THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 5, 1997 TAG: 9701060177
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: By Bill Roach
LENGTH: 69 lines
``Hitler's U-Boat War: The Hunters, 1939-42'' (Random House, 809 pp., $40) is the first of a two-volume set by World War II combat submariner Clay Blair (Silent Victory: The U.S. Submarine War Against Japan) about the undersea war in the Atlantic. This is a superb narrative history, a definitive account of Germany's submarine war against the Allies.
Nine years in the making, the book is based on official reports only released in the 1980s, including records and scholarly sources in the United States, Britain, Canada and Germany.
The author contends that ``the U-boat peril in World War II was and has been vastly overblown. . . . The Germans were not supermen; the U-boats and torpedoes were not technical marvels but rather inferior craft and weapons unsuited for the Battle of the Atlantic.''
Authors At Sea'' (Naval Institute Press, 336 pp., $32.95), edited by Robert Shenk, includes 28 captivating reminiscences by 26 authors who served in the Navy in World War II. They range from newspaper columnists (Russell Baker and Carl Rowan) and reporters (Walter Sullivan of The New York Times and Ben Bradlee of The Washington Post) to novelists such as Alex Haley and James P. Michener and scholars such as Alvin Kernan and Samuel Eliot Morison.
Entries recount kamikaze attacks, flight training, surface battles, storms, personality conflicts - in short the harrowing battles and the tedious boredom of war.
The manuscript for ``Fighter Squadron at Guadalcanal'' (Naval Institute Press, 231 pp., $25.95), by western writer Max Brand (real name: Frederick Faust), has only recently been discovered. A war correspondent, Brand was killed in Italy in 1944 at age 51. His book is an oral history of pilots in the 212th Marine Fighter Squadron who were at Guadalcanal in 1942. Their vivid stories of air-to-air combat reveal great bravery and fear, and a resolve to win the war in the Pacific.
The Biographical Dictionary of World War II'' (Presidio, 733 pp., $50), by Mark M. Boatner III (The Civil War Dictionary), contains sketches of ``the 3000 people whose names you are most likely to encounter in reading about the second world war.'' It is a comprehensive, rather than selective, collection, and a handy companion for any reader of World War II books.
The U.S. Marine Corps and Defense Reunification 1944-47'' (Nautical & Aviation Publishing Co., 172 pp., $19.95), by Col. Gordon W. Keiser, USMC (Ret.), reviews and discusses the role played by the U.S. Marine Corps in the battle among the services over post-war reorganization efforts. The Marines struggled for their survival. This is a useful insider's guide.
By the late 1940s and early '50s, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point had become a football power. Winning was a way of life at the academy and, as an investigation turned up, so was cheating to maintain passing grades. ``One Brave Old Army Team: The Cheating Scandal that Rocked the Nation, West Point, 1951,'' by James Blackwell (Presidio, 410 pp., $27.50), details how it all came unraveled in 1951 when 83 cadets, most of them football players, were dismissed for cheating. Blackwell, a West Point graduate and retired Army officer, tells an absorbing, insightful story.
Naval Academy graduates who sail will be delighted with ``Sailing at the U.S. Naval Academy'' (Naval Institute Press, 272 pp., $41.95), by Rear Adm. Robert W. McNitt, U.S. Navy (Ret.), an interesting look at the various boats and people who have carried on the sailing traditions at Annapolis.
The coffee table book includes descriptions of training on the old practice ships - the Constitution, Constellation and Macedonian - and the history of Academy yawls and yachts. Dramatic stories of great races are also told.