Jane’s Fighting Ships, 1939. Edited by Francis E. McMurtrie, A.I.N.A. London: Sampson Low, Marston & Co., Ltd. November 16, 1939. 525. (2§ Guineas.)
Reviewed by Graser Schornstheimer
An uncensored book is to be preferred to a censored one. Nevertheless, here is striking proof that war is not what it was 25 years ago. Jane 1939 retains pictures and diagrams such as were deleted from the books issued during the last war. Within limits, British censorship permits us to be informed. Data seem to be quite complete up to September 1, on the British and French navies. On the other nations the data are apparently quite up to the date of publication.
Apparently the book is the result of an attempt to tell England of its marked superiority at sea over any and all possible enemies and a desire to eliminate any really pertinent information on new ships. However, secrets shared with thousands can scarcely continue as secrets, whether in England, Russia, Japan, or Italy. From this point of view it would seem that popular data and information, of the kind carried in Jane, might have been more leniently dealt with. The fact is that matters of genuine military secrecy seldom come within the scope of the popular. To the average reader they would be uninteresting and meaningless. But censors persist in a strange pride of occupation. In this book there is evidence of the usual rather inept straining for an effect—on the part of censorship—and the achieving of a bloomer.
Plainly the editors were not allowed to illustrate the British battleships of the King George V class with any more than a very rough drawing; no photographs of the launchings being permitted. An excellent photo illustrates the hull of the German battleship Tirpitz after launching. There are consolations, however, if all this be true, for one has but to turn to the advertising pages to find excellent photos of the launching of the King George V with that of the Prince of Wales thrown in for good measure. En passant, the censor did not remove a considerable amount of German advertising. This will provide some with food for reflection.
The meager data on the battleships of the Lion-Temeraire class are handled gingerly. In the text they are given at 40,000 tons displacement, in the foreword they are credited with up to 45,000 tons, this last figure more in keeping with the Admiralty announcement of September 6.
Consider the statements of the side armor of the Beljast-Southampton class of cruisers. Wizards of the slide rule may well scale the heavy protrusion of the belt and check the probabilities against officially approved figures.
As a measure of reassurance to the British public, Jane should be sufficient. Building tables show that for a single battleship lost three will go into service from the yards shortly and that an additional five battleships are under construction.
The editors cannot be held to account for misdirected censorship. On the whole, the book is well up to standard, an interesting and pertinent comment on the war at the moment. This is a real accomplishment.
The German section is most complete, illustrations and text, and highly informative. Faced with the rebuilding of their fleet, German authorities were attempting to make their people navy-conscious. And so a sufficient amount of popular data was at hand up to the time of the war.
The beam of the battleships of the Tirpitz class seems entirely too great at 118 feet, though this figure is hardly open to question. The fact that the eight 15-inch guns of these ships are to be in 4 turrets on the center line might well have been included in the text because of the diversity of opinion on gun grouping in the navies of the world.
If the Fran co-British claims of the destruction of 43 German submarines to date are correct, then Germany has but 28 undersea craft left in service with an equal number building. Those building include 11 “ocean-going” ships of better than 700 tons displacement and 17 “seagoing” ships of better than 500 tons. These are additional to the U-71.
The ideas of Captain Castex seem to have dictated the protection of the French battleships of the Richelieu class. According to Jane, there is a total of 8-inch deck armor. There is no photo of the hull of this ship after launching. If this deletion is censor-dictated, then the censor missed a bet, for the ship was launched with a considerable portion of its bow still to be attached and with a section of the stern missing. Consequently the picture was quite misinforming.
The loss of the Tour D’Auvergne (ex- Pluton), though it took place on September 18, is not included in the text, but in a note in the addenda. The Impassible, built from the keel up as a target ship, is most interesting. The outline shows a “light temporary structure,” including a dummy funnel and considerable false bridge structure.
Apparently there are difficulties in the way of accurate information on the Italian 1939 building program. There is a possibility that both international politics and the censor have something to do with the matter. The battleships Littorio and Vittorio Veneto are by this time in service or will be in the near future. The reconstruction of the Duilio and Doria will not be completed until next spring. Two 8,000-ton cruisers, to be armed with ten 6-inch guns, are under construction as are 16 submarines in several classes. All the 12 small cruisers of the Regolo class are still building. They are to be armed with a new mark of 5|-inch gun and have a speed of 41 knots. They may have some light protection. It would seem that with the completion of the destroyers of the Aviere class, Italy is abandoning the distinctly destroyer type in favor, possibly, of small cruisers such as the Regolos.
Much of the information concerning the Japanese building of a fast wing of battle cruisers of around 15,000-18,000 tons, armed with eight 12-inch guns seems to have emanated from England. However, there is no definite information on the subject in this Jane. The data on the battleships under construction are meager. There is a photo of the reconditioned Mutsu.
The Katori is given as a training cruiser of possibly 7,000 tons. Pictures at hand of the Kashima (not mentioned in Jane), a sister-ship of the Katori, might indicate that this class is considerably in excess of 7,000 tons. In relation to these ships it should be considered that these are battleship names. To the knowledge of the writer battleship names have never been given to cruisers in the Japanese Navy. The carrier Shokaku is considered in Jane to be the vessel first reported as the Koryu. However, there is considerable information that might indicate that the Koryu is quite as first reported and that the Shokaku and another vessel of the same class constitute an entirely new and larger class of aircraft carriers. Perhaps the British censor has some sympathy for the reticence of the Japanese on such matters.
On the Russian naval forces there is little new information. The data on the “mighty” Soviet submarines service have hardly changed from the last issue. There is, however, a note to the effect that a warship of “considerable size” is reported to have completed at Vladivostok last August. This has the ring of “information” of before the Great War to the same effect concerning the Imperial Russians. Ships were constantly reported building in the Far East.
A feature that might well have been incorporated in this book at this time is a list of warships building for foreign accounts in England, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan. The only suggestion of such a list is in the statement that the 6 Brazilian destroyers constructing in England have been taken over by the British Navy.
On the smaller nations there is much interesting data, particularly on the Netherlands.
However, this issue was obviously turned out for a purpose. It is some time ahead of its schedule and the price has been increased by 10s. Reason would point to the necessity of proving to the British public, and the world generally, that the British Navy is still overwhelmingly the world’s most powerful, now and in the future. For this purpose Jane 1939 is ample.
Sea Power and Today’s War. By Fletcher Pratt. New York: Harrison- Hilton Books, Inc. 1939. $3.00.
Reviewed by Captain R. C. Mac- Fall, U. S. Navy
The author might well have titled this book “The Great Delusion and the Rude Awakening,” for his book deals with the Washington Naval Limitation Treaty and the developments therefrom.
Tersely he shows how there could be no real disarmament where no real disarmament was intended, how each interested party at the Conference attempted to retain the armament best suited to its own purposes while disarming the other fellow. Then he shows the race among the various naval powers to “beat the rules,” which resulted in new types of vessels designed to suit the naval strategy of the nation concerned; the shuffling of speed, cruising radius, armor, and armament in an effort to get the most out of the tonnage allowed under the various restrictions imposed by the several limitations conferences.
Through it all the United States stuck to its theory that the whole object was to relieve the world of the cost of armaments, to give every nation cheap security. It took the sorry trend of world events to awaken the American people to the peril of their position.
The book covers many of the details of design but in an interesting manner; the strategy that caused the various types and their probable employment in case of war; the possible theaters of war as indicated by the various national policies. And there is also an interesting chapter on new weapons.
One of the virtues of the book is its simplicity, for it does not take a naval expert to understand it. And it should be read and understood in order that Americans may see why the various limitations of naval armament conferences failed in their purpose. It should also be read for them to understand the probable future course of events in world politics.
Die U-Bootswaffe. (The Submarine Arm.) By Captain Karl Donitz, German Navy. Berlin: E. S. Mittler & Son. 1939. 65 pages. RM. 2.
Reviewed by Ensign Samuel A. Smiley, U. S. Naval Reserve
The present wave of rearmament sweeping the world has awakened public interest in matters pertaining to national defense. Accompanying this trend has been an epidemic of sensational claims in behalf of various weapons. Along with aircraft and chemical warfare, the submarine has come in for considerable literary treatment, some of which has rather overshot the mark in attempting to justify or condemn this type of warship. Hence any book addressed to the layman, which attempts to picture the submarine as she really is, should be most welcome.
Such a book is Die U-Bootswaffe (“The Submarine Arm”), written by Captain Donitz, at present commanding the Submarine Force of the German Navy. This active submarine officer has succeeded in producing an excellent little volume touching on all salient aspects of the submarine. His style of writing is marked by a factual tone, logical arrangement, and simple and concise language.
After an introductory chapter dealing with certain early submarine pioneers, Captain Donitz gives a simple but excellent description of modern submarine construction, equipment, and operation. The reader is left with a clear picture of all fundamentals involved. Graphic imaginary accounts, obviously based on actual experience, illustrate important points. A brief section covering service conditions on board submarines, demands made on personnel, and standards and character which make efficient submarine crews, concludes the basic portion of the book.
Having acquainted his readers with the submarine as a ship, Captain Donitz next gives the raison d’etre of this class of warship in his main chapter entitled “Military Uses of the Submarine.” The submarine’s advantages and limitations, her tactical employment, missions best fulfilled by her, and her role in naval strategy are all well presented. Though a submarine enthusiast, the author is by no means blind to the submarine’s foes, and devotes a special section to the discussion of depth charges, anti-submarine tactics, and the like. He freely admits the somewhat diminished tactical threat from submarine attack, but considers the submarine’s influence on naval strategy sufficient to justify continuing the type.
Another section briefly reviews the world’s leading submarine fleets and correlates composition and prevalent type characteristics thereof with the respective naval problems and policies of the major powers.
Captain Donitz certainly has fulfilled the task he set for himself: to acquaint the non-naval world with the submarine and her true role in naval warfare. Political and other irrelevant matter is avoided. A very good collection of illustrative diagrams and photographs enlivens the text. The American reader would gain by an English translation of this little book.
Men Under the Sea. By Commander Edward Ellsberg. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company. 1939. 365 pages. $3.00.
Reviewed by Lieutenant Commander Richard F. Armknecht (C.E.C.), U. S. Navy
Those who have read Commander Ells- berg’s On the Bottom know that he has a ready gift for narrative and a comprehensive knowledge of undersea salvage. Both qualities are again in evidence in this new account of diving and salvage operations, which range in period from 1686, when William Phips’ naked divers took 34 tons of silver (besides gold and pearls) from a galleon sunk 12 fathoms deep on a Cuban reef, to the modern miracles of treasure snatching from the Egypt and the Laurentic, and the salving of the S-4.
The technical angles of the “queer business of diving” are thoroughly covered, clearly enough for full comprehension by the layman, but avoiding entirely that over-explanation which might make such a book tiresome to the professional reader. There is much illustrative anecdote, gleaned from the author’s personal experience, or from divers with whom he worked or corresponded, and his thorough familiarity with undersea conditions, coupled with his ability as a storyteller, make such chapters as those on the Laurentic, or on the Sqtialus (which is covered up to the point where the last survivors were brought to the surface), as vivid as those in which he was an actual participant. Perhaps the reader should be warned that the first chapter, a rapid rehash of the S-51 story, is the least effective in the book. After that, however, there is plenty of absorbing interest.
After chapter one there is a group of chapters devoted to the sinking and salvage of the S-4; then another group covering “the bends,” “blow ups,” “squeeze,” escape lung, underwater cutting torches, and other diving difficulties, problems, and equipment. These are followed by a series of colorful tales of sunken treasure, tales in which the sea, ever treacherous, ever alert, exacts full toll of those who would recover the riches it guards so jealously. These tales make up the latter half of the book.
Commander Ellsberg is downright discouraging about further large recoveries of sunken treasure. He thinks that helium will possibly move the suit diver’s “bottom” to 1,000 feet, but even then there are no wrecks, at that depth or at lesser depths, which would repay the necessarily considerable costs of recovery. The big plums, the Egypt and Laurentic, have been stripped; the Merida and Empress of Ireland have been debunked. Perhaps it remains for the U-boat and the mine to give the modern salvage technicians a new bottom to shoot for, so that the end of the present conflict will find a new set of problems for solution by the hardy and valorous race of “Men Under the Sea.”