late 1980s, but was soon compromised and imprisoned. The officer, who provided little to the Americans, apparently was compromised by Robert Hanssen at the FBI. Powell's relatively short book about the incident, Treason: How a Russian Spy Led an American Journalist to a U.S. Double Agent, while well-written, adds little to the literature of espionage.

Japanese military as well as naval intelligence is generally considered to have performed very poorly in World War II. In The Shadow Warriors of Nakano, a history of the Japanese Army's "elite" intelligence school, former CIA analyst Stephen Mercado attempts to change that view.

The Nakano school, established in 1938, trained more than 2,000 Army officers. Mercado describes their activities during World War II but fails to cite any that had a major impact on the outcome of the war. Indeed, some of the "accomplishments" that he mentions are not correct; for example, Nakano graduate Abe Naoyoshi could not have seen the British capital ships Prince of Wales and Repulse at Bombay because they did not stop there en route to the Far East--and to their destruction by Japanese naval aircraft.

Perhaps the most interesting and useful portion of the book are the last 110 pages, in which Mercado discusses the end of the war, the fate of Nakano officers (especially those captured by the Soviets), and the immediate postwar era.

NOTABLE REPRINTS

U.S. Army 1st Lt. Ted W. Lawson flew a twin-engine B-25 Mitchell from the deck of the carrier Hornet in the famed Doolittle raid of April 1942. His 1943 classic Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo has now been reprinted, as the first volume in an "aviation classics" series from Brassey's. Additional photos have been added to this momentous work.

Robert Sinclair Parkin's Blood on the Sea tells the stories of the 71 U.S. destroyers sunk in World War II--more than any other type of warship. Originally published in 1995, the book provides detailed descriptions of the loss of those versatile and hard-fighting ships as well as the 11 destroyer escorts that also were lost. Unfortunately, the book's editing leaves much to be desired.

Ships for Victory, by Frederic C. Lane, is an important history of the 5,777 cargo ships, LSTs, escort carriers, and other ships built in commercial yards under the aegis of the U.S. Maritime Commission in World War II. This 1951 volume provides invaluable data on the subject and--in certain parts, at least--is a "good read." The section on Negroes and women in the work force is particularly illuminating on those subjects.

Again available, in the Naval Institute's Classics of Naval Literature series, is The Voyage of the Deutschland, by Paul König, who commanded that merchant submarine on her two trips to the United States in World War I. This is a propaganda tract, but still an interesting and important work. König's Fahrten der U-Deutschland im Weltkrieg, published in Berlin in 1916, differed considerably from The Voyage of the Deutschland, published the same year in the United States.
Dwight Messimer's introduction to the reprint provides a valuable perspective on the submarine project. (Messimer wrote The Merchant U-Boat [1988], a valuable study on that subject.)

Another classic back in print is William Robinson's Jack Nastyface, the memoirs of an English seaman in the age of Nelson. This brief view of the lower deck is an outstanding read as well as a candid glimpse of the inequities of naval life.

Professor Clark Reynolds's Famous American Admirals also is back in print. Originally published in 1978, it provides brief biographies of more than 200 U.S. flag officers. The reprint includes some minimal updates (mostly, the deaths of several officers). The question must be asked: Have any additional notable admirals emerged in the past 25 years who should be included in a more comprehensive update?

END NOTES

A large number of novels on naval subjects have appeared in the past year, most of them written by first-time authors. Readers who follow the prolific and talented writings of Vice Adm. William P. Mack will be pleased to know that Commodore Kilburnie is now available. Mack's seafaring Scot is again at sea, in command of a small squadron, and fighting to defeat the forces of Napoleon.

Former Secretary of the Navy James Webb, who served in Vietnam as a Marine junior officer and has returned to that country several times, has produced another novel--Lost Soldiers. This time he has a Marine veteran in-country seeking the remains of dead Americans. His "find" leads him to discover--and eventually solve--the mystery of what happened to the Americans who led the Viet Cong ambushes of U.S. troops. Webb's writing and plot both get top marks.
The U.S. Naval and Marine Corps Historical Centers continue to produce excellent softcover monographs addressing important actions and issues. All of those listed here relate to the Korean War.

NAVY: Thomas B. Buell, Naval Leadership in Korea: The First Six Months (2002), 50 pages.

MARINE CORPS: Ronald J. Brown, Counteroffensive: U.S. Marines from Pohang to No Name Line (2001), 68 pages; Allan R. Millett, Drive North: U.S. Marines at the Punchbowl (2001), 64 pages; Bernard C. Nalty, Stalemate: U.S. Marines from Bunker Hill to the Hook (2001), 48 pages; and Edwin H. Simmons, Frozen Chosin: U.S. Marines at the Changjin Reservoir (2002), 132 pages.

Jack Sweetman of the Naval Academy's history department has produced a third edition of his American Naval History, an exceptionally useful chronology of the Navy and Marine Corps. The new edition takes the chronology up to 28 February 2002--the date of the second U.S.-British air strike last year against Iraqi air defenses.

Sweetman's selection of events and concise entries--coupled with well-selected illustrations, maps, and indexes--makes this a valuable reference work. One hopes, though, that in future editions he can add some ship identifications now missing. For example, on 21 June 1942, he reports "a Japanese submarine" shelling Fort Stevens, Ore.; the submarine was the I-25, which subsequently launched two floatplane bombing raids against the United States--the floatplane raids also are not mentioned in the book.

The Bluejacket's Manual is a basic reference book intended for issue to all enlisted men and women entering the Navy. Last year's Centennial Edition--published 100 years after Lt. Ridley McLean's original Bluejacket's Manual,--encompasses subjects from Naval Missions and Heritage through health, fitness, and first aid. The Navy's missions have changed dramatically, though, under the Chief of Naval Operations' new Sea Power 21 concept, invalidating the already confusing discussion in the book.

Also, and unfortunately for the new sailor, the book's descriptions of the Marine Corps and of shipboard organization, and the data on many ships and aircraft, are significantly out of date. This is regrettable in a book that reminds the reader that "it is vital that information be kept as accurate as possible."

THE VITAL STATISTICS

Following, listed alphabetically by author, is additional information on the books listed in the preceding bibliographic essay. Members of the U.S. Naval Institute receive a discount on publications of the USNI Press.

Edwin Leigh Armistead. AWACS and Hawkeyes: The Complete History of Airborne Early Warning Aircraft. St. Paul, Minn.: MBI Publishing, 2002. 223 pages. $24.95.

A.D. Baker III. Combat Fleets of the World, 2002-2003. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2002. 1,142 pages. $195.00.
George E. Buker. The Penobscot Expedition: Commodore Saltonstall and the Massachusetts Conspiracy of 1779. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2002. 212 pages. $32.95.

R. Thomas Campbell and Alan B. Flanders. Confederate Phoenix: The CSS Virginia. Shippensburg, Pa.: Burd Street Press, 2001. 285 pages. $34.95.

Eliot A. Cohen. Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership. New York: The Free Press, 2002. 302 pages. $25.00.

Jack D. Coombe. Gunsmoke Over the Atlantic: First Naval Actions of the Civil War. New York: Bantam Books, 2002. 287 pages. $23.95.

Michael J. Crawford (ed.). The Autobiography of a Yankee Mariner: Christopher Prince and the American Revolution. Washington, D.C.: Brassey's 2002. 293 pages. $26.95.

A. Jay Cristol. The Liberty Incident: The 1967 Israeli Attack on the U.S. Navy Spy Ship. Dulles, Va.: Brassey's, 2002. 314 pages. $27.50.

Thomas J. Cutler. The Bluejacket's Manual. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2002. 661 pages. $29.95.

Robert F. Dorr. Air Force One. St. Paul, Minn.: MBI Publishing, 2002. 156 pages. $29.95.

Spencer Dunmore. Lost Subs: From the Hunley to the Kursk, the Greatest Submarines Ever Lost--and Found. Cambridge, Mass.: Da Capo Press, 2002. 176 pages. $35.00.

Jean Ebbert and Marie-Beth Hall. The First, The Few, The Forgotten. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2002. 194 pages. $29.95.

James H. Ellis. Mad Jack Percival: Legend of the Old Navy. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2002. 267 pages. $34.95.

Steve Ewing. Reaper Leader: The Life of Jimmy Flatley. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2002. 405 pages. $36.95.

John A. Fahey. Licensed to Spy. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2002. 192 pages, $25.95.

Alexander Feklisov. The Man Behind the Rosenbergs. New York: Enigma Books, 2001. 454 pages. $35.00.

Geoffrey M. Footner. USS Constellation: From Frigate to Sloop of War. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2002. 382 pages. $39.95.

Wesley L. Fox. Marine Rifleman: Forty-Three Years in the Corps. Washington, D.C.: Brassey's, 2002. 410 pages. $27.95.

Zachary B. Friedenberg. Medicine Under Sail. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2002. 181 pages. $28.95.

Norman Friedman. U.S. Amphibious Ships and Craft: An Illustrated Design History. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2002. 679 pages. $85.00.

James Gannon, Stealing Secrets, Telling Lies: How Spies and Codebreakers Helped Shape the Twentieth Century. Washington, D.C.: Brassey's, 2001. 323 pages. $26.95.

Susan H. Godson. Serving Proudly: A History of Women in the U.S. Navy. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2001. 470 pages. $38.95.

David A. Graff and Robin Higham (eds.). A Military History of China. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2002. 328 pages. $31.00 (softcover).

Charles J. Gross. American Military Aviation: The Indispensable Arm. College Station, Texas: Texas A&M University Press, 2002. 390 pages. $35.00.

Chris Hobson. Vietnam Air Losses: United States Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps Fixed-Wing Aircraft Losses in Southeast Asia 1961-1973. Hinckley, England: Midland Publishing, 2001. 288 pages. $29.95 (softcover).

Peter A. Huchthausen. October Fury. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2002. 281 pages. $24.95.

Thomas M. Kane. Chinese Grand Strategy and Maritime Power. Portland, Ore.: Frank Cass, 2002. 170 pages. $49.50.

Philip Kaplan. Run Silent. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2002. 240 pages. $39.95.

Hans-Joachim Krug, Yoichi Hirama, Berthold J. Sander-Nagashima, and Axel Niestlé. Reluctant Allies: German-Japanese Naval Relations in World War II. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2002. 436 pages. $38.95.

Frederic C. Lane, Ships for Victory: A History of Shipbuilding Under the U.S. Maritime Commission in World War II. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. 944 pages. $29.95 (softcover).

Roger D. Launius and Dennis R. Jenkins. To Reach the High Frontier: A History of U.S. Launch Vehicles. Lexington, Ky.: University of Kentucky Press, 2002. 519 pages. $49.95.

Ted Lawson. Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo. Washington, D.C.: Brassey's 2002. 236 pages. $24.95.

William P. Mack. Commodore Kilburnie. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2002. 217 pages. $24.95.

Bill Mayher, Maynard Bray, and Benjamin Mendlowitz. Joel White: Boatbuilder/Designer/Sailor. 227 pages. $60.00.

Stephen C. Mercado. The Shadow Warriors of Nakano: A History of the Imperial Japanese Army's Elite Intelligence School. Washington, D.C.: Brassey's, 2002. 351 pages. $27.95.

Dwight R. Messimer. Verschollen: World War I U-Boat Losses. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2002. 341 pages. $36.95.

National Air and Space Museum. At the Controls: The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Book of Cockpits. Niagara Falls, N.Y.: Boston Mills Press, 2001. 144 pages. $39.95.

Lon O. Nordeen Jr. Air Warfare in the Missile Age. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2002. 349 pages. $39.95.

Andrew Norman. HMS Hood: Pride of the Royal Navy. Mechanicsburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 2001. 176 pages. $26.95.

Robert S. Norris. Racing for the Bomb: General Leslie R. Groves, the Manhattan Project's Indispensable Man. South Royalton, Vt.: Steerforth Press, 2002. 741 pages. $40.00.

Robert Sinclair Parkin. Blood on the Sea: American Destroyers Lost in World War II (Cambridge, Mass.: Da Capo Press, 2001), 370 pages. $20.00 (softcover).
Lawrence Paterson. First U-Boat Flotilla. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2002. 319 pages. $34.95.

Mark A. Peattie. Sunburst: The Rise of Japanese Naval Air Power, 1909-1941. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2002. 385 pages. $36.95.

Pavel Podvig (ed.). Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 2001. 713 pages. $45.00.

Norman Polmar. Death of the USS Thresher: The Story Behind History's Deadliest Submarine Disaster. Guilford, Conn.: Lyons Press, 2001. 207 pages. $22.95.

Bill Powell. Treason: How a Russian Spy Led an American Journalist to a U.S. Double Agent. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002. 222 pages. $23.00.

Antony Preston (ed.). Warship 2001-2002. London: Conway Maritime Press, 2001 (available through the Naval Institute Press). 208 pages. $42.95.

Gerald Reminick. Death's Railway: A Merchant Mariner on the River Kwai. Benicia, Calif.: Glencannon Press, 2002. 285 pages. $22.95 (softcover).

Clark G. Reynolds. Famous American Admirals. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2002. 463 pages. $36.95.

Jeffrey T. Richelson. The Wizards of Langley: Inside the CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2001. 399 pages. $26.00 (softcover $17.00).

William Robinson. Jack Nastyface: Memoirs of an English Seaman. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2002. 153 pages. $16.95 (softcover).

Jak P. Mallmann Showell. Hitler's U-Boat Bases. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2002. 216 pages. $32.95.

Joseph T. Stanik. El Dorado Canyon: Reagan's Undeclared War with Qaddafi. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2002. 337 pages. $34.95.

Jack Sweetman. American Naval History: An Illustrated Chronology of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, 1775-Present, 3rd ed. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2002. 405 pages. $55.00 (softcover $38.95).

Andrew Thomas. Gloster Gladiator Aces. St. Paul, Minn.: MBI Publishing, 2002. 96 pages. $18.95 (softcover).

Barrett Tillman. Above and Beyond: The Aviation Medals of Honor. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2002. 304 pages. $29.95.

István Toperczer. MiG-21 Units of the Vietnam War. St. Paul, Minn.: MBI Publishing, 2001. 96 pages. $18.95 (softcover).

William F. Trimble. Jerome C. Hunsaker and the Rise of American Aeronautics. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2002. 295 pages. $39.95.

Jim Tuttle, Eject! The Complete History of U.S. Aircraft Escape Systems. St. Paul, Minn.: MBI Publishing, 2002. 256 pages. $29.95.

James Webb. Lost Soldiers. New York: Bantam Books, 2001. 373 pages. $25.00.

James E. Wise and Scott Baron. International Stars at War. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2002. 271 pages. $29.95.

Ben Wofford and William Richard White. The Marine: A Guadalcanal Survivor's Final Battle. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2002. 170 pages. $28.95.

Amy Waters Yarsinske. No One Left Behind: The Lieutenant Commander Michael Scott Speicher Story. New York: Dutton, 2002. 296 pages. $25.95.

Steven J. Zaloga. The Kremlin's Nuclear Sword: The Rise and Fall of Russia's Strategic Nuclear Forces, 1945-2000. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2002. 304 pages. $45.00. *