The Mariners Mirror Archive
Book Review-‘Liberty Factory: The untold story of Henry Kaiser’s Oregon shipyards’ by P. J. Marsh,
Portland, Oregon, has been in the news in 2020–21 as a centre of the protests which followed the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. This lavishly illustrated book, however, looks at an earlier period of the city’s remarkable history, when the region and its outskirts developed at an astounding pace as a centre of the […] Read More
Filed under: Popular Topics
Subjects include: Shipbuilding & Design
Book Review-‘Operation Rising Sun: The sinking of Japan’s secret submarine ‘I-52’’ by D. W. Jourdan
I-52 was to take part in the so-called Yanagi missions which aimed to exchange materials, technology and personnel between Japan and Germany. In all, some five missions were undertaken during the Second World War. Three arrived safely, with two submarines sunk en route. Of the three successful outbound vessels only one completed her return voyage, […] Read More
Filed under: Popular Topics
Subjects include: Archaeology | Battles & Tactics | Submarines
Book Review-‘Destroyer ‘Cossack’: Detailed in the original builders’ plans by J. Roberts’
Since reviewing the first book in this excellent series (Mariner’s Mirror 105:1, 2019) the collection has grown to eight volumes, including one on the German battleship Helgoland (1908– 22). Comments and observations regarding the preparation and production of ‘as fitted’ drawings made in the review cited, particularly for warships built for the Royal Navy (RN), […] Read More
Filed under: Popular Topics
Subjects include: Shipbuilding & Design
Book Review-‘How Carriers Fought’ by L. Celander
While the tentative naval aerial operations of the First World War and the next two decades’ experiments and exercises had embedded the concept of sea-borne aviation, and even though steps had been taken by three major naval powers to equip their navies and devise potential tactics, it was only during the furious, testing years of […] Read More
Filed under: WW1 | Interwar | WW2
Subjects include: Battles & Tactics | Naval Aviation
Book Review-‘Castaways in Question: A story of British naval interrogators from WW1 to denazification’ by D. Nudd
This is an entertaining book. The subject matter is the work of British interrogators, principally from the navy, in obtaining information from captured German sailors in the two World Wars. The story is largely told through interesting vignettes extracted from the intelligence reports produced on the back of these interrogations. At least for the Second […] Read More
Filed under: WW1 | Interwar | WW2
Subjects include: Battles & Tactics | Strategy & Diplomacy
Book Review-‘Breaking Seas, Broken Ships: People, shipwrecks and Britain 1854–2007’ by I. Friel,
This new book by Ian Friel is a follow-on from his earlier Britain and the Ocean Road, which through eight chapters loosely based around shipwrecks explored Britain’s maritime history up to 1825. This new volume continues the same thread up to the modern day. Readers familiar with Britain and the Ocean Road will instantly recognize […] Read More
Filed under: Shipwrecks
Subjects include: Manpower & Life at Sea
Book Review-‘‘Rosy’ Wemyss Admiral of the Fleet: The man who created Armistice Day’ by J. Johnson-Allen
Rosslyn Erskine Wemyss – always known as Rosy – was at first sight a typical officer of the late Victorian Royal Navy. He came from a privileged background, was personable and well connected and served in a navy which was largely coasting through the undemanding challenges facing the great empire. But behind the stereotype lies […] Read More
Filed under: Popular Topics
Subjects include: Biography
Book Review-‘Springboard to Victory: Great Yarmouth and the Royal Navy’s dominance in the North Sea and the Baltic during the French Wars 1793–1815’ by D. Higgins,
Great Yarmouth is best known for being a seaside resort and earlier as one of the country’s leading herring fisheries ports, but what has been largely forgotten is that during the French Revolutionary War (1792–1802) and the Napoleonic Wars (1803–15) it was the main support base for naval operations in the North and Baltic seas […] Read More
Filed under: Baltic | North Sea
Subjects include: Battles & Tactics | Harbours & Dockyards | Strategy & Diplomacy
Book Review-‘Jeopardy of Every Wind: The biography of Captain Thomas Bowrey’ by S. P. Dollarbird,
Thomas Bowrey was born in London in 1659, and his life until his death in 1713 covers a historical period of great significance for England and for the wider world. As a nine- year-old child he left England for India, but not until he had experienced the Great Fire of 1666 and the fearsome plague […] Read More
Filed under: Popular Topics
Subjects include: Biography
Book Review-‘Norwegian Shipping in the Twentieth Century: Norway’s successful navigation of the world’s most global industry’by S. Tenold
As an economic historian, this reviewer has always seen shipping as the progenitor of globalization and ships as moveable capital assets whose purpose on the mercantile side is to transport raw materials, commodities, finished goods and diverse cargoes on a port-to-port basis, preferably on time and with no mishaps accruing. As such, shipowners provide a […] Read More
Filed under: Popular Topics
Subjects include: Merchant Marines